THE CONVICT SHIP
VOL. I.
NEW LIBRARY NOVELS.
UNDER SEALED ORDERS. By GRANT ALLEN. 3 vols.
A LONDON LEGEND. By JUSTIN H. MCCARTHY. 3 vols.
THE TREMLETT DIAMONDS. By ALAN ST. AUBYN. 2 vols.
THE DRIFT OF FATE. By DORA RUSSELL. 3 vols.
BEYOND THE DREAMS OF AVARICE. By WALTER BESANT. 1 vol.
THE MINOR CHORD. By J. MITCHELL CHAPPLE. 1 vol.
HIS VANISHED STAR. By C. EGBERT CRADDOCK. 1 vol.
ROMANCES OF THE OLD SERAGLIO. By H. N. CRELLIN. 1 vol.
VILLAGE TALES AND JUNGLE TRAGEDIES. By B. M. CROKER. 1 vol.
MADAME SANS-GÊNE. By E. LEPELLETIER. 1 vol.
MOUNT DESPAIR. By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY. 1 vol.
THE PHANTOM DEATH. By W. CLARK RUSSELL. 1 vol.
THE PRINCE OF BALKISTAN. By ALLEN UPWARD. 1 vol.
LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
THE CONVICT SHIP
BY
W. CLARK RUSSELL
AUTHOR OF
‘THE WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR’ ‘MY SHIPMATE LOUISE’
‘THE PHANTOM DEATH’ ETC.
[Illustration]
IN THREE VOLUMES--VOL. I.
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1895
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME
CHAP. PAGE
I. HER FATHER’S DEATH 1
II. HER MEMORIES 9
III. HER MOTHER DIES 21
IV. SHE MEETS CAPTAIN BUTLER 38
V. SHE VISITS THE ‘CHILDE HAROLD’ 55
VI. SHE IS ASKED IN MARRIAGE 69
VII. SHE PARTS WITH HER SWEETHEART 88
VIII. SHE RECEIVES DREADFUL NEWS 105
IX. SHE VISITS NEWGATE 119
X. SHE ATTENDS HER SWEETHEART’S TRIAL 140
XI. SHE VISITS H.M.S. ‘WARRIOR’ 163
XII. SHE RAMBLES WITH HER COUSIN 192
XIII. SHE CONCEIVES A STRANGE IDEA 205
XIV. SHE DRESSES AS A BOY 220
XV. SHE TAKES A LODGING AT WOOLWICH 244
XVI. SHE HIDES AS A STOWAWAY 272
XVII. HER SUFFERINGS IN THE HOLD 298
THE CONVICT SHIP
CHAPTER I
HER FATHER’S DEATH
I was in my twenty-fourth year when I underwent the tragic and amazing
experiences which, with the help of a friend, I propose to relate in
these pages. I am now seventy-seven; but I am in good health and enjoy
all my faculties, saving my hearing; my memory is brisk, and my friends
find it very faithful, and what is here set down you may accept as the
truth.
It is long ago since the last convict ship sailed away from these
shores with her horrid burden of guilt and grief and passions of a
hundred devilish sorts; I don’t know how long it is since the last of
the convict ships passed down Channel on her way to colonies which
were like to become a sort of shambles--for they were hanging half a
score of men a day for murder in those times--if this horrid commerce
in felons had not ended; when that ship had weighed and sailed she
passed away to return no more as a prison craft. When she faded out of
sight she was a vanished type, and when she climbed, moon-like, above
the horizon under full breast of shining canvas, she was an honest ship
again, never more to be debauched by opportunities to tender for the
transport of criminals.
Before I lift the curtain upon my ship, the Convict Ship in which I
sailed, I must hold you in talk concerning some matters which go before
the sailing of the vessel; for I have to explain how it came about that
I, a woman, was on board of a convict ship full of male malefactors.
I was born in the parish of Stepney in the year 1814. My father was Mr.
Benjamin Johnstone, a well-known man--locally, I mean--in his day. He
had been put to sea as a boy very young; had risen steadily and made
his way to command, saved money with a liberal thriftiness that enabled
him to enjoy life modestly and to hold the respect of his friends. He
built a little ship for a venture, did well, bought or built a second,
and at the age of forty-five owned a fleet of four or five coasters,
all trading out of the Thames. He purchased a house at Stepney for the
convenience of the district.
At Stepney in my young days lived many respectable families, and I
don’t doubt that many respectable families still live at Stepney;
but it is true that all that part of London has sunk since I was a
little girl, and the sort of people who flourished in the east in the
beginning of the century have now gone west with the jerry trowel and
the nine-inch wall. My father’s house in Stepney might have been a
lord’s in its time. It was strong as a fortress, cosy and homely, rich
within doors with the colouring of age. It still stands; I visited it
last year, but it is no longer a private house.
I was about twelve years old when my father died. The manner of his
going was very sudden and fearful, and, old as I am, when I think of
it I feel afraid, so haunting is youthful impression, the shock of it
often trembling through the longest years into the last beats of one’s
heart. My cousin, Will Johnstone, had been brought over from his house
near the Tower to spend the afternoon with me. He was between six
and seven years of age, a fine little manly boy, the only son of my
father’s brother, William Johnstone, a lawyer, whose house and office
were near the Tower. This little Will and I sat at the table in the
parlour, playing at some game, and very noisy.
It was a November afternoon, the atmosphere of a true London
sullenness; the fire burnt heartily, and the walls were merry with
the dance of the flames, and the candle stood unlighted upon the
mantelpiece. My father sat in an arm-chair close to the fire; he smoked
a long clay pipe, and his eyes were fixed upon the glowing coals. He
was a handsome man; I have his image before me. He had the completest
air of a sailor that is to be figured. I seldom see such faces as
his now. But then faces belong to times. My father’s belonged to his
century; and you would seek for it there and not before nor after.
He sat with his legs crossed and his eyes upon the fire. Suddenly
looking around, he cried, with some temper: ‘Not so much noise, little
’uns! not so much noise, or you’ll have to go to bed.’ Then his face
relaxed, and I, with my child’s eyes, saw he was sorry for having
spoken so sharply. ‘Little ones,’ said he softly, ‘let’s have a game.
Let’s see who can go to sleep first and keep asleep longest;’ and
dropping his hand so as to bring the pipe from his mouth, he sank his
chin and shut his eyes, and snored once or twice as a make-believe.
I sank my head and closed my eyes as father had, and little Will
shammed to be asleep. We were silent a minute or more. The pipe then
fell from my father’s hand and lay in halves upon the floor. There was
nothing in this. It was a common clay pipe, and father would break
such things pretty nearly as often as he smoked them. I now peeped at
Will; he was peeping at me. The child giggled, and burst into a little
half-suffocated laugh.
‘Hush!’ said I; and now, being weary of this sort of sport, I looked at
father and cried out: ‘I can’t sleep any longer.’
He never answered, so I stepped round the table to his chair to wake
him up, and pulled him by the arm, and still he would not answer. I
climbed upon his knee, and just then a bright gas flame spurted out of
a lump of coal, and I saw his face very clearly. What was there in it
to acquaint my childish sight with the thing that had come to him? I
fell from his knee and ran to the door, and shrieked for mother. She
was in the next room, or back parlour, talking with a woman hired to
sew.
‘Mother,’ said I, ‘father can’t wake up.’
‘What do you mean, Marian? Where is he?’
‘We have been playing at sleep, and he can’t wake up,’ said I, and I
began to cry.
She went into the room with a fear and wildness in her manner, stopped
to lean upon the table and look at her husband, and in that pause
I see her now, though it did not pass beyond the space of a few
heart-beats. She was about thirty-five years of age, a very fine figure
of a woman indeed, with a vast profusion of yellow hair, of which she
was exceedingly vain, often changing the fashion of wearing it two
and three times in a week. The firelight was upon her face, and she
showed like marble as she gazed at father with a hand under her left
breast. Then running up to him she looked close, cried out, and fell
in a swoon upon the floor. Will and I were horribly frightened, and
screamed together. This brought the servants and the sewing-woman to
us. A doctor was sent for, and when he arrived and examined father he
pronounced him dead.
It was characteristic of my mother that she should faint when she
looked at my father and believed him dead, though for all she knew he
might have been in a fit, wanting instant attention to preserve him
from death. She was a tender mother, and, I believe, did her best to
be a good wife; but she had not strength of character; she was pretty
and thought herself beautiful, and was more easily to be cheated by
flatterers than any woman I ever met in my life. Her weakness in this
way was the cause of much unhappiness to me, of many a bitter secret
tear some years after my father’s death, as I will explain a little way
farther on.