SHE RAMBLES WITH HER COUSIN
I breakfasted somewhat late next morning, and whilst the cloth was
still on the table my maid announced Will. I sprang up to greet him and
gave him a hearty hug. He had grown during his absence into a handsome,
fine young fellow. His eyes seemed to sparkle with the gleams of the
sea; he was coloured a rich, manly brown, and no young fellow that ever
I remember had so completely the look of a saucy and spirited young
English sailor. The sight of him so near, and in my room, dimmed my
eyes. I thought of our holiday rambles when Tom was by my side, when
all was music and laughter and the sweetness of flowers, and sleep
filled with soft dreams.
‘Mother and father met me, after all, Marian,’ said he, throwing his
cap on to a sofa. ‘They are waiting for me at the ship’s berth. But
what terrible news! Poor Marian!’ And in the fulness of his heart,
unable to say more just then, he came across and kissed me. I sobbed
aloud even while I felt the comfort of his sympathy. ‘But he never
did it, Marian. Father told me the whole story. They’ve got a paper
containing the trial at home, and I read it carefully through last
night. Rotch and Nodder are villains. If Captain Butler had been tried
by a judge and jury of sailors he’d have been acquitted.’
‘He’s as innocent as you, Will.’
‘And sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation! Why, that’s almost a
life-sentence at his age. Where is he now?’
‘In the _Warrior_ hulk, off Woolwich.’
‘Were you coming from him when I saw you yesterday?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘Poor Marian! Father fears he’s guilty; but he’s not--I’ll swear it.
Why, I have his face before me now,’ he cried with his eyes kindling.
‘He could not do a wrong. And how he loved you, Marian! But what’s
to be done?’ He walked with a rolling gait about the room. ‘I’d do
anything to make you happy. Little I guessed what had happened when I
asked you yesterday if you were married to him.’
‘I shall follow him to Australia, Will.’
‘Mother says that’s your idea. But what will you do when you get there?
He’ll be as much a prisoner in Australia as here, won’t he?’
‘No. I’ve read and found out. I’ve learned all I wanted to know from
Mr. Woolfe,’ said I, naming the sharp young attorney that had been
a clerk to my uncle. ‘Certainly, a man is still a convict when he
arrives, and he remains a convict; but he’s not locked up in hulks and
jails. The Government puts the men into barracks when they arrive, and
lends them out to those who want labourers and servants and help. Tom
will rank as a gentleman convict; he’s good with his pen and he’s a
scholar, Will; they may make him a clerk. He is not a mechanic, and
he’s too good to send to the roads.’
‘How do you know all this, old woman?’
‘I know very much more, Will,’ said I, smiling in my sadness. ‘Could
I love Tom and not learn all that lies before him as though I was to
share it? If they would put me to work in the dockyard by his side, how
happy I should be! If they’d but lock me up in that horrible hulk with
him--but they’ll not be able to separate us, Will. Oh, I have a fine
scheme! When he sails I’ll follow in the next ship. I have money, and
I’ll establish myself, and I’ll ask for a servant, and bribe and bribe
until I get Tom, and if I fail I am still near him. They may give him
a ticket-of-leave quickly; they must give him a ticket-of-leave in six
years if he behaves well. If--if--but oh, he’ll behave well!’
‘How your eyes flash! You’re as red as fire! You’ve got a magnificent
spirit! I always said so. You’re a splendid woman, and you’ll make it
right for both of you, yet.’
‘Is my scheme wicked?’
‘No, no!’
‘Is it wrong for a woman who loves a man to be true to him to the
grave, let what will happen before death?’
‘It is right!’ he cried.
‘Uncle would have me break with Tom. So would aunt. Tom is first with
me after my God.’
He clapped his hands and hurrahed like a boy.
‘Can I see him?’
‘Not for another three months.’
He struck his knee with his fist and smothered a sea oath.
This sort of talk, however, was no very cheery welcome on my part to
the poor lad; so I presently got him to tell me about his voyage and
how he liked the sea, and when he was again to sail, and I then gave
him five pounds which I had put aside for him; his father, though a
hospitable man, kept Will a little short. I wished the boy, after his
long months at sea, to pass a jolly holiday, and told him when he
kissed and thanked me, that another five should be his when that was
spent.
‘We’ll go a-rambling again, Marian,’ said he. ‘Those were fine times.
You’re white with trouble, and some of those milk and buttercup trips
we used to take will do you good.’
I sighed and made no answer. He went to Tom’s miniature and stood
looking at it; then began to talk again with eagerness and enthusiasm
about my scheme of following my sweetheart.
‘And why shouldn’t you go?’ said he, pacing the room. ‘You’re alone in
the world, and Tom’s first and everything to you. Father and mother
won’t like your going, and you’ll be sorry to leave them, but they’re
not your parents. Tom’s all in all. If I loved a girl as you love Tom
she’d be all in all to me, and I’d follow her whilst a stick lasted,
till the plank grew as thin as a sailor’s shirt. But there’s this in my
mind, Marian--before you start in pursuit, you must know where Captain
Butler has been sent to.’
‘He’ll know and tell me.’
‘Suppose he should be sent to Hobart Town and you make sail to Sydney,
believing him there? You don’t know how big all that part of the world
is. There’s a story of an Irishman who bought a commission in the 71st
in order that he might be near his brother in the 70th. Have you got an
atlas? Hobart Town’s a mighty long way from Botany Bay.’
‘He’ll tell me the settlement.’
‘But suppose it should be Norfolk Island? One of our Jacks knew that
settlement. The frightfulest ruffians go there. The sailor said that
when the convicts are removed they’re double cross ironed and chained
down to the deck. Everybody’s afraid of them. Now what would you do
there in a settlement of a few troops and scores of horrible villains?’
I smiled and said: ‘Where Tom is sent, I go;’ and then starting up, and
flashing upon him in my old hot-tempered impulsive fashion, I cried:
‘I know all about Norfolk Island; I shall know what to do, Will.’
I sobered my voice and added, ‘I have been scheming for months all
alone, dear. All the while that my darling has been in jail I have been
planning and planning. I care not what the settlement be; let me have
its name and I am ready.’
Will stayed an hour talking with me in my rooms. He then made me put on
my hat and go for a walk.
From this time we were as often together as though we had been brother
and sister and lived in the same house. His company wonderfully cheered
and supported me. I loved him for his affectionate sympathy; above
all for his seeing things just as I did. On this account I was more
frequently at my aunt’s than before his return from sea. She and my
uncle sometimes talked of Tom, but never now in a way to vex me. They
both knew my character; they witnessed the faith and devotion in my
face whenever my sweetheart’s name was pronounced; they had gathered
with the utmost significance from Will what my intention was when Tom
should be sent across the seas, and saw the hopelessness of entreaty.
Indeed, I was my own mistress. I was of age; I was answerable to no
one. They knew all this and held their peace, though both of them, and
my aunt especially, were secretly very uneasy and distressed by my
loyalty to a convict.
I had told Tom that I would be near him in person, and once I had a
mind to take a lodging in Woolwich; but Stepney was not too far distant
to enable me to easily satisfy my craving and fulfil my promise to be
near him often; moreover, I never knew from day to day when I might
hear that he was to be transhipped, and I wished to be ready to swiftly
complete all my arrangements to follow him. And that is why I remained
at home in Stepney instead of taking a lodging near the dockyard at
Woolwich, though over and over again, sometimes four and sometimes five
times a week, would I hire a boat and hang about the _Warrior_ hulk.
Mr. Woolfe had got me the regulations of the prison ship; I knew at
what time the convicts went ashore to their forced labour, the hour
they returned to dinner, when they returned again to their tea or
supper, and at what time the hatches were put over them and padlocked
for the night. Indeed, I could say off the regulations and every
article in the list of the prison fare by heart, and I lived in
imagination in the horrid routine of the ship.
I once had a burning desire to visit the huge hulk at night when all
the people were at rest in their hammocks within her and the hatches
on. I had plenty of spirit as a young woman, and was, on the whole, a
fearless young creature; but I own I shrank from trusting myself alone
in a wherry at night on the Thames with one of the watermen of those
times. I asked Will if he would accompany me. He cheerfully consented,
and I arranged with a fellow at Wapping to await us at Blackwall, to
save the circuit at Limehouse and Greenwich Reaches.
It was a night about the middle of September, somewhat cold, but not
uncomfortably so. We reached the hulk, and lay off her close in, the
waterman quietly plying to keep his boat steady in the stream. The sky
was dim and the stars gleamed sparely; there was just weight enough
of wind to run the water sobbing along the bends of the towering,
motionless old seventy-four. The shore was dotted with spots of light,
and under every one of them a thread of gold wavered like a wriggling
eel striking for the depths. The deep hush of the night lay sensibly
as the darkness itself upon the flat marshes of Plumstead and across
the river where the Plaistow level stretched. The passing ships went
by silent as shadows. Now and again a man’s voice would sound aboard
one of them; I’d hear the rumbling of a yard suddenly let go or the
rattling of the hanks of canvas leisurely hoisting. Here and there the
grated ports of the hulk showed in a square of dim light, but even as I
watched a clear-tongued bell on board was twice struck.
‘Nine o’clock,’ said Will, and as though a cloud had passed over the
huge fabric every light went out; the white bands of the checkered
sides seemed to hover out upon the eye--pallid and ghastly with their
wild grin of grated ports; the pole masts died out away up in the gloom.
‘How many convicts are there aboard?’ asked Will.
‘Over four hundred, sir,’ answered the waterman.
The lad seemed awed by the thought of that number. Not yet would sleep
have visited the weariest of those eyes within, and the fancy of the
mass of human suffering and crime and sorrow lying mute and awake, with
no other sound about the ship than the sob of running water, made the
silence of her awful. I stood up, and my heart gave away in a cry of
passion and misery, and scarcely sensible of what I did I extended my
arms toward the hulk and moaned:
‘Oh, Tom! Oh, Tom! Why were you taken from me? What has been your sin
that you should be there?’ and then I broke into a strangled fit of
crying.
Will pulled me gently on to a seat and fondled me and told me to keep
up my courage, for that I had spirit enough to bring things right.
‘Boat, ahoy! What boat is that?’ was shouted from the gangway of the
hulk.
The waterman answered.
‘Shove ahead with you!’ cried the voice. ‘No boats are allowed to lie
off here.’
‘Pull for Blackwall,’ said Will.
‘And time, too,’ said the waterman as he swept the boat’s head around.
‘They’re armed with loaded carbines up there, and they’d make no more
of sending a ball through a man’s head than drinkin’ his health.’