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A COLONIAL REFORMER
[Illustration: Decoration]
A COLONIAL REFORMER
by
ROLF BOLDREWOOD
Author of ‘Robbery Under Arms,’ ‘The Squatter’S Dream,’
‘The Miner’S Right,’ etc.
In Three Volumes
VOL. I
London
Macmillan and Co.
and New York
1890
All rights reserved
CHAPTER I
When Mr. Ernest Neuchamp, younger, of Neuchampstead, Bucks, quitted
the ancient roof-tree of his race, for a deliberate conflict with
fortune, in a far land, he carried with him a purpose which went far to
neutralise doubt and depression.
A crusader rather than a colonist, his lofty aims embraced far
more than the ordinary sordid struggle with unkind nature, with
reluctant success. Such might be befitting aspirations for eager
and rude adventurers, half speculators, half buccaneers. They might
fitly strive and drive—bargain and save—gamble, overreach, overwork
themselves and one another, as he doubted not all colonists did in
their proverbially hurried, feverish lives. But for a Neuchamp, of
Neuchampstead, was reserved more chivalric exertion—a loftier destiny.
As his ancestors had devoted themselves (with more energy than
discretion, said tradition) to the refinement and elevation of the
Anglo-Saxons—when first the banner of Tancred of Neuchamp floated over
the Buckinghamshire meadows—so would his lineal descendant diffuse
‘sweetness and light’ among a vigorous but necessarily uncultured
community, emerging from his unselfish toil, after a few years, with a
modest competency, and the reputation of an Australian Manco Capac of
the south.
Ernest Neuchamp fully endorsed the dictum that ‘colonisation was heroic
work.’ He superadded to this assent a conviction that he was among the
heroes destined to leave a glorious memory in the annals of the colony
which he intended to honour.
For the somewhat exceptional though not obsolete character of
reformer, he was fitted by natural tendency, derived probably from
hereditary predisposition. The Neuchamps had always been leading and
staunch reformers, from a period whence ‘the memory of man goeth
not to the contrary.’ Of Merrie England they would have secured a
much larger slice had they not been, after Hastings, more deeply
concerned in inflicting reforms upon the stubborn or despondent
Saxons than in hunting after manorial privileges with a view to
extension of territory. Even in Normandy, old chroniclers averred that
Balder-Ragnaiök, nicknamed Wünsche (or the wisher), who married the
heiress of Neuchamp, and founded the family, converted a fair estate
into a facsimile of a Norse grazing farm, maddening the peasantry,
and strengthening his natural enemies by an everlasting tutelage as
exasperating towards others as fascinating to himself.
Mr. Courtenay Neuchamp, who inherited, in happier times, the ancestral
hall, in Buckinghamshire, was an easy-going man of the world,
combining a shrewd outlook upon his own affairs with the most perfect
indifference as to how his neighbours managed theirs. He was a better
man of business than Ernest, though he had not a tittle of his energy
or fiery abstract zeal. So far from giving credit to his ancestors,
and their spirited efforts, he bewailed their misdirected energies.
‘They were a lot of narrow-minded busybodies,’ he would often remark,
‘incapable of managing their own affairs with decent success, and what
little power they ever possessed they devoted to the annoyance of their
neighbours, people probably much wiser than themselves.’
‘They had noble aims, to which they gave their lives,’ Ernest
would reply; ‘I reverence their memories deeply, fervently, more—a
hundredfold—than if they had left us the largest manor in the county,
amassed by greed and selfishness.’
‘So don’t I; nothing can be more disgraceful than to see the
representatives of the oldest family in the shire (for these Tudors
are of yesterday) possessed only of an estate of less acreage than a
tenant-farmer tills, with an inconvenient old rookery, hardly good
enough for the said tenant-farmer to live in. I wish I had lived a few
centuries earlier.’
‘You would have enlarged our borders,’ said the younger son, ‘but at
what a cost! We boast a long roll of stainless ancestors, each of
whom was true to his God, to his king, to his plighted word, and who
called no man his master, save his anointed sovereign. You would have
been cursed with an unhappy posterity of spendthrifts, profligates,
oppressors of the poor or trucklers to the rich.’
‘Gra’ mercy! as we used to say, for thy prophecies and predictions. I
see no necessity for vice being necessarily allied to success in life.
I believe sometimes it is rather the other way. But you were always
headstrong; slave to imagination, that misleader of humanity. Go on
your own path, and you may convert all the Papuans, Australians, New
Zealanders, or whatever they are, that you are going to waste your life
among, if you have sufficient breathing time before you are roasted.’
‘I am going to New South Wales, in Australia, where they don’t roast
people any more than in Bucks. But you will never read up on any
subject.’
‘Why the deuce should I?’ demanded the senior. ‘What earthly benefit
can I derive from the manners and customs of foreign savages. We
have them of our own and to spare. If thereby I could persuade these
pig-headed tenants of ours to farm in a more enlightened way, and pay
interest on capital advanced for _their_ benefit, or learn how to get
old Sir Giles Windereach to sell us back that corner his father bought
of Slacklyne Neuchamp, I wouldn’t mind. Why else should I read beastly
dry books?’
‘Because you would learn to take an interest in your kind, and might
then propose to yourself the healthful task of trying to improve them.’
‘But,’ said Courtenay, rather disrespectfully, ‘why should I improve
those classes, from which as a land-owner and very minor capitalist,
I find it hard enough to defend my property as it is? Go and test a
grocer in arithmetic, you will find him the more accurate man, and the
readier. Try a labourer at his own cart, and see how he is at once your
superior. Depend upon it, all this upheaval of lower social strata
is bad. Some day we may find that we have freed internal fires and
exploded social volcanoes.’
‘I shall make the attempt where I am going, however,’ said Ernest with
decision. ‘It may be that there are peculiar advantages in a new land,
and a sparse population, without the crushing vested interests which
weigh one to the dust in the old world.’
‘Perhaps you may gather some of the dust of the new, which is gold,
they say, if they don’t lie, as most probably they do. Then you can
rear an Australian Neuchampstead, which will be the third, under such
conditions, built by our family, if old records are true. I wish you
were taking more capital with you, old fellow, though.’
Here the elder man slightly relaxed the cold undemonstrative regard
which his aquiline features usually wore, as he gazed for a few moments
upon the ardent expressive face of the cadet of his house. ‘It’s
another of the family faults that we can neither stay decently together
at home, nor fit out our knights-errant worthily for the crusade.’
‘My dear Courtenay,’ said the younger son, touched to the depth of a
delicate and sensitive nature by the rare concession of the head of the
house, ‘things are best as they are. You have enough which you require.
I have not enough, which is an equal necessity of my nature. I should
die here like a falcon in a corn-chandler’s shop, pining for the sweep
of her long wings against the sea-cliff, where with wave and tempest
she could scream in concert. Hope and adventure are my life, the breath
of my nostrils, and forth I must go.’
‘Well, my blessing go with you, Ernest; I neither mistrust your courage
nor capacity, and in any land you will probably hold your own. But I
should have more confidence in your success if you had less of that
infernal Neuchamp taste for managing other people’s affairs.’
‘But, my dear Courtenay, is it not the part of a true knight and a
Christian man to lead others into the right path? _We_ thankfully
accept it from others. I think of the many needs of a new land, and of
the rude dwellers therein.’
‘I hate to be put right—colonists may be of the same opinion. _You_
never can be induced to do anything that is suggested by another, or
any Neuchamp, that I ever heard of.’
‘Because we take particular care to be identified with the latest, and
most successful practice in all respects.’
‘Because we are always right, I suppose. A comfortable theory, but of
which the public cannot always be convinced. I never try to convince
them—I merely wish to be left alone. That is where I differ from you.’
‘You will never gain, however, by your principles, Courtenay.’
‘You will lose your fortune by following out yours, Ernest.’
The conversation having ended, as had nearly all previous discussions
between the brothers, in each adhering steadfastly to his own opinion,
Ernest went his own way with the cheerful obstinacy of his character.
He selected a ship and a colony. He ordered a large, comprehensive,
and comparatively useless outfit. He purchased several books of fact
and fiction, bearing upon the land of his adoption, for reading upon
the voyage, and girding himself up, he finally completed all necessary
arrangements. He bade farewell to the old home—to the villagers, whom
he had known from boyhood—and to his friends and kinsfolk. He did then
actually set sail in the clipper-ship _St. Swithin_, comforting himself
with heroic parallels of all ages and all shades of maritime adventure.
On the voyage out, he made acquaintance with several agreeable people.
Of these, many were, like himself, sailing to Australia for the first
time. Others were returning to the great south land, where they had
probably spent their early years, or indeed been born. Among these,
though he was not aware of the fact, since they did not advertise it,
was a family named Middleton, consisting of a father, mother, and two
daughters. These last were quiet and well-mannered, but decidedly
amusing. Alice Middleton was handsome and lively; Barbara was rather
staid, given to reading, and did not talk much, except with congenial
people. She, however, could speak very much to the point, should
such speaking be needed. With this family Mr. Neuchamp became on
sufficiently intimate terms to confide his views upon colonial life,
including his hopes of benefiting the citizens of his adopted country
by the inculcation of the newest English ideas in farming and other
important subjects. He did not find that readiness of response which he
had looked for. This puzzled and slightly annoyed him, as from their
intelligent sympathy in other matters he had confidently reckoned upon
their co-operation. Indeed he had discovered the second Miss Middleton
in the act of smiling, as if at his enthusiasm; while the matron, a
shrewd, observant person, went the length of inquiring whether he did
not think it would be better to see something of the country, before
settling the affairs of its inhabitants.
‘My dear Mrs. Middleton,’ replied Mr. Neuchamp with grave dissent,
‘I regret that I cannot see the force of your position. My feeling is
that one is far more certain to criticise fairly and dispassionately
a new land and a new state of society, while one’s impressions are
sharply and freshly defined. Afterwards, the finer lines are effaced by
use, wont, and local prejudice. No! depend upon it, the newly-arrived
observer has many advantages.’
‘Then you do not think it possible,’ said Alice Middleton, ‘that the
new—arrival should make any mistakes in his inspection of the unlucky
colonists?’
‘If he has cultivated his power of observation, and his critical
faculty, so that he can trust himself to be just and impartial, I do
not see that it matters whether he may have lived one year or ten in
any given country.’
‘You will find that it _does_ matter,’ retorted his fair antagonist,
‘unless you are different from every other Englishman we have ever
seen.’
‘Why, have _you_ lived in Australia?’ inquired he with accents of
extreme surprise. ‘I had no idea of the fact.’
‘We have been there all our lives,’ said Barbara Middleton, ‘excepting
for the last three years. Why should you think we had not been there?’
‘I—really—don’t know,’ protested Mr. Neuchamp, now discovering suddenly
that he was on unsafe ground. ‘I thought you were English, and making
the voyage, like myself, for the first time.’
‘Don’t apologise,’ laughed Alice; ‘you may as well say at once that you
thought we were too much like ordinary English people to be colonists,’
and she made him a slight bow.
‘Well, so I did,’ confessed our hero, too honest to evade the
expression of his opinions. ‘But you know, you’re so—well—you do expect
a little difference in appearance, or manner——’
‘Or complexion?’ continued his fair tormentor. ‘Did you think
Australians were—just a little—dark?’
‘I recant, and apologise, and sue for pardon,’ said Ernest, now
completely dislodged from his pedestal, a horrid thought obtruding
itself that similar discoveries would narrow his mission to most
uninteresting dimensions.
This ‘check to his queen’ sobered Mr. Neuchamp for several days. He
began to question the probability of influencing society in Australia
to any great extent, if the component parts were like the Middleton
family. However, he reflected that people of cultivated tastes and
unexceptionable manners were rare in any country. And when he thought
of the vast interior with its scattered untravelled population, hope
revived and he again saw himself the ‘guide, philosopher, and friend of
a guileless and grateful people.’
There were several landed proprietors who held great possessions in
Australia among the passengers, with whom he made a point of conversing
whenever such conversation was possible. But here again unexpected
hindrances and obstacles arose.
Mr. Neuchamp found that these returning Australians were rather
reserved, and had very little to say about the land in which so large
a portion of their lives had been passed. They committed themselves
to the extent of stating in answer to his numerous inquiries, that it
was a ‘very fair sort of place—you could manage to live there.’ ‘As to
the people?’ ‘Well, they were much like people everywhere else—some
good, some bad.’ ‘Climate?‘ ‘Hot in some places, cold in others.’
‘Manners?’‘Well, many of the inhabitants hadn’t any, but that was a
complaint almost universal at the present day.’ The oppressed colonist
generally wound up by stating that when he, Neuchamp, had been in
Australia for a year or two, he would know all about it.
All this was very unsatisfactory. As far as these pieces of evidence
went, the _terra incognita_ to which, after such rending of ancient
associations and family ties, he was even now voyaging, was as prosaic
as Middlesex or Kent. These people either did not know anything
about their own country or their own people, or, with the absurd
indifferentism of Englishmen, did not care. He was partly reassured
by one of the more youthful passengers, who had not been very long
away from his Australian birthland. He considerately raised Ernest’s
spirits, and his estimate of Australia as a ‘wonderland,’ by certain
historiettes and tales of adventure by flood and field. But when he
introduced Indians, habitual scalping, and a serpent fifty feet long,
Mr. Neuchamp’s course of reading enabled him to detect the unprincipled
fabrication, and to withdraw with dignity.
In due course of time, the vessel which carried Mr. Neuchamp and his
purpose arrived at her destination. The night was misty, so that
he had no opportunity of comparing the harbour of Sydney with the
numerous descriptions which he had read. He was met on the wharf by
the perfectly British inquiry of ‘Cab, sir, cab?’ upon replying to
which in the affirmative, he was rattled up to the Royal Hotel, and
charged double fare, with a completeness and despatch upon which even a
Shoreditch Station cabby could not have improved.
Having renovated himself with a bath and breakfast, Mr. Neuchamp
proceeded to view the component parts of the busy street from the
balcony of the great caravanserai. On the whole, he did not see
any striking departure from the appearance of an ordinary London
thoroughfare. There were omnibuses raking the whole length of the
street, fore and aft, as it were, well horsed with upstanding powerful
animals; the drivers, too, had something of the misanthropical
air which the true ‘busman always acquires after a certain period.
Hansoms rattled about, with the express-train flavour peculiar to that
luxurious vehicle for the unencumbered. Well-appointed carriages,
from which descended fashionably attired dames and damsels, drew up
at imposing haberdashers for a little early and quiet shopping. The
foot passengers did not look as if they were likely to contribute
to any Arabian Nights entertainment either. They wore chiefly black
coats, I grieve to say black hats, and serious countenances, exactly
like the mercantile and legal sections of the city men in London. The
labourers wore the same shoddy suits, the sailors the same loose or
inexplicable tightened garments, the postmen the same red coat, the
shabby-genteel people the same threadbare ditto; even the blind man,
with a barrel-organ, had the same reflectoral expression that he had
often noticed. All the types were identical with those he had hoped to
have left ten thousand miles away. Certainly he did see occasionally a
sauntering squatter, bronzed, bearded, and _insouciant_; but he, again,
was so near akin to a country gentleman who had taken a run to town,
or a stray soldier on leave, that he was upon the point of exclaiming,
‘How disgustingly English!’ when a slight incident turned his thoughts
to the far and wondrous interior. Down the street, on a grand-looking
young horse, at a pace more suggestive of stretching out through
endless forest-parks than of riding with propriety through a narrow and
crowded thoroughfare, came a born bushman. He was a tall man, wearing
a wide-leaved felt hat and a careless rig generally, such as suggested
to Mr. Neuchamp the denizen of the waste, whom he had hungered and
thirsted to see. Here he was in the flesh evidently, and Ernest drank
in with greedy eyes his swarthy complexion, his erect yet easy seat
on his horse. However, just as he was passing the hotel, whether the
gallant nomad was looking another way, or whether he had considered the
hour, early as it was, not unsuitable for refreshment, the fact must
here be stated that the colt, observing some triumph of civilisation
for the first time (a human advertising sandwich), stopped with
deathlike suddenness; his rider was shot on to the crown of his head
with startling force. Mr. Neuchamp was preparing to rush downstairs to
the rescue, when a quietly attired passer-by stepped up to the snorting
colt and, with a gentle adroitness that told of use and wont, secured
and soothed him. The gallant bushman arose, looking half-stunned; then,
gazing ruefully at the crown of his sombrero, he felt the top of his
head somewhat distrustfully, and with a word of thanks to the stranger,
who held the rein in a peculiar manner till he was safe in the saddle,
mounted and pursued his way after a swift but guarded fashion. ‘My
word, sir,’ was his single remark, ‘I didn’t think he’d ha’ propped
like that—thank _you_ all the same.’
Inspirited by this incident as showing a possibility of lights and
shadows even upon this too English foreground, Mr. Neuchamp thought
that he would deliver one of his letters of introduction to a merchant,
whose advice he had been specially recommended to take in the purchase
of land, or of whatever property he should select for investment.