I wasn't in the humour for talking, but sometimes anything's better than
one's own thoughts. Goring threw in a word from time to time. He'd only
lately come into our district, and was sure to be promoted, everybody
said. Like Starlight himself, he'd seen better days at home in England;
but when he got pinched he'd taken the right turn and not the wrong one,
which makes all the difference. He was earning his bread honest, anyway,
and he was a chap as liked the fun and dash of a mounted policeman's
life. As for the risk--and there is some danger, more than people
thinks, now and then--he liked that the best of it. He was put out at
losing Jim; but he believed he couldn't escape, and told me so in a
friendly way. 'He's inside a circle and he can't get away, you mark
my words,' he said, two or three times. 'We have every police-station
warned by wire, within a hundred miles of here, three days ago. There's
not a man in the colony sharper looked after than Master Jim is this
minute.'
'Then you only heard about us three days ago?' I said.
'That's as it may be,' he answered, biting his lip. 'Anyhow, there isn't
a shepherd's hut within miles that he can get to without our knowing
it. The country's rough, but there's word gone for a black tracker to go
down. You'll see him in Bargo before the week's out.'
I had a good guess where Jim would make for, and he knew enough to hide
his tracks for the last few miles if there was a whole tribe of trackers
after him.
That night we rode into Bargo. A long day too we'd had--we were all
tired enough when we got in. I was locked up, of course, and as soon as
we were in the cell Goring said, 'Listen to me,' and put on his official
face--devilish stern and hard-looking he was then, in spite of all the
talking and nonsense we'd had coming along.
'Richard Marston, I charge you with unlawfully taking, stealing, and
carrying away, in company with others, one thousand head of mixed
cattle, more or less the property of one Walter Hood, of Outer Back,
Momberah, in or about the month of June last.'
'All right; why don't you make it a few more while you're about it?'
'That'll do,' he said, nodding his head, 'you decline to say anything.
Well, I can't exactly wish you a merry Christmas--fancy this being
Christmas Eve, by Jove!--but you'll be cool enough this deuced hot
weather till the sessions in February, which is more than some of us
can say. Good-night.' He went out and locked the door. I sat down on
my blanket on the floor and hid my head in my hands. I wonder it didn't
burst with what I felt then. Strange that I shouldn't have felt half as
bad when the judge, the other day, sentenced me to be a dead man in a
couple of months. But I was young then.
. . . . .
Christmas Day! Christmas Day! So this is how I was to spend it after
all, I thought, as I woke up at dawn, and saw the gray light just
beginning to get through the bars of the window of the cell.
Here was I locked up, caged, ironed, disgraced, a felon and an outcast
for the rest of my life. Jim, flying for his life, hiding from every
honest man, every policeman in the country looking after him, and
authorised to catch him or shoot him down like a sheep-killing dog.
Father living in the Hollow, like a blackfellow in a cave, afraid to
spend the blessed Christmas with his wife and daughter, like the poorest
man in the land could do if he was only honest. Mother half dead with
grief, and Aileen ashamed to speak to the man that loved and respected
her from her childhood. Gracey Storefield not daring to think of me or
say my name, after seeing me carried off a prisoner before her eyes.
Here was a load of misery and disgrace heaped up together, to be borne
by the whole family, now and for the time to come--by the innocent
as well as the guilty. And for what? Because we had been too idle and
careless to work regularly and save our money, though well able to do
it, like honest men. Because, little by little, we had let bad dishonest
ways and flash manners grow upon us, all running up an account that had
to be paid some day.
And now the day of reckoning had come--sharp and sudden with a
vengeance! Well, what call had we to look for anything else? We had been
working for it; now we had got it, and had to bear it. Not for want of
warning, neither. What had mother and Aileen been saying ever since we
could remember? Warning upon warning. Now the end had come just as they
said. Of course I knew in a general way that I couldn't be punished
or be done anything to right off. I knew law enough for that. The
next thing would be that I should have to be brought up before the
magistrates and committed for trial as soon as they could get any
evidence.
After breakfast, flour and water or hominy, I forget which, the warder
told me that there wasn't much chance of my being brought up before
Christmas was over. The police magistrate was away on a month's leave,
and the other magistrates would not be likely to attend before the end
of the week, anyway. So I must make myself comfortable where I was.
Comfortable!
'Had they caught Jim?'
'Well, not that he'd heard of; but Goring said it was impossible for him
to get away. At twelve he'd bring me some dinner.'
I was pretty certain they wouldn't catch Jim, in spite of Goring being
so cocksure about it. If he wasn't knocked off the first mile or so,
he'd find ways of stopping or steadying his horse, and facing him up to
where we had gone to join father at the tableland of the Nulla Mountain.
Once he got near there he could let go his horse. They'd be following
his track, while he made the best of his way on foot to the path that
led to the Hollow. If he had five miles start of them there, as was most
likely, all the blacks in the country would never track where he got to.
He and father could live there for a month or so, and take it easy until
they could slip out and do a bit of father's old trade. That was about
what I expected Jim to do, and as it turned out I was as nearly right
as could be. They ran his track for ten miles. Then they followed his
horse-tracks till late the second day, and found that the horse had
slued round and was making for home again with nobody on him. Jim was
nowhere to be seen, and they'd lost all that time, never expecting that
he was going to dismount and leave the horse to go his own way.
They searched Nulla Mountain from top to bottom; but some of the
smartest men of the old Mounted Police and the best of the stockmen
in the old days--men not easy to beat--had tried the same country many
years before, and never found the path to the Hollow. So it wasn't
likely any one else would. They had to come back and own that they were
beat, which put Goring in a rage and made the inspector, Sir Ferdinand
Morringer, blow them all up for a lot of duffers and old women.
Altogether they had a bad time of it, not that it made any difference to
me.
After the holidays a magistrate was fished up somehow, and I was brought
before him and the apprehending constable's evidence taken. Then I was
remanded to the Bench at Nomah, where Mr. Hood and some of the other
witnesses were to appear. So away we started for another journey. Goring
and a trooper went with me, and all sorts of care was taken that I
didn't give them the slip on the road. Goring used to put one of my
handcuffs on his own wrist at night, so there wasn't much chance of
moving without waking him. I had an old horse to ride that couldn't go
much faster than I could run, for fear of accident. It was even betting
that he'd fall and kill me on the road. If I'd had a laugh in me, I
should have had a joke against the Police Department for not keeping
safer horses for their prisoners to ride. They keep them till they
haven't a leg to stand upon, and long after they can't go a hundred
yards without trying to walk on their heads they're thought good enough
to carry packs and prisoners.
'Some day,' Goring said, 'one of those old screws will be the death of
a prisoner before he's committed for trial, and then there'll be a row
over it, I suppose.'
We hadn't a bad journey of it on the whole. The troopers were civil
enough, and gave me a glass of grog now and then when they had one
themselves. They'd done their duty in catching me, and that was all they
thought about. What came afterwards wasn't their look-out. I've no call
to have any bad feeling against the police, and I don't think most men
of my sort have. They've got their work to do, like other people, and as
long as they do what they're paid for, and don't go out of their way
to harass men for spite, we don't bear them any malice. If one's hit
in fair fight it's the fortune of war. What our side don't like is men
going in for police duty that's not in their line. That's interfering,
according to our notions, and if they fall into a trap or are met
with when they don't expect it they get it pretty hot. They've only
themselves to thank for it.
Goring, I could see by his ways, had been a swell, something like
Starlight. A good many young fellows that don't drop into fortunes when
they come out here take to the police in Australia, and very good men
they make. They like the half-soldiering kind of life, and if they
stick steady at their work, and show pluck and gumption, they mostly
get promoted. Goring was a real smart, dashing chap, a good rider for an
Englishman; that is, he could set most horses, and hold his own with us
natives anywhere but through scrub and mountain country. No man can ride
there, I don't care who he is, the same as we can, unless he's been at
it all his life. There we have the pull--not that it is so much after
all. But give a native a good horse and thick country, and he'll lose
any man living that's tackled the work after he's grown up.
By and by we got to Nomah, a regular hot hole of a place, with a log
lock-up. I was stuck in, of course, and had leg-irons put on for fear I
should get out, as another fellow had done a few weeks back. Starlight
and Warrigal hadn't reached yet; they had farther to come. The trial
couldn't come till the Quarter Sessions. January, and February too,
passed over, and all this time I was mewed up in a bit of a place enough
to stifle a man in the burning weather we had.
I heard afterwards that they wanted to bring some of the cattle over, so
as Mr. Hood could swear to 'em being his property. But he said he could
only swear to its being his brand; that he most likely had never set
eyes on them in his life, and couldn't swear on his own knowledge that
they hadn't been sold, like lots of others, by his manager. So
this looked like a hitch, as juries won't bring a man in guilty of
cattle-stealing unless there's clear swearing that the animals he sold
were the property of the prosecutor, and known by him to be such.
Mr. Hood had to go all the way to Adelaide himself, and they told me we
might likely have got out of it all, only for the imported bull. When
he saw him he said he could swear to him point blank, brand or no brand.
He'd no brand on him, of course, when he left England; but Hood happened
to be in Sydney when he came out, and at the station when he came up. He
was stabled for the first six months, so he used to go and look him over
every day, and tell visitors what a pot of money he'd cost, till he
knew every hair in his tail, as the saying is. As soon as he seen him
in Adelaide he said he could swear to him as positive as he could to
his favourite riding horse. So he was brought over in a steamer from
Adelaide, and then drove all the way up to Nomah. I wished he'd broken
his neck before we ever saw him.
Next thing I saw was Starlight being brought in, handcuffed, between
two troopers, and looking as if he'd ridden a long way. He was just as
easy-going and devil-may-care as ever. He said to one of the troopers--
'Here we are at last, and I'm deuced glad of it. It's perfectly
monstrous you fellows haven't better horses. You ought to make me
remount agent, and I'd show you the sort of horses that ought to be
bought for police service. Let me have a glass of beer, that's a good
fellow, before I'm locked up. I suppose there's no tap worth speaking of
inside.'
The constable laughed, and had one brought to him.
'It will be some time before you get another, captain. Here's a long one
for you; make the most of it.'
Where, in the devil's name, is that Warrigal? I thought to myself. Has
he given them the slip? He had, as it turned out. He had slipped the
handcuffs over his slight wrists and small hands, bided his time, and
then dashed into a scrub. There he was at home. They rode and rode, but
Warrigal was gone like a rock wallaby. It was a good while before he was
as near the gaol again.
All this time I'd been wondering how it was they came to drop on our
names so pat, and to find out that Jim and I had a share in the Momberah
cattle racket. All they could have known was that we left the back of
Boree at a certain day; and that was nothing, seeing that for all they
knew we might have gone away to new country or anywhere. The more I
looked at it the more I felt sure that some one had given to the
police information about us--somebody who was in it and knew all about
everything. It wasn't Starlight. We could have depended our life on him.
It might have been one of the other chaps, but I couldn't think of any
one, except Warrigal. He would do anything in the world to spite me
and Jim, I knew; but then he couldn't hurt us without drawing the net
tighter round Starlight. Sooner than hurt a hair of his head he'd have
put his hand into the fire and kept it there. I knew that from things
I'd seen him do.
Starlight and I hadn't much chance of a talk, but we managed to get news
from each other, a bit at a time; that can always be managed. We were to
be defended, and a lawyer fetched all the way from Sydney to fight our
case for us. The money was there. Father managed the other part of it
through people he had that did every kind of work for him; so when the
judge came up we should have a show for it.
The weary long summer days--every one of them about twenty hours
long--came to an end somehow or other. It was so hot and close and I
was that miserable I had two minds to knock my brains out and finish
the whole thing. I couldn't settle to read, as I did afterwards. I was
always wishing and wondering when I'd hear some news from home, and none
ever came. Nomah was a bit of a place where hardly anybody did anything
but idle and drink, and spend money when they had it. When they had none
they went away. There wasn't even a place to take exercise in, and the
leg-irons I wore night and day began to eat into my flesh. I wasn't used
to them in those days. I could feel them in my heart, too. Last of all I
got ill, and for a while was so weak and low they thought I was going to
get out of the trial altogether.
At last we heard that the judge and all his lot were on the road, and
would be up in a few days. We were almost as glad when the news came
as if we were sure of being let off. One day they did come, and all the
little town was turned upside down. The judge stopped at one hotel (they
told us); the lawyers at another. Then the witnesses in ours and other
cases came in from all parts, and made a great difference, especially
to the publicans. The jurors were summoned, and had to come, unless they
had a fancy for being fined. Most of this I heard from the constables;
they seemed to think it was the only thing that made any difference
in their lives. Last of all I heard that Mr. Hood had come, and the
imported bull, and some other witnesses.
There were some small cases first, and then we were brought out,
Starlight and I, and put in the dock. The court was crammed and crowded;
every soul within a hundred miles seemed to have come in; there never
were so many people in the little courthouse before. Starlight was
quietly dressed, and looked as if he was there by mistake. Anybody would
have thought so, the way he lounged and stared about, as if he thought
there was something very curious and hard to understand about the whole
thing. I was so weak and ill that I couldn't stand up, and after a while
the judge told me to sit down, and Starlight too. Starlight made a most
polite bow, and thanked his Honour, as he called him. Then the jury
were called up, and our lawyer began his work. He stood alongside of
Starlight, and whispered something to him, after which Starlight stood
up, and about every second man called out 'Challenge'; then that juror
had to go down. It took a good while to get our jury all together. Our
lawyer seemed very particular about the sort of jury he was satisfied
with; and when they did manage to get twelve at last they were not the
best-looking men in the court by a very long way.
The trial had to go on, and then the Crown Prosecutor made a speech, in
which he talked about the dishonesty which was creeping unchecked over
the land, and the atrocious villainy of criminals who took a thousand
head of cattle in one lot, and made out the country was sure to go to
destruction if we were not convicted. He said that unfortunately they
were not in a position to bring many of the cattle back that had been
taken to another colony; but one remarkable animal was as good for
purposes of evidence as a hundred. Such an animal he would produce,
and he would not trespass on the patience of jurors and gentlemen in
attendance any longer, but call his first witness.
John Dawson, sworn: Was head stockman and cattle manager at Momberah;
knew the back country, and in a general way the cattle running there;
was not out much in the winter; the ground was boggy, and the cattle
were hardly ever mustered till spring; when he did go, with some other
stock-riders, he saw at once that a large number of the Momberah cattle,
branded HOD and other brands, were missing; went to Adelaide a few
months after; saw a large number of cattle of the HOD brand, which he
was told had been sold by the prisoner now before the court, and known
as Starlight, and others, to certain farmers; he could swear that the
cattle he saw bore Mr. Hood's brand; could not swear that he recognised
them as having been at Momberah in his charge; believed so, but could
not swear it; he had seen a short-horn bull outside of the court this
morning; he last saw the said bull at the station of Messrs. Fordham
Brothers, near Adelaide; they made a communication to him concerning the
bull; he would and could swear to the identity of the animal with the
Fifteenth Duke of Cambridge, an imported short-horn bull, the property
of Mr. Hood; had seen him before that at Momberah; knew that Mr. Hood
had bought said bull in Sydney, and was at Momberah when he was sent up;
could not possibly be mistaken; when he saw the bull at Momberah, nine
months since, he had a small brand like H on the shoulder; Mr. Hood put
it on in witness's presence; it was a horse-brand, now it resembled J-E;
the brand had been 'faked' or cleverly altered; witness could see the
original brand quite plain underneath; as far as he knew Mr. Hood never
sold or gave any one authority to take the animal; he had missed him
some months since, and always believed he had strayed; knew the bull to
be a valuable animal, worth several hundred pounds.
We had one bit of luck in having to be tried in an out-of-the-way place
like Nomah. It was a regular outside bush township, and though the
distance oughtn't to have much to say to people's honesty, you'll mostly
find that these far-out back-of-beyond places have got men and women to
match 'em.
Except the squatters and overseers, the other people's mostly a shady
lot. Some's run away from places that were too hot to hold 'em.
The women ain't the men's wives that they live with, but somebody
else's--who's well rid of 'em too if all was known. There's most likely
a bit of horse and cattle stealing done on the quiet, and the publicans
and storekeepers know who are their best customers, the square people
or the cross ones. It ain't so easy to get a regular up-and-down
straight-ahead jury in a place of this sort. So Starlight and I knew
that our chance was a lot better than if we'd been tried at Bargo or
Dutton Forest, or any steady-going places of that sort.
If we'd made up our minds from the first that we were to get into it
it wouldn't have been so bad; we'd have known we had to bear it. Now we
might get out of it, and what a thing it would be to feel free again,
and walk about in the sun without any one having the right to stop you.
Almost, that is--there were other things against us; but there wasn't
so much of a chance of their turning up. This was the great stake. If we
won we were as good as made. I felt ready to swear I'd go home and never
touch a shilling that didn't come honest again. If we lost it seemed
as if everything was so much the worse, and blacker than it looked at
first, just for this bit of hope and comfort.
After the bull had been sworn to by Mr. Hood and another witness, they
brought up some more evidence, as they called it, about the other cattle
we had sold in Adelaide. They had fetched some of the farmers up that
had been at the sale. They swore straight enough to having bought cattle
with certain brands from Starlight. They didn't know, of course, at the
time whose they were, but they could describe the brands fast enough.
There was one fellow that couldn't read nor write, but he remembered all
the brands, about a dozen, in the pen of steers he bought, and described
them one by one. One brand, he said, was like a long-handled shovel. It
turned out to be--D. [*] TD--Tom Dawson's, of Mungeree. About a hundred of
his were in the mob. They had drawn back for Mungeree, as was nearly all
frontage and cold in the winter. He was the worst witness for us of the
lot, very near. He'd noticed everything and forgot nothing.
* In the original text, the horizontal bar is represented by
a capital “I” rotated 90 degrees, and a bit lower than
centre--but from the description, '--D' may be better, where
the '--' represents the upright of the T in TD.--A. L.,
1997.--
'Do you recognise either of the prisoners in the dock?' he was asked.
'Yes; both of 'em,' says he. I wish I could have got at him. 'I see the
swell chap first--him as made out he was the owner, and gammoned all
the Adelaide gentlemen so neat. There was a half-caste chap with him as
followed him about everywhere; then there was another man as didn't talk
much, but seemed, by letting down sliprails and what not, to be in it.
I heard this Starlight, as he calls hisself now, say to him, “You
have everything ready to break camp by ten o'clock, and I'll be there
to-morrow and square up.” I thought he meant to pay their wages. I never
dropped but what they was his men--his hired servants--as he was going
to pay off or send back.'
'Will you swear,' our lawyer says, 'that the younger prisoner is the man
you saw at Adelaide with the cattle?'
'Yes; I'll swear. I looked at him pretty sharp, and nothing ain't likely
to make me forget him. He's the man, and that I'll swear to.'
'Were there not other people there with the cattle?'
'Yes; there was an oldish, very quiet, but determined-like man--he had a
stunnin' dorg with him--and a young man something like this gentleman--I
mean the prisoner. I didn't see the other young man nor the half-caste
in court.'
'That's all very well,' says our lawyer, very fierce; 'but will you
swear, sir, that the prisoner Marston took any charge or ownership of
the cattle?'
'No, I can't,' says the chap. 'I see him a drafting 'em in the morning,
and he seemed to know all the brands, and so on; but he done no more
than I've seen hired servants do over and over again.'
The other witnesses had done, when some one called out, 'Herbert
Falkland,' and Mr. Falkland steps into the court. He walks in quiet and
a little proud; he couldn't help feeling it, but he didn't show it in
his ways and talk, as little as any man I ever saw.
He's asked by the Crown Prosecutor if he's seen the bull outside of the
court this day.
'Yes; he has seen him.'
'Has he ever seen him before?'
'Never, to his knowledge.'
'He doesn't, then, know the name of his former owner?'
'Has heard generally that he belonged to Mr. Hood, of Momberah; but does
not know it of his own knowledge.'
'Has he ever seen, or does he know either of the prisoners?'
'Knows the younger prisoner, who has been in the habit of working for
him in various ways.'
'When was prisoner Marston working for him last?'
'He, with his brother James, who rendered his family a service he
shall never forget, was working for him, after last shearing, for some
months.'
'Where were they working?'
'At an out-station at the back of the run.'
'When did they leave?'
'About April or May last.'
'Was it known to you in what direction they proceeded after leaving your
service?'
'I have no personal knowledge; I should think it improper to quote
hearsay.'
'Had they been settled up with for their former work?'
'No, there was a balance due to them.'
'To what amount?'
'About twenty pounds each was owing.'
'Did you not think it curious that ordinary labourers should leave so
large a sum in your hands?'
'It struck me as unusual, but I did not attach much weight to the
circumstance. I thought they would come back and ask for it before the
next shearing. I am heartily sorry that they did not do so, and regret
still more deeply that two young men worthy of a better fate should have
been arraigned on such a charge.'
'One moment, Mr. Falkland,' says our counsel, as they call them, and
a first-rate counsellor ours was. If we'd been as innocent as two
schoolgirls he couldn't have done more for us. 'Did the prisoner Marston
work well and conduct himself properly while in your employ?'
'No man better,' says Mr. Falkland, looking over to me with that pitying
kind of look in his eyes as made me feel what a fool and rogue I'd been
ten times worse than anything else. 'No man better; he and his brother
were in many respects, according to my overseer's report, the most
hard-working and best-conducted labourers in the establishment.'