"I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul."
HAMLET, _Act 1. Sc. 5._
William leisurely followed the track of the Sawyers' dray for about an
hour, when he came up to their encampment, where they had apparently
fixed upon a spot for their station. They must have been early in their
departure from Fern Vale, and industrious in the interval; for, at the
moment of William's arrival, they had got up a tent, under which they
had placed the loading from their dray; while, amongst the various
packages, the fair Hebe of the previous night was to be seen busily
plunging, tugging, and sorting. Already pegs were placed at various
distances in the ground to point out the boundaries for their respective
enclosures and establishments; and a large tree lay stretched on the
sward, in the spot on which it had fallen when succumbing to the axe of
the younger Sawyer. The paternal couple were engaged dissecting the
monster in sections of about nine longitudinal feet, and were plying the
cross-cut saw with a will; while the son was driving an iron wedge into
one of the lengths, thus dissected, to split it up into slabs for the
erection of their hut.
William had approached close to this industrious family, before their
attention was diverted from their work by a knowledge of his presence;
and the old man raising his head from his stooping posture, as the saw
cut through the log, greeted him with a "good morning," that was echoed
by the group.
"There, old woman," said her husband, "you can go help Mary Ann in the
tent, and I'll go on splitting with Reuben. Well, young un," said he,
turning to William, "yon chap at your place, last night, I guess was a
parson; he wanted to give me a sermon, but I didn't see it, so I cut it
short; what does he do there with you?"
"Nothing," replied William, "he is merely a friend of ours, and only
came to the station with me yesterday; he is a kind-hearted excellent
man, and I am sure whatever he would have said to you would have been
sound advice."
"Oh, I never doubt him," said the other, "only I don't like those
parsons, and never get into any arguments with them; whatever you say
they twist so to suit their own ways and sayings. Who would ever have
thought that he would have said that fellow, as I was a talking of, was
any better for a blackguarding of me for offering him of my grog."
"What were the particulars of that story?" enquired William, "you did
not tell us last night."
"Well, if you wants to hear it," replied Sawyer, "I don't mind having a
pull at my pipe for a few minutes while I tell you."
"I would like exceedingly to hear," replied William. Whereupon the old
man took his seat upon the log he had been splitting; filled his pipe
and lit it; while Rueben was resting on his maul, and William, who had
affixed the bridle of his horse to the stirrup, and allowed him to graze
about the spot, took his seat at the old man's side. After ejecting from
his mouth a volume of smoke he commenced the following narrative; which,
for the sake of perspicuity, we will take the liberty of clothing in our
own words.
Old Sawyer was "an old lag," and had been a long time in servitude (and
afterwards in freedom) on the Hunter river. During the latter part of
his career in that district he had been pretty successful as a farmer,
and had accumulated some little means; but agriculture, in his opinion,
ceasing to be a profitable occupation he had determined to turn to
squatting; and had consequently sold his farm, and taken up the run on
which he was then settling. It is of his early career, however, that we
have at present to speak.
At a primary era of his penal servitude he was, in common with most of
his class, assigned to a master in the district in which he was located;
and, after a time, was made by his master an overseer over the other
servants. Amongst those under his supervision, were two young men who
had held some posts of trust in England, and either from some fraudulent
delinquencies, or culpable dereliction of duty, had made themselves
amenable to the then stringent laws of their country, and were
transported to the penal colony. They were both men of education and
gentlemanly bearing; and, from a life in a clerical appointment, they
were both totally unused to manual labour, and unfit to grapple with the
trials of the convict discipline. They were, consequently, awkward and
clumsy in the performance of their allotted tasks; while their inability
was construed, by their truculent master, into perversity and
stubbornness; and he swore, by increased toil and exactions, to break
their gentlemanly pride, as he termed their unskillfulness.
The two young men were put on one occasion, by the direction of the
master, to fell some large trees, and they were given a cross-cut saw
for the purpose; but on the first tree, on which they tried their hands,
they broke their saw. As soon as the circumstance became known to their
employer, he sent them to the magistrate; and had them sentenced to
fifty lashes each for insubordination; and, after the execution of the
sentence, to be sent back to work. They returned to their work, but from
that moment they were altered men. The crushing influence of the convict
system had done its work; they had undergone the demoniacal transition;
and two more victims were added to that mass who breathed only for
vengeance on their tyrants. It was during the period between this
punishment, and the accomplishment of their vengeance, that Sawyer, who
really pitied the poor fellows, had given the bibulous invitation, and
met with the rebuff.
Not long after this, the two convicts made their escape, and took to the
bush; which was scoured for months, over an immense extent, for their
recovery, but ineffectually. Nothing was heard of them for nearly two
years, when one, famished and emaciated, gave himself up at the
settlement; reported the death of his companion; and confessed to the
participation in one of the most horrible crimes on record; that which
we are about to relate.
About six months after the escape of himself and his companion, when it
was supposed they had perished in the wilds of the bush, the man whom we
have mentioned as their master was suddenly missed. Upon instituting a
search his body was found; but in such as state of putrefaction, and
presenting such a hideous spectacle, that it was not removed; but a
hole dug at the spot where it was discovered, and the remains, like any
other vile carcass, shovelled into its last resting-place. The event at
the time was thought of little moment, as the man was generally
detested, and had no friends to agitate the matter; so it was hardly
conjectured who were the perpetrators of his murder, and not until the
criminal himself had confessed to the crime, were the authorities at all
acquainted with the matter.
It appeared that the young men, when they effected their escape,
secreted themselves in gullies and crevices of the rocks; only venturing
out in search of food during the darkness of night. In this way they
existed; enduring the greatest privations, and living only for the hope
of revenge. They waited for the opportunity that was to throw their
victim into their hands, with a patience worthy of a better cause; and
watched with an eagerness and vigilance, almost perpetual, until the
happy moment arrived, and they possessed themselves of the person of
their late detested master.
He had been returning over-land from Sydney, and was leisurely
approaching the settlements of the Hunter, when he was espied by the
convicts. Great was their joy at this moment; though they knew, that
even now that he was within their reach, they would experience great
difficulty in securing him; more especially, as they were convinced he
would be armed, while they were not. However, they determined to risk
their lives in the attempt, for his death to them was sweeter than the
preservation of their own lives.
They secreted themselves, one on either side of the road along which he
had to go; and, at the moment when he was just about passing them, they
simultaneously rushed from their ambush; and, before he was hardly aware
of their presence, they had seized him by the arms, dragged him from his
horse, and deprived him of the fire-arms he had had no time to use.
They then bound him, and led him away into the bush, leaving his horse
to find its way home at pleasure.
The captors, after pinioning the arms of their victim, took him through
the country, over ranges and across gullies, into the recesses of the
bush, where they had taken up their abode; not deigning to enter into
any conversation with him by the way. He, however, treated his captivity
lightly, imagining that they were merely removing him from the road, to
give themselves a surer opportunity of escape when they released him. He
had no doubt but that their object was simply to rob him; and, by
withdrawing him from the chance of assistance, they were only securing
their retreat, in the event of his returning to arrest them after
regaining his liberty. He was therefore consoling himself that he had
very little on him to lose; and would experience very little difficulty
in finding his way to the settlement. Very different ideas traversed the
brains of his captors; though they preserved a uniform taciturnity to
his jocular sallies; and, except that they well guarded against the
possibility of his escape, they took not the slightest notice of him,
and treated him with the most marked contempt.
After walking thus for about two hours, they came to a deep gully,
through which rippled a small limpid creek; on the sides of which, and
extending up the faces of the gorge, were masses of rock piled in
endless confusion. Here they halted, and having secured their prisoner
to a tree, while one lit a fire, the other disappeared among the rocks,
and returned with some edibles, scanty in quantity, and mean in quality.
Having with these appeased their hunger, and quenched their thirst at
the stream; they sat down by the fire, and conversed together in a low
tone; protracting their conclave until darkness enclosed the scene.
The fears of the wretched victim were at length aroused by these
mysterious proceedings. A horrible sensation crept over his mind; he
felt no doubt that the convicts were holding a consultation as to how
they would dispose of him; and he entertained a secret suspicion, that
their object was not plunder, but murder. He still, however, argued with
himself, that they could have no object in taking his life, by which
they would gain nothing; whereas they might enrich themselves by robbing
or ransoming him. He therefore attempted a parley to induce terms.
"I say, young fellows," he shouted, "how long are you going to keep me
here? you may as well take what I have got and let me go; or if you
demand a ransom, let me know the amount, and provide me with pen and
ink, and I will give you a cheque on the bank in Sydney."
"Silence, wretched man!" replied one of the convicts, advancing to him
and presenting one of his own pistols at his head, "or I'll blow out
your brains; we scorn to appropriate an article belonging to you. Even
these instruments of death shall be left with you when we leave you; we
do not desire booty. Your time has come, when you are called upon to
atone to man for your many iniquities: and to-morrow you will have to
account to your God."
"What! you surely do not mean to kill me?" screamed the terrified
captive, in a voice that echoed in a thousand keys through the cavernous
glen: "what have I done to deserve death from you? I have never wronged
you to my knowledge; if I have, I will make all the reparation in my
power; but spare my life, and I will give you whatever you demand."
"'Tis useless, you dog," replied his inquisitors. "If we desired
plunder, we know you too well to believe in promises, extracted from you
under such circumstances as these; and we are also aware of the
impossibility of our procuring the ransom you may offer, or, even if we
got it, of enjoying it."
"No, by heaven!" exclaimed the frantic wretch, "I swear to you on my
soul, spare me my life, and I will give you whatever you ask, one
hundred, five hundred, or a thousand pounds."
"Your prayers to us," replied his captors, "are of no avail, to-morrow
you die; so in the meantime, make your peace with your Maker, if such be
possible."
"But why kill me?" screamed the agonized man, "what have I done to
deserve death?"
"Wretch! do you want a recital of your sins?" replied his quondam
servant; "have they been so insignificant that you cannot call any to
present recollection? Are they not rather as numerous as the hairs on
your head? does not the black and heinous catalogue rise before you, and
darken your very soul? You have asked us why you are to die; I will tell
you, and let God judge between us whether your fate is not your just
reward; while you, vile reptile that you are, answer if you can, if we
have not just cause to require your death to expiate your crimes.
"How have you fulfilled the government requisitions to your assigned
servants? How have you fed them and clothed them? Have not their
coverings been such, as to be as bad or worse than none? insufficient
for any season; causing paralysis in winter, and sun-strokes in summer?
Has not their food been unfit for pigs? Have you not tyrannized over
them, and submitted them to unheard-of cruelties; simply to gratify your
insatiable thirst for witnessing torture? Have you not, when you had a
willing servant, who was anxious to conduct himself orderly and give
satisfaction, made some paltry excuse to have the man punished; because
you feared you would lose his services, by his obtaining his 'ticket of
leave,' for good conduct? Have you not done all this? Yes! and more. You
have even compelled your men to intoxicate themselves; and then accused
them before a magistrate of stealing the spirits, to obtain the
cancelling of their tickets. You have by your cruelty driven men mad, to
the bush, or to a lingering death; you have crushed the germ of
contrition in the breasts of hundreds, and degraded them to the level of
beasts; while the only sounds grateful to your ears, have been the yells
of anguish of your victims; and the only spectacle pleasing to your
sight, the application of the lash. You have done all this, and even
more in hundreds or thousands of cases. You have done so to us; you have
heaped ignominy upon our heads; and with starvation, exposure, and
accumulated toil, you have caused unjustly our backs to be lacerated by
the lash, and our spirits to be broken by your barbarity. Life to us has
lost its charm; we thirst only for your blood; vengeance is now in our
hands, and you shall die."
The yells of the wretched man, that followed this denouncement, sounded
through the glen as the shrieks of a demon or a maniac; and his cries
might have been heard far into the bush, had there been any one near to
help him. But they were lost on the wilderness' air; and he at last sank
exhausted in his bonds, while his captors watched alternately at his
feet, with his own loaded pistols ready for use in case of emergency.
The morning dawned as brightly as ever; though the stillness of the bush
cast a gloom upon everything within its umbrageous influence. The
convicts were up and stirring by daylight, and their first task was to
arouse their unconscious victim (who seemed to doze in a lethargic
indifference), and prepare him for his approaching fate.
He was speedily denuded of his attire, and bound hand and foot; in which
condition he was laid over the bed of an ant's nest, and tied by his
extremities, in a state of tension, to opposite trees; in such a manner
as to keep his body immoveable over the nest. The wretched man soon
awoke to the horrors of his situation, and implored, with the
earnestness of a dying man, of his murderers to save his life. But he
appealed to feelings and sympathies that were dead; that had, in fact,
been strangled by himself: it was in vain. After the most desperate
resistance he was secured in his place of torture, while the very skies
rang with his cries of anguish and despair.
His body was no sooner prostrate on the heap, than the ants in myriads
attacked it vigorously; in a few minutes making its surface black with
their swarms; penetrating into his very flesh, and making use of the
natural channels to affect ingress to his inner system; and travelling
in continuous streams in and out of his nostrils, ears, and mouth. The
horrors of the picture it is impossible to describe; and the expression
of his features it is equally difficult to conceive. The colour of his
skin speedily changed to deep blue; the veins and muscles stood out in
bold relief; his eyes projected from his head, and rolled, bleared as
they were, in sockets of livid flesh; he gnashed his teeth in his
unutterable agony, and rent the air with horrible and impious
imprecations; while the utterance was almost diabolical by the vermin
that choked the passages of his system.
No human being could long bear this excruciating torture; and at last
the body perceptibly swelled, the coeliac or cavernous parts becoming
horribly distended, and the spirit fled to its heavenly judgment. Not
till then, did the two calm spectators leave the spot, where they had
witnessed the death of their victim, and where they now left "nature's
scavengers" to finish the work they had commenced.
The sufferings of the two convicts from this time must have been
fearful; for one shortly succumbed to them, while the other bearing it
for some months longer, gave himself up to the authorities, and met his
fate on the gallows.
After the relation of the above tale of woe the elder Sawyer and his son
resumed their work, and the conversation took a general turn; while
William, who found he could not be of any service to the settlers,
caught his horse and took his leave.
When he returned to his own place he found that, during his absence, the
expected dray had arrived from town with their furniture, which lay
strewn on the ground, in front of the cottage, where it had been
discharged. And he at once became busy in unpacking and sorting the
things; while his brother superintended the refreighting of the vehicle
with what return loading they had for it. The man and wife who had been
hired for them, and who had accompanied the dray, busied themselves in
arranging the things in the cottage.
The proposed visit to the blacks, by this opportune arrival, was
necessarily postponed; and it was determined that William should, that
very afternoon, ride over to Strawberry Hill; inform Kate of the orders
of things; and desire her to join them as soon as possible. John
impressed upon his brother the necessity of urging Kate to lose no time,
as the place would be quite ready for her by the following day; and he
did not think, under the existing circumstances, it was consistent for
her to remain longer with the Rainsfields than was absolutely necessary.
"Of course," he said, "Kate would be perfectly ignorant of the rupture
between myself and Mr. Rainsfield, and might therefore battle against so
speedy and abrupt a termination to her visit." But he left the matter,
he told William, to himself to manage, without entering into any
explanations to their sister, which would necessarily be painful to all
parties; besides which, he had no doubt, when Mrs. Rainsfield perceived
it was his desire to have Kate home with them, she would offer no
objection to her departure, as she would understand his motive for
desiring it.
William was accordingly dispatched on the errand; and returning in the
evening, in company with Tom Rainsfield, gave an account of his
diplomacy. As was anticipated by the brothers, Kate could with
difficulty be persuaded to break off her engagement with the
Rainsfields; but that when she saw that both her brothers desired it,
and that she was not pressed to prolong her visit, she reluctantly
acceded to her brother's request; and promised to be ready to come over
to Fern Vale on the following morning. So William had engaged to return
for her the next day.
"It is lucky for you, my fine friend," said Tom, "that I was not at
home, when you persuaded your sister to such an ungracious
determination; for I, most assuredly, would have annihilated you, and
kept her in captivity. It is really cruel just to leave her with us
sufficiently long to cause us all to adore her; and then snatch her away
from us in such an unceremonious manner. What on earth can you mean by
carrying her off in this way?"
"Why," said John, "we are afraid of losing sight of you altogether, Tom;
you would have forgotten us entirely while you retained possession of
our Kate; and besides we want to make some use of our idle little
sister. But tell us now, if you were not at home when William was at
your house, pray, where did you spring from?"
"I have been over to the black's camp, to try and conciliate the
rascals," replied Tom, "but I am sorry to find they are death on my
brother for his treatment of them."
"You seem to have agitated them by your visit," said John, "for they
have made a fearful disturbance all the afternoon."
"They were holding some discussion when I arrived there," said Tom, "but
they were quieted upon my presenting myself."
"They appear then only to have been 'called to order' by you," said
John, "and maintained it simply during your stay; for did you ever hear
such a Babel of voices as are screaming now; it is enough to deafen us
even at this distance."