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This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
The volume is a collection of three already published texts, each with
its own title page, table of contents, and pagination. The table of
contents for all three is repeated at the opening of the volume. The
redundant tables have been retained.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
——o——
HOMES ABROAD.
FOR EACH AND FOR ALL.
FRENCH WINES AND POLITICS.
——o——
_IN NINE VOLUMES._
VOL. IV.
——o——
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
---
MDCCCXXXIV.
LONDON:
Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES,
Duke-street, Lambeth.
CONTENTS.
---
HOMES ABROAD.
CHAP. PAGE
1. Home in a Paradise 1
2. Homes on the Waste 18
3. Going in search of Home 35
4. New Homes 48
5. The Castles at Home 63
6. Law and Justice 75
7. Christmas Amusements 85
8. The More the better Cheer 106
9. True Citizenship 114
FOR EACH AND FOR ALL.
1. Novelty 1
2. Pastime 18
3. Discussion 29
4. More Novelty 45
5. Observing at hand 62
6. Observing afar 70
7. One for Himself 87
8. Consequences 108
9. Each for All 118
FRENCH WINES AND POLITICS.
1. Vine-Growing 1
2. Signs of the Time 19
3. The Temper of the Time 29
4. Deeds of the Time 50
5. The Philosophy of Bargaining 72
6. New Devices 82
7. Mob Sovereignty 99
8. Upshot of Feudalism 122
9. Adjustment 134
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOMES ABROAD.
=A Tale.=
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
--------------
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
---
832.
CONTENTS.
---
1. Home in a paradise 1
2. Homes on the waste 18
3. Going in search of Home 35
4. New homes 48
5. The Castles at home 63
6. Law and Justice 75
7. Christmas amusements 85
8. The more the better cheer 106
9. True citizenship 114
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOMES ABROAD.
--------------
CHAPTER I.
HOME IN A PARADISE.
The fair and fertile county of Kent has long suffered peculiarly from
the poverty of its labouring population. To the traveller who merely
passes through it, it looks like a fruitful garden, capable of affording
support to as many inhabitants as can gather round its neat towns, or
settle on the borders of its orchards, hop-grounds, and corn-fields; yet
it is certain that nowhere,—not in the alleys of Manchester or the
cellars of London,—is more abject, hopeless poverty to be found than in
some of the country parishes of Kent. One class murmurs about tithes,
and rages about poor-rates, while another sets law at defiance, and
fills the country with news of murderous poaching expeditions, and of
midnight fires;—guilty adventures, of which the first brings in only a
precarious and dearly bought advantage, and the other is the most
effectual method that could be devised for increasing the very evils
under which the people are groaning.
Some years ago,—before the first ruffian or fool of a rick-burner had
conceived the bright idea of destroying food because the people were
starving,—the parish of A——, in Kent, seemed to some of its inhabitants
to be sunk into the lowest depth of poverty that could be found in a
country like England; though, alas! it has since been proved that more
remained to be endured by its population than had yet been experienced.
The parish of A—— contained at that time about two thousand persons; the
number of labourers, including boys, was about 450, of whom upwards of
300 were of the agricultural class. The farmers were doing badly, and
could not employ all these people; or, if they employed all, could not
sufficiently pay any. They reckoned that there were between fifty and
sixty able-bodied men more than were wanted. The burden on the parish of
these men and their wives and families was very grievous to the poorer
class of rate-payers; and in proportion as it became more difficult to
them to pay, the numbers and the wants of the paupers increased; and
among the whole body of the population of A—— the effects of want showed
themselves more and more every day in the spread of recklessness and
crime. It mattered not that in spring the orchards were gay with the
delicate pink of the apple-blossom, or that flourishing young
plantations put forth their early verdure as if the place had been a
paradise; for there were theft in the woods, and murmurs of discontent
from beneath the hedgerows. It mattered not that in autumn the
hop-pickers were busy gathering in their fragrant harvest; for too many
of them had fathers, or brothers, or sons, looking on idly from a
distance, envious of their employed companions, and thankless that the
season had been propitious to the ripening of the delicate crop. It
mattered not that the sun shone on fertile valleys and snug homesteads:
for many a houseless parent scowled upon comforts which he must not
share; many a child shivered with disease and hunger amidst the noonday
heat. It mattered not even that new dwellings for the poor were rising
up here and there; for their creation was no sign of prosperity. They
were reared by speculators in pauperism, who depended on the rents being
paid out of the rate. From this circumstance, it was easy to guess by
what class they would be occupied;—not by such cottagers as England
boasted of a century and a half ago, but by reckless youths with their
younger wives, who depended on the parish to help out the insufficient
resources of their labour.
These new cottages were an eye-sore to some of the once-prosperous
inhabitants of the parish, who were for ever complaining that the bread
was snatched from their mouths by new comers. Among the grumblers was
Castle; a man who, without fault of his own, was, in the full vigour of
life, reduced from a state of comfortable independence to the very verge
of pauperism. He had married early, and proved himself justified in
doing so, having been able, not only to support the two children of his
first marriage, but to fit them for maintaining themselves by proper
training in their occupations. Frank had served his apprenticeship to a
house-carpenter, and was now a skilful and industrious workman of
one-and-twenty years of age. His sister Ellen, three years younger, was
a neat-handed dairy-maid, whom any farmer might be glad to have in his
establishment. That she was out at service, and that Frank had something
to do, however little, were the chief comforts of poor Castle at this
time; for his own affairs looked dismal enough. He had married a second
time, a woman much younger than himself, who had never known hardship,
and was little prepared to meet it, however gay her temper seemed before
there was any thing to try it. She did nothing for her husband but bring
him children and nurse them till they died, which they almost all did as
times grew worse and comforts became scarce. Only one little girl, now
six years old, remained at home of all his second family. There were
indeed two lads who called him father, though he had for some time
disowned them as sons. He declared that Jerry and Bob were born rogues
and vagabonds; and gave a peevish notice to all whom it might concern
that he had cast them off to follow their evil courses, as they were so
given to theft that it would ruin him to be made answerable for their
misdeeds. Some people thought that fifteen and sixteen were ages at
which some hope of reformation was yet left; and saw moreover that the
lads had been driven to crime by want, and prevented from returning by
dread of their parents’ tempers. Castle was now almost invariably low
and peevish; and at five-and-forty had the querulous tone, wrinkled
face, and lagging gait of an old man. The effect of hardship had been
even worse upon his wife than upon himself. Instead of being peevish,
she seemed to have lost all feeling; and while her husband yet worked as
long as he could get any thing to do, she was as lazy as if she had been
brought up to live on parish bread. The only person who believed that
any good remained in her was her step-daughter Ellen, who never forgot
what a trying change of circumstances she had been exposed to, and
persisted in saying, whenever she heard her attacked, that a
twelvemonth’s health and prosperity would show her to be a very
different person from what the neighbours supposed. “Give her help and
hope,” she said, “give her work and something to work for, and her voice
will come down to what it was when she sang her first baby to sleep; and
she will clean up her room herself, instead of preventing any one doing
it for her. She will go to church again then, and learn to like Frank as
she should do, and not curse her own poor boys as she does.” Some of
Ellen’s neighbours thought this cant; others believed her sincere in her
hopes of her step-mother; but all agreed, when the crisis of Castle’s
affairs arrived at last, that, honestly or hypocritically, Ellen
prophesied wrong.
News came that Jerry and Bob had been taken up for robbing and cruelly
beating two young gentlemen whom they had decoyed into a wood on
pretence of birds-nesting; and that, if not hanged, they would be
transported. Castle declared, though with a quivering lip, that this was
what he had always expected. His wife went further. She hoped they would
be hanged, and put out of the way of being more trouble to any body. She
exhorted her husband to take no steps on their behalf, but be thankful
that he was rid of them. The neighbours cried “Shame!” and prevailed
with Castle so far as to induce him to go to the magistrate who had
committed the lads, and swear to their ages; as they were taken by
strangers to be much older than they really were, and an explanation on
this point might procure a mitigation of punishment. Castle was
unwilling to leave home for two days while his wife was hourly expecting
her confinement; but a woman who lodged in the same cottage offered to
be with her, on condition of receiving the same attention from her when
she should want it a short time hence.—Castle was scarcely gone when his
wife had to send for assistance; and before her child was born, the
neighbour who was with her was in a similar plight. It was the middle of
the night; and the parish surgeon who attended them had no help at hand,
and could not leave them to call for any. He wrapped up the two infants
in the remains of a blanket, and laid them beside the fire he had
himself lighted. It very naturally happened that he did not know which
was which of the children, and that he had not presence of mind to
conceal the difficulty. On taking them up, it was found that one was
dead. His horror was great on perceiving that, instead of there being
any regret on this account, each mother was anxious to make out that the
dead infant must be her own. Neither of them would touch the living
one[A].
-----
Footnote A:
Fact.
-----
An unobserved or forgotten witness appeared in the person of Castle’s
little daughter Susan, who had crept out from her dark corner to peep at
the babes in the blanket.
“That is the one you wrapped up first, Sir,” she said, pointing to the
living infant.
“How do you know, my dear?”
“She knows well enough,” said the neighbour; “she had nothing to do but
to watch. She——”
“How do you know, my dear?” persisted the surgeon.
“Because this corner of the blanket fell under the grate, and got all
black; and when you brought the other baby you wrapped it up in the
black part. Look!”
“’Tis all true,” said Castle’s wife, “and her child was born first.”
The surgeon set her right, and considered the matter decided; but it was
far from being so. She scolded her little daughter for her testimony
till the child slunk out of the room; she pushed the infant roughly from
her, and cursed it for its cries. Her neighbour insultingly told her it
was certainly sent to make up to her for one of the lads that was going
to be hanged, and that it was only a pity she had not had twins. Words,
dreadful to hear from a mother’s lips, followed. The contention grew
louder and more violent, till the surgeon, fearing for their lives and
senses, and being unable any longer to bear a scene so unnatural and
horrible, left the room, bearing with him the innocent cause of dispute.
Little Susan was on the stairs, still sobbing and afraid to go in; so
she was also taken home by the surgeon, when he had sent in a neighbour
to tend his two patients.
“Here, my dear,” said he to his wife, on entering his own door, “put
this child to bed somewhere, and try if you can contrive to keep the
infant alive till we can send it to the workhouse in the morning.”
“What has agitated you so much? Whose children are these?”
”The children of Providence only, my dear; for the hearts of parents are
turned against their own offspring in these days.—What have I seen! I
have seen the contention of mothers for a dead child. I have been with
mothers who would thank any Solomon that should order the living child
to be cut in two. Solomon himself could not read mothers’ hearts in
these days.”
“We will not be hard upon them,” said his wife. “It is want that has
done this;—want like that which made a mother of Solomon’s nation devour
her own child. We will not blame them. Would we could help them!”
The matter ended in the infant’s being received into the workhouse,
little Susan’s testimony, though strong, not being so conclusive as to
justify the surgeon’s swearing to the parentage of the child; and there
was no one else who could. When Castle returned, he observed that it
signified little, as the parish must at all events have maintained the
babe; neither he nor his neighbours could keep out of the workhouse much
longer. This was soon found to be too true, when Ellen came home, being
obliged to give up her place to a parish girl, and Frank appeared, with
a grave face, to say that he was out of work, and had been so for so
long a time, that he was convinced nothing was to be done but to go and
seek his fortune elsewhere.
Many were the consultations between himself and his sister as to where
he should go. There was but little chance of being better off in
England. He mentioned Canada; he rather inclined to the Swan-river
settlement; but when news came that Jerry and Bob were sentenced to
transportation, the idea struck the brother and sister at once that the
whole family might follow, and by settling near the convicts, keep an
eye upon them, and possibly recover them when they should be removed
from the temptations which had proved too strong for them. Frank had
heard much of the advantages of emigrating to New South Wales and Van
Diemen’s Land; and it appeared to him that no family was ever in
circumstances that made the experiment less perilous than his own at
this time. While Ellen took upon herself to mention the scheme to her
father, Frank went to the curate of the parish, Mr. Jackson, whom he
knew to have been employed in forwarding the emigration of some pauper
labourers from the neighbourhood; and from this gentleman he learned
much of what he wanted to know.
It was to Van Diemen’s Land that Mr. Jackson had assisted in sending out
some of his parishioners; and thither he advised Frank to go with his
family, as there was a great demand for labour, both agricultural and
mechanical, and as it would be the best situation for Ellen, from the
great scarcity of female servants, especially dairy-women. It seemed
very possible that interest might be made to get their brothers sent to
the same place, as there were many convicts there already, and more were
wanted as farm-servants. As to how the means of conveyance were to be
raised,—the common method, Mr. Jackson said, was for labourers to bind
themselves for five or seven years to some settler in the colony, at a
certain rate of wages, from which the expenses of the passage, and of
food, clothing and habitation for the term of years, were to be
deducted. Castle and his wife might thus bind themselves, the one as a
farm, the other as a domestic servant in a family; and Frank’s
mechanical skill might enable him to make very good terms in the same
sort of agreement. For Ellen, a better way still was open, if she could
fortunately get included in the number of young women who were to be
sent out by government from time to time, to supply the great want of
female population in the Australian colonies. Mr. Jackson lent Frank
books which informed him of the state and prospects of the country
whither he wished to go, and several papers issued by government which
explained the terms under which emigration was authorized by them. Frank
found that the sum of money necessary to be raised was somewhat larger
than he had supposed, but that the means of repayment were certain and
easy. If Ellen could obtain a certificate from the clergyman of her
parish, that she was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, that her
health and character were good, and that half the expense of her
passage, namely, 8l., could be advanced by her parents, or friends, or
the parish, she might stand her chance of being chosen by the government
to be sent out under safe guardianship, and immediately placed in a
service on her arrival in the colony. There would be no impediment to
her marrying as soon as she chose to do so; for which there were only
too many opportunities from the circumstance of there being a very small
proportion of women in the colony. If the parish could be prevailed on
to advance the necessary sum for the conveyance of the rest of the
family, it seemed that the prospects of all would become far better than
they could ever grow at home,—better than Frank had dared to imagine
since his childhood. It seemed so clearly the interest of the parish to
favour the plan, that Frank returned to the consultation with Mr.
Jackson, full of hope that a way was opening for finding, in a new
country, those due rewards of labour which his native land seemed no
longer in a condition to afford.
“What says your father to your scheme?” inquired Mr. Jackson in the
first place.
“Very much what he says to all schemes, Sir. He likes nothing that is
proposed, and fears every new plan. But as he dislikes and fears
becoming dependent on the parish more than any thing else, I have great
hopes that he will consent to go, if, after further consideration, I
view the matter as I do now. We will do nothing hastily; but I certainly
feel at present as if redemption was offered from a bondage which wears
the soul and sickens the heart of man. There’s my poor father——”
“Stay, stay, Frank. What do you mean by bondage?”
“The bondage of poverty, Sir; of hopeless, grinding poverty. What
bondage cows a man’s spirit more? What sours and debases and goads him
more than to work and work from year to year in vain? If it was a curse
upon Adam to get bread by the sweat of his brow, what is it to give the
sweat of one’s brow and get no bread?”
“It is a hardship which ought not to be borne when a fair way is open to
shake it off. I only checked you in the fear that you might be laying
blame where it is not due. I agree with you as to the evils of your
case, and the remedy you would seek.”
“As to where the blame lies, Sir, our institutions must share it among
them;—as well those in which the people are concerned, as the
government. It is pretty clear, all the while, that the people in this
parish are more than can be fed; and so the right way seems to be for
some to go where food abounds; and the sooner they are off, the better
for themselves and those they leave behind, when once they have settled
where to go.”
“And who is to go?—for that is a question of no less importance,”
observed Mr. Jackson. “You would not take all your relations, Frank,
would you?”
Frank replied that they were all equally in want, his grandfather and
grandmother as well as his father.
“But those who will help you to go,” continued Mr. Jackson, “must
consider the welfare of the country as well as yours. The parish must
pay more for the passage and maintenance of your grandfather than he
will probably cost them at home, and this cannot be expected of them if,
for the same sum, they could send over a young couple, whose labour is
wanted abroad, and whose family will never become burdensome.”
Frank saw at once that in sending over a young couple, the parish sent
over also all their descendants, besides supplying a want in the colony
abroad. After a few moments’ thought, he went on,—
“Surely, Sir, it would relieve the country of its over-fulness at once,
to send out a certain number of young people every year, as they become
marriageable, instead of spending the same money in giving a passage to
old people?”
“It would; and the entire effect of emigration, as a method of relief to
the country at large, depends on the selection of those who are to go.
The number of persons who become marriageable every year in this country
is now 800,000. If these were sent out, it is plain that the country
would be depopulated in the course of a single generation; but if we
sent out the same number of old persons, it would make a very small
difference in the amount of people at home; and it would not be worth
the colony’s while to receive those who would bring little labour and no
population. If, again, we sent out that number of men and boys to a
colony where there are too few women already, we should afford ourselves
only a half-relief, and give the colony nothing more than the present
labour of these men and boys; whereas, by sending equal proportions of
men and women, we give the colony all their descendants as well as
themselves, and free ourselves from the same amount of labour,—which we
do not want.”
“A much smaller number than 800,000 would be enough then, Sir, to thin
our population sufficiently?”
“Certainly. If, instead of sending out people of all ages, we were to
select those who become marriageable, one-sixth of that number, or about
133,000 persons emigrating annually, would prevent our population
increasing; and this might be done at an expense not exceeding a fourth
of the sum annually raised for poor-rate, sending half to America and
half to Australia. This would be well worth while, even if there were to
be no repayment of expenses; which there might and ought to be from
colonies where labour is much wanted.”
“I am afraid,” said Frank, “that the parish will refuse to help my
father and mother to emigrate, if it would answer so much better to send
younger people.”
“Your father is still in the vigour of life, and may benefit the colony
by twenty years’ active labour yet; and your step-mother is several
years younger. The parish sends out many less likely to repay them; but
I do think your grandfather and his old lady are quite out of the
question, even if they wished ever so much to go. But why should they go
where every thing will be strange and therefore uncomfortable to them,
and where they must, after all, be quite as dependent as at home? If you
mean to maintain them, you can as well send money to them here as carry
them over at a great expense, to receive it there; and if you cannot
help them, they will be more forlorn there than living on their own
parish. But you will be able to help them, since a fourth of your wages
is all that the parish will require from you, and this will very soon
pay off your debt. Ellen’s 8_l._ will easily be earned; and when she has
worked herself free, she will be able to help the old folks.”
“’Tis when I think of her,” said Frank, “that I am most eager to get to
a place where toil is not in vain. As often as I hear her laugh, or
watch her going about the house with her light step and busy pair of
hands, I tremble lest I should see a scowl come over her face by and by,
and her gait and actions grow listless, like so many of the women
hereabouts. It must be owing to want and helplessness that our girls
cannot be merry without being bold; and that they are so given to
idleness which has nothing of the nature of play in it. I can remember
my step-mother, Sir, just such a pretty, light-hearted woman as Ellen.”
“You will see more such if you go to Van Diemen’s Land. There is toil
there, and hardship too; but the toil is hopeful, and the hardship not
of man’s infliction.—I know you do not object to toil and hardship of
this kind, Frank, or I should be the last person to encourage you to go.
You must give up English likings as to food and lodging, and (what is
more difficult) as to ways of doing things. You must bear to be directed
what work you are to do, and how you are to do it; you must resolve from
the beginning to accommodate yourself to the people and the place,
without thinking and talking too much about how things are in England.”
“All this is easy, Sir, for the sake of plenty and independence.”
“I trust you will find it so. But, Frank, there are other things to be
considered, both for your own sake and Ellen’s. You probably see that in
the present state of the colony, particular sobriety and discretion are
required in all the young women that go there.”
Frank was quite ready to answer for his sister; and hoped that a
settlement with a respectable husband would soon place her out of reach
of temptation. He perceived that he would find it less easy to marry
than he might wish; and this seemed the greatest drawback to the plan:
but, perhaps, when he should be prosperous enough to marry, he might
send over for a wife, as he heard some settlers did; or might be
fortunate enough to find one that he would like among the new emigrants
who would be coming over from time to time.
Mr. Jackson advised him not to think much about this at present, if he
really intended to go; and agreed with him that there appeared still
less chance of his marrying in England, if he continued to be too
conscientious to form such a pauper marriage as many of his neighbours
were venturing upon.
From this day, Frank began tutoring himself and his sister for the new
way of life they hoped to enter upon. They learned all they could, from
books and persons, about the changes they might look for out of their
own country. They inured themselves purposely to toil and heat and cold,
and strove to bear with patience the trials of temper which continually
arose. There was only one thing which they did not try to bear
patiently; and that was, receiving parish-pay. Their father was as much
disgusted at it as themselves; and this assisted his reconcilement to
the emigration plan. He would not give his children the satisfaction of
saying that he liked it, or hoped any thing from it; but he vowed he
would not stay where he was; and as there was no other place to go to,
this implied assent. He looked with sullenness on the preparations that
were made; but he did nothing in the way of hinderance; nor did he
contradict his neighbours when they took for granted that he was going.
So Frank and Ellen considered the matter settled as far as he was
concerned; and rather expected to see him much disappointed if any thing
should occur to overthrow the plan. His wife seemed utterly indifferent
whether she went or staid, or what became of her; and the whole business
seemed to rest upon the two young people and their friend, Mr. Jackson.
--------------
CHAPTER II.
HOMES ON THE WASTE.
While the deliberations were going forwards, some rumours which arose
out of them reached the ears of a very influential gentleman in the
neighbourhood, to whom they were not at all agreeable. Mr. Fellowes was
a young man of large property, who had just come of age, and whose
kindly disposition and activity of observation equally inclined him to
make the condition of the surrounding poor one of his first objects of
interest. He had for some time been investigating their state and its
causes, with a view to doing something for their relief when he should
have the control of his fortune. He had fully satisfied himself of the
evils of the poor-law system, and that the one thing wanted was an
increased production of food,—an object, in his belief, very easy of
accomplishment. This he intended to prove by an experiment of his own;
or that which his friends called an experiment,—and he a demonstration.
His plan became known to Mr. Jackson in due time, as well as to many
others less willing to listen to what he had to say, and to regard his
exertions with the seriousness and kindness which their importance, and
the benevolence of their motives deserved. It was with equal good will
that these two gentlemen met at the parsonage-door one day, each having
questions to put to the other.
“Pray is it true,” inquired Mr. Fellowes, “that you are encouraging the
Castles and others of your parishioners to emigrate?”
“Perfectly true; and I was coming to you to make a request as to
something I wish you to do as soon as they are gone.”
“Let us see first whether it is necessary for them to go. Is it quite
settled? Are they past being persuaded?”
“Their passage is not taken, but their minds are made up, and Ellen
Castle’s name is sent in to government.”
“It may be refused; and in that case there is time to save them yet.”
“Save them from what?”
“From what! From the manifold woes of the emigrant. Is it no evil to
leave the country, and the kindred, and the father’s house? Is it no
evil to be severed from old connexions, and wrenched from all that has
been beloved from birth? Is it no evil to be set down in a wilderness,
where climate, soil, the habits of the people where there are any, and
the solitude where there are not, are all uncongenial, and whatever
happens is new and strange? Is it no evil to be banished?”
“All these are great evils, I grant: but from which of them are the
Castles likely to suffer so much as by remaining here? Their country
affords no kindly home for them. They will be disgraced in the eyes of
their kindred by becoming a public burden; and their father’s house long
ago passed into hands better able to keep it up than theirs. They leave
little behind that they love; for want has chilled their affections
towards their country, and hardship is fast breeding hatred to the
powers which have not hitherto succeeded in securing the happiness of
the people. As for the rest,—they are going to a fine climate a fertile
soil, and among inhabitants who speak their language, and are under the
same government with themselves. While they have plenty and independence
before them, and leave only want and woe behind, I cannot think there is
any cruelty in assisting them to go whither they wish.”
“But, Sir, you are assuming that they must prosper abroad and be
destitute at home; whereas I assert that neither the one nor the other
need be the case. Look at the Swan-river settlement! There was no end of
the praise we heard of the climate, and the soil, and the facilities of
every kind; and yet where was there ever a more complete failure?”
“Through these very facilities the failure happened,” replied Mr.
Jackson. “Land was so cheap, and required so little capital to be laid
out on it at first, that every labourer chose to have land, instead of
letting his labour to capitalists. The consequence was, that capitalists
could do nothing for want of labourers; and by the time their goods were
rotted on the beach, and their cattle had strayed or died for want of
proper care, the provisions they took out with them were consumed, the
new crops had not come up, and all were reduced to equal distress. It
was because all would be capitalists at first that all became
labourers,—and very poor labourers, at last. This need not be the case
again; and, in fact, the Castles hire themselves by contract to
capitalists long settled in the parts they are going to.—And now tell me
why it need not be that these people should be exposed to want and woe
at home.”
“Simply because they might be colonized here instead of abroad. I am
sure we have waste land enough and to spare for all our population.”
“As to space, undoubtedly; but what say you to its quality? Why is it
still waste in the midst of a hungry population, if it is worth being
tilled?”
“Let us try whether it is not; that is all I ask. Send the Castles, and
twenty other families to me, and let us see whether corn will not come
up upon well-dug ground, as it has ever done till now.—Remember that the
condition of land varies under the influences of nature, and that soil
once barren need not remain barren for ever. Nature works,—more slowly
it is true,—but not less surely than man, in preparing the waste for his
support; and there is always a point of time, sooner or later, when he
may take the work out of her hands and feed upon the fruits of her
ministrations. Wherever there are furrows, wherever there are mounds,
there is a growth of fertile soil. Particles of sand are brought by the
winds to mix with decaying herbage. Minute seeds of plants and the
decomposed elements of vegetable substances float in the atmosphere, are
arrested by the first elevation they come in contact with, and settle
down to enrich the land. The vegetation which springs up attracts the
moisture of the air, and thus is fertility again promoted. It spreads
and spreads till a desert becomes a field, or in a condition to be made
one. O, you may trust to nature to provide for man!”
“I question nothing of what you have said,” replied Mr. Jackson. “On the
contrary, when I preach of Providence, I use as arguments whatever
processes of co-operation and amelioration we can distinguish among the
workings of nature, from the counteracting forces by which the planets
are retained in their orbits, to the method by which the crevice of the
rock exchanges, in due time, its carpet of moss for a crest of branching
oaks. But nature is slow in her workings; and since the life of man is
short, his business is to work with her, not to wait for her. Every acre
of ground may in course of ages become capable of tillage; but our
business meanwhile is to place our hungry brethren where nature’s work
is forwardest. Among the many grades of fertility prepared by her, it is
our wisdom to choose the highest. This is what I preach as the truest
gratitude to Providence.”
“I have rather wondered, I own, at the style of your preaching lately.
It would strike a stranger as unusual.”
“I do not preach for strangers, but for my own flock; and if they are
not enlightened enough to apply abstract principles, I must help them to
do so. I must not only tell them to be honest, but show that honesty can
scarcely subsist under overwhelming temptations to theft and fraud. I
must not only recommend the domestic affections, but warn against
turning them to bitterness by rashly incurring the risk of that
destitution under which parents and children learn to look coldly on
each other. I must not only speak of gratitude to God, but show how it
may be made to spring up by distributing to all a share of his gifts,
instead of being starved out by want and woe. If, as I believe, it be
true that hardness of the lot brings hardness of the heart, and that
blasphemy is a disease of the spirit-broken, how can I and other
ministers of the gospel promote its influences so well as by teaching
how to bring about that state of society which is most congenial to
those influences?”
“Yours is a more likely way to gain your object than theirs who
carefully separate the interests of the other world from those of the
present.—Well! I am about to preach to the same effect by my actions as
you from your pulpit.”
“Then, if you would second my doctrines, you must do the thing I told
you I meant to ask of you. You must take down the cottages inhabited by
those about to emigrate; and it must be done immediately on their
departure, or I shall have to publish the banns of nobody knows how many
young couples the very next Sunday. Unless you have inquired into the
fact, you will hardly believe how many marry just because there is a
house ready. We have too many dwellings in proportion to our food.”
“I have had thoughts already of removing to my new farm some cottages
that belong to me, and of buying others from the speculators in our
parish funds, who are far too ready to build in our neighbourhood. There
will be little encouragement for them to build again when all the
surplus population of the parish is located on my pauper farm, where no
strangers may intermeddle. You must come and see the ground I have laid
out.”
Mr. Jackson readily agreed to go, but had great doubts about the final
results of the scheme. This seemed to Mr. Fellowes very strange, as they
agreed upon the extent of relief at present wanted, and upon the
capability of this farm to supply it.
“It was you yourself who told me, Jackson, that it is not the whole of
the people now distressed that it is necessary to relieve. It is only
the redundancy that we have to take care of.”
“Certainly: but it should be so relieved as not to produce a further
redundancy.—We have among us, as we agree, sixty labourers more than we
want. Of these none actually starve, and they therefore deprive some
others of a portion of necessaries. It appears accordingly that three
hundred are insufficiently fed and clothed because there is a redundancy
of sixty.”
“Well! my district farm will take off sixty at once, and more
afterwards.”
“And will therefore produce an immediate relief, restoring to the
remainder of the three hundred their proper share of necessaries; so
would the emigration of sixty. But mark the difference three generations
hence. Our young people who emigrate carry their descendants with them
to a land where they are wanted. The descendants of your pauper
cultivators must be turned out upon society after all, in greater
numbers than you now abstract from it. It will be well if the
grandchildren of your present dependants have not to emigrate at last,
after the expenditure of much capital that might have been better
employed, and at a much greater ultimate cost than at present.”
“You seem to forget, Jackson, that the capital I am laying out is all to
be reproduced, and that the people on my farm are to work themselves
free. If any reliance is to be placed on calculations which have been
conducted with the utmost care, if experience is to be trusted, if I may
believe what I saw last month with my own eyes in the Belgian colonies
(which it is worth a long journey to see), a good deal more than the
cost of settling my paupers and providing for them will be raised by
their labour upon the ground. The best of them will in time repay me,
and go out with money in their pockets to make room for others.”
“And where are they to go? To carry more labour and new families into a
market which is already overstocked. How much easier to remove them at
once to a labour market where they and their children will be
permanently welcome!”
“I am for ever met with objections about raising rents and overstocking
the labour-market,” cried Mr. Fellowes—“I that take no rent, and bind
myself to employ all the labour!”
“I said nothing about rent,” replied the clergyman. “I am quite aware
that a farm like yours, made out of a forced application of capital,
bears no relation to the natural process of rent. But I do not see how
you can escape the charge of ultimately obliging a portion of society to
pay too dear for their food.”
“What can you mean, when the very essence of my plan is——”
“Tell me your plan, and then I will tell you my meaning.”
“My plan is to show, on a small scale, how the charity-funds of this
country might be employed productively, and therefore so as to fulfil
the ends of charity. I would have the unappropriated wastes of Great
Britain, amounting to, some say, 15,000,000 of acres, (and some say much
more,) set apart to be the People’s Farm. It should be cultivated by
means of public funds, say our present poor-rates; and it should be so
portioned out as that every pauper should have the interest of private
property in his allotment.—The further internal arrangements should be
made according to the judgment of the directors. Mine are to be as like
as I can make them to those adopted in the pauper farms in the
Netherlands. Each family shall have its portion of ground and its
cottage, with food and clothing till these can be procured by
themselves. The soil shall be improved to the utmost by spade-husbandry,
and by preparations of manure requiring more labour than can be devoted
to the object in a general way. The productiveness of the ground being
usually very great under these methods, I expect a considerable surplus
every harvest; of which a part will go to repay the original expenses,
and a part to set forward the family when they re-enter the world.
Meanwhile, the women and children will spin and weave, and we shall
produce within our own bounds all that we want. We shall not even need
money: for the people will pay one another in commodities.”
“That is, you are about to carry back a portion of society to a
primitive condition;—to delving, and a state of barter. If there was no
choice between the starvation of a number and this state of society, I
might be brought to look upon it with some degree of complacency: but
when other ways are open,—when the question is,—not whether all shall
relapse into barbarism or some starve,—but whether multitudes shall pass
their lives in unassisted digging at home, or a few wander to distant
parts of this fair earth to leave the many in possession of the
blessings of advanced civilization,—I am for applying labour to its
highest purposes, and for elevating instead of depressing the pursuits
of society. No one doubts that if every hand was employed in tillage
there would be food enough for all: the question is whether it be not
thus obtained at too great a cost,—every higher pursuit being sacrificed
to it. Only convey to fertile regions abroad the half of those who are
eager to go, and there will be abundance of food for all,—and of many
more things equally essential to the full enjoyment of life. If the
Greeks had not done so, what would have become of all that they did to
enlighten and bless the world? If they had fed their surplus numbers by
employing more and more in tillage at home, as their numbers increased
and the produce required was greater, there would now have been little
of the philosophy, the literature, the fine arts, which have spread from
their country over the world; while, after all, fewer would have lived,
and fewer of the living would have been fed than under their system of
emigration.”
“They seem indeed never to have thought of the more obvious mode of
providing for the people. Away they sent them, as fast as they
overflowed their bounds.”
“Because they were so circumstanced as to perceive at once the fallacy
of the supposed remedies which you and other benevolent persons here are
advocating. The great body of the people among the Greeks were slaves,
maintained by masters, and not, as with us, free labourers supported by
their own toil. The deficiency of food was there first felt by the
masters, in the cost of supporting their slaves. Here, it is felt mainly
by the labourers in the fall of the real value of wages. In Greece,
there was no dispute about the fact, from the moment that food became
deficient. Here, such a deficiency is even now questioned by multitudes
who declare that we have not a redundant, but only a poor population;
that nobody wants food who has enough to give for it; and that therefore
it is money, or work that is wanted, and not food. Such observers give
alms, or pay their poor neighbours for digging holes and filling them up
again, or doing things equally useless; never dreaming that all the
while they are taking food from somebody who has earned it by a better
kind of toil. Such follies as this could never be suggested by the state
of things in Greece; and I see no reason why, because our lower orders
are not slaves, we should not abjure our errors, and adopt such parts of
the Grecian policy as were wise.”
“Well, but, the long and short of the matter is this. If the quantity of
food in Great Britain is too small, cannot it be increased?”
“To be sure it can. If ten thousand individuals can live this year only
by taking a portion from their neighbours, we may raise as much food in
addition next year as may feed ten thousand people; but if the people at
the same time increase still faster, how are we better off than we were
before?”
“But cannot we raise enough that year for twenty thousand people instead
of ten thousand, to meet the difficulty? The People’s Farm would admit
of this.”
“It would: but here the question recurs, whether it will not answer
better to send the ten or twenty thousand people where they may obtain
food at much less cost of toil and capital, and where their descendants
will not be liable to tax the mother country for food for generations
yet unborn. At home it is only by a considerable sacrifice that the
growth of food can be made for any length of time to equal,—or by any
extraordinary effort to outstrip the demands upon it; while, abroad, it
spontaneously keeps ahead of population, and will do so in many parts,
till men have grown wise enough to regulate population. Our best present
policy, then, is to send our surplus numbers abroad to eat and prosper,
instead of obliging more and more of our multitudes to dig at home. It
is on your wish to make them do so much labour for a lesser instead of a
greater production, that I founded my charge of your ultimately making a
part of society pay too dear for their food.”
“You mean because labour is the price of food?”
“Yes; and food would be almost as much too dear under your system as
under the present. At present, the competition for food is so excessive
that men bid their labour against each other to desperation. Under your
pauper-farm system, the same thing would take place in time; and in the
meanwhile, every bushel of wheat would cost twice or thrice as much
labour as in Van Diemen’s Land; so that both immediately and ultimately,
you oblige a certain number to pay higher for their food than they need
do and therefore ought to do.—And this without taking into consideration
the change in the proportion of capital to population which is caused by
emigration,—a change most beneficial to the mother country.”
“And how extensive do you conceive that change to be? There is very
little difference between the cost of conveying persons to Van Diemen’s
Land, and settling them on a pauper farm,—too small a difference to
warrant such an expression as yours.”
“In addition to this difference, there is all the increase of production
which will take place abroad, and which is so much gained to the mother
country, since it maintains her people. Besides this, all that would
have been unproductively consumed by the pauper descendants of these
emigrants may be considered as so much clear gain to the community.
Again,—the thriving population of our colonies will want more and more
of our manufactures, and will send us their agricultural produce in
exchange; and I suppose you will not question the advantage of investing
our capital in manufactures, and receiving wool and wheat of the best
quality in return, instead of laying it out on lands of inferior
fertility at home, while the people scantily supply themselves with the
coarse manufactures of their own firesides? You will not question the
duty of availing ourselves of the advantages of division of labour in
the case of our greatest need? Yet you would, by your plan of home
colonization, deprive the people of this reciprocity of benefits. You
would set up new manufactures instead of a new market for them; and all
for the sake of producing food at a greater cost than under the
emigration system. You are clearly wrong, Fellowes, depend upon it. What
a pity that you should not turn your zeal and benevolence and your other
resources to the best account!”
“The fact is,” replied Fellowes, “that on a matter of so much importance
as this, I am anxious to go on sure ground. I have heard so much on good
authority of the miseries of emigrants in Canada and elsewhere, and I
have seen so much with my own eyes of the benefits of the
Home-Colonization system in the Netherlands, that I am induced to do
that which I know will produce great and immediate good, instead of that
whose consequences I cannot witness or calculate. I want to give our
poor neighbours food; and I dare not run the risk of having them perish
with cold and hunger in the woods before they can get any.”
“If you mix up the abuses of a system with its principles,—if you take
the conduct of a few ignorant adventurers as an example of what is to be
done by all emigrants,” continued Mr. Jackson, “I do not wonder at our
differing as we do. It is true that too many of our poor neighbours,
heartsick at their condition here, have wandered forth with nothing but
the clothes on their backs and a hatchet in their hands, without the
guidance and assistance which are necessary to their very lives in a new
climate and condition of society; but this folly, and the consequent
hardship, have nothing to do with emigration. It is to preclude such
evils that I would have benefactors like you demonstrate to the people
what is essential to a successful emigration, and that emigration is
sure to be successful if well conducted. As for its ultimate results,
time will teach them to all; but you, my dear Sir, with your objects and
your resources, will be inexcusable if you do not endeavour to
anticipate them. It will be unpardonable in you to adopt a manifestly
short-sighted policy while the philosophy of principles and the evidence
of facts lie open before you.”
“Fact is enough for me, romantic as many of my friends think me,”
replied Fellowes, smiling. “The fact will be, as you will witness, if we
both live, that two years hence our sixty superabundant labourers with
their families will have food without burthening the parish. This is
enough for me.”
“It will not always be enough. If you should live to see the multiplied
descendants of these sixty persons either suffering themselves under
pauperism, or displacing an equal number from the ranks of employed
labourers, you may wish that they had been located where there was room
for all without any arbitrary direction of capital, or factitious
employment of labour. If, in your old age, you do not witness this, it
will be because others have repaired your mistake by conveying elsewhere
the surplus you have created.”
“If we both live ten years, friend, you shall come and see how I send
forth those who once were paupers, with money in their hands, ready to
establish themselves reputably in society. There will be nothing in this
to make me repent.”
“No; your time for repentance will be when each of these monied men
sends two paupers to your gates;—when you find poverty growing up round
you, which you can relieve,—if at all,—only by a late emigration. I am
sure you will make your confessions to me honestly, if that day should
ever come.”
“I will, if you will give me faithful tidings of the Castles, and the
others who are going with them. Let me hear of all their struggles and
trials, from the outset till the end.”
“You shall, as far as I know them myself. Meanwhile, let us help one
another where we agree. Do you be on the watch to lessen the number of
dwellings as much as you can, and I will use my pastoral influence in
inducing the young folks to delay the publication of their banns till
they have secured something besides a bare shelter to begin with.”
--------------
CHAPTER III.
GOING IN SEARCH OF HOME.
Mr. Jackson’s interest in the subject of emigration to Van Diemen’s Land
first arose out of his friendship with a gentleman and lady who were
appointed by government to superintend the selection and preparation of
the young women who were assisted in their settlement in the way already
related. His recommendations were received with the confidence naturally
resulting from this intimacy; and he had interest to get arrangements
made for Frank’s convict brothers to be settled near the rest of the
family. In course of time, which seemed very long to impatient paupers,
all was settled. Ellen had a summons to be in London by a certain day,
with her 8_l._ in her pocket, and a small sum over for the purchase of
such necessaries in the way of clothing as should be provided cheap for
her by those who were to receive her, see her safe on board, and furnish
her with a letter to the governor, stating her family circumstances.
Frank and his parents, with a few more labourers from the parish of A——,
were to sail in another ship about the same time, proposals having been
sent before them to Van Diemen’s Land, to bind themselves to farmers for
a term of years at a certain rate of wages, out of which the parish was
to be repaid for the expenses of their passage and outfit.
The outfit was much less expensive in their case than in that of
settlers in Canada and the western states of America, both because the
climate of Van Diemen’s Land is more congenial to English constitutions,
and because wearing apparel and other necessaries are much more easy to
be had there, even if not supplied by settlers as a portion of the wages
of labour. Frank was furnished with a complete set of tools; and the
family with a stout suit of clothes each. A stock of plain substantial
provisions for six months was added, and this was all. There were a few
grumblers about the last-mentioned article. They thought that the parish
might, at parting, treat the people with better cheer than they had been
accustomed to; but the parish authorities were wiser. They had heard how
many lives had been lost on the passage to America from the poor Irish,
who had been accustomed to nothing better than potatoes, being fed with
an abundance of more stimulating diet, under circumstances which
prevented their taking their usual exercise; and when, from having
nothing to do, they were tempted to eat more than they wanted of good
things that they could not get at home. The nearer the diet on
ship-board resembles that in common use, the better for the health of
the emigrant; and if he finds himself less disposed to eat than when at
the hard labour he has been accustomed to, no harm will come of his
temperance.
As the day of departure approached, Frank felt it a positive evil that
every thing was done for himself and his family by the parish, as too
much leisure was left for very unhappy thoughts. He had no idea till the
time came how much there was to be left behind which even he could not
help regretting. He had indeed no beloved cottage to quit, no favourite
stock to sell off, no circle of attached friends and neighbours to say
farewell to; but he would fain have had such regrets as these to bear,
for the sake of something to do at the last. He envied his sister at her
needle, making a gown for her mother when she had finished her own
linen, while he wandered over the hills that looked towards the sea, or
watched for the postman who was to bring the final tidings for Ellen, or
stood with his arms folded, silently hearing his father’s murmurs or his
mother’s taunts. He was quite angry with himself for selfishly wondering
what he should do with the three days that were to pass between Ellen’s
departure and his own, when he ought to be glad that she would be out of
hearing of the uncomfortable sayings that now met her ears continually.
The hour came when the young people ought to be setting out to meet the
carrier’s cart which was to convey Ellen to London. When Frank thought
he had waited long enough before the door, he went in to look for her,
and found her with her bonnet on, her bundle by her side, and little
Susan on her knee. Her eyes were running over with tears; but she smiled
when he tapped her shoulder as a signal that they must go.
“It seems like a long parting, just because I am going a long way,” said
she, trying to laugh. “But if we all go to the same place, and there are
meadows and cows, and the same sort of life we have been accustomed to,
there is little to mind in going, except Mr. Jackson, to be sure, and
grandfather, and—and——”
“Where is father?” asked Frank, distressed at her sobs; “surely he is
not gone out just now?”
Ellen ran to the door to look about for him, and saw her father leaning
against the wall.
“Where’s your money?” he asked. “You had need take care of money when
you have got it. All the rest is moonshine, to my thinking.”
“There is very bright sunshine where we are going, if they all say
true,” said Ellen; “and that you will find, father, before a year is
over. You may trust Frank and Mr. Jackson, I am sure; and so——”
“I trust nobody. I have had enough of trusting people,” cried Castle.
“All this is your doing, remember, both of you; so never cast it up to
me. Go, go. ’Tis getting very late. Where’s your money, I ask you,
child?”
“Safe, father, sewed into my stays. But, father, what _can_ happen to us
so bad as living here, as—as—we have done lately?”
“Go, children, go, and leave off talking about our meeting again at the
other side of the world. If I go to the bottom half-way, Ellen, it will
be none the worse for you, but the better, except that Frank must go
too, and you would not like that so well.”
“O father——!”
“Well, one kiss more; and God bless _you_, whatever becomes of me!”
Ellen found her step-mother gossipping with a neighbour as if nothing
was happening. Her farewell words were few.
“Goodbye. If I find you an honest woman next time I see you, it’s more
than I expect, from what people say of the place you are going to. Come,
now, Frank, don’t be in a passion. Better take care of your sister than
look so proud about her.”
Frank now took care of his sister so far as to remove her while she had
strength to go.
“O Frank!” she cried, as he put her arm within his own, and led her
rapidly on, “what can there be about me that makes them all talk as they
do?”
“Nothing about you, dear, but about the place. It is a dangerous place
for vain, silly girls; but you need only mind your business, and think
of father and mother, and what we have agreed to do for them, and you
will do well enough.”
“And of Mr. Jackson, and grandmother, and how she almost broke my heart
last night. Look, look! do you see how yonder trees stoop and shiver in
the churchyard? What a shower of leaves!”
“’Tis a sudden gust. There have been many such of late.”
“Just so they went when Molly Shepherd’s funeral was going under them,
and grandmother bade me beware of her shame. ’Tis just like a sign to me
now! And here comes Mr. Jackson too.”
Mr. Jackson just stopped her to give her a little book as a remembrance,
and to beg her to write to her grandfather, of whom he should inquire
for her from time to time. It was now really very late.
“Don’t hurry yourself,” said Frank. “Walk quick if you like, but don’t
be flurried. I’ll overtake the cart for you, I’ll be bound; and you had
better look like yourself as you get in.”
The carrier was just cracking his whip to proceed after a halt, when the
brother and sister made their appearance at the end of the lane. Ellen
cast one glance back upon the familiar spire and hedgerows and cottage
roofs, and summoned up one bright smile and a few more words for Frank.
“’Tis not as if you were to stay behind, Frank.”
“To be sure not! Leave every thing to me dear, and be steady and easy,
that’s all; and don’t talk of Bob and Jerry, for your own sake.—All
right, carrier?—Well then, good bye!”
And high on the hedge stood Frank, gazing long after he had ceased to
distinguish the bright face looking out at the back of the cart. Not
till the vehicle had disappeared behind the hill did he descend to the
stubble-field below, and pick up straws, and cut hazel switches like a
truant boy, muttering to himself “In three days we shall be off.”
The second departure was more public and more painful. The two old folks
would come out at the last moment; and their distress moved the gazers
to an outcry against the cruelty of deserting them, and the unnatural
behaviour of leaving one’s country and kindred. A giddy young couple
thanked the Castles for vacating their cottage just when others were
wanting one; and of the rest, some who were disappointed of going looked
on in silent envy, and others were loud in their reports of the dangers
of the sea, and the horrors of savage life. Frank had seated his charge
in the waggon and walked on, intending to be overtaken out of hearing of
these busy tongues. He looked back from the first corner, and seeing
that there was great confusion, returned. Castle was motioning away the
parish officers and Mr. Jackson, and doggedly refusing to go after all.
His wife was laughing, and little Susan crying.
“You must please yourself, father,” said he firmly. “If you put yourself
out of the way of being helped by your own children, God help you! I
must go, and that this moment.”
“Come along!” cried the wife. “We may as well get out of reach of these
plaguy officers, with their talk of our debt to them. Let’s be off, and
then they may get their money as they can. We shall never drive our
carriage here, as they say my boys may do at Botany Bay. Come along!”
Frank would allow of no force, His father should choose for himself. So
said Mr. Jackson.
While he was choosing, a ready pauper jumped into his place, and the
waggon drove off. Before it had gone two hundred yards, there was a cry
to the driver to stop, the new candidate was turned out grumbling, and
Castle scrambled in. Twenty times during the journey to London, he asked
how he and his were to pay the seventy pounds required to send them out;
and as often his wife bade him not mind whether it was paid or not; and
Frank assured him that he should not be burdened with debt, if his
children lived and prospered. Tears came at last to the unhappy man’s
relief. As he passed villages and farmsteads where healthy and cheerful
faces looked up at the waggon as it went by;—as he heard the saw
grinding in the saw-pit, and the hammering at the forge, he wept at
being reminded of his younger and more prosperous days, and at the
thought that while so many were busy and happy in their occupations,
there was no room for him,—once as hearty in his toil, and now as
willing to work as any of them. Frank contrived to gather what was in
his thoughts, and spoke of the saw-pits and forges which are so busy in
the land they were going to, and of the increased dignity and profit of
such occupations in places where artificers are scarce. His own heart
was ready to sink when he fancied, instead of such a busy region as that
under his eye, plains and valleys with scarcely a roof visible from end
to end: but every glimpse of a workhouse, every notice by the way-side
about vagrants, restored his courage, and satisfied him that it was
best, at all events, to be where, whatever other evils might exist,
there was no pauperism.
The departure of Jerry and Bob took place in a somewhat different style.
A stranger would have fancied there was high holiday in Newgate the day
before they went. Parties of convicts from the country arrived, and were
lodged there previous to embarkation, and the larger proportion were
full of congratulations to one another on their fine prospects. This was
done in bravado by some, no doubt; and a few looked downcast, and were
laughed at by their companions for the shame expressed in their
countenances and manners: but it was actually the belief of most that
they were lucky fellows to be carried free of expense to a country where
they should have little to do but get rich as fast as they liked. Two
among them had been transported before, and so wonderful and tempting
were the tales they had to tell, that they not only found willing
listeners among criminals wherever they went, but had induced more than
one of the present company to commit thefts in order to get transported
and put in fortune’s way. These men, Giles and Green, held forth in all
the vanity of superior experience, and in all the pride of having
cheated the law; and drew an attentive audience round them while waiting
for the cart which was to convey the company to the convict-ship.
Bob was leaning rather despondingly against the wall, when his brother
clapped him on the shoulder, and asked him why he looked so black on
this the grandest day of his life.
“You should have said ‘thank’ee’ to the judge, Bob, as I did when he
finished with us; and so you would if you’d known how we were obliged to
him. We’ll have each a house and servants, and all handsome about us by
the time we’re one-and-twenty, and meanwhile, there are fine pranks to
be played. Come and hear Green, about how he and his set got as much rum
in one night as they could drink in a month, and what frolics they had
in the woods, before he took it into his head to come back without
leave.”
Bob shook himself free of his brother, who however would not long let
him alone.
“I say, Bob,” he continued, returning, “they call you sulky; and it will
be the worse for you in the colony if they report you sulky. You may as
well hear what we are to do when we get there.”
Bob listlessly followed, and took his place among the eager hearers.
“Bet Turner!” cried one. “What is that she that belonged to Greville’s
gang? She that got transported for shop-lifting?”
“The same. Well; she has a large white house just out of Sidney, on the
right hand as you go out of Mount-street. Lord! you should see her
driving out, how grand she looks over her servants, and as well behaved
to her husband as if she had not left another behind her. They say she
sends Turner a bank note every year out of charity. He has married again
to give her satisfaction that he won’t claim her; so they are both
content.”
“Then there is Wilson,” cried Green. “You remember what a poor ragged
creature he was while he worked like other honest men, for nine
shillings a week. He got sent abroad for the first bad shilling he tried
to pass after he joined us; and all for looking like a bungler at a new
trick. He worked his way up into a farm of his own in four years, and he
has got his wife and children over, and is very much respected. But Jack
Lawe is the finest fellow of them all. He’s just past thirty, and he is
as rich as a London banker at sixty.”
“What, he that was within an hour of hanging?”
“Aye. They looked pretty close to him for a long while; but he is as
sharp in his wits as he is clever at whatever you set him to. He cheated
them all round, and got himself free in six years, and now you should
see him out hunting or betting at billiards. He is a good-hearted
fellow, and does not scorn old friends. Many’s the nod and word he has
given me from the billiard-room window at Sidney, when I have been
passing, let who would be there. Everybody is glad of the prosperity of
John Lawe, Esq.”
Somebody having made inquiry about the voyage, Green went on,
“O, that’s the worst part of it. It’s horrid enough, to be sure, to be
cooped up for months on board, and all so solemn and dull, and no
getting out of the way of the clergyman. But it’s not so bad as it used
to be, when they treated such folks as we like so many wild beasts. They
paid the captain so much a head for the people embarked, and never asked
how many he landed; so he starved as many as he pleased, and stowed them
so close that scores were stifled by the way. It was mighty dull work
then for those that got safe; the labour was so hard, and no liberty.
There was little encouragement to go to the colonies then. But now that
they don’t kill one by inches by the way, it is worth putting up with
the passage, for the chance of making one’s fortune at the end of it.”
“Particularly for them that have friends in power to get fine situations
for them,” said Jerry pertly. “Bob and I are going to have good care
taken of us, I hear. But it’s a great plague that the old ones are going
to be spies over us. It will spoil our sport terribly, unless we can
manage to cut them.”
“That’s better than having them whining and praying after us all the way
from here to the ship, as the old folks mostly do,” said Green. “When I
went before, my father behaved as if he was following me to the gallows.
He knows better now. He gave me the wink yesterday for a sharp chap that
knew how to take care of myself. He said,—true enough,—that the worst
blunder I ever made was coming back when once I was well off.”
“Aye, aye, Green; a certain person knew how to take care of herself as
well as you. She knew better than to keep herself single five years for
you. ’Tis a fine feather in her cap to have brought you so far on a
fool’s errand.”
Green tried to conceal his visible passion under an appearance of
indifference, while he muttered that a better one than he came for would
follow him out very soon, if the judge did not baulk them of the
sentence they meant to get pronounced upon her.
“Here they come, lads!” he cried, interrupting himself. “All is ready:
our carriage at the door! Put a bold face upon it, boys! Now for it!
Don’t have anything to say to the whiners at the gate. Curse all
spoil-sports! Give them three cheers, boys! Hurra! hurra! hurra!”
And gibing, jeering, laughing, shouting, went the batch of convicts
through a throng of relatives and former companions, and gazing
strangers; some of whom were pale and weeping, others signing and
winking, and more gaping in wonder and pleasure at the scene;
speculating upon whether the largest share of punishment did not rest
with those who were left behind. Bob, and one or two other scowlers,
were almost overlooked in the company of adventurers, who seemed to be
going forth merrily to cheat the law, and seek their fortunes in a land
of plenty.
--------------
CHAPTER IV.
NEW HOMES.
Ellen was the first of the family that arrived at Hobart Town in Van
Diemen’s Land. Next came the convict-ship, which was sent round to
Launceston to disembark its passengers; that port being nearer the
district where the convict labour was to be employed. When the batch of
parish emigrants arrived, a fortnight afterwards, Frank found, on
application to the proper government officer, that his sister had landed
in good health, and had received a high character from the clergyman and
his lady who had come over as superintendents of the expedition; that
Ellen had been forwarded, with a few of her fellow-passengers, to the
district where a service had been procured for her as dairy-maid on a
settler’s farm; and that care had been taken that her parents and
brother should be indentured to farmers in the same neighbourhood. So
far, all was well. Frank could learn nothing about his brothers, except
that they were to be landed at Launceston, and that Launceston was
within thirty miles of the spot where he was to be located. The officer
he was speaking to had nothing to do with the arrangements respecting
convicts: his business was to take care of emigrant labourers on their
arrival.
Castle himself could not help being pleased at the appearance of things
at Hobart Town, when he and Frank took a walk, the evening after their
arrival. The only objections he could think of were, that there were few
shops; that it was not at all likely that the country inland should be
half so civilized as what he saw; and that it was a thing he had not
been used to, to have Christmas fall at the hottest time of the year,
and the trees green all the winter through. It was now May; and they
told him that winter was coming on, and yet that the woods would look as
green as now all the time; and that the snow, if there was any, would
not lie more than a day on any ground but the mountain tops, and a bleak
common here and there. They told him that for more than three hundred
days in the year the sun would shine all day, and the air be dry and
pure, and seldom too hot or too cold. All this was what he had not been
used to, and did not know how to believe. His son supposed that if it
came true, he would not object; as one of the consequences of such a
climate is that English people have much better health, and live, on the
average, a good deal longer at Van Diemen’s Land than at home. Castle
peevishly laughed at all talk about life and health, when it was, in his
opinion, doubtful whether they might not be starved to death within
three months. His son left this point to be demonstrated by time rather
than by argument; and meanwhile observed that there were few signs of
starvation about Hobart Town, in which, besides the government
residence, there are nearly eight hundred houses, most of which are
surrounded with gardens; the dwellings having been originally built on
separate allotments of land, of a quarter of an acre each. The streets
cross at right-angles, and command fine views of the neighbouring
country, and afford cheering evidences of the success of the industry
which has sought employment there. A dock-yard is seen on the river’s
brink; and corn-mills, tanneries, breweries, a hat-manufactory, &c., are
conspicuous in the midst of the town. An amphitheatre of green hills
rises to the westward, the crowning summit of which is 4000 feet high;
and from these hills descends a fine stream of water, flowing through
the town into the Derwent, which, with its varying expanse and
beautifully wooded bays and sloping shores, forms the eastern boundary.
This view was little enough like what Castle had fancied in opposition
to all that he had been told. He was for ever picturing to himself a
region of wild woods, or bleak plains covered with snow; and he was now
as much surprised at the sight of meadows, hills, dales, and a thriving
town, with a blue sky overhead, as if he might not have known as much
before. He had complained of his hard lot in being indentured as a
shepherd; and no wonder, while he thought his flocks were to inhabit a
dreary wilderness; but now that he found he had nothing to fear from
storms and snow-drifts, that the pastures were excellent, the springs
plentiful, and the sheep as fine as the world can produce, he began to
think he might be worse off in point of occupation; though he would give
nobody the satisfaction of hearing him say so. His wife was to be a
domestic servant in the same farm where he was shepherd; and even little
Susan was carefully stipulated for; the labour of children being
valuable at almost any age, in a place where much more assistance is
wanted than can be had.
The first part of their journey to the Dairy Plains, (the district where
they were to settle,) was through the very choicest portion of the
island, both as to beauty and fertility. It is not surprising that those
who first surveyed this tract, and took it as a fair sample of the
island at large, should have represented Van Diemen’s Land as a
terrestrial paradise, and been suspected of exaggeration through the
favourableness of their report. The fact is, the island is supposed to
contain about 15,000,000 acres,—one-third of which is considered arable,
another third fit for sheep-pasture, and the rest unprofitable at
present. The country between Hobart Town and Launceston consists of
green hills and fertile plains, among which towns and villages and
solitary dwellings are interspersed. Rivers wind between their wooded
banks, and streams flow down from the high grounds. Excellent
macadamized roads run through the whole district, and branch off to the
growing settlements on either hand of the main track. It was a great
amusement to Frank to compare whatever he met with that partook of the
civilization of his own country with whatever looked new and strange.
Before leaving Hobart Town, he had been all the more struck with its
printing establishments, its Mechanics’ Institute, its Book Society, and
schools, from observing the strangeness of the natural productions that
he met at every step. In the gardens he beheld tea trees where he had
been accustomed to see lilacs and laburnums; and cotton plants, myrtles,
and geraniums growing as tall as himself, and spreading out into bushes.
The very grass grows differently;—not stringy in the roots and
carpetlike in the surface, as in England; but in tufts. Parrots, instead
of canaries, were the pets of young ladies; and the bandicoot was
offered for sale instead of the rabbit. Cockatoos instead of crows were
to be frightened away from the fields and gardens; and flocks of pigeons
among the stubble looked as much like partridges as pigeons; only more
beautiful,—with their gold-dropped wings,—than either species in
England. On the road, in like manner, the freestone bridge over the
Jordan, the postman on horseback, the tillage and inclosures, looked
British; but the evergreen woods, in the midst of which arose the
peppermint tree to a lofty height;—the herds of kangaroos coming out of
their covert into the dewy plains at sunrise;—the spotted opossums
climbing and descending the forest trees;—the black swans sailing on the
lakes, and uttering cries like the creaking of an old sign-board;—all
appeared foreign, and scarcely belonging to the people who had settled
among them.
A sight of a yet different character met the eyes of the travellers near
the close of the second day, when they were drawing near their future
abode in the province called Norfolk Plains, in the centre of which lay
the Dairy Plains, where Ellen was expecting them. They had for some time
quitted the broad road, and were following a track along which their
waggon proceeded with tolerable convenience. At last they came to a
point beyond which it had not been carried, and where a gang of
labourers was at work roadmaking;—not as in England, each man intent
upon his own heap of stones, free in limb and thoughtful in
countenance;—not as in Ireland, where some are lounging and all are
joking;—but charged with the fetters of felons, and superintended by an
armed taskmaster. As Frank looked upon these wretches, with their
hardened or woful countenances, he felt indeed that he was not in
England, but in one of her penal settlements,—breathing the air of one
of the places where her vice and misery are deposited. His very soul
became sick when, as the labourers turned to stare at the somewhat
uncommon sight of a waggon full of travellers, he met the eyes of his
convict brothers. He hoped that his companions would not perceive them;
but he soon found that his father did, by his testy complaints of the
jolting of the cart, of cold and heat, and what not. The unhappy mother
looked on her outcast children with as much curiosity as compassion. Bob
turned away, and stooped to his work, never looking up till they were
out of sight; but Jerry waved his cap and shouted, and dared Frank to a
wager which of them would first be free to work for themselves: whether
it would take longest to work out his sentence, or to pay for Frank’s
passage and settlement. This supplied a new theme of complaint to
Castle, who wrought himself up into a passion about his being a slave,
with all his family. Frank, who hated bondage as much as any man,
thought it could hardly be called slavery to contract to work for one
person for a certain time, in return for advantages which could not
otherwise be obtained. If disappointed of these advantages,—of
sufficient food, clothing, shelter, and money wages,—the contract was
void, and no harm done; if not disappointed, the object was gained. The
evil lay, not in their case as labourers; but as honest men. Felons
ought not to be let off so easily, (because their labour happened to be
more valuable than at home,) as to make disgrace, for which many of them
did not care, their only punishment; their worldly circumstances being
actually bettered by their removal to a new colony. It was not that
labourers need be better off than their family would probably be, four
or five years hence; but that felons ought not to be placed in as good
circumstances as the honest emigrant at the end of the same period.
Frank was not yet aware (as he afterwards became) that, for want of
knowing the rate of wages at the colonies, emigrants often bind
themselves for a much lower rate than they might obtain if they went
free, or if they were properly informed of the existing state of things;
and thus think themselves deceived, and are tempted to break their
contract when they find how matters stand. This evil is to be referred
to the ignorance of emigrant labourers, quite as much as to the close
economy of the settlers, and should induce all who have heard of it to
obtain such information before concluding their bargain as will save
them from repentance afterwards, and guard them against quarrels on this
score with their new masters;—quarrels, which, always a great evil, are
most so in newly settled countries, where all hands and hearts are
wanted to work together for the common good. As it is, a British artisan
jumps at the offer of a plentiful subsistence and 2_s._ a-day besides
for five years, out of which the expenses of his removal are to be paid;
and for this rate he binds himself. When he gets to his destination, he
finds that this plentiful subsistence, including meat, bread, beer or
spirits, tea, sugar, comfortable clothing, and a convenient dwelling,
costs no more than 2_s._ a-day, and that, if free, he might earn, being
a good workman, from 7_s._ to 12_s._ a-day, or even 15_s._, if he be a
superior mechanic of a scarce class. It is mortifying to find that he
has sold himself, however much higher than formerly, for less than he is
worth in his new position; and hence arise discontents which embitter
the first years of his new life, if they do not occasion a breach of
contract. The friends of a rational plan of emigration should do their
utmost to make known to as many as it may concern, to what extent labour
is wanted in the colonies,—what is the rate of money wages in each, and
what those money wages will procure. The official information on these
points transmitted from Van Diemen’s Land in 1827, was, that common
labourers earn 3_s._ per day; common mechanics 7_s._; better mechanics,
from 8_s._ to 12_s._; best ditto, from 12_s._ to 15_s._; and persons of
peculiar qualifications, fitted to superintend farms or other
undertakings, 1_l._ a-day. Since that time, wages are understood to have
risen. The price of wheat is 7_s._ a bushel; meat, 2_d._ or 3_d._ per
lb.; sugar, from 3_d._ to 6_d._; and tea, from 1_s._ 6_d._ to 4_s._ per
lb.—No wonder that, amidst all their gratitude at being well provided
for, many such workmen as Frank are vexed and mortified to find how much
more they might have made of their labour.
Far other feelings, however, than those of discontent were awakened in
Frank by the aspect of his new abode. It was almost in a state of
nature, his employer, Mr. Stapleton, having preceded him to take
possession only a few days before: but it was far from being a desolate
spot in the midst of a waste, as settlers’ farms are wont to be in
colonies where the unwise object is to disperse the inhabitants, instead
of bringing them near to enjoy the advantages of a division of labour
and reciprocity of consumption. The Dutch government at the Cape of Good
Hope formerly forbade settlers to approach within three miles of each
other; and thus effectually prevented the full improvement of the land,
the construction of roads, and the opening of a market for exchanges.
Hence the Dutch settlers at the Cape are to this day deprived of many
advantages of civilized life. They have too much of whatever they grow,
and too little of what they would fain buy; and are debarred the
comforts of society and mutual help. These evils are likely to be
avoided by the method of disposing of land now adopted by our government
in Australia; the land being sold on terms which make it the interest of
the settler to improve his tract, and to take advantage of a
neighbourhood which may relieve him of some of his produce. Mr.
Stapleton, having been obliged to choose his land carefully, and to pay
9_s._ an acre for it, (instead of 6_d._, or nothing at all, like some of
the earlier inhabitants,) was not tempted to wander away into the
wilderness, and sit down where he might happen to like the prospect, or
to be smitten with some new discovery of fish-ponds, woods, and meadows.
He made his choice instead among the lands of a certain district; and
selected such, as to extent and quality, as would on the whole best suit
his purposes, in conjunction with the privileges of a neighbourhood. His
land, though not of the very first quality, was good enough to have
fetched 15_s._ per acre, if it had lain somewhat more to the north or
east, where the country was rapidly becoming better peopled; but it
stretched towards the unoccupied districts at the foot of the western
mountains, and was less valuable than if it had been surrounded by
civilization, instead of only bordering upon it.—It consisted,—not of
jungle and forest ground, where room must be made by the axe before seed
could be sown and sunshine visit it; but of a lightly timbered and
undulating surface of grass land, wanting only a single burning to
render it fit for the plough, or for a new growth of pasture. The trees
were not of the nature of copse and thicket; but growing in clumps a
hundred feet apart, and with clear stems, measuring ninety feet or more
to the lowest branch; thus affording spots for shade and shelter without
interfering with tillage. The boundaries, where not formed by natural
streams, were fixed by marking the trees; and there was no immediate
need of fences where neither man nor beast was likely to trespass, and
where there was at present no live stock that could be in danger of
straying. No one was near who could be tempted to steal; for none were
poor. The wild cattle, which in former days did great mischief on the
grounds of the settler, had long ago been driven among the mountains,
where it was supposed the race had died out, as none now appeared. The
few oxen and horses that Stapleton brought with him were kept near the
dwelling; and the rest of the stock was not to follow till all was in
readiness for its reception. A rude shed had been hastily constructed
for shelter, under a clump of trees; and a few sawn planks were lying
about: by which Frank saw that the materials of his business were ready
for him to begin upon without delay. Tools and utensils were stowed away
in corners, or heaped under the trees, till their proper places were
provided for them; and a goodly row of casks and packages of provision
stood in the background. Frank had believed that his spirit of
enterprise had died within him under the hardships of his own country;
but he now felt it revive in a moment; and was anything but dismayed at
the prospect of what he had to do in his capacity of carpenter, before
the scene before him could put on the appearance of a snug and
well-managed farmstead. He saw in fancy the day when a little hamlet of
weather-boarded cottages would be sending up their blue smoke among
those trees; when cattle-sheds and sheep-pens would stretch out behind
the dwellings, and the busy forge and creaking timber-wain would drown
the cry of the quail, and scare away the kangaroos that were now leaping
over the plains. He did not forget to add a very superior workshop and
timber-yard to his picture of his own dwelling; or to imagine his father
looking down from among his flock on the hills, or Ellen within sight,
going forth in the bright early morning with her milk-pail.
As if to answer to his thought, Ellen now appeared. She had stolen half
an hour to run in search of Mr. Stapleton, to ask once more how soon he
thought Frank might possibly arrive. Mr. Stapleton was almost as eager
for the event as herself; but he knew no more, and was just dismissing
her, disappointed, when the waggon was heard approaching. While she
waited a moment, straining her sight to make out whether it was the
right party, before she ran to meet them, her brother jumped out, and
even Castle started up with more alacrity than he had shown since they
landed. Before they could well greet one another, Stapleton came up to
ask where Frank’s tools were, and to tell him that he was wanted very
much indeed. He could not refuse him permission to go forward one mile,
in order to deposit Castle and his wife at their new abode; but he lent
a hand towards emptying the waggon of his workman’s packages, and gave
him notice that he should be glad to see him back the first possible
moment.
“You will soon find what great people such as we are here,” said Ellen,
laughing. “This is the place to grow proud in. No more lounging about
the fields, Frank; no more leaning over gates chewing straws, while
nobody inquires for one. You will never need to touch your hat and ask
for work here; people will come begging you to be so very kind as to put
up a door for any pay you please. This is the place to grow proud in.”
Frank observed, with a grave smile, that pride was dangerous to one in
Ellen’s place.
“Well, then, I will be proud of you, and you shall be proud of me; and
no harm can come of that.”
The first time that the brother and sister could obtain a few minutes’
conversation without being overheard, Frank inquired,
“Now, Ellen, tell me straight forward. How do you like your change?”
“Why, I more than half like it; but there are some things I do not
like.—It is a fine thing to be so well off, and to know that I shall be
so: and I do not mind the work, though it is rather hard, to be sure;
and my cows are nothing but a credit to me, and I have seen no animals
to be afraid of when I go out milking, though some of them leap about
very strangely indeed; and my mistress makes much of me, as I told you;
and her little worries are not much to be wondered at when one thinks of
the confusion we live in just now; and I dare say there will be an end
of them when we get our soap and candles made out of the house, and
another hand or two to help in the brewing and washing. And then to
think that father and you are so well off——”
“But tell me what there is that you do not like.”
Ellen almost shuddered when she whispered that her fellow servant, who
ate at the same table, and slept in the same room, and was her companion
almost all day, was a convict, and had been sent to this country for
robbing an aged mistress who had confided in her, and deserved gratitude
instead of treachery from her. To be compelled to hold daily and hourly
intercourse with such a person was a very great evil, and one which
doubled Frank’s anxiety about his sister. He was glad to hear that there
was a probability of the woman marrying as soon as she could obtain a
remission of her servitude by steady conduct.
A half smile which he perceived on Ellen’s lips when this part of the
story was being told, made him question her further respecting the evils
of her situation, or the trials which she might not be disposed to
consider exactly as evils. The idea in her mind was that which he
suspected,—that she might quit her service before her convict
companion.—Frank looked graver than ever. Who—what—where was he,—the
person that seemed to have made advances in Ellen’s good graces already?
She was eager to explain that there was no one in particular yet. It was
too early for her to have looked about and settled her mind yet;—but
there was this one, and that one, and the other one, that carried her
pail for her, morning and evening, however busy he might be; or was
ready to teach her how to clean and card wool; or showed her what a
pretty little homestead he was about to have in the neighbourhood, and
intimated how happy she might be as the mistress of it.
“They hinder my work sadly, and their own too,” continued she, blushing,
“for all I tell them that I have nothing to say to any body yet. I am so
afraid any of them should have been convicts, (though I am sure Harry
Moore never was;) and I dare not ask mistress any thing about them.”
“Ask her, by all means,” said Frank. “Or I will ask your master, if you
wish it. They only can tell us, and it is a point we must find out.
Meantime, keep to your business as quietly as you can. What makes you so
sure that Moore (is not that his name?) was never a convict?”
Ellen could give no better reason than that she could wager her life
upon it. She thought her brother grown very pertinacious on a sudden,
because this was not perfectly satisfactory to him; but Frank was not
pertinacious—only wary and affectionate.
--------------
CHAPTER V.
THE CASTLES AT HOME.
It was very well for a man of Castle’s irritable temper to be made a
shepherd, instead of a labourer at home, within sight and hearing of all
the bustle and difficulty occasioned by much pressure of work and few
hands to do it. He could not have borne to be, as his wife said, driven
from pillar to post,—called off from one thing before he had done it, to
do something else to which he was altogether unaccustomed. It suited him
much better to be out upon the downs after the sheep; though even in
that quiet place he had his troubles. The sheep-walk was too extensive
to be under the management of one person; and Castle’s brother-shepherd
was not a very congenial companion. He was a gentleman convict;—a young
man who had gamed away his little fortune, and then taken to swindling,
for which he had been transported. Being unequal to hard work, and
having no mechanical skill, he was sent out to tend sheep; an employment
as little suitable as might be to his social dispositions and active
habits. The two reluctant companions agreed only in their inclination to
grumble.
“They call this a fine scene,” observed the young man, “but it does not
suit my taste. I had rather see our sheep in the Smithfield pens than on
these downs. Then one misses the London cries, however much the magpies
chatter here. As for the cooing of the doves, it really depresses the
spirits. People talk of the stars being so brilliant here,—like golden
lamps; but I like real lamps better. A row of them in Pall Mall is worth
a hemisphere of stars.”
“I don’t know much about lamplight,” replied Castle, “having been too
poor to burn candles at home, and so going to bed in the twilight; but
this place is so lonesome, I sometimes wonder whether it is in the world
or out of it. All this view is like an old deserted park, to be sure;
but where is the squire’s house, or the church steeple, and the children
coming out of school? There is no public-house far or near; and no
parson or his lady to speak a word to one: only a young man that comes
to read prayers on Sundays in a shed or on the green, and away again to
do the same thing somewhere else. Not such a thing have I seen since I
came as a carriage with ladies in it; and they say there are no hunts.
With all the game there is here, no scarlet jackets ever come in sight
from the woods.”
“That is the worst of it,” responded the other grumbler. “We have all
the dulness of a country life without its solace of amusement. It was
really too tantalizing lately, to see a kangaroo hunt which I could not
join. If they would let me take my turn, I might be of some use to them
as an experienced huntsman. I should like to hunt opossums till I could
get skins enough to make your pretty daughter a cloak worthy to be worn;
and——”
Castle here moved off impatiently, having too much paternal pride to
listen to convict wooing on Ellen’s behalf. The young man followed him,
continuing,
“The snipe-shooting is very choice, I’m told, in the marshes yonder. I
must have leave when winter comes on, to go and try my luck. But the
hunts are the best things,—more spirited perhaps than you are aware of.”
“Hunts! hunts!” cried Castle. “I see neither deer nor fox. An odd sort
of hunting, if you mean killing any of these leaping things, with their
queer ways. Why, the little ones don’t run beside their dams, as is
natural, but she pops them into her bag, and off she hops, as if she had
only two legs. The first I saw, I thought she had happened an accident,
and had her fore legs cut short; and I thought she got on wonderfully
well considering; and then in a minute appeared a whole herd of them,
with their young in their bags.”
“It is a pretty sight to see them come down from the woods at sunrise to
feed in the plains. Then is the time to hide behind a thicket, and make
sure of one’s game. Which do you prefer, as a bottom dish, kangaroo or
bandicoot? In a pie, properly seasoned, it is difficult to say which is
the best. I have given many a hint down below that either is much more
palatable to me than rations of salt meat.”
Castle, who thought no man need desire more in the way of diet than to
eat meat every day, looked with contempt on the grimaces of his
companion over his ample supply of beef, wheaten bread, and cider.
“If you want to hunt,” said Castle, “I wish you would kill off the vile
beasts that have been making havoc among my lambs. I might have got at
one, but I was downright scared with its ugliness.”
“Was it the hyena or the devil?”
“O, the devil, to judge by its looks. It is as big as a middle-sized
dog, with the head of an otter, crowded with teeth. It moved very slow,
but I could do no better than stare at it.”
“They call it the devil here,” replied the gentleman. “You should dig
little pits, and set your dogs upon it when it has fallen in. It will go
on worrying your lambs, unless you keep on the watch.”
“Another thing that puts me out,” observed Castle, “is that the beasts
are one below another here, as if they were bewitched. In England, we
have a horse of one size, and a dog of another, and a rat of another;
and none of them is like the rest; but here we have a big kangaroo, and
a kangaroo the size of a dog, and another no bigger than a rat; and
these last are not real kangaroos. I declare it makes my hair stand up
to see a rat leaping like a real kangaroo: just as it would to see a
mouse shaking its mane and trotting and cantering like a horse. I have
not been used to such freaks, and this is a country I can’t understand.”
“I hope to understand it better,” replied the convict. “I was always
fond of roving, and in time I may have explored farther than we can see
from these green hills that we both find so dull. What do you mean to do
when you get free?”
“They may settle that that got me bound,” replied Castle, testily. Then,
struck with a sense of his own ingratitude, he added, “To be sure, if
there is no squire’s house, there is no workhouse either; and if I see
no acquaintance, there is nobody to taunt me with misfortune; but, on
the contrary, they make much of me at home. And there’s——”
“Your daughter.”
“What; my little Susan! Yes, they make a handy little thing of her
already, and——”
“I mean the other handy one, Ellen.”
“She will do well enough, Sir, I assure you. She has a fine spirit and a
steady mind of her own, and a proud brother to take care of her; and
that is better than a broken-down father; though it should go hard with
me but I would protect her, Sir, if there was no one to do it better.”
So saying, Castle walked off, showing by his manner that he was not
sociably disposed.
His wife was much more altered within a short time by her change of
circumstances than he. The first thing that seemed to affect her
favourably was the use that was made of her little daughter in the
household arrangements. When the farmer’s wife found that her new
domestic was indolent and indifferent, she endeavoured to make the best
of a poor bargain by squeezing as much work as she could out of Susan.
The child was willing enough, and proud to find herself of so much use;
but her mother was jealous on her account, and began for the first time
to show symptoms of tenderness for her. She not only argued in her
defence, but helped her when she was more disposed to proceed with her
work than to “go and play;” words which had little charm for a child
whose associations with play were those of hunger, scolding, mockery,
and all the miseries of pauper life. When the farm servants rose at
daybreak to go forth for the day, Susan was always ready to jump up at
the first word, to replenish the wallets and fill the cans, though her
mother turned round in bed, and muttered that it was too soon to get up.
She needed no reminding about tending the house-lamb, and feeding the
poultry, and dusting as much of the coarse furniture as she could reach.
After breakfast, if any one would lift her upon the dresser, or lay the
utensils and the bowl of water on the floor, she would wash up without
breaking anything: and she was always at hand to carry messages into
field or farm-yard, or to help with dinner and supper, or to carry
letters to the spot where they were to be deposited in readiness for the
postman’s weekly call; and when not able to do anything better, she
could scare away the crows and cockatoos from the fields and garden. Her
mother thought this a hard life for a little girl: but Susan was stout,
rosy, and merry; and the farmer himself found a few minutes now and then
to take her on his knee and teach her the alphabet, in preparation for
the time when a schoolmaster could be brought within reach. The first
thing Mrs. Castle did heartily was washing up, one day when Susan had
nearly scalded her fingers. She took more and more of the child’s work
from her, and still Susan turned to something else; so that ere long,
both were pretty fully employed; and in proportion as the once reckless
and lazy pauper became interested in the occupations going on around
her,—in proportion as she bestirred herself to get the baking done while
the house was clear of the men, and the washing over in time to have a
chat in the evening,—she grew like the active and tidy housewife she
would never have become in her own land.
A circumstance which hastened this change was the opportunity she now
had of gratifying one taste,—almost the only taste she ever had, and
which seemed to have died out under the hardships of her condition: a
taste for gardening. When a girl, she had had a garden; and as long as
her husband had owned an acre of ground, she took possession of a corner
of it for her pinks and roses, under pretence of growing vegetables for
the family. From that time to this, nobody had heard her mention fruit
or flowers; but Ellen bore in mind her love for them now when the
remembrance might be turned to some purpose. She mentioned, in her
step-mother’s presence, that her master was trying what he could do in
the management of vines, for the growth of which the climate was
peculiarly favourable; and that whether he got any wine or not, his
trouble would be more than repaid by his profits from his other fruits.
The peaches, to be sure, were not of the best sort, though so plentiful
as to lie rotting on the ground, after bushels had been thrown to the
pigs; but the apricots, and yet more the raspberries, which grew to such
a size and in such quantity as no English person would believe without
seeing them, were likely to prove a good speculation, being sent to a
distance in the form of jam. Sugar being remarkably cheap in this
country, there was little risk in trying a batch of sweetmeats, which
were to be sent to India for sale by a vessel from Launceston. The idea
was caught up as Ellen expected it would be; and as the farmer and his
wife did not take to the scheme of fruit-growing as heartily as was
desired, the emigrant family tried whether they could not get a garden
of their own. The small part of their wages which they were yet at
liberty to use was applied to the purchase of a plot of ground, and
Frank found time to work in it, and Ellen procured wherewith to stock
it, and their step-mother haunted it early and late, before and after
work,—and Castle himself relaxed his brow, and spoke in a tone that was
not querulous, as he looked round upon that which, however small, was so
much more than he had ever expected to possess again,—a family property.
“Look at father,” whispered Ellen to her brother. “I have not seen him
and her arm-in-arm since I was no bigger than Susan.”
“He is like a prisoner that has been quite shut up coming for the first
time into the gaol court,” said Frank. “The feel of the air makes him
push his hat up from over his eyes. Only set him quite free, and he will
uncover his brows, and lift up his head like a man.”
“And so he ought,” replied Ellen, “since it is for no fault of his own
that he has been bound down to poverty.”
“Ah! poverty is a cold and dreary prison, Ellen. That puts me in
mind,—have you seen, I wonder, any thing that has surprised you very
much lately,—any thing that you would like to tell me if you were sure
of not being overheard, or of not being thought fanciful?”
“The word ‘prison’ put me in mind of something that I have been wanting
to talk to you about almost this month past.—I don’t know how to believe
my own eyes about it, but I am sure I have seen Jerry in our farm-yard
at night, and lurking about among the sheds before most of our folks are
stirring in the morning.”
“Aye; but was he all alone, Ellen?”
“Bob was never with him, that I could see; but he seemed to me to be
waiting for somebody off our premises, and I thought it must naturally
be me. So twice I ran out to catch him; but once I was crossed by two of
our people that I don’t choose to come in the way of; and the other time
he was whispering with the same two, so that I dared not go near. How
could he get liberty? and what could he be about?”
“Something very deep, I am afraid,” replied her brother. “As to the
liberty,—it is no difficult matter for convicts who behave pretty
regularly to get hours of liberty at the beginning and end of the day;
and the lads being employed on roadmaking so near, accounts for our
getting a glimpse of them sometimes. But what I am uneasy about is
Jerry’s having so much to say to the convicts at your place and
mine;—for I have seen him at Stapleton’s oftener than you have among
your people. I am afraid of some plot——”
“O, mercy!” cried Ellen; “what sort of a plot?”
“That is more than I can say. Sometimes they plot, I hear, for nothing
worse than to escape; but some have had to do with the natives, (who are
little better than wild beasts), and have brought them down upon the
farms, setting them to steal and even to murder; for which they pay the
poor savage creatures by helping themselves with their wives.”
Ellen trembled while she asked whether any of the natives could be in
the neighbourhood.—Her brother hoped not, as the government had declared
that they were driven back among the mountains, where they must soon die
out as their wild cattle had done: but as long as any convicts were
disposed to bush-ranging,—and some did actually escape every year,—he
could not, for his part, feel quite secure. He thought he should speak
to Stapleton about it. Meanwhile, he desired Ellen to drop not a
syllable that should alarm her father, or anybody else.
“I hope, sister,” he continued with some hesitation, “I hope Harry Moore
has no acquaintance, more or less, with Jerry, or any other such
people.”
Ellen’s eyes flashed as they used to do when she was a passionate little
girl at school.
“Harry!” she cried. “Harry Moore have any sneaking doings! Harry Moore
keep bad company! You don’t know Harry a bit better than the very first
day,—the day when you thought he might be a convict himself.”
“No need to be angry, Ellen. He might just know him enough, you see, to
say ‘How d’ye do?’ when they meet, and to judge how often Jerry might
fairly be here.”
“After all,” said Ellen, sighing, “it is my father’s own son that I flew
off about his being acquainted with; so there is no need for me to be so
proud. No; Harry does not know either of the lads, even by sight; but I
shall tell him what you have been saying, though nobody else, Frank.”
“Certainly. Conceal nothing that weighs upon your mind from Harry, any
more than if he was your husband already. I look to him to help me to
keep an eye upon Bob, who may be made something of, they say, little
hope as there is for Jerry. Bob works within bounds at spare hours,
instead of roving into the bush, or prowling about the settlers’ farms,
where he has no business. Bob must be saving money fast, unless he has
unseen ways of spending it. He works hard, and is well paid for his
extra labour. He may have the advantage of me, after all; and settle on
a place of his own before me.”
“Because he got a free passage as a punishment. That is really very
hard, Frank.”
“Harry Moore will be the first at liberty, however, Ellen; and that I am
glad of on your account. I am soon to begin building you a house, at
over hours; and you may depend on my doing my best to have it all
complete by the time the six months are gone.”
“Six months!” cried Ellen.
“Why, I do not mean that you need wait till then. You may fairly marry
as soon as you like;—and many in our own country would be glad to have
that said to them. I only mentioned six months as the time when Harry
would be all his own master. Then I shall hope to see you milking a cow
of your own.—Meantime, till I have found out more about Jerry, be
cautious how you get out of reach of those that will take care of you.”
Ellen sighed, and smiled, and wondered which was the strangest
world,—the one she had left behind, or the new one which seemed, after
several months, nearly as foreign as when she had entered it. She had no
doubt which was the pleasantest. How could she, when a vague fear and
thorough dislike of some of the people in the neighbourhood were the
only set-off against the prosperity of all whom she loved, and her own
bright prospects with such a husband as Harry Moore had promised to be?
--------------
CHAPTER VI.
LAW AND JUSTICE.
Though convicts were unhappily supplied at an increasing rate from the
mother-country, the demand for free labourers throughout Van Diemen’s
Land became more urgent continually. The young men who settled either as
wool-growers, farmers, or labourers, wanted wives. All above the lowest
rank needed servants. The sheep were too many for the shepherds. There
was too little produce in proportion to the land; and too few dwellings
in proportion to the produce; too much or too little of almost
everything, for want of a due proportion of labour. The same thing is
the case at home; only here the proportions are exactly reversed. It
will be very strange if in a short time we do not rectify the condition
of each country by the exchange which would be equally beneficial to
both.
Ireland and Van Diemen’s Land are islands of about the same size. They
are each favoured by nature in an unusual degree, having all the
requisites of fertility, variety and beauty which can fit them to be the
abodes of a thriving and happy population. The arable lands and pastures
of both are excellent. The one has fisheries of salmon, herring and cod;
the other of whales, and seals for export, and of a large variety of
fish for home consumption. Both have fine natural harbours, ridges of
protecting mountains, stores of mineral treasure, inland lakes, and
fresh springs wherever man may incline to fix his abode. Both have, with
all these advantages, their natural hardships and social troubles.
The natural hardships of each might be almost entirely removed by a
well-conducted reciprocity of assistance. Ireland has a population of
eight million; Van Diemen’s Land of only twenty-five thousand. In
Ireland, multitudes of half-starved wretches pine in idleness, and many
die by the way-side, of that wasting of limb and heart and life which is
the form in which poverty perpetrates murder. In Van Diemen’s Land, the
labourer is liable to be worn out by toil, and fretted by seeing half
his produce rotting on the ground, or wastefully bestowed on swine;
while articles which he has always considered almost as necessary as
food cannot by any means be procured. With him, abundance is not wealth,
and plenty brings not the happiness for which he looked. If the wide sea
did not lie between, he would beckon to a dozen Irishmen to come and
nourish themselves with his superfluity, while he gathers about him the
comforts which spring out of their industry, and solaces himself with a
due portion of that repose, without a certain share of which the best
ends of life cannot be attained. Why should not a bridge be built across
this wide sea with the capital which is now unproductively expended on
the maintenance of these paupers? Why should not the charity which
_cannot_ in Ireland give subsistence to one without taking it from
another, be employed in a way which gives support to many, to the
benefit of many more? Whatever funds are judiciously employed on
emigration are used as if to bring to a junction with the over-peopled
country a rich region, into which a hungry multitude may be poured, to
the relief of the old, and the great advantage of the new land. If the
wealthy among the inhabitants of the old country would gladly if they
could, call up such a new region, drest in fertility, from the
surrounding sea, why do they delay effecting what is to their purpose
the same thing? Since they cannot move the land to their poor, why do
they not agree to devote what they now give in baneful charity to
removing their poor to the new land? Till such a general agreement is
arrived at, why do not individuals thus apply their charity, knowing
that thus they not only relieve for a time, but establish for life;—that
they not only assist the immediate objects of their bounty, but provide
for their descendants of many generations? The rich should choose for
their almoners the agents of emigration. Those who have little to give
should unite their resources to send abroad a few of the young labourers
of both sexes who are eager to go. Those who have no money to give,
should bestow their services in spreading the knowledge of the facts how
poor-laws aggravate, and emigration alleviates, if it does not remove,
pauperism.
If this had been done long ago, the places whither we now transport our
criminals might at present have been as remarkable for the good moral
condition of their inhabitants as they actually are for the reverse. If
it were now to be done effectually, it is yet possible that Botany Bay
may in time outgrow the odium attached to its name, and become the
chosen resort of the upright and industrious. Indigence causes crime;
and by the prevention of indigence and its consequent crime, we may
become better able than we now fancy ourselves to dispense with the
institution of penal settlements;—whose results are as disgraceful to
British wisdom as that of a legal pauper provision.
When Jerry and Bob were landed at Launceston, they were as unable as
those who sent them were disinclined, to reflect on the difference
between their being sent there, innocent, to provide an honest
livelihood for themselves, and being deposited as a curse upon this new
region,—both guilty and one hardened, proscribed by the old country and
dreaded by the new, and prepared to baffle all the professed objects of
their punishment. The guilt of these lads was distinctly referrible to
indigence. Their parents could give them little wherewith to provide for
their bodies, and nothing of that care and instruction which were
peculiarly needful to them in their circumstances of temptation. Being
thus made outcasts, they acted as outcasts; from which time it became a
struggle between themselves and society which could inflict the most
misery upon the other. They put society in fear, violated its rights,
mocked its institutions, and helped to corrupt its yet innocent members.
Society inflicted on them disgrace, bondage, and banishment; and from
all this misery no good resulted, however much was proposed.
The judge who pronounced sentence on Jerry and Bob told them that it was
necessary to the security of society that they should be prevented from
inflicting any further injury by their evil deeds.—There are two ways by
which such prevention may be accomplished; one by the death, the other
by the reformation, of the offender. Death was too severe a punishment
for the offence of these lads; the judge must therefore have
contemplated their reformation, or have thought only of England when he
spoke of society. Did the law gain its object?
“I say, Bob,” said Jerry one evening, when they had got the leave it is
so easy to obtain to go out of bounds, and work for themselves
over-hours,—“I say, do you remember what that fellow in Newgate read us
about that cursed gaol where the people are mewed up as close as if they
were in a school, and closer?”
“What that where they are shut in by themselves all night, and hard
worked all day, and nobody may speak but the parson, and he praying and
preaching night and morning, till a fellow’s spirit is downright broken?
Remember it! aye; and glad enough I have been many a time that we are
not there. I’d rather be hanged twice over.”
“Hanged! Yes: there’s not much in hanging. I have seen it several times,
and thought to myself, ‘if that’s all, I should not mind it.’ But we are
the best off, after all. I was horribly afraid, when old wiggy began to
whimper, that it was to be the hulks, or a long prison, instead of going
abroad; for one never knows what they mean when they say
‘transportation.’ You would not have looked so downcast as you did if
you had known what was before you.“
“Not I. I never thought to be made of so much consequence. ’Tis good fun
to see them quarrel which shall have us, and to get them to bid rum and
brandy against each other to seduce us away. We that could not get dry
bread at home,—how easy it is for us to fill our stomachs with the
choice of the land, and get drunk with our masters at the end of the
day,—our masters being luckily of our own sort!”
“Yours, that is, Bob; not mine. But I don’t know but I like mine as
well. He gives me plenty of spare hours, on condition of my bringing
back what I earn. You should have seen what a fright he looked in when
somebody said the folks were growing moral at home, and no more convicts
were to be sent out.”
“He was as sorry as some honester folks would be glad, Jerry. But as for
dividing your earnings with your master,—they are a queer sort of
earnings, I have a notion.”
“Easily got enough. ’Tis only just prowling on the downs in a dark night
to meet a stray sheep; or making a venture into the fold. Then, if one
gets so far as into the bush, there are other ways that you know nothing
of yet, Bob.”
“I never can make out how you get seal oil from the woods; being as we
are thirty miles from the sea.”
Jerry laughed, and offered to introduce his brother one day to somebody
in the bush he little dreamed of.
“Do you mean, Frank, poor fellow, or Ellen? They would not go so far to
meet you.”
“Do you think I would ask them? It will be time enough for me to notice
Frank when I have a house of my own to ask him into. I shall be the
master of such as he before his time is out.”
“You need not carry yourself so high, Jerry. You are in a worse bondage
than he just now.”
“Curse them that put me into it, and let them see if I bear it long!
However, hold your tongue about it now. There is the moon through the
trees, and the free turf under our feet. What a pity there is nobody
with a heavy purse likely to pass while we are resting in the shadow
under this clump! ’Tis such dull work when there is nothing better to be
had than sheep and poultry, and so many of them that they are scarcely
worth the taking!”
“I like roving for the sake of roving,” said Bob. “I have plenty of
mutton without stealing it.”
“I like robbing for the sake of robbing,” replied his brother; “and the
mutton is only the price of my frolic. But there is something I like
better. Let us be off, and I will show you, (if you’ll swear not to
blab,) how you may get such sport as you little think for. Learn to
handle a gun, and to cross a farm-yard like a cat, and to tap at a
back-door like a mouse within a wainscot, and you may laugh at the judge
and the law, and all the dogs they have set to worry us.”
“Why no, thank’ee,” replied Bob. “I am trying after a character, you
know, so I shall stay where I am. I’ll light my pipe; and I’ve got rum
enough to last till morning both for myself and somebody I rather expect
to meet me.”
“Take care she be not too deep for you, Bob. If ever you want a wife
with no more sense than a monkey, and not half as many tricks, ask me,
and I will show you how to get one.”
So much for the reformation of the offender. The other kind of security
on which the judge expatiated was that afforded by the criminal being
made a warning.
A waggon load of new convict-labourers arrived at the Dairy Plains one
day, when the accustomed gang was at work on the road which was not yet
completed. The masters who happened to be present were too much taken up
with observing the new-comers to pay any attention to the looks of their
labourers. They did not see the winks, and the side-long smiles, they
did not hear the snapping of fingers behind their backs; they had no
suspicion that some in the waggon were old acquaintances of those on the
road. On the first opportunity after the fresh men were left with the
others, and only one or two over-lookers near, there was a prodigious
hand-shaking and congratulation, and questioning. “How did you get
over?” “How did you manage to get sent _here_?” “How do you like
transportation?” “You’ll soon learn to know your own luck.” “This is a
fine country, is it not?” &c. &c.
“I was so cursedly dull after you all went away,” observed one of the
new-comers, “there was nothing to stay for: but I very near got sent to
Sidney.”
“Well; you could soon have got away, either home or here. But how do you
find yourself off?”
“With a bed to myself and a blanket, and rare good living to what I had
when I was an honest man. The thing I don’t like is the work; but they
say we are to have plenty of spirits.”
“To be sure; and as to the work,—what do the poor wretches at home do
but work as hard as you, and for less than you can get in spare hours.
But where’s Sam? Why did not he come too?”
“He got baulked, as he deserved for being a fool. What did he do but
send his sister to the justice to know how much he must steal to be
transported, and no more? The justice set the parson at him; and between
the two, they have cowed him, poor fellow, and he will never better his
condition.”
“Perhaps he is afraid. Perhaps he believes what the judge said about our
being a warning. And yet he tipped me the wink when that was said, and
when some of the pretty ones in the gallery began to cry.”
“He knows better than you think. If you were as moped as a linnet in a
cage, he would know nothing of it; because you are too far off for him
to see what became of you, in that case; but, being as you are, a merry,
rollicking set, he would like to be among you; and that sort of news
travels fast.”
Another of the party did not like his lot so well. He said nothing of
the disgrace, though he felt it; but he complained of the toil, of the
tyranny of the masters, of the spite and bickerings of his companions.
“If you don’t like your company, change it,” replied one to whom he had
opened his mind. “Such a good hand as you are at a burglary, I don’t
wonder that you had rather steal enough in one night to live upon for a
month, than work as commoner hands do. You had better go back. Jerry
will tell you how. Nothing is easier.”
“Well; but there is my little woman yonder, that they were so kind as to
send over at the same time; how is she to get back? She can’t turn
sailor, and get her passage home in that way.”
“Trust her for making terms with some gull of a sailor,” replied the
other, laughing. “It is only following an old trade for a particular
reason; and you’ll give her leave till you touch land again. But let me
hear before you go; there are some acquaintance of mine in London that
will be glad to know you; and you may chance to help one another;
though, to be sure, you take a higher line.”
“Are you thinking of sending over the fee they raised for your defence?”
“I did intend it, as a point of honour; but they assure me they made a
good bargain of it as it was. They could have paid the fee three times
over out of the plate-chest they stole for it. So I don’t know that I
need trouble myself.”
“So while Counsellor H—— was preaching about your being tried that
people might be safe, there was another robbery going on to pay him his
fees. That’s rare! You should go back, (since the way is so easy,) and
pick Counsellor H—’s pocket. That will mend the joke.”
So much for the security to society from the exhibition of this kind of
warning.
--------------
CHAPTER VII.
CHRISTMAS AMUSEMENTS.
Ellen’s wedding day drew near. Frank and Harry Moore had toiled together
at spare hours to erect and fit up a convenient dwelling; and there was
no fear whatever but that she and her husband would be amply supplied
with all the necessaries and many of the comforts of life. Her father
began to smile upon her, though he muttered complaints of there being so
many changes always going on that none of them ever knew when they were
settled. Her step-mother, though still hinting that the girl knew what
she was about when she was in such a hurry to come away from a poor
parish, seemed very well satisfied to have matters so arranged, and
rather proud than otherwise of belonging to Ellen. The farmer and his
wife whom Ellen served sighed when they found she was going to leave
them, and observed that it was always the way, as soon as they got
suited with a dairy maid; but as she agreed to go on taking care of
their cows till they could obtain another damsel in her place from
Hobart Town, they treated her very graciously. The only serious drawback
to her comfort was that Harry’s fellow-labourers would go on courting
her, though they knew she was engaged, and that this caused Harry to be
more jealous than she felt there was any occasion for, or than she could
easily excuse. She had no other fault to find with Harry; but she was
more than once on the point of breaking off the match on this account,
and if it had not been for Frank’s interposition, and his assurances
that such feelings were very natural in Harry, she would have thrown
away her own happiness for want of being sufficiently aware of the
danger of such a position as hers to a girl of less principle than
herself.—A circumstance happened, a few days before her marriage, which
everybody else thought very disastrous; but which she could not think
so, since it established a perfect understanding between Harry and
herself.
On the morning of the 21st of December,—the height of summer in Van
Diemen’s Land,—Frank appeared, breathless, in the farm-yard whither
Ellen was just going to milk her cows; Castle at the same moment was
seen at some distance, hastening from the downs where he ought to have
been tending his sheep at this hour; Harry Moore next leaped the gate
and wiped his brows, seeming too much agitated to speak; the farmer
pulled his hat over his eyes, in anticipation of the news that was
coming, and the women crowded together in terror.—Ellen was the first to
ask what was the matter.
“Have your men decamped, farmer?” inquired Frank.
“Yes, almost to a man. Have Stapleton’s?”
“Two out of four; and every settler in the neighbourhood misses more or
less this morning.”
“Now the devil and his imps will be on us in the shape of a gang of
bush-rangers,” muttered the farmer.
“Not on us, farmer. They will more likely go to some distant part where
their faces are strange.”
“If they do, they will send strange faces here, which comes to the same
thing; for one bush-ranger’s face is as devilish as another. One of us
must be off in search of a guard, and our shepherds, and indeed all of
us, must carry arms.”
Ellen turned pale at the mention of arms. Harry drew to her side, and
told her in a tone of forced calmness that three of her lovers were
gone.
“Gone!” cried Ellen joyfully. “Gone for good?”
“Gone for ever as lovers of yours.”
“Thank God!” said she. “Better watch night and day with arms in our
hands than have your head full of fancies, Harry. You will never believe
again that I can like such people: and you shall teach me to fire a gun,
so as to defend the house while you are away; and I shall not be afraid
of anything when you are at home.”
Harry was so alert and happy from this moment that one would have
thought there had been a certainty that no bush-rangers would ever come
again, instead of a threatening that those who had till now been
servants would soon reappear as enemies.
Whatever arms could be found up were put into the hands of the
shepherds, as they were most in danger from violence for the sake of
their flocks. They were desired to keep in sight of one another so far
as that each should be able to make a certain signal agreed on, in case
of his having reason to suppose that there were enemies at hand. Frank
departed immediately for Launceston, for powder and ball, and a further
supply of labourers to fill the places of those who had eloped. Another
messenger was sent to the seat of government to give information of what
had happened. During the absence of her brother, Ellen heard enough of
the evils inflicted by runaway convicts to alarm a stouter heart than
any young girl devotedly attached to her lover ever had; and to add to
her uneasiness, her father once more became gloomy, and poor little
Susan clung to her side wherever she went. Harry left his work twenty
times a day to tell her that all was quiet, and bid her not be alarmed.
During the day, she followed his advice pretty well; but in the
evenings, so many tales of horror went round that, though she did not
believe the half of them, her confidence was shaken; and she went to bed
shuddering to think of what might have happened before morning.
The bush-rangers seemed to be less dreaded by the settlers than the
natives. The bush-rangers came down in a troop, carried off what they
wanted, occasionally shooting a man or two during the process, and then
went completely away. The warfare of the natives was much more
horrible,—their movements being stealthy, their revenge insatiable,
their cruelty revolting. They would hover about for days or weeks before
committing an outrage, planning the most wicked way of proceeding, and
seizing the most defenceless moment for pouncing on their victims.
Castle asked aloud, what Ellen inquired in her heart, why all this was
not told them before they came, and what there was in wealth which could
compensate for such alarms as they were now suffering under? Frank
satisfied her, in some degree, when he returned on the 24th,—the day
before her wedding. He told her that though the first settlers had
suffered dreadfully from the murders and plunder of the hostile natives
and runaway convicts, this was not a sufficient reason to deter other
settlers from following, since, owing to the vigorous measures of the
Australian government, such outrages had been repressed and nearly put
an end to. He pointed out to her that the horrible tales she had been
told related to former times, and assured her that, except in some
districts near the wilder parts of the island, the face of a savage had
not been seen for years.—Ellen pointed to the mountain wastes on which
their settlement bordered, and Frank acknowledged that the Dairy Plains
lay as open to an attack as most newly-settled districts; but he had
been assured at Launceston that there was no need to terrify themselves
with apprehensions as long as they were armed and properly careful in
their movements; since the sound of a musket would disperse a whole
troop of savages, and they attacked no place that was not left
absolutely defenceless. He had distinctly ascertained what he had before
conjectured,—that it was not the practice of runaway convicts to plunder
settlements where their faces were known, and that the only danger
therefore arose from the probability that they might injure the savages,
who might come down to wreak their revenge upon the innocent settlers.
“If this is all,” sighed Ellen, “there is nothing——”
“To prevent your being married to-morrow, Ellen. So I have been telling
Harry.”
“There was no occasion, thank you. I never meant to put it off. The more
danger, the more reason for our being together. Besides, it will help to
take father’s mind off from his discontent. He has been wishing himself
back in Kent every hour since you went.”
“Indeed! Well now, I think that such an occasional fright as this is
little to the hardship of living as we did at A——, to say nothing of the
certainty of there soon being an end to it. The only two evils our
settlers suffer from will grow less every year; the scarcity of labour,
and danger of theft. To make up for these, we have the finest climate in
the world, abundance of all that we at present want, and the prospect of
seeing our children, and their children again, well provided for.—But
you must be in a hurry now, dear, considering what has to be done
to-morrow. So go, and cheer up, and trouble your head no more about
black or white thieves.”
Ellen had, however, little more than usual to do this day, as hers was
not the kind of wedding to require preparation. The travelling chaplain
who was to come and perform the Christmas service, was to marry the
young people, and thus only was the day to be marked as different from
any other. The settlers, no doubt, thought much of their friends in
England, and of the festivities which are there enjoyed by all but those
whose poverty deprives them of the means: but the seasons are so
entirely reversed in Van Diemen’s Land,—it is so impossible amidst the
brilliant verdure, the heat and long days of the Christmas season there,
to adopt the festivities carried on at home beside the hearth and over
the punch-bowl, that Christmas-day was allowed to pass quietly, and the
grand holidays of the year were wisely made on the anniversaries of
their settlement in their present abodes,—of their entrance on a life of
prosperity.
No fairer morning ever dawned than that on which Ellen arose very early,
and stole out to find that refreshment in the open air which she was not
disposed to seek in more sleep. She had rested well for a few hours, but
the first rays of the sun finding their way into her chamber, (which was
more like a clean loft than an English bedroom), roused her to thoughts
that prevented her sleeping again. It was too soon to be looking after
her cows; so she took her knitting, and sat on the bench outside the
house, whence she could look over a vast tract of country, and where she
was pretty sure of an hour’s quiet. She had some thoughts to spare for
her old Kentish neighbours; and began to fancy how her grandmother would
be getting up three hours after, when it would be scarcely dawning, to
make the room tidy, and light the fire to boil the kettle; and how the
old couple would put on their best, and draw over the hearth with their
Christmas breakfast. Then she thought of the many boys and girls she
knew who would be going to church, with red noses, and shivering in
their scanty clothing. Then she sighed when she remembered that she
might never more hear psalms sung in a church; and again she smiled
while fancying Mr. Fellowes’s great dinner to half the parish,—a dinner
of roast beef and ale and plum puddings, and Mr. Jackson there to say
grace, and the clerk to sing a Christmas carol, and every old man giving
a toast by turns, and some one perhaps to propose the healths of their
friends far away. She blushed, all alone as she was, when she wondered
what they would say if they knew she was to be married so soon,
especially if they could see Harry. It was strange, while her mind was
thus full of pictures of a frosty day, of a smoking table, of a roaring
fire, lamps, and a steaming punch-bowl, to look up and observe what was
before her eyes. The scene was not even like a midsummer morning in
Kent. It was not dotted with villages: there were no hop-grounds, and
all the apples grown within five miles would hardly have made an
orchard. There were no spires among the trees; nor did the morning mists
rise from the dells or hover over the meadows. All was clear and dry and
verdant under the deep blue sky. No haze hung over the running streams
that found their way among the grassy hillocks. Neither oak nor beech
grew on the hill side, nor pines on the ridges of the mountains behind;
but trees to whose strange foliage her eye was yet unaccustomed reared
their lofty stems where it did not appear that the hand of man was
likely to have planted them; and myrtles and geraniums grew up
roof-high, like the finest monthly roses in England. Instead of the
little white butterflies flitting over the daisied turf, there were
splendid ones alighting here and there in the neighbouring garden,
larger and gayer than the finest of the flowers they fed upon. Instead
of the lark rising from her dewy nest into the pink morning cloud, there
were green and crimson parrots glancing among the lofty evergreens.
Instead of flickering swarms of midges, flies shone like emeralds in the
sun. Instead of a field-mouse venturing out of its hole, or frogs
leaping across the path, speckled and gilded snakes (of which Ellen had
learned not to be afraid) wriggled out into the sunshine, and finding
that the world was not all asleep, made haste to hide themselves again.
“If I could fancy any part of this to be England,” thought Ellen, “it
would be yonder spot behind the range of woodland, where the smoke is
rising. If that were but grandfather’s cottage, how I would run and
bring them here before any body else was up. They will be so sorry not
to have seen me married, and not to know Harry! But I cannot make out
that smoke. I did not know that anybody lived there, and it looks more
than enough to come from a single chimney. Perhaps the man that found
the brick clay, and talked of having a kiln, may have settled there. I
will ask Harry. I wonder what o’clock it is now! He said he should
finish his morning’s work first, that he might stay when he did come.
How odd it seems that there are so few people to do things here, that a
man can scarcely be spared from his work on his wedding day! They must
be all over-sleeping themselves, I think. I’ll just get the milk-pails,
and that may wake them; and if the cows are milked a little earlier than
usual, it will not signify. I only get fidgetty, sitting here, and
fancying noises; from missing the singing-birds, I dare say, that are
busy among the boughs on such a morning as this in England. It was an
odd squeak and whistle that I heard just now; perhaps a quail or a
parroquet, or some other bird that I don’t know the note of yet. Or it
might be one of those noisy black swans on the lake yonder. I will not
stay any longer to be startled. That was only a butterfly that flew
dazzling before my eyes; and these flies do not sting, so I need not
mind their buzzing. There! I had rather hear that lowing that I have
been used to from a child than any music in the world. I should be sorry
indeed to give up these cows, for all I am going to have one of my own.”
Ellen purposely made some noise in getting her pails, that she might
wake somebody and find out how time went. She could not account for the
sun being so low in the sky till she heard the farmer growl that he
wished people would be quiet till it was time to get up; which it would
not be for two hours yet.
After pausing before the door to watch the distant smoke, which had much
increased, Ellen repaired to the cow-yard, immediately behind the
dwelling. She stumbled on something in the litter which she mistook for
a little black pig, till its cry made her think it was something much
less agreeable to meet with. Stooping down, she saw that it was
certainly a black baby; ugly and lean and dirty; but certainly a baby.
She did not scream; she had the presence of mind not to touch the little
thing, remembering that, for aught she knew, the parents might be
lurking among the sheds, and ready to spring upon her if she should
attempt to carry away the infant, which had probably been dropped in the
hurry of getting out of her way. Trembling and dreading to look behind
her, she stepped back into the house, and now roused the farmer in good
earnest. In a few minutes, the whole household was in the cow-yard; the
men not choosing to separate, and the women being afraid to leave their
protectors. The child was still there, and nothing was discovered in the
general search of the premises which now took place. When the farmer saw
the smoke at a distance, he ascribed it at once to a party of natives
having set the grass on fire in cooking their kangaroo repast. He
thought it probable that two or three spies might be at hand, and the
rest of the party ready for a summons to fall on the farm as soon as it
should, by any accident, be left undefended. He would not have the child
brought into the house, but fed it himself with milk, and laid it on
some straw near where it was found, in a conspicuous situation. Beside
it he placed some brandy, and a portion of food for the parents, if they
should choose to come for it.
“There is no knowing,” said he, “but they may be looking on; and one may
as well give them the chance of feeling kindly, and making peace with
us.” And he silenced one of his men who began to expatiate on the
impossibility of obtaining any but a false peace with these treacherous
savages.
Nothing could satisfy Harry but standing over his betrothed with a
musket while she was milking. As for her, every rustle among the leaves,
every movement of the cow before her, made her inwardly start; though
she managed admirably to keep her terrors to herself.
The arrival of the chaplain happened fortunately for collecting the
neighbouring settlers; and, by the farmer’s desire, nothing was said of
what had happened till the services he came to perform were ended. Harry
and Ellen were married, amidst some grave looks from the family of which
they had till now made a part, and the smiles of all the guests. Ellen’s
disappointed lovers,—the only people who could possibly disapprove of
the ceremony,—were absent; and she tried not to think about what they
might be doing or planning.
The barking of the dogs next drew the party to the door, and they saw
what was a strange sight to many of the new-comers. A flock of emus, or
native ostriches, was speeding over the plain, almost within shot.
“What are they?” inquired one.
“’Tis many a month since we have seen an emu,” observed another. “I
thought we had frightened away all that were left in these parts.”
“What are you all about,” cried a third. “Out with the dogs and after
them! Make chase before it is too late!”
“A decoy! a decoy!” exclaimed the farmer. “Now I am certain that mine is
a marked place. These savages have driven down the emus before them, to
tempt us men out to hunt, and they are crouching near to fall on while
we are away.”
He was as bold, however, as he was discerning. He left three or four men
to guard the women and stock at home, and set off, as if on a sudden
impulse, to hunt emus with the rest of his company, determining to
describe a circuit of some miles, (including the spot whence the smoke
arose) and to leave no lurking place unsearched. Frank went with him.
Castle insisted on following his usual occupation on the downs,
declaring himself safe enough, with companions within call, and on an
open place where no one could come within half a mile without being
seen. This was protection enough against an enemy who carried no other
weapons than hatchets and pointed sticks, hardly worthy of the name of
spears.—Harry remained, of course, with his bride.
The day wore away tediously while the home guard now patrolled the
premises, now indolently began to work at any little thing that might
happen to want doing in the farm-yard, and then came to sit on the bench
before the door, complaining of the heat. The women, meanwhile, peeped
from the door, or came out to chat, or listened for the cry of the dogs,
that they might learn in which direction the hunting party was turning.
“Ellen,” said her husband, “I do wonder you can look so busy on our
wedding day.”
“O, I am not really busy! It is only to drive away thought when you are
out of sight.”
“Well then, come with me across the road,—just to our own cottage, and
see how pretty it was made for us to have dined in to-day, if all this
had not happened. Frank was there after you left it last night; and
there is more in it than you expect to see.—Now, don’t look so afraid.
It is no further than yonder saw-pit; and I tell you there is not a hole
that a snake can creep into that we have not searched within this
hour.—I do not believe there is a savage within twenty miles.—O, the
baby!—Aye. I suppose it dropped from the clouds, or one of the dogs may
have picked it up in the bush. ’Tis not for myself that I care for all
this disturbance: ’tis because they have spoiled your wedding day so
that you will never bear to look back to it.”
Ellen wished they were but rid of their black foes for this time, and
then she should care little what her wedding day had been. They said
that one sight of a savage in a life-time was as much as most settlers
had.—She must step in passing to see what ailed the poor infant, which
was squalling in much the same style as if it had had a white skin;—a
squall against which Ellen could not shut her heart any more than her
ears.
“I must take it and quiet it,” said she. “I can put it down again as we
come back in ten minutes.”
So lulling and rocking the little woolly-headed savage in her arms, she
proceeded to her own cottage, to admire whatever had been suggested by
her husband, and added by her neat-handed brother.
“What bird makes that odd noise?” inquired Ellen presently. “A magpie,
or a parrot, or what? I heard it early this morning, and never before. A
squeak and then a sort of whistle. Hark!”
“’Tis no bird,” said Harry in a hoarse whisper. “Shut and bar the door
after me!”
And he darted out of the cottage. Instead of shutting the door, Ellen
flew to the window to watch what became of Harry. He was shouting and in
full pursuit of something which leaped like a kangaroo through the high
grass. He fired, and, as she judged by his cry of triumph, reached his
mark. A rustle outside the door at this moment caught her excited ear;
and on turning, she saw, distinct in the sunshine on the door-sill, the
shadow of a human figure, as of some one lying in wait outside. Faint
with the pang of terror, she sunk down on a chair in the middle of the
room, with the baby still in her arms, and gazed at the open doorway
with eyes that might seem starting from their sockets. Immediately the
black form she dreaded to see began to appear. A crouching, grovelling
savage, lean and coarse as an ape, showing his teeth among his painted
beard, and fixing his snakelike eyes upon hers, came creeping on his
knees and one hand, the other holding a glittering hatchet. Ellen made
neither movement nor sound. If it had been a wild beast, she might have
snatched up a loaded musket which was behind her, and have attempted to
defend herself; but this was a man,—among all his deformities, still a
man; and she was kept motionless by a more enervating horror than she
would once have believed any human being could inspire her with. It was
well she left the weapon alone. It was better handled by another. Harry,
returning with the musket he had just discharged, caught a full view of
the creature grovelling at his door, and had the misery of feeling
himself utterly unable to defend his wife. In a moment, he bethought
himself of the back window, and of the loaded musket standing beside it.
It proved to be within reach; but his wife was sitting almost in a
straight line between him and the savage. No matter! he must fire, for
her last moment was come if he did not. In a fit of desperation he took
aim as the creature was preparing for a spring. The ball whistled past
Ellen’s ear, and lodged in the head of the foe.
They were indeed safe, though it was long before they could believe
themselves so, or Ellen could take courage to cross to the farm to tell
what had happened. As there were no more traces of lurkers in the
neighbourhood, it was supposed that the one shot in the grass was the
mother, the one in the door-way, the father of the infant which no one
now knew what to do with. It might be dangerous to keep it, whether it
flourished or died under the care of the settlers; and there seemed to
be no place where it could be deposited with the hope of its being found
by its own tribe. When Frank and his companions returned from the hunt,
they threw light on this and other curious matters, and brought
comfortable tidings to the inmates of the farm. The Castles, indeed, and
they alone, found as much matter of concern as of comfort in what Frank
had to tell.
In following the emu hunt, the farmer and his party had skirted a tract
of woodland, called the bush, within which they perceived traces of
persons having lately passed. On searching further, they came upon a
scene rather different from what they had expected, and not the most
agreeable in the world, though it fully accounted for the visit of the
natives.—Under a large mimosa, which waved its long branches of yellow
flowers over the turf, and made a flickering shade, lay Jerry, enjoying
the perfection of convict luxury; that is, smoking his pipe, drinking
rum, and doing what he pleased, with a black wife, who, having skinned
the kangaroo and lighted the fire, squatted down on the turf, waiting
for further orders. If it had not been for the child she carried in a
hood of hide on her shoulders, she would have been taken for a tame
monkey, so little was there human in her appearance and gestures; but
the tiny face that peeped over her shoulder had that in it which bespoke
humanity, however soon the dawning rationality might be destined to be
extinguished.—On seeing the hunting-party, Jerry sprang to his feet,
seized his arms, and whistled shrill and long; whereupon so many
hootings and whistlings were heard through the wood, so many ferocious
faces appeared from among the brakes on every hand that it became
prudent to explain that no war was intended by the hunting-party. Frank
and Jerry were the spokesmen; and the result of their conference was the
communication of news of much importance to both parties. Jerry learned
that the settlements below were so well guarded and reinforced that any
attempt at plunder must fail; and he assured Frank that he was about to
depart at once with his band to one of the islands in Bass’s Strait, to
live among, or reign over the natives, as many a convict had done before
him. He owned that his black wife was stolen, and that her husband
having been knocked on the head in the scuffle, the rest of the savage
party had gone down to wreak their revenge on the first whites they
could meet with. He was really sorry, he declared, to hear how Ellen’s
wedding-day had been disturbed; and solemnly promised to draw off the
foe to a distant quarter, and watch that they did not again molest the
Dairy Plains. Frank could trust to these promises, as poor Jerry, amidst
all his iniquities, retained a rude sense of honour, and a lingering
attachment to his family,—especially a pride in his sister Ellen.—Frank
learned with great satisfaction that Bob’s disappearance from the
neighbourhood was not owing to his having run away. He had refused to do
so, his ambition being to become a great man in the settlement, provided
he could accomplish his object without too much trouble and self-denial.
He had made a merit of remaining at his work when his comrades eloped,
and had, in consequence, got promoted to a better kind of employment, by
which he had it in his power to make a good deal of money.
“And now, Ellen,” said Frank, on concluding the story of his morning’s
adventures, “I must go and bring you the wedding present poor Jerry left
behind for you.” And he explained that a sun-dial was hidden in a secure
place, whence it should be brought and put up immediately.
“Is it stolen, do you think?” inquired Ellen timidly. “Indeed, I had
rather not have it.”
“It is not stolen. A watch-maker, a clever man enough, came over in the
same ship with the lads, and Jerry paid him for making this dial for
you, knowing you had no watch. He could easily have sent you money, he
said, but thought you would like this better, since there is little that
can be bought in these parts that you have not without money.”
“I don’t know how it is,” observed Ellen; “but though it is very
shocking that Jerry has got among these people, and into such a brutal
way of life, I feel less afraid of them now that he is there. If it were
not for this, I should feel that such a fright as we have had will set
against a great deal of the good we have fallen in with here.”
“It always happens, Ellen, all through life, and all over the world,
that there is something to set against other things; and never more so
than when people leave their own country. If a man quits England through
intolerable poverty, he must not expect to find everything to his mind,
and abundance besides. If he goes to Canada, he may gain what he
emigrates for,—food for himself and property to leave to his children;
but he must put up with tremendous toil and hardship till he can bring
his land into order, and with long, dreary winters, such as he had no
notion of before. If he goes to the Cape, he finds a better climate and
less toil; but from the manner of letting land there, he is out of the
way of society and neighbourhood, and cannot save so as to make his
children richer than himself. If he comes here, he finds the finest
climate in the world, and an easy way of settling; but then there is the
plague of having convicts always about him, and the occasional peril of
being robbed;—and in some few of the wilder parts of the island, of an
individual here and there being murdered. But this last danger is
growing less every year, and cannot exist long.—Now, since there is evil
everywhere, the question is what is the least? I, for one, think them
all less than living in England in hopeless poverty, or even than
getting a toilsome subsistence there with the sight of hopeless poverty
ever before one’s eyes, and the groans or vicious mirth of pauperism
echoing through the alleys of all the cities of England. I, for one,
feel it well worth anything troublesome we have met with, or can meet
with here, to plant my foot on this hill, and look down upon yonder
farmsteads, and over all these plains and hills and dales, with smoke
rising here and there, and say to myself ‘There is not so much as one
pauper within a hundred miles.’”
When, after a few days, the black baby had, by Jerry’s means, been
restored to his tribe, when the country was known to be clear of such
unwelcome intruders, and Harry and Ellen were therefore at liberty to
settle down at length in their own house, the bride was quite of her
brother’s opinion respecting the goodliness of the exchange from
pauperism in Kent to plenty in Van Diemen’s Land.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MORE THE BETTER CHEER.
Frank kept his promise of writing to his friend Mr. Jackson, from time
to time, as he had opportunity. One of his letters, written four years
after his arrival in the Dairy Plains, contained the most important news
he had yet had occasion to send of the state of himself and his family.
“Respected Sir,
“I have often thought and called myself bold in what I have said to
you in my letters, but you have always taken it kindly. This kindness
makes me more bold than ever, especially as to two things that I am
going to write about, when I have a little explained our present
condition.
“My employer and I are about to part; which you will be surprised to
hear, as there is a full year remaining of the time I bound myself to
serve. It is through no quarrel, however; Mr. Stapleton having been a
good master to me, unless for wanting more work out of me than mortal
arm could do; for which, however, he was always willing to pay me
well. The fact is, sir, he is a daring and a bustling man, such as
they say are always to be found in new countries, wanting, as soon as
they have got all pretty comfortable about them, to go further into
the wilds and begin again. I see the good of there being such men, but
do not wish to be one; so, when Stapleton offered me any wages I liked
to go with him, I said ‘No,’ having only engaged to serve him on this
spot; and thus I find myself at liberty a year sooner than I expected.
He offered me an introduction that would get me good terms from the
gentleman that has taken his pretty place; but not knowing yet what
sort of person he is, and there being, thank God! far more work in my
way to be done at any price than I can get through, I wish to keep
myself free. To finish about myself first,—I am building a sort of
double house, in the middle of a very pretty piece of land. One end of
the house is for myself, and the other for my father, against his time
is up. It would do your heart good, sir, to see how he has everything
comfortable about him, though he goes on complaining, to be sure, that
this is not the old country. My step-mother too has succeeded finely
with her fruit this year, and there is as good cider of hers in every
cottage as any in Worcestershire, and such flowers as she grows make
the place look like a paradise.
“Allow me now, sir, to go on as if we were talking as we have often
done over the churchyard gate, or by your door; and not as if this
letter had to travel over the wide sea before it reaches you. I should
like to know whether it has ever happened to you to fancy gentlemen
like yourself coming over to this place? I am sure, if such would
think of it, it would be the best thing for the society here, and
might prove so to themselves, in cases where they are not very well
off, and have little to leave that they care for. You make no secret,
sir, of its being difficult for your family to live on such a curacy
as yours, and you have even talked of settling your sons abroad as
they grow up. If you would send them,—or (what is better) bring them
here,—they shall be made welcome, and watched over and taken care of
as they ought to be by those who owe so much to their father. Indeed,
sir, this might prove a pleasant settlement in a very few years to you
and yours. There are now eleven farms and other dwellings within three
miles, and more building every year; and Launceston is within reach.
The people about us are mostly very intelligent, and it is a good sign
that they are crying out continually for a settled clergyman and a
school; and, if we cannot get so much, for a library. You would find a
good house, with a stable, and a horse in it; a garden, and two or
three fields; a school-room with five-and-twenty scholars, whose
parents would pay you well both for your teaching and your Sunday
services. We should ask you too, to choose a little library at our
expense, and should add to it, under your direction, every year; so
that your children as well as those of the settlers should have every
advantage. You will find further particulars of what we can offer you
in the public letter which accompanies this.
“My fear is, that the consideration of the young ladies will deter
you, should you otherwise be disposed to listen to our plan; and,
indeed, England seems at first sight the best place for daughters that
have lost their mother. But I have great hopes that these plains may
be like an English county before your young ladies have grown up. When
once gentlemen, especially clergymen, begin to come, more follow; and
this is all we want to make the Dairy Plains like parts of Sussex or
Dorsetshire. We have specimens of each class, up to the thriving
farmer and wool-grower. There is also a surveyor, and a surgeon is
coming, they say; though he is the last person wanted, except for an
accident now and then, for we really have no sickness. If, in addition
to these, we could have over a tanner or two, a coal-master, a
vine-grower, a store-keeper, and so on, each with his proper
labourers, ours would be as flourishing a settlement as any in the
world. There is coal in plenty, and a fine market in every direction,
if we had but people to work it; and the same may be said of slate,
and bark, and hides. Some Portuguese vine-dressers are making a fine
thing of a vineyard in the south of the island; and why not here,
instead of our having to import spirits in such quantities as make
drunkards of too many of our labourers? The commoner sorts of wine we
might make would soon drive out spirits, to our great benefit in every
way. As for clothing, utensils, and other things that are brought to
great perfection and cheapness in England, we had better go on buying
there; and I have no doubt they will be as glad of our productions as
we of their manufactures. You will be pleased to hear that there are
already twenty-six vessels belonging to the island, and that upwards
of thirty traded with us from Great Britain last year; and that
1,000,000 lbs. of wool were sent there within the twelve months. All
these things I mention to show what a rising country this is, and how
well worth the while of many a man above the rank of labourers and
artizans to come to. If you should think of doing so, sir, it would be
the best piece of news that could reach the Dairy Plains from any part
of the world. You should have the heartiest welcome from some whom you
are pleased to call old friends.
“Perhaps, sir, you may remember saying something to me about the
difficulty of getting a wife here. I have never tried, because there
was one in England, as you know, that I always hoped might keep
herself single till we should agree that she should follow me out.
Through all these long four years we have had this in view, and now I
shall have a house ready for her by the time she can come; and this is
the other liberty I told you I was about to take. If you should really
come, perhaps, knowing her steadiness so well, you would let her cross
with you, waiting on the young ladies during the voyage, for the
expense of which I will be answerable. Whether you join us or not, I
have little doubt you will kindly put her in the way of coming with
the least possible delay; and you may depend on my meeting her before
she lands.
“I have said nothing of Ellen, because you will see her letter to
grandfather. I have left it to her to send money this time, as I have
other use, you see, for my own.
“It is a load off my mind, sir, to have written what has been deep
down in it for so long. It is a great while to wait for an answer; and
if there should be disappointment both ways, I hardly know how I shall
bear it. But I am pretty sure of what is to me the chief thing; and if
you come too, I wonder what we can manage to find to wish for next. It
pleased God to give Ellen and me our hardships early, and to take us
out of them before our hearts and tempers were hurt; like so many at
home, better perhaps than ourselves. If He should try us any more, we
have good reason now to be patient; and in the meanwhile, we desire to
save others from what we had to go through for a short time, and
therefore write as we do about coming over.
”FRANK CASTLE.
“P.S. There are fine downs here for the young gentlemen to fly their
kites, just behind the house you would have. Ellen will take care that
Miss Maria shall have a pretty poultry-yard; and Susan is taming an
opossum mouse for the other little lady.”
The many months which necessarily elapsed before an answer to the above
could be received did indeed seem long; almost as much so to Frank’s
family as to himself. Ellen had made a request scarcely less important
than Frank’s to the happiness of her parents, if not to her own. She had
always been convinced that the child which had been sent to the
workhouse by the parish surgeon of A—— was her stepmother’s; and it had
ever been her resolution to yield a sister’s protection to it. Harry
Moore was as willing as herself to have the child over; and as the boy
was now only five years old, there was hope that he might prove an
exception to the general rule of the corruption of parish-bred children.
Frank’s betrothed was requested to bring him out with her; and if Mrs.
Castle was still disinclined to own him, he was to take his place as the
eldest of Harry Moore’s children. There was not a man, woman, or child
in the neighbourhood that did not see the importance of having a
clergyman’s family come among them; and by all, therefore, Mr. Jackson’s
reply was looked for as the oracle which was to decide whether their
settlement might immediately rise to that degree of prosperity which is
caused by the union of high civilization with universal plenty, or
whether it must remain for some time longer in the rude state which is
ever the consequence of a scarcity of knowledge and of leisure. The
parents began already to teach their children the alphabet and the
multiplication table, during the evenings of the week, and as many hymns
as they could recollect on Sundays. The little ones already began to
play keeping school; and the travelling chaplain was told, week by week,
how much pleasanter he would find his occasional visits when there
should be a resident pastor on the spot, more worthy to converse with
him than any of his flock. A part of the Sunday leisure was spent by
many in repairing to the field where Mr. Jackson’s house was to be; and
then what planning there was about the garden, and the stand of
bee-hives, and the paddock, and every other appendage to the parsonage!
Some of the lads were training a pony for the young Jacksons, and the
rarest and finest plants were destined for their flower-beds.
The answer was expected to arrive in May, and every one hoped it would
be before the anniversary;—that celebration of the arrival of the
emigrants in a land of plenty which has already been spoken of as the
best of their festivals. It happened to arrive on that very day.
CHAPTER IX.
TRUE CITIZENSHIP.
Bright and busy were the mornings of these anniversaries;—each busier
and brighter than the last, as the families of the settlers grew in
numbers and prosperity. The labourers and mechanics who had arrived in
the same waggon with the Castles had found wives or had them over, and
now came thronging with their infants, bringing also the new comers of
their craft, or in their employ; so that it was found necessary to
spread a greater length of table every year under the shade where they
dined, and to provide a larger treat of game.
There was more bustle than usual this time, from Stapleton having chosen
this very morning for his departure to the new territory where he meant
to establish a lodge in the wilderness. As it was a holiday, several
neighbours followed in his train for a few miles; and when obliged to
turn back, gave three cheers to their departing neighbour, and three to
him who was to be his successor in the abode which had grown up
flourishing before their eyes, and was the chief ornament of their
settlement. Frank joined in these cheers, and then told his companions
that he would follow them home in an hour, as Mr. Stapleton had still
some more directions to give, and wished for his company a little
farther.—When Frank reappeared at noon, he looked so grave and had
suddenly become so silent that everybody was struck, and his sister
alarmed. He hastily reminded her that it was post-day; and said he was
going himself to meet the postman, and would be back before dinner was
on table. Three or four holiday-folks went with him; and none wondered
that he looked grave on hearing the sentence “No letters for the Dairy
Plains.” Before they were half-way back, some of the acuter ears among
the party caught the welcome and very rare sound of waggon wheels in
their rear. In course of time, the vehicle appeared briskly approaching
on the Launceston road, and Frank sprang eagerly forward to gaze in the
faces of the passengers. All were strange; and these repeated
disappointments left him no heart to hail the travellers. His companions
did so, however; and the reply was that these were labourers from
England, some bound to Stapleton’s successor, and others on their way to
a settlement further on.
“What part of England were they from?” “Kent and Surrey.” “Did they
bring letters for the Dairy Plains?” “Plenty; and something besides
letters.” So saying, they exhibited a little boy, the very image of
Jerry at five years old. Frank silently caught him up in his arms, and
carried him on without asking another question; the dreary conviction
having struck him that as this child was sent alone, none of the others
he wished for were coming.
Little passed between himself and Ellen, who was on the watch.
“Here is the child, Ellen. May he be a blessing to you!”
“Is he alone? No letters? No message? Or worse than none?”
“There are letters, but I have not got them from these people yet. They
cannot be good, you know, or why——”
He could not go on. Ellen ran to beg the particular favour of the
travellers to get out the letters immediately. This was easily done, the
packages of the labourers being small; and before Frank was called upon
to carve for a few dozen hungry people, he had satisfied himself that it
was very childish and ungrateful to have been so soon cast down; and his
gravity was seen by those who watched him to be of a very different
character from that which had seized him three hours before.
It was not Ellen’s wish that the little workhouse child should meet his
parents for the first time in the presence of strangers. Knowing that
Castle and his wife were gathering fruit in their garden, she took the
boy there, (after having brushed the dust from his clothes, and set him
off to the best advantage,) and put him in at the gate, bidding him not
to be frightened if he was spoken to, but say where he came from. The
little fellow made no advances. He stood in the middle of the walk, with
a finger of each hand in his mouth, and his chin upon his breast. He had
not yet learned work-house impudence.
Castle was the first to see him, after stooping so long over his peaches
that Ellen began to fear the blindness was wilful. “Wife! Wife!” she at
length heard him call. “He is come! The boy is come!” Ellen just staid
to hear the words “my boy” from both, and stole away. The next time she
saw him was as he came between his parents to the dinner table,
chattering in his Kentish dialect, and asking to sit on his father’s
knee, and be treated with fruit by his mother.
“You must be satisfied with being his brother, Harry,” said Ellen to her
husband. “He does not need to go begging for a father.”
Among the toasts which were given after dinner, some one proposed Mr.
Stapleton’s successor, whose name it was strange enough that nobody had
been able to learn till this day; and perhaps it was not less remarkable
that the name was the same with that of some respected persons now
present. They would all fill their cans to the health of Mr. Robert
Castle, about to become their neighbour.
It did not seem to occur to anybody who this Robert Castle was, till the
gloom was seen to have settled over Frank’s countenance as black as
ever. Then the rest of the family looked at one another in wonder and
dismay. Frank’s companions on either hand asked him if he was asleep, or
what had come over him that he did not fill his can. He immediately
addressed the party, relating that he had been requested by Mr.
Stapleton to inform the present company that the proprietor who was
coming among them did not approve of such festivals as they were now
holding; that he had purposely kept away till the present one was over,
and hoped to hear of no more anniversaries.—This announcement occasioned
a great uproar, which Frank quieted by observing that so absurd an
interference as this need not be regarded otherwise than with silent
contempt; that, whatever reasons the person in question might have for
disliking such a celebration as theirs, he had nothing to do with the
way in which they chose to remember the country of their birth, and to
be thankful for the blessings of that in which they now lived. He
therefore proposed, sure of being cheerfully pledged by every one around
him, “Many happy returns to all present of this remarkable festival.”
No wonder Frank had looked grave after bidding farewell to Stapleton,
when the last news he heard from him was, that his successor was no
other than Bob the convict, whose ambition was so far gratified that he
was able to take on lease the little estate on which his virtuous elder
brother had till now worked for hire. So much, as he observed, for his
having been favoured with a free passage! His family were obliged to
reconcile themselves to seeing him climb over their heads in this way.
They reminded one another that they had made up their minds to the
presence of convicts, as the one great evil attending emigration to Van
Diemen’s Land, and that they must not now begin to complain because one
of these convicts was a son and brother. What their intercourse with him
was to be, or whether there was to be any, they left to be decided by
circumstances when he should appear.
A hearty welcome being offered to the Kentish and Surrey folks just
arrived, they gave some account of themselves. They had all suffered
from want of demand for their labour; an evil which had gone on to
increase in the face of the promises that had been made to them about
providing for all who were out of work on farms prepared for their
advantage alone. A young labourer from the parish of A—— stated that his
father and mother and their seven children had been located on such a
farm by Mr. Fellowes, with sixty other families; that it was difficult
to provide for all the young people as they grew up, and would become
more so still when they came to have families of their own, unless
indeed they spent their whole lives in getting food and food only. Mr.
Fellowes was now anxious to take in more paupers upon his farm, and was
unwilling, in order to make room for them, to turn out labourers upon
the parish where there were already too many; and he had therefore
advised the sons and daughters of his home-settlers to lose no
opportunity of getting well placed either in Canada or Australia. “So,”
concluded the speaker, “I moved off to make room for two elderly folks,
seeing, as Mr. Fellowes himself said, that I can raise a better living
with less toil here than there, and be much sooner free; and so, here I
am. But Mr. Jackson will tell you all about it, when he comes, better
than I can.”
It was now Frank’s turn to explain that the clergyman and his family
were really coming, and to read that part of his long letter which
concerned the present company.—He had often thought of coming, the
gentleman wrote, and had nearly made up his mind to it before the
invitation arrived from some of his former flock; and the inducements
held out by them had quite decided him.—And now what cheering, what long
and loud congratulation followed!
“What are you shaking your head for, Castle?” inquired one who sat
opposite to him. “You cannot altogether help smiling; so why spoil sport
with shaking your head? What are you sorry for?”
“I am not sorry. I am very glad. I am only afraid of Mr. Jackson’s
growing sorry, and that in a very little while. After all, you see, this
is not the old country.”
“No more is the coat on your back an old coat; and how is it the worse
for that?”
“Tush! Stuff! One’s coat has nothing to do with one’s happiness, as
one’s country has. England is one’s home after all.”
“Not mine, I am sure. It was a dreary place enough to me,—nothing like a
home. I and mine were neglected or oppressed at every turn; not because
anybody meant us harm; but like starving people who happen to be just so
many more than are needed. Here I have all I want without begging or
returning thanks; and this is my home. Wherever I have a dwelling and
food, wherever I have comfort and safety within doors, and can step
abroad among friends, there is my home. Put me under a parish roof in
the very spot I was born in, and I should feel like a banished man. Set
me down independent, with my family about me, in any part of the
world,—in the middle of a forest or on the wildest sea-shore, and, be it
north, south, east, or west, that place is a home to me.”
Castle still shook his head, saying that there was no place like England
to an Englishman.
“Aye; if you could be as well off in England as you are here, I grant
you. But just answer me this,—if you and your family could be set down
this very day before the workhouse at A—, in the condition in which you
drove away from it, would you go?”
Castle stole a glance at his children and hesitated to reply.—To spare
his father, Frank observed that Mr. Jackson had a good deal to say on
this subject, and proceeded to finish the letter, the auditory showing
by their silence during its progress and their enthusiasm at its
conclusion, that they were partly sensible of the greatness of the
occasion, as well as prepared to enter into his opinions and feelings.
Several of them, besides Frank and others who personally knew Mr.
Jackson, felt that a new era in the prosperity of the settlement at
Dairy Plains was likely to begin from this day;—for their correspondent
might be said to be already among them.
After discussing the details of his removal, his letter proceeded thus:—
“My first consideration was, as you suppose, for my children; and long
and anxiously did I consider, as it will be a comfort to as many of you
as have families to know. The only way to settle such a question is, to
ascertain what are the objects of human life. This done, it is easy to
settle where those objects may be best attained. What I desire for my
sons and daughters is that life should train them to the greatest degree
of benevolence and integrity, out of which is sure to spring the highest
kind of piety; and these things, with outward plenty, make happiness.
Now, it seems to me that that benevolence is of the most kindly and
abundant sort which subsists among happy people; and that integrity is
most secure where the interests of all are the same, instead of being
opposed. I think that not all the advantages of society and what is
commonly called education, which my children could have in England, will
set against the freedom from temptation and from the corrupting sights
of human misery which must there come in their way; poor as they must be
here, and condemned to jostle their way in the world, and probably to
lose a step or two of the rank which their father’s profession leads
them to consider as their own. Education is made up of many things
besides books, and even cultivated society; and I am much mistaken if,
with such a field of exertion before them, and such motives to it, with
abundance of God’s blessings and beauties poured out around them, in the
midst of an affectionate and thriving people, and with their father at
hand to teach much which they could not otherwise learn, the intellects
of my sons and daughters may not become of a much higher order than they
could amidst the struggle for subsistence which they must sustain at
home. I judge for none but those who are circumstanced like myself; but
I certainly feel that those who have several children for whom they can
provide nothing more than that sort of education which will not be of
use to them in a competition for bread, are the right persons to go
abroad and make their home where, at the sacrifice of some of the
privileges of high civilization, none of the troubles and moral evils of
poverty can enter.
“You will have heard that Mr. Fellowes finds his well-meant plans
somewhat difficult to manage, from the vast increase of claimants. I
believe he still thinks that if there were People’s Farms enough, the
relief might be made effectual, though he cannot explain what is to be
done with so many delvers a hundred years hence, and will not say
whether we are all to become delvers and spinners rather than a few of
us cross the world to a more fruitful land. Your grandparents seem to
like their settlement on his farm, and their employment of looking after
some of the orphan children, and teaching them to dig and spin. Your
presents and Ellen’s give them great pleasure, and add to their stock of
little comforts. They sigh for you sometimes; and no wonder: but they
console themselves with saying that your father will end his days among
a thriving set of grandchildren who need never fear want. Mr. Fellowes
is glad, I am pleased to see, to have some of his farm labourers go
abroad as opportunity offers; and some of these will convey this letter
to you.—So many inquiries have already been addressed to me since my
determination was known, that I have strong hopes that persons of
various classes will soon be on their way to the Dairy Plains.—Wherever
colonization has succeeded best, the emigrating party has been composed
of specimens of every rank and class; so that no one felt stripped of
the blessings of the mother-country, but rather that he moved away in
the midst of an entire though small society. If gentlemen go to one
place, and labourers to another, the settlement is sure to pine, like
that at the Swan River, and like too many more of the same kind.
Whatever expense and trouble may be incurred in locating such imperfect
materials of society must be well nigh lost. The true economy, the true
benevolence, the true wisdom, of emigration is to send out a company as
a swarm of bees goes forth,—under proper leaders, and in a state of
organization. This is the doctrine I declare as often as I am
questioned; and I am trying to convince such capitalists as talk of
emigrating that, if done in such a mode as this, their removal becomes
most like a removal from one county to another;—as if they went from
Norfolk into Cumberland, or from Lancashire into the new scenery of
Devonshire. Let us hope that some of them will make the trial.
“The greatest surprise to me is that some still go on talking of its
being unpatriotic to leave one’s country. Surely it is patriotic to do
whatever most benefits one’s country; and it is pretty clear that it is
a benefit to rid ours of thousands of her burdensome children, to the
great advantage, instead of injury, of her colonies. After all, a state
is made up of individual members; and, therefore, whatever most benefits
those individuals must benefit the state. Our duty to the state and our
duty to ourselves are not opposing duties; if they were, there would
either be no patriots, or no one would thrive. On the contrary, a man’s
chief duty to his country is to provide honestly and abundantly, if he
can, for himself and his family; and when this cannot be done at home,
it is a breach of duty to stay and eat up other men’s substance there,
if a living can be had elsewhere. But I need not argue this matter with
you, who have seen and adopted the true patriotism. I and mine will come
and try what we can do to make the name of our native land honoured in
distant regions as it is in our own hearts: and when the reckoning comes
to be made of what, as a community, we of the Dairy Plains have done for
the state of which we are members, let it be clear that we have loved
and served her all the better for being removed from the gates of her
workhouses into one of the palaces which God himself has built for her.”
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_Summary of Principles illustrated in this Volume._
Two kinds of colonization have been adopted by the British
Empire;—Colonization for the reduction of our home-population,—or
Voluntary Emigration;—and Penal Colonization.
The term Colonization is by some applied to a third process, which they
wish to see introduced into this country; viz.—Home Colonization.
The objects of Voluntary Emigration, directed by the state, are
threefold.
1st. To improve the condition of those who emigrate, by placing them
where they may obtain subsistence at less cost than at home.
2d. To improve the condition of those who remain, by increasing the
ratio of capital to population.
3d. To improve the condition of the colonized region.
To fulfil the 1st of these objects, the colony must be so located as to
insure health and abundance to its members; and it must be so organized
as to secure the due co-operation of labour and capital.
To fulfil the 2d object, the removal of each individual must be less
costly than his maintenance at home would be; and the selection must be
made with a view to lessening the amount of human productiveness at
home.
To fulfil the 3d object, the colonists must be selected with a view to
their productiveness, both as regards capital and population; which
includes a moral fitness to compose an orderly society.
It follows from all these considerations that a new settlement should be
composed of young, healthy, and moral persons; that all should not be
labourers, nor all capitalists; and that there should be a sufficient
concentration of their numbers on the new lands to insure a facility of
exchanges.
Home colonies may afford a temporary relief to a redundant population,
and also increase the productiveness of the lands which they
appropriate; but this is done by alienating capital from its natural
channels; and with the certainty of ultimately injuring society by
increasing the redundancy of population over capital.
Home colonization then, though less injurious than the unproductive
distribution of the Charity-fund, is inferior to foreign colonization,
inasmuch as the one yields temporary benefit to a few at the expense of
ultimate injury to many; and the other produces permanent benefit to
all.
The objects of Penal Colonization are,
1st. The security of society by the removal of the offender.
2d. The security of society by the effect of his example.
3d. The reformation of the offender.
There has hitherto been an entire failure of all these objects. And no
wonder; since,
1st. The offender is only transferred from one portion of society to
another: and besides, frequently returns to his old haunts.
2d. His punishment, as far as it is punishment, takes place at too great
a distance to be conspicuous as a warning; and in as far as his lot does
not involve punishment, the effect of his example is precisely the
reverse of what is desired.
3d. Our convict arrangements tend to the further corruption of the
offender, by letting him experience a great improvement in his condition
as a direct consequence of his crimes.
The junction of penal with voluntary emigration tends equally to
disappoint the purposes of the one, and to extinguish the benefits of
the other; since convict labourers find themselves in a state of
privilege, in a region where their labour procures them large rewards;
and new settlers find their community deeply injured by the vice and
disease consequent on the introduction of a convict population.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR EACH
AND
FOR ALL.
=A Tale.=
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
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LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
---
832.
CONTENTS.
---
1. Novelty 1
2. Pastime 18
3. Discussion 29
4. More Novelty 45
5. Observing at hand 62
6. Observing afar 70
7. One for Himself 87
8. Consequences 108
9. Each for All 118
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR EACH AND FOR ALL.
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CHAPTER I.
NOVELTY.
The season was more than half over, and was about to be pronounced
remarkably dull, when a promise of novelty was given out in the shape of
a rumour that lord F—— and his lady, who had been travelling abroad from
the day of their marriage, had arrived in town, and that the bride’s
first appearance would take place at the Duke of A——’s ball on the 20th.
This information was circulated in various forms of words, all bearing a
relation to what lady F—— had been before she was lady F——. At the
clubs, in the shops, in drawing-rooms and boudoirs, it was related that
lady F——’s debut would take place on the 20th. Her first appearance on a
new stage,—her return from a tour in the provinces,—her first night in a
new character, all were referred to the 20th, in a manner which should
prevent any one forgetting that lady F—— had quitted a profession on her
marriage. The curiosity was not confined to mothers and daughters, to
whose observation an extraordinary marriage is the most exciting
circumstance that life affords: in this case, the interest was shared by
their husbands and fathers. Some wondered how the proud old earl would
stand the introduction of his daughter-in-law into his own society; and
others, who had told lord F—— that he was a lucky fellow to have won
such a glorious creature, speculated, notwithstanding, on the
awkwardnesses and difficulties which must hourly arise from the choice
of one so far below him in rank. He was an odd personage, however,—lord
F——; and there was no telling how he would think and feel on occasions
when everybody else felt alike. On the whole, greater sympathy was
expressed for his sister, lady Frances, who was more likely to be
mortified,—who certainly was more mortified at the connexion than the
rest of her family. Her father was understood to have insisted on her
making the best of the affair, since it could not be helped; but,
whatever her outward demeanour might appear, it would be too hard upon
her to suppose that she could do more than barely keep on terms with a
sister-in-law who had been on the stage. A solitary voice here and there
reminded the speculators how it was that lady F—— had adopted a
profession, and asked whether the connexion would have been thought very
preposterous if she had been known only as the highly educated daughter
of an eminent merchant; or whether the marvellousness of the case rested
on her father’s misfortunes, and her choice of a way of life when he was
no longer living to support and protect her: but these questions met
with no other answer than that such a marriage was so very strange an
one that the speculators longed to see how all the parties carried it
off; though, to be sure, such beauty as lady F——’s went a great way
towards making the thing easy;—almost as far as her husband’s
carelessness of the opinion of the world.—Meanwhile, who had seen her
riding in the park? Was she more or less beautiful than on the stage?
Was lady Frances with her? Who had called, and who had not? How was it
to be the fashion to treat her? And so forth.
How much did all this signify to lord and lady F——, to the earl, and to
lady Frances? The bride fancied little, and feared nothing. She had been
conversant with many ranks of society, and had found them all composed
of men and women; and she never doubted that in that with which she was
about to become acquainted, she should also have to deal with men and
women. Her husband guessed what speculations were going on, and did not
care for them. The earl also knew, and did care, as did lady Frances;
but they disposed differently of their anxieties; the earl repressing
them in order to the best disposition of circumstances which he could
not prevent; his daughter allowing them to fill her mind, appear in her
manners, and form a part of her conversation with her intimate friends.
Lady F—— and her husband dined alone on the day of the Duke of A——’s
ball. As the bride entered her dressing-room, she met her lady’s-maid
fidgeting about near the door.
“O, dear, my lady,” said Philips, “I am glad you are come. I was just
going to take the liberty of venturing to send Thérèse, to remind your
ladyship how very late it is growing. It would scarcely be justice,
either to myself or your ladyship, to cramp us for time in our first
toilet; and I was not able so much as to lay out your dress; for Thérèse
was so idle, I find, as not to have ascertained what your ladyship
intends to wear.”
“I have been so idle as not to have made up my own mind yet, Philips.
There is abundance of time, however, if you are no longer dressing my
hair than Thérèse and I shall be about the rest.”
Philips immediately looked very solemn; and though the toilet lamps were
duly lighted, and all was ready for her operations, she stood with her
arms by her side, in the attitude of waiting.
“Well, Philips, I am ready.”
“Will you please, my lady, to send Thérèse and her work elsewhere? It
cannot be expected that I should exhibit my ways so as a mere novice may
supplant me any day, my lady.”
“This is Thérèse’s proper place, and here she shall stay,” replied the
lady. “However, she shall read to us; and then, you know, she cannot be
a spy upon your doings.”
Thérèse read accordingly till the hair was dressed. At the first pause,
Philips observed that she must brush up her French, her fluency in which
she had lost from having missed the advantage of visiting Paris last
year.
“Thérèse will be obliged to any one who will talk with her in her own
tongue, Philips. Suppose, instead of having fancies about supplanting
one another, you make the best use you can of each other, since you must
be a good deal together.”
“I will do my best, I am sure, my lady, to instruct the girl in all that
relates to her own sphere, without encroaching on mine. I will do my
best to reform her dress, which really bespeaks her to be a
green-grocer’s daughter, if I may venture to say so. But as to dressing
hair,—allow me to appeal to lady Frances whether it can be expected that
I should disseminate my principles out of my own sphere.”
“See who knocks, Thérèse.”
The earl and lady Frances were below, and lady Frances would be
particularly glad to speak to Mrs. Philips, if not engaged with my lady.
Mrs. Philips, at her lady’s desire, went to receive her late mistress’s
commands, and Thérèse enacted the lady’s-maid, as she had done from the
time she had left Paris in lady F——’s train.
“Come, Thérèse, let us have done before anybody arrives to criticise us
novices. How nervous you look, child! What is the difference between
dressing me to-day and any other day?”
“There is no toilet in travelling, madame,—no fêtes like this; and in
the inns there was so much less grandeur than here. I have not been
educated to serve you, like Mrs. Philips, or to live in a great house.—I
am more fit to sew for you, madame, or read to you, than to help you
instead of Mrs. Philips.”
“I do not want two Mrs. Philipses, you know; and as for the grandeur you
speak of,—if we do not find it comfortable, we will have done with it.
What have we too much of,—of light, or of warmth, or of drawers and
dressing boxes, or of books? You like old china, and I like old
pictures, and here are both. Which of all these things do you wish
away?”
“O, none of them, I dare say, when I grow used to them: but they are so
little like my father’s house! I felt the inns very grand at first, but
they are bare and tarnished, compared with what we have here.”
“Yes. You would have been glad of such a rug as this under your feet in
those cold rooms at Amiens; and I should have liked such a mirror as
this instead of one so cracked, that one half of my face looked as if it
could not possibly fit the other. I see much to like and nothing to be
afraid of in rugs and mirrors.”
“You, madame, no! You are made to have the best of everything come to
you of its own accord; and you know how to use everything. You....”
“And yet, Thérèse, I was once as poor as you, and poorer. If I know how
to use things, and if, as you say, they come to me of the best, it is
because I think first what they were made for, and not what they are
taken as signs of. If, instead of enjoying the luxuries of my house, I
were to look upon them as showing that I am lady F——, I should be apt to
try to behave as people think lady F—— should behave; and then I should
be awkward. Now, if you consider all the pretty things you have to use,
not as pointing you out as lady F——’s lady’s-maid, but as intended to
make me and my little friend comfortable, you will not be distressed
about being unlike Philips: you will know that I had rather see you the
same Thérèse that I always knew you.”
“O, madame, this is being very good. But then, I cannot feel as you do,
because there is more occasion for me to think about the change. There
is my lord to take off your thoughts from such things; he is with you in
every new place, and you see how accustomed he is to everything that is
strange to you.”
“That does make some difference certainly,” said the lady, smiling, “but
then you should consider how many more new places and people I have to
make acquaintance with than you. Except Philips, or two or three of the
servants below, you have nobody to be afraid of, and I am never long
away. You will feel yourself at ease in one room after another, and with
one person after another, till you will learn to do all your business,
and speak all your thoughts, as simply and confidently as you once
watered the salads in your father’s shop, and made your confession to
good old father Bénoit.”
Thérèse sighed deeply, as she finished her task and withdrew to the
fireside, as if no longer to detain her lady about her own affairs.
“I have not forgotten, Thérèse, about finding a confessor for you. I am
only cautious lest we should not observe exactly your father’s
directions.”
“Madame—they are so very particular!—that the priest should be a devout
man, and very old and experienced in the confession of girls like me.”
“I know; and we thought we had found such an one; but he has forgotten
almost all his French, and you could hardly confess in English. But make
yourself easy; your conscience shall soon be relieved.—Good night.
Philips will sit up.... More work, do you want?—You may give Philips a
French lesson. O, you have read all these books. Well: come with me into
the library, and I will find you more.”
On the stairs they met lord F——.
“Where are you going, Letitia? Frances is closeted with Philips in the
library.”
Thérèse immediately stole back to the dressing-room; but before the
carriages drove off, she was furnished with a fresh volume wherewith to
be occupied when she should have made tea for Mrs. Philips and herself.
The earl had dreaded lest he should find Letitia nervous at the prospect
of the formidable evening she was about to pass. His visit was meant to
reassure her, and she understood the kindness of the intention, and
showed that she did. When lady Frances came in from her conference with
Philips, she found them side by side on the sofa,—Letitia quiet and
self-possessed, and the earl regarding her with as much admiration as
kindness.
“I am sure you may be obliged to me for giving up Philips to you,” said
lady Frances to Letitia. “She has dressed you beautifully to-night. Is
not she a treasure?”
“A great treasure to you, Frances,” said her brother, “so pray take her
back again. Letitia has one treasure of a maid in her dressing-room
already, and it is a pity she should rob you of yours.”
“Indeed it is,” said lady F——. “Philips’s accomplishments are thrown
away upon me, I am afraid. If you will allow her to give my little
French girl a few lessons, I shall be just as much obliged to you, and
shall not deprive you of your servant.”
Lady Frances protested; but her brother was peremptory, to her utter
astonishment, for she had never known him speak of lady’s maids before,
and would not have believed that he could ever learn one from another.
She did not perceive that he did not choose that his wife’s beauty
should be attributed to the art of her toilet.
Not the slightest trace of trepidation was observable in the bride when
she alighted from her carriage, when her name was shouted up the
staircase, or when all who were within hearing turned to gaze as she
entered the crowded saloon, leaning on the arm of the earl. There was
something much more like girlish glee than fear in her countenance; for,
the truth was, Letitia had a taste for luxury, as all simple-minded
persons would have, if their simplicity extended as far as a disregard
of the factitious associations by which luxury is converted into an
incumbrance. Having been early accustomed to so much of it as to excite
the taste, then deprived of it, then baulked and tantalized with the
coarse and tinsel imitation of it which had met her during her short
professional course, it was with lively pleasure that she now greeted
the reality. The whole apparatus of festivity inspired her with
instantaneous joy:—the bowers of orange and rose trees, light, warmth
and music together, the buzz of voices, and above all the chalked
floor,—all these set her spirits dancing. A single glance towards her
husband told him enough to have placed him perfectly at ease respecting
the affairs of the evening, even if he had been a man who could be
otherwise than at his ease. He knew perfectly well that it was
impossible for any one of good sense and taste not to admire and respect
Letitia, and he cared little under what pretence others might depreciate
her accomplishments.
“Lady F—— is the star of the night, as every one is observing,” said an
old friend of the earl’s, who was absorbed in watching the dancers,
among whom was Letitia. “The brightest star, we all agree, and shining
as if in her native sphere.”
“This is her native sphere,” replied the earl. “She is in her own sphere
wherever there is grace, wherever there is enjoyment.”
“True: so young, so simple as she appears! She seems perfectly
unspoiled.”
“Perfectly. She has gone through too much to be easily spoiled.
Change,—anything more than modification—is impossible in her case, do
with her what you will. You are an old friend, and I have no objection
to let you see that I am proud of Letitia.”
“I am truly glad.... I felt uncertain.... I did not know....”
“Nor I till to-night,” said the earl, smiling. “But I find I have no
more wish than right to question my son’s choice.”
“But you must expect the world to criticise it.”
“Certainly. If my son acts so as to imply contempt of conventional
marriages, there will be contempt cast on his marriage of love. If both
parties carry off their contempt inoffensively, both are welcome to
their opinions.”
“Well! there are many here whose parents have had occasion to use your
philosophy, or some other to answer the same purpose.”
“Lady F—— is the star of the night,” observed lady Frances’s partner,
gazing at Letitia through his glass. “Peerless indeed!”
Lady Frances made no answer, which emboldened the gentleman to proceed.
“The star of the night, as she has often been called, and never more
justly. Never, in the proudest moment of her glory, was she more
lovely.”
Still lady Frances was silent.
“Perhaps your ladyship feels this to be the night of her glory; and,
indeed, it is a triumph to have risen, through her own radiance, into a
higher sphere.”
“I question whether she feels it so,” replied lady Frances. “Letitia is
very proud, and her pride takes rather an odd turn. She would tell you
that she considers it a condescension to come among us, who are only
born to our station.”
“Surprising! And what inspired her condescension?”
“O, love, of course; pure love. Nothing else could have prevailed with
her to submit to marriage. You should hear her talk of the condition of
wives,—how she pitied all till she became one herself. You cannot
conceive what poor slaves she thinks them.”
“And what says lord F——?”
“He is fired by her eloquence. You have no idea how eloquent she is. She
pours it out as if....”
“It was in her heart, as well as by heart. How will she keep it up, now
she has no practice?”
“They will have private theatricals down at Weston, I have no doubt.”
“I beseech your ladyship’s interest to get me invited. It will be such a
new thing to see lord F—— on the stage. Of course he will play the
heroes to his wife’s heroines. Whatever may have been hitherto, he will
scarcely like, I should think ... he is scarcely the man.... Faith! if
she is proud and high-spirited, as you say, she has met her match.”
Lady Frances smiled; and as she was led away to supper, assured her
partner that nothing could be pleasanter than the terms they were all on
with lady F——; for she was, after all, a noble creature; which
information was received with a deferential bow.
In every group of talkers, lady F——’s merits were canvassed. Some ladies
would give any thing in the world for her courage, till reminded by
their mammas that she had been trained to self-confidence, when they
suddenly became contented with their own timidity. Others would have
supposed her not out of her teens, by the girlish enjoyment she seemed
to feel; but these were reminded that this kind of scene was as new to
her as if she had not been seen and heard of in public for nearly four
years. Everybody agreed that she was beautiful, and very amiable, and
astonishingly simple, and conducting herself with wonderful propriety:
and everybody admired the good-natured earl’s manner towards her, and
wondered whether it was lady Frances’s own choice to come with her, and
conjectured what lord F——’s happiness must be to witness his bride’s
flattering welcome to the rank he had given her.
Lord F——’s happiness, though as great as these kind friends could wish,
was not altogether of the character they supposed.
“You have enjoyed yourself, Letitia,” he observed, as they were going
home in the grey of the morning, and when she made the first pause in
her remarks to let down the glass, as a market cart, laden with early
vegetables and flowers, passed for a few moments alongside the carriage.
“How sweet!—O how sweet those violets are!” she exclaimed, as a whiff of
fragrance was blown in. “Enjoyed myself! Yes,—it is a new page,—quite a
new page of human history to me.”
“Your passion is for turning over such pages. What next?”
“If I had a market-woman’s cloak and bonnet, I should like to step into
that cart and go to Covent-Garden, to see the people dressing it up
against sunrise. I should like, some morning, to go into the city when
the sun is just touching the steeples, and see life waken up in the
streets.”
“I wonder you did not stand in the door-way to-night,” said her husband,
smiling, “to see the contrast between speculating life on the pavement
and polished life in the saloon.”
“I saw enough, without standing in the door-way,” replied Letitia,
gravely. “It was more different than I had supposed from something of
the same kind that I had seen often enough before. I had seen the great
and the humble throng about our theatre doors; but then there was room
for each, though far apart. All went to share a common entertainment,—to
be happy at the same time, though not side by side. Here there were
peers within and paupers without; careless luxury above, and withering
hardship below. This is too deep a page for my reading, Henry; and not
the easier for my having been in both conditions myself.”
“Why wish then for more experience, till you have settled this matter?”
“Because we cannot tell, till we have tried, what we may find in any
matter to throw light upon any other matter.”
“Suppose you should find all wrapped in darkness at last, as Faust did
when he had gratified his passion for experience.”
“Impossible,—having Faust before me for a warning. He kindled his altar
fire from below when the sun was high, and he let somebody put it out
when both sun and moon were gone down. Where was the use of his
burning-glass then? How should he be otherwise than dark?”
“True; but how would you manage better?”
“I would never quit stability for a moment. Faust found out that the
world rolled round continually. He jumped to the conclusion that there
was no such thing in nature as a firm footing, and so cast himself off
into perdition. If he had taken his walks in God’s broad sunshine, he
would have found that the ground did not give way under him, nor ever
would, till he was etherealized enough to stand on air.”
“So instead of speculating on the incompatibilities of human
happinesses, and concluding that there is no such thing as a common
welfare, you would make trial of all conditions, and deduce the summum
bonum from your experience.”
“Yes; that is the way; and if you would help me, the thing would be done
twice as well. If we were each to go a pilgrimage through the ranks of
society, (for we would settle the affairs of the moral world before we
began upon the natural,)....”
“Very reasonably, certainly,” replied her husband, smiling, “since it is
easier to get into palaces and hovels, than into thunder-clouds and
sea-caves.”
“Well;—if you began at the top and I at the bottom, if we were to meet
in the middle, I do think we might see how all might dance amidst
fragrance and music, and none lean starving on the frosty area-rails.
You should be king, minister, peer, and so on, down to a tradesman; and
I would be a friendless Italian boy with his white mouse, and a pauper,
and a cotton-spinner, and a house-servant, and so upwards, till I met
you at the tradesman’s we spoke of.”
“My dear, why do you put yourself at the bottom instead of me?”
“Because you would be longer in learning what to make of poverty than I.
I know a good deal about it already, you are aware.”
“Since we cannot rove up and down as we will through the mazes of
society, Letitia, we will do what we can by varying our occupations.
Variety of research may partly stand in the stead of migration from rank
to rank.—You spoke at random, just now, of my being minister. What would
you say if I were to become a servant of the crown;—that is, in other
words, a servant of the people?”
“That I would serve you,—O how humbly, how devotedly!—as the servant of
the people,” cried Letitia, colouring high. “You know....”
“I know that in marrying me you dreaded, above all things, falling into
the routine of aristocratic idleness. I know that you felt it a
sacrifice to surrender your public service and influence; and this is
one reason among many, Letitia, why I should like to accept office;—that
you might espouse another kind of public service in espousing me. But
here we are at home. I shall be able to tell you more after dinner
to-morrow than I know at present of this matter.”
Letitia’s experience of this day was not yet over. She found it very
painful to be undressed by a yawning, winking lady’s-maid; and she
resolved that her engagements should never more deprive Mrs. Philips of
her natural rest, however lady Frances might teach Mrs. Philips herself
to laugh at the absurdity of a lady of rank troubling herself to lay
aside her own trappings.
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