THE END OF THE HEARTLESS.
There is plenty of contrast in this poor book, if that be any virtue.
Let us turn our eyes away from those scenes of love and cheerfulness, of
benevolence and peace. Let us leave Maria in her nursery, hearing the
little ones their lessons; and Henry cutting the leaves of a nice new
book, fresh from the press, while his home-taught son and heir is
playing at pot-hooks and hangers in a copy-book beside him. Let us
recollect their purity of mind, their holiness of motive, and their
happiness of life; these are the victims of false-witness. And how fares
the wretch that would have starved them?
The fate of John Dillaway is at once so tragical, so interesting, and so
instructive, that it will be well for us to be transported for awhile,
and give this rogue the benefit of honest company.
For many months I had seen a sullen lowering fellow, with cropped head,
ironed-legs, and the motley garments of disgrace, driven forth at early
morning with his gang of bad compeers; a slave, toiling till night-fall
in piling cannon-balls, and chipping off the rust with heavy hammers; a
sentinel stood near with a loaded musket; they might not speak to each
other, that miserable gang; hope was dead among them; life had no
delights; they wreaked their silent hatred on those hammered
cannon-balls. The man who struck the fiercest, that sullen convict with
the lowering brow, was our stock-jobber, John Dillaway.
Soon after that foretaste of slavery at Woolwich, the ship sailed,
freighted with incarnate crime; her captain was a ruffian; (could he
help it with such cargoes?) her crew, the offscouring of all nations;
and the Chesapeake herself was an old rotten hull, condemned, after one
more voyage, to be broken up; a creaking, foul, unsafe vessel, full of
rats, cockroaches, and other vermin.
The sun glared ungenially at that blot upon the waters, breeding
infectious disease; the waves flung the hated burden from one to the
other, disdainful of her freight of sin; the winds had no commission for
fair sailing, but whistled through the rigging crossways, howling in the
ears of many in that ship, as if they carried ghosts along with them:
the very rocks and reefs butted her off the creamy line of breakers, as
sea-unicorns distorting; no affectionate farewell blessed her departure;
no hearty welcomes await her at the port.
And they sailed many days as in a floating hell, hot, miserable, and
cursing; the scanty meal was flung to them like dog's-meat, and they
lapped the putrid water from a pail; gang by gang for an hour they might
pace the smoking deck, and then and thence were driven down to fester in
the hold for three-and-twenty more. O, those closed hatches by night!
what torments were the kernel of that ship! Suffocated by the heat and
noxious smells; bruised against each other, and by each other's blows,
as the black unwieldy vessel staggered about among the billows, the
wretched mass of human misery wore away those tropical nights in horrid
imprecation; worse than crowded slaves upon the Spanish Main, from the
blister of crime upon their souls, and their utter lack of hopefulness
for ever.
And now, after all the shattering storms, and haggard sufferings, and
degrading terrors of that voyage, they neared the metropolis of sin;
some town on Botany Bay, a blighted shore--where each man, looking at
his neighbour, sees in him an outcast from heaven. They landed in
droves, that ironed flock of men; and the sullenest-looking scoundrel of
them all was John Dillaway.
There were murderers among his gang; but human passions, which had
hurried them to crime, now had left them as if wrecked upon a lee
shore--humbled and remorseful, and heaven's happier sun shed some light
upon their faces: there were burglars; but the courage which could dare
those deeds, now lending strength to bear the stroke of punishment,
enabled them to walk forth even cheerily to meet their doom of labour:
there was rape; but he hid himself, ashamed, vowing better things: fiery
arson, too, was there, sorry for his rash revenge: also, conspiracy and
rebellion, confessing that ambition such as theirs had been wickedness
and folly; and common frauds, and crimes, and social sins; bad enough,
God wot, yet hopeful; but the mean, heartless, devilish criminality of
our young Dagon beat them all. If to be hard-hearted were a virtue, the
best man there was Dillaway.
And now they were to be billeted off among the sturdy colonists as
farm-servants, near a-kin to slaves; tools in the rough hands of men who
pioneer civilization, with all the vices of the social, and all the
passions of the savage. And on the strand, where those task-masters
congregated to inspect the new-come droves, each man selected according
to his mind: the rougher took the roughest, and the gentler, the
gentlest; the merry-looking field farmer sought out the cheerful, and
the sullen backwoods settler chose the sullen. Dillaway's master was a
swarthy, beetled-browed caitiff, who had worn out his own seven years of
penalty, and had now set up tyrant for himself.
As a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, in a stagnant little clearing
of the forest, our convict toiled continually--continually--like
Caliban: all days alike; hewing at the mighty trunk and hacking up the
straggling branches; no hope--no help--no respite; and the iron of
servile tyranny entered into his very soul. Ay--ay; the culprit
convicted, when he hears in open court, with an impudent assurance, the
punishment that awaits him on those penal shores, little knows the
terrors of that sentence. Months and years--yea, haply to gray hairs and
death, slavery unmitigated--uncomforted; toil and pain; toil and sorrow;
toil, and nothing to cheer; even to the end, vain tasked toil. Old
hopes, old recollections, old feelings, violently torn up by the roots.
No familiar face in sickness, no patient nurse beside the dying bed: no
hope for earth, and no prospect of heaven: but, in its varying phases,
one gloomy glaring orb of ever-present hell.
It grew intolerable--intolerable; he was beaten, mocked, and almost a
maniac. Escape--escape! Oh, blessed thought! into the wild free woods!
there, with the birds and flowers, hill and dale, fresh air and liberty!
Oh, glad hope--mad hope! His habitual cunning came to his aid; he
schemed, he contrived, he accomplished. The jutting heads of the rivets
having been diligently rubbed away from his galling fetter by a big
stone--a toil of weeks--he one day stood unshackled, having watched his
time to be alone. An axe was in his hand, and the saved single dinner of
pea-bread. That beetled-browed task-master slumbered in the hut; that
brother convict--(why need he care for him, too? every one for himself
in this world)--that kinder, humbler, better man was digging in the
open; if he wants to escape, let him think of himself: John Dillaway has
enough to take care for. Now, then; now, unobserved, unsuspected; now is
the chance! Joy, life, and liberty! Oh, glorious prospect--for this
inland world is unexplored.
He stole away, with panting heart, and fearfully exulting eye; he
ran--ran--ran, for miles--it may have been scores of them--till
night-fall, on the soft and pleasant greensward under those high echoing
woods. None pursued; safe--safe; and deliciously he slept that night
beneath a spreading wattle-tree, after the first sweet meal of freedom.
Next morning, waked up like the starting kangaroos around him (for John
Dillaway had not bent the knee in prayer since childhood), off he set
triumphant and refreshed: his arm was strong, and he trusted in it, his
axe was sharp, and he looked to that for help; he knew no other God. Off
he set for miles--miles--miles: still that continuous high acacia wood,
though less naturally park-like, often-times choked with briars, and
here and there impervious a-head. Was it all this same starving forest
to the wide world's end? He dug for roots, and found some acrid bulbs
and tubers, which blistered up his mouth; but he was hungry, and ate
them; and dreaded as he ate. Were they poisonous? Next to it, Dillaway;
so he hurried eagerly to dilute their griping juices with the mountain
streams near which he slept: the water was at least kindly cooling to
his hot throat; he drank huge draughts, and stayed his stomach.
Next morning, off again: why could he not catch and eat some of those
half-tame antelopes? Ha! He lay in wait hours--hours, near the torrent
to which they came betimes to slake their thirst: but their beautiful
keen eyes saw him askance--and when he rashly hoped to hunt one down
afoot, they went like the wind for a minute--then turned to look at him
afar off, mockingly--poor, panting, baffled creeper.
No; give it up--this savoury hope of venison; he must go despondently on
and on; and he filled his belly with grass. Must he really starve in
this interminable wood! He dreamt that night of luxurious city feasts,
the turtle, turbot, venison, and champagne; and then how miserably weak
he woke. But he must on wearily and lamely, for ever through this
wood--objectless, except for life and liberty. Oh, that he could meet
some savage, and do him battle for the food he carried; or that a dead
bird, or beast, or snake lay upon his path; or that one of those
skipping kangaroos would but come within the reach of his oft-aimed
hatchet! No: for all the birds and flowers, and the free wild woods, and
hill, and dale, and liberty, he was starving--starving; so he browsed
the grass as Nebuchadnezzar in his lunacy. And the famished wretch would
have gladly been a slave again.
Next morning, he must lie and perish where he slept, or move on: he
turned to the left, not to go on for ever; probably, ay, too probably,
he had been creeping round a belt. Oh, precious thought of change! for
within three hours there was light a-head, light beneath the tangled
underwood: he struggled through the last cluster of thick bushes,
longing for a sight of fertile plain, and open country. Who knows? are
there not men dwelling there with flocks and herds, and food and plenty?
Yes--yes, and Dillaway will do among them yet. You envious boughs, delay
me not! He tore aside the last that hid his view, and found that he was
standing on the edge of an ocean of sand--hot yellow sand to the
horizon!
He fainted--he had like to have died; but as for prayer--he only
muttered curses on this bitter, famishing disappointment. He dared not
strike into the wood again--he dared not advance upon that yellow sea
exhausted and unprovisioned: it was his wisdom to skirt the wood; and so
he trampled along weakly--weakly. This liberty to starve is horrible!
Is it, John Dillaway? What, have you no compunctions at that word
starve? no bitter, dreadful recollections? Remember poor Maria, that own
most loving sister, wanting bread through you. Remember Henry Clements,
and their pining babe; remember your own sensual feastings and
fraudulent exultation, and how you would utterly have starved the good,
the kind, the honest! This same bitter cup is filled for your own lips,
and you must drink it to the dregs. Have you no compunctions, man?
nothing tapping at your heart? for you must _starve_!
No! not yet--not yet! for chance (what Dillaway lyingly called
chance)--in his moments of remorse at these reflections, when God had
hoped him penitent at last, and, if he still continued so, might save
him--sent help in the desert! For, as he reelingly trampled along on the
rank herbage between this forest and that sea of sand, just as he was
dying of exhaustion, his faint foot trod upon a store of life and
health! It was an Emeu's ill-protected nest; and he crushed, where he
had trodden, one of those invigorating eggs. Oh, joy--joy--no
thanks--but sensual joy! There were three of them, and each one meat for
a day; ash-coloured without, but the within--the within--full of sweet
and precious yolk! Oh, rich feast, luscious and refreshing: cheer
up--cheer up: keep one to cross the desert with: ay--ay, luck will come
at last to clever Jack! how shrewd it was of me to find those eggs!
Thus do the wicked forget thee, blessed God! thou hast watched this bad
man day by day, and all the dark nights through, in tender expectation
of some good: Thou hast been with him hourly in that famishing forest,
tempting him by starvation to--repentance; and how gladly did Thine
eager mercy seize this first opportunity of half-formed penitence to
bless and help him--even him, liberally and unasked! Thanks to
Thee--thanks to Thee! Why did not that man thank Thee? Who more grieved
at his thanklessness than Thou art? Who more sorry for the righteous and
necessary doom which the impenitence of heartlessness drags down upon
itself?
And Providence was yet more kind, and man yet more ungrateful; mercy
abounding over the abundant sin. For the famished vagrant diligently
sought about for more rich prizes; and, as the manner is of those
unnatural birds to leave their eggs carelessly to the hatching of the
sunshine, he soon stumbled on another nest. "Ha--ha!" said he, "clever
Jack Dillaway of Broker's alley isn't done up yet: no--no, trust him for
taking care of number one; now then for the desert; with these four huge
eggs and my trusty hatchet, deuce take it, but I'll manage somehow!"
Thus, deriving comfort from his bold hard heart, he launched
unhesitatingly upon that sea of sand: with aching toil through
the loose hot soil he ploughed his weary way, footsore, for
leagues--leagues--lengthened leagues; yellow sand all round, before, and
on either hand, as far as eye can stretch, and behind and already in the
distance that terrible forest of starvation. But what, then, is the name
of this burnt plain, unwatered by one liquid drop, unvisited even by
dews in the cold dry night? Have you not yet found a heart, man, to
thank Heaven for that kind supply of recreative nourishment, sweet as
infant's food, the rich delicious yolk, which bears up still your
halting steps across this world of sand? No heart--no heart of
flesh--but a stone--a cold stone, and hard as yonder rocky hillock.
He climbed it for a view--and what a view! a panorama of perfect
desolation, a continent of vegetable death. His spirit almost failed
within him; but he must on--on, or perish where he stood. Taking no
count of time, and heedless as to whither he might wander, so it be not
back again along that awful track of liberty he longed for, he crept on
by little and little, often resting, often dropping for fatigue, night
and day--day and night: he had made his last meal; he laid him down to
die--and already the premonitory falcon flapped him with its heavy wing.
Ha! what are all those carrion fowls congregated there for? Are they
battening on some dead carcase? O, hope--hope! there is the smell of
food upon the wind: up, man, up--battle with those birds, drive them
away, hew down that fierce white eagle with your axe; what right have
they to precious food, when man, their monarch, starves? So, the poor
emaciated culprit seized their putrid prey, and the scared fowls hovered
but a little space above, waiting instinctively for this new victim:
they had not left him much--it was a feast of remnants--pickings from
the skeleton of some small creature that had perished in the desert--a
wombat, probably, starved upon its travels; but a royal feast it was to
that famishing wretch: and, gathering up the remainder of those
priceless morsels, which he saved for some more fearful future, again he
crept upon his way. Still the same, night and day--day and night--for he
could only travel a league a-day: and at length, a shadowy line between
the sand and sky--far, far off, but circling the horizon as a bow of
hope. Shall it be a land of plenty, green, well-watered meadows, the
pleasant homes of man, though savage, not unfriendly? O hope,
unutterable! or is it (O despair!) another of those dreadful woods,
starving solitude under the high-arched gum-trees.
Onward he crept; and the line on the horizon grew broader and darker:
onward, still; he was exulting, he had conquered, he was bold and hard
as ever. He got nearer, now within some dozen miles; it was an
indistinct distance, but green at any rate; huzza--never mind
night-fall; he cannot wait, nor rest, with this Elysium before him: so
he toiled along through all the black night, and a friendly storm of
rain refreshed him, as his thirsty pores drank in the cooling stream.
Aha! by morning's dawn he should be standing on the edge of that green
paradise, fresh as a young lion, and no thanks to any one but his own
shrewd indomitable self.
Morning dawned--and through the vague twilight loomed some high and
tangled wall of green foliage, stretching seemingly across the very
world. Most sickening sight! a matted, thorny jungle, one of those
primeval woods again, but closer, thicker, darker than the park-like
one before; rank and prickly herbage in a rotting swamp, crowding up
about the stately trees. Must he battle his way through? Well, then, if
it must be so, he must and will; any thing rather than this hot and
blistering sand. If he is doomed by fate to starve, be it in the shade,
not in that fierce sun. So, he weakly plied his hatchet, flinging
himself with boldness on that league-thick hedge of thorns; his way was
choked with thorns; he struggled under tearing spines, and through
prickly underwood, and over tangled masses of briery plants, clinging to
him every where around, as with a thousand taloned claws; he is
exhausted, extrication is impossible; he beats the tough creepers with
his dulled hatchet, as a wounded man vainly; ha! one effort more--a
dying effort--must he be impaled upon these sharp aloes, and
strange-leafed prickly shrubs; they have caught him there, those thirsty
poisoned hooks, innumerable as his sins; his way, whichever way he
looks, is hedged up high with thorns--thick-set thorns--sturdy, tearing
thorns, that he cannot battle through them. Emaciated, bleeding, rent,
fainting, famished, he must perish in the merciless thicket into which
hard-heartedness had flung him!
Before he was well dead, those flapping carrion fowls had found him out;
they were famishing too, and half forgot their natural distaste for
living meat. He fought them vainly, as the dying fight; soon there were
other screams in that echoing solitude, besides the screeching falcons!
and when they reached his heart (if its matter aptly typified its
spirit), that heart should have been a very stone for hardness.
So let the selfish die! alone, in the waste howling wilderness; so let
him starve uncared-for, whose boast it was that he had never felt for
other than himself--who mocked God, and scorned man--whose motto
throughout life, one sensual, unsympathizing, harsh routine, was this:
"Take care of the belly, and the heart will take care of itself!"--who
never had a wish for other's good, a care for other's evil, a thought
beyond his own base carcase; who was a man--no man--a wretch, without a
heart. So let him perish miserably; and the white eagles pick his
skeleton clean in yonder tangled jungle!