One afternoon ever-active semaphores transmitted a piece of intelligence
which set the peninsula agog. Captain Frere, having arrived from
head-quarters, with orders to hold an inquiry into the death of
Kirkland, was not unlikely to make a progress through the stations,
and it behoved the keepers of the Natural Penitentiary to produce
their Penitents in good case. Burgess was in high spirits at finding so
congenial a soul selected for the task of reporting upon him.
“It's only a nominal thing, old man,” Frere said to his former comrade,
when they met. “That parson has made meddling, and they want to close
his mouth.”
“I am glad to have the opportunity of showing you and Mrs. Frere the
place,” returned Burgess. “I must try and make your stay as pleasant
as I can, though I'm afraid that Mrs. Frere will not find much to amuse
her.”
“Frankly, Captain Burgess,” said Sylvia, “I would rather have gone
straight to Sydney. My husband, however, was obliged to come, and of
course I accompanied him.”
“You will not have much society,” said Meekin, who was of the welcoming
party. “Mrs. Datchett, the wife of one of our stipendiaries, is the only
lady here, and I hope to have the pleasure of making you acquainted with
her this evening at the Commandant's. Mr. McNab, whom you know, is in
command at the Neck, and cannot leave, or you would have seen him.”
“I have planned a little party,” said Burgess, “but I fear that it will
not be so successful as I could wish.”
“You wretched old bachelor,” said Frere; “you should get married, like
me.”
“Ah!” said Burgess, with a bow, “that would be difficult.”
Sylvia was compelled to smile at the compliment, made in the presence of
some twenty prisoners, who were carrying the various trunks and packages
up the hill, and she remarked that the said prisoners grinned at the
Commandant's clumsy courtesy. “I don't like Captain Burgess, Maurice,”
she said, in the interval before dinner. “I dare say he did flog that
poor fellow to death. He looks as if he could do it.”
“Nonsense!” said Maurice, pettishly; “he's a good fellow enough.
Besides, I've seen the doctor's certificate. It's a trumped-up story. I
can't understand your absurd sympathy with prisoners.”
“Don't they sometimes deserve sympathy?”
“No, certainly not--a set of lying scoundrels. You are always whining
over them, Sylvia. I don't like it, and I've told you before about it.”
Sylvia said nothing. Maurice was often guilty of these small
brutalities, and she had learnt that the best way to meet them was
by silence. Unfortunately, silence did not mean indifference, for the
reproof was unjust, and nothing stings a woman's fine sense like an
injustice. Burgess had prepared a feast, and the “Society” of Port
Arthur was present. Father Flaherty, Meekin, Doctor Macklewain, and Mr.
and Mrs. Datchett had been invited, and the dining-room was resplendent
with glass and flowers.
“I've a fellow who was a professional gardener,” said Burgess to Sylvia
during the dinner, “and I make use of his talents.”
“We have a professional artist also,” said Macklewain, with a sort of
pride. “That picture of the 'Prisoner of Chillon' yonder was painted by
him. A very meritorious production, is it not?”
“I've got the place full of curiosities,” said Burgess; “quite a
collection. I'll show them to you to-morrow. Those napkin rings were
made by a prisoner.”
“Ah!” cried Frere, taking up the daintily-carved bone, “very neat!”
“That is some of Rex's handiwork,” said Meekin. “He is very clever at
these trifles. He made me a paper-cutter that was really a work of art.”
“We will go down to the Neck to-morrow or next day, Mrs. Frere,” said
Burgess, “and you shall see the Blow-hole. It is a curious place.”
“Is it far?” asked Sylvia.
“Oh no! We shall go in the train.”
“The train!”
“Yes--don't look so astonished. You'll see it to-morrow. Oh, you Hobart
Town ladies don't know what we can do here.”
“What about this Kirkland business?” Frere asked. “I suppose I can have
half an hour with you in the morning, and take the depositions?”
“Any time you like, my dear fellow,” said Burgess. “It's all the same to
me.”
“I don't want to make more fuss than I can help,” Frere said
apologetically--the dinner had been good--“but I must send these people
up a 'full, true and particular', don't you know.”
“Of course,” cried Burgess, with friendly nonchalance. “That's all
right. I want Mrs. Frere to see Point Puer.”
“Where the boys are?” asked Sylvia.
“Exactly. Nearly three hundred of 'em. We'll go down to-morrow, and you
shall be my witness, Mrs. Frere, as to the way they are treated.”
“Indeed,” said Sylvia, protesting, “I would rather not. I--I don't
take the interest in these things that I ought, perhaps. They are very
dreadful to me.”
“Nonsense!” said Frere, with a scowl. “We'll come, Burgess, of course.”
The next two days were devoted to sight-seeing. Sylvia was taken through
the hospital and the workshops, shown the semaphores, and shut up by
Maurice in a “dark cell”. Her husband and Burgess seemed to treat the
prison like a tame animal, whom they could handle at their leisure, and
whose natural ferocity was kept in check by their superior intelligence.
This bringing of a young and pretty woman into immediate contact with
bolts and bars had about it an incongruity which pleased them. Maurice
penetrated everywhere, questioned the prisoners, jested with the
gaolers, even, in the munificence of his heart, bestowed tobacco on the
sick.
With such graceful rattlings of dry bones, they got by and by to Point
Puer, where a luncheon had been provided.
An unlucky accident had occurred at Point Puer that morning, however,
and the place was in a suppressed ferment. A refractory little thief
named Peter Brown, aged twelve years, had jumped off the high rock and
drowned himself in full view of the constables. These “jumpings off” had
become rather frequent lately, and Burgess was enraged at one happening
on this particular day. If he could by any possibility have brought the
corpse of poor little Peter Brown to life again, he would have soundly
whipped it for its impertinence.
“It is most unfortunate,” he said to Frere, as they stood in the cell
where the little body was laid, “that it should have happened to-day.”
“Oh,” says Frere, frowning down upon the young face that seemed to smile
up at him. “It can't be helped. I know those young devils. They'd do it
out of spite. What sort of a character had he?”
“Very bad--Johnson, the book.”
Johnson bringing it, the two saw Peter Brown's iniquities set down
in the neatest of running hand, and the record of his punishments
ornamented in quite an artistic way with flourishes of red ink
“20th November, disorderly conduct, 12 lashes. 24th November, insolence
to hospital attendant, diet reduced. 4th December, stealing cap from
another prisoner, 12 lashes. 15th December, absenting himself at roll
call, two days' cells. 23rd December, insolence and insubordination, two
days' cells. 8th January, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes.
20th January, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes. 22nd February,
insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes and one week's solitary. 6th
March, insolence and insubordination, 20 lashes.”
“That was the last?” asked Frere.
“Yes, sir,” says Johnson.
“And then he--hum--did it?”
“Just so, sir. That was the way of it.”
Just so! The magnificent system starved and tortured a child of twelve
until he killed himself. That was the way of it.
After luncheon the party made a progress. Everything was most admirable.
There was a long schoolroom, where such men as Meekin taught how Christ
loved little children; and behind the schoolroom were the cells and the
constables and the little yard where they gave their “twenty lashes”.
Sylvia shuddered at the array of faces. From the stolid nineteen years
old booby of the Kentish hop-fields, to the wizened, shrewd, ten years
old Bohemian of the London streets, all degrees and grades of juvenile
vice grinned, in untamable wickedness, or snuffed in affected piety.
“Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of
such is the Kingdom of Heaven,” said, or is reported to have said, the
Founder of our Established Religion. Of such it seemed that a large
number of Honourable Gentlemen, together with Her Majesty's faithful
commons in Parliament assembled, had done their best to create a Kingdom
of Hell.
After the farce had been played again, and the children had stood up
and sat down, and sung a hymn, and told how many twice five were, and
repeated their belief in “One God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven
and Earth”, the party reviewed the workshops, and saw the church, and
went everywhere but into the room where the body of Peter Brown, aged
twelve, lay starkly on its wooden bench, staring at the gaol roof which
was between it and Heaven.
Just outside this room, Sylvia met with a little adventure. Meekin had
stopped behind, and Burgess, being suddenly summoned for some official
duty, Frere had gone with him, leaving his wife to rest on a bench that,
placed at the summit of the cliff, overlooked the sea. While resting
thus, she became aware of another presence, and, turning her head,
beheld a small boy, with his cap in one hand and a hammer in the other.
The appearance of the little creature, clad in a uniform of grey cloth
that was too large for him, and holding in his withered little hand a
hammer that was too heavy for him, had something pathetic about it.
“What is it, you mite?” asked Sylvia.
“We thought you might have seen him, mum,” said the little figure,
opening its blue eyes with wonder at the kindness of the tone. “Him!
Whom?”
“Cranky Brown, mum,” returned the child; “him as did it this morning. Me
and Billy knowed him, mum; he was a mate of ours, and we wanted to know
if he looked happy.”
“What do you mean, child?” said she, with a strange terror at her heart;
and then, filled with pity at the aspect of the little being, she drew
him to her, with sudden womanly instinct, and kissed him. He looked up
at her with joyful surprise. “Oh!” he said.
Sylvia kissed him again.
“Does nobody ever kiss you, poor little man?” said she.
“Mother used to,” was the reply, “but she's at home. Oh, mum,” with a
sudden crimsoning of the little face, “may I fetch Billy?”
And taking courage from the bright young face, he gravely marched to an
angle of the rock, and brought out another little creature, with another
grey uniform and another hammer.
“This is Billy, mum,” he said. “Billy never had no mother. Kiss Billy.”
The young wife felt the tears rush to her eyes. “You two poor babies!”
she cried. And then, forgetting that she was a lady, dressed in silk
and lace, she fell on her knees in the dust, and, folding the friendless
pair in her arms, wept over them.
“What is the matter, Sylvia?” said Frere, when he came up. “You've been
crying.”
“Nothing, Maurice; at least, I will tell you by and by.”
When they were alone that evening, she told him of the two little boys,
and he laughed. “Artful little humbugs,” he said, and supported his
argument by so many illustrations of the precocious wickedness of
juvenile felons, that his wife was half convinced against her will.
* * * * *
Unfortunately, when Sylvia went away, Tommy and Billy put into execution
a plan which they had carried in their poor little heads for some weeks.
“I can do it now,” said Tommy. “I feel strong.”
“Will it hurt much, Tommy?” said Billy, who was not so courageous.
“Not so much as a whipping.”
“I'm afraid! Oh, Tom, it's so deep! Don't leave me, Tom!”
The bigger boy took his little handkerchief from his neck, and with it
bound his own left hand to his companion's right.
“Now I can't leave you.”
“What was it the lady that kissed us said, Tommy?”
“Lord, have pity on them two fatherless children!” repeated Tommy.
“Let's say it together.”
And so the two babies knelt on the brink of the cliff, and, raising the
bound hands together, looked up at the sky, and ungrammatically said,
“Lord have pity on we two fatherless children!” And then they kissed
each other, and “did it”.
* * * * *
The intelligence, transmitted by the ever-active semaphore, reached the
Commandant in the midst of dinner, and in his agitation he blurted it
out.
“These are the two poor things I saw in the morning,” cried Sylvia. “Oh,
Maurice, these two poor babies driven to suicide!”
“Condemning their young souls to everlasting fire,” said Meekin,
piously.
“Mr. Meekin! How can you talk like that? Poor little creatures! Oh,
it's horrible! Maurice, take me away.” And she burst into a passion of
weeping. “I can't help it, ma'am,” says Burgess, rudely, ashamed. “It
ain't my fault.”
“She's nervous,” says Frere, leading her away. “You must excuse her.
Come and lie down, dearest.”
“I will not stay here longer,” said she. “Let us go to-morrow.”
“We can't,” said Frere.
“Oh, yes, we can. I insist. Maurice, if you love me, take me away.”
“Well,” said Maurice, moved by her evident grief, “I'll try.”
He spoke to Burgess. “Burgess, this matter has unsettled my wife, so
that she wants to leave at once. I must visit the Neck, you know. How
can we do it?”
“Well,” says Burgess, “if the wind only holds, the brig could go
round to Pirates' Bay and pick you up. You'll only be a night at the
barracks.”
“I think that would be best,” said Frere. “We'll start to-morrow,
please, and if you'll give me a pen and ink I'll be obliged.”
“I hope you are satisfied,” said Burgess.
“Oh yes, quite,” said Frere. “I must recommend more careful supervision
at Point Puer, though. It will never do to have these young blackguards
slipping through our fingers in this way.”
So a neatly written statement of the occurrence was appended to the
ledgers in which the names of William Tomkins and Thomas Grove were
entered. Macklewain held an inquest, and nobody troubled about them any
more. Why should they? The prisons of London were full of such Tommys
and Billys.
* * * * *
Sylvia passed through the rest of her journey in a dream of terror. The
incident of the children had shaken her nerves, and she longed to be
away from the place and its associations. Even Eaglehawk Neck with its
curious dog stages and its “natural pavement”, did not interest her.
McNab's blandishments were wearisome. She shuddered as she gazed
into the boiling abyss of the Blow-hole, and shook with fear as the
Commandant's “train” rattled over the dangerous tramway that wound
across the precipice to Long Bay. The “train” was composed of a number
of low wagons pushed and dragged up the steep inclines by convicts, who
drew themselves up in the wagons when the trucks dashed down the slope,
and acted as drags. Sylvia felt degraded at being thus drawn by human
beings, and trembled when the lash cracked, and the convicts answered to
the sting--like cattle. Moreover, there was among the foremost of these
beasts of burden a face that had dimly haunted her girlhood, and
only lately vanished from her dreams. This face looked on her--she
thought--with bitterest loathing and scorn, and she felt relieved when
at the midday halt its owner was ordered to fall out from the rest, and
was with four others re-chained for the homeward journey. Frere, struck
with the appearance of the five, said, “By Jove, Poppet, there are our
old friends Rex and Dawes, and the others. They won't let 'em come all
the way, because they are such a desperate lot, they might make a rush
for it.” Sylvia comprehended now the face was the face of Dawes; and
as she looked after him, she saw him suddenly raise his hands above his
head with a motion that terrified her. She felt for an instant a great
shock of pitiful recollection. Staring at the group, she strove to
recall when and how Rufus Dawes, the wretch from whose clutches her
husband had saved her, had ever merited her pity, but her clouded memory
could not complete the picture, and as the wagons swept round a curve,
and the group disappeared, she awoke from her reverie with a sigh.
“Maurice,” she whispered, “how is it that the sight of that man always
makes me sad?”
Her husband frowned, and then, caressing her, bade her forget the man
and the place and her fears. “I was wrong to have insisted on your
coming,” he said. They stood on the deck of the Sydney-bound vessel the
next morning, and watched the “Natural Penitentiary” grow dim in the
distance. “You were not strong enough.”
* * * * *
“Dawes,” said John Rex, “you love that girl! Now that you've seen her
another man's wife, and have been harnessed like a beast to drag him
along the road, while he held her in his arms!--now that you've seen and
suffered that, perhaps you'll join us.”
Rufus Dawes made a movement of agonized impatience.
“You'd better. You'll never get out of this place any other way. Come,
be a man; join us!”
“No!”
“It is your only chance. Why refuse it? Do you want to live here all
your life?”
“I want no sympathy from you or any other. I will not join you.”
Rex shrugged his shoulders and walked away. “If you think to get any
good out of that 'inquiry', you are mightily mistaken,” said he, as he
went. “Frere has put a stopper upon that, you'll find.” He spoke truly.
Nothing more was heard of it, only that, some six months afterwards,
Mr. North, when at Parramatta, received an official letter (in which the
expenditure of wax and printing and paper was as large as it could be
made) which informed him that the “Comptroller-General of the Convict
Department had decided that further inquiry concerning the death of the
prisoner named in the margin was unnecessary”, and that some gentleman
with an utterly illegible signature “had the honour to be his most
obedient servant”.