WELSH TOM.
"I was born in North Wales," commenced the Welshman, "near the Valley
of Clwyd, in Denbighshire, and I passed my days at home in idleness.
My father died when I was very young, and I cannot remember him. My
mother was a little dark-skinned woman. I can see her now in her
widow's weeds; she never left them off from the time of my father's
death. I got some little education from an old clergyman, but not
much, for I was too fond of roaming over the hills and valleys to pay
attention to study. You can tell by my accent that I am Welsh born. My
dear mother was very proud of her descent, and like many old Welsh
families, hers had a pedigree which she could trace back many
centuries, and which connected us with a royal line. My father left
some property which brought in about forty pounds a year. Upon this we
lived, and we were looked upon as quite rich people. There were three
of us at home--my mother, my sister, and myself. We were the family.
When I say I passed my days in idleness, I mean that I was brought
up to no trade, and did not work for money. But I found the days
quite short enough. I fished, and hunted, and made excursions
to the neighbouring mountains. One day, when I was returning from
Moel-Fammau, I fell in with a gentleman, who told me he was making a
pedestrian tour for pleasure. We got into conversation together, and
he walked with me until we came to my mother's house. I was pleased
him, and I invited him to our evening meal. He made himself very
agreeable, and we offered him a bed for the night. The chance
acquaintance ripened into intimacy, and he stayed with us some time.
Lake and woodland round about the Valley of Clwyd are magnificent. He
was delighted with the scenery, and, being an artist, was desirous of
taking away with him some sketches of what he called a paradise upon
earth. So, he with his sketch-book, and I with my gun and rod, would
go in search of pretty bits of scenery, and he would sketch while I
shot or fished. We were away from home sometimes for two or three
days. We climbed Snowdon together, and caught otters on the banks of
shy streams, which seemed to be trying to hide themselves from our
sight. Many weeks passed in this manner, and we became much attached
to one another--that is, I became much attached to him. The life of
seclusion I had led made me like him better than I should have done,
perhaps, had I been a worldly man, or had I been, as I am now, better
acquainted with the world. He was to my life as bright clouds are to
the sky. We were all fond of him: I, because I had never had a friend;
my mother, because he would indulge her in her pet pride of royal
descent (he would talk with her for hours about ancient Wales and its
noble kings); and my sister--half a minute, mate, my pipe's out."
He paused to relight it, and continued:
"My sister liked him too well, although I did not suspect it at the
time. We took no notice of their being often together, for you see he
was our guest, and no suspicion of wrong entered our minds. Even when
the time drew near that he must depart, I did not think it strange
that my sister should look grieved at his going from us. We all felt
sorry--he had so enlivened our quiet home with his gay manners and
conversation, that it was impossible he could have been easily
forgotten. I accompanied him many miles on his road, and with
expressions of friendship we parted. For some days after his
departure, the sunshine of our home seemed to have disappeared; but
little by little it came back, and our quiet life was resumed. But not
for long--for one day my sister was missing, and all our anxious
searchings and inquiries brought us no tidings of her. My mother was
distracted, and I thought at the time it would be her death. A few
weeks after my sister's disappearance, a letter came from her, asking
our forgiveness for her flight, and saying that she hoped soon to
visit us, a happy wife. She made no allusion to any person in the
letter, but a mother's loving perception detected the sad strain in
which it was written; and many were the bitter tears she wept over the
letter. I looked at the postmark on the envelope, 'Wenlock,' and
resolved to go to Shropshire to try and find my sister. Dishonour had
never fallen on our family, and although no word of the fear which
haunted us passed between my mother and myself, I saw and knew the
dread which possessed her. I went to Wenlock. I did not think, as I
left my home, with a look at my gun and my fishing-tackle, that I
should never see them again, and that the Valley of Clwyd would
receive me no more. The day after my arrival at Wenlock, I met the man
whose name was Hardy who had made our home so bright while he stopped
with us. Then, when I saw him, the suspicion that had entered my
mind that he was connected with my sister's flight, flashed into
conviction. I questioned him, but he denied all knowledge of her. It
needed not the unquiet look or the hesitating speech to convince me
that he lied. He did lie, as I knew. It was not long before I found my
sister, and learned from her lips the shame that had fallen upon our
family. I can see her now, crouching before me, as she sobbed out her
confession; indeed, it was little she said, but it was enough. I can
see her face--it might be looking upon me in the light of this
beautiful moon!--as she raised it, tear-covered, to me, and implored
my forgiveness. Poor child! I could not reproach her; she was punished
enough already for her sin. But I determined to seek my false friend,
and to force him to make reparation. He received me civilly enough,
but almost laughed in my face when I asked him to marry my sister. I
spoke of the honour of our family, and begged him not to tarnish it; I
recalled to his mind the welcome and the hospitality he, a stranger,
had received at our hands; I spoke of my mother, and of the blow it
would be to her;--but he only sneered at me, and with his specious
tongue tried to put me off. I was hot, and he was cool, and when he
left me, I was goaded almost into madness. It appeared to me
incredible that hospitality should be so violated. That night, after I
had once more visited my sister, I determined to see this man again,
and to appeal more strongly, if I could, to his sense of honour. And
if he does not marry her, I thought, I will kill him! For what reason
I do not know, for I was strong enough for anything, I put a pistol
into my pocket. It was late in the night when I went to his residence.
The doors were closed, but at the back of the house I saw a light
shining in a window, and a shadow I could swear was his upon the
blind. I soon climbed over the low wall which enclosed the garden, and
then I scrambled up to the window, and dashed into the room. He was
half undressed, and his face turned very white when he saw me. My
words were few: I told him I was determined not to submit to
dishonour. He would have called out, but I presented my pistol, and
swore I would shoot him if he raised his voice. He knew that I would
keep my word, and he promised me that he would marry my sister on the
morrow. I held out my hand to him, and he shook it. We spent a few
minutes in friendly talk, and then, with a light heart, I prepared to
leave the house the way I had entered it. But no sooner had I got my
leg over the window-sill than he rushed to the door, and throwing it
open, called loudly for assistance. I was bewildered. The pistol I had
brought with me dropped to the ground. He picked it up quickly and
pulled the trigger, then let it fall again to the ground. As he did so
I jumped back into the room, which in an instant was filled with
people, and the next moment I was seized and dragged off to prison on
a charge of burglary and attempted murder. The case was quite clear:
my presence in the room, the smashed window-panes, the pistol, which
was proved to be mine, the bullet in the wall, made up a chain of
evidence too strong, of course, to admit of doubt. There was only my
bare word that the story was false; they shrugged their shoulders when
they heard it, and the judge himself said that it was nothing but a
shallow fabrication. They did not hesitate over the verdict; they
found me guilty, and I was sentenced to transportation for life."
The Welshman paused for a few moments, and puffed away at his pipe
before he resumed.
"While I was lying in prison, my sister fled. I wanted sadly to see
her, but it was denied me. She was nowhere to be found. Three days
before the ship sailed which was to convey me from my country, my
mother came to see me. Poor thing! she had almost lost her reason. She
wept over me, and gave me this little Welsh Bible, which I have never
parted with, and which shall be buried with me when I am dead. Then
she was taken away, and I never saw or heard of her again. I was
chained by the leg to a fellow-convict, and put on board ship. We were
eight months getting to Botany Bay. The ship was a leaky old tub. The
Government in those days picked out the rottenest vessels it could get
to convey the convicts from their native shores. The filth and dirt of
the ship were horrible. The water was poisonous; the food was
disgusting. A plan was mooted among the convicts to murder the
officers, and seize the ship; but it was discovered, and half-a-dozen
men were shot and thrown overboard. After that we were kept nearly the
whole of the time under close hatches. How that old tub creaked and
strained! Many a time I thought we were going down, and I prayed that
the vessel might be dashed to pieces, and make an end of us. For
during a great part of the voyage, I was angry and despairing, and
almost doubted the goodness of God. But this" (and here he touched the
Bible) "has taught me better! We arrived at our destination safely
enough, and were set to work. Some of the convicts in our ship did
well. The man I was chained to during the voyage is now a millionaire.
He bought some land in Sydney with his savings, and sold it at twenty
thousand pounds an acre. I was never very fortunate. I got my
ticket-of-leave, and worked for myself, chiefly at bullock-driving. I
could tell you some queer anecdotes of colonial life in those days.
Bushranging was all the go, and it wasn't safe to travel a hundred
miles with anything valuable about you. I remember once, as I was
coming into Sydney with my dray, seeing a buggy, without a horse,
standing on the road. When I drove up to it there was a man inside,
stark naked. He had been stuck up by bushrangers, and they had
stripped him of every bit of clothing, down to his socks. They had
torn from the buggy everything that he might have converted into a
covering: otherwise, they did not ill-treat him. I have been a
shepherd, too, and have lived by myself for months and months, without
seeing the face of a single human creature. It is a trying life. I
have known men grow into a state of incurable idiocy after a few
months' solitariness. It is not disagreeable at first; one takes a
pride in the sheep, and enjoys the sense of independence which is the
great feature in a shepherd's life; but, after a time, it is awful. To
sit, night after night, with no soul to speak to, with nothing to
read, with nothing to do but to smoke and think--it is no wonder that
men go mad! The wonder is, that so many escape with reason. I remember
a narrow brush I had with the natives. I remember it with pleasure,
for even the sight of a savage, although he was eager to kill me, was
a relief. I had missed some sheep, at odd times, within two or three
weeks. I was actually pleased when I first made the discovery, for it
gave me something new to think of. One night I determined to watch;
and, sure enough, I came upon the natives, carrying off half-a-dozen
or so of the fattest sheep. I did not see them sooner than they saw
me, and I had to run for it. I had provided for such a contingency,
and when I arrived, almost breathless, at the hut, I made all fast in
a twinkling, and prepared to receive them. They came up pretty fast at
my heels, but I saluted them with three barrels from my six-shooter,
and all but two retreated, yelling, faster than they came. The hut was
rather queerly built, just in a nook of some overhanging rocks, and
there was only the front of it exposed. This was an advantage to me,
for the savages could not get at me at the back. I watched their dusky
forms in the distance with absolute pleasure. It must have been quite
four months since I had seen anything in the shape of a man, and
though I saw him now in the shape of a deadly foe, it was better than
living any longer the devil's life of solitude. Besides, I did not
care much for them. If they had fought fair, I could have kept them
off as long as my powder lasted. But they don't fight fair. The
'noble' savage will take any mean advantage he can of an enemy. They
are a skulking, idle, dirty lot of thieves. They came to the attack
three times, and each time I received them with my six-shooter, and
sent them scampering back. Then they made preparations for doing what
I expected, and what I was prepared for. They collected all the dead
timber and dry brushwood they could lay their hands on, and threw it
before my hut, topping it with a lot of green branches. They were
going to smoke me out. But I was ready for them. My hut, built in the
cleft of a mass of rock, concealed a great fissure at the rear. In
fact, the fissure served as a sort of tunnel. I had worked at it for a
long while, and had dug along the natural tunnel until I came to an
outlet. This outlet I had filled up carelessly, with loose pieces of
rock, so that no one unacquainted with the secret would have suspected
that it was a place of concealment. When the savages in front of the
hut set fire to the pile of wood, which they did by throwing lighted
branches into it from a distance, I crawled through the tunnel. A
feeling did come over me, that if the savages knew of this retreat
they would be sure to guard it, and it would be all up with me; and
when I reached the outlet, I was a bit curious to know if I should see
any black skins knocking about. Luckily for me, there were none, and I
crept away. I did not have much time to lose, for I knew they would
rush the hut before it was half burnt, and would discover the tunnel;
so I only crept slowly along until I thought I was out of sight of
them, and then I scudded off. I ran a good many miles that night, and
I thought I was pretty clear of them. But the next day, when I was
within eight or ten miles of the station I was making for, I saw three
of the black devils racing after me, with their skinny legs. They
haven't much superfluous flesh about them, haven't the blacks. They
are all skin, bone, and muscle. They had tracked me the whole way,
nearly thirty miles, and when they caught sight of me, they set up a
hullaballoo of delight. I was pretty tired at the time, but the sight
of them put fresh life into me, and I ran my fastest. But they were
too much for me. I saw one of them disappear round a clump of timber
for the purpose of cutting me off, while the other two followed
straight after me. I soon came to where there was a bend in the track,
and just as I turned it, the first one sprang out of the timber. He
was within two hundred yards of me, and when he saw me he raised his
'boomerang,' and sent it whizzing into the air. Quick as lightning,
for I knew how true those savages could aim, I turned, and ran towards
the other two. Seeing this, and knowing that I had turned upon them to
escape the 'boomerang,' they stopped short, suddenly, and threw their
spears at me. I felt that there was nothing for it but fight. I had my
revolver in my hand, loaded in its six barrels. One of their spears
grazed my cheek as I flew along; and when I got close enough, I sent a
bullet into the nearest one, which dropped him. Then, with a sudden
rush, I closed with his companion. I had not climbed the Welsh hills
in my young days for nothing. The hardy life I had spent served me
now; and, as I flung my arms round the dirty savage, I knew that I
could master him in the end. But, in the meantime, the one who had
thrown the 'boomerang' was after me with raised spear. He did not dare
to throw it, for fear of hitting his comrade; for we were by this time
upon the ground, locked in each other's arms, and rolling over one
another, enveloped in a thick cloud of dust. Throughout the struggle,
I kept my revolver in my hand, but had no opportunity of using it. My
finger was on the trigger, and, in the scuffle, I must unconsciously
have pressed upon it; for, to my surprise, it suddenly went off. For a
moment I thought I was hit; but presently the clasp of the savage with
whom I was struggling relaxed, and he rolled back dead. The one who
had thrown the 'boomerang,' took to his heels upon hearing the report.
When I rose, and got away from the dust, I could see him scampering
off. I did not care to follow him. I made my way as quickly as I could
to the station: and so ended my shepherd's life. After that, I turned
bullock-driver. That is a dreary life enough, but it's better than
being a shepherd: it's more humanising. You get a chance, now and
again, of giving a lift to a poor fellow, and that does a man good,
you know. I remember, one morning, missing two of my bullocks. I did
not find them till pretty late in the day. I was glad enough when I
heard the tinkle of their bells, I can tell you; and as I was
following the sound, I came upon a man lying in the bush. At, first, I
thought he was dead; but I felt his heart beat--very faintly, though.
I carried him to the dray, and after a good deal of trouble, I brought
him to. He had lost his way in the bush, and had wandered about
without food for three days, until, what with hunger and despair, he
had almost lost his senses. I remember he told me a curious impression
he had, while he lay waiting, as he thought for death. He had quite
resigned himself to die, and as he was waiting, waiting, his thoughts
of course wandered back to the time when he was a boy at home. And he
came to a day when he was lying, quite a little lad, on the grass,
listening to the bells of his village church. His thoughts, just then,
did not wander farther back, for the death-forest he was imprisoned in
changed to the field of waving grass; he saw the leaves bending over
him and about him. And the death-silence which had shrouded him
was suddenly invaded by musical bells: they were the bells of his
village-church, playing the old familiar peals, and they actually
brought to his mind a long-forgotten rhyme, which he murmured with
parched lips to the ringing of the bells. He heard them sure enough,
but they were not the bells of his village church; they were the bells
on the necks of my lost cattle. If my bullocks hadn't strayed, it
would have been all over with him, for he couldn't have lasted another
day. So what I looked upon at first as precious hard, turned out to be
a piece of real good fortune. When the goldfields were discovered, I
turned to gold-digging; and between that and bullock-driving I have
spent all my time. It isn't a very attractive story, mine--is it,
mate? I don't think I ever had an ambition, and my life was over when
I was transported. I have often thought that if I were to meet the
false friend who wrecked my life, and who destroyed the happiness of
my family, I should kill him. But there is no chance of our ever
meeting, and I do not yearn for it. But I _do_ yearn, and have for
many a year yearned, to know what became of my sister. Once I
thought--it was in Melbourne three years ago, when I was loading flour
for up-country--that I saw a face like hers, but it passed like a
flash, and I did not see it again. It was but fancy, I know, yet it
has often haunted me since. I am not the only innocent convict in the
Colonies. I know some who were transported for life, for less crimes
than mine--perfectly innocent men, who are living victims of what is
called justice. If I had happened to stroll a different way the day I
met that false friend, my life might have been very different. I might
have married, and had children, and been a happy man. I wonder if, by
and by, those who suffer unjustly are recompensed in any way!"
"You are a queer fellow, Welshman," said Richard Handfield. "If I were
you, and had been treated as you have been treated, I should have
turned desperate, I think. By what right are men oppressed and hunted
down? Say I owe a duty to society; does not society owe a duty to me?
Just think for one moment of what I have suffered--"
"Of course," said the Welshman; "I do not mean to say I have as much
to complain of as you. You were educated and brought up in luxury--"
"That's where it is. If I had been brought up as roughly as yourself,
I might take the same view of misfortune."
"Certainly," said Welsh Tom, but in a voice which struck somewhat
strangely upon his companion's ears. "There's no comparison between
the hardship of our lives. But it is time to turn in. We must be up
with the sun. Good night!"
And then they prepared for their night's rest. Before falling asleep,
Richard glanced at the Welshman, and saw him, with an earnest
expression on his face, reading, by the light of the moon, a chapter
from his mother's old Welsh Bible.