For the Term of His Natural Life

by Marcus Clarke

  “Are you thinking of coming the pious?” asked Rex. “It’s no good with North. Wait until the highly-intelligent Meekin comes. You can twist that worthy successor of the Apostles round your little finger!”

  “Silence there!” cries the overseer. “Do you want me to report yer?”

  Amid such diversions the days rolled on, and Rufus Dawes almost longed for the Coal Mines. To be sent from the settlement to the Coal Mines, and from the Coal Mines to the settlement, was to these unhappy men a “trip”. At Port Arthur one went to an outstation, as more fortunate people go to Queenscliff or the Ocean Beach now-a-days for “change of air.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE COMMANDANT’S BUTLER

  RUFUS Dawes had been a fortnight at the settlement when a new-comer appeared on the chain-gang. This was a young man of about twenty years of age, thin, fair, and delicate. His name was Kirkland, and he belonged to what were known as the “educated” prisoners. He had been a clerk in a banking house, and was transported for embezzlement, though, by some, grave doubts as to his guilt were entertained. The Commandant, Captain Burgess, had employed him as butler in his own house, and his fate was considered a “lucky” one. So, doubtless, it was, and might have been, had not an untoward accident occurred. Captain Burgess, who was a bachelor of the “old school”, confessed to an amiable weakness for blasphemy, and was given to condemning the convicts’ eyes and limbs with indiscriminate violence. Kirkland belonged to a Methodist family and owned a piety utterly out of place in that region. The language of Burgess made him shudder, and one day he so far forgot himself and his place as to raise his hands to his ears. “My blank!” cried Burgess. “You blank blank, is that your blank game? I’ll blank soon cure you of that!” and forthwith ordered him to the chain-gang for “insubordination”.

  He was received with suspicion by the gang, who did not like white-handed prisoners. Troke, by way of experiment in human nature, perhaps, placed him next to Gabbett. The day was got through in the usual way, and Kirkland felt his heart revive.

  The toil was severe, and the companionship uncouth, but despite his blistered hands and aching back, he had not experienced anything so very terrible after all. When the muster bell rang, and the gang broke up, Rufus Dawes, on his silent way to his separate cell, observed a notable change of custom in the disposition of the new convict. Instead of placing him in a cell by himself, Troke was turning him into the yard with the others.

  “I’m not to go in there?” says the ex-bank clerk, drawing back in dismay from the cloud of foul faces which lowered upon him.

  “By the Lord, but you are, then!” says Troke. “The Governor says a night in there’ll take the starch out of ye. Come, in yer go.”

  “But, Mr. Troke—”

  “Stow your gaff,” says Troke, with another oath, and impatiently striking the lad with his thong—“I can’t argue here all night. Get in.” So Kirkland, aged twenty-two, and the son of Methodist parents, went in.

  Rufus Dawes, among whose sinister memories this yard was numbered, sighed. So fierce was the glamour of the place, however, that when locked into his cell, he felt ashamed for that sigh, and strove to erase the memory of it. “What is he more than anybody else?” said the wretched man to himself, as he hugged his misery close.

  About dawn the next morning, Mr. North—who, amongst other vagaries not approved of by his bishop, had a habit of prowling about the prison at unofficial hours—was attracted by a dispute at the door of the dormitory.

  “What’s the matter here?” he asked.

  “A prisoner refractory, your reverence,” said the watchman. “Wants to come out.”

  “Mr. North! Mr. North!” cried a voice, “for the love of God, let me out of this place!”

  Kirkland, ghastly pale, bleeding, with his woollen shirt torn, and his blue eyes wide open with terror, was clinging to the bars.

  “Oh, Mr. North! Mr. North! Oh, Mr. North! Oh, for God’s sake, Mr. North!”

  “What, Kirkland!” cried North, who was ignorant of the vengeance of the Commandant. “What do you do here?”

  But Kirkland could do nothing but cry,—“Oh, Mr. North! For God’s sake, Mr. North!” and beat on the bars with white and sweating hands.

  “Let him out, watchman!” said North.

  “Can’t sir, without an order from the Commandant.”

  “I order you, sir!” North cried, indignant.

  “Very sorry, your reverence; but your reverence knows that I daren’t do such a thing.”

  “Mr. North!” screamed Kirkland. “Would you see me perish, body and soul, in this place? Mr. North! Oh, you ministers of Christ—wolves in sheep’s clothing—you shall be judged for this!”

  “Let him out!” cried North again, stamping his foot.

  “It’s no good,” returned the gaoler. “I can’t. If he was dying, I can’t.”

  North rushed away to the Commandant, and the instant his back was turned, Hailes, the watchman, flung open the door, and darted into the dormitory.

  “Take that!” he cried, dealing Kirkland a blow on the head with his keys, that stretched him senseless. “There’s more trouble with you bloody aristocrats than enough. Lie quiet!”

  The Commandant, roused from slumber, told Mr. North that Kirkland might stop where he was, and that he’d thank the chaplain not to wake him up in the middle of the night because a blank prisoner set up a blank howling.

  “But, my good sir,” protested North, restraining his impulse to overstep the bounds of modesty in his language to his superior officer, “you know the character of the men in that ward. You can guess what that unhappy boy has suffered.”

  “Impertinent young beggar!” said Burgess. “Do him good, curse him! Mr. North, I’m sorry you should have had the trouble to come here, but will you let me go to sleep?”

  North returned to the prison disconsolately, found the dutiful Hailes at his post, and all quiet.

  “What’s become of Kirkland?” he asked.

  “Fretted hisself to sleep, yer reverence,” said Hailes, in accents of parental concern. “Poor young chap! It’s hard for such young ’uns.”

  In the morning, Rufus Dawes, coming to his place on the chain-gang, was struck by the altered appearance of Kirkland. His face was of a greenish tint, and wore an expression of bewildered horror.

  “Cheer up, man!” said Dawes, touched with momentary pity. “It’s no good being in the mopes, you know.”

  “What do they do if you try to bolt?” whispered Kirkland.

  “Kill you,” returned Dawes, in a tone of surprise at so preposterous a question.

  “Thank God!” said Kirkland.

  “Now then, Miss Nancy,” said one of the men, “what’s the matter with you!” Kirkland shuddered, and his pale face grew crimson.

  “Oh,” he said, “that such a wretch as I should live!”

  “Silence!” cried Troke. “No. 44, if you can’t hold your tongue I’ll give you something to talk about. March!”

  The work of the gang that afternoon was the carrying of some heavy logs to the water-side, and Rufus Dawes observed that Kirkland was exhausted long before the task was accomplished. “They’ll kill you, you little beggar!” said he, not unkindly. “What have you been doing to get into this scrape?”

  “Have you ever been in that—that place I was in last night?” asked Kirkland.

  Rufus Dawes nodded.

  “Does the Commandant know what goes on there?”

  “I suppose so. What does he care?”

  “Care! Man, do you believe in a God?”

  “No,” said Dawes, “not here. Hold up, my lad. If you fall, we must fall over you, and then you’re done for.”

  He had hardly uttered the words, when the boy flung himself beneath the log. In another instant the train would have been scrambling over his crushed body, had not Gabbett stretched out an iron hand, and plucked the would-be suicide from death.

  “Hold on to me, Miss Nancy,” said the giant, “I’m big
enough to carry double.”

  Something in the tone or manner of the speaker affected Kirkland to disgust, for, spurning the offered hand, he uttered a cry and then, holding up his irons with his hands, he started to run for the water.

  “Halt! you young fool,” roared Troke, raising his carbine. But Kirkland kept steadily on for the river. Just as he reached it, however, the figure of Mr. North rose from behind a pile of stones. Kirkland jumped for the jetty, missed his footing, and fell into the arms of the chaplain.

  “You young vermin—you shall pay for this,” cries Troke. “You’ll see if you won’t remember this day.”

  “Oh, Mr. North,” says Kirkland, “why did you stop me? I’d better be dead than stay another night in that place.”

  “You’ll get it, my lad,” said Gabbett, when the runaway was brought back. “Your blessed hide’ll feel for this, see if it don’t.”

  Kirkland only breathed harder, and looked round for Mr. North, but Mr. North had gone. The new chaplain was to arrive that afternoon, and it was incumbent on him to be at the reception. Troke reported the ex-bank clerk that night to Burgess, and Burgess, who was about to go to dinner with the new chaplain, disposed of his case out of hand. “Tried to bolt, eh! Must stop that. Fifty lashes, Troke. Tell Macklewain to be ready—or stay, I’ll tell him myself—I’ll break the young devil’s spirit, blank him.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Troke. “Good evening, sir.”

  “Troke—pick out some likely man, will you? That last fellow you had ought to have been tied up himself. His flogging wouldn’t have killed a flea.”

  “You can’t get ’em to warm one another, your honour,” says Troke.

  “They won’t do it.”

  “Oh, yes, they will, though,” says Burgess, “or I’ll know the reason why. I won’t have my men knocked up with flogging these rascals. If the scourger won’t do his duty, tie him up, and give him five-and-twenty for himself. I’ll be down in the morning myself if I can.”

  “Very good, your honour,” says Troke.

  Kirkland was put into a separate cell that night; and Troke, by way of assuring him a good night’s rest, told him that he was to have “fifty” in the morning. “And Dawes’ll lay it on,” he added. “He’s one of the smartest men I’ve got, and he won’t spare yer, yer may take your oath of that.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  MR. NORTH’S DISPOSITION

  “YOU will find this a terrible place, Mr. Meekin,” said North to his supplanter, as they walked across to the Commandant’s to dinner. “It has made me heartsick.”

  “I thought it was a little paradise,” said Meekin. “Captain Frere says that the scenery is delightful.”

  “So it is,” returned North, looking askance, “but the prisoners are not delightful.”

  “Poor, abandoned wretches,” says Meekin, “I suppose not. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon that bank! Eh!”

  “Abandoned, indeed, by God and man—almost.”

  “Mr. North, Providence never abandons the most unworthy of His servants. Never have I seen the righteous forsaken, nor His seed begging their bread. In the valley of the shadow of death He is with us. His staff, you know, Mr. North. Really, the Commandant’s house is charmingly situated!”

  Mr. North sighed again. “You have not been long in the colony, Mr. Meekin. I doubt—forgive me for expressing myself so freely—if you quite know of our convict system.”

  “An admirable one! A most admirable one!” said Meekin. “There were a few matters I noticed in Hobart Town that did not quite please me—the frequent use of profane language for instance—but on the whole I was delighted with the scheme. It is so complete.”

  North pursed up his lips. “Yes, it is very complete,” he said; “almost too complete. But I am always in a minority when I discuss the question, so we will drop it, if you please.”

  “If you please,” said Meekin gravely. He had heard from the Bishop that Mr. North was an ill-conditioned sort of person, who smoked clay pipes, had been detected in drinking beer out of a pewter pot, and had been heard to state that white neck-cloths were of no consequence. The dinner went off successfully. Burgess—desirous, perhaps, of favourably impressing the chaplain whom the Bishop delighted to honour—shut off his blasphemy for a while, and was urbane enough. “You’ll find us rough, Mr. Meekin,” he said, “but you’ll find us ‘all there’ when we’re wanted. This is a little kingdom in itself.”

  “Like Beranger’s?” asked Meekin, with a smile. Captain Burgess had never heard of Beranger, but he smiled as if he had learnt his words by heart.

  “Or like Sancho Panza’s island,” said North. “You remember how justice was administered there?”

  “Not at this moment, sir,” said Burgess, with dignity. He had been often oppressed by the notion that the Reverend Mr. North “chaffed” him. “Pray help yourself to wine.”

  “Thank you, none,” said North, filling a tumbler with water. “I have a headache.” His manner of speech and action was so awkward that a silence fell upon the party, caused by each one wondering why Mr. North should grow confused, and drum his fingers on the table, and stare everywhere but at the decanter. Meekin—ever softly at his ease—was the first to speak. “Have you many visitors, Captain Burgess?”

  “Very few. Sometimes a party comes over with a recommendation from the Governor, and I show them over the place; but, as a rule, we see no one but ourselves.”

  “I asked,” said Meekin, “because some friends of mine were thinking of coming.”

  “And who may they be?”

  “Do you know Captain Frere?”

  “Frere! I should say so!” returned Burgess, with a laugh, modelled upon Maurice Frere’s own. “I was quartered with him at Sarah Island. So he’s a friend of yours, eh?”

  “I had the pleasure of meeting him in society. He is just married, you know.”

  “Is he?” said Burgess. “The devil he is! I heard something about it, too.”

  “Miss Vickers, a charming young person. They are going to Sydney, where Captain Frere has some interest, and Frere thinks of taking Port Arthur on his way down.”

  “A strange fancy for a honeymoon trip,” said North.

  “Captain Frere takes a deep interest in all relating to convict discipline,” went on Meekin, unheeding the interruption, “and is anxious that Mrs. Frere should see this place.”

  “Yes, one oughtn’t to leave the colony without seeing it,” says Burgess; “it’s worth seeing.”

  “So Captain Frere thinks. A romantic story, Captain Burgess. He saved her life, you know.”

  “Ah! that was a queer thing, that mutiny,” said Burgess. “We’ve got the fellows here, you know.”

  “I saw them tried at Hobart Town,” said Meekin. “In fact, the ringleader, John Rex, gave me his confession, and I sent it to the Bishop.”

  “A great rascal,” put in North. “A dangerous, scheming, coldblooded villain.”

  “Well now!” said Meekin, with asperity, “I don’t agree with you. Everybody seems to be against that poor fellow—Captain Frere tried to make me think that his letters contained a hidden meaning, but I don’t believe they did. He seems to me to be truly penitent for his offences—a misguided, but not a hypocritical man, if my knowledge of human nature goes for anything.”

  “I hope he is,” said North. “I wouldn’t trust him.”

  “Oh! there’s no fear of him,” said Burgess cheerily; “if he grows uproarious, we’ll soon give him a touch of the cat.”

  “I suppose severity is necessary,” returned Meekin; “though to my ears a flogging sounds a little distasteful. It is a brutal punishment.”

  “It’s a punishment for brutes,” said Burgess, and laughed, pleased with the nearest approach to an epigram he ever made in his life.

  Here attention was called by the strange behaviour of Mr. North. He had risen, and, without apology, flung wide the window, as though he gasped for air. “Hullo, North! what’s the matter?”

 
“Nothing,” said North, recovering himself with an effort. “A spasm. I have these attacks at times.”

  “Have some brandy,” said Burgess.

  “No, no, it will pass. No, I say. Well, if you insist.” And seizing the tumbler offered to him, he half-filled it with raw spirit, and swallowed the fiery draught at a gulp.

  The Reverend Meekin eyed his clerical brother with horror. The Reverend Meekin was not accustomed to clergymen who wore black neckties, smoked clay pipes, chewed tobacco, and drank neat brandy out of tumblers.

  “Ha!” said North, looking wildly round upon them. “That’s better.”

  “Let us go on to the verandah,” said Burgess. “It’s cooler than in the house.”

  So they went on to the verandah, and looked down upon the lights of the prison, and listened to the sea lapping the shore. The Reverend Mr. North, in this cool atmosphere, seemed to recover himself, and conversation progressed with some sprightliness.

  By and by, a short figure, smoking a cheroot, came up out of the dark, and proved to be Dr. Macklewain, who had been prevented from attending the dinner by reason of an accident to a constable at Norfolk Bay, which had claimed his professional attention.

  “Well, how’s Forrest?” cried Burgess. “Mr. Meekin—Dr. Macklewain.”

  “Dead,” said Dr. Macklewain. “Delighted to see you, Mr. Meekin.”

  “Confound it—another of my best men,” grumbled Burgess. “Macklewain, have a glass of wine.” But Macklewain was tired, and wanted to get home.

  “I must also be thinking of repose,” said Meekin; “the journey—though most enjoyable—has fatigued me.”

  “Come on, then,” said North. “Our roads lie together, doctor.”

  “You won’t have a nip of brandy before you start?” asked Burgess.

  “No? Then I shall send round for you in the morning, Mr. Meekin. Good night. Macklewain, I want to speak with you a moment.”

  Before the two clergymen had got half-way down the steep path that led from the Commandant’s house to the flat on which the cottages of the doctor and chaplain were built, Macklewain rejoined them. “Another flogging to-morrow,” said he grumblingly. “Up at daylight, I suppose, again.”