For the Term of His Natural Life Part 34

BOOK III.--PORT ARTHUR. 1838.

CHAPTER I. A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD.

"Society in Hobart Town, in this year of grace 1838, is, my dear lord, composed of very curious elements." So ran a pa.s.sage in the sparkling letter which the Rev. Mr. Meekin, newly-appointed chaplain, and seven-days' resident in Van Diemen's Land, was carrying to the post office, for the delectation of his patron in England. As the reverend gentleman tripped daintily down the summer street that lay between the blue river and the purple mountain, he cast his mild eyes. .h.i.ther and thither upon human nature, and the sentence he had just penned recurred to him with pleasurable appositeness. Elbowed by well-dressed officers of garrison, bowing sweetly to well-dressed ladies, shrinking from ill-dressed, ill-odoured ticket-of-leave men, or hastening across a street to avoid being run down by the hand-carts that, driven by little gangs of grey-clothed convicts, rattled and jangled at him unexpectedly from behind corners, he certainly felt that the society through which he moved was composed of curious elements. Now pa.s.sed, with haughty nose in the air, a newly-imported government official, relaxing for an instant his rigidity of demeanour to smile languidly at the chaplain whom Governor Sir John Franklin delighted to honour; now swaggered, with coa.r.s.e defiance of gentility and patronage, a wealthy ex-prisoner, grown fat on the profits of rum. The population that was abroad on that sunny December afternoon had certainly an incongruous appearance to a dapper clergyman lately arrived from London, and missing, for the first time in his sleek, easy-going life, those social screens which in London civilization decorously conceal the frailties and vices of human nature.

Clad in glossy black, of the most fas.h.i.+onable clerical cut, with dandy boots, and gloves of lightest lavender--a white silk overcoat hinting that its wearer was not wholly free from sensitiveness to sun and heat--the Reverend Meekin tripped daintily to the post office, and deposited his letter. Two ladies met him as he turned.

"Mr. Meekin!"

Mr. Meekin's elegant hat was raised from his intellectual brow and hovered in the air, like some courteous black bird, for an instant.

"Mrs. Jellicoe! Mrs. Protherick! My dear leddies, this is an unexpected pleasure! And where, pray, are you going on this lovely afternoon? To stay in the house is positively sinful. Ah! what a climate--but the Trail of the Serpent, my dear Mrs. Protherick--the Trail of the Serpent--" and he sighed.

"It must be a great trial to you to come to the colony," said Mrs.

Jellicoe, sympathizing with the sigh.

Meekin smiled, as a gentlemanly martyr might have smiled. "The Lord's work, dear leddies--the Lord's work. I am but a poor labourer in the vineyard, toiling through the heat and burden of the day." The aspect of him, with his faultless tie, his airy coat, his natty boots, and his self-satisfied Christian smile, was so unlike a poor labourer toiling through the heat and burden of the day, that good Mrs. Jellicoe, the wife of an orthodox Comptroller of Convicts' Stores, felt a horrible thrill of momentary heresy. "I would rather have remained in England,"

continued Mr. Meekin, smoothing one lavender finger with the tip of another, and arching his elegant eyebrows in mild deprecation of any praise of his self-denial, "but I felt it my duty not to refuse the offer made me through the kindness of his lords.h.i.+p. Here is a field, leddies--a field for the Christian pastor. They appeal to me, leddies, these lambs of our Church--these lost and outcast lambs of our Church."

Mrs. Jellicoe shook her gay bonnet ribbons at Mr. Meekin, with a hearty smile. "You don't know our convicts," she said (from the tone of her jolly voice it might have been "our cattle"). "They are horrible creatures. And as for servants--my goodness, I have a fresh one every week. When you have been here a little longer, you will know them better, Mr. Meekin."

"They are quite unbearable at times." said Mrs. Protherick, the widow of a Superintendent of Convicts' Barracks, with a stately indignation mantling in her sallow cheeks. "I am ordinarily the most patient creature breathing, but I do confess that the stupid vicious wretches that one gets are enough to put a saint out of temper." "We have all our crosses, dear leddies--all our crosses," said the Rev. Mr. Meekin piously. "Heaven send us strength to bear them! Good-morning."

"Why, you are going our way," said Mrs. Jellicoe. "We can walk together."

"Delighted! I am going to call on Major Vickers."

"And I live within a stone's throw," returned Mrs. Protherick.

"What a charming little creature she is, isn't she?"

"Who?" asked Mr. Meekin, as they walked.

"Sylvia. You don't know her! Oh, a dear little thing."

"I have only met Major Vickers at Government House," said Meekin.

"I haven't yet had the pleasure of seeing his daughter."

"A sad thing," said Mrs. Jellicoe. "Quite a romance, if it was not so sad, you know. His wife, poor Mrs. Vickers."

"Indeed! What of her?" asked Meekin, bestowing a condescending bow on a pa.s.ser-by. "Is she an invalid?"

"She is dead, poor soul," returned jolly Mrs. Jellicoe, with a fat sigh.

"You don't mean to say you haven't heard the story, Mr. Meekin?"

"My dear leddies, I have only been in Hobart Town a week, and I have not heard the story."

"It's about the mutiny, you know, the mutiny at Macquarie Harbour.

The prisoners took the s.h.i.+p, and put Mrs. Vickers and Sylvia ash.o.r.e somewhere. Captain Frere was with them, too. The poor things had a dreadful time, and nearly died. Captain Frere made a boat at last, and they were picked up by a s.h.i.+p. Poor Mrs. Vickers only lived a few hours, and little Sylvia--she was only twelve years old then--was quite light-headed. They thought she wouldn't recover."

"How dreadful! And has she recovered?"

"Oh, yes, she's quite strong now, but her memory's gone."

"Her memory?"

"Yes," struck in Mrs. Protherick, eager to have a share in the storytelling. "She doesn't remember anything about the three or four weeks they were ash.o.r.e--at least, not distinctly."

"It's a great mercy!" interrupted Mrs. Jellicoe, determined to keep the post of honour. "Who wants her to remember these horrors? From Captain Frere's account, it was positively awful!"

"You don't say so!" said Mr. Meekin, dabbing his nose with a dainty handkerchief.

"A 'bolter'--that's what we call an escaped prisoner, Mr.

Meekin--happened to be left behind, and he found them out, and insisted on sharing the provisions--the wretch! Captain Frere was obliged to watch him constantly for fear he should murder them. Even in the boat he tried to run them out to sea and escape. He was one of the worst men in the Harbour, they say; but you should hear Captain Frere tell the story."

"And where is he now?" asked Mr. Meekin, with interest.

"Captain Frere?"

"No, the prisoner."

"Oh, goodness, I don't know--at Port Arthur, I think. I know that he was tried for bolting, and would have been hanged but for Captain Frere's exertions."

"Dear, dear! a strange story, indeed," said Mr. Meekin. "And so the young lady doesn't know anything about it?" "Only what she has been told, of course, poor dear. She's engaged to Captain Frere."

"Really! To the man who saved her. How charming--quite a romance!"

"Isn't it? Everybody says so. And Captain Frere's so much older than she is."

"But her girlish love clings to her heroic protector," said Meekin, mildly poetical. "Remarkable and beautiful. Quite the--hem!--the ivy and the oak, dear leddies. Ah, in our fallen nature, what sweet spots--I think this is the gate."

A smart convict servant--he had been a pickpocket of note in days gone by--left the clergyman to repose in a handsomely furnished drawing-room, whose sun blinds revealed a wealth of bright garden flecked with shadows, while he went in search of Miss Vickers. The Major was out, it seemed, his duties as Superintendent of Convicts rendering such absences necessary; but Miss Vickers was in the garden, and could be called in at once. The Reverend Meekin, wiping his heated brow, and pulling down his spotless wristbands, laid himself back on the soft sofa, soothed by the elegant surroundings no less than by the coolness of the atmosphere.

Having no better comparison at hand, he compared this luxurious room, with its soft couches, brilliant flowers, and opened piano, to the chamber in the house of a West India planter, where all was glare and heat and barbarism without, and all soft and cool and luxurious within.

He was so charmed with this comparison--he had a knack of being easily pleased with his own thoughts--that he commenced to turn a fresh sentence for the Bishop, and to sketch out an elegant description of the oasis in his desert of a vineyard. While at this occupation, he was disturbed by the sound of voices in the garden, and it appeared to him that someone near at hand was sobbing and crying. Softly stepping on the broad verandah, he saw, on the gra.s.s-plot, two persons, an old man and a young girl. The sobbing proceeded from the old man.

"'Deed, miss, it's the truth, on my soul. I've but jest come back to yez this morning. O my! but it's a cruel trick to play an ould man."

He was a white-haired old fellow, in a grey suit of convict frieze, and stood leaning with one veiny hand upon the pedestal of a vase of roses.

"But it is your own fault, Danny; we all warned you against her," said the young girl softly. "Sure ye did. But oh! how did I think it, miss?