Rídan The Devil And Other Stories. Becke Louis

the coastal region for May. But, aided by Billy, the aboriginal, he managed to have everything in readiness early on Sunday night. He afterwards told my mother that besides the two breakers of water, each holding ten gallons, he had provided four gallons of rum, a hundredweight each of salted meat and dried fish, tobacco and pipes, fishing tackle, two muskets, and plenty of powder and bullets. The place selected for the landing of the boat was an excellent one; for on one side of Little Nobby’s was a little, narrow bay running in between high clifis of black trap rock, which broke the force of the ocean swell entirely. Then, too, the place was very lonely and seldom visited, for the main road lay nearly two miles back beyond the clifis.

      Whether my mother actually knew of all that was going on I do not know; but I do know that about this time she seemed paler than ever, and we frequently saw her and Ruth talking earnestly together; and Ruth and Walter, too, were always whispering to each other.

      Sunday came, and as my mother, since her quarrel with the Reverend Mr Sampson over the flogging of old Callaghan, did not now go to church, we all, except my father, who was still on friendly terms with the clergyman, remained at home, my mother herself conducting a short service in the dining-room, at which all the servants, free and bond, attended. In the afternoon Major Trenton, Captain Crozier and some other soldier officers rode up, as was customary with them on Sundays, and Ruth and Denham brought them brandy and water on the front verandah, where they awaited my mother and sisters.

      ‘Harry, you young rascal,’ said Major Trenton, presently to my eldest brother, ‘what did you do with Mr Moore’s picture of the parson, eh?’

      ‘It was stolen from me, sir,’ he answered, laughing, ‘about three or four months ago.’

      ‘Indeed,’ said the major; ‘then the thief has principles, and will doubtless send it back to you, for he has made a score of copies of it, and they are all over the district. Why, the rascal, whoever he is, nailed one to the door of the Commissariat Store not long ago, and the first person to see it was Mr Sampson himself. He is mightily wroth about it, I can tell ye, and somehow suspects that the picture came from someone in this house, and told your father that these copies were given about by your man Trenfield. So just ye give a hint to the fellow, and tell him that if the parson gets a chance to tickle his back, faith he’ll do it.’

      ‘I am sure, sir, that Walter did not take the picture,’ said my brother. ‘It was nailed up over my bed and one day I missed it. I thought that my mother had destroyed or taken it away. But she had not, and I cannot account for its disappearance.’

      Now this was hardly true, for, from something they had heard from Ruth, both Harry and my sister Frances thought that Thomas May had taken away the caricature, intending to replace it.

      ‘Well, never mind, my lad,’ said Major Trenton, laughing, ‘’tis a monstrous fine joke, anyway, and, faith, I sent one of the copies to the Governor himself. ‘Twill amuse him hugely.’

      Presently my mother and my two sisters joined the group on the verandah, and as they were all talking and laughing together, Ruth Kenna came to my mother and said that her father had just come with a basket of fresh fish and would like to see her for a minute. I, being the youngest boy of the family, and over-fond—so my brothers said—of hanging on to mammy’s apron-strings, as well as being anxious to see the fish, followed her out on to the back verandah, where black-browed, dark-faced Patrick Kenna awaited her.

      ‘’Tis a fine dark night coming on, ma’am,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The wind is north-east and ‘twill hould well till daylight. Then ‘twill come away from the south-east, sure enough. They should be there long before midnight and out of sight of land before the dawn.’

      ‘Yes, yes, Patrick,’ said my mother, hurriedly. ‘I shall pray to-night to God for those in peril on the sea; and to forgive us for any wrong we may have done in this matter.’

      ‘No harm can iver come to any wan in this house,’ said the man, earnestly, raising her hand to his lips, ‘for the blessin’ av God an’ the Holy Virgin is upon it.’

      My mother pressed his hand. ‘Good-bye, Patrick. I do hope all may go well;’ and with this she went away.

      Kenna raised his hat and turned to go, when Walter Trenfield came to the foot of the verandah steps and stopped him.

      ‘Let me come with you,’ he said, ‘and bid Tom good-bye.’

      ‘No,’ answered Kenna, roughly, ‘neither you nor I nor any wan else must go near Nobby’s to-night; matthers are goin’ well enough, an’ no folly of yours shall bring desthruction upon them. As it is, the constables suspect me, and are now watching my house.’

      Then, mounting his horse again, he rode leisurely away over the brow of the hill towards the scrub, through which his road lay.

      Both Walter and Ruth knew that unless the night was very clear there was no chance of even the lookout man on the pilot station seeing a small boat passing along to the southward; but nevertheless they went up to the pilot station about ten o’clock, when they thought that Tom May and his companions would be passing Bar Harbour on their way to Little Nobby’s. They stayed on the headland for nearly an hour, talking to Tom King and the look-out man, and then came home, feeling satisfied that if the three men had succeeded in launching the boat safely, they had passed Bar Harbour about eleven o’clock and would reach Nobby’s at or before midnight.

      Soon after breakfast next morning, Patrick Kenna, under pretence of speaking to my mother about a strayed heifer of ours, came into the kitchen, and told Ruth that all was well; he had been to Little Nobby’s at daylight and found that everything was gone and the boat was nowhere to be discerned.

      For quite another two or three weeks after this the constables pursued their search after Thomas May, much to the amusement of Ruth and Patrick Kenna, especially as the latter, with ‘King Billy’ and another aboriginal, were officially employed by my father at ten shillings per diem to discover the absconder—Billy, who seemed to be most anxious to get the reward of five pounds, leading the constables all over the country and eating more than three men’s rations daily. At last the chase was abandoned, and my father wrote officially to Sydney and said that ‘Thomas May, No. 3614, Breckenbridge,’ was supposed to have either died of starvation in the bush or have been killed by the natives. My mother, of course, thought she knew better.

      And so the matter was forgotten by everyone but us who had known and cared for the good-natured, high-spirited and warm-hearted young sailor; and as the months went by, Walter Trenfield and my mother both looked forward to receiving a letter from Tom May, telling them that he and his companions had reached some port in the Dutch East Indies in safety. For not only was the boat well found, but they had plenty of provisions, and Tom May was a thorough seaman; and besides that, my mother had often told us the story of the convict William Bryant, who had escaped from Sydney Harbour in Governor Phillip’s time, and in an open boat, with four other men and his wife and two infant children, succeeded in reaching Timor, after a voyage of three thousand miles.6

      But no letter came until two long years had passed.

      Ruth Kenna, at the time of my story, though not yet seventeen years of age, was a tall, powerful girl, and was known as the best horsewoman in all the country around. She was a happy, good-natured sort of a wench, with a heart filled with sunshine and love and truth and honesty; though Mr Sampson once told my father that she was a ‘dangerous Papist,’ and the child of a convicted rebel, and as such should have no place in a Protestant family. This so angered my mother that she wrote the clergyman a very sharp letter and said she would take it as a favour if he would not interfere with her servants. This was a great thing for her to do; and my father said ‘twas most indiscreet. But mother only smiled and said that although she was sorry Ruth was a Papist, she (Ruth) was a good, honest girl, and that her father was a good, honest man, and that if Mr Sampson was wise he would not come near Ruth, who, being a free woman, had said she would throw him down the garden well. At this time Ruth was looking forward to the day of her marriage with Trenfield, who, through my father’s influence with the Governor, was expecting to be pardoned.

      But now I am forging ahead too fast, and must go back

6

Publisher’s Note.—The strange but true story of the Bryants is told in a volume entitled A First Fleet Family. (Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery.    London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1896.)