Rídan The Devil And Other Stories

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Becke Louis. Rídan The Devil And Other Stories

RÍDAN THE DEVIL

A MEMORY OF ‘THE SYSTEM’

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

A NORTH PACIFIC LAGOON ISLAND

BILGER, OF SYDNEY

THE VISION OF MILLI THE SLAVE

DENISON GETS A BERTH ASHORE

ADDIE RANSOM: A MEMORY OF THE TOKELAUS

IN A NATIVE VILLAGE

MAURICE KINANE

THE ‘KILLERS’ OF TWOFOLD BAY

DENISON’S SECOND BERTH ASHORE

A FISH DRIVE ON A MICRONESIAN ATOLL

BOBARAN

SEA FISHING IN AUSTRALIA

AN ADVENTURE IN THE NEW HEBRIDES

THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE OF CHARLES DU BREIL

THE WHITE WIFE AND THE BROWN ‘WOMAN’

WITH HOOK AND LINE ON AN AUSTRAL RIVER

THE WRECK OF THE LEONORA: A MEMORY OF ‘BULLY’ HAYES

AN OLD COLONIAL MUTINY

A BOATING ADVENTURE IN THE CAROLINES

A CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE FAR SOUTH SEAS

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The house in which I lived from my birth till I was twelve years of age stood on the green-grassed slopes of a treeless bluff which overlooked the blue waters of the sunlit Pacific. Except for a cluster of five or six little weatherboard cottages perched on the verge of the headland, half a mile away, and occupied by the crew of the Government pilot boat, there were no other dwellings near, for the ‘town,’ as it was called, lay out of sight, on the low, flat banks of a tidal river, whose upper waters were the haunt and breeding places of the black swan, the wild duck and the pelican.

My father was the principal civil official in the place, which was called Bar Harbour, one of the smaller penal settlements in Australia, founded for what were called ‘the better class’ of convicts, many of whom, having received their emancipation papers, had settled in the vicinity, and had become prosperous and, in a measure, respected settlers, though my father, who had a somewhat bitter tongue, said that no ex-convict could ever be respected in the colony until he had lent money to one or other of the many retired military or civil officers who held large Crown grants of land in the district and worked them with convict labour; for, while numbers of the emancipists throve and became almost wealthy, despite the many cruel and harassing restrictions imposed upon them by the unwritten laws of society (which yet academically held them to be purged of their offences), the grand military gentlemen and their huge estates generally went to ruin—mostly through their own improvidence, though such misfortunes, our minister, the Reverend Mr Sampson, said, in the sermons he preached in our hideous, red-brick church, were caused by an ‘inscrutable Providence’—their dwellings and store houses were burnt, their cattle and sheep disappeared, and their ‘assigned’ labourers took to the bush, and either perished of starvation or became bushrangers and went to the gallows in due course.

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‘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.’

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