Читать книгу A Bush Bayard: Being A Romance of the Reign of Macquarie - John Sandes - Страница 5

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When the Amphitrite dropped anchor in Sydney harbor, six months after leaving Plymouth Sound, Major Grose went on board her to greet the little band of free immigrants who were assembled on the deck to receive him. There were four families together, and as the big man in his cocked hat, gold-laced red coat, and white breeches inspected them he was well satisfied with the shipment. He even pinched the cheeks of the baby in Mrs. Trevithick's arms playfully and enquired its name. "Tristram Trevithick, your honor," replied. Mrs. Trevithick, dropping a respectful courtesy. The baby had been christened at sea by the captain at the request of its foster-mother, and as Tristram Trevithick it was enrolled with the other three children of the Devonshire farmer and his wife in the list of free immigrants whom Major Grose was deputed to settle on the rich alluvial flats just opened up on the Hawkesbury, or as it was still called by many, the Warragamba, that being the native name.

"One cannot make farmers out of pick-pockets, Captain Gaskett," said the Acting Governor genially to the weather-beaten master of the Amphitrite, "any more than one can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but these people are just the sort we want. I would rather have a dozen of them than five hundred soldiers or town-bred ne'er-do-weels to grow the wheat that we need so badly."

Baby Tristram opened his big dark eyes wide at the Governor and cried lustily. He was a singularly handsome baby, and unlike his heavy-featured brothers and sisters, he bore the stamp of breeding. The Governor snapped his fingers to hold the baby's attention. "He's not a bit like you, Mrs. Trevithick," he rapped out, "but I have no doubt he will make a good citizen and an excellent farmer, all the same."

Three days later Tom Trevithick, with his wife and the four children, along with the other free immigrants by the Amphitrite, were embarked in a Government cutter, and very thankful were all on board when they rounded Barrenjoey and entered the mouth of the Hawkesbury.

For two days they sailed up the noble river, under mighty hills at first, past many a wooded islet and round a long succession of bends that led to new reaches of shining water. At last the hills receded and lightly-wooded stretches of level land began to appear along the banks. Far up the river, nearly a hundred miles from its mouth, they landed, and Tom Trevithick was placed in possession of his grant of a hundred acres, there to carve out for himself a home with axe and plough and spade, receiving meanwhile Government rations for himself and his family.

Baby Tristram grew out of his baby clothes, and Mrs. Trevithick laid them away carefully in a great brass-bound chest along with the dainty and exquisite little garments that the infant had worn when Squire Granger had brought him first to her cottage.

Grose gave way to Paterson, and Paterson to Hunter, who in turn was succeeded by Governor King. Governor King returned to England. Bligh began and ended his brief and turbulent term of office, and Governor Macquarie took the place of Bligh. But such changes mattered less than nothing to Tom Trevithick, for the axe rang in the timber, and the oxen, with which the Government had supplied him, drew the plough through the rich, red, loam, and the wheat and the Indian corn ripened to the harvest, no matter who held sway over the heterogeneous population of bond and free in distant Sydney.

Two things only did Tom Trevithick fear—the floods, and the blacks. For the rest he cared not, but worked on steadily at the seeding, the ploughing, and the reaping, ruled his three assigned servants firmly as well as kindly, and held himself aloof as much as possible from the hard-drinking emancipist settlers who cultivated the adjoining blocks in a shiftless, haphazard fashion. Also, he read a chapter of his Bible aloud to his wife and children every night before the family retired to rest in the bark-roofed house, which he had built with his own hands on the highest point of his farm away from the river bank.

It was in these surroundings that baby Tristram grew to boyhood, playing with his foster brothers, Will and Owen, and his foster sister, Marjory, all of whom accepted him without question as one of themselves. Lucy Trevithick taught him to read, write, and cipher, and the boy read every book that he could get hold of, particularly history and adventures.

He bore no resemblance whatever to the other three children. At sixteen years of age he was tall and spare of figure, and in spite of all his hard, rough work, he carried himself with a grace that contrasted strangely with slouching gait of the surrounding settlers. With his olive complexion, aquiline features, and keen, dark eyes, he had nothing in common with the Trevithicks. "Do 'ee remember the Squire sayin' about the lad's father bein' a Frenchman, lass?" said Tom Trevithick to his wife one summer evening, as they sat together in front of the house, watching the ever-changing play of light and shadow on the river.

"Ay, Tom, that I do," replied Lucy Trevithick, never ceasing her knitting for a moment, "and I reckon the lad takes after his father, too, if we only knew."

Tristram himself, as he grew to manhood, could not help recognising the immeasurable distance that divided him from his supposed brothers. Stolid, hard-working and patient, like their father, Will and Owen conformed in all essentials to the type of industrial British farm worker, slightly modified by the new Australian environment, with its altered climate. But even while immersed in his homely agricultural labors, Tristram felt the surge of the soldier's blood in his veins, and yearned unceasingly to escape into the great world of action and achievements, where amid the clash of opposing ambitions, Fortune steps down at times to crown the adventurer.

At last, on a never-to-be forgotten day, Tristram set out for Sydney, along with Will and Owen, who had often accomplished the trip before, and made light of its dangers.

Setting sail from the farm in Tom Trevithick's capacious and well found lugger, which was heavily loaded with sacks of wheat and maize, they carried a fair wind all day, and, camped at night on a wooded island in one of the lower reaches of the river. Taking it in turns to stand on watch throughout the night, so as to guard against a raid of the blacks, who frequently attacked the grain boats in their bark canoes, the three young men cast off their moorings at daybreak and made the run from Barrenjoey to Sydney Heads in a couple of hours. Sailing up the harbor they landed at Sydney Cove, on a glorious morning. They saw the sailing boats flitting hither and thither, the old prison hulk Phoenix moored in the Cove, and the line of white-walled stores on the west side. They saw the great crowning mass of the military barracks on the high ground at the back, and the windmill standing up against the sky on Windmill Hill. On the east side of the Cove they saw the sweep of the rich park-like land which extended round to Farm Cove. A few aboriginals were camped in the bushes, and fishing on the foreshores, while others paddled in their bark canoes among the smart sailing boats of the white man.

Landing at the King's wharf they speedily transacted their business with the merchant, who purchased all Tom Trevithick's grain.

Leaving Will and Owen to carouse at the Black Dog, Tristram turned his steps towards the Tank Stream, and as he walked along in the direction of Government House, which was then at the corner of Bridge-street, he noticed a daintily dressed lady going the same way.

Tall, blonde, and blue-eyed, graceful as a sapling, and beautiful as a flower, Mary Fitzharding was a lovely girl, such as no other country save England could produce. Shaded by a big sun hat, with broad white ribbon tied under the chin, was a rose-leaf face of such beauty that soldiers meeting the girl, as they clanked along the street, instinctively saluted her with outstretched palm lifted to the forehead, while civilians doffed their beavers and bowed their homage. Dressed in a simple gown of sprigged muslin with the waist just beneath the soft outline of the girlish breast, she tripped along the street.

To Tristram she seemed in very faith a visitant from some land where humanity bore a different aspect from that to which he was accustomed. At the sight of her he caught his breath. Upon the Hawkesbury he had seen only the well-loved commonplace features, the homely breadth of figure, and soil coarsened hands and arms of his foster mother, whom he still believed to be his mother. Or on rare occasions he had seen the wives and daughters of the other settlers.

But Mary Fitzharding was very different—a lovely young Anglo-Saxon of the highest type. She was no dull. The sapphire eyes flashed with intelligence. The head was exquisitely shaped, and the pure line of the facial angle would have entranced an artist. But there was a touch of squareness in the jaw, and in the short, broad chin, that augured courage and determination in an emergency. Something of Norse, rather than of Saxon, about Mary Fitzharding. Just a suspicion of Viking blood in the form that bodied forth the character.

Tristram was absorbed in watching the girl as she passed quickly along the opposite side of Bridge-street parallel to his own course, when loud shouts behind him forced him to turn.

He saw a runaway prisoner, pursued by three soldiers, coming down the middle of the road, while an excited crowd followed at the heels of the pursuers.

Threats and curses filled the air as the crowd swept on following the figure of the runaway in front, who dodged and doubled like a hare. In a moment the crowd completely enveloped the girl, jostling and hustling her with ribald laughter.

"Help! Help!" A woman's cry was heard above the din, and Tristram hurled himself into the crowd, thrusting the leering ruffians aside and using his fists with such good effect that he soon cleared a pathway.

Dragging the girl into a friendly doorway Tristram took up a position in front of her, and he did such execution with his fists that the cowardly brutes soon found that flight was preferable to standing up in front of the furious young fighter in the doorway.

When the last of the ugly mob had disappeared Tristram handed the girl from the doorway with unembarrassed grace, and looking into her blushing face enquired whether he might escort her to her home, as the road seemed hardly safe.

The girl thanked him very prettily. "It is only right I should make myself known to you, sir, since you have rescued me from a most unpleasant situation. My name is Mary Fitzharding, and my uncle is Major Cuthbert, one of the Governor's aides-de-camp. I pray you to do me the favor of accompanying me to his house, and giving Mrs. Cuthbert the opportunity or thanking you for your bravery." Mary Fitzharding blushed furiously as she looked up at the astonishingly handsome young rustic who stood before her, though why she did so probably even she herself could not have explained.

She led the way to Major Cuthbert's quarters, and smiling graciously, invited Tristram to enter the drawing-room, while she ran upstairs to explain, with excited rapidity, the adventure that had befallen her, and the visit of the young man who had rescued her from her disagreeable predicament.

In a few minutes a tall and stately woman of forty-five or thereabouts sailed into the drawing-room, and advanced towards Tristram with friendly outstretched hand.

"My niece has told me, sir, of your courageous conduct," she began, and then staring into Tristram's face with an expression of bewildering amazement, she stopped speaking, and turned ghastly white.

Sinking into a chair, she fainted, just as Mary Fitzharding entered the room. The girl sprinkled water on Mrs. Cuthbert's face, and summoned her maid. "It must be the heat," she said to Tristram in subdued tones, "but she will be better presently. I am sorry, sir, that you should have to go so soon, but I trust we may see you again shortly, when my aunt is recovered of her indisposition. I should welcome another opportunity to thank you myself for the service you have done for me."

Tristram Trevithick trod on air when he left the house. He had never seen a woman like Mary Fitzharding before. He had never supposed that such a woman existed. All the charm of all the womanhood in the world flowered for him in Mary Fitzharding's face. He was so much absorbed in his thoughts of her, that he gave but little attention to Mrs. Cuthbert's strange attack of weakness. He had heard that ladies of quality were frequently afflicted with a mysterious ailment called the 'vapors,' and he presumed that Mrs. Cuthbert was not exempt from the affliction, but he made up his mind to see Mary again, cost what it may.

When Mrs. Cuthbert recovered consciousness under the ministration of Mary and her maid, she opened her eyes slowly and took Mary's hand in her own.

"Who is that young man," she asked in a whisper.

"I do not know, auntie," said the girl with deep regret. "I did not like to ask him his name, and he went away without telling me. But I judge from his talk that he must be one of the free settlers on the Hawkesbury."

Mrs. Cuthbert closed heir eyes again and tried to collect her thoughts. Ghosts of her dead youth-time thronged around her. How came Eugene de Donzenac, just as he looked when she first met him, to be in Sydney after all these years. They told her that he had fallen while charging with Milhaud's cuirassiers.

Strange and preoccupied in her manner was Mrs. Cuthbert all the afternoon, and her niece watched her with disquietude.

Was it only the heat that had upset her aunt, she asked herself, or could it really be that the appearance of the good-looking young stranger had affected her? Mary Fitzharding was as simple-hearted as a child. She saw that any reference to the exciting event of the afternoon threw Mrs. Cuthbert into a state of uncontrollable emotion, and so she sought other topics of conversation. But the current of her thoughts was still influenced by the memory of that extraordinarily handsome young rustic who had saved her from the mob, and her imagination wandered away to the Hawkesbury River, on whose banks the young man lived.

"Do you know, auntie," said the girl, "when I was out riding this morning with Uncle George, he told me such a romantic tale about one of those other settlers on the Hawkesbury?"

Mrs. Cuthbert stared wearily out of the window. Her thoughts were far away in Devonshire. She was not interested in the Hawkesbury. What was this country or its people to her? She had come here because the man whom she had married after the death of Eugene, was ordered to the new colony in an official position. And now, just when she had almost begun to forget the past, the old wound was reopened by the bidden apparition of the living image of Eugene de Donzenac. It was terrible, terrible. Would the past never die?

"Uncle was telling me about a remarkable man," continued Mary Fitzharding, "who had just received a conditional pardon from the Governor, and had been given a grant of land on the Hawkesbury. The man, it seems, was originally a smuggler, and, strangely enough, he came from your own county, auntie. He was a Devonshire man."

Mrs. Cuthbert smiled languidly. "I'm afraid there are a great many smugglers still in Devonshire, dear. The place was full of them when I was a girl."

"But this man was something else besides a smuggler." continued Mary Fitzharding. "He made large sums of money by taking English intelligence officers across the Channel and landing them on the French coast.''

"Quite an adventurous person," said Mrs. Cuthbert, trying earnestly to take an interest in her niece's talk.

"But this smuggler was not honest," said Mary with a smile. "He not only took English spies across in his lugger to get information about the French plans, but he brought back French spies who were anxious to find out as much as they could about the British defences at Portsmouth, and all along the coast."

"Ah!'' The exclamation came out sharply—like the cry that follows a stab. Mrs. Cuthbert was really interested at last.

"Uncle told me," continued Mary, "that the man carried on this curious business for quite a long time, but at last came under suspicion. His lugger was chased one night by a British sloop of war quite near the French coast. The captain of the sloop sent a boat's crew to board the lugger, and they made prisoners of the smuggler and a couple of seamen who were with him. They found a French officer's uniform on board the lugger. But the Frenchman himself had disappeared. He must have jumped overboard and swum to the French Coast, which was only a mile away, when he found that the lugger was certain to be captured. He was a brave man! Was he not?"

Mrs. Cuthbert nodded her head. She could hardly trust herself to speak. At last she retrained control of herself. "Go on, go on," she whispered eagerly.

"So they captured the smuggler," resumed Mary Fitzharding with quiet impersonal interest, "and he was tried for treason and sentenced to death. But the sentence was commuted to transportation for life, because of the services that he had previously rendered in carrying English officers across the Channel and landing them in France. So they sent him out to Botany Bay, and now he is a settler on the Hawkesbury."

"His name, child, his name." Mrs. Cuthbert was painfully agitated. Her fingers were working convulsively.

"Jonathan Wylie." said Mary Fitzharding wonderingly.

Mrs. Cuthbert slowly blanched until every atom of color left her face. But she retained her self-command. "I fancy I have heard of him," she said in low tones. "A rich emancipist, is he not? One takes no interest in such people. Now, run along and talk to Captain Cartwright here downstairs, and make some excuse for my absence. I know it is you he wants to see and not me."

Years of training in the art of subduing her feelings came to her assistance. The much-tried woman actually managed to muster the ghost of a smile.

But Mary Fitzharding was anything but pleased as she turned to go. She was bored by Captain Cartwright, and worried by the obstinacy with which he had laid siege to her hand. The black-browed captain, with his heavy jaw, seemed incapable of realising that in paying court to her he was advancing upon a forlorn hope.

Tristram kept the image of Mary in his heart as he went off with light and springy footsteps towards George-street on his way to the markets to pick up Will and Owen, whom he reckoned confidently upon finding in the big taproom of the Market House.

Turning his back on the massive dominating walls of the barracks, built on the rising ground in the centre of the town, and on the red-coated sentries who guarded the main barrack gates, he made his way to the crowded market place, not far from the Market Wharf in Cockle Bay, which was afterwards called Darling Harbor.

Presently he came to an enclosed area surrounded by a three-railed fence, and containing the stalls upon which the produce of the settlers were sold. Close by were long lines of drays and waggons piled high with green vegetables, bales of hay made from the rich native grasses, and sacks of wheat and Indian corn. The settlers themselves, dressed for the most part either in short, blue cotton smock frocks and trousers, or in jackets and trousers of coarse fustian, were gathered in knots, and were mostly engaged in boasting loudly of their respective crops and livestock.

Catching their scraps of talk as he passed, Tristram learned that they brought in their wheat and vegetables for sale to the city inhabitants, thereby being enabled to provide themselves with tea, sugar, and tobacco, with which to help out the invariable diet of salt pork and doughboys made of maize meal. With their bright neck handkerchiefs, rough straw hats, or caps made of untanned kangaroo skin, they were a picturesque lot of men, but Tristram gave an involuntary shudder as he went amongst them and realised their stolid ignorance and insensibility to everything that lay outside their narrow round of toil in tillage. Was he doomed, he dimly wondered, to remain for all his life associated with men who could not read or write, whose chief amusement consisted in using the most horrible oaths, and whose one real enjoyment was to get drunk.

Tristram experienced a thrill of repulsion and disgust as he threaded his way through the 'dungaree settlers,' as they were usually called. It was very strange, he thought, that he should be troubled by such feelings, which he guessed were not experienced by his father and mother, or his brothers or sisters at the farm on the banks of the Hawkesbury.

Entering the big tap room, with the sanded floor, he found Will and Owen seated on a bench drinking rum and water in company with Ben Matthews, the owner of the farm next to Tom Trevithick's.

"Did yer hear the news, Trist," hiccoughed Will, as he rose unsteadily from the bench, and waved a glass of rum and water erratically at Tristram. "Ole Macquarie himself is acomin' up to Windsor at the end of the month to hold an inspection of the farms on the river—'im and 'is 'ole blessed staff. Ladies and all. It'll be a great day for us chaps, to be sure."

Tristram felt his heart bounding wildly and knew the reason. Would it be a great day for him? He wondered.