Читать книгу A Bush Bayard: Being A Romance of the Reign of Macquarie - John Sandes - Страница 6

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When Governor Macquarie paid his official visit to Windsor he did it in style, driving in his carriage drawn by four spanking bays, along the well-made road from Parramatta, through Blacktown, where once a year a great muster of blacks was held, and over the lightly wooded undulating plains, already settled with free immigrants, down to the township on the right bank of the noble river.

Mrs. Macquarie sat by his side, and facing him sat Major Cuthbert, his aide-de-camp, and Mary Fitzharding, who had taken the place of her aunt. Mrs. Cuthbert at the last moment had begged to be allowed to stay at home, and had pleaded indisposition. A body guard of mounted troops rode before and behind the carriage, under the command of the black-browed Captain Cartwright, who sat his big black horse gracefully enough, and was regarded with admiration, spied with fear, by little Tony Hawkins, his bugler, who rode a horse's length behind him, ready to sound the calls at the word of command.

The cavalcade made a brave show as it rattled through the little township with waving plumes and glinting steel, while the townspeople cheered and waved their handkerchiefs from the windows. The gleam of scarlet and gold, the flash of the polished scabbards and the spotless white of the well-pipeclayed crossbelts against the brilliant tunics made a striking colornote with the cloudless sky above and the white ribbon of the winding road beneath.

And then there was Mary Fitzharding's lovely face. Her eyes fairly hypnotised the captain of the escort.

Wheeling sharply to the right as he reached the rising ground above the willow bordered river, Captain Cartwright led the way to Government House, which stood back some little distance from the road in a neat garden where there were a few noble shade trees. The house itself was an unpretentious one-story building, the walls being covered with white plaster, and the architecture of the rule simplicity that marked the old colonial style. The roof was covered with wooden shingles in lieu of thatch of tiles, but the dwelling was comfortable and neatly furnished, with one verandah facing the roadway in front, and another looking out across the river at the back towards the rich flats and water meadows, and away to the haze-enfolded outline of the Kurrajong ranges that ran down to the sea—a giant spur from the distant Blue Mountains.

Seated on the verandah, which commanded that matchless view, Governor Macquarie received the chief officials of the town and heard their reports. He was at this time a man of about sixty years of age, of soldierly bearing, and tall square figure. He wore a scarlet coat heavily epauletted and braided with gold lace, and tight blue trousers strapped under the soles of his boots. A three-cornered hat, not unlike that worn by an admiral, he had placed on the chair beside him, and the light breeze that came up the river stirred his short wavy hair that curved naturally over his high forehead. Eyes of clear steel blue, set rather close together, with a humorous twinkle in them at times, a large aquilline nose, a mouth of iron, and a strongly protruding chin, marked him out as a born soldier. His skin was tanned to a rich brown by his long service in India before he was sent out with the seventy-third regiment, of which he was the colonel commanding, to clear up the trouble brought about by the despotism of Governor Bligh and to send the New South Wales Corps back to England.

The officials reported to the Governor that the wild blacks from the Kurrajong had been very troublesome and had killed many cattle belonging to the settlers. They killed the animals by spearing them in the middle of the forehead, making a round hole that exactly resembles the hole of a rifle bullet, and thereby cunningly attempting to divert suspicion from themselves to the white men. The remains of many cattle that had been killed in this way had been found in the bush. Would his Excellency order a small detachment of soldiers to be quartered in the neighborhood for the protection of the settlers?

The Governor made a note of the request, and promised to send six men in charge of a lieutenant to deal with the wild blacks. He also issued an order on the spot that if any blacks attacked a settler's home the other settlers in the neighborhood should at once go to the assistance of the man who was attacked, and should employ their best efforts to disperse the assailants. Heavy penalties would be inflicted upon any sulkers who refused in repelling the blacks from a neighbor's homestead. The deputation then drew his Excellency's attention to the severe losses that had been occasioned by the last inundation of the Hawkesbury. Boats were urgently needed, in view of a possible repetition of the flood. Also, it would be necessary to provide certain of the settlers with seed wheat, and with live stock to replace the animals that had been lost.

His Excellency listened patiently to all the requests, and the leading townspeople who presented them were not only promised the relief they required, but were also regaled by his Excellency's instructions with biscuits, and port wine. Those who preferred rum and water were permitted to indulge their preference.

When these formalities were over and luncheon had been eaten on the verandah overlooking the river, Governor Macquarie announced his intention of visiting some of the farms in the neighborhood in order to see for himself what progress was being made. Mrs. Macquarie was too much fatigued to go any further, and Major Cuthbert had some important administrative duties to occupy his attention. So his Excellency invited Mary Fitzharding to accompany him in the big carriage, and they set off, attended by Captain Cartwright, with a couple of troopers as escort.

Governor Macquarie was delighted with all that he saw, and well he might be, for the smiling homesteads that dotted the rich alluvial flats along the river gave substantial promise that the grim spectre of famine which had stalked through the infant colony in its early years would never menace the settlement again. On the far side of the river rose deep forests, behind which towered the ranges, but on the near side the comfortable homes of the settlers on their hundred-acre blocks were set amid orchard and corn lands. Cattle stood under the shade of the trees, whisking their tails to keep away the flies, and the ploughing teams were steadily breaking new ground to be sown with wheat or barley, or the Indian corn that grew to such a height as the Governor had never seen during all his long service in India.

In every homestead that he visited his Excellency found respectful greetings and well-filled barns, while the cupboards held plenty of wheaten cake and maize cake, and the larder invariably contained a joint of pork or beef. For refreshment he was offered watermelons—very cool and thirst-quenching in the heat of the afternoon. And the girls and women shyly pressed Mary Fitzharding to take a cup of tea from the pot which seemed to be always ready.

At last they came to Trevithick's homestead, and the rush of color flew to Mary's cheeks when she found herself looking into those keen dark eyes that had haunted her ever since she had first met her stalwart young rescuer.

Captain Cartwright, slapping the leg of his well-polished riding-boot with his switch, saw the sudden sunrise in the girl's cheek, and wondered angrily what it meant.

Surely Miss Fitzharding could never have met this country lout before. And yet there seemed to be an unmistakable bond of sympathy between the beautiful girl who belonged to the flower of the English aristocracy and the handsome young rustic who carried himself like a soldier in spite of his humble occupation.

Cartwright resolved to keep his eye on young Trevithick, but unhappily this resolution was quickly broken. Governor Macquarie required him to take notes of Tom Trevithick's suggestions in regard to the more effective policing of the river, and particularly in regard to certain malefactors who had lately broken out at Bathurst, and who might be expected to make a descent upon the Hawkesbury settlement almost any day. But before he had nearly completed cataloguing Trevithick's long list of requests and suggestions, he looked up and found to his dismay that Tristram and Mary had disappeared. The flutter of a white skirt far away among the peach trees in the orchard betrayed the girl's whereabouts and caused Captain Cartwright to bite his lip angrily. He vowed to get even with the insolent young rustic who dared to raise his eyes to a lady so far above him. Meanwhile Tom Trevithick, whose beard was grizzled and whose face was seamed with lines deeply cut by years of anxious vigilance which was the price of safety from his chief enemies the Kurrajong blacks, was revealing to the Governor some of the pressing new dangers which threatened the settlement.

"In my opinion, Governor," he said, "that there Jonathan Wylie ain't no good to this district."

"But I understand that Wylie is a man of considerable substance," said the Governor, "and since he received his discharge he has never got into any trouble? The situation is one which, in my view, entitles him to sympathy rather than to reprobation."

"I know that he has become a wealthy man, Governor," said Tom Trevithick; "but how has he done it? I cannot answer that question fully but I can tell you that he is a regular bludsucker for squeezing the settlers. He advances them a few pounds off mortgage and then ruins them—gets them to assign all their crops to him for a few barrels of moonshine."

"Eh, what's that?" asked the Governor, starting up in his chair. "What do you mean by barrels of moonshine?"

"Illicit spirit, sir," said Tom Trevithick confidently. "Grog that has never paid the King's duty. There are private stills at work in these ranges, and it is my belief that Jonathan Wylie is at the back of a good many of them. It's becoming the curse of the settlement, and the ruin of the farm hands. And only last week a lot of people a bit lower down the river got hold of a five-gallon keg of moonshine, poured it into a tub, filled the tub up with water and then sat round it with their pannikins, men and women, until they finished it. A terrible scene it was, too, fighting, cursing, and ungodly ribaldry of all kinds. One man was nearly murdered at the finish, I am told."

"By gad, I'll put a stop to that business, Trevithick," said Governor Macquarie hotly. "I'll issue an ordinance against it immediately. Cartwright, did you hear that?"

"Yes, sir," said Cartwright, recalling his gaze with some difficulty from the peach orchard. "I've heard something before about this illicit distillation going on in the ranges. I only wish we could find a clue to the offenders, sir."

"I'll run them down, Cartwright, never fear," said the Governor. "Just make a memorandum, will you. Patrols to search the ranges thoroughly. A free pardon to accomplices who will give information. All magistrates to be empowered to punish in summary jurisdiction. I'll pour boiling water on the ants' nest at once. Illicit distillation, indeed, what next?"

His Excellency became quite red in the face at the thought of illicit stills pouring out grog for the masses. It was almost blasphemy. Grog was a valuable Government monopoly. Rum was practically currency. To produce illicit spirits was equivalent to debasing the coinage. The gorge of the Administrator rose at the bare idea.

"And then there's them Bathurst bushrangers, Governor," said Trevithick, leaning forward in his chair and wagging a gnarled forefinger in Governor Macquarie's face. "There's a band of at least fifty out now. They're driving sheep and cattle in front of them, attacking the biggest homesteads, and robbing in every direction."

"I shall deal with them," said the Governor briefly. "They'll find a regiment of red-coats in front of them before very long. The band will be captured or shot to a man."'

"Very glad to hear it, your Excellency," said Trevithick, with a sigh of relief. "I haven't slept for two nights thinking of the villains. And now let me offer you the finest dish of peaches that you'll find on the Hawkesbury."

So Governor Macquarie ate his peaches, and down in the orchard, in the shade of the trees that bore them, Tristram Trevithick looked into Mary's blue eyes and thrilled at what he read there, while Captain Cartwright glowered at the pair from the verandah, where he stood in attendance on his chief. His thick black eyebrows came together until they made almost a straight line across his brow, when he saw Mary place her hand on Tristram's arm, as she listened intently to his words.

"I do not know how it is. Miss Fitzharding," Tristram was saying, "but I must avow that there are times when this familiar scene, in which I have spent all my life, seems strange and unreal. I could almost believe that some evil spirit has bewitched me, and filled my head with such strange, waking dreams."

"Fie, Mr. Trevithick," said Mary, patting Tristram's fustian clad arm with her little hand. "Tell me of your dreams; it may be that I can interpret them."

"Often when I am driving the plough or milking the cows," said Tristram, "there comes into my head a vision of camps and the roll of distant kettledrums, instead of the glittering Hawkesbury yonder, I seem to see a river of bayonets, and the stocks of the wheat are like tents upon a field."

"You have been reading in the evenings overmuch about the wars," said Mary softly, "and it is natural that you should think of glory. A man who is a real man must do that." Again she looked up into Tristram's eyes and read there perplexity as well as—love.

"When I see you looking at me like that, Miss Fitzharding, I feel that it is not for the first time. My mind goes back. I—I remember—I remember in some other country seeing you look into my eyes. But we were standing by the sea shore. Great cliffs rose up from the Beach. And there was a boat in which I went—away."

The young man swayed and would have fallen if Mary had not steadied him with her encircling arm. She made him sit down on a newly-felled log and she produced a silver 'pomander' with a scented ball, the odor of which she made him inhale. Trevithick passed his hand across his brow and was himself again.

"Your pardon, Miss Fitzharding, for a momentary weakness. I fear the heat has made me giddy."

Mary Fitzharding made him lean upon her arm as they walked back to the homestead, and every pulse of her thrilled at the touch of his hand. She felt almost vexed with herself at the feeling that this farmer's son inspired in her. She, who had been a reigning toast in the London clubs, and who had snubbed the advances of more than one of the young bloods of the day, to feel her heart beat and her color rise when the eyes of this good-looking young yokel were upon her and when his rich musical voice sounded in her ears. It was monstrous strange, surely, that when she came out to this remote settlement in the antipodes at the earnest desire of her affectionate, but curiously silent aunt, who desired her companionship, she should meet a young rustic, who had power to stir her heart as no man of her own class in England had been able to move it.

Mary's thoughts were running riot as she went back to the homestead, supporting Tristram on her arm, to the surprise of Governor Macquarie and the Trevithick and the disgust of Captain Cartwright.

Tristram explained that he had been overcome by the heat.

"Ha, a touch of the sun, eh?" said the Governor, "and yet it is not nearly so hot here as I have known it in India. Put your head in a bucket of water, young fellow, and you will be all right in five minutes."

So Mrs. Trevithick led him inside the house to bathe his head with cold water, but her eyes were troubled, and she sighed heavily, as the distressing duty which was never long absent from her thoughts was brought visibly nearer to her. She had always known that Tristram must fall in love some day. Her woman's intuition told her that the time had come and the expected had happened. But it was far worse than she had anticipated. He had fallen in love with a girl who belonged to a very different class from theirs, and who moved among the highest in the land. So much the more necessary was it that he should learn the truth in good time, lest, learning it too late, he should reproach her, who had brought him up as her own son with bitterness and unavailingly.

When Mrs. Trevithick had gone into the house with Tristram, and Tom Trevithick was still enlightening Governor Macquarie on the subject of the danger from the blacks, and the difficulty of getting work out of his assigned servants, Captain Cartwright faced Mary in a corner of the vineclad verandah, with an evil smile upon his heavy lips.

"You would be less cruel if you were more careful, Miss Fitzharding," he began cuttingly: "for I fear your charms have quite turned the head of the young ploughman. Pray spare such an inexperienced victim, and do not slay him outright."

Mary's eyes flashed dangerously. "I have no liking for experienced gallants, Captain Cartwright," she said freezingly, looking him straight in the face, "and it pleases me to get away from them at times. I would have you know that Mr. Trevithick has earned my gratitude by defending me from a rude mob in Sydney when no one else came to my help."

Captain Cartwright's scowl darkened. "Yet I vow the farmer is presumptuous," he snapped, "when he lifts his eyes to Miss Mary Fitzharding, as I saw him lift them before he went inside."

Mary stamped her little foot angrily. "Presumptuousness is not so insupportable as impertinence, Captain Cartwright," she flung out with lightning speed.

Governor Macquarie turned round with a grim smile as the angry words reached his ears. "What—quarrelling again, you two?" he said. "Cartwright, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. We managed these things differently when I was a young man. Come, my dear,"—he stood up and pinched Mary's cheek affectionately—"I must be going back to Windsor, for I entertain the officers of the town at dinner this evening. Captain Cartwright, be good enough to send your orderly for my carriage."

So Captain Cartwright, biting the ends of his black moustache, summoned the orderly, and the orderly summoned the carriage, and just before it drove away Tristram Trevithick came out on the verandah, and Mary went up to him and held out her hand.

"Good-bye, for to-day, Mr. Trevithick," she said before them all, with her brightest smile. "I'm so glad that you are feeling better. We shall meet again very soon I know, and believe me, I shall be very glad to see you. I hope you will allow me to present you to my aunt, once more, when you come down to Sydney. I am sure she would be greatly interested to know you."

Tristram handed her into the carriage. He could scarcely trust himself to speak. The pain of losing this gracious and radiant visitant was sharp and poignant. Yet he knew in his inmost heart that his life and hers were bound up together henceforth. Shading his eyes with his lifted palm, he watched Governor Macquarie's carriage, with its postillions and its escort, rolling away in a cloud of dust towards the little township of Windsor, and as he turned to go inside he met Mrs. Trevithick at the door.

She placed her two hands upon his shoulder. "Tristram, dear, are you quite well now," she asked anxiously, and her lips trembled.

"Quite well, mother," said Tristram.

"Then come in with me, my lad," said Mrs. Trevithick, with a meaning glance at her husband, "for I have something to say to you that must be said."

Old Tom Trevithick heard, and settled himself in his chair. He was resolved to have nothing to do with the matter that had now to be dealt with. A good farmer was Tom Trevithick, but his wife had more moral courage in her little finger than he had in his whole ragged frame.

Ever since leaving England he had dreaded the day when it would be necessary to tell Sybil Granger's son who and what he was. Tom Trevithick gave a little shiver and looked out over the mighty river that rolled on its course to the sea, as careless of human hope and fears in its days of tranquility as it was when fed by the mountain torrents that hurled themselves into its upper waters, it rose over its banks and carried death and devastation to the dwellers in its valley.

"Mother'll be the best to tell him," muttered Tom Trevithick nervously, as he filled his long clay pipe with tobacco grown and cured on his own farm, pressed it down into the bowl with trembling fingers, and lighted it. "Lordy, Lordy, I'm afeared the boy will take it badly."

Sitting on the edge of his simple camp bed in his own room, the room he had slept in since he was a child, Tristram heard from Lucy Trevithick the dark story of his birth. The woman spoke in broken tones, looking into the young man's tense white face, while tears gathered in the corners of her own eyes at the pain which she was inflicting. She concealed nothing. Her frank and simple nature would not stoop to the slightest deception, even to save from sorrow the youth whom she loved as her own son.

Tristram listened to her dry-eyed. "And who was my father?" he asked at last, in a dull hard voice that seemed to have lost all its ring.

"We have never known who he was," said Lucy Trevithick. "All that the Squire told us when he brought you to us on the night before we sailed from England was that the man whom Miss Sybil had loved was a Frenchman. After we had been here for nearly a year Tom wrote to the Squire, telling him that we were happily settled, and that the child had been christened Tristram, and that he was well, but the Squire never answered the letter."

"Of course not," said Tristram bitterly. "Why should he?"

"He promised to provide money for setting you up on a farm of your own when you became a man," said Mrs. Trevithick, "but he never wrote again; we never heard from Miss Sybil either."

"Yet being a woman and a mother," said Tristram, "she must have found out what her father had done with her son. It is plain that she did not want me either." He stared at the whitewashed wall, and his eyes had a new hard look in them that was not there before.

"Tristram, dear lad, haven't I been a mother to you?"

The young fellow took Mrs. Trevithick's toil worn hand in his own and kissed it. "Indeed, you have." he said amply, and then with bitter irony—"Far better than a mother."

"I always knew that I would have to tell you this," said Lucy, "as soon as you were a man."

"But why are you telling me to-day?" asked Tristram, still in the same lifeless, toneless voice.

"Because you are a man to-day," said Lucy Trevithick softly. "I watched you with Miss Fitzharding, and I know that you love her."

A radiant gleam shone for a moment in Tristram's eyes. Then it passed away, and his two hands dropped to his sides with a gesture of despair.

"My conscience would not let me keep silence lad, any longer,'" said poor Lucy, torn with sorrow at the sight of the young man's misery. "I always knew that when you grew to be a man, and thoughts of love and marriage came to you, I would have to tell you in fairness to yourself. Then knowing all, you could decide for yourself what you ought to do."

"Mother, I have decided what to do," said Tristram almost in a whisper.

She looked at him uncomprehendingly. His face gave no indication of his decision but as she fixed her gaze with gracious affection and motherly feeling on his flashing eyes and dark curling hair, an aquiline nose, and strong, straight mouth, with the upper lip shaded by a small black moustache, she could not help noticing with a fresh pang of emotion how different he was from her own sons—as different as a keen sword blade from a plough share. That was the very comparison that flashed into her mind.

"And now come with me into my own room my lad, for I have things to show you," said Lucy.

Tristram stood up from the edge of his bed on which he had been sitting. Under his black curly hair his face showed deathly white. He walked unsteadily across the floor after Lucy, and only saved himself from falling by clutching at the door. She held out her hand to him, and he grasped it. She led him through the door into her own room with the big four-post bed, which took up nearly the whole of one side of the room, and the child's cot that had long been empty in one corner opposite. In the other corner, near the door, stood the great heavy brass-bound chest that Tom Trevithick had brought out from England in the Amphritrite many years before. It had stood there unopened for years. The iron padlock and the staples that it secured were both stained red with rust.

Lucy Trevithick took a key from her bunch and unlocked the padlock. She raised the top of the heavy case and laid it against the wall. She went down on her knees beside the case, and brought up out of it a dainty little garment of cambric edged with Valenciennes lace—the long clothes of the baby. There was a little under-garment, too, a pair of tiny white socks, and a pair of blue woollen knitted shoes. She laid them all on the bed.

"These are the things that you were wearing, lad, when Squire Granger brought you to our cottage on the cliff on that stormy night that was our last in England."

Tristram took up the baby clothes and the socks and knitted shoes and looked at them closely. It came into his mind, that possibly there might be some mark, or at least some initial, that would afford a clue to the identity of that unknown father who had given him life, and had then vanished into impenetrable darkness. But there were no marks—nothing to differentiate the little garments from thousands of similar garments made for children whose mothers were rich enough to dress their babies in cambrics and costly lace.

He laid the things down on the bed again. "You had better keep these, mother," he said. "They are my only birth certificate." He laughed harshly as he spoke.

Mrs. Trevithick carefully replaced the little garments and the blue knitted shoes in the big brass-bound box. Then she lifted from the corner of it a small canvas bag filled with coin.

"This is the money that Squire Granger gave us when he asked us to take you away to Australia," said Lucy simply. "He said it was for your maintenance, but Tom and I have never touched it. We promised him to treat you as though you were our own child, and so we have done. The bite and the sup were always there for you, dear lad, as well as for our other children, and we reckon that you should have the spending of the Squire's hundred guineas yourself."

She untied the string round the neck of the bag, and emptied the coins on the bed. Then she counted them back into the bag slowly—one two, three, and on to one hundred. The tally was correct. Not a coin was missing. And yet Tom Trevithick and his wife had been hard put to it more than once since they went to the Hawkesbury. There were times, after the great flood, for instance, in which they lost almost everything, when a guinea would have bought needed food for them and their children. But, for the sake of their honor, they preferred to go hungry. The golden guineas clinked in the canvas bag as Lucy Trevithick handed it to Tristram.

"Take it, my lad, for it's yours," she said.

So Tristram, with a grim smile, slipped the bag of guineas into the pocket of his rough fustian coat. He would not press his foster mother to keep the money. He knew her frank and straightforward soul too well to dream of affronting her by such an offer.

"And now, lad, come out on the verandah, and tell my man that you know everything at last."

Together they went out on the verandah, where Tom Trevithick sat in his arm chair, smoking a long clay pipe, and glancing nervously at intervals towards the door.

"So there you are at last," said Tom, with forced hilarity, "and now what secrets have you been talking about to your mother, eh?"

"I have been listening to secrets, not telling them, sir." said Tristram to the old man. "My dear and kind foster-mother, whose goodness to me I can never either forget or repay, has told me—as she was bound to tell me—the story of my birth. I find that I am nobody's child. Even the very name of my father is unknown to me. You will understand that the news is distressing,"—here the young man's voice dropped to a whisper—"and especially in my present situation."

"Eh? How's that, my lad?"

"My foster-mother will tell you, sir, that I love a lady—a lady who was far above me when I was an honest son, and who is removed from me altogether by an immeasurable distance now that I discover myself to be a person with no right even to the name I bear—a nameless fellow—a waif. I owe my life, it seems, to the chance meeting of a dissolute scoundrel and a foolish girl, both of whom cast me off at the earliest moment that they could do so."

The young man's voice thrilled with passion. "Well, the world has dealt evilly with me. I will requite the world with evil for its evil. I cannot stay here any longer, pretending to a place that is not mine. And so I must say good-bye. Tell my brothers and my sister that I have gone to Sydney to seek my fortune. Goodbye, my mother—the only mother whom I have ever known. Kindest and best of foster-mothers that any man ever had. Good-bye, sir, and thank you for all your goodness to me."

He shook hands first with old Tom Trevithick who sat looking open-mouthed at him, his old fingers clutching his clay pipe convulsively.

Then he kissed Lucy Trevithick, who held him a moment in her arms, sobbing, "Oh, my lad, my poor, poor lad. What will become of you now?"

Tristram smoothed her greying hair with his fingers. "Try to forget me, mother. And if you ever see Mary Fitzharding, tell her to forget me, too, for we shall never meet again, and now good-bye." He kissed her and was gone.

Lucy Trevithick saw him take the bush track that led to the township of Windsor, from which there was a post road to Parramatta, and thence to Sydney. Just as he turned the last corner he stopped and waved his hand. Then he passed out of sight, and Lucy could hardly see the garden path through her tears as they went back to the homestead that would know her handsome foster-son no more.