Читать книгу The Escape of the Notorious Sir William Heans - William Gosse Hay - Страница 9

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On the same evening, Matilda Shaxton, sitting at her toilette, was hailed by her husband from his dressing-room with the remark: "Have you seen Sir William Heans this week?"

Matilda answered: "Sir William was here to-day, Paul."

"Looking well?"

"Yes—pretty well."

"Daunt has got a beastly story of his being mixed up in some affray in Tout Street, at a gambling room. He oughtn't to go there." Matilda smiled in a wild way, and the tears pressed into her eyes. "Was Mr. Daunt stern about it?"

"Daunt says it's a bad downward step. He protested he would come against all sorts of undesirables there: prisoners, low ship's-officers, and drunken soldiers. Some of the prisoners are Government constables, and they listen to what a prisoner says when he's taken too much, and watch whom he associates with. He'll have to be doubly careful if he haunts those places. Daunt says Heans hadn't been inside the door a half an hour when he was told of it. The police don't like his airs. Half of this is Daunt's hocus pocus, but it's a pity to think of its getting about. I told Daunt to close his mouth about it. He's" (chuckling suddenly) "not fond of Sir William Heans."

"Was he—was he gambling his money?" asked Mrs. Shaxton, putting up her soft hair.

"Yes, and drinking more than was good for him—if all's true. He came out with a convict named Carnt—a swindler of all people—and a shady fellow named Stifft, who's been suspected of connivance in escape, and lost a schooner and twenty lives off the Iron Pot. Went to his rooms. He mustn't take up with those fellows—can't you go for him about it, Matty?"

Mrs. Shaxton's prisoner-maid was arranging her mistress's lace with impassive face. Matilda turned her head aside and a sudden sob shook her. "Is it too tight, madam?" said the woman, pausing and looking up, and seeing her mistress's eyes, she bowed her head and continued.

"Mr. Daunt is so stern now," Matilda called, with a little quaver of fear. "I don't know what is coming to him. I used to think him brave and just."

"Gracious G—d, bring these fellows up against a prisoner, and out come their claws! Daunt comes up here with his police-brand in his pocket, and he can't help testing it against Heans. But Daunt's a careful man. He wouldn't say a thing like that if it hadn't some truth in it."

"Yes," said Matilda, "but he's very stern, and very clever. He might exaggerate. He has not been kind in his manner to Sir William Heans. You remember he was here when Sir William first called. He intimated to me, when he was shown in, that he was not very desirable. Oh, I was so glad I had Miss Gairdener's letter!"

"Egad—that's what he said, is it! What do you think he said to me on Thursday? Ho-ho!—he said he didn't like his manners towards you—Mrs. Providence! Yes, I laughed. 'Speaking of a nunnery,' says I, 'it must have been virulent if Mrs. Providence passed it!'

"Ah, poor Heans!" said Shaxton, in a lower key; "he's paying heavily for that business. Talk of dignity—people are always asking a fellow to know who he is! Higgs of the Guiding Star was asking me only last week (ho-ho-ho!) if it was the military commandant! There was Heans riding by with his eyeglass. Hanged if I know what to tell them!"

"And—was he drinking—Sir William Heans?"

"I don't think he was taking much—singing a song and that. (Where are my dancing-pumps?) Made'em all laugh the way he sang—so stiff and such a funny little dandy voice. I'd ha' given (bah! there's no buckling this cravat!)—I'd ha' given a quid—he-he—to have seen Heans singing."

Mrs. Shaxton threw open her jewel-case, and fingered blindly among its contents. Her wild and determined eyes were on themselves in the glass. Her fingers slipped through pearls and garnets, and caught upon an old silver cross. This she drew out, and clasped by its hanger about her neck. It seemed too heavy for that frail pillar, but not yet for those wild eyes.

"Oh, Paul, he is in terrible danger!" she said, as she put on her long ear-rings. "I must see Mr. Daunt and try and win him over. Sir William Heans is very sensitive. His manner is all fineness and bravery. Perhaps—perhaps Mr. Daunt could privately shut those places to him. It is just their terrible temptation!"

"No—no," answered Hyde-Shaxton. "Be careful how you interfere with a man's liberty. He's little enough of it—poor fellow, and jealous enough of that, I suppose. Think of it, after the way he was lionized in London! I'd put it to him yourself. He's very fond of you, Matilda. Get him up here on Friday (I'll be up at Risdon with a surveying party). Tell him that story about Megson and Relph, who were sent to Macquarie Harbour. Stay a moment, you've never heard that. Wait till I get this cravat buckled. It's bad, but it's Gospel truth. They were men of his own station, you know. It began, as I told you, by their going to those low places."

Captain Shaxton here related a story which, for those interested, will be found at the end of this chapter.[*] When he had done so, his voice dropped away, and for a while there was silence. Outside there was a pattering sound and a low roaring of the wind.

"Poor Miss Gairdener——" said Matilda, in a trembling tone, and then broke off. Presently her brave voice cried out: "I cannot bear to think of Sir William Heans even touching these places!" "I can't think of the handsome old 'Marquis' on the downward path at all," chuckled Shaxton, in a subdued way, "though it's getting an oldish tale with him, I suppose. I can't help seeing the joke of it, though, gracious G—d! it can be a black business. What would he do with his eye-glass at Port Arthur—ho, ho! It tickles me to think of it!"

"Don't!"

"Bless you, he's too fastidious! There's no danger!"

"Oh, do not!"

"Egad, it would be like thinking of somebody who was buried in a chimney-pot!"

No answer came from Mrs. Shaxton. There was a sound as of the Captain rising from a chair in his dressing-room.

"Beastly night, Matty! Wasn't that sleet on the windows? Ha," he cried, "there's the carriage! Hurry up!"

Then in the distance, as he opened his door: "Be kind to the poor fellow, Matty; he's got no decent woman but you to go to. You're not very kind to him—are you? Short—or something! He's out here alone. You've been treating him to some of your high moods, haven't you now?"

He seemed to wait in the passage for an answer, but none went to him. In her room Matilda whispered, "God forbid!" as, with pale throat up, she wound a shawl about her cheeks and side-curls.

[* The Story of Megson and Relph (as told by Captain Shaxton). "Why, Megson and Relph came out here, fast, hot-spirited College men, who had embezzled their uncle's money. They expected to go free, and brought out ponies, a caleche, and all sorts of finery. They had been implicated in some sort of rumpus on board, and when they landed near everything was taken from them, while they were put under strict surveillance in a Government office under a man named Barlings, who was strict, and perhaps inclined to bully them. This man's usage, and the fact that they were nor well received by some people named Rose (you know—the James Roses) who had known them in England, drove them to the gambling places, where they won a lot of money, came out more than ever in dress, and for a while seemed prosperous. You'd see'd 'em in their little ponychaise driving from Cascades Road to the jetty with their gold-tasselled caps and puddingcravats, and quarrelling—they were hot-tempered men—like a pair of undergraduates coming in from Newmarket. It seems they had come to some sort of compact about the ladies—a relic of some fast business at home no doubt. Barlings deposed you would hear them talking jealously if one or other was seen for a moment with a woman. Presently Megson falls in love with a girl—a lady, they say, of the melancholy beautiful kind; hides it from Relph; and a fierce quarrel and blows occurred one morning, when, the girl being ill, he told about it. Megson was put in irons for assaulting the others: he said under taunts from Barlings and Relph. When Relph recovered, he lived alone, driving past Megson sometimes where he worked in the iron-gang. He seems to have lavishly abused him when in hospital, but seeing him in yellow and black on the orad-side, he repented, and made a clever and careful plan for their escape. Half starving himself, he collected a lot of ship-biscuits, which he packed in a false bottom in the pony-trap. He got 450 packed away in various parts of the vehicle. Suddenly drawing up beside the gang one day, he leant out and abused Megson (at the same time telling him to run for the chaise on the following Friday, and he would pull up for him round the corner). He oven gave him a light blow on the face, and drove off in a fury, shaking his fist. He was hauled up for this, but got off, with some excuses, being a small and gentle-looking man. Megson did not get off so easily and was punished. See how the luck hung against that man! "Megson waited for Relph all Friday, and towards evening, seeing him drive by and slacken round the corner, loosened his ankle-chain and ran for it. He was shot at and hit, but he got into the caleche. Relph galloped him up the Dalrymple Road; along the river-side; and a bit into the bush. In the dusk they were missed. Abandoning the trap, they packed the stuff on the pony, and on it also got Megson with his wound. He was light, small, and delicately-made like his cousin, and they got a good way towards Launceston, when the blacks began to dog them, and they had to push for the road. Then Megson became feverish, and the police discovered them from his delirious talking. Relph was holding him on the pony and scolding at him. "The case created a good deal of sympathy. Relph might have got off fairly easily but for his bitterness and bad-temper. He was assigned to a clergyman at Clarence Plains, and having challenged his master to a duel over something or other, and used threatening language when his request was refused, was sentenced for a month to the iron-gang, losing his civilian clothes, and putting on the stripes and chains. Relph must have felt the ground slipping from beneath his feet, for he was insubordinate, and therefore remained in the gang month after month. Several people who had taken an interest in him saw him on the roads. His light, erect little figure was easily recognisable, but he would glare at them defiantly. All seemed enemies to him now. One day Megson was drafted into the gang with four other insubordinates. He also had been assigned, been insolent, and sentenced by the magistrate to the roads. The latter worked in a stiff, unaccustomed way (he had been coachman to a doctor and very well treated) till he saw Relph, and then, as they say, he seemed, as he picked, to recognise something in the other's figure, and kept looking at him covertly. At last he stood up and called 'Relph,' and the other looked over with his brilliant smile, crying: 'No go now, Alfred!' That was all, and on they worked, the one smiling, the other shaken with grief. "It is said that returning one day into Hobarton, Megson saw the girl that he had loved with some little children in a garden, and thinking her married, upbraided her furiously by name and was whipped for indecent behaviour. The girl is not married. They say it is that dark Miss R——living with her mother and sisters in Lavisham Terrace. There's some mystery about her. When Relph heard that Megson had been punished over a woman, he quarrelled with his overseer, assaulted him, and ran for it over a sandbank into a fringe of bush. Though fired at with a blunderbuss, he got away unwounded. All Hobarton was out after him. Megson, working in the gang two days afterwards, hearing of his cousin's escape, decided to make a run also, but they had their eye on him, for he was shot down a few yards from his tools. Relph was taken, a month later, on a small island in the Huon River, where a man was seen by the police struggling with some reptile, and beating it with a stick. They captured him there, well and hearty but terrified, with ten or eleven great snakes dead about him. He said he had killed thirty and could not sleep at night. The island is thick with them. "Both Megson and Relph were sentenced to Macquarie Harbour, and a month later the weekly cutter took them out, shivering among a huddle of convicts, over the yellow sea. In the winter, five years ago, they escaped inland into the mountains behind the Harbour, and no doubt joined the many skeletons that strew that pathway back to civilization."]