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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 68

A Helpless Spectator

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A Helpless Spectator.

I.

Discharged! They call me a free man to-night. Well, free in body I am. My eyes can range over the eastern heavens, and watch the great luminous globe of the moon, full and yellow, swimming half submerged in faint bars and wisps of thin vapour. Then I can turn to the west, and watch how Venus outshines the stars, her neighbours. I can listen to the night wind rustling in the pine branches of that black coppice close at hand, and can note how the silvery light softens roofs and leaves, and how dark, by contrast, seem the shadows underneath. I can put down my hand and feel the grass-how wet it is already with the dew; and I can expand my lungs, and drink in the wandering air, soft, fresh, cool, and fragrant. Ah! that I could add calming and soothing also! Surely, if anything could calm and soothe, this sweet breath of heaven should be that thing.

I am called a free man! I can walk fifty paces forwards in a straight line—I can put out my arms in the darkness—without touching stone or iron. I have heard no key turn, no door clang to-night; I am dressed like other men, and can walk through a crowd without seeing faces turned in disgust or curiosity; strangest of all, I have a name once more—I was called by it to-day—I am no longer a unit, a mere numeral, I am a man!

For seven years and a-half I have not seen the spacious cum of the star-lit sky, or felt the night-breeze on my face, or smelled its sweet odours, or brushed the dew, or paced backwards and forwards uncontrolled. For seven years and six months I have not stretched out my arms in freedom, or looked boldly up; I have looked down; I have not been a man, anthropos.

Seven years and a-half! O men and women, you who pray "for all prisoners and captives," can you dream how I have waited and longed for this day? How I have counted those hundreds of weeks, those thousands of days, those tens of thousands of hours? How their numeration is burnt into my brain, in indelible figures? I can tell you, off-hand, how many hours there are in a week, a month, a year, seven years and a-half; how many minutes, how many seconds. How often have I done the same old dreary, dismal sum in my head, by night and day? How often has it dazed and wearied me? How page 29 often, again, has it soothed and occupied my horror-stricken brain, and driven away distracting misery?—

"The sad, mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotic numbing pain."

How often has it kept that at arm's length, and saved me from death, or from worse than death—from madness!

Thank Heaven for this at least—I have kept my reason. Through all that remorse and despair can do, through all their stings, and stabs, and wrenches, I have lived on, and my mind is clear, my senses sound. When I passed in through that gate, how little did I hope for this, how little wish for it! I wished for death, idiocy, stupor; anything that would "raze out the written troubles of the brain," and bring rest and the thrice-blessed balm of forgetfulness. Certainly, I dreaded imprisonment, but not for its own sake, not for its shame, hardships, and restraints, but because it would keep me stationary, lonely, quiet; because it would give me all those hours, days, weeks, months, and years in which to think; because it would keep me chained and motionless, to be tormented by "the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched;" by remorse ever piercing and i devouring through the long, silent, dreadful hours. And all that I dreaded, I have suffered. The cup was drained to the dregs; and yet I am alive, and am not mad. I was guilty, I do not deny it; but not of the crime with which they charged me—No! not of that—not of murder! I have killed an innocent fellow-creature, killed her by the most cruel and horrid of all deaths. It was my crime, my felony, which caused her death; yet the Searcher of Hearts knows how little her death was through my evil intent. I did not know of her existence until I had to look on helplessly, and see her tortured to death by my act!

They say my punishment has been light. You who read this after I am gone, shall judge.

II.

We are bidden to love our neighbour; I hated mine. That, I suppose, wascrime number one. But I wonder whether the saint ever trod this earth who could have loved that man. Possibly some old colonist may see this, who will remember "Grip" Thompson. I heard to-day j that he was dead—of old age. Why was he kept alive, I wonder, for eighty years to war against his fellow men? Why was he permitted to lock up those broad leagues of sunny hill and fertile valley, while thousands of his fellow-colonists were painfully hewing their little farms out of the giant bush; sinking their little capital deep in spongy swamps; starving on stony plains; or eating the bitter bread of public charity on relief works? For thirty years, he stopped settlement as with an iron wall. In vain he was written at, preached at, prayed to, I threatened with laws and lawlessness. The land was his, he said, and he meant to keep it;—keep it he did, for a whole generation. Well, he has not taken it with him!

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My farm marched with a piece of his interminable boundary-fence. My few sheep looked through the wire fences at his great flocks; sometimes, when feed was short on our side, a few stragglers would slip through to his pastures, which were seldom fed down, as their owner boasted. When mustering time came, I got the usual notice that ten, a dozen, or a score of my sheep were in his yards, waiting to be claimed, and I would ride across with the dogs and get them, and get with them a sneer from "Grip" and black looks from his manager and shepherds.

Though the number of the strayed sheep might vary, one thing never varied—they were always shorn when I saw them, "Grip" took excellent good care of that. In the year after I bought my farm, it happened that most of the stragglers to be reclaimed were ewes which, in the ordinary course of things, should have had lambs with them when I was sent for to take them from Thompson's yard. He pretended to give me every opportunity of "mothering" (as it is called) my missing lambs, but for fifteen ewes I could find but four. Again, next year, he played me a similar trick, and when I ventured to complain, curtly told me to keep my—crawlers on my own grass, if I had any grass to keep them on. There was no help for it, and, choking down a desire to wring the old brute's neck, I drove the unlucky sheep home. As the devil would have it, a fatal opportunity to make Thompson pay for his insult offered itself only too soon.

In passing my own sheep through the race in the following week, I found six of his amongst them. In previous years there had never been more than two, of which he had more than once taken care to sneeringly remind me. The stragglers were young half-bred wethers, very similar to a flock of my own. Here was a chance to square the account. I had but to alter the ear-marks and the paint-brand. A paint-brand is, of course, easy enough to deal with; and, as it unfortunately happened, there was no particular difficulty about changing the ear-marks in this case. Thompson's marks were a "swallow-fork"' in the left ear, and an oblong hole punched in the centre of the right ear. A "swallow-fork," I may mention, is made by snipping an angular piece out of the extremity of the ear. Now my brand consisted of two such snips out of the left ear, and an oblong strip cut from the tip nearly to the root of the right ear. I had thus but to take one of Thompson's wethers, cut an extra "swallow-fork" out of the left ear, and enlarge his oblong punch-hole in the right ear, and the thing was done. It was done; done, not once or twice, but for years together. I swore that for every lamb of which Thompson cheated me I would take a sheep from him; and I went on until some thirty of his had been treated after the fashion described. No shame or repentance troubled me; nor, after the first year, was there any fear of being found out. When an enemy was too strong to be fought openly, was it not perfectly justifiable to meet him with his own weapons?

Though Thompson, for the most part, lived alone and unseen in the heart of his brown hill kingdom, he occasionally came out to page 31 concern himself with public affairs: he found it paid him to do so. By sitting on the Road Board, he could get his solitary road kept in repair at the district's expense, and could also help to keep rates as low as possible—an important point when one has one hundred and twenty thousand acres to be taxed. Then, though he was never a candidate for a seat in Parliament, and openly scoffed at that body as a set of babbling fools and rogues, whose trade was to plunder honest colonists, he always did his best for the Conservative candidate for the electorate; and, mean as he usually was, would spend more money on such occasions than twelve months' living could have cost him. What his household expenses were, indeed, was known to none but himself and his book-keeper. He did not live at the homestead of his station, but in a small, mean-looking, two-storied wooden house, about three miles therefrom. The grey shingles of its sloping roof could be indistinctly seen from the road, looking out from some straggling plantations of blue-gum, willow, and Californian pine. No guest had ever been known to pass under the said grey roof. No man was ever known to boast that he had sat down within those unpainted walls. Anyone who came to see Thompson on business was always met at the manager's house, where, if necessary, the stranger could put up for the night. Old sun-downers told highly-coloured yarns of ferocious mastiffs who flew at the throat of any man on foot approaching within a quarter of a mile of old "Grip's" castle. It was quite certain that the most persistent swagger had never obtained the inevitable feed and shake down there. Moreover, extraordinary as the thing was in the case of a colonial house, no changes of servants ever gave Thompson's neighbours information about his household. It was generally supposed that an old childless, married couple attended to his wants, but, if they existed, they had never quitted the premises for twenty years at least. Neighbours believed in their existence, but none knew their names, or could describe them. Thompson took his own stores across from the homestead in his waggonette. His oldest station hands knew as little about his domestic affairs as the veriest stranger; not that many of his station hands were old servants; thanks to his meanness he generally parted company with his men at short intervals. Of this meanness full advantage was taken by his opponents in the election contests I have just referred to, and especially in a battle which took place nine years ago-just before, my ruin—and wherein I was prominent on the popular and anti-Thompson side. We elected our man, after a desperate fight, during which feeling ran very high. How proud I felt as I rode home that night, thinking over the victory of the people's cause, of how our [triumphant candidate had gripped me by the hand, and of what a change this day was to bring about—this day on which the wool-kings had been beaten at last.

Lying on my table when I reached home was one of the usual curt notes from Thompson's manager, requesting me to fetch ten sheep of mine from their yards at my earliest convenience. I hardly thought twice about it, so full was my mind of the day's page 32 excitement. Going to bed, I slept happily and soundly. It was for the last time. On reaching the yards next day, I saw at a glance that something was wrong. Thompson looked grimmer, his manager blacker, the shepherds more sullen than usual. Asked whether I claimed the sheep, I said "Yes." "Then," snarled Thompson, with his drawling accent, "we shall pros-e-cute you for sheep-stealing." He looked steadily at me as he spoke, under his straight, white eyebrows, with the most honest, open look I had ever seen on his face-a look of honest, open, gratified hate. The lines that curved from the base of his thin, crooked nose down outside the corners of his mouth deepened into furrows, the upper lip drew back slightly: it was the face of a man who felt that his enemy was in his grasp, and who was about to tighten that grasp. Boldly though I faced him, my heart misgave me, and I knew that he must have discovered something, if not all. Simply remarking that Mr. Cross, the manager, would hear anything I had to say, Thompson turned on his heel, and walked off, rigid as a rod of iron. In answer to my questions, Cross stated briefly that these particular sheep had been found on their land. Seeing my brand and ear-mark on them, he had treated them as stragglers. The shepherd, however, had drawn his attention to the fact that the earmarks were Mr. Thompson's, but clumsily tampered with. On closely examining the sheep, it was also plain otherwise that they belonged to Mr. Thompson's flock. Of course these sheep (five in number) would be detained; the other five I could take home if I pleased. I could examine the detained sheep if I liked, and explain, if I could, how it was that while part of the cutting in the ears was several years old, part had been done so recently that clotted blood was still sticking to the edges. Had Thompson been an ordinary man, I think I should have broken down, and begged for mercy. As it was, I could but ride home, cursing my folly, and prepare for the worst.

Strange to say, the worst did not come. Some lawyer's quibble partly saved me. I was not put in the dock as a thief, but was merely charged with the fraud of altering ear-marks. The magistrate inflicted! a fine of a hundred pounds, hoping that the disgrace and exposure would, in my case, somewhat add to the severity of the otherwise light' punishment. I left the court, a man with whom no honest settler would care to shake hands. I, who, a week before, had dreamed of regenerating the nation, I whose pulse had beat time with the march of progress, and whose eye had brightened at the eloquent words of my successful champion, slunk away alone through the little crowd outside the court door, an unconvicted felon.

III.

More than a year passed before I again met my enemy face to face. For me it was a year of much solitude; a time of dull, daily work, and of constant brooding over the same bitter, never-to-be-forgotten humiliation. It was not remorse, but the shame of exposure, and still above that—of defeat. Why should I feel remorse? I argued. What had I done page 33 but fight Thompson with his own weapons? He was stronger and more cunning; so I had been worsted. He was rich, and I was poor; was not the law always for the rich and against the poor? He was respected and I was disgraced! Pah! what did that matter? Did not men always cringe to the strong, and forsake the beaten? I would defy them all, and hold up my head in spite of them.

So, looking neither to the right nor the left, I walked, one autumn jay, through a group of loafers, into the little public house of the township nearest to my farm, and sat down at the common dinner table. No one took a seat within several feet of me. Thompson, at the other end of the table, was surrounded by a dozen obsequious acquaintances, laughing and talking loudly. They had evidently been talking, and were ordering their food. Thompson, raising his voice, ordered "sheep's head." There was a titter. Coolly turning to the landlord, he asked whether they cooked the ears of his sheep with the rest of the head. His own roar of coarse laughter followed this exquisite sally, and half-a-dozen faces were turned in my direction. Choking with rage, I glared at Thompson in silent fury. What would I have given to have my hand on his throat!

Though my head was whirling, and there was a singing in my ears, I managed to swallow some mouthfuls of food, washed down with spirits and water. As in a dream, I heard, without listening, the talk it the other end of the table. Presently, something said by Thompson faced itself upon my attention. He was explaining to some intending visitor to his station that he would not be there that night as his servants were leaving him, and he had to drive the man and woman some twenty miles or more to a railway station. Riding home alone, I thought over these words. In a purposeless, stupid sort of fashion they repeated themselves in my brain, simply because they were the last words I had heard my enemy utter. Then I thought of his brutal jest, and clenched my right hand till the nails pierced the skin of the palm. Oh, that the days of duelling had not gone by! Oh, that I had him there in front of me in that lonely valley! Oh, for anything to give me vengeance on my enemy! I felt I could have ridden over to is house that night, and shot him on his own door-step. But, no; of course he would be many miles away that night,

Suddenly, a thought struck me. To be hung for killing such an old ruffian would be cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Here was a safer way of paying the first instalment of my debt. Why not tide over at midnight, and put a match into his deserted house? It would burn, wretched, rotten, tinder-box that it was; and since fere was a hill between it and the homestead, would burn unseen, and be a heap of ashes when Thompson returned next day—the first man to find it. A paltry vengeance, perhaps, but only the first instalment of the debt—only the first instalment. More should follow with God's help or the devil's; I cared not which. True, twenty-five long Biles lay between me and the house; so much the better, it would avert suspicion. A good horse could do the journey, and I had a good horse. That lean, wiry, old Australian, famous as a roadster, famous page 34 after cattle, famous for having bucked off the best rough rider in the country—he should do me service that night. How Thompson's mean, miserable, penurious soul would writhe on the morrow. Better a thousand times hurt his pocket than injure him in life or limb. He would rather lose a limb than have to re-build a house.

All the evening I brooded over Thompson's savage triumph and boorish insult, upon the cluster of friends around him, and upon my deserted loneliness. I was an Ishmaelite, every man's hand was against me. So be it. One man, at least, should feel my hand in return. Therefore, after purposely speaking to my shepherd the last thing that night, and slamming my own bedroom door loudly as I pretended to retire, I waited, like a caged animal, for midnight. Then, slipping quietly out with saddle and bridle, I went down to the paddock where "Merryjig" was, led him on foot for a quarter of a mile, till we were out of hearing, then off we went. The brisk motion of the canter and the cool night air roused me and steeled my courage. At half-past two, I was outside the plantation round Thompson's house. Half-a-dozen dogs barked furiously, but no human shout followed, no light appeared. Plainly the house was empty. Riding straight up to the front door, I hammered at it with my hunting crop. If anyone appeared, I had decided to ask for Thompson. No one came; that settled it. It was late autumn; dead leaves and dry twigs and grass were all around. I had some rag and paper in ml pockets, and a flask of kerosene. Fastening the horse securely, I raised an inflammable pile against the door. Without a moment's hesitation, without a twinge of compunction or fear, without one thrill of premonition I lit the flame, fanned it, and stood back to watch it take a fair hold of the woodwork. How I feasted my eyes on the sight, as I saw the thin blue and yellow tongues and streaks of flame, after licking the wall again and again, at length seize upon it for their own. How I walked up, and deliberately warmed my hands at the blaze, and muttered some mad words of speeding and encouragement. Hurrah! the wall was ablaze up to the second story. The flames crawled about the verandah roof; the front door was blazing, and the fire was gaining hold of the interior. Good fire! Brave fire! Goodbye. Hurrah for Thompson's welcome home to-morrow!

Waving my hand insanely, I flung myself into the saddle carelessly and heavily, and gave the horse a cut with the hunting-crop. Knowing him as I did, nothing but the half-delirious state I was in could have made me treat him in this way. "Merryjig" was notoriously a ticklish animal to mount, and, if handled in aught but the lightest and most delicate fashion, was certain to fiercely resent it. He did so now. In an instant, before I could bring the bit to bear, he plunged his head! furiously between his fore legs, arched his back like a wild cat and with a frantic, writhing jump, and contortion of his whole body, sen saddle and rider flying on to the ground. Half-stunned, I struggled to rise on hands and knees. Something had gone wrong. Lifting my head and shoulders, everything swam round; the moon-lit night became dark; a heavy hand seemed to press on my throat and chest, page 35 and hold me down to the ground. I remember being violently sick, I remember wondering whether the hand holding me down was death, and then for some moments I became unconscious.

Noises awoke me. The house was burning bravely amid the incessant barking of the chained dogs. The fire was up to the roof on come side. Soon it would be a beacon, near which I must not stay. Where is the horse? There, quietly grazing, not twenty paces away. I must mount somehow, and be off without a moment's loss. I try to move. Is every bone in my body broken? One of my legs is a useless trailing weight, and every movement racks me from bead to foot. Nevertheless, I must move. Setting my teeth, I drag myself with infinite agony a few paces. The horse, frightened at being thus approached, snorts with fear, bounds, and is off.

Then I knew what is felt by the trapped wild beast, as he waits for the trapper's coming. I was caught—caught by a snare of my own making. A moment's stupidity had ruined all. Yet even this was not the worst; a more awful horror was to come upon me, as I lay helpless. For now, from the burning house, came shriek upon shriek—shcrieks of wild, incoherent terror, like the voice of a woman face to face with imminent death in its most agonising and terrible form. Form a side window in the upper story some glass fell shattered, and a human arm protruded, waving frantically. That was all I saw—noting more. No face to haunt me for ever with its ghastly agonies. Only this poor and feeble arm and hand waving for succour. In gain I shouted again and again; in vain I begged and implored the unseen victim to go down the stairs while there was yet time; to make a rope of her bed-clothing; to fling herself boldly out; to do anything—not stay there! In vain! In vain! The flames roared and crackled and devoured amid the barking and howling of the dogs, and still the poor, helpless arm waved, and still the voice rang in my ears, with cry on cry, and scream on scream of mortal fear. God be my witness, I tried to drag myself to the burning building, but the pain and sickness were overpowering; body and mind yielded to it, and I swooned away.

When I came to, the flames were still roaring, but the shrieks had leased.

IV.

They tried me for Wilful Murder. My counsel had much ado to make me promise to plead "not guilty," for, in very truth, I felt the guilt of murder on my soul. But, dead to the world, and reckless of life as I felt, I had still the one passionate desire that my fellow-men should not loathe me as something even worse than I was. I had not meant to murder the poor lunatic daughter, whom Thompson had left under lock and key and bar, in the deserted house. He, himself, admitted in the witness-box that it was most unlikely that I should have known aught of her; that the study of his life had been to conceal her existence from the world, and that he believed he had succeeded. His own manager and station hands swore that they did page 36 not know of her existence. Why the cold-blooded miser kept her there, instead of in proper medical hands, unless it was to save his pocket, I know not. Assuredly, it was not from any affectionate wish to have her near him always, and watch over and minister to her in her unhappiness. Perhaps there was some tragedy connected with her state, which her father wished to bury. I have heard of such things.

I need not dwell on the trial. I would fain not dwell on any episode of that awful time. My counsel's eloquence won, I believe, the admiration of the court. But, though he saved my life, I hardly know what he said. I did not fear death; much less did I think myself worthy to escape it. I only said, over and over again to my advocate, "Don't let them think I meant it." Whether it had anything to do with the popular dislike for Thompson, or whether my advocate's speech wrought upon them, or whether, indeed, a touch of commiseration for my abject and broken state moved them, certain it is that the jury found me guilty of manslaughter only. I heard myself sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, with the one only feeling of dread of the endless hours of loneliness and silence in which I should be given over a prey to unbearable anguish and remorse. When the judge said something about "leisure for repentance," I almost smiled at his grave commonplaces. How could he guess at the chaos of reproach, despair, and self-abhorrence which was rending my heart?

I have said that I did not fear death. Why should I?—I, who carried already the torments of eternal punishment about in my breast. Month after month passed, and found me alive; yet, if even I, who passed through them, cannot describe my suffering, how can you conceive them?—you who never have and never will taste of the cup that is worse than death. Night after night I lay down in my cell, only to thank fate for the brief interval of sleep that was coming, and to pray that I might never wake. Morning after morning I awoke to feel a vague, sickening sense of misery mingle with my dreams before my scattered senses could recall the dread reality. Day after day I counted the hours and minutes which should elapse before sleep came round again. Morning, noon, and evening, the ghost of remorse was with me. In the workings of the mind I might escape it for an instant, but oh, the inevitable shock with which every reverie, every train of thought would be broken! It is with me now, with terrors less acute, indeed, than of old, but with its haunting, accusing presence, ready to rebuke the slightest lapse into happiness or peace!

They call me a free man to-day; but you know the terrible old verse, "If I climb up into Heaven, thou art there; if I go down into hell, thou art there also." In most men's eyes, no doubt, my punishment has been light indeed; but you who have read this, and know the measure of my guilt, may perhaps guess better at the measure of my atonement.