Read the book: «Midnight Webs», page 16

Story 3-Chapter II.
Night at a Convict Station

“Hullo! What’s wrong?” exclaimed Edward Murray, leaping out of his cot; for he had been awakened by a heavy sound like thunder; and directly after he heard the second mate’s voice calling to him.

“Here, come on deck; there’s a row ashore. Convicts broke loose, or something.”

The young man hastened on deck, as did the captain and the rest of the crew, to find that the night was intensely dark, but that there was a bright display of lights on shore, conspicuous amongst which was a dull heavy glimmer, which, however, soon increased to a glow, and then flames mounted higher and higher, and it became evident that some good-sized building was on fire.

At this moment there was a sudden flash, and the heavy thud of a gun from the sloop, followed by loud cries and shoutings on the beach.

“Hadn’t we better man a boat and go ashore?” said Edward Murray eagerly. “There’s a bad fire, and we might be of some use.”

“Better stay aboard,” said the captain. “That’s part of the prison on fire. Those fiends of convicts have fired the place, and they’re escaping, safe. There, I told you so. That’s not the sort of thing used for putting out fires.”

As he spoke, there came the loud sharp rattle of musketry, and, from the lights on board the sloop, it was evident that the men had been beat to quarters, ready for any emergency. The ports were open, showing the lights within; and a faint glimpse was obtained of a boat being lowered; but soon the noise and shouting ceased, the musketry was heard no more, and only a dull murmuring sound as from a busy crowd came floating across the bay.

But the light of the burning building still shone out strong and lurid, and by means of a night-glass it could be seen that men were busily endeavouring to extinguish the flames. When they shone in a ruddy path across the bay, a boat, too, could now and then be seen for a moment or two, as if some eager party were rowing ashore. Then an hour passed with the lurid flare settling slowly into a bright golden glow, the satiated flames sinking lower and lower, till, the excitement having worn away, first one and then another of the crew slipped down to his hammock, and Edward Murray was about to follow, when a faint sound off the port quarter arrested his steps.

Save where there was still the bright glow from the burning embers, all around was now intensely dark.

“Wasn’t that the rattle of a thole-pin?” said Murray to his companion.

“Didn’t hear it, for my part,” was the brusque reply.

“Then what’s that? Did you hear it then?”

“Yes, I heard that,” was the answer.

And then the two young men crossed the deck and leaned over the side, peering out into the darkness; but seeing nothing for all that, though there was the faint sound of oars dipping slowly, and it was evident that some boat was nearing them.

“Do they mean to board us?” said Murray. “Depend upon it, the man-of-war has boats on the lookout, and they’re rowing with muffled oars, ready to overhaul the escaping party; that is, if any of them have got loose.”

“That’s it, depend upon it,” said the mate. “They’ll hail us directly. They must see our lights.”

There was silence then for a few moments, during which two or three of the crew, attracted also by the noise they had heard, came over to their side. Then came the plash of an oar; and, starting into activity, as if moved by some sudden impulse, Murray shouted:

“Boat ahoy!”

“Ahoy, there!” was the answer.

And then the rowing was heard plainly, as if those who handled the oars had thrown off the secrecy of their movements.

“It’s the man-of-war’s boat,” said the second mate.

“What ship’s that?” was now asked from the darkness, but in anything but the loud hearty hail of a sailor.

“Sarah Ann, port of London,” answered the mate. “Are you from the sloop?”

“Ay, ay,” was the reply.

“Bring a lantern here, and swing over the side,” said Murray uneasily; and one of the anchor-lights was brought, and sent a feeble ray, cutting as it were the dense curtain that hung around. Then the bows of a boat were seen swiftly advancing, and for a moment Murray gazed at its occupants with a mixture of astonishment and terror; but the next instant he had seized one of the capstan-bars, and stood ready.

“Here, Smith, Norris, Jackson, be smart!” he shouted, “or we shall lose the ship. Convicts!”

That last word seemed to electrify the men into action; and as the boat grated against the side of the heavily-laden vessel, just beneath the fore-chains, man after man armed himself with the capstan-bars, and stood ready by the first mate.

The lantern was dashed out directly; and it was evident that men were climbing up the side by means of boat-hooks hitched into the fore-chains. Now followed a struggle – short, sharp, but decisive; for first one and then another convict was knocked back into the boat as he tried to gain a foothold. There was a little shouting, a few oaths; and then, apparently satisfied that the reception was too warm, and that they were fighting against odds, the occupants of the boat shoved off, just as the ship’s crew was reinforced by the captain and men who had gone below.

“That was a narrow escape,” said the captain. “Mr Murray, I sha’n’t forget to mention this to the owners.”

“Suppose we keep a sharp look-out for the rest of the night? They may come back, unless they find some other vessel less on the alert.”

“Oars again,” whispered one of the men.

They listened attentively, and once more could plainly make out the soft smothered dip of oars floating across the water.

Ten minutes passed, and then, as the crew stood with beating hearts waiting for the next assault, there came another hail out of the darkness.

“What ship’s that?”

“Never you mind!” answered the captain roughly. “What boat’s that?”

“First cutter – his Majesty’s ship Theseus,” was the reply. “Heard or seen anything of a boat, or boats, this way?”

“Nearly boarded by one, only we beat them off,” said the captain. “Convicts, weren’t they?”

“Hold hard a minute, and I’ll come on board,” was the answer. “Bows there – in oars, men!” and the boat was heard to thump against the vessel’s counter.

“Keep down there,” shouted the captain, cocking a pistol, “or I fire!”

“Confound you! don’t I tell you we’re friends?” said the same voice.

“Yes, you tell me,” muttered the captain. “Bring a lantern here.”

A light was brought, and swung down, to show the blue shirts of the crew, and the red uniforms of half-a-dozen marines in the stern-sheets; when, apparently satisfied, the captain grumbled an apology.

“All right, my man!” was the laughing response; and a young lieutenant sprang up the side. “And so they nearly took you, did they? Lucky for you that you had so good a look-out. Can’t tell me where they steered for, I suppose? But of course not – too dark. Confound the rascals! They say there’s about half a hundred of them got away – killed a couple of warders, and done the deuce knows what mischief. Good-night!” and he sprang down the side. “If you see any more of them, just burn a blue light, and you shall have a boat’s crew aboard in no time. Give way, my men.”

The oars fell plashing into the sea; and then, save the low regular dip, all was once more silent. The crew, as they kept a sharp look-out, fancied they once heard a loud splash and a faint cry; but there was no repetition of the sounds, though the men listened attentively. The glow by the town faded slowly away, a breeze sprung up, and the stars came peering out, one after another, till, as the sky brightened, the spars and rigging of the sloop-of-war could be dimly seen, her lights just beginning to swing to and fro as the breeze ruffled the waters. But no farther alarm disturbed the Sarah Ann, though one and all the crew kept on deck, in case of another attack.

“Wasn’t there a small schooner off there, about a quarter of a mile?” said the captain suddenly, as he lowered the night-glass, with which he had been carefully searching for enemies.

“To be sure!” said Murray. “Isn’t it there now?”

“Try for yourself,” was the reply.

And the young man carefully swept the offing.

“I can’t make her out,” he said; “but we may see her as day breaks. Perhaps she moved in more under the land.”

“More like those fellows boarded her, and that noise was the captain sent overboard. Well, all I can say, Murray, is, that if they’d got possession here, the best thing they could have done would have been to throw me over; for I could never have faced the owners again.”

Morning broke, but there was no schooner in sight; whereupon the sloop immediately weighed in chase, for the convicts had seized her, cut the cable, and made sail, running none knew whither.

Towards afternoon the captain of the Sarah Ann came on board, after concluding his business with the agents.

“Good luck to you, Murray; make sail, and let’s be off, for I sha’n’t feel as if the old Sally is safe till we’ve left this beautiful spot a hundred knots astern. The poor skipper of that schooner’s ashore there, and he’s half mad, and no wonder.”

The captain made his way below, the anchor was weighed, sail after sail dropped down, and then, with a pleasant breeze astern, the old barque slowly began to force her way through the bright and transparent waters, making the sunlit windows of Port Caroline grow more and more distant, while Edward Murray’s heart gladdened within him, as he thought of the prolonged stay for discharging and loading that would be made in Kaitaka Bay, New Zealand.

Story 3-Chapter III.
Golden Gap

“‘And I said, if there’s peace in this world to be found’ – Go on, Joey, will you? – ‘The – he heart that is humble might welcome it here,’” sang and said a sturdy-looking, hard-faced man, with cleanly-shaven chin and upper lip, and a pair of well-trimmed grizzly whiskers. He was somewhat sun-browned, but wore a broad-brimmed straw hat, and in addition, as he strode a very weedy, meditative-looking pony, he carried up a large gingham umbrella.

“Well, Joey!” he continued, apostrophising the pony, which had come to a full stop; “you’re a sensible beast, and it is a beautiful spot, and ‘the heart that is humble’ might truly ‘welcome it here.’ What a paradise! They may well call it Golden Gap! Golden, indeed! A heavenly gilding – no dross here! No more like Battersea Fields than I’m like an archangel. Well, Joey, suppose we meditate, then, for half an hour. You shall chew your herb, and I’ll smoke mine, even if it be not canonical. I don’t like good things to be wasted, as my old mother used to say. Savages smoke, so why should not a parson?”

Slowly dismounting, he closed his umbrella, unbuckled the pony’s bridle, that he might graze, and then, seating himself beneath a huge tree-fern, he filled and lit his pipe, and began to enjoy its fragrance.

For he was seated far up on the side of a mountain, whose exact similitude was on the other side of the valley, so that it seemed as if, in some wild convulsion, Nature had divided one vast eminence, and then clothed the jagged and rugged sides from the point where the glittering, snow-tipped summits peered forth, down to the lovely stream in the valley, with the riches of her wondrous arboretum. The fattest of pastures by the little river, and deepest of arable rich soil; and then, as step by step the mountain rose, everywhere shone forth the glory of the New Zealand foliage, with its fern and palm-like fronds, parasite and creeper, of the most golden greens, and here and there blushing with blossom; while in scores of places tiny silver threads could be seen dashing, plashing, and flashing in the sun-rays, as they descended from the never-exhausted storehouses of ice and snow far above, which glowed in turn, like some wondrous collection of gold and gems.

Some three miles away there shone the sparkling waters of a tiny bay, whose shores, at that distance, could be seen framed in emerald green, as the forest trees grew right down to where the sea could almost lave their roots, and goodly ships have made fast cable or hawser to their trunks. And yet, in all the length and breadth of the glorious vale, stood but one house, sheltered in another tiny valley, running off at right angles; while right up and up, higher and higher, tree, crag, and mossy bank were piled with a profuseness of grandeur that displayed novel beauties at every glance.

“‘And I said, if there’s peace,’ – I don’t believe any place could be more lovely, even in this land of beauty,” muttered the traveller, tapping the ashes out of his smoked pipe on to a mossy boulder, and then blowing them carefully away. “Here am I, too, defiling Nature’s beauties with my vile nicotine. But beauty is beauty, Joey; and it only satisfies the eye; and man has a stomach, and bones that ache if they don’t have a bed; so, my gallant steed, we’ll finish our journey to the Moa’s Nest, and see what friend Lee will say to us, and whether he will bestow on thy master, damper, tea, and bacon, and on thee some corn.”

The gallant steed did not even sniff at the prospect of the feed of corn, but submitted, like the well-broken animal he was, to the replacing of his bit; when, arranging his bridle, his master mounted, put up his umbrella again, and then, leaving the pony to pick his way, slowly descended the zigzag track which led to old Martin Lee’s station, known far and wide, from an old Maori tradition, as the Moa’s Nest.

The distance seemed nothing from where he had been seated; but the track wound and doubled so much, from the steepness of the descent, that it was getting towards sundown before the traveller rode up to the long, straggling, wooden building, that had evidently been erected at various times, as the prosperity of its occupant had called for farther increase; when, slowly dismounting, he closed the great umbrella, hung his bridle upon a hook, and stalked in to where the family were at tea, if the substantial meal spread out could be so called.

“God bless all here!” he said heartily, as he brought down the umbrella with a thump; “How’s friend Lee?”

“Right well am I, parson, thank you!” exclaimed a bluff, sturdy-looking farmer. “Won’t you draw up to the log fire?”

There was a merry laugh at these words; for it was midsummer, and the Gap was famed for its hot days and nights.

“And how is the good wife, and my little queen, too?” continued the new-comer, shaking hands with Mrs Lee, a sharp, eager little woman; and then taking their daughter’s blooming face between his hands, to kiss her lovingly, as if she had been his own child. “All well? That’s right! Yours obediently, sir,” he continued, to a tall, dark man of about thirty, who had risen from the table with the others.

“A neighbour of ours, Mr Meadows,” said Mrs Lee; “Mr Anthony Bray.”

“Your servant, sir,” said the new-comer stiffly. “A neighbour, eh? Lives close by – six or eight miles off, I suppose?” And then he muttered to himself, “I know what’s your business.”

“Well, I think you’ve made a pretty good guess at the distance,” said the other; “it is seven miles.”

“Great blessing sometimes, but it makes one’s parish too extended to be pleasant. I find it a long journey to visit all my people in the nooks and corners – ”

“And Moas’ Nests.”

“Ay, and Moas’ Nests, they get into. Well, I’ve come to ask a bed and a meal, if you’ll give them to me, friend Lee.”

“Always welcome, parson, so long as you don’t come begging,” said the head of the family.

“But I have come begging,” he said, standing with one hand upon his umbrella, and the other stuck under his grey frock coat. “I want a subscription towards our new church; so, if we are not welcome, Joey and I will have to – There, bless me, child, don’t take away my umbrella!” he exclaimed, to the pretty daughter of the household, who, in true patriarchal fashion, was divesting him of his sunshade and hat, and placing him in a chair.

“There, sit down, do!” exclaimed the settler, laughing; “it’s quite a treat to see a fresh face – and I daresay I can buy you off with a crooked sixpence or so. Fall to, man; you look hot and worn.”

“Little overdone, perhaps,” said the visitor. “Phew! bother the flies! How they always seem to settle on you, when a little out of sorts! Scent sickness, I suppose. Thank you, my child; nothing like a cup of tea for refreshment. Why, our Katie looks more blooming than ever, Mrs Lee.”

“Ay, she grows,” said the father; “and we begin to want to see her married and settled, eh, Mr Bray?”

Kate Lee’s face crimsoned, and she darted an appealing look to her mother, one not misinterpreted by the other visitor, who assumed not to have heard his host’s remark.

But farther remark was checked by a boisterous “Hillo!” a horse cantered up to the door, and Edward Murray, flushed and heated, sprang to the ground, to fold Kate Lee in his arms in an instant, and then heartily salute the rest of the family.

“Couldn’t overtake you, Mr Meadows,” said the young sailor, “though I saw your old umbrella bobbing down the valley like a travelling mushroom.”

“There, parson, there’s no best bed for you to-night,” said the settler. “The woman-kind worship this fellow, and you’ll only come off second best.”

“I can be happy anywhere,” said Mr Meadows. “Don’t incommode yourselves for me.”

Meanwhile it needed no interpreter to tell of the intimacy between Edward Murray and Kate Lee. A love the growth of years – the love that had induced him to quit the navy; for he had felt unable to settle when old Lee had left his native town, driven by misfortunes to settle in one of the colonies, New Zealand being his choice, where now, after some years’ hard fight with difficulties, he was living a wealthy, patriarchal life in this pleasant valley.

So Edward Murray had found no difficulty in getting appointed to a trader, which, however little in accordance with his tastes, took him at least once a year to where he could visit the Lees in their new home.

At first, old Lee did not evince much pleasure at the sight of the young man, for he had seen Anthony Bray’s dark visage grow more dark as he tugged at his handkerchief, and then, after a vain attempt at showing his nonchalance, he rose hastily and quitted the place, followed by the eyes of Mr Meadows, who generally contrived to see all, and to interpret things pretty correctly.

And he made few mistakes in the conclusions he had that evening arrived at; for, but that very afternoon, Anthony Bray had, after months of unsuccessful wooing, asked the maiden to be his wife, but only to meet with an unconditional refusal; for Katie Lee possessed a faith not shared by both her parents, and it was with a triumphant joy in her bright eyes that she took her place quietly by Edward Murray’s side, as he told of his long and stormy travels since he met them a year ago.

“And when did you get into the bay?” inquired old Lee.

“Only last night,” said the young man.

“Then you have lost little time,” said Mr Meadows.

“Well, no,” said the other simply. “I wanted to get here, and see what I’ve been thinking about for the last twelve months;” and he turned to Katie, whose eyes met his for an instant, and then fell as her colour heightened.

“Ah! it’s all plain enough what it means, Mr Meadows,” said Mrs Lee. “Martin, there, used to tell me, years ago, that now I was a wife, I must stay at home, and cry ‘clack, clack,’ to the chickens; and now it seems that I’m going to cry ‘clack, clack’ in vain; for one’s chick is going to ran away, when she might be happily settled down here close by, where we could see her.”

Katie’s wandering and troubled look fell upon Mr Meadows, who smiled grimly, as he said, “I’m afraid, ma’am, that your poor mother would have to cry ‘cluck, cluck’ very loudly before you would hear her all these thousand miles away. It’s nature, ma’am, nature. As the old birds mated in the pleasant spring of life, so will the young ones; and God bless them, say I, and may they be happy!”

“Amen!” said old Martin; “there’s no getting over that, wife. All I want is to see some one happy; and I’m afraid it’s rather a mistake when old folks try to manufacture the youngsters’ future. That’s about the best sermon I ever heard from you, Parson Meadows; it was short, and to the point. I’ve been wrong, I know; but then she talked me into it.” And he nodded towards his wife, who rose and left the room, while Kate crept to her father’s side, Edward following Mrs Lee out into the garden, where the long, conversation that ensued must have terminated favourably; for when Kate, who had been anxiously watching for their return, at length followed them out into the bright moonlit space in front of the house, she was encountered by her mother, who whispered two or three words, and then hurried in, having owned herself defeated.

“And where are the young folks?” said old Lee, as she entered.

Mrs Lee made a motion with her hand, and then bustled away to superintend the arrangements for the night, besides receiving deputations of shepherds and stockmen, and acting as her husband’s prime minister, so that he might be left at liberty to entertain his visitors.

“It’s hard to manage matters, parson, when two children want the same apple,” he said.

“Yes, yes,” said the minister; “all you have to do is to give it to the most deserving. There’s a simple straightforwardness about the young sailor I like, though he did compare me to a mushroom.”

“Yes, I like him,” said old Lee; “but then the wife was set on this Bray, because he’s close at hand here. But I think she’s come round, though I know she did hope that time and the long journeys would tire out the other; but he’s true as – ”

“The needle to the pole, as he’d say,” laughed the other; “and if he’s that, what more would you have?”

“Who? I? Nothing, nothing. I only want to see the little lass happy. I’m sorry for Bray, though. I suppose he could not bear to see it, for he has gone.”

“Yes, he went long enough ago, scowling furiously. I hope, friend Lee, there will be no unpleasantry between them.”

“O, nonsense!” ejaculated the old settler; and farther converse was stopped by the entrance of the young people.