CHAPTER XXVIII.
A heavy dew fell during the night, and when the wanderer, whom we have seen climb that steep hill on the preceding evening, woke on the following day, his clothes were full of moisture, and his limbs felt stiff and weary. If he had desponded on the night before, it was well nigh despair that he now felt. He rose slowly, and gazed over the scene around him--the vast, voiceless solitude--and there was no comfort in it. He felt the spirit of desolation spreading its icy influence more and more strongly every moment over his heart, and he knew that if he gave way to it, even in the least, it would overwhelm him entirely, would put out strength and effort, hope, action, life itself. And yet he scarcely knew why he should struggle; the voice of despair still asked him what he had to live for. Every earthly object of existence seemed gone; why should he struggle to preserve that which had become valueless? "Who would covet," he asked himself, "the possession of a desert, and what is life to me but one tract of arid barrenness!"
Strange, when the mood is nicely balanced, how small a grain of dust will turn the scale! A memory came upon him as the words passed his lips, a memory of early years, when, in the wanton spirit of youth, almost of boyhood, he had pictured to himself the free life of the children of Ishmael as an object of wild desire; and now he asked himself, "Who would covet the possession of a desert?" He recollected how he had dreamed of scouring the wide sands upon his fleet steed, climbing the red rocks, resting in his light tent, and living a life of free enjoyment and unrestrained exertion. The remembrance changed the current of his feelings, and gazing forth over the scene around, lit up and brightened with the rising sun, he asked himself another question: "Why should I not, in the midst of this vast and beautiful solitude, realise those visions of my early youth?"
Alas! long since then, experience and passion, and many a sweet and many a bitter lesson, had placed in his hands the keys of other enjoyments. He had tasted the food which makes early pleasures insipid; and when he thought again of those very simple dreams, he felt that there would be something wanting even in their fulfilment. Where were the friendly and the kind? Where were the bright and beloved? Where were the dear companionships? Where the elevating society? Where the food for the thoughts? Where the employment for the mind? Above all, where was the honoured name, the respect, the esteem which had once been his? And he felt too bitterly that what has been must still be had, even for peace: that it is deprivation, not denial of joys, that is unhappiness. Could he consent to live on in such circumstances? Was there anything within the scope of probability which could make life endurable? Could he debase himself to the sordid joys of those around him? Could he live a life of slavery and labour, with that barrier placed at the end of the course of exertion and obedience, which limited the utmost range of hope and expectation to free association with the low, the vile, and the base; to the accumulation, perhaps, of dross; to become a great man among the meanest of his race? That was not to be thought of; and what was the alternative? To live a roving life in the bush, companionless, if not with savages the most debased and barbarous of the human race; to fly the face of civilised man as a pestilence; to have neither acquaintances, nor friends: no social life, no love. Solitude, solitude! It is a lovely thing to abstract contemplation. The mind of man, not called upon to try the vast experiment, looks upon it, as upon every great endeavour, as bringing a reward with it equal to the difficulties and the impediments; but brought nearer, placed within the reach of effort, we cannot grapple with the mighty task. The feeble heart shrinks from it; the firm mind doubts and hesitates. We feel how sad and terrible it is to be alone; we learn that it is the antithesis of our nature.
It were better to die, he thought. There were hopes beyond the grave, which taught him that death was not solitude. That kindly voices would hail his coming. That, purified from all earthly imperfections, friendships high and holy--the friendships of the just made perfect--would console him for the loss of earthly esteem. But in life there was love, too--human, passionate love; and when he asked himself, what was to make up for that, the mind paused and pondered.
Let us not blame him, that he was still a being of clay; that he could not shake off the affections of this earth; that he could not altogether wish to die, while affections, deep and strong, bound him to the state of being in which God had placed him. That was the only tie to life yet left unsevered; but as the last, it was the strongest. He had often thought of these things before. He had often asked himself, "Will she, too, believe me guilty? Will she cast me from her heart, as society has cast me from its bosom? Will she forget me? Will she wed another?" And the deep love within his breast, imaging that of another, had ever answered, "No, no, no! It cannot be."
The same voice was still strong, but yet there was a langour, a depression spreading over his whole frame, which dulled his ear even to the voice of the syren, Hope. Though she might love him, said Despair, what chance did there exist of his ever seeing her again? Condemned for life, unable to return, marked out as a felon, sent as a convict to a distant land, without means, without object in return, what could he do? His heart sunk at the thought. He must wither out there--there, in the midst of that wild solitude, falling back daily, as the progress of man advanced, to avoid recognition and fresh anguish.
He thought not, it is true, of raising his hand against his own life; such a purpose never presented itself as a temptation. He had too much faith; but he felt disposed to give up all exertion, to yield without a struggle to his adverse fate, to lay himself down and die. Still, however, one voice said, "Live!" and the last spark of human hope was fanned into a flame, faint, but yet sufficient to light him to exertion.
With feeble hands and weary limbs he opened the knapsack which he had brought thither, took out the axe which was strapped upon the top, and then from the inside drew slowly forth some lines and fish-hooks, saying to himself, "The good old man thought he bestowed an invaluable present on me when he gave the means of supporting life, but yet I could hardly feel grateful for the gift. I will not hesitate, however, between two courses, and as I have determined to live, will make an effort to save life."
In truth, he knew not well how to set about his task. The first thing, indeed, was to build himself a cabin; and choosing out an indentation of the rock, through which no wet seemed to have percolated, he resolved to fix his residence there, at least for the first; by doing which he was likely to spare much labour, enclosing it only on one side. He chose young and slight trees from amongst the infinity which grew around, and sharpened some of them for palisades, after he had hewn them down with the axe; but ere he had half completed even the necessary preparations, he felt faint and weary; and though not hungry, he resolved to see if he could procure some food to renew his strength.
Choosing out a thin and pliant sapling, he descended towards the bank of the lake slowly and with great difficulty, for the precipices were tremendous, and the natural paths few. At length, however, he accomplished it. And then came the question, when he reached the brink of the clear and limpid waters, of what was to be his bait? The sorrow which approaches despair is often bitterly imaginative; and as he sat with his head resting on his hand, and pondered, he thought of all the baits with which man is angled for and caught by his great enemy in the world; and oftentimes a rueful smile came upon his fine but worn countenance, in which he himself, and passages in his past existence, shared the sarcasm with his fellow men.
The sun rose while he thus wasted time, and pouring into the crater, filled it with ardent light. He felt very thirsty, and kneeling down upon the brink, which was covered with soft turf, he drank of the clear wave. As he did so, a large fly, of a peculiar golden colour, skimming away, settled on the face of the windless waters at a short distance, and instantly a fish, springing half out of the lake, enclosed it within its voracious jaws. "We are all destroyers," thought the wanderer; and looking along the banks, he caught one of the same insects, fastened it to the hook upon his line, the line to the rod, and cast the baited snare upon the clear bosom of the water. The living objects of man's chase have doubtless their traditions; but the fish of that lake had never been taught human guile, and the instant the hook touched the water a large animal was upon it. To draw it to the shore cost the weak and weary man a considerable effort; but another and another, both considerably smaller, were soon after taken; and, satisfied with his spoil, he slowly ascended the steep paths again towards the place where he had commenced building his hut.
He had observed at that spot a tree, some of the branches of which had been shivered by the lightning, and with these he contrived to light a fire, and prepare his meal. After partaking of it frugally, he once more set to work again, to construct a dwelling which would give him a shelter from the not unfrequent storms of that land, and afford a defence against wild beasts, or wilder men, during the night.
It was, as may well be conceived, of the rudest and the simplest kind. The stakes he planted side by side, at a short distance from the rock, where a ledge of coral, projecting at the height of seven feet, overhung the turf about two yards, and formed a sort of roof. The door puzzled him greatly; for though he remembered well the expedients of the solitary mariner in Juan Fernandez, and often in thought drew a comparison between his own fate and that of Crusoe, yet he was destitute of many of the implements which the other had possessed. His axe and two gimlets had been given him in compassion by an old inhabitant of a very distant part of the colony, and these, with a large knife, formed all his store of tools. When the palisade was up, however, and the space, left open at first between the edge of the ledge and the top of the posts, had been covered over with twisted branches, the little strength which had been left was exhausted, and he lay down to rest beneath the shelter of a blackwood tree. Weariness and heat soon produced their usual effect, and he slept.
It was about three o'clock. His rod and fishing-line lay beside him, as well as the axe with which he had worked, and the chips and fragments of the small trees he had cut down were scattered all around. He had slept for a full hour; and during that time a change, to him of considerable importance had taken place in the scene. No human eye beheld it, but a large bird of prey, which was soaring aloft over the heights of Mount Gambier, saw a party ride rapidly through the plains below, and halt upon the first acclivity of the mountain. It consisted of six persons, only one of whom seemed of superior rank. There were, however, nine horses, three of which carried heavy burdens, consisting of sacks, bags, and cases. Each of the horsemen had a gun over his shoulder; and as soon as they had drawn the rein, they sprang to the ground, and commenced unloading the baggage, amongst which was found a small tent, requiring nothing for its erection but one of those poles that were easily to be procured in the neighbouring woods.
"We shall have plenty of time to go up and come down again before it is dark," said the chief person of the party, speaking to one who seemed to be a servant. "Give me the other gun, Maclean. We may get some specimens. I must have some more caps, too, for these will not fit it."
After a few more words and directions to the other men, the leader and two more commenced the ascent of the hill, which, from the spot they had already reached to the summit, did not occupy more than three-quarters of an hour, and then the stranger turned round and gazed, saying to himself, "How magnificent!"
"I think we had better get on, captain," said his servant, Maclean. "The sun's getting down, and we shan't have much time."
"Pooh, nonsense!" answered the other, looking at his chronometer; "it is only a few minutes past four. This is the twenty-first of December, Midsummer-day, and we shall have light till half-past nine or longer."
"We are a good bit farther north than we were at Hobart Town, five days ago, sir," replied the servant, seeing that his master still paused to gaze; "and you will not have so much light as you think for."
"Well, it does not much matter," answered the officer, a good-looking young man, with a very intelligent and benevolent expression of countenance. "We can find our way down, I dare say, even in the dusk, especially if they light a fire to cook the kangaroo." He paused for a moment, and then said, in a meditative tone, "I dare say we are the first human beings, certainly the first Europeans, who ever set their feet upon this hill."
"I don't think it, sir," replied Maclean, who had taken a step or two nearer to the high precipitous rocks which surrounded the vast crater.
"Indeed!" exclaimed his master. "What makes you think so, my good friend?"
"That, captain," answered the man, pointing with his finger to a spot on the ground, a little to the right of himself and his master, on which, when Captain M---- turned his eyes that way, he saw lying a scrap of paper with something written upon it. On taking it up, he found that it was part of the back of a letter, with the English post-mark distinct upon it. The writing consisted only of a few words, or rather fragments of words, being a portion of the original address, and it stood thus:--"----dley, Esq.--Brandon House,--onshire."
It signified very little to the eyes that saw it, for he knew not where Brandon House was, nor anything about it; but yet what strange feelings did the sight of that letter call up in his breast. Where was the writer? Where the receiver of that letter? Who could he be? What had become of him? What brought him there? were questions which the mind asked instantly, with a degree of interest which no one can conceive who has not stood many thousand miles from his own land, and suddenly had it and all its associations brought up by some trifling incident like this that I relate.
Putting his gun under his arm, and holding the paper still in his hand, Captain M---- walked slowly and thoughtfully on, passed through a break in the high wall of rocks, and gazed down into the basin of the mountain. The magnificence of the scene was gradually drawing his mind away from other thoughts, when his servant touched his arm, and said in a low voice, "We had better be a little upon our guard, sir, for there are more people about us than we know of, and I have heard that our friends who take to the bush are worse devils than the people of the country; and they are bad enough. Look down there, and you will see the axe has been at work--ay, and there's a man lying under that tree. He looks mighty like as if he were dead."
"I see, I see," answered Captain M----. "You stay here with Johnstone, while I go on. Put a ball in each of your guns, however, in case of the worst; though I don't think, if we do not injure them, they will try to do any harm to well-armed men."
"I wouldn't trust them," replied the servant; "but we'll keep a look-out, sir, and I think I could put a ball in an apple at that distance."
Captain M---- advanced quietly, not wishing to wake the man if he were sleeping, till he was close to him; and so profound was his slumber, that the young officer gazed on him nearly for a minute without his having heard the approach of any one. At length Captain M---- stooped down, and shook him gently by the arm. The other instantly started up, and laid his hand upon the axe by his side; but the officer at once addressed him in a kindly tone, saying, "Do not be alarmed; it is a friend."
"A friend," answered the stranger, rising to his full height, with the axe in his hand, and gazing at him from head to foot; "that is a word easily said; but here it cannot be a true one. I have no friends, sir."
"In that, perhaps, you may be mistaken," answered Captain M----. "As for myself, I trust I am a friend to the whole human race; but what I meant to say was, that I am not an enemy."
"That one understands," answered the other; "though it is somewhat difficult, too, in a land where nature seems to have planted fraud and enmity amongst the human race, and to which other countries send the offscourings of their population to propagate new crimes, and even degrade the barbarous wickedness they found."
The words and the appearance of his strange companion struck the young officer very much. His tone was high and proud, his look grave and thoughtful; and though there was a certain degree of bitterness in what he said, yet there was that gentlemanly dignity in the whole which could not be mistaken.
"It is strange to meet you, sir, in this place," said Captain M----, after a moment's thought. "I had imagined, till a moment ago, that I was the first European who had ever climbed this hill."
"You are the second, I believe," answered the stranger. "I was the first; at least I can find no trace of any one of that adventurous race, who, in pursuit of wealth, dominion, science, pleasure, or health, penetrate into almost every part of the known world, having been here before me."
"Then you are alone?" said his visitor.
"Quite," replied the other. "You have men with you, I see," and he turned his eyes towards the servant and his companion, who were standing at a little distance. "Whatever be your object, whether you come to take me, or are merely here from the curiosity which sets half our countrymen running over the world, you have but one man, and that a wearied and exhausted one, to deal with."
"Set your mind at rest," replied Captain M----, who saw that there was some lingering suspicion still in the stranger's bosom. "I have no commission, and certainly no wish, to disturb you in any way; neither did I come to these countries altogether from mere curiosity. A desire to benefit my fellow-creatures, and a strong interest in the fate of men whose crimes have shut them out from the general pale of society, but not, I trust, from the compassion of their brethren, or from the mercy of their God, first led me to a neighbouring island; and I am extending my wanderings through this uncultivated but beautiful country, with a hope of turning to account for others what I have myself observed. Perhaps you can give me some information; and I promise you, as a man of honour and a gentleman, never to say a word to any one which can do you the least detriment. I see you must be a man of superior education, and I should imagine of superior rank, to those who are usually met with in this country; and I am sure, after the candid expression of my views, and the pledge I have given you will not scruple to say anything that can further my objects."
"I have nothing to say," answered the other, seating himself where he had before been lying. "I know little, have seen little; but all I have seen has been iniquity, and villany, and vice, and folly, and ignorance, in high and low, master and servant, convict and tyrant. I am inclined to cry with the Psalmist, 'There is none that doeth good; no, not one.'"
Captain M---- smiled somewhat sadly. "I am afraid you are quite right," he answered; "and it has long been my conviction that the system of what is called convict discipline in these colonies not only does not tend in the slightest degree to reform an offender, but tends to degrade his moral character to the lowest possible point. It is my belief that even the system followed at a very rude period of our history, and when the person sentenced to transportation was actually sold as a slave to the planters of America, though corrupt and abominable in a high degree, was really less detrimental to the unhappy convict than that upon which we now act. I have always held that we have no right to condemn a man's soul as well as his body; and I feel that we are here instrumental in plunging those whom we expel from our own country into vice and crimes more horrible than they ever contemplated when they committed the act which brought them hither."
The stranger smiled brightly. "You seem to me," he said, "to be the first really benevolent and reasonable man who has visited a place of abominations. But even you, perhaps, have not considered all. What little I can tell you, I will tell. Call down your men from above, and seat yourself here by me, and in the face of nature, and of the God who willed it to be 'very good,' I will tell you truly, without even a shade of deceit, all that my own short experience has shown."
"I cannot do so now," replied Captain M----, "for I have got more companions below, and must go down to them before it is dark, otherwise they would probably come to seek me. But cannot you go down with us? You shall be kindly treated, I promise, and free to return whenever you please."
The stranger shook his Load. "No," he said, "I will never seek man again! I will lie in my own lair, like the beast of the field. Here I have beauty and excellence around me uncontaminated; but wherever man's foot treads, there is violence, and evil, and corruption."
"Well," replied the young officer, "I will not press you, if you do not like it; but if you will permit me, I will come up again to-morrow, and we will talk of all these subjects fully, before I go back to Tasmania. There is a surveying vessel off the coast, which will wait for me till I come down; but in the mean time I would fain know what you meant when you said, in speaking of the abominations and evils of the convict system, that I had not considered all. It is probable, indeed, that I have not, although I have given great attention to the subject; but I wish to know what it was to which you alluded."
The stranger laid his hand on Captain M----'s arm, and said, "In the fallibility of human judgment, in the difficulties of proof, and in the imperfection of law, it must often happen, and does often happen, that a man perfectly innocent is condemned with the guilty. Were it only that he had to suffer in person from the sad mistake, the event might be lamented, perhaps excused. But what have those lawgivers and those statesmen to reproach themselves with, who have framed a system which, in all cases of such error, must be fatal to the eternal happiness of the man unjustly condemned, which plunges him into an atmosphere pestilential to every good feeling of the heart, to every high principle, to every religious thought! Do they not know that vice is contagious? Have they not inoculated hundreds with the moral plague? Have they not even denied the sick the help of spiritual physicians in the pest-house to which they have confined them? I tell you, sir, it is from this that I have fled. Innocent of even the slightest offence towards my fellow-men, though doubtless culpable in much towards my God, I could have borne the labour, and the slavery, and the disgrace, if not without murmuring, yet with patience. But when I found that I was to remain, bound hand and foot, amidst beings corrupted beyond all cure, and daily to accustom my eyes and my mind to scenes and thoughts which could leave no high or holy feeling unblasted in my heart, I said, 'Man has no right to do this,' and I broke my chain."
Captain M---- seemed much moved, and he wrung the stranger's hand hard. "I am sorry for you, sir," he said; "I am sorry for you. I will come up to-morrow, and we will talk more. In the mean time, tell me what I must call you to myself; I know that many persons in your situation take an assumed name. It is that which I mean."
"I have taken none," answered the stranger, with a sad smile; and then, pointing to the fish lying on the grass, he added, "You must think of me, if we never meet again, as the Nameless Fisherman of the Nameless Lake."
"Nay, we shall meet to-morrow, if you are still here," answered Captain M----.
"I shall be here, if I am alive," replied the stranger, "to-morrow, and the next day, and for the years and months to come, till death relieves me. But perhaps even before to-morrow there may be an end of all. I have felt ill: the body has given way beneath the mind; the strong rider has well-nigh killed the weak horse; and this morning I felt as if I were incapable of any exertion. I did make it, however, and methinks I am better for my labours. But now, adieu! The sun has reached a point whence his descent will be rapid, and darkness will overtake you if you have far to go."
"Farewell!" answered Captain M----. "I scarcely like to go and leave you here alone, or to think of what you will have to endure in this solitude, if you persist in remaining here. How you are to procure food, or shelter, or clothing, I do not perceive."
"The skins of beasts," replied the stranger, "will give me clothing good enough for my state: the fish of the lake must give me food. Bread, indeed, I may never taste again, but there are fruits and roots which may supply its place. Then as to shelter, the clefts of the rock, the caverns by which it is pierced, will afford all that I need; and as for means and appliances to make these things available, nature must furnish and teach me. Surely I shall not be more helpless than one of the savages of this land. They live, and I shall live; longer, at least, than is desirable to myself. Farewell, farewell!" And once more bidding him adieu for the time, Captain M---- left him, and returned to his people.