(1846-1881)
lthough a native of England, Marcus Clarke is always classed as an Australian novelist. The son of a barrister, he was born in Kensington April 24th, 1846. In 1864 he went to seek his fortune in Australia. His taste for adventure soon led him to "the bush," where he acquired many experiences afterwards used by him for literary material. Drifting into journalism, he joined the staff of the Melbourne Argus. After publishing a series of essays called 'The Peripatetic Philosopher,' he purchased the Australian Magazine, the name of which he changed to the Colonial Monthly, and in 1868 published in it his first novel, entitled 'Long Odds.' Owing to a long illness, this tale of sporting life was completed by other hands. When he resumed his literary work he contributed to the Melbourne Punch, and edited the Humbug, a humorous journal. He dramatized Charles Reade's and Dion Boucicault's novel of 'Foul Play'; adapted Moliere's 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme'; wrote a drama entitled 'Plot,' successfully performed at the Princess Theatre in 1873; and another play called 'A Daughter of Eve.' He was connected with the Melbourne press until his death, August 2d, 1881.
Clarke's literary fame rests upon the novel 'His Natural Life,' a strong story, describing the life of an innocent man under a life sentence for felony. The story is repulsive, but gives a faithful picture of the penal conditions of the time, and is built upon official records. It appeared in the Australian Magazine, and before it was issued in book form, Clarke, with the assistance of Sir Charles Gavin Duffy, revised it almost beyond recognition. It was republished in London in 1875 and in New York in 1878. He was also the author of 'Old Tales of a New Country'; 'Holiday Peak,' another collection of short stories; 'Four Stories High'; and an unfinished novel called 'Felix and Felicitas.'
Clarke was a devoted student of Balzac and Poe, and some of his sketches of rough life in Australia have been compared to Bret Harte's pictures of primitive California days. His power in depicting landscape is shown by this glimpse of a midnight ride in the bush, taken from 'Holiday Peak':—
"There is an indescribable ghastliness about the mountain bush at midnight, which has affected most imaginative people. The grotesque and distorted trees, huddled here and there together in the gloom like whispering conspirators; the little open flats encircled by bowlders, which seem the forgotten altars of some unholy worship; the white, bare, and ghostly gum-trees, gleaming momentarily amid the deeper shades of the forest; the lonely pools begirt with shivering reeds and haunted by the melancholy bittern only; the rifted and draggled creek-bed, which seems violently gouged out of the lacerated earth by some savage convulsion of nature; the silent and solitary places where a few blasted trees crouch together like withered witches, who, brooding on some deed of blood, have suddenly been stricken horror-stiff. Riding through this nightmare landscape, a whirr of wings and a harsh cry disturb you from time to time, hideous and mocking laughter peals above and about you, and huge gray ghosts with little red eyes hop away in gigantic but noiseless bounds. You shake your bridle, the mare lengthens her stride, the tree-trunks run into one another, the leaves make overhead a continuous curtain, the earth reels out beneath you like a strip of gray cloth spun by a furiously flying loom, the air strikes your face sharply, the bush—always gray and colorless—parts before you and closes behind you like a fog. You lose yourself in this prevailing indecision of sound and color. You become drunk with the wine of the night, and losing your individuality, sweep onward, a flying phantom in a land of shadows."
HOW A PENAL SYSTEM CAN WORK
From 'His Natural Life'
The next two days were devoted to sight-seeing. Sylvia Frere was taken through the hospital and the workshops, shown the semaphores, and shut up by Maurice in a "dark cell." Her husband and Burgess seemed to treat the prison like a tame animal, whom they could handle at their leisure, and whose natural ferocity was kept in check by their superior intelligence. This bringing of a young and pretty woman into immediate contact with bolts and bars had about it an incongruity which pleased them. Maurice Frere penetrated everywhere, questioned the prisoners, jested with the jailers; even, in the munificence of his heart, bestowed tobacco on the sick.
With such graceful rattlings of dry bones, they got by-and-by to Point Puer, where a luncheon had been provided.
An unlucky accident had occurred at Point Puer that morning, however; and the place was in a suppressed ferment. A refractory little thief named Peter Brown, aged twelve years, had jumped off the high rock and drowned himself in full view of the constables. These "jumpings-off" had become rather frequent lately, and Burgess was enraged at one happening on this particular day. If he could by any possibility have brought the corpse of poor little Peter Brown to life again, he would have soundly whipped it for its impertinence.
"It is most unfortunate," he said to Frere, as they stood in the cell where the little body was laid, "that it should have happened to-day."
"Oh," says Frere, frowning down upon the young face that seemed to smile up at him, "it can't be helped. I know those young devils. They'd do it out of spite. What sort of a character had he?"
"Very bad. Johnson, the book."
Johnson bringing it, the two saw Peter Brown's iniquities set down in the neatest of running-hand, and the record of his punishments ornamented in quite an artistic way with flourishes of red ink.
"20th November, disorderly conduct, 12 lashes. 24th November, insolence to hospital attendant, diet reduced. 4th December, stealing cap from another prisoner, 12 lashes. 15th December, absenting himself at roll-call, two days' cells. 23d December, insolence and insubordination, two days' cells. 8th January, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes. 20th January, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes. 22d February, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes and one week's solitary. 6th March, insolence and insubordination, 20 lashes."
"That was the last?" asked Frere.
"Yes, sir," says Johnson.
"And then he—hum—did it?"
"Just so, sir. That was the way of it."
Just so! The magnificent system starved and tortured a child of twelve until he killed himself. That was the way of it....
After the farce had been played again, and the children had stood up and sat down, and sung a hymn, and told how many twice five were, and repeated their belief in "One God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth," the party reviewed the workshops, and saw the church, and went everywhere but into the room where the body of Peter Brown, aged twelve, lay starkly on its wooden bench, staring at the jail roof which was between it and heaven.
Just outside this room Sylvia met with a little adventure. Meekin had stopped behind, and Burgess being suddenly summoned for some official duty, Frere had gone with him, leaving his wife to rest on a bench that, placed at the summit of the cliff, overlooked the sea. While resting thus she became aware of another presence, and turning her head, beheld a small boy with his cap in one hand and a hammer in the other. The appearance of the little creature, clad in a uniform of gray cloth that was too large for him, and holding in his withered little hand a hammer that was too heavy for him, had something pathetic about it.
"What is it, you mite?" asked Sylvia.
"We thought you might have seen him, mum," said the little figure, opening its blue eyes with wonder at the kindness of the tone.
"Him? Whom?"
"Cranky Brown, mum," returned the child; "him as did it this morning. Me and Billy knowed him, mum; he was a mate of ours, and we wanted to know if he looked happy."
"What do you mean, child?" said she, with a strange terror at her heart; and then, filled with pity at the aspect of the little being, she drew him to her, with sudden womanly instinct, and kissed him.
He looked up at her with joyful surprise. "Oh!" he said.
Sylvia kissed him again.
"Does nobody ever kiss you, poor little man?" said she.
"Mother used to," was the reply; "but she's at home. Oh, mem," with a sudden crimsoning of the little face, "may I fetch Billy?"
And taking courage from the bright young face, he gravely marched to an angle of the rock, and brought out another little creature, with another gray uniform, and another hammer.
"This is Billy, mum," he said. "Billy never had no mother. Kiss Billy."
The young wife felt the tears rush to her eyes.
"You two poor babies!" she cried. And then, forgetting that she was a lady, dressed in silk and lace, she fell on her knees in the dust, and folding the friendless pair in her arms, wept over them.
"What is the matter, Sylvia?" said Frere, when he came up. "You've been crying."
"Nothing, Maurice; at least, I will tell you by-and-by."
When they were alone that evening she told him of the two little boys, and he laughed.
"Artful little humbugs," he said, and supported his argument by so many illustrations of the precocious wickedness of juvenile felons that his wife was half convinced against her will.
Unfortunately, when Sylvia went away, Tommy and Billy put into execution a plan which they had carried in their poor little heads for some weeks.
"I can do it now," said Tommy. "I feel strong."
"Will it hurt much, Tommy?" said Billy, who was not so courageous.
"Not so much as a whipping."
"I'm afraid! Oh, Tom, it's so deep! Don't leave me, Tom!"
The bigger boy took his little handkerchief from his neck, and with it bound his own left hand to his companion's right.
"Now I can't leave you."
"What was it the lady that kissed us said, Tommy?"
"Lord, have pity of them two fatherless children!" repeated Tommy.
"Let's say it, Tom."
And so the two babies knelt on the brink of the cliff, and raising the bound hands together, looked up at the sky, and ungrammatically said, "Lord, have pity on we two fatherless children." And then they kissed each other, and "did it."
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH
From 'His Natural Life'
It was not until they had scrambled up the beach to safety that the absconders became fully aware of the loss of another of their companions. As they stood on the break of the beach, wringing the water from their clothes, Gabbett's small eye, counting their number, missed the stroke oar.
"Where's Cox?"
"The fool fell overboard," said Jemmy Vetch, shortly. "He never had as much sense in that skull of his as would keep it sound on his shoulders."
Gabbett scowled. "That's three of us gone," he said, in the tones of a man suffering some personal injury.
They summed up their means of defense against attack. Sanders and Greenhill had knives. Gabbett still retained the axe in his belt. Vetch had dropped his musket at the Neck; and Bodenham and Cornelius were unarmed.
"Let's have a look at the tucker," said Vetch.
There was but one bag of provisions. It contained a piece of salt pork, two loaves, and some uncooked potatoes. Signal Hill station was not rich in edibles.
"That ain't much," said the Crow, with rueful face. "Is it, Gabbett?"
"It must do, anyway," returned the giant, carelessly.
The inspection over, the six proceeded up the shore, and encamped under the lee of a rock. Bodenham was for lighting a fire; but Vetch, who by tacit consent had been chosen leader of the expedition, forbade it, saying that the light might betray them. "They'll think we're drowned, and won't pursue us," he said. So all that night the miserable wretches crouched fireless together.
Morning breaks clear and bright, and—free for the first time in ten years—they comprehend that their terrible journey has begun. "Where are we to go? How are we to live?" asks Bodenham, scanning the barren bush that stretches to the barren sea. "Gabbett, you've been out before—how's it done?"
"We'll make the shepherds' huts, and live on their tucker till we get a change o'clothes," said Gabbett, evading the main question. "We can follow the coast-line."
"Steady, lads," said prudent Vetch; "we must sneak round yon sandhills, and so creep into the scrub. If they've a good glass at the Neck, they can see us."
"It does seem close," said Bodenham, "I could pitch a stone on to the guard-house. Good-by, you bloody spot!" he adds, with sudden rage, shaking his fist vindictively at the penitentiary, "I don't want to see you no more till the Day o' Judgment."
Vetch divides the provisions, and they travel all that day until dark night. The scrub is prickly and dense. Their clothes are torn, their hands and feet bleeding. Already they feel out-wearied. No one pursuing, they light a fire, and sleep. The second day they come to a sandy spit that runs out into the sea, and find that they have got too far to the eastward, and must follow the shore-line to East Bay Neck. Back through the scrub they drag their heavy feet. That night they eat the last crumb of the loaf. The third day at high noon, after some toilsome walking, they reach a big hill, now called Collins's Mount, and see the upper link of the ear-ring, the isthmus of East Bay Neck, at their feet. A few rocks are on their right hand, and blue in the lovely distance lies hated Maria Island. "We must keep well to the eastward," said Greenhill, "or we shall fall in with the settlers and get taken." So, passing the isthmus, they strike into the bush along the shore, and tightening their belts over their gnawing bellies, camp under some low-lying hills.
The fourth day is notable for the indisposition of Bodenham, who is a bad walker, and falling behind, delays the party by frequent cooeys. Gabbett threatens him with a worse fate than sore feet if he lingers. Luckily, that evening Greenhill espies a hut; but not trusting to the friendship of the occupant, they wait until he quits it in the morning, and then send Vetch to forage. Vetch, secretly congratulating himself on having by his counsel prevented violence, returns bending under half a bag of flour. "You'd better carry the flour," said he to Gabbett, "and give me the axe." Gabbett eyes him for a while, as if struck by his puny form, but finally gives the axe to his mate Sanders. That day they creep along cautiously between the sea and the hills, camping at a creek. Vetch, after much search, finds a handful of berries, and adds them to the main stock. Half of this handful is eaten at once, the other half reserved for "to-morrow." The next day they come to an arm of the sea, and as they struggle northward Maria Island disappears, and with it all danger from telescopes. That evening they reach the camping-ground by twos and threes; and each wonders—between the paroxysms of hunger—if his face is as haggard and his eyes as blood-shot as those of his neighbor.
On the seventh day Bodenham says his feet are so bad he can't walk, and Greenhill, with a greedy look at the berries, bids him stay behind. Being in a very weak condition, he takes his companion at his word, and drops off about noon the next day. Gabbett, discovering this defection, however, goes back, and in an hour or so appears, driving the wretched creature before him with blows, as a sheep is driven to the shambles. Greenhill remonstrates at another mouth being thus forced upon the party, but the giant silences him with a hideous glance. Jemmy Vetch remembers that Greenhill accompanied Gabbett once before, and feels uncomfortable. He gives hint of his suspicions to Sanders, but Sanders only laughs. It is horribly evident that there is an understanding among the three.
The ninth sun of their freedom, rising upon sandy and barren hillocks, bristling thick with cruel scrub, sees the six famine-stricken wretches cursing their God, and yet afraid to die. All round is the fruitless, shadeless, shelterless bush. Above, the pitiless heaven. In the distance the remorseless sea. Something terrible must happen. That gray wilderness, arched by gray heaven stooping to gray sea, is a fitting keeper of hideous secrets. Vetch suggests that Oyster Bay cannot be far to the eastward,—the line of ocean is deceitfully close,—and though such a proceeding will take them out of their course, they resolve to make for it. After hobbling five miles they seem no nearer than before, and nigh dead with fatigue and starvation, sink despairingly upon the ground. Vetch thinks Gabbett's eyes have a wolfish glare in them, and instinctively draws off from him. Said Greenhill, in the course of a dismal conversation, "I am so weak that I could eat a piece of a man."
On the tenth day Bodenham refuses to stir, and the others, being scarcely able to drag along their limbs, sit on the ground about him. Greenhill, eyeing the prostrate man, said slowly, "I have seen the same done before, boys, and it tasted like pork."
Vetch, hearing his savage comrade give utterance to a thought all had secretly cherished, speaks out, crying, "It would be murder to do it; and then perhaps we couldn't eat it."
"Oh," said Gabbett, with a grin, "I'll warrant you that; but you must all have a hand in it."
Gabbett, Sanders, and Greenhill then go aside, and presently Sanders, coming to the Crow, said, "He consented to act as flogger. He deserves it."
"So did Gabbett, for that matter," shudders Vetch.
"Ay, but Bodenham's feet are sore," said Sanders, "and 'tis a pity to leave him."
Having no fire, they made a little break-wind; and Vetch, half dozing behind this, at about three in the morning hears some one cry out "Christ!" and awakes, sweating ice.
No one but Gabbett and Greenhill would eat that night. That savage pair, however, make a fire, fling ghastly fragments on the embers, and eat the broil before it is right warm. In the morning the frightful carcass is divided.
That day's march takes place in silence, and at the mid-day halt Cornelius volunteers to carry the billy, affecting great restoration from the food. Vetch gives it him, and in half an hour afterward Cornelius is missing. Gabbett and Greenhill pursue him in vain, and return with curses. "He'll die like a dog," said Greenhill, "alone in the bush." Jemmy Vetch, with his intellect acute as ever, thinks that Cornelius prefers such a death to the one in store for him, but says nothing.
The twelfth morning dawns wet and misty, but Vetch, seeing the provision running short, strives to be cheerful, telling stories of men who have escaped greater peril. Vetch feels with dismay that he is the weakest of the party, but has some sort of ludicro-horrible consolation in remembering that he is also the leanest. They come to a creek that afternoon, and look until nightfall in vain for a crossing-place. The next day Gabbett and Vetch swim across, and Vetch directs Gabbett to cut a long sapling, which being stretched across the water, is seized by Greenhill and the Moocher, who are dragged over.
"What would you do without me?" said the Crow, with a ghastly grin.
They cannot kindle a fire, for Greenhill, who carries the tinder, has allowed it to get wet. The giant swings his axe in savage anger at enforced cold, and Vetch takes an opportunity to remark privately to him what a big man Greenhill is.
On the fourteenth day they can scarcely crawl, and their limbs pain them. Greenhill, who is the weakest, sees Gabbett and the Moocher go aside to consult, and crawling to the Crow, whimpers, "For God's sake, Jemmy, don't let 'em murder me!"
"I can't help you," says Vetch, looking about in terror. "Think of poor Tom Bodenham."
"But he was no murderer. If they kill me, I shall go to hell with Tom's blood on my soul."
He writhes on the ground in sickening terror, and Gabbett, arriving, bids Vetch bring wood for the fire. Vetch going, sees Greenhill clinging to wolfish Gabbett's knees, and Sanders calls after him, "You will hear it presently, Jem."
The nervous Crow puts his hands to his ears, but is conscious, nevertheless, of a dull crash and a groan. When he comes back, Gabbett is putting on the dead man's shoes, which are better than his own.
"We'll stop here a day or so and rest," said he, "now we've got provisions."
Two more days pass, and the three, eying each other suspiciously, resume their march. The third day—the sixteenth of their awful journey—such portions of the carcass as they have with them prove unfit to eat. They look into each other's famine-sharpened faces, and wonder "Who next?"
"We must all die together," said Sanders, quickly, "before anything else must happen."
Vetch marks the terror concealed in the words, and when the dreaded giant is out of ear-shot, says, "For God's sake, let's go on alone, Alick. You see what sort of a cove that Gabbett is,—he'd kill his father before he'd fast one day."
They made for the bush, but the giant turned and strode toward them. Vetch skipped nimbly on one side, but Gabbett struck the Moocher on the forehead with the axe. "Help! Jem, help!" cried the victim, cut but not fatally, and in the strength of his desperation tore the axe from the monster who bore it, and flung it to Vetch. "Keep it. Jemmy," he cried; "let's have no more murder done!"
They fare again through the horrible bush until nightfall, when Vetch, in a strange voice, called the giant to him.
"He must die."
"Either you or he," laughs Gabbett. "Give me the axe."
"No, no," said the Crow, his thin malignant face distorted by a horrible resolution. "I'll keep the axe. Stand back! You shall hold him, and I'll do the job."
Sanders, seeing them approach, knew his end had come, and submitted, crying, "Give me half an hour to pray for myself." They consent, and the bewildered wretch knelt down and folded his hands like a child. His big stupid face worked with emotion. His great cracked lips moved in desperate agony. He wagged his head from side to side, in pitiful confusion of his brutalized senses. "I can't think o' the words, Jem!"
"Pah," snarled the cripple, swinging the axe, "we can't starve here all night."
Four days had passed, and the two survivors of this awful journey sat watching each other. The gaunt giant, his eyes gleaming with hate and hunger, sat sentinel over the dwarf. The dwarf, chuckling at his superior sagacity, clutched the fatal axe. For two days they had not spoken to each other. For two days each had promised himself that on the next his companion must sleep—and die. Vetch comprehended the devilish scheme of the monster who had entrapped five of his fellow-beings to aid him by their deaths to his own safety, and held aloof. Gabbett watched to snatch the weapon from his companion, and make the odds even for once and forever. In the daytime they traveled on, seeking each a pretext to creep behind the other. In the night-time when they feigned slumber, each stealthily raising a head caught the wakeful glance of his companion. Vetch felt his strength deserting him, and his brain overpowered by fatigue. Surely the giant, muttering, gesticulating, and slavering at the mouth, was on the road to madness. Would the monster find opportunity to rush at him, and braving the blood-stained axe, kill him by main force? or would he sleep, and be himself a victim? Unhappy Vetch! It is the terrible privilege of insanity to be sleepless.
On the fifth day, Vetch, creeping behind a tree, takes off his belt, and makes a noose. He will hang himself. He gets one end of the belt over a bough, and then his cowardice bids him pause. Gabbett approaches; he tries to evade him, and steal away into the bush. In vain. The insatiable giant, ravenous with famine and sustained by madness, is not to be shaken off. Vetch tries to run, but his legs bend under him. The axe that has tried to drink so much blood feels heavy as lead. He will fling it away. No—he dares not. Night falls again. He must rest, or go mad. His limbs are powerless. His eyelids are glued together. He sleeps as he stands. This horrible thing must be a dream. He is at Port Arthur, or will wake on his pallet in the penny lodging-house he slept at when a boy. Is that the deputy come to wake him to the torment of living? It is not time—surely not time yet. He sleeps—and the giant, grinning with ferocious joy, approaches on clumsy tiptoe and seizes the coveted axe.
On the northeast coast of Van Diemen's Land is a place called St. Helen's Point, and a certain skipper, being in want of fresh water, landing there with a boat's crew, found on the banks of the creek a gaunt and blood-stained man, clad in tattered yellow, who carried on his back an axe and a bundle. When the sailors came within sight of him he made signs to them to approach, and opening his bundle with much ceremony, offered them some of its contents. Filled with horror at what the maniac displayed, they seized and bound him. At Hobart Town he was recognized as the only survivor of the nine desperadoes who had escaped from Colonel Arthur's "natural penitentiary."