The Convict: A Tale

by G. P. R. James

"No, that is not necessary," replied Dudley. "If he guesses, well; if not, it does not matter."

"Well, I think you must give me a couple of charges of powder for my pains," replied the bushranger.

"Willingly," replied Dudley, "and some small-shot too. I have no bullets with me but what are in the gun.

"That'll do--that'll do," was the reply. And having received the gift, the wild and lawless man shook hands with his unfortunate companion, and saying that he should look out for some low tree to sleep in, he left him to pursue his way towards his solitary dwelling on the mountain-top.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Thought, we are told by some authors, is the high and characteristic privilege of man. The truth of the axiom is not universally admitted, and even if it were so, I can only say that, like many other high and characteristic privileges, thought may become very burdensome, if its exercise is constantly enforced. I cannot help believing that the Arabian fabulist, when he represented Sinbad the sailor cast upon a desert island, and persecuted by an old man, who, once having got upon his shoulders, could never be thrown off again till he was made drunk, intended to allegorize the fate of one condemned to solitary thought, and perhaps, to point out the only means he saw of obtaining deliverance from its oppressive dominion.

Left once more alone, Dudley could not refrain from thinking over and comparing the words and actions of the two men who had been his only visitors in that solitary place, and he certainly felt none of that regret that the last of the two had left him, which he had experienced on the departure of the first. The very fact, however, of their having come at all was at first a source of some apprehension to him. He had sought out a place of refuge where he thought the foot of man had never trod, nor ever was likely to tread, at least for many long years; and now, within one week, two strangers, either of whom might betray the secret of where he sojourned, had found him, and conversed with him. How many more might be led thither, by accident or curiosity, or in the pursuit of gain, or from any of the many motives which lead man to wander and to explore? It was a question which startled him, and as I have said, he felt apprehension and regret at first; but those sensations gradually wore away, as day after day, and hour after hour gave him more and more up to the weariness of thought. To provide for the wants of the day or of the future, to complete his shelter from storm and tempest, to frame from the rock, or from the clay, or from the trunk of the cedar, or the oak, the tools and utensils of which he had need, did not afford sufficient occupation to engross his mind entirely throughout any one day. When he was fishing in the lake, when he was watching for the passing of game, when he was hewing out cisterns from the rock, or breaking with his axe the hard crust of the salt-pool, thought would still press heavily upon him, and daily it became more heavy and dark. To hear the tones of the sweet human voice, to tell the feelings, or give utterance to the fancies of his own breast, seemed each moment a privilege more to be coveted, and he felt bitterly that man is made for society, and that utter solitude is utter desolation.

A month passed after he had met with Brady without his seeing one single human being, without his ever hearing the tones of even his own voice; and the effect upon his mind may be understood when I say, that at length, before kneeling down to pray, he murmured, "I will say my prayers aloud, for fear I lose the use of speech."

But even that was not a relief; and darker and darker grew his meditations as the leaves became a little brown, and the grass assumed a yellow tinge, and the flowers gave place everywhere to the berries in the wood, and the sun rose later, and set earlier; till at length he could bear it no longer, and he said, "I will go out and seek this Norries; for I believe if I remain longer here, given up altogether to the bitter contemplation of the past and the future, my brain will turn, and I shall go mad."

With his gun upon his shoulder, then, his powder-horn, his shot-belt, and a large wallet of skin, containing his provision of biscuit, by his side, he set out early in the morning, directing his course according to the information he had received from the bushranger. The air was fresh and cool, and here and there a faint star might still be seen in the sky, "paling its ineffectual fires" at the approach of the sun. For three hours he walked on lightly and with ease; but then the heat began to have effect, and before another hour was over the sun beat fiercely on his head, so that he was glad to sit down beneath the shade of a tall, solitary tree, where the wind from the ocean, the roar of which he heard not far off, could come to refresh him. He felt how terrible it must be to cross, in the summer season, any of those wide, arid deserts which form a considerable portion of New Holland, and one of which he knew lay close to the east of the fertile tract in which he had fixed his dwelling. There, for seventy or eighty miles, extend limestone hills without grass, or tree, or water; not a herb, not a shrub, not a living thing, if it be not the lizard or the scorpion, is to be seen throughout the whole tract; and as he looked to the south-east, and saw a yellow, reddish streak extending across the distance, and resting with a hard edge upon the sky at the horizon, he thought, "I must take care not to involve myself in such a wilderness as that. To die of thirst must be a fearful death;" and instinctively he rose, and walked on towards a spot in the plain where the grass seemed somewhat greener, and the trees in more luxuriant foliage than the rest.