“Gone for ever as lovers of yours.”
“Thank God!” said she. “Better watch night and day with arms in our hands than have your head full of fancies, Harry. You will never believe again that I can like such people: and you shall teach me to fire a gun, so as to defend the house while you are away; and I shall not be afraid of anything when you are at home.”
Harry was so alert and happy from this moment that one would have thought there had been a certainty that no bush-rangers would ever come again, instead of a threatening that those who had till now been servants would soon reappear as enemies.
Whatever arms could be found up were put into the hands of the shepherds, as they were most in danger from violence for the sake of their flocks. They were desired to keep in sight of one another so far as that each should be able to make a certain signal agreed on, in case of his having reason to suppose that there were enemies at hand. Frank departed immediately for Launceston, for powder and ball, and a further supply of labourers to fill the places of those who had eloped. Another messenger was sent to the seat of government to give information of what had happened. During the absence of her brother, Ellen heard enough of the evils inflicted by runaway convicts to alarm a stouter heart than any young girl devotedly attached to her lover ever had; and to add to her uneasiness, her father once more became gloomy, and poor little Susan clung to her side wherever she went. Harry left his work twenty times a day to tell her that all was quiet, and bid her not be alarmed. During the day, she followed his advice pretty well; but in the evenings, so many tales of horror went round that, though she did not believe the half of them, her confidence was shaken; and she went to bed shuddering to think of what might have happened before morning.
The bush-rangers seemed to be less dreaded by the settlers than the natives. The bush-rangers came down in a troop, carried off what they wanted, occasionally shooting a man or two during the process, and then went completely away. The warfare of the natives was much more horrible,—their movements being stealthy, their revenge insatiable, their cruelty revolting. They would hover about for days or weeks before committing an outrage, planning the most wicked way of proceeding, and seizing the most defenceless moment for pouncing on their victims. Castle asked aloud, what Ellen inquired in her heart, why all this was not told them before they came, and what there was in wealth which could compensate for such alarms as they were now suffering under? Frank satisfied her, in some degree, when he returned on the 24th,—the day before her wedding. He told her that though the first settlers had suffered dreadfully from the murders and plunder of the hostile natives and runaway convicts, this was not a sufficient reason to deter other settlers from following, since, owing to the vigorous measures of the Australian government, such outrages had been repressed and nearly put an end to. He pointed out to her that the horrible tales she had been told related to former times, and assured her that, except in some districts near the wilder parts of the island, the face of a savage had not been seen for years.—Ellen pointed to the mountain wastes on which their settlement bordered, and Frank acknowledged that the Dairy Plains lay as open to an attack as most newly-settled districts; but he had been assured at Launceston that there was no need to terrify themselves with apprehensions as long as they were armed and properly careful in their movements; since the sound of a musket would disperse a whole troop of savages, and they attacked no place that was not left absolutely defenceless. He had distinctly ascertained what he had before conjectured,—that it was not the practice of runaway convicts to plunder settlements where their faces were known, and that the only danger therefore arose from the probability that they might injure the savages, who might come down to wreak their revenge upon the innocent settlers.
“If this is all,” sighed Ellen, “there is nothing——”
“To prevent your being married to-morrow, Ellen. So I have been telling Harry.”
“There was no occasion, thank you. I never meant to put it off. The more danger, the more reason for our being together. Besides, it will help to take father’s mind off from his discontent. He has been wishing himself back in Kent every hour since you went.”
“Indeed! Well now, I think that such an occasional fright as this is little to the hardship of living as we did at A——, to say nothing of the certainty of there soon being an end to it. The only two evils our settlers suffer from will grow less every year; the scarcity of labour, and danger of theft. To make up for these, we have the finest climate in the world, abundance of all that we at present want, and the prospect of seeing our children, and their children again, well provided for.—But you must be in a hurry now, dear, considering what has to be done to-morrow. So go, and cheer up, and trouble your head no more about black or white thieves.”
Ellen had, however, little more than usual to do this day, as hers was not the kind of wedding to require preparation. The travelling chaplain who was to come and perform the Christmas service, was to marry the young people, and thus only was the day to be marked as different from any other. The settlers, no doubt, thought much of their friends in England, and of the festivities which are there enjoyed by all but those whose poverty deprives them of the means: but the seasons are so entirely reversed in Van Diemen’s Land,—it is so impossible amidst the brilliant verdure, the heat and long days of the Christmas season there, to adopt the festivities carried on at home beside the hearth and over the punch-bowl, that Christmas-day was allowed to pass quietly, and the grand holidays of the year were wisely made on the anniversaries of their settlement in their present abodes,—of their entrance on a life of prosperity.