“Then you think he was innocent?”
“As innocent as the lassie that brocht in the denner.”
“What sentence did he get?”
“Five years’ imprisonment—wi’ hard labour. But he didna sairve it. He flitted frae the hulk Success where they sent him after he nigh killed Warder Bracker. He was a dour man and a cruel; he’d made his boast that he’d ‘break’ Trevanion, as he called it, because he couldna get him to knuckle doon to him like ither convicts, puir craters! So he worked him harder and harder—complained o’ him for insolence—got him to the dark cell—once and again insulted him when there was nae ither body to hear—and one day gave him a kick, joost as he’d been a dog in his road.
“That was mair than enough. Clean mad and desperate, Trevanion rushed at him, had him doon, and him wi’ his hands in his throttle, before he could cry on the guard. His eyes were starting out of his head—he was black in the face and senseless, when a warder from outside the cell who heard the scuffle, pulled him off. Anither ten seconds, and Bracker would have been a dead man—as it was, he was that lang coming to, that the doctor gave him up.”
“What sentence did he get? They’d have hanged him long ago?” queried the host.
“He’d have got ‘life,’ or all the same twenty years’ gaol; but Bracker had been had up for cruelty to prisoners in another gaol before, and Mr. Melrose the Comptroller and the Visiting Justice were dead against a’ kinds o’ oppression, so they ordered a thorough inquiry. Some of the prisoners swore they’d seen Bracker knocking Trevanion about. He’d been ‘dark-celled’ for weeks on bread and water. When he came out he could hardly stand up. They’d heard him swear at Trevanion and call him a loafing impostor—and other names. The evidence went clear against him. Mr. McAlpine said Bracker ought to have had a year in gaol himself, and recommended his dismissal. So he left the service, and a good thing too. I’m no sayin’ that some of the convicts o’ the early fifties were not desperate deevils, as ever stretched halter. But they were paying for their ineequities—a high price too, when they’re lockit up night and day, working the whiles with airn chains on their limbs. And they that would make that lot harder and heavier, had hearts like the nether millstane.”
“What became of Trevanion, after all?”
“He was sent to the hulk Success. No great relief, ane would think. But it was better than stone walls. He had the sea and the sky around him day and night. It made a new man of him, they say. And before the year was oot (he had plenty money, ye see), he dropped into a boat through the port hole, one dark night, just before the awfullest storm ye ever saw. Horses were waitin’ on him next day, and ye’ll no hinder him frae winning to the New Rush at Tin Pot Flat Omeo, where he worked as a miner and prospector, for twa year and mair, under the name of ‘Ballarat Harry.’”
“Could not the police find him?” queried the tourist. “They were said to be awfully smart in the goldfields days.”