The American captain gave a cask of bread and some necessaries to those he put ashore on St. Paul’s.
Here they remained, renewing their hardships on the Crozets, but in a better climate, till the first week in June, when a sloop, a tender to the King George whaler, arrived, looking for her consort in vain. The sloop was only twenty-eight tons and could not accommodate more than three, and the lot decided that Goodridge should be one of these three. Then the sloop sailed for Van Diemen’s Land, and after a rough passage of thirty-six days reached Hobart Town on 7 July.
We need not follow Goodridge’s narrative further, though what remains is interesting: his observations on the condition of the convicts, the settlers, and so forth. He there got into trouble, being arrested and thrown into prison on the suspicion that he was a runaway sailor from the King George, and he had great difficulty in obtaining his discharge. He was also attacked and nearly murdered by bushrangers.
At length, in the beginning of 1831, he was able to start for home. He embarked on 15 February. “On Sunday morning, 31st July, we came off Torbay, and now I anxiously looked out for some conveyance to land: I was in sight of my native village—my heart beat high. The venerable tower of Paignton, forming as it does one of the most conspicuous objects in the bay, was full in view, and with my glass I could trace many well-remembered objects, even the very dwelling of my childhood and the home of my parents.” On 2 August, Goodridge reached home to find his parents still alive, though the old man was infirm and failing. He had been away eleven years; but of these a good many had been spent by him in business in Van Diemen’s Land.
JOHN DAVY
John Davy was born at Upton Hellions, and was an illegitimate child, baptized as Davie on Christmas Day, 1763. When he was about three years old, he entered the room one day where his uncle, a blacksmith in the same parish, was playing a psalm tune on the violoncello; but the moment he heard the instrument he ran away crying, and was so terrified that it was thought he would have a fit. For several weeks his uncle repeatedly tried to reconcile him to the instrument; and at last, after much coaxing and encouragement, he effected it by taking the child’s fingers and making him strike the strings. The sound thus produced startled him considerably at first, but in a few days he became so passionately fond of the amusement, that he took every opportunity of scraping a better acquaintance with the monster. With a little attention he was soon able to produce such notes from the violoncello as greatly delighted him.
Soon after this Davy’s uncle frequently took him to Crediton, where a company of soldiers was quartered, and one day at the roll-call he was greatly delighted at the music of the fifes; so much was he pleased that he borrowed one, and very soon taught himself to play several tunes decently. After this he began to make fifes from the tubular reeds growing on the banks of the Creedy, and commonly called “billers.” With these he made several imitations of the fife, and bartered them to his playmates.
At the age of four or five years, his ear was so correct that he could play any easy tune after once hearing it. Before he was quite six years old, a neighbouring blacksmith, into whose house he went frequently, lost twenty or thirty horseshoes. Diligent search was made for them during many days. But one evening the blacksmith, John Davy’s uncle, heard faint chimes, like those of Crediton Church, sounding from the garret of his house, and having listened a sufficient time to be convinced that his ears did not deceive him, he ascended to the attic, and there found the boy with the horseshoes, or so many of them as would form an octave, hung clear of the wall to nails, and he was striking them with a hammer or iron rod, playing the chimes of Crediton Church bells.