Part 6

One day I had gone over to Wirrai in a canoe, to see how the stockman was getting on, and on my return was humming a tune and thinking of you, dear William (for I was humming your old favorite “Flow on, thou shining River”), when I fancied I heard a slight noise: I stopped and listened, but could hear nothing; I went a little further and heard it again; I stopped again and peered about the bank, when suddenly about twenty Blacks sprung up from behind trees, and reeds, and long grass, only one of whom I had ever seen before; I was about fifty yards from the nearest of them, and just at the entrance of a creek about ten yards wide, lined on both sides with thick reeds. When they first appeared they did not show any weapons, and spoke in a friendly strain; “Budgery Master always gibit bullock along im Black fellow,” asked if I wanted any fish? As I had a good double-barrel gun on my knees I did not so much care about them, but not exactly liking their appearance I stopped at about thirty yards. The Blacks by this time were jabbering to more down the creek, and I could see that the one side was lined with them. Seeing that I would not come any nearer, they suddenly picked up their spears and altered their tone, and began calling all sorts of names, and threatened to break my head with their “Nella nellas” (clubs). Quick as lightning they shipped their spears, but not quicker than I levelled my gun; the instant they saw which (they have a great respect for powder,) they betook themselves behind trees, and, in truth, I thought it best to follow their example; so, keeping the gun to my shoulder the while, I began as well as I could to paddle the canoe with one hand; perceiving my object, they stood out to thwart it, and I knowing that if they sent their spears, though none of them should hit me, they must inevitably shiver the canoe to pieces, determined to get on terra firma as quickly as possible, the water being only knee deep. In stepping out I unfortunately got into a stump-hole, and the next moment was soused over head and ears in water! This was decidedly unpleasant, and for the first time a thrill of fear came over me; however, I jumped up again, and having been very particular in loading my gun, I thought it might still go off. By this time the Blacks had gathered in great numbers on the other side of the creek and were pressing on in a body; seeing this I now levelled my piece, and took as deliberate an aim as I could at the foremost of them (a huge brute, for whose capture a hundred pounds reward had been offered by Government for a murder committed by him on the Murrum-bridge), but the gun hung fire and the ball dropped into the water. Finding that there was no dependence to be placed in the gun, the only course left me was to retreat, and to attempt this I now resolved; taking courage at this, a number of them jumped into the water, again I faced them, and again they took to trees—are they not rank cowards? I was beginning to think that my only chance was to take to my legs—which indeed would have been almost certain death—when at this crisis I was, as you may imagine, agreeably surprised by the welcome “Halloo” of the stockman and hutkeeper, who, having heard the report of the gun and the yells of the savages, knew that something was up, and arrived at the nick of time to my rescue. After giving me some dry ammunition we made a rush after them, but could not overtake the black legs which were now plying at a particularly nimble rate, and which they especially do when getting out of the reach of a gun. This was the first attempt they had made on any of our lives, and their manœuvres showed that they were under the impression that, if they could “_do for_” the master, they might easily finish the men. But I made it a rule that never less than two were to go out on foot or in canoes, and with never less than twenty rounds of ball cartridge. We did not see anything of the Blacks for a fortnight after this, during which interval, as they afterwards told us, they were preparing for a grand attack on the Wirrai station.

About two hours before sundown the following day the stockman went out, as usual, to see that the cattle were safe. The Wirrai hut, I should mention, was at this time on a kind of island about a mile and a half in diameter, formed by the Wirrai Lagoon and a deep creek,—so that the cattle were feeding almost within sight of the hut. All was quiet; the cattle did not seem to betray any symptoms of fear, which they generally will do when the Blacks are near. He had not returned more than half an hour, when we saw the poor beasts coming rushing towards the hut—as if for protection—as hard as they could lay legs to the ground. On going among them, we found many with spears sticking in their bodies. We immediately mounted horses—(I bareback, as I had left my saddle at Barratta)—and gallopped as hard as we could in the direction the cattle had come from for about a mile, when, not seeing anything, we stopped and listened. There was a small, dense shrub before us, and, as we approached it, the awful yell that greeted our ears I shall not forget in a hurry. You can have no idea of the effect it has on one unaccustomed to the sound, for it is like nothing earthly that I can compare it to, but more like what one might imagine a lot of fiends would set up while performing their jubilee over the soul of some defunct mortal lately arrived at the “prison-house.” We gallopped through the shrub. Before us was a space bounded by two creeks, forming at their junction an angle on the plain beyond. Arranged in a semicircle in this space were some two hundred warriors, painted and armed, and drawn up in battle array. Between us and them four or five bullocks were writhing in their death agony, while the other side of the creek, beyond the warriors, was black with old men, women, and children looking on, and yelling at a most fearful rate. We gallopped within gunshot, and I then ordered the stockman to fire on them—(I had no gun myself, and had enough to do to sit the young spirited horse I was on), but he refused, saying that my horse would be sure to throw me, and that nothing then could save me from certain death. By this time the Blacks were trying to surround us, so as to hem us in between themselves and the creek, and cut off our retreat to the hut where we had left the hutkeeper in charge, and we soon found it necessary to put our horses into a gallop—they following at our heels—in order to get there in time enough to prepare for a defence. It was their intention, as they afterwards kindly informed us, to have killed every man jack of us. We had just got everything ready, when on they came yelling like so many fiends. We stood out from the hut awaiting their onset. Although the odds against us, as regarded numbers, was fearful, I was confident that if we could only make sure of three or four of the foremost of them, it would go far to intimidate the rest; so, as soon as they came within range of our guns, we gave them three rounds, which, however, only wounded one of them; still it made the others check their paces and hesitate awhile, seeing especially that we were determined to sell our lives dearly at this crisis; they betook themselves behind trees, protected by which they crept nearer and nearer to us, we taking every opportunity of firing, but with small effect. It being now nearly dark, we were obliged to take to the hut, and defend ourselves there as best we could. When inside, they threw a great many spears through the tarpaulin, very fortunately with no other effect than that of one of them just grazing my head. This kind of siege was carried on about four hours, we firing a shot now and then when we thought we could perceive the dim outline of one of them gliding through the dark, and they sending an occasional spear, and giving a yell. What we most feared was their making an attempt to set the hut on fire, for if successful in this (and the day having been very warm, our tarpaulin would have burned like so much paper) it would have been all up with us.

We had almost given up all hopes of life, and a sort of stubborn, dogged desperation seized me such as I never before felt, and such as I trust I never may again feel. We were reduced to nearly a dozen rounds of ammunition which we resolved to save for the rush. About midnight I was horribly startled by the stock-keeper announcing that on his side of the hut (we each of us guarded one side) he thought he could distinguish a fire-stick at some distance, and, on looking, we could plainly perceive it approaching nearer and nearer, until it came within what we considered safe gunshot, when I told the stockman, who was the best shot, to take good aim. He fired, and the fire-stick dropped on the ground. A good deal of yelling followed, but they did not again venture to show fire.

Everything after an hour remained quiet; the cattle had long since been rushed off the island, and the Blacks, we supposed, had gone to rest, preparatory to an attack at daybreak. Towards dawn, being faint and weak through anxiety and fasting,—for we had had nothing for twenty-four hours,—we determined on having some tea; but before it could be got ready we again heard the Blacks yelling most furiously. The stockman and hutkeeper thereupon gave it as their opinion, that our only hope of escape was in immediately quitting the hut, and attempting, if possible, to get across to Barratta; so, instantly decamping, we crossed the lagoon in a canoe, which we then dragged across a few hundred yards of land to the river. This we also quickly crossed. Just as we reached the Barratta bank, we heard a most awful hullabaloo at Wirrai, in which noises our friends the Blacks were giving vent to their feelings of disgust and disappointment at not finding us at home. Before they could overtake us, we were safe at Barratta. “To be continued in our next,” as the Editors of periodicals often say.

In a Second Letter the Narrative is resumed.

I could see plainly depicted in the faces of the two men who were in charge of the Barratta station, a considerable degree of suspicion as to the extent of our courage in the Wirrai affair. They were both plucky men, but their notions underwent a great change the next day. The day we escaped, we heard nothing more of the natives, except now and then their distant yells; so I sent up a man on horseback to the next station for assistance, to help us to find and recover the cattle. But the superintendent either would not or could not give us any, although all his servants, to a man, volunteered to go. I was obliged, therefore, to allow my four men to proceed alone. I think I mentioned that I had burned my foot very severely, and by this time, from the work I had had to undergo, I was in great agony from it. But I offered the men, if any one of them objected to it, he could remain in the hut, and I would go in his place. They all, however, readily agreed to go, for, in truth, remaining behind was by far the most dangerous post, inasmuch as the Blacks, from their numbers, could easily circumvent the men, or keep them at bay, while they attacked the hut, and I could have done little myself, in the way of defence, with only an old lockless piece, to discharge which it was necessary to use a fire-stick. Before they left, the stockman took me aside, and, with much kindness, implored me earnestly, for my own safety, to take a horse, and stop out on the plain. He told me, at the same time, that he did not expect to come back alive; “but,” said he, “it does not matter a straw what becomes of us, for not one of us would be missed.” This disinterestedness struck me not a little, as showing a high trait of fine feeling, coming as it did from an old convict who had been transported for life, and had once been condemned to be hanged. However, I resolved to take my chance in the hut, and very glad I was that I did so afterwards, as I should have looked very foolish, when my men returned, seated on a horse, and ready to make a bolt. I had waited about an hour with my old gun and fire-stick in hand, without hearing a sound to break the horrid stillness which seemed at that particular time to reign paramount around me, when a distant volley of gunshot burst upon my ear, and then a faint volley of yells. In a short time the sounds were repeated; again and again, but nearer and nearer, and more and more distinct, a shot or two at a time, with horrible yells filling up the interlude until I could distinguish my men retreating with an immense semicircle of natives trying to encompass them and cut them off from the hut. My men retreated to the water’s edge in capital order, and then faced round to the enemy, for it would have been sure death to have attempted to cross in the face of so many of the foe. After a good deal of skirmishing at this point, a very old Black took a green bough, and standing a little out from the rest, made a long harangue to the white men in his own language, which of course was just so much Hebrew to them; but being anxious for a truce they ceased firing. Another Black who could talk a little English now came forward, and after a good deal of jabber, concluded a peace, one condition of which was that they were to give up everything they had taken from the Wirrai hut. Of course we well knew, or at least fully expected, that this treaty was all hollow on their side, and like lovers’ vows, made only to be broken; but the truth was, we were glad enough to get a little respite even though for ever so short a time. After restoring most of the things they had stolen, the Blacks drew off in a body to the other side of the river.

The stockman informed me, that, when they started on their search, they first crossed the river, and then made away over to the Collegian, where they soon espied a few Blacks, apparently reconnoitring, who, when they perceived the white men, made signals to other Blacks beyond them, and who, in like manner, signalled others still further away: presently they saw slowly approaching them a dense black body which the two men who had not been at Wirrai the day before took to be the cattle they were in search of, but which the more experienced stockman at once declared to be a vast body of the Blacks. The two men at first laughed at this idea as a good joke, but were soon confirmed as to its correctness, when they changed their tone, and began to think it high time to return. On, however, they came in a dense body, and when nearly within gunshot, spread themselves out, or deployed—as our military brother would I suppose call it—and pressing on in a large semicircle, endeavoured so to manœuvre, as to cut off the escape of the retreating _army_ in the direction of the hut as before related.

The truce, as we had anticipated, proved a very short one, as you will presently see. The day following the above incidents, I sent the stockman and another, to see after the surviving cattle which our black friends informed us had got out of the island and gone across the country to the Murray, which was true. The men had been gone about three hours, when about a hundred of the warriors came up to the hut—without their spears, but with plenty of tomahawks—pretending to be good friends. I told the two men who were working outside, to keep a sharp lookout, as I suspected their friendship was not of that description I most coveted or admired; and being myself scarcely able to move, I sat down in a corner of the hut by a table, with a gun close by me, a brace of pistols in my belt, and another on the table. I told the Blacks to keep outside the hut; but they, gradually edging their way in, soon nearly filled it: and seeing that there was no chance of keeping them out, except by proceeding to extremities, I contented myself with watching their motions with all the coolness I could command. They began talking very quietly at first, and I noticed the gentleman I mentioned who could talk a little English, edging by little and little towards me, sometimes talking to his companions and sometimes addressing me. I pretended not to notice him particularly, though at the same time—without looking directly at him—I could see his eyes rolling from the direction of mine to the fire-arms like a revolving lamp. Soon the jabbering became louder and louder (they were talking themselves into a rage), and I thought I could hear the names of some of those who had fallen, made use of. All the while the above-mentioned black fellow was shuffling closer and closer to me, until i’ faith I thought it was high time to act my part in the scene, or give up all thoughts of life. With all the calmness I was master of, I took up a pistol from the table, and taking my English friend by the arm, pointed it at his head, and told him to order all his companions to quit the hut; he shook like an aspen leaf, and turned as white as a Black well can, and ordered them to go out, which they immediately did without a word; I then led him after them, and bade them leave the place, and return to their camp, which they likewise did.

I look upon that as about the narrowest escape I ever had; for the Blacks have since told me that they were on the point of making a rush upon us, when it was providentially stopped by the timely proceeding mentioned. Had they done so, nothing of course could have saved us. Next day three or four hundred of them passed the hut in dead silence; and not one of them called. They were all fully armed and painted with red ochre (their uniform for war), and I conjectured they were up to some mischief, but what I could not tell.

In about a week we again had the pleasure of seeing them coming in great numbers, and camping in an island about a mile off. From certain signs which experience had taught us, we were well assured that they intended making a grand attack upon our hut. I had no one living at Wirrai then; and as there were only four of us at Barratta, viz., H., (who had just arrived), myself and two men, (the two who had been sent after the cattle, were still away,) and wishing to give the Blacks a severe lesson, we sent to the next station for as many men as they could spare.

The man we sent had only just reached the station, when the Commissioner of the district chanced also to arrive there. Now the Commissioner in those days was a man of great authority; in fact, altogether more like a little king, than any less lordly personage: so, instead of coming down himself with his police to our assistance, he allowed the superintendent to send six of his men, while he himself remained where he was “otium cum” for in truth the old fellow—to say nothing of his love of ease, was of old Falstaff’s opinion touching the advisable predominance of a certain quality in the exercise of valour. The men arrived in great silence at midnight, and the Blacks fortunately knew nothing of their arrival; for if they had, they would have deferred their attack until a more seasonable opportunity when we were not so well prepared for their reception.

Daylight came, and in the distance we could see their dusky figures crossing the lagoon to one side. They had only three canoes, so that it was a considerable time before all were landed. They then gathered together in a clump in dead silence, and held a council of war, thinking themselves unobserved all the time. At sunrise they slowly approached, and only those of us whom they expected to see showed out to them, and without arms; they appeared to have no other arms than their tomahawks; but every man of them was dragging a large jagged spear with their toes through the long grass. When, by the way, one of these spears enters a man’s body, it is impossible to get it out again, except by cutting the flesh all round it, or pushing it right through to the other side. As they advanced nearer, they spoke, and continued talking to us all the time in the most friendly strains, until within about twenty yards; when just as they (at a signal given by one of them) were stooping to pick up their spears to make a rush, the men in the hut let drive through loopholes right among them; and we all made a simultaneous rush, and put them to rout in a manner that would have given the Old Duke intense satisfaction had he been looking on. How many fell, I cannot say, as they always try to drag their dead from the field, and all around us, except on the water-side, was long grass and reeds; two were left dead, and these we buried.

To detail all the skirmishes and the Parthian description of fighting with the Blacks for the eighteen months which ensued, would only weary you. Where, little more than three years ago, ours was the only station in this direction, being five miles beyond any other, there are now stations formed a hundred miles below us, and even ladies grace the river forty miles down, one of them married to an old school-fellow of ours, viz., Brougham, nephew of Lord Brougham. Among other diversions, I have been employing myself in making a flower-garden, for independently of my love of flowers, I think their contemplation, and engagement in their cultivation, has a humanising, or, if you will, a civilising effect on the mind, such as I can assure you we require in the Bush.

SUPPOSING.

Supposing a Royal Duke were to die. Which is not a great stretch of supposition,

For golden lads and lasses must, Like chimney-sweepers, come to dust:

Supposing he had been a good old Duke with a thoroughly kind heart, and a generous nature, always influenced by a sincere desire to do right, and always doing it, like a man and a gentleman, to the best of his ability:

And supposing, this Royal Duke left a son, against whom there was no imputation or reproach, but of whom all men were disposed to think well, and had no right or reason to think otherwise:

And supposing, this Royal Duke, though possessed of a very handsome income in his lifetime, had not made provision for this son; and a rather accommodating Government (in such matters) were to make provision for him, at the expense of the public, on a scale wholly unsuited to the nature of the public burdens, past, present, and prospective, and bearing no proportion to any kind of public reward, for any sort of public service:

I wonder whether the country could then, with any justice, complain, that the Royal Duke had not himself provided for his son, instead of leaving his son a charge upon the people!

I should think the question would depend upon this:—Whether the country had ever given the good Duke to understand, that it, in the least degree, expected him to provide for his son. If it never did anything of the sort, but always conveyed to him, in every possible way, the rapturous assurance that there was a certain amount of troublesome Hotel business to be done, which nobody but a Royal Duke could by any possibility do, or the business would lose its grace and flavor, then, I should say, the good Duke aforesaid might reasonably suppose that he made sufficient provision for his son, in leaving him the Hotel business; and that the country would be a very unreasonable country, if it made any complaint.

Supposing the country _did_ complain, though, after all. I wonder what it would still say, in Committee, Sub Committee, Charitable Association, and List of Stewards, if any ungenteel person were to propose ignoble chairmen!

Because I should like the country to be consistent.

* * * * *

Monthly Supplement of “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,” Conducted by CHARLES DICKENS.

_Price 2d., Stamped, 3d._,

THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE OF CURRENT EVENTS.

_The Number, containing a history of the past month, was issued with the Magazines._