Robbery Under Arms

R >> Rolf Boldrewood >> Robbery Under Arms

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After the witnesses had said all they knew our lawyer got up and made
a stunning speech. He made us out such first-rate chaps that it looked as if
we ought to get off flying. He blew up the squatters in a general way
for taking all the country, and not giving the poor man a chance --
for neglecting their immense herds of cattle and suffering them to roam
all over the country, putting temptation in the way of poor people,
and causing confusion and recklessness of all kinds. Some of these cattle
are never seen from the time they are branded till they are mustered,
every two or three years apparently. They stray away hundreds of miles
-- probably a thousand -- who is to know? Possibly they are sold.
It was admitted by the prosecutor that he had sold 10,000 head of cattle
during the last six years, and none had been rebranded to his knowledge.
What means had he of knowing whether these cattle that so much was said about
had not been legally sold before? It was a most monstrous thing that men
like his clients -- men who were an honour to the land they lived in --
should be dragged up to the very centre of the continent upon a paltry charge
like this -- a charge which rested upon the flimsiest evidence
it had ever been his good fortune to demolish.

With regard to the so-called imported bull the case against his clients
was apparently stronger, but he placed no reliance upon
the statements of the witnesses, who averred that they knew him so thoroughly
that they could not be deceived in him. He distrusted their evidence
and believed the jury would distrust it too. The brand was as different
as possible from the brand seen to have been on the beast originally.
One short-horn was very like another. He would not undertake
to swear positively in any such case, and he implored the jury,
as men of the world, as men of experience in all transactions
relating to stock (here some of the people in the court grinned)
to dismiss from their minds everything of the nature of prejudice,
and looking solely at the miserable, incomplete, unsatisfactory nature
of the evidence, to acquit the prisoners.

It sounded all very pleasant after everything before had been so rough
on our feelings, and the jury looked as if they'd more than half
made up their minds to let us off.

Then the judge put on his glasses and began to go all over the evidence,
very grave and steady like, and read bits out of the notes which he'd taken
very careful all the time. Judges don't have such an easy time of it
as some people thinks they have. I've often wondered as they take
so much trouble, and works away so patient trying to find out
the rights and wrongs of things for people that they never saw before,
and won't see again. However, they try to do their best,
all as I've ever seen, and they generally get somewhere near
the right and justice of things. So the judge began and read --
went over the evidence bit by bit, and laid it all out before the jury,
so as they couldn't but see it where it told against us, and, again,
where it was a bit in our favour.

As for the main body of the cattle, he made out that there was strong grounds
for thinking as we'd taken and sold them at Adelaide, and had the money too.
The making of a stockyard at the back of Momberah was not the thing
honest men would do. But neither of us prisoners had been seen there.
There was no identification of the actual cattle, branded `HOD',
alleged to have been stolen, nor could Mr. Hood swear positively that
they were his cattle, had never been sold, and were a portion of his herd.
It was in the nature of these cases that identification of live stock,
roaming over the immense solitudes of the interior, should be difficult,
occasionally impossible. Yet he trusted that the jury would give
full weight to all the circumstances which went to show
a continuous possession of the animals alleged to be stolen.
The persons of both prisoners had been positively sworn to
by several witnesses as having been seen at the sale of the cattle
referred to. They were both remarkable-looking men, and such as if once seen
would be retained in the memory of the beholder.

But the most important piece of evidence (here the judge stopped
and took a pinch of snuff) was that afforded by the short-horn bull,
Fifteenth Duke of Cambridge -- he had been informed that was his name.
That animal, in the first place, was sworn to most positively by Mr. Hood,
and claimed as his property. Other credible witnesses testified also
to his identity, and corroborated the evidence of Mr. Hood in all respects;
the ownership and identity of the animal are thus established
beyond all doubt.

Then there was the auctioneer, Mr. Runnimall, who swore that this animal
had been, with other cattle, placed in his hands for sale
by the older prisoner. The bull is accordingly sold publicly by him,
and in the prisoner's presence. He subsequently receives from the witness
the price, about 270 Pounds, for which the bull was sold.
The younger prisoner was there at the same time, and witnessed
the sale of the bull and other cattle, giving such assistance
as would lead to the conclusion that he was concerned in the transaction.

He did not wish to reflect upon this or any other jury,
but he could not help recalling the fact that a jury in that town
once committed the unpardonable fault, the crime, he had almost said,
of refusing to find a prisoner guilty against whom well confirmed evidence
had been brought. It had been his advice to the Minister for Justice,
so glaring was the miscarriage of justice to which he referred,
that the whole of the jurymen who had sat upon that trial should be struck
off the roll. This was accordingly done.

He, the judge, was perfectly convinced in his own mind
that no impropriety of this sort was likely to be committed
by the intelligent, respectable jury whom he saw before him;
but it was his duty to warn them that, in his opinion, they could not bring in
any verdict but `Guilty' if they respected their oaths.
He should leave the case confidently in their hands,
again impressing upon them that they could only find one verdict
if they believed the evidence.

. . . . .

The jury all went out. Then another case was called on, and a fresh jury
sworn in for to try it. We sat in the dock. The judge told Starlight
he might sit down, and we waited till they came back.
I really believe that waiting is the worst part of the whole thing,
the bitterest part of the punishment. I've seen men when they were being
tried for their lives -- haven't I done it, and gone through it myself? --
waiting there an hour -- two hours, half through the night,
not knowing whether they was to be brought in guilty or not.
What a hell they must have gone through in that time -- doubt and dread,
hope and fear, wretchedness and despair, over and over and over again.
No wonder some of 'em can't stand it, but keeps twitching and shifting
and getting paler and turning faint when the jury comes back,
and they think they see one thing or the other written in their faces.
I've seen a strong man drop down like a dead body when the judge
opened his mouth to pass sentence on him. I've seen 'em faint, too,
when the foreman of the jury said `Not guilty.' One chap,
he was an innocent up-country fellow, in for his first bit of duffing,
like we was once, he covered his face with his hands when he found
he was let off, and cried like a child. All sorts and kinds of different ways
men takes it. I was in court once when the judge asked a man
who'd just been found guilty if he'd anything to say why he shouldn't pass
sentence of death upon him. He'd killed a woman, cut her throat,
and a regular right down cruel murder it was (only men 'll kill women
and one another, too, for some causes, as long as the world lasts);
and he just leaned over the dock rails, as if he'd been going
to get three months, and said, cool and quiet, `No, your Honour;
not as I know of.' He'd made up his mind to it from the first, you see,
and that makes all the difference. He knew he hadn't the ghost of a chance
to get out of it, and when his time came he faced it. I remember seeing
his worst enemy come into the court, and sit and look at him then
just to see how he took it, but he didn't make the least sign.
That man couldn't have told whether he seen him or not.

Starlight and I wasn't likely to break down -- not much --
whatever the jury did or the judge said. All the same,
after an hour had passed, and we still waiting there, it began to be
a sickening kind of feeling. The day had been all taken up
with the evidence and the rest of the trial; all long, dragging hours
of a hot summer's day. The sun had been blazing away all day
on the iron roof of the courthouse and the red dust of the streets,
that lay inches deep for a mile all round the town. The flies buzzed
all over the courthouse, and round and round, while the lawyers
talked and wrangled with each other; and still the trial went on.
Witness after witness was called, and cross-examined and bullied,
and confused and contradicted till he was afraid to say
what he knew or what he didn't know. I began to think it must be
some kind of performance that would go on for ever and never stop,
and the day and it never could end.

At last the sun came shining level with the lower window,
and we knew it was getting late. After a while the twilight began
to get dimmer and grayer. There isn't much out there when the sun goes down.
Then the judge ordered the lamps to be lighted.

Just at that time the bailiff came forward.

`Your Honour, the jury has agreed.' I felt my teeth shut hard;
but I made no move or sign. I looked over at Starlight. He yawned.
He did, as I'm alive.

`I wish to heaven they'd make more haste,' he said quietly;
`his Honour and we are both being done out of our dinners.'

I said nothing. I was looking at the foreman's face. I thought I knew
the word he was going to say, and that word was `Guilty.' Sure enough
I didn't hear anything more for a bit. I don't mind owning that.
Most men feel that way the first time. There was a sound like rushing waters
in my ears, and the courthouse and the people all swam before my eyes.

The first I heard was Starlight's voice again, just as cool and leisurely
as ever. I never heard any difference in it, and I've known him speak
in a lot of different situations. If you shut your eyes you couldn't tell
from the tone of his voice whether he was fighting for his life or asking you
to hand him the salt. When he said the hardest and fiercest thing
-- and he could be hard and fierce -- he didn't raise his voice;
he only seemed to speak more distinct like. His eyes were worse
than his voice at such times. There weren't many men that liked
to look back at him, much less say anything.

Now he said, `That means five years of Berrima, Dick, if not seven.
It's cooler than these infernal logs, that's one comfort.'

I said nothing. I couldn't joke. My throat was dry,
and I felt hot and cold by turns. I thought of the old hut by the creek,
and could see mother sitting rocking herself, and crying out loud,
and Aileen with a set dull look on her face as if she'd never speak
or smile again. I thought of the days, months, years that were to pass
under lock and key, with irons and shame and solitude all for company.
I wondered if the place where they shut up mad people was like a gaol,
and why we were not sent there instead.

I heard part of what the judge said, but not all -- bits here and there.
The jury had brought in a most righteous verdict; just what
he should have expected from the effect of the evidence upon an intelligent,
well-principled Nomah jury. (We heard afterwards that they were six to six,
and then agreed to toss up how the verdict was to go.)
`The crime of cattle and horse stealing had assumed gigantic proportions.
Sheep, as yet, appeared to be safe; but then there were not very many
within a few hundred miles of Nomah. It appeared to him that the prisoner
known as Starlight, though from old police records his real name
appeared to be ----'

Here he drew himself up and faced the judge in defiance. Then like lightning
he seemed to change, and said --

`Your Honour, I submit that it can answer no good purpose to disclose
my alleged name. There are others -- I do not speak for myself.'

The judge stopped a bit; then hesitated. Starlight bowed.
`I do not -- a -- know whether there is any necessity to make public
a name which many years since was not better known than honoured.
I say the -- a -- prisoner known as Starlight has, from the evidence,
taken the principal part in this nefarious transaction.
It is not the first offence, as I observe from a paper I hold in my hand.
The younger prisoner, Marston, has very properly been found
guilty of criminal complicity with the same offence. It may be
that he has been concerned in other offences against the law,
but of that we have no proof before this court. He has not been
previously convicted. I do not offer advice to the elder criminal;
his own heart and conscience, the promptings of which I assume
to be dulled, not obliterated, I feel convinced, have said more to him
in the way of warning, condemnation, and remorse than could
the most impressive rebuke, the most solemn exhortation from a judicial bench.
But to the younger man, to him whose vigorous frame has but lately attained
the full development of early manhood, I feel compelled to appeal
with all the weight which age and experience may lend. I adjure him to accept
the warning which the sentence I am about to pass will convey to him,
to endure his confinement with submission and repentance, and to lead
during his remaining years, which may be long and comparatively peaceful,
the free and necessarily happy life of an honest man.
The prisoner Starlight is sentenced to seven years' imprisonment;
the prisoner Richard Marston to five years' imprisonment;
both in Berrima Gaol.'

I heard the door of the dock unclose with a snap. We were taken out;
I hardly knew how. I walked like a man in his sleep. `Five years,
Berrima Gaol! Berrima Gaol!' kept ringing in my ears.

The day was done, the stars were out, as we moved across from the courthouse
to the lock-up. The air was fresh and cool. The sun had gone down;
so had the sun of our lives, never to rise again.

Morning came. Why did it ever come again? I thought. What did we want
but night? -- black as our hearts -- dark as our fate -- dismal as the death
which likely would come quick as a living tomb, and the sooner the better.
Mind you, I only felt this way the first time. All men do, I suppose,
that haven't been born in gaols and workhouses. Afterwards they take
a more everyday view of things.

`You're young and soft, Dick,' Starlight said to me as we were rumbling along
in the coach next day, with hand and leg-irons on, and a trooper
opposite to us. `Why don't I feel like it? My good fellow,
I have felt it all before. But if you sear your flesh or your horse's
with a red-hot iron you'll find the flesh hard and callous ever after.
My heart was seared once -- ay, twice -- and deeply, too.
I have no heart now, or if I ever feel at all it's for a horse.
I wonder how old Rainbow gets on.'

`You were sorry father let us come in the first time,' I said.
`How do you account for that, if you've no heart?'

`Really! Well, listen, Richard. Did I? If you guillotine a man
-- cut off his head, as they do in France, with an axe that falls
like the monkey of a pile-driver -- the limbs quiver and stretch,
and move almost naturally for a good while afterwards.
I've seen the performance more than once. So I suppose
the internal arrangements immediately surrounding my heart
must have performed some kind of instinctive motion in your case and Jim's.
By the way, where the deuce has Jim been all this time? Clever James!'

`Better ask Evans here if the police knows. It is not for want of trying
if they don't.'

`By the Lord Harry, no!' said the trooper, a young man who saw no reason
not to be sociable. `It's the most surprisin' thing out where he's got to.
They've been all round him, reg'lar cordon-like, and he must have disappeared
into the earth or gone up in a balloon to get away.'

Chapter 19

It took us a week's travelling or more to get to Berrima.
Sometimes we were all night in the coach as well as all day.
There were other passengers in the coach with us. Two or three bushmen,
a station overseer with his wife and daughter, a Chinaman,
and a lunatic that had come from Nomah, too. I think it's rough on the public
to pack madmen and convicts in irons in the same coach with them.
But it saves the Government a good deal of money, and the people
don't seem to care. They stand it, anyhow.

We would have made a bolt of it if we'd had a chance, but we never had,
night nor day, not half a one. The police were civil, but they never left us,
and slept by us at night. That is, one watched while the other slept.
We began to sleep soundly ourselves and to have a better appetite.
Going through the fresh air had something to do with it, I daresay.
And then there was no anxiety. We had played for a big stake and lost.
Now we had to pay and make the best of it. It was the tenth day
(there were no railways then to shorten the journey)
when we drove up to the big gate and looked at the high walls and dark,
heavy lines of Berrima Gaol, the largest, the most severe,
the most dreaded of all the prisons in New South Wales. It had leaked out
the day before, somehow, that the famous Starlight and the other prisoner
in the great Momberah cattle robbery were to be brought in
this particular day. There was a fair-sized crowd gathered as we were helped
down from the coach. At the side of the crowd was a small mob of blacks
with their dogs, spears, 'possum rugs and all complete.
They and their gins and pickaninnies appeared to take
great notice of the whole thing. One tallish gin, darker than the others,
and with her hair tucked under an old bonnet, wrapped her 'possum cloak
closely round her shoulders and pushed up close to us. She looked hard
at Starlight, who appeared not to see her. As she drew back
some one staggered against her; an angry scowl passed over her face,
so savage and bitter that I felt quite astonished. I should have
been astonished, I mean, if I had not been able, by that very change,
to know again the restless eyes and grim set mouth of Warrigal.

It was only a look, and he was gone. The lock creaked, the great iron door
swung back, and we were swallowed up in a tomb -- a stone vault where men
are none the less buried because they have separate cells. They do not live,
though they appear to be alive; they move, and sometimes speak,
and appear to hear words. Some have to be sent away and buried outside.
They have been dead a long time, but have not seemed to want putting
in the ground. That makes no change in them -- not much, I mean.
If they sleep it's all right; if they don't sleep anything must be happiness
after the life they have escaped. `Happy are the dead' is written
on all prison walls.

What I suffered in that first time no tongue can tell. I can't bear now
to think of it and put it down. The solitary part of it was enough
to drive any man mad that had been used to a free life. Day after day,
night after night, the same and the same and the same over again.

Then the dark cells. I got into them for a bit. I wasn't always
as cool as I might be -- more times that mad with myself that I could have
smashed my own skull against the wall, let alone any one else's.
There was one of the warders I took a dislike to from the first, and he to me,
I don't doubt. I thought he was rough and surly. He thought I wanted
to have my own way, and he made it up to take it out of me,
and run me every way he could. We had a goodish spell of fighting over it,
but he gave in at last. Not but what I'd had a lot to bear,
and took a deal of punishment before he jacked up. I needn't have had it.
It was all my own obstinacy and a sort of dogged feeling that made me feel
I couldn't give in. I believe it done me good, though. I do really think
I should have gone mad else, thinking of the dreadful long months and years
that lay before me without a chance of getting out.

Sometimes I'd take a low fit and refuse my food, and very near
give up living altogether. The least bit more, and I'd have died outright.
One day there was a party of ladies and gentlemen came to be shown over
the gaol. There was a lot of us passing into the exercise yard.
I happened to look up for a minute, and saw one of the ladies
looking steadily at us, and oh! what a pitying look there was in her face.
In a moment I saw it was Miss Falkland, and, by the change that came
into her face, that she knew me again, altered as I was. I wondered
how she could have known me. I was a different-looking chap from when
she had seen me last. With a beastly yellow-gray suit of prison clothes,
his face scraped smooth every day, like a fresh-killed pig,
and the look of a free man gone out of his face for ever --
how any woman, gentle or simple, ever can know a man in gaol beats me.
Whether or no, she knew me. I suppose she saw the likeness to Jim,
and she told him, true enough, she'd never forget him
nor what he'd done for her.

I just looked at her, and turned my head away. I felt as if
I'd make a fool of myself if I didn't. All the depth down that I'd fallen
since I was shearing there at Boree rushed into my mind at once.
I nearly fell down, I know. I was pretty weak and low then;
I'd only just come out of the doctor's hands.

I was passing along with the rest of the mob. I heard her voice
quite clear and firm, but soft and sweet, too. How sweet
it sounded to me then!

`I wish to speak a few words to the third prisoner in the line --
the tall one. Can I do so, Captain Wharton?'

`Oh! certainly, Miss Falkland,' said the old gentleman,
who had brought them all in to look at the wonderful neat garden,
and the baths, and the hospital, and the unnatural washed-up,
swept-up barracks that make the cleanest gaol feel worse
than the roughest hut. He was the visiting magistrate,
and took a deal of interest in the place, and believed he knew
all the prisoners like a book. `Oh! certainly, my dear young lady.
Is Richard Marston an acquaintance of yours?'

`He and his brother worked for my father at Boree,' she said, quite stately.
`His brother saved my life.'

I was called back by the warder. Miss Falkland stepped out before them all,
and shook hands with me. Yes, SHE SHOOK HANDS WITH ME,
and the tears came into her eyes as she did so.

If anything could have given a man's heart a turn the right way that would
have done it. I felt again as if some one cared for me in the world,
as if I had a soul worth saving. And people may talk as they like,
but when a man has the notion that everybody has given him up as a bad job,
and has dropped troubling themselves about him, he gets worse and worse,
and meets the devil half-way.

She said --

`Richard Marston, I cannot tell how grieved I am to see you here.
Both papa and I were so sorry to hear all about those Momberah cattle.'

I stammered out something or other, I hardly knew what.

She looked at me again with her great beautiful eyes like a wondering child.

`Is your brother here too?'

`No, Miss Falkland,' I said. `They've never caught Jim yet,
and, what's more, I don't think they will. He jumped on a bare-backed horse
without saddle or bridle, and got clear.'

She looked as if she was going to smile, but she didn't.
I saw her eyes sparkle, though, and she said softly --

`Poor Jim! so he got away; I am glad of that. What a wonderful rider he was!
But I suppose he will be caught some day. Oh, I do so wish
I could say anything that would make you repent of what you have done,
and try and do better by and by. Papa says you have a long life before you
most likely, and might do so much with it yet. You will try, for my sake;
won't you now?'

`I'll do what I can, miss,' I said; `and if I ever see Jim again
I'll tell him of your kindness.'

`Thank you, and good-bye,' she said, and she held out her hand again
and took mine. I walked away, but I couldn't help holding my head higher,
and feeling a different man, somehow.

I ain't much of a religious chap, wasn't then, and I am farther off it now
than ever, but I've heard a power of the Bible and all that read in my time;
and when the parson read out next Sunday about Jesus Christ dying for men,
and wanting to have their souls saved, I felt as if I could have
a show of understanding it better than I ever did before.
If I'd been a Catholic, like Aileen and mother, I should have settled what
the Virgin Mary was like when she was alive, and never said a prayer to her
without thinking of Miss Falkland.

While I was dying one week and getting over it another,
and going through all the misery every fellow has in his first year of gaol,
Starlight was just his old self all the time. He took it quite easy,
never gave any one trouble, and there wasn't a soul in the place
that wouldn't have done anything for him. The visiting magistrate
thought his a most interesting case, and believed in his heart
that he had been the means of turning him from the error of his ways --
he and the chaplain between them, anyhow. He even helped him
to be allowed to be kept a little separate from the other prisoners
(lest they should contaminate him!), and in lots of ways made his life
a bit easier to him.