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Lost Lenore: The Adventures of a Rolling Stone

Volume Three – Chapter Four.
The “Sweet Vale of Avoca.”

We arrived near the Avoca diggings late in the afternoon. Seeing a good spot for pitching a tent, my companion stopped, and proposed that we should go no further: as that place was exactly suited to his mind.

“All right,” said I. “If it suits you – you had better stay there.”

While the digger was disencumbering himself of his load, I walked on. I did so, because my travelling companion was a man whose acquaintance I did not care to cultivate any further. I did not take the trouble to satisfy myself of any reason for leaving him in this unceremonious manner. I only knew that I did not like his society; and, therefore, did not desire to pitch my tent near him – lest I might have more of it.

My principle objection to remaining with the man was this. I had formed an idea, that nothing was to be gained from him – neither knowledge, amusement, friendship, money, nor anything else – unless, perhaps, it might have been, a worse opinion of mankind; and this of itself, was just ground for my giving him the good-bye.

After going a little farther on, I pitched my tent in a place I made choice for myself.

Next morning I walked forth, to have a look at the new gold-field.

There are not many spectacles more interesting to the miner, than that termed a “rush” to a gold-field newly discovered, and reported to be “rich.”

The scene is one of the greatest excitement. On the ground to which the “rush” is directed, all the vices and amusements to be met with in large cities, soon make their appearance. Where, perhaps, a month before, not a human being could have been seen, taverns, with magnificent interior decorations, billiard-rooms, bowling-alleys, rifle-galleries, theatres, and dancing-saloons, will be erected; in short, a city, where, but a few weeks ago, there was nothing but the “howling” wilderness!

On my arrival at the Avoca diggings, I marked out a “claim,” and for several days my occupation was that of “shepherding” it.

To “shepherd a claim,” is to keep possession of, and merely retain it – until, by the working of other claims near, a tolerably correct opinion may be formed: as to whether yours will be worth digging or not.

The system of shepherding claims, is only practised where the gold lies some distance below the surface; and where the claim can only be prospected at the expense of some money and trouble.

The claim I had marked out, was a large one – larger in extent than one person was entitled to hold. For this reason, on the third day, after I had taken possession of it, another man bespoke a share in it along with me.

I did not like the look of this man; and would have objected to working with him; but he would not consent to divide the ground; and the only way I could get clear of him was, to yield up the claim altogether. This I did not wish to do: for it stood, or rather “lay,” in a good position for being “on the lead.”

I have said that I did not like the look of the intruder. This dislike to him arose, from the circumstance of his having a strong “Vandemonian expression” of countenance; and I had a great prejudice against those who, in the colonies, are called “old lags.”

We “shepherded” the claim together for a few days, when the prospect of its being on the lead, became so fair, that we at length commenced sinking a shaft.

The more I saw of my companion, while we were toiling together, the weaker grew my aversion to him; until, at length, I began to entertain for him a certain feeling of respect. This increased, as we became better acquainted.

I learnt that he was not from Tasmania, but from New South Wales; and my prejudice against the “Sydneyites” was even stronger (having been formed in California,) than against the “old hands” from Van Dieman’s Land.

The “Vandemonians,” generally speaking, have some good traits about them, that are seldom met amongst those from the “Sydney side.” The convicts from the former place, have more generosity in their wickedness, less disposition to turn approvers on their companions in crime, while at the same time, they display more manliness and daring in their misdeeds, than do the “Sydney birds.”

One would think, there could not be much difference between the criminals of the two colonies: since both originally come from the same school; but the characteristics distinguishing classes of transportees, change with the circumstances into which they may be thrown.

My new partner proved to be like few of the “downey coves” I had encountered in the diggings: for I found in him, a man possessing many good principles, from which he could not be easily tempted to depart.

He did not deny having been a convict, though, on the other hand – unlike most of his class – he never boasted of it.

“Drinks all round,” can usually be won from an old convict in the following manner: —

Offer to lay a wager, that you can tell for what crime he had been transported; and as his own word is generally the only evidence to be obtained for deciding the wager, ten to one it will be accepted. Tell him then: that he was “lagged for poaching,” and he will immediately acknowledge that he has lost, and cheerfully pay for the “drinks all round.”

This game could not have been played with the subject of my sketch: since he freely acknowledged the crime for which he had been transported: it was for killing a policeman.

One evening, as we sate in our tent, he related to me the story of his life; but, before giving it to my readers, I must treat them to a little explanation.

This narrative is entitled the “Adventures of a Rolling Stone,” and such being its title, there may be a complaint of its inappropriateness: because it also details the adventures of others. But part of the occupation of the hero, has been to observe what was going on around him; and, therefore, a faithful account, not only of what he did, but what he saw and heard – or in any way learnt – should be included in a true narrative of his adventures. Hearing a man relate the particulars of his past life, was to the “Rolling Stone,” an event in his own history; and, therefore, has he recorded it.

The reality of what is here written may be doubted; and the question will be asked: – how it was, that nearly every man who came in contact with the “Rolling Stone,” had a history to relate, and also related it?

The answer may be found in the following explanation: —

A majority of the men met with on the gold-fields of California and Australia, are universally, or at least generally, unlike those they have left behind them in the lands of their birth. Most gold-diggers are men of character, of some kind or other; and have, through their follies or misfortunes, made for themselves a history. There will almost always be found some passage of interest in the story of their lives – often in the event itself, which has forced them into exile, and caused them to wander thousands of miles away from their homes and their friends.

When it is further remembered: that the principle amusement of the most respectable of the gold-diggers, is that of holding social converse in their tents, or around their evening camp-fires, it will appear less strange, that amongst so many “men of character” one should become acquainted with not a few “romances of real life” – such as that of the “Vandemonian” who became my associate in the “sweet vale of Avoca,” and which is here recorded, as one of many a “convict’s story,” of which I have been the confidant.

Volume Three – Chapter Five.
A Convict’s Story

“You have expressed a desire to hear the story of my life,” said my mining partner. “I make you welcome to it. There is not much of my history that I should be ashamed to tell you of; but with that little I shall not trouble you. I have never done anything very bad, – that is, I have never robbed anybody, nor stolen anything that I did not really want.

“I am a native of Birmingham, in which town I resided until I was about twenty years of age.

“My father was a confirmed drunkard; and the little money he used to earn by working as a journeyman cutler, was pretty certain to be spent in gin.

“The support of himself, and four young children fell upon my mother, myself, and a brother – who was one year younger than I. In all Birmingham, there were not two boys more dutiful to their parents, more kind to their younger brothers and sisters, more industrious, and less selfish, than my brother and myself – at the time I am speaking of.

“Our hours were wholly occupied in doing all we could, to supply the wants of my father’s family.

“We sometimes attended an evening school. There we learnt to read and write; but even the time devoted to this, we would have considered as squandered, if we could have been doing anything else – to benefit the unfortunate family to which we belonged.

“One evening, after we had got to be grown up to manhood, my younger brother and I were returning from our work, when we saw our father at some distance off, in the middle of the street. We saw that he was intoxicated. Three policemen were around him – two of them with hands upon him.

“As usual with my father on such occasions, he was refractory; and the policemen were handling him in a very rough manner. One of them had struck him on the head with his baton, and my father’s face was covered with blood.

“My brother and I ran up, and offered to take him quietly home – if the policemen would allow us to do so; but as he had assaulted them, and torn their clothes, they refused to let us have him, and insisted in locking him up. My brother and I, then offered to take him to the lock-up ourselves; and, taking him by the hand, I entreated him to go quietly along with us.

“The policeman rudely pushed me aside, again collared my father, and commenced dragging him onward. Once more we interfered – though this time, only to entice our father to go with the policemen, without making any resistance.

“At that moment, one of the constables shouted ‘a rescue;’ and the three, without further provocation, commenced an assault upon my brother and myself.

“One of them seized me by the throat; and struck me several times on the head with his baton. We struggled awhile, and then both fell to the ground. I turned my head, while trying to get up again, and saw my brother lying on the pavement, with his face covered all over with blood. The policeman, who had fallen with me, still retained his clutch upon my throat; and again commenced beating me as soon as we had both recovered our feet. A loose stone, weighing about ten pounds, was lying upon the pavement. I seized hold of it, and struck my antagonist on the forehead. He fell like a bullock. When I looked around, I saw that my father – who was a very powerful man – had conquered the other two policemen. He seemed suddenly to have recovered from his intoxication; and now helped me to carry the constable I had felled, to the nearest public-house – where the man died a few hours after the affray.

“I was tried for manslaughter; and sentenced to ten years transportation.

“Not until then, did evil thoughts ever make their home in my mind.

“Up till the time I was torn from my relatives – for whom I had a great affection – and from the girl whom I fondly loved, I am willing to be responsible to God and man, for every thought I had, or every act I did. Ever since, having been deprived of liberty – dragged from all near and dear – with every social tie broken – and robbed of everything for which I cared to live – I do not think myself to blame for anything I may have done. I have been only a link in a chain of circumstances – a victim of the transportation system of England, that transforms incipient crime into hardened villainy.

“On arriving in New South Wales, I was placed in a gang with other convicts; and put to the business of pushing a wheel-barrow. We were employed in removing a hill, from the place where nature had set it: for no other reason, I believe, than for the purpose of keeping us from being idle! The labour was not severe; but the life was a very weary one. It was not the work that made it so to me. I was used to work, and did not dislike it, if there had been any sense in the task we had to perform. But I had no more idea of what my labour was for, than the wheel-barrow with which I performed it; and therefore I could feel no more interest in the work, than did the barrow itself.

“My toil was not sweetened with the reflection that it was in behalf of those I loved. On the contrary, I knew that the best years of my life were being uselessly squandered, while my mother and her children were perhaps suffering for food!

“I often asked myself the question: why I had been sent from home? It could not have been to reform me, and make me lead a better life, after the expiration of the term for which I had been sentenced. It could not have been for that: for no youth could have been more innocent of all evil intentions than I was, up to the time of my unfortunate affair with the policeman. All the philosophers of earth could not devise a scheme better adapted to corrupt the morals of a young man – make him forget all the good he had ever learnt – harden his soul against all the better feelings of human nature – and transform him from a weak frail mortal, with good intentions, into a very demon – than the transportation system of England.

“From the age of twenty years, until that of thirty, I consider the most valuable part of a man’s existence; and as this whole period was taken from me, I naturally regarded the future of my life, as scarce worth possessing. I became recklessly indifferent as to what my actions might be; and from that time they were wholly guided by the circumstances of the hour.

“Each month, I either heard, or saw, something calculated to conduct me still further along the path of crime. I do not say that all my companions were bad men; but most of them were: since my daily associates were thieves, and men guilty of crimes even worse than theft I am willing to acknowledge – which is more than some of them would do – that the fact of their being convicts was strong evidence of their being wicked men.

“After having spent nearly a year, between the trams of the wheel-barrow in the neighbourhood of Sydney, I was despatched with a gang to do some labourer’s work up the country.

“Most of the men in this gang, were wickeder than those, with whom I had previously been associated. This was perhaps owing to the fact that my new companions had been longer abroad, and were of course better trained to the transportation system.

“Some of them were suffering great agony through the want of tobacco and strong drink, in both of which – being many of them ‘ticket-of-leave’ holders – they had lately had a chance of freely indulging. That you may know something of the character of these men, and of the craving they had for tobacco, I shall tell you what I saw some of them do.

“Many of the wardens – as is usually the case – were greatly disliked by the convicts; and the latter, of course, took every opportunity of showing their hatred towards them.

“One morning, the gang refused to go to work – owing to a part of the usual allowance of food having been stopped from one of them, as they said, for no good reason. The overseer, in place of sending for the superintendent, attempted to force them to their tasks; and the result was a ‘row.’

“In the skrimmage that followed, one of the wardens – a man especially disliked by the convicts – was killed, while the overseer himself was carried senseless from the ground.

“The dead warden had been a sailor, and liked his ‘quid.’ He was generally to be seen with his mouth full of tobacco, and this was the case at the time he was killed. I saw the quid taken from his mouth, scarce ten minutes after he had become a corpse, by one of the convicts, who the instant after transferred it to his own!

“The overseer, at the time he got knocked down, was smoking a pipe. Scarce three minutes after, I saw the same pipe in the mouth of one of the men; and from its head was rolling a thick cloud of smoke!

“The fire in the pipe had not been allowed to expire; and the man who was smoking it was one of those afterwards hung for the murder of the warden!”

Volume Three – Chapter Six.
Squatters’ Justice

The old convict, as if reminded by the queer incidents he had related: that he himself stood in need of a smoke, here took out his pipe. After filling and lighting it, he resumed his narrative.

“Owing to refractory conduct on my part, and a dislike to crawling for the purpose of currying favour with overseers, I did not get a ‘ticket-of-leave’ until five years after landing in the colony.

“I then received one – with permission to go as shepherd to a ‘squatter’s station’ up the country. For acting in this capacity, I was to receive ten pounds a year of wages.

“I found the shepherd’s life a very weary one. The labour was not sufficient to keep me from thinking. During the whole day I had but little to do – except to indulge in regrets for the past, and despair of the future. Each day was so much like the one preceding it, that the time was not only monotonous, but terribly tiresome.

“Had I deserted my employment, I knew that I should be re-captured; and a new sentence passed upon me. My only hope of obtaining full freedom – at the end of my ten years’ term – was by doing my duty as well as I could.

“One morning, after I had been about ten months in my shepherd’s berth, as I was letting the sheep out of the enclosure, the squatter who owned the station, his overseer, and another man, came riding up.

“The sun was more than half an hour above the horizon; and as I ought to have had the sheep out upon the grass by sunrise, I was afraid the squatter would blame me for neglecting my duty. I was agreeably surprised at his not doing so.

“He bade me ‘good morning,’ lit his pipe, took a look at the sheep; and then rode away along with the others.

“This treatment, instead of making me more neglectful, only rendered me more attentive to my duty; and every morning for three weeks after, the sheep were out of the yard by the first appearance of day-break.

“It was summer time, and the nights being very short, I could not always wake myself at such an early hour. The consequence was, that about three weeks before the expiration of the year, for which I was bound, my employer again caught me napping – nearly an hour after sun-up – with the sheep still in the penn.

“The squatter would listen to no excuse. I was taken direct before a magistrate – who was also a ‘squatter’ – and charged with neglect of duty.

“The charge was of course proved; and I was dismissed from my employment.

“You may think that this was no punishment; but you will have a different opinion when you hear more. My year of apprenticeship not being quite up, my wages were forfeited; and I was told, that I ought to be thankful for the mercy shown me: in my not getting severely flogged, and sent back to the authorities, with a black mark against my name!

“I probably did my duty, as well as any man the squatter expected to get; and I had good reason to know, that I had been dismissed only to give my rascally employer the opportunity of withholding the balance of my wages, that would soon have been due to me!

“The only magistrates in the grazing country, were the squatters themselves; and they used to play into each other’s hands in that fashion. There was no justice for convicts, who were treated but little better than slaves.

“Three months after leaving my situation, I came across an ‘old hand,’ who had been cheated out of his wages, by the very same squatter who had robbed me, and in precisely the same manner.

“This man proposed to me that we should take revenge – by burning down the squatter’s wool-sheds.

“I refused to have anything to do with the undertaking; and from what the man then said, I supposed that he had relinquished the idea. That night, however, altogether unknown to me, he set fire to the sheds – causing the squatter a loss of about three thousand pounds worth of property. The next day I was arrested and committed for trial – along with the old hand, who had urged me to aid him in obtaining his revenge.

“On the trial, circumstantial evidence was so strong against the incendiary, that he was found guilty. But as he continued to assert his innocence, of course he could say nothing that would clear me; and I was also found guilty – though the only evidence against me was, that I had been seen in his company eight hours before the crime was committed, and that I had been dismissed from service by the proprietor of the sheds!

“This was thought sufficient evidence upon which to sentence me to five years hard labour on the roads – the first two years of the term to be passed in irons!

“I now despaired of ever seeing home again; and became, like many other convicts, so reckless as to have no thought for the future, and not to care whether my deeds were right or wrong.

“Had I acted as many of the very worst convicts are in the habit of doing – that is, fawning upon the overseers – I might have regained my liberty in two years and a half; but I never could crawl, or play the hypocrite; and all the less so, that I knew my sentence was unjust. Neither could I allow the ill-usage of others to pass without complaint; and frequently did I complain. For doing this, I had to serve the full term of my sentence, while others, much worse than myself, by using a little deception, obtained their liberty on ‘tickets-of-leave.’

“After the term of my transportation had expired, I was no better than most of the ‘old hands.’ If I have not committed all the crimes of which many of them are guilty, the reason is, that I had not the temptation: for, I acknowledge, that I have now completely lost the moral power to restrain me from crime.

“I happened to be free when gold was discovered in New South Wales; and, of course. I hastened to the place. After the discovery of the richer diggings here, I came overland to try them.

“In my gold seeking, I cannot complain of want of success; and I have not spent all that I have made.

“I am thinking of going back to England – although my visit to my native country cannot be a very pleasant one. I have, probably, some brothers and sisters still living; but, notwithstanding the strong affection I once had for them, they are nothing to me now. All human feeling has been flogged, starved, and tortured out of me.

“Sometimes, when I reflect on the degradations I have endured, I am ashamed to think of myself as a human being.

“When I look back to the innocent and happy days of my boyhood – of what I aspired to be – only an honest, respectable, hard-working man, when I contrast those days, and those humble hopes, with the scenes I have since passed through, and my present condition – my back scarred with repeated floggings, and my limbs marked by the wear of iron fetters – I am not unwilling to die.

“I am glad to learn that a change has been made in the mode of punishing crime in the mother country. It has not been done too soon: for, bad as many of the convicts are – who are transported from the large cities of the United Kingdom – they cannot be otherwise than made worse, by the system followed here. A convict coming to this country meets with no associations, precepts, or examples, that tend to reform him; but, on the contrary, every evil passion and propensity is strengthened, if it has existed before; and imbibed, if it has not.

“Having told you a good deal of my past, I should like to be able to add something of my future; but cannot. Some men are very ingenious in inventing food for hope: I am not. I don’t know for what I am living: for every good and earnest motive seems to have been stifled within me. Hope, love, despair, revenge, and all the other mental powers that move man to action, are dead within my heart. I having nothing more to tell you of myself; and probably never shall have.”

So ended the sad story of the convict.