LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1859, 7 February 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A TROOPER’S NIGHT WATCH : A TALE OF THE AUSTRALIAN BUSH.

[From “ Temple Bar, ”3

On the edge of an Australian forest stood some years ago a crazy bash hut. No other human dwelling was visible to the eye [from thence, the nearest neighbour being at least two miles distant. The hut stood by the side of a road which led to some of the inland townships, winding along beside the forest trees : a road freshly cleared, on which still cropped up here and there some treacherous root half hidden by the sod, or some gnarled and blackened stump, the ruin of some ancient tree. The spot had not much of beauty to allure the eye, except perhaps that vague mysterious charm which lingers round forest scenery even of the most monotonous kind, as this was. It was not a cheerful place to choose a home. Yet in the lonely hut lived two persons who were not hermits nor haters of their kind. At all events they lived by their kind, for Dan and his wife Bell kept a small ‘ shanty,’ or drinking shop, for the refreshment of such passers by as frequented the road; teamsters chiefly, or drovers guiding their flocks to market. The hut, whose dimensions were of the humblest, was built of rough slabs clumsily fitted together, and was roofed with long strips of bark. The larger of the two was fitted up as a kind of rude bar, where liquors of the most execrable sort were vended and usually consumed on the premises, to the detriment of the dusty, drouthy wayfarers. The other apartment, tbe only one which was provided with a fireplace, served at once the uses of the parlour, kitchen, and sleeping chamber to the couple who called the shabby dwelling home. Truth compels the statement that they themselves, the chief personages of this veracious narrative, wore singularly deficient in personal attractions ; nor was beauty of the mind in either of them more favourably developed than that of form. Dan was not one of whom his country had any signal reason to be proud. Whether, in the first instance, he had emigrated under compulsion at that country’s coat, and for her good, is not matter of history ; but, if so, his appearance would not have belied his antecedents. Sis liquors were bad, and sometimes betook more of them than temperance permitted; yet no worse crime than that of occasionally taking advantage of an easy customer, or a squabble with his better half, could be proved against him. So the teamsters would frequent the crazy shanty, and crack their jokes or smoke their pipes by the dim light of the tallow candles, till sleep drove them to their resting-place, by the camp-fire, under the waggon. ‘ Big Bell, ’ as Mrs Dan Brown was familarly called, was a formidable female, well able to fight her battles with the world in general, and with her husband in particular, She was the younger by some ten or twelve years ; tall and stout, with a countenance of most forbidding aspect. She might have been about forty years of age. Heavy masses of dark, ill-tended hair fell round a face which had once possessed a bold coarse kind of beauty, but which was now disfigured by the traces of passion and intemperance. A repulsive face it was, though the great dark eyes were still bright, for the expression of the wide mouth and heavy jaw was all low and sordid. Snch was the pai: who, in the year IS5—, lived in the slab hnl on the forest's edge. Here they had lived for several years, and though their quarrels were neither few nor secret, they still jogg-’d on together, and thought themselves, and vera thought by others, to be no worse helpnates to each other that many hundreds o: their fellow mortals, who contrive to turn holy matrimony into a very stormy and inholy compact Indeed. But on the life of nan, and on his character, progress is writen by the law of nature. There is no standiig still. We progress towards maturity, <r we decline towards decay. Therefore it came to pass that, after years spent withoit any very apparent change, a crisis suddeily happened in the wedded life of Dan and lell Brown, a crisis horrible and bloody, but not, unhappily, of nnfrequent occurrence A quarrel had arisen between them, in wfich both displayed more than usual acrimmy, and Bell defiantly loft her husband to spend the evening in a carouse with a party of carters camping by the creek side, :bout a mile distant from the shanty. Tie tired bullocks, which had been turned adrift to feed after the day’s journey, male tinkling music on the still air with the fells fastened around their wide necks. Bat .inkling bell or chirping cricVet or other »wo(t evening sound, fell unheeded on the ears of the wild group who marred with harsh hugh or coarse jest the stillness 1 of nature. Dan followed the womw, and

endeavored to persuade her to return with him,.ln vain; and when, in aggravation of his anger, she met him with jeering words, and the carters with blows, he left the camp in boundless fury, inwardly vowing to revenge himself on her who had brought upon him such insult and injury. Sullenly he crept home through the deepening darkness, with the rage and hatred growing In his heart as he reached the solitary hut. He would not permit himself to sleep, nor did he light a candle to beguije the time, as he sat keeping a horrible relentless watch in the lonely dwelling among the melancholy trees, silent in the black darkness, lest she should guess his purpose, lest she should in any way be prepared for the dread watcher who awaited her with the thirst for revenge, if not indeed with murder in his heart. The hours wore slowly away, and still the wretched woman tarried, while ths man sat on with remorseless patience which would have curdled the blood in her veins had she known it. She must have had some apprehension, however, for it was early morning before she ventured to return ; just in the grey, cold g'oimlng, while the shadows of night were a!• vly yielding to the dim advance of dawn, when she trusted to find Dan wrapped in deep slumbers. Gaining confidence in the stillness that enveloped her hut, she boldly crossed the threshold, but was met with a full welcome, like that with which the wild beast springs on its prey. Perhaps even then Dan did not intend the horrible sequel—perhaps ; but who can tell ? Who that gives passion a lose reign can presume to limit its flight ? From Dan Brown and his wife the guardian angel flew away affrighted when, at that still morning hour, in the dewy freshness of halfawakened nature, two wretched mortals closed together in the struggle which did not terminate till one lay lifeless on the ground. While the fray was going on which was to end in murder, and while the fierce cries of rage and terror rose on the air, a teamster passed by with his waggon. He heard the hideous sounds, but passed on ; a man and wife were quarrelling—no matter how deadly the feud might be, it was not his business, he thought; so put forth no hand to help or save, and the tragedy had its course. What Dan may have felt when it was all over and the lifeless body lay at his feet, who shall say ? Whatever he may have thought or felt however, did not affect his stolid faoe and demeanor. He made no attempt to fly from the spot, nor did he even take measures to conceal the deed from the eye of man. He only lifted the corpse from the ground and removed it, bleeding and ghastly as it was, to the shed at the back of the hut, where he let it lie. Then he went about his business as usual, serving the customers at his bar j a little more surly and curt in his manner and words perhaps, but evincing neither fear nor remorse at the thought of his crime. Suspicion was soon on the alert, however. The teamster who with such marvellous apathy had ‘passed by cn the other side,’ while help might have availed, did not fail to speak of the cries he had heard, as he went on his way, to those he met. The rumour flew swiftly among the scanty population of the neighbourhood, coupled with darker surmising. Customers came carious eyed to peer| out the mystery, and when Dan alone faced them, and no lingering availed to draw forth the familiar form of his partner from her chamber, snspioion grew to certainty, and murder was openly talked of. In ithe afternoon three mounted constables rode up, coming from different directions whither the news had spread, and stopped at the shanty, where they found Dan still behind the bar. He did not show much surprise or alarm at the visit of the officers of the law, though he guessed its import well enough ; nor when charged with the wilful murder of his wife did he attempt any denial of the accusation, but, when asked what he had done with the body, with passive snllenuesa indicated the place where it. Dan, having admitted the crime, was taken prisoner, and it being necessary to remove him to a safe place of custody before nightfall, the constables cast lots to determine which of them should be left in charge of the corpse and the premises, while the other two should convey the prisoner to the country * look-up.’ • The former naturally was not a pleasing office, for the afternoon was far advanced, and to many otherwise strong-minded persons there is a superstitious horror in the thought of a night alone with the dead. The lot fell on Trooper Callansne, a bold and fearless man, who had been engaged in many a hazardous capture, and who had never been found wanting in any task that required courage or energy ; but it must be confessed that even he did not contemp'ate with any great satisfaction the prospect of the night to he spent in that lonely hut. His two comrades smiled contentedly at the lot which exempted them from an office neither was at all anxious to undertake, and, having handcuffed their man, took their leave, well pleased with the more active dnty that had fallen to their share. Before they set off, however, the corpse was carried in from the open shed, where it lay grim and stark, in all the hideous dishonor of a violent death, exposed to the attacks of the savage native oats by which the place was infested. It was borne into the bed-chamber, where it was laid on the narrow stretcher, and composed to rest as decently as the rigid limbs would permit. The face was horrible to look at; the fallen jaw broken, the sknll battered with some heavy instrument, the eyes wide open with a glassy stare of never dying fear and hatred—a dreadful face, which, once seen, most often come back to hannt the memory—a face, repulsive enough in life, but immeasurably more so in the deathly immobility in which there seemed no peace —disturbed still, though so pale, with the thick matted hair hanging dishevelled around it, while the blood-stained, disordered garments hung loosely round the lifeless form. The officials of the law, well trained as they were to sights and scenes of various kinds, could not forbear a feeling of mingled disgust and horror as they laid the dead woman down. The husband gave a furtive glance at his handiwork, and, callous though he was breathed more freely as they covered the body with a sheet, which veiled it from sight.

Trooper Callanane watched his comrades as they rode away with their prisoner till they disappeared in the distance. Heavy stormclonds were rising rapidly with the wind, which moaned dolefully among the she oaks. He stood and watched them as they gathered and darkened, foldie g the earth in a dull grey mantle of vapor. In the west the sun was sinking red and angry below the horizon, and between the gusts of wind came the sullen oppressive weight of stillness which is apt to be the forerunner of a violent storm. He lingered, reluctant to return to the polluted precincts of the hut; bnt the setting sun warned him that the short twilight would soon be over, and that the night was creeping qniokly on. A long night of darkness, face to face with only the dread presence within, was a possibility not pleasant to contemplate, and it was necessary by all means to make timely provision against such a trial. Accordingly the trooper went within and commenced a diligent search for candles, succeeding at length in discovering a few dingy, ill strained home-made tallow dips; sufficient, at all events, to ensure him against hours of dark ness, peopled, perhaps, with the undefined images of fear which imagination conjures up. He next proceeded to make a fire in the chamber where the dead woman was laid, and where he must needs pass the night, not resting till he had provided himself with fuel enough to last till morning. These arrangement completed, he commenced a somewhat hopeless search for any kind of literature wherewith to beguile the time. It was impossible, he felt, to touch either meat or drink in that loathsome place—the very thought of it seemed to sicken him, bnt he would gladly have alighted on some friendly author, whose pages might give pleasanter occupation to his thoughts than was afforded by the painful objects surrounding him. No such enlivening resource was at hand, however, and the only book he could find after a careful search was an odd volume of the ‘ Newgate Calendar,’ replete with narratives of crime and violence; grimly appropriate, indeed, under the existing circumstances, but not a desirable or exhilarating subject to study at the particular time and place. However, with this the trooper was fain to be content, having no other choice. Before settling himself to its perusal, he went out of doors again to watch the fading light, and looked abroad on the intense unbroken solitude of the scene, dreary now, and cheerless as mind could well conceive. Low deep thunder was muttering with a hollow omi- [ nous sound in the distance, and great single rain-drops fell heavily on the dusty road,

while the trees swayed and creaked in the rising gale and the shadows fell darkening round. Not a single human being was within sight or call; not even the friendly bark of a dog or the sociable tinkle of the bullock bells was to be heard, for the teamsters bad broken np their camps and gone forward on their way ; and the night threatened to be such as no man would care to face unless compelled by dire nf C’ssity.

* Ugh !’ said Trooper Callanane to himself, as he shrugged his shoulders with a slight shiver; ‘ a rare night we’ll have of it. I wouldn’t mind if the lot had come to one of those other fellows. But I’ll just have to make the best of a bad job. It’s piercing cold. 1

With this soliloquy he wont inside, closing the door behind him, and as philosophically as he might took np his position in the room where the murdered woman lay on the stretcher under the white sheet—a more real chamber of horrors by far than that with which Madame Tussaud’s heirs delight to fascinate and harrow our feelings, {To he continued.')