FACT AND FICTION

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 368, 25 March 1876, Page 3

FACT AND FICTION

t Wrilien specially lor the 'MorNT Ida Ciiromcle' by Dr. Svrigh-ily, F.R.S.) WO. I. IS IT TRUE? Such A friendship as had mastered Time, Which masters Time indeed, and is Eternal " Tom Trumball and I met in a characteristic way in 1861. James Crofts had taken up a claim on Surface Hill. I had joined him in the autumn, and in the spring we were cutlinu up a tail lace, in order to get a better fall from the face. The ground was known to be treacherous, and for the first week or two we were cautious. Continued caution is as tiresome as the knowledge of continued danger. The 30th of August was more than usually severe. A fog had hung about all day, clearing away in the evening before a full moon. The frost in -lie morning lay on the ground thick enough to be cut. About noon we went up to the race —thinking, perhaps, lo be >dile to get to work for an hour or two. While I looked up the hill to see if the water was turned on Cr«fts walked up the race. Just as lie readied the end, twenty-five feet in depth, about fifteen feet of the side that was exposed to the sun cracked and slipped down. Hearing the slip, I hurried back, and found Crofts so far quite safe, with about ten feet of the race where he was still open. If another slip occurred his death was certain. The top was about twenty feet across, the sides were nearly perpendicular, and the slip completely blocked the race below. I saw no way of getting him up. If he were to attempt the sides the chances were he would tie struck down. The end. though safer, was too steep, and overhung in the top. Shouting to, him for God's sake to keep still while I got help, I started across to the nearest claim. Outrunning those I was bringing back with me, I found a man who had meanwhile used his brains to some purpose. A windlass had been fixed for a prosp<>cting party a week or two previous, quite close to our race. Taking the rope he had cut it in two. He hud then stretched one piece across the race, making it fast to a crowbar on the one side, and to a boulder buried in the loose gravel on the other, fixing the other piece, with a turn in the centre, he had jet an end down to Crofts, while he steadied all at the head. As T cai. eup breathless Crofts was pulling himself up hand over hand, and was at my side just as about five cwt. of stufl'fell where he had a minute before been standing. The stranger lit his pipe, laconically observing—' A near .ouch and go mate that time. Bless my stars, wh-1 a short road it is sometimes to kingdom come !' 'I owe you I did tot try it,' replied Crofts. 'II ever you or yours gets into trouble depend on James Crofts or his pall.' ' That you may, I added heartily, as the men I had called came up, each eager to learn how it all happened. Presently a party from the town, together with the doctor, also came hurrying up, for th-; report had been quickly spread—Another man killed on Surface Hill! The stranger, unobserved by any of us, bad quietly gone away. On the following Saturday evening I came across him under Busch's verandah. Asking him over to Hunter's, I found o jt. he had nothing in view ; and; lo cul a long story short, he agreed to join me in the Hill claim, giving Crofts, who was sick of it and wanted to go to Picton, £2O for his share.

"Tom was as '«arm-hearted a man as I ever met. To me he had very little to say. What he said was like his pipe, short, and to 'he purpose. To others he was talkative enough, and I was told that at the weekly dance at the Masonic Mall there were few livelier or more popular partners than he. For some time I thought he was selfish arid cold-hearted. I learned to know him better. When 1 became interested in hiin I tried to find cut something of his life ; but it was no good. He always fenced with my questions, laughed at me, and generally would wind up —'Never mind, old fellow, d<m't look so confoundedly serious. I never killed anybody—quite. I am eminently respectable.' I would laugh in my turn, but would still urge on him that it was the duty of every man at least to have a history. What I know of him came out accidentally as it were. Sometimes he would taJk, more as if to himself tiiau to me, and somehow the most of what he told me—niore than what I shall write—came hack to me afterwards. ' Yes,' he said, one summer night, when wo were watching the race for fear of Chinamen, ' I did not always wear moleskins. I had good chances, as the saying goes. Father wasted a heap of money to educate me—uot that the education came to much. I learnt, something of dog-latin, and a good deal of football. At home it was arranged that I was to turn serious, and take to the Church, going round among the old women ou Monday afternoons with hashisof dinner tied in napkins, and reading the church service for father on Sundays till I got the presentation in my own right. My si-ters liked the notion of brother lorn surplieed,and so forth, and used to dress up an ugly-looking poodle in ca nonicals once a week by way of rehearsal. I nev.-r took kindly to the notion. I had no inclination to preach what I did not understand. I was still less inclined to hind myself on i lie strength of being told [ would tcarif. J.he tnitu came out at last, and there was a flare-up. Father said hard worris, which I would have borne for the sake of my mother; but at last he told me I had deceived him and sacrificed my sisters, and now meant, to be a drag on him und them. 1 said nothina; but that night I left home, and to this day it is not known what became of me. One friend at home supplies me with news, but • slieldoes not-know where I am. Her letters are forwarded to rite as T happen to arrange. I first went, to Cat.ada as a stowaway, was hauled out, and took niv •passage out in slushing and lamp-clean-ing.' I worked down into the States, shipped from San Francisco to Panama, and ; later worked my way m the Kaikora to New Zi'alajid. I never was ill. I appear to everyone, as to you, a reckless, careless felh w. I can't pretend to be miserable, lhere is a sort of animal cnj o3'merit in health and life. You say my Jile is objectless. I don't know that. What, is the use of an object, after all, except for self-sacrifice ? 'l am sometimes useful, and save a little suffering. I cannot see into a future. Duty seems to me to be life in the present, which, so far as possible, makes things smooth to other animals, men, horses, and so forth. I was at Coromandel and theßuller, but I never got a good Perhaps I did not care

for it enough. There will be an end to it some day, no doubt—lhe Benevolent or ' l'f ; But, look ! is that an object in the race?" No; I see it is but the shadow of waving grass oh the top.' ' " That was the most connected story I ever got from Tom, and it ended as abruptlj' as it began, I believe on. purpose. He always apj eared to have a bridle in his mouth. I think St. Stephen, if he could speak, would tell me more than 1 ever knew*. St. Stephen is an ugly cup, whose father and mother are alike to himselfandto fame unknown. Tom rescued him from a party boys near Mrs. Runners. He had been hull' drowned in an old paddock, the boys trying to see how much weight he could float, and when cramped with cold, and unable to run with a kerosene tin slufFed with lighted crackers, he was about to be stoned for his want of life. A young rascal had already dubbed him St. Stephen, and another was, coat in hand, ready to witness the execution, when Turn and I came along from our work. Tom's face, usually serene, twitched in such a way that the bnys thought discre tion was the better part of valor, and took to their heels, leaving St. Stephen and his rescuer together, to remain so till—— But I anticipate. Tom's religion was a puzzle to rue. He had a small bible, which I never knew him read, yet winch was always at the head of his stretcher. One day lie told me he had been soaked to deep in it when young to be able to understand what he now read. It was too giib aud familiar. He even threatened once to buy a Greek Testament, in order to fix his attention the better, but he never did. I think his Bible was used more as a sacred depositary for a few old letters, photographs, and other treasures of' days gone by—in themselves of no value, and not to be valued, and conveying r,o history to them. His father was an Episcopalian, but he took no interest in N:«seby religion. Once or twice I pressed him to go to the services. When I made a point "f it he would go to please me. He would relieve hiinselfafter by denouncing the one service as frippery and humbug, a bad class of monthly music saloon; the other as a form of congregational worship past all human understanding. This was only to me, in self-defence. Pie never would speak on religious subjects in a mixed company. 'You never know," he once said, ' what innocent, you may unsettle by a ra>h word. Human contentment is the sole consideration of life. No one has a right to mar another's pleasure.' If St. George's Church had been built in Tom's time I think its likeness to the churches of his boyhood would have touched him—l cannot tell. At least when the bishop was here, ami said a few homely words in the schoolhouse, and, hearing the name mentioned afterwards, sought Tom out, and spoke of his father, although Tom did not own his sonship, yet he was quieter and more thoughtful for weeks alter. I suited Tom, and he said nothing about going. About six limes a year he received a foreign letter, generally forwarded Irom Melbourne. At such a time he would be away for a day or two, and he dropped in again when he chose. If we were busy I ' put a man on tor the day or two, and Tom always charged the wages against his share. So it went on for two years. Onr claim proved expensive; our water bill was kept paid, but our town accounts were behind. Neither of us drauk or wasted our money. The Naseby tradesmen never complained, although they had reason enough. During a spell of dry weather the last, year we were together we went to St. Bathans, to see how the claims were worked there. Coming home, the tilbury capsiz -d over a boulder in the. Mnnuherik;a, doing no harm beyond breaking two spokes of one wheel, and pitching us into the water. We reached Hill's Creek, where the trap was fixed up. The little town was very noisy that night with a party of shearers, intent on knocking down their cheqhes. We lay down, wet as we wei">, for a few hours in the billiard fom of one hotel, and made off at daylight. ' '• From that time Tom failed. He never seemed right. Scorning the notion that the wetting had hurt him. he yet found himself getting weaker. First there was cough, then spitting of blood, and soon it was evident enough that he was in a rapid decline. He used to complain he was a poor useless fellow, and a burden to me, Why I did not send him to Collett's ? The doctor shook his head, anl said it would make no difference where lie was. So I kept him with me. I knew he preferred my way of letting him alone, although he lost the nursing the old .Relief Fund woulc( have given him. "One evening after my day's work I was sitting as usual, watching the small stove, ready to talk, to read ,or be silent, as he chose, when lie suddenly asked me to care for his Bible. 'JJis tew tilings would, he supposed, be sold Lo help to pay for his share of what we owed. He should be sorry if the accounts were not cleared. He did not wish to rob anyone. Would I take the Bible and send it as it was to Mary Brydone, writing what the end was? To his father and mother he had been dead for ten years, he would not tremble them—Mary could do what she thought best. Mary was his foster-mo-ther's daughter. They had been together when young. If his life had succeeded, Mary would have joined him, he thought. As it was, he had had no right to sacrifice her to a life of penury —to share the home of one who had no hope in this world, and looked fomoother, as she did. There had been no engagement- between them,' he added.' He took my hand in his, and thanked me ever so tenderly, as if I had done anything for him he had not much more than repaid. I spoke, in my own rough way, ot a future personal hope- of my intense belief if this present were the end, death were a thousand times preferable to life. I insisted it could not be. He smiled, as he always did, and said—• I have tried to b.elieveit, but I have not been able. It is too wonderful for me. I have done no harm—l have tried to do right. If I have succeeded it Ims been a success, gauged by a human code only. I have, no warrant for believing such a code is, or could be, acceptable to a higher or more powerful nature, if such there be. Is power a sufficient vindication for definition of what is right?' I had no i! eans to argue with him. He would listen to no other; or, rather, he would patiently listen, with his ears too obviously shut, 'lie preferred,' he said, ' my unreasonable protestation of what I could not account for. If he were to be convinced, it had been done.' "Itf-nded at last. I laid •him on the hill followed by several hundreds, for ol hers respected him as well as I. At the time I grudged the general attendance. Like a picture I have seen lately, ' The Dead Oared by thp Dumb,' d/wn the ri-

ver, into the presence of the king ; so T, in my selfish sentimentality, would have liked, if it had been possible, to |havo taken the i-emains ■of my friend unaided into the presence of the King of kings—as if the dead were more in his presence than the living ; but such was my folly. I think St. Stephen shared it with me. There was no delay after. Tom had drafted a rough will, and signed it, leaving everything to tne for payment of his debts. I took the Bible, and made an inventory of the contents before sealing it up : —l. A portrait, in old style, of his father and mother. 2, Another of a beautiful young girl, of about fifteen years, to which was attached a thin lock of hair. 3. A faded letter. To the Bible, with its contents, I lied the parcel of letters received during those weary years from Mary, and posted the packet to the writer. I like to dwell on Mary's name, although she is only to me a creature of imagination. A few' months after I re- i ceived a.letter from her:— " Dear

i "It were idle of me to thank you for your great kindness to my dear playfellow. If it were possible, you loved him as we did—as I did. His life was one great misfortune. His education, which he did justice to, and liis talents, fitted him for any position. His father thought if a clergyman visited the poor, saw to the winter's bounty, and read the Chnrch services, his duty to'his God and his Queen was fulfilled Beyond duty, and his own interpretation for it, he had no conception. His son's disobedience to his will was to him an absolute surrender of his sonship, and be abandoned him as given over to the devil, a propitiation of the sins of his own youth. His mother's life was different. How she suffered no human being knows. She wis spared the last trouble, dying, as near as I can tell you, about the same time that her son did. His father was contented to know the end. It was u relief to him to kn >w it-. He seeme-3 to unbend a little when [ t old liitn. and I fancied lie was pi used when I reminded him Tom was buried in a Christian churchyard, although he mu'tered something about it not being consecrated. The day after I saw him he sent me £IOO, to send to you to p-iy any debts he may have left, the bilance 'o be given in charity. I add a few pounds, which you will please spend in marking the gv;ive. Should you ever returi lo Kngland I hope you will call for me at. No.— Finsbury Sqimre, London. I should like to thai.k you personally for your kindness to the best friend I ever h:id, and to hear a little more of his life from one privileged to be with him to the end.—l am, " Yours sincerely, " Mart Brvtione "

" Many and many a time do I sit and think of Tom Trumball, his goodness, his unbelief. My own laith is not shaken. At times I doubt and wonder, but calm myself as the words steal on my memory, 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' Beyoiad myself and Mary titer" is no other surviving link to Tom's story but the stone memorial slab— ; "TOM TRUMBALL, "Aged 27, "erected by " His Fkiend and Mar v. " ' Thy wonders are a great deep.'"