CHAPTER XV.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1851, 17 May 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER XV.

" Though to some extent I can make clear a great deal of what muss have been a mystery to many," said Mrs. Morden, '• much still remains that is a mystery to myself and that no one, save John Morden, Henry Allan — and William Whinstun can explain, for the tongue of your father is stilled in death. My father was an early settler in Victoria. He went to Sydney first with a view to start squatting, for he had been a sheep farmer in dear old England, but he was attracted to Port Phillip by the superior advantages offered. More could be done there with less capital. He chanced while looking about him to fall in with several adventurers, who were contemplating opening np the new country, among others John Morden. We lived in a pleasant cottage at Redfern, and father brought John to dinner several times. That is how we became acquainted. I liked John from the very first and he paid me great attention. I am not going to trouble you with the story of our growing fondness for each other — it is the old story that will be repeated until the end of time, your love story with the names altered. My iather decided to settle in Port Phillip, and we went over in a small vessel, which also carried a flock of selected sheep, the progenitors of many a flock, that now makes these colonies a world of wealth. My father was a good judge of sheep, and he it was who selected the stock for John, who, though a settler's son, was a poor hand at stock — he preferied running about Sydney, when he had the chance. He followed in the next vessel. Father soon obtained a lease of land, but waited to take possession until John arrived. We were all at the wharf when the schooner came in. It was then I saw for the first time John's "mates" Henry Allan and his two assistants William Whinstun and William Gift'ord. John was a fine handsome fellow, strong and bold. Henry was just as strong and splendid looking, but I never liked his looks. He seemed to me a man governed by the worst passions, which he cherished instead of controlling. Such were my ideas, but I was then little more than a girl. As for the assistants, Whinstun and Gifford, I disliked them from the first. Both were tall, lean, and ill-favored, but I disliked Whinstun most of the two. But to their credit they were faithful and sober, which I cannot say of their masters and my father. My poor, dear father ! He was a man who dearly loved sociality and the glass that accompanies it. I have heard people say this love of sociality and the glass had brought about the difficulties which led to his selling out in England and trying new fields. And, unhappily, he transmitted the love of these things to his son. My poor brother Tom " Herbert started. Mrs. Morden noticed it. " You knew him perhaps," ske queried. " I once knew a Tom Horton," said Herbert. "He was my brother," replied Mrs. Morden, in a low tone ; " another victim to William Whinstun." " Heavens 1 " cried Herbert, " what a revelation this is — it astounds me." " The love of company and ease led to disastrous results," continued Mrs. Morden ; II not that I can accuse my father or John to any great extent of being culpable as drunkards, but that their love of company and ease led them to place too great reliance upon other people — and such people, pardon me for saying so. To your father was entrusted the exploration of the new country. The leases of my father and John adjoined, and the taking up of the sheep and in fact the settlement. Whinstun 'was his assistant, but very early he showed good knowledge of book-keeping and commerce, and so became the commercial

I "Himujt as } our father was the station nuinpgtr. Tims, the full opportunity was afforded them to work together, to reap the harvest we had sown, and they availed theni°elves of it. John and I wore married and we all settled in a little cottage up in Collingwood, then a more " bush," for my father was a widower. Father and John went up to the fetations but never stopped very lon;,' there except at lambing and shearing time. I wanted to go up and live at the station and h^lp like other settler's wives ; but John and father would not hear of it. How different '.hinga might have turned up had I gone to live on the station, and my father and husband thus removed from the teorptation? of the town. Allan lived on the station but .vas in town frequently and always led my hurfbaud into drinking and the like. Their affairs appeared to prosper, and after a while Whinstun, who had managed the books for both my father and John, was brought to Melbourne and an offioa started. The result was that they remained more in town, and that your father became everything on the station?, of which there were several then, for John kept taking up and stocking land, while my father made no advance — the revenue from his station was enough for him. lie was a man \vho loved ease \ and held money in little aceoant. John was of a very active mind, but he valued money as lightly as my father. He took to studying chemistry and spent a lot of money in experiments. Himself and fattier also entered into land speculations in town, which resulted disastrously and helped to bring about the catastrophe. I believe had it not been for the collapse of the great land bubble your father and Whinstun would have plotted in vain. John and father would have managed to have got along somehow until the diggings broke out, and then the rise in valuer would have extricated them from every difficulty without an effort. The land mania is a matter of history. People bought up feveii&hly, under the idea that Melbourne tfas to become a Sydney at a bound. It was to surpass Sydney, but not until gold was found. Like all other attempts to inflate values, the bubble collapsed, and then came our hard times; then came the opportunity of your father and Whinstun. "How the final catastrophe came about I cannot tell you — that is only known to the men I mentioned. Neither John nor my father ever told me much abou'j business matters. Luc this I know, that vrc stood on the brink of ruin, that insolvency stared us sn the face when the land panic had reached its height, and we were saved— by whom do yon think ? By your father, and though he did not then appear. While we spent money fiecly, these men had scraped and aaveel, and— well, I need not say what. They had the handling of everything and you may be certain they lost nothing by that, and when John wan told by Whinstun of our desperate condition, after a time Whinstun ho thought Gifford had money to lend, and that he could finance the rest. John and your father heard him as if he were an angel, not the devil he was. Better had they gone down then and nude a fresh start, unencumbered by the&e two vampires. They would now be wealthy men, and I would not have passed through all that I have. Men like John and my father were willing to do anything to get <-ut of the difficulty, and I suppose they signed all sorts of bonds and mortgages and bills, all represented as necessary ia order to get the financial help required. Money was almost unobtainable then, and anything would be done to get it. Probably there were others in the conspiracy as wdl as Gifford and Whinstun, and they had to be paid their share. After that terrible crisis my husband did try to pluck up and to begin anew. He stopped on the station, seldom coming to town. He made a desperate attempt to recover hid position, to save my father, who, good easy man, now looked to him to do everything. But it was a vain attempt. For three years he fought the unequal fight and then he gave in. The stations had prospered fairly until they were mortgaged, now sheep took disease and died, or whole flocks were lost, wool failed to realise rates that would pay the exorbitant interest. Tom, who never would see things in the light I did, for he had not had my opportunities, being away, overseer on a station at the time, and who believed in these men till they ruined him, used to try and prove to me that the interest was such that the rates of profit then yielded by stations rendered the redemption of the property, or even the payment of interest on the loan, all but impossible. Probably that had been thoroughly foreseen and contemplated, and the culpable easiness in money ; matters, and confidence entertained in Whin- \ stun and Gifford by my father and John, taken advantage of by the schemers. However, it was one day my husband returned from the country a broken-down man, and began to diink very hard, in which he was joined by my father, to whom he had unfolded the state of affairs, and, worse still, by Allan, who was now but a loafer. I could do nothing with them. Even my husband changed towards me. He was desperate. I believe he took to drink in the hope to kill himself with it before the downfall came. But he was too strong. My poor brother Tom entered upoa a career of drink with that end, and achieved it. The blow soon came. Foreclosure took place, insolvency followed, and we were left almost penniless and powerless. Then occurred a strange thing, but which was made clear afterwards. While my husband was pursued relentlessly, and every scrap of his property taken, the principal creditor, Mr. Gifford, behaved leniently to my father, extended his mortgage, and reduced the interest. However, this brought no happiness, for Whinstun and Gifford poured such poison into my father's ears, representing that all his misfortunes were due to John, that father and John had a terrible quarrel, both being under the influence of drink. I was not in the house at the time. My father, to whom the house nominally belonged, ordered John out, and he left, swearing never to enter it "again. While he was in this state he met Gifford. My experiences of the effects of drink, and they have been many and sad, leads me to believe that there is a class of men, a large one, too, who should never touch intoxicants. Men of an excitable nature, of warm and generous impulses, should never take it. Those who have had injuries to the head should never take liquor. The cold, the phlegmatic, the mean-hearted, may be all the better for alcohol. John was warm-hearted, free, generous, impulsive, and highly excitable. His excitability had been greatly increased through a sunstroke he had received shortly after he had come to the colony. The true facts of what followed are only known to those whose lips are sealed. All I know is that John, who had been led on to a drinking bout by Allan, nearly half-killed your father, and that he was sentenced to imprisonment. My father took me away to the station, and I was in utter ignorance of all that occurred until my husband had left the gaol and cleared out of the country for ever — as I afterwards learned, with Allan as a companion. The letter you have read was left with an old friend, who delivered it to me a long time afterwards. Through all this I believed in John, but I had no control. It wa3 some timo afterwards that Alice was born. My father then made me take my mother's name. He would not hear of Morden. My history after this it is hardly necessary to tell. Your father took possession of John's ; stations, except one, whioh fell to Whinsfcun. i As to my father, he was allowed to, stop on

tho t'Uiiion that hv<\ b^en Jiis but Lauciy en -ljlfciauoft Abou-y a yea. ait-r tho-'o evsJil j, I discovered why John had been so crush/ served, why a little mercy had baen ex^endci m my father. Whinstun had conceived a passion for ma. I will not lecifce the scenes that occurred ■when I discovered this) man's infamy. My lather horsewhipped him. And .hen we were turned out of our plnce. Fortunately, my brother Tom was not employed upon our stations. He had goii<3 halves with another young fellow ia a block of country just opened up, and had done ''airly well. To Tom we wore indebted for our bread for years. How he was lifted up, buoyed with capital, and then thrown down, you know as well ag I. Why should I recall the bitter times that followed ; the day 3 of suffering, of hard and distasteful work, culminating in the malady that will only leave ivhen lam dead, I need not tell. Sufficient it is to say that I would have b?en in ray •*rave long ago had it not been for Alico, that Jear child who from the eailiest age has been my solace, my comfort, my support. You liave won her love, Herbsifc Gilford. I hops you will piizo her ao she dcpivos to b) prized. One more explanation. Bbby is a relative, but a distant oue. In my prosperous d.<v*. a , 'vhen d?ar Tom, the princely soul, kept m all in lux.ii-y, the Smiths made themselves known to us. We ail thought they were in England. Tom and I did all wa could for them, but we might aa well pour water into a sieve. Wo ■vent up country, and they disappeared. But when Ebby saw us afterwards he recognised us. You have h^ard all this. Arc you now prepaied to let this man go ?