The Convict's Daughter Page 22
It would be best to include what remained of the cattle into the deal for Walker, Kinchela decided, he certainly didn’t fancy trying to run them back to Moreton Bay at any rate. Over the last few months he had been steadily sorting out the property. Fixing the fences as well as the hut roof that had caved in after the rains. He had spent a week or so clearing out the thick roots that had clogged up the closest creek. All that time he had been thinking. Well, actually, to start off he deliberately avoided certain topics. His future, John and, of course, Mary Ann. But one evening he allowed himself more rum than usual and by the end of the night he was wracked with shame and anger. The next morning he went down the creek and washed himself. He was leaning against a red gum trying to get his boots on when he realised he was talking out loud. ‘I am man enough to make my own decisions,’ he heard himself mutter, ‘Damn John, Damn them all.’ Kinchela finally shoved his feet into his boots and looked about him, perplexed at his own temper. Was the girl unsettling him, he wondered, or had he just been on his own too long?
Kinchela was in his hut one afternoon in early June, outlining the details of the Hawkwood sale in a letter he planned to pass on to Walker when he thought he heard a whistle. He stopped and listened and then slowly reached for his muzzle-loader. Another whistle and then nothing. Quietly, Kinchela began to load the weapon. Next minute, he was sure he heard horse hooves so he put down the gun and went to the hut door. It was the younger Bouverie brother, looking red in the face from a fast ride, no doubt. Kinchela had seen him six weeks past when he had paid a visit to Mundubbera, keen for a little company and needing to swap some meat for palings. ‘We have to get to Tirroan by tomorrow,’ the young man said when he pulled up in front of the hut, still struggling to catch his breath. Kinchela noticed the thick sweat about the shoulders of his mount. ‘There’s been trouble,’ Bouverie swallowed, ‘and two of the Pegg boys are dead.’ Kinchela shook his head before asking how. ‘With spears,’ the rider finished, licking his cracked lips before taking the water Kinchela offered him. Just as well Surus was rested, the older settler thought as he went inside to pack, and his weapon freshly loaded.
On the day that news got about that the Hashemy had entered Sydney Harbour, the rain was bucketing down so hard you could barely see two yards in front of your own face let alone out on the grey water of the harbour, where the offending boat was bobbing up and down against the fitful winds. Rather than dampen spirits, however, the great downpour seemed to sharpen the resolve of the committee and their followers. By eight o’clock in the morning large groups of men were marching through the east and west wards of town as hundreds more made their way through the Rocks and onto the quay. Many had put on their Sunday best to prove they were the same sort of respectable Britons as those who had rallied at Kennington Park in London the year before. They were, after all, loyal and law-abiding British subjects. Their mission was to hold the empire to its highest purpose and keep their colony clean.
By ten o’clock there were as many as 4000 people, possibly more, assembled around the harbour, some holding canvas shelters to protect themselves from the rain and others standing under umbrellas, while still more braved the elements with only their top hats or working caps to shield them from the wet. There were men from the factories, as well as shop owners and industry men, a number of bookish looking characters and even one or two of the clerical set, clearly visible in their collars. All walks of colonial life—pouring into Circular Quay. An hour before lunch the town gave up any appearance of an ordinary day and one by one the shops down George Street closed their doors. Twenty minutes later the factories followed suit and shortly after that, another great slough of men and several daring women also joined the crowd about the quay.
Half the city, Captain Innes thought, assessing the rally from the sodden slopes of the Government House lawn on the other side of the harbour. FitzRoy had asked him to keep an eye on things and had also stationed twenty soldiers with bayonets along the old picket fence of his vice-regal boundary. News of last year’s European mobs may have excited the Sydney mechanics but they also provided the governor with a salutary warning about how quickly things could turn. Innes was intent upon being firm, and knew the governor would expect a show of strength. He was the man to do it, up on his fine mount, trotting back and forth along the soggy lawn. At least Innes hoped so, for he needed to bring the right sort of answer to the questions that had been raised after news about his friendship with the corrupt governor at Darlinghurst Gaol made their way into the press.
Just before noon, the committeemen arrived in an omnibus. By now the rain was even heavier, but the horses pushed through the crowd until the large coach came to a stop in the middle of the wharf. The thought of that ship battling in the harbour winds held the committee and the sodden crowd to their purpose and there were fierce looks and set jaws among those who had heard that the governor had trained a number of Fort Macquarie cannons upon the quay.
From the third storey of the hotel, where Mary Ann had been reading to her siblings, the steady clap, clap, clap of the crowd seemed to grow louder and firmer with every minute. It was impossible to avoid the fierce energy swirling about the town and harbour and, after a time, Mary Ann could bear it no more. She left the children with a set of wooden blocks and hurried to her bedroom. Even at this distance, she could see the great throng stretched around the quay. They were different from the unpredictable mob she had encountered on election night the year before, Mary Ann realised. There was something fierce and stubborn to them. She felt a presence behind her and turned to see William standing at the door, his face bright with excitement. ‘You’ve got the best seat in the house,’ he said rushing to join her at the window.
Brother and sister crouched forward and if they squinted, they could just see the omnibus driver taking the reins of the two black mares at the front of his vehicle. Next minute, one of the passengers—both sleeves rolled to his elbows—began climbing onto the vehicle. The crowd clapped louder as the stocky man scrambled up onto the vehicle roof and found his feet. Next moment, Henry Parkes was leaning down and with arms thick from years of bone turning and breaking rock, hauled James Wilshire onto the deck beside him.
Even with thick sheets of rain slanting across the quay it was possible to see the two men astride the improvised platform. They were drenched to the bone but nonetheless the two men began to unfurl a giant canvas banner. It took a minute or two for the heavy fabric to stop flapping in the wind and twisting around their legs, but when they finally pulled the canvas tight enough for the crowd to read, the quay erupted in a frenzy of excitement. Both men responded by turning to the crowd and thrusting a clenched fist into the air.
Brother and sister crammed closer to the window, peering through the glass even as it grew foggy with their breath. They could just see Parkes and Wilshire fasten the canvas sign against the side of the omnibus. It was difficult to see everything from this angle of the hotel and both Will and Mary Ann craned their necks, trying to make out what was scrawled across the large banner. It looked like a single word, Mary Ann thought, and had been written with bold curvaceous lettering. ‘It starts with a “D”,’ she said, squinting to make out the next letter. She stood back for a moment and wiped the window with her sleeve before leaning in again. Then she inhaled sharply. The audacity of it, she thought. It felt too thrilling to speak, but even so, Mary Ann turned to her brother, eyes shining. ‘Well?’ he asked impatiently. ‘What does it say?’ Mary Ann swallowed, and then in a rushed tone, she half-whispered, ‘“Defiance”, Will, it says “Defiance”.’
More than fifty men rode out to Tirroan when they learnt the two Pegg boys had been out at early dusk watching sheep when one got a spear in the gut and the other, a fatal blow to the head. Riding from Hawkwood with the Bouverie boy, Kinchela stopped to collect the Lawless brothers, then the two Herbert men and the station manager at Degilbo. When they arrived at Gregory Blaxland’s property, both of the Thompsons were already there as well as a nu
mber of other men Kinchela hadn’t met before. The widow Pegg was in a state but even so her only surviving son was determined to join the party and though he couldn’t have been more than fourteen, no one tried to stop him.
So that was how young Abraham Pegg came to be among the party that rode out behind ‘the friendly trackers’ the Thompson brothers brought with them from Walla. It took Blaxland’s party several hard days pushing through the west scrublands before they finally came to a large stretch of river that was at least half a mile wide. ‘Here,’ the two trackers gestured at the marshy flatlands around them, ‘hiding all about.’ At least two hundred of them, the Pegg boy reckoned, when he told the story later. It had been a filthy, wretched battle and it had gone on all day and well into the night. Spear against clumsy muzzle-loader. Shooting through the smoke of the powder and the fires and trying to keep shy of the shower of spears that came from every direction. When it was done there were bodies strewn all through the bush, most with their flesh ruptured open from shot, some still breathing. The rest had fled, Pegg said later, swimming against the currents of that giant river, as the settlers stood on the bank, firing the last of their ammunition, which some did as a warning so they could see the matter finished, while others set their loaders down low into the water out of spite or for the sheer sport of it.
Out on Sydney Harbour, the thickset Captain John Ross watched and waited as the rain continued to sleet down. It had been a wretched sail. Nothing good to it from the beginning. Six boys dead to cholera before they left and another sixteen men and boys surrendered to the sea on the way over. After less than hospitable anchors at the Cape and Port Phillip they had finally arrived at their destination—only now no one would take the blasted cargo. Two days ago a government boat had rowed out to the Hashemy and told Ross to hold fast and that was what he had been doing ever since. But every day meant more meals and less money. So Ross had been toying with the prospect of breaking the line and dumping his human cargo on that wretched wharf. Let them fight it out themselves, he scowled, only he knew he would get nothing for his troubles if he did. So instead, Ross scratched his beard and squinted through the rain where he could see a great crowd gathering on the quay.
Since Parkes and Wilshire had set the mood with their banner, several other committeemen had taken to the roof of the omnibus, and although the rain had drowned out much of what they said the wind still carried the crowd’s cheers to the third storey of Gill’s Family Hotel. ‘This is a free town and a clean colony,’ Captain John Lamb declared as he strutted about the wet and dangerous deck. ‘We are all loyal British men who have the courage and the conviction to stand our ground and say “no”,’ he railed. ‘We will not allow our proud town to be degraded and polluted once more as a penal settlement.’ Factory men and insolent Cabbagers were among the thousands who felt the sting of Earl Grey’s insult. So too, the clergyman and even the humble clerk and shopkeeper. They held themselves against the grim wind, certain that the time had come to hold fast. They would not have it. Their families and their fortunes depended upon it.
And then Mary Ann saw the man himself. He was pushing through the crowd in his trademark pinstripe suit and bright vermillion waistcoat, his curious white hair a stark contrast to the blackness of his damp top hat. He clambered indelicately on to the vehicle, almost losing his footing on the way. The crowd held their breath as he regained balance, then cheered as he hauled himself onto the upper deck. Coming to full height, the People’s Idol then fixed his spectacles and planted both feet firmly on the deck before finally raising both arms to summon the mass to hush.
And then, at last Robert Lowe began. Slowly at first, so that his clipped consonants carried further across the crowd than the previous speakers. ‘The threat of degradation has been fulfilled,’ the Great Gyrator called out fiercely. ‘The stately presence of our city,’ he said, gesturing towards the Botanic Gardens and the swell of winter sea behind him, ‘as well as the beautiful waters of our harbour, are this day polluted with the presence of a floating hell—that convict ship,’ he hissed, thrusting a finger at the boat on the distant horizon.
William stood up impatiently and put his hand to the latch. ‘Let the rain come in,’ Mary Ann agreed with a nod as they pushed open the window and the achingly cold air rushed into the room. Sure the winds would snatch away many of his words, but brother and sister were determined to hear what they could of their father’s lawyer.
‘This is a struggle for liberty,’ Lowe called out. ‘We have lived again to behold the cargo of crime, borne across the waters to us.’ He swallowed, shaking his head with disgust. ‘In our port, right now,’ he continued, ‘is a ship freighted not with the comforts of life.’ A smattering of jeers rippled from the wharfies standing with their arms crossed across their chests, stoic in the rain. ‘Not with the luxuries of civilised nations,’ Lowe continued, before stopping to look upon the thousands before him, ‘but with the picked and selected criminals of Great Britain.’ The crowd roared against the great injury that had been inflicted upon them and their town but after a moment or two Lowe gestured for them to hush. ‘Let us exercise the right that every English subject has,’ he began again when the crowd stilled. ‘The right,’ he repeated, ‘to assert our freedom.’ The crowd thundered in furious agreement. But then the wind began to whip around to the west, and for several minutes Robert Lowe’s words were swept away from the quay and the Pitt Street hotel. Without the power of his voice, people could only look upon the agile form of their great demagogue as he strutted this way and that, his arms rising and falling in hypnotic rhythm. Few could hear him, but still he carried the mood of the masses. Indeed, to many Lowe appeared curiously luminescent, as if his physical form—those thin, spindly legs and that wild shock of white hair—somehow added to his potency.
And then Sydney’s great Weathercock appeared to take command of the heavens for the winds lulled and the rain stopped. Lowe looked about him, feigning modesty as the crowd hooted in delirium. Lowe smiled and then stopped, before crouching down on the roof, as if to make a solemn pledge. Fathers and sons, tallowmakers and tanners all pushed forward, squinting into the rain as the great demagogue stretched out his arm and opened the palm of his hand. His voice rang forth. ‘As sure as the weed will grow into a plant,’ Lowe called, ‘and the plant into a tree,’ he continued, ‘in all times and in all nations of the world,’ he bellowed with such emotion that several men thought they heard him sob, ‘so will injustice and tyranny ripen into rebellion. Then he rose to standing and thrust out both arms as the wharf shook with outrage.
What chance did the Hashemy have? Mary Ann thought shifting her gaze from the omnibus to the small vessel thrashing about in the capricious weather. What chance did any of them have against such a force? For a moment Mary Ann considered Kinchela and how he had been fed to this lion of a man. We have all been caught up in this storm, she thought heavily, but then the repulsive memory of the Aarons girl came rushing into her mind and she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, as much to William as to herself, ‘no more,’ and with that, Mary Ann pulled down the window and turned away, shielding herself from the gusts of rain-wet wind that were still pulsing within the room.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lions After Slumber
After the Pegg business, Kinchela decided he would go and see John Walker himself. It would be quicker to settle everything in person on the ride back. After some solid work Kinchela knew he had the run in as good a condition as he was likely to get it, and the recent episode at Tirroan made it impossible to avoid the unpalatable truth of his current circumstances. He was not safe, particularly out there on his own. There would be further reprisals, he reckoned, on both sides.
Kinchela was riding towards Walker’s property with Edward Hawkins from Boonara. Hawkins had been spending time with Thomas Archer and the pair had been getting excited about California. The last time they had both been down in Moreton Bay for a settlers meeting, you couldn’t go anywhere for all the talk
of gold, Hawkins told him as the two men picked their way across a portion of stony ground. Sure it was speculation, the young man said, brushing away a great swarm of flies that had settled on his horse’s rump, but it couldn’t be more risky than trying to make a go of it up north.
His comments got Kinchela thinking. He had been out at Hawkwood for over four months and all that time he hadn’t been able to see a way forward. He knew that once the run was sold he would have a little money from his part of it, but he was also dreading the fact that he still had no idea where to go next. He wouldn’t be welcome back home, he reckoned, and his brother had well and truly washed his hands of him. Thanks to John he never really had to go it alone before, and he didn’t like the rootless feeling he got each time he tried to think about what he might do next. He didn’t really have enough capital to buy stock for a fresh start and he knew he was best to keep out of the towns for he could easily end up blowing the little money he had coming to him.
That night, as they sat before the few dry branches they could find for a fire, Hawkins drew a map of the Sacramento region in the dirt and pointed to where he reckoned the two large goldfields had started up. Kinchela remembered the report his brother had shown him when he was in gaol, the year before. At the time it had occurred to him that there was real money to be made in California but not grubbing about for gold. Cattle, meat, leather goods, he had thought then and said as much to Hawkins. ‘That might be,’ the younger man replied confidently, ‘but if Archer and I get lucky we can pay someone to do all that, eh.’