First in the Field Part 9

"Just what a young gent like you would do, sir. Pity's a good thing, but you must not waste it."

"But it seems a terrible thing for these men to be sent out like this."

"Seems, sir. But is it? You see, they needn't have been sent out.

They only had to behave themselves."

"But some of them may be innocent."

"Yes, sir," said the warder drily; "but which of 'em? Look at that fellow coming round here now, slouching along, and never looking at anything but the deck. He'll never look you in the face."

"Yes, I've noticed that."

"Wouldn't pick him out for an innocent one, would you?"

"Well, no," said Nic; "one seems to shrink from him."

"And right enough too, sir. He got off with transportation for life; but I'm afraid he deserved something worse."

"Did he kill anybody?" said Nic in an awe-stricken whisper.

"Yes; more than one, I believe, sir: sort of human wild beast. I never feel safe with him, and we all take care never to have Forty-four behind us. Try again, sir."

"Well, this one coming now," said Nic. "He's rather common-looking, but he doesn't seem so very bad. One would think he could be made a better man."

"Twenty-five, sir. Well, he'll have every chance out yonder. He has only got to get a good character over his work, and the governor and them will soon let him go up country as a signed servant, and when he has served his time he can start farmer on his own account. Makes faces at you, doesn't he?"

"Yes," cried Nic eagerly.

"Ah, he won't now I'm here."

Nic smiled, for the man screwed one side of his face as he pa.s.sed, thinking that the chief warder would not see, but he did.

"You, Twenty-five! How dare you? Extra punishment for that. Pa.s.s by, sir."

"No, no, don't punish him," whispered Nic. "He did not mean any harm."

"Not going to, sir," said the warder drily; "but one must keep them in their places. He's a comic sort of blackguard. Not much harm in him."

"I thought not," said Nic eagerly.

"And precious little good, sir," added the warder. "But he may turn out right. Housebreaking, I think, was his offence. When he gets out to the convict lines they'll teach him to know better; and some day he'll have a house of his own, if it's only a bark hut--gunyah they call 'em out there--and then he'll know the value of it, and be ready to upset any one who tries to break in."

"Then you have been out before?"

"Oh yes, sir. I know the country pretty well, specially the part where your father is. I've been there."

"And you know my father?"

"Oh no, sir. I never saw him. But it's a fine place, and you'll like it. I wish I was you, and going to begin life out there in the new land."

"Then you think I shall like it?" said Nic.

"You can't help it, sir. But if I was you I should be careful. You'll have a deal to do with the convicts."

"Oh no," cried Nic. "I am going straight up the country to my father's place."

"Yes, sir, I know; and that's why I was presuming to give you a bit of advice--that is, as a man who has had twenty years' experience."

"I don't understand you."

The warder laughed.

"I suppose not, sir. Well, it's like this. Your father has taken up land, and keeps sheep and cattle, I suppose?"

"Yes, thousands."

"And employs men?"

"Of course. He has said so in his letters. He is obliged to have several."

"And if he was in England he could engage farm labourers easily enough."

"Yes."

"How's he going to engage them out there, sir?"

"The same as he would in England."

"When there are none, or only a few, and they all want to be masters themselves? No, sir; you'll find there--with perhaps a black or two who can't be trusted to work, only to do a bit of cattle driving or hunting up strayed stock--that your father's men are mostly convicts, 'signed servants, we call them--that is, a.s.signed servants."

"What?"

"That's it, sir: men who are a.s.signed by the prison authorities to gentlemen."

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Nic; and the warder smiled at his surprise.

"That's it, sir, and I say a good thing too. Here's a new country with plenty of room in it, and the judges and people at home sentence men to be transported for fourteen or twenty-one years, or perhaps for life."

"Yes, I know all that," said Nic, nodding his head.

"Then, sir, the law says lots of these men are not all bad, and they're sorry for what they've done; so if they are, and show that they want to lead a new life, we'll give 'em a chance. Then all those who have earned a good character in the convict lines and mean work are a.s.signed to settlers who want labourers and shepherds and stockmen; and if they behave themselves, and show that the punishment has cured them of their bad ways, all they've got to do is to report themselves from time to time; and so long as they don't try to escape out of the country they can do pretty well as they like, and plenty of them out there are doing far better than they would have done at home."

"That's very good," said Nic.

"To be sure it is, sir; and that's why I say to you, be a little careful, and not be ready to trust the convicts. Plenty of them you'll find good fellows; but there are plenty more who are very smooth and artful, and only waiting their time. But you'll soon learn which are sheep and which are goats. Now, here's a chap coming round here-- Thirty-three, sir. What do you say to him? He's got fourteen years for robbing his employers. Embezzlement they call it. Now, he's been a well-brought-up sort of man--good education, always well dressed, and lived on the fat of the land. He looks at you, I suppose, when I'm not here, as much as to say, 'Isn't it cruel to shut me up with these ruffians and murderous wretches? I'm a poor, innocent, ill-used man!'"

"Yes, that is how he always does look at me," cried Nic. "Yes, sir, and at everybody else; but if he was an innocent, ill-used man, he'd wrinkle up his forehead and look bitter and savage-like, ready to treat everybody as his enemy. That chap's a sneak, sir, and I've no hesitation in saying he deserves all he has got. Don't you listen to him if ever he speaks, and don't you break no rules by petting him with anything good from the cabin."

"I certainly shan't," said Nic. "I don't like him."