The Book of the Bush - George Dunderdale (life books to read txt) 📗

Kept no fine furniture in the house, only a big hardwood table, some stools, and candle boxes. After supper old Mother Shenty scraped the potato skins off the table into her apron -she always boiled the potatoes in their jackets-and then Shenty lay down on it and smoked his pipe till bedtime, thinking of the best way to keep down expenses. A parson came along one day lifting a subscription for a church, or school, or something. He didn't get anything out of old Shenty, only a pannikin of tea and some damper and mutton. The old cove said: 'Church nor school never gave me nothing, nor do me no good, and I could buy up a heap o' parsons and schoolmasters if I wanted to, and they were worth buying. Us squatters is the harrystockrisy out here. The lords at home sends out their good-for-nothing sons to us, to get rich and be out of the way, and much good they does. Why don't you parsons make money by your eddication if it's any good, instead of goin' round beggin'? You are all after the filthy lucre, wantin' to live on other folks.' I was holdin' the parson's horse, and when he got into the saddle, he turns to old Shenty, and says: 'From rottenness you sprung, and to rottenness you'll go. Your money will drag you down to hell; you'll want to throw it away, but it will burn into your soul for all eternity.'

"I am mortal hungry," continued Bob, "and they don't give no rations until about sundown, and we'll have to wait six hours. It's hard lines. I see there's an orchard there now, and most likely a wegtable garden-and cabbages. I'd like some boiled beef and cabbage. It wouldn't be no harm to try and get somethin' to eat, anyhow. What do you say, Ned? You was a swell cove once, and knows how to talk to the quality. Go and try 'em."

Ned went and talked to the "quality" so well that he brought back rations for three.

Towards the end of the year Nosey arrived at Piney Station, about forty miles from the Murray, and obtained employment. Baldy's bones had been lying under the rocks for nearly fifteen years. It was absurd to suppose they could ever be discovered now, or if they were, that any evidence could be got out of them. Nosey felt sure that all danger for himself was passed, but still the murder was frequently in his mind. The squatter was often lonely, and his new man was garrulous, and one day Nosey, while at work, began to relate many particulars of life in the old country, in Van Diemen's Land, and in the other colonies, and he could not refrain from mentioning the greatest of his exploits.

"I once done a man in Victoria," he said, "when I was shepherding; he found me out taking his fat sheep, and was going to inform on me, so I done him with an axe, and put him away so as nobody could ever find him."

The squatter thought that Nosey's story was mostly blowing, especially that part of it referring to the murder. No man who had really done such a deed, would be so foolish as to confess it to a stranger.

Another man was engaged to work at the station. As soon as he saw Nosey he exclaimed, "Hello, Nosey, is that you?"

"My name is not Nosey."

"All right; a name is nothing. We are old chums, anyway."

That night the two men had a long talk about old times. They had both served their time in the island, and were, moreover, "townies," natives of the same town at home. Nosey began the conversation by saying to his old friend, "I've been a bad boy since I saw you last -I done a man in Victoria"; and then he gave the full particulars of his crime, as already related. But the old chum could not believe the narrative, any more than did the squatter.

"Well, Nosey," he said, "you can tell that tale to the marines."

In the meantime the runs around Lake Nyalong had been surveyed by the government and sold. In the Rises the land was being subdivided and fenced with stone walls, and there was a chance that Baldy's grave might be discovered if one of the surveyed lines ran near it, for the stonewallers picked up the rocks as near as possible to the wall they were building, and usually to about the distance of one chain on each side of it.

A man who had a contract for the erection of one of these walls took with him his stepson to assist in the work. In the month of August, 1869, they were on their way to their work accompanied by a dog which chased a rabbit into a pile of rocks. The boy began to remove the rocks in order to find the rabbit, and in doing so uncovered part of a human skeleton. He beckoned to his stepfather, who was rather deaf, to come and look at what he had found. The man came, took up the skull, and examined it.

"I'll be bound this skull once belonged to Baldy," he said. "There is a hole here behind; and, yes, one jaw has been broken. That's Nosey's work for sure' I wonder where he is now."

No work was done at the wall that day, but information was given to the police.

Mounted constable Kerry came over to the Rises. The skeleton was found to be nearly entire; one jaw-bone was broken, and there was a hole in the back of the skull. The feet were still encased in a pair of boots laced high above the ankles. There were portions of a blue-striped shirt, and of a black silk necktie with reddish stripes. There was also the brim of an oiled sou'wester' hat, a pipe, and a knife. The chin was very prominent, and the first molar teeth on the lower jaw were missing. The remains were carefully taken up and conveyed to Nyalong; they were identified as those of Baldy; an inquest was held, and a verdict of wilful murder was returned against Nosey and his wife.

After the inquest mounted constable Kerry packed up the skeleton in a parcel with every small article found with it, placed it in a sack, put it under his bed, slept over it every night, and patiently waited for some tidings of the murderer. In those days news travelled slowly, and the constable guarded his ghastly treasure for eighteen months.

Nemesis was all the time on her way to Piney station, but her steps were slow, and she did not arrive until the seventeenth anniversary of the disapppearance of Baldy.

On that day she came under the guise of constable, who produced a warrant, and said:

"Cornelius Naso, alias Nosey, alias Pye, I arrest you under this warrant, charging you with having murdered a shepherd, named Thomas Balbus, alias Baldy, at Nyalong, in the colony of Victoria, on the 28th day of February, 1854. You need not say anything unless you like, but if you do say anything I shall take it down in writing, and it will be used as evidence against you at your trial."

Nosey had nothing to say, except, "I deny the charge"; he had said too much already.

He was handcuffed and taken to the police station at Albury. In one of his pockets a letter was found purporting to be written by Julia, and disclosing her place of residence.

Soon afterwards Nosey and his wife met in captivity after their long separation, but their meeting was not a happy one; they had no word of welcome for each other.

The preliminary examination was held in the court house at Nyalong, and there was a large gathering of spectators when the proceedings commenced. On a form below the witness box there was something covered with a white sheet. Men craned their necks and looked at it over one another's shoulders. The two prisoners eyed it intently. It was guarded by constable Kerry, who allowed no one to approach it, but with an authoritative wave of the hand kept back all impertinent intruders. That day was the proudest in all his professional career. He had prepared his evidence and his exhibits with the utmost care. At the proper moment he carefully removed the white sheet, and the skeleton was exposed to view, with everything replaced in the position in which it had been found under the rocks in the Rises. Nosey's face grew livid as he eyed the evidence of his handiwork; Julia threw up both hands, and exclaimed:

"Oh! there's poor Baldy that you murdered!"

Nosey felt that this uncalled-for statement would damage his chance of escape, so, turning to the bench, he said:

"Don't mind what the woman says, your lordship; she is not in her right senses, and always was weak-minded."

The constable being sworn, related how, on information received, he had gone to the Stoney Rises, and had uncovered a skeleton which was lying on a broad flat stone. The bones of the legs from the knees downward were covered with stones. The boots were attached to the feet, and were pointing in such a direction as to show that the body must have rested on the right side. Large stones, but such as one man could lift, had been placed over the feet and the legs. The other bones were together, but had been disturbed. With them he found the brim of an oiled sou'-westr' hat, a clay tobacco pipe, a rusty clasp-knife with a hole bored through the handle, fragments of a blue shirt; also pieces of a striped silk neckerchief, marked D. S. over 3; the marks had been sewn in with a needle. There was a hole in the back of the skull, and the left jaw was broken.

Just at this time a funeral procession, with a few attendants, passed the court-house on its way to the cemetery. Julia's father was going to his grave. He had come over the sea lately to spend the rest of his days in peace and comfort in the home of his daughter, and he found her in gaol under the charge of murder. There was nothing more to live for, so he went out and died.

The two prisoners were committed, but they remained in gaol for more than seven months longer, on account of the difficulty of securing the attendance of witnesses from New South Wales.

But when the evidence was given it was overwhelming. Every man who had known Baldy seemed to have been kept alive on purpose to give evidence against the murderer. Every scrap of clothing which the wild cats had left was identified, together with the knife, the pipe, the hat brim, and the boots; and the prisoner's own confession was repeated. Julia also took the side of the prosecution. When asked if she had any questions to put, she said, "My husband killed the man, and forced me to help him to put the body on his horse."

The jury retired to consider their verdict, and spent two hours over it. In the meantime the two prisoners sat in the dock as far apart as possible. They had never spoken to