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

him from the wooden platform which overlooks the gaol yard. He was walking to and fro, and talking very cheerfully to himself, and to the world in general. He spoke well, and had evidently been well educated, but his ideas were all in pieces as it were, and lacked connection. He spoke very disrespectfully of men in high places, both in England and the Colonies; and remarked that Members of Parliament were the greatest rascals on the face of the earth. No man of sound mind would ever use such language as that.

Some years afterwards, while I was Collector of Customs at Port Albert, I received a letter from Melbourne to the following purport:

"Yarra Bend Asylum, -----188-

"Strictly private and confidential

"Sir,-You are hereby ordered to take possession of and detain every vessel arriving at Port Albert. You will immediately proceed on board each of them, and place the broad arrow abaft the foremast six feet above the deck. You will thus cut off all communication with the British Empire. I may state that I am the lawful heir to the title and estates of a Scottish dukedom, and am deprived of the possession and enjoyment of my rightful station and wealth by the machinations of a band of conspirators, who have found means to detain me in this prison in order to enjoy my patrimony. You will particularly observe that you are to hold no communication whatever with the Governor of this colony, as he is the paid agent of the conspirators, and will endeavour to frustrate all efforts to obtain my rights. You will also be most careful to withhold all information from the Duke of Dunsinane, who is a member of the junior branch of my family, and at the head of the conspiracy. You will proceed as soon as possible to enrol a body of men for the purpose of effecting my deliverance by force of arms. As these men will require payment for their services, you will enter the Bank of Victoria at Port Albert, and seize all the money you will find there, the amount of which I estimate at ten thousand pounds, which will be sufficient for preliminary expenses. You will give, in my name, to the manager of the bank, a guarantee in writing for repayment of the money, with current rate of interest added, when I recover the dukedom and estates. Be careful to explain to him that you take the money only as a loan, and that will prevent the bank from laying any criminal charge against you. Should anything of the kind be in contemplation, you will be good enough to report progress to me as soon as possible, and I will give you all necessary instructions as to your future proceedings.

"I may mention that in seeking to obtain my title and estates, I am influenced by no mean or mercenary considerations; my sole desire is to benefit the human race. I have been employing all my leisure hours during the last nine years in perfecting a system of philosophy entirely new, and applicable to all times, to all nations, and to all individuals. I have discovered the true foundation for it, which, like all great inventions, is so simple that it will surprise the world it was never thought of before. It is this: "Posito impossibili sequitur quidlibet." My philosophy is founded on the firm basis of the Impossible; on that you can build anything and everything. My great work is methodical, divided into sections and chapters, perfect in style, and so lucid in argument that he who runs may read and be enlightened. I have counted the words, and they number so far seven hundred and two thousand five hundred and seventy-eight (702,578). Five years more will be required to complete the work; I shall then cause it to be translated into every language of the world, and shipped at the lowest rate of tonnage for universal distribution gratis. This will ensure its acceptance and its own beauty and intrinsic merits will secure its adoption by all nations, and the result will be human happiness. It will supersede all the baseless theories of science, religion, and morality which have hitherto confounded the human intellect.

"Extract from my Magnum Opus.

"We may reasonably suppose that matter is primordially self-existent, and that it imbued itself with the potentiality of life. It therefore produced germs. A pair of germs coalesced, and formed a somewhat discordant combination, the movements in which tended towards divergence. They attracted and enclosed other atoms, and, progressing through sleep and wakefulness, at last arrived at complete satisfaction, or perfect harmonic combination. This harmonic combination is death. We may say then, in brief, that growth is simply discordant currents progressing towards harmony. One question may be briefly noticed. It has been asked, when did life first appear on the earth? We shall understand now that the question is unnecessary. Life first appeared on the earth when the earth first appeared as an unsatisfied atom seeking combination. The question is rather, when did the inanimate first appear? It appeared when the first harmonic combination was effected. The earth is indeed to be considered as having grown up through the life that is inherent in it. Man is the most concentrated and differentiated outgrowth of that life. Mankind is, so to speak, the brain of the earth, and is progressing towards the conscious guidance of all its processes."

"Dunsinane."

It was not clear on what ground this noble duke based his authority over me; but I had been so long accustomed to fulfil the behests of lunatics of low degree that I was able to receive those of an afflicted lord with perfect equanimity. But as I could not see that my obedience would be rewarded with anything except death or Pentridge, I refrained from action. I did not place the broad arrow abaft of anything or anybody, nor did I make a levy on the cash in the Bank of Victoria.


GIPPSLAND AFTER THIRTY YEARS.

"A pleasing land of drowsihed it was, And dreams that wave before the half-shut eye."

For twelve years I did the Government stroke in Her Majesty's Court at Colac, then I was ordered to make my way to Gippsland.

The sun of wisdom shone on a new ministry. They observed that many of their officers were destitute of energy, and they resolved to infuse new life into the service, by moving its members continually from place to place. But officials live long, and the most robust ministry dies early, and the wisdom of one cabinet is foolishness to the next.

I took root so deeply in the soil of Gippsland that I became immoveable. Twice the Government tried to uproot me, but I remained there to the end of my official days.

Little reliable information about the country or its inhabitants was to be had, so I fondly imagined that in such a land, secured from contamination by the wicked world outside, I should find a people of primeval innocence and simplicity, and the long-forgotten lines returned to my memory:

"Beatus ille qui procul negotils, Ut prisca gens mortalium."

It was summer time, and the weather was serene and beautiful, when in the grey dusk of the evening we sailed through the Rip at Port Philip Heads. Then began the troubles of the heaving ocean, and the log of the voyage was cut short. It ran thus:

"The ship went up, and the ship went down; and then we fell down, and then we was sick; and then we fell asleep; and then we was at Port Albert; and that's all I knows about it."

I walked along the one street past the custom house, the post-office, and the bank, about three hundred yards and saw nothing beyond but tea-tree and swamps, through which ran a roughly-metalled road, leading apparently to the distant mountains. There was nothing but stagnation; it was the deadest seaport ever seen or heard of. There were some old stores, empty and falling to pieces, which the owners had not been enterprising enough to burn for the insurance money; the ribs of a wrecked schooner were sticking out of the mud near the channel; a stockyard, once used for shipping cattle, was rotting slowly away, and a fisherman's net was hanging from the top rails to dry. Three or four drays filled with pigs were drawn up near the wharf; these animals were to form part of the steamer's return cargo, one half of her deck space being allotted to pigs, and the other half to passengers. In case of foul weather, the deck hamper, pigs and passengers, was impartially washed overboard.

An old man in a dirty buggy was coming along the road, and all the inhabitants and dogs turned out to look and bark at him, just as they do in a small village in England, when the man with the donkey-cart comes in sight. To allay my astonishment on observing so much agitation and excitement, the Principal Inhabitant introduced himself, and informed me that it was a busy day at the Port, a kind of market day, on account of the arrival of the steamer.

I began sorrowfully to examine my official conscience to discover for which of my unatoned-for sins I had been exiled to this dreary land.

Many a time in after years did I see a stranger leave the steamer, walk, as I had done, to the utmost extremity of the seaport, and stand at the corner of the butcher's shop, gazing on the swamps, the tea-tree, and the far-away wooded hills, the Strelezcki ranges. The dismal look of hopeless misery thatstole over his countenance was pitiful to behold. After recovering the power of speech, his first question was, "How is it possible that any man could ever consent to live in a hole like this?" Here the Principal Inhabitant intervened, and poured balm on the wounded spirit of the stranger. He gently reminded him that first impressions are not always to be relied on; and assured him that if he would condescend to take up his abode with us for two or three years, he would never want to live anywhere else. The climate was delicious, the best in the world; it induced a feeling of repose, and bliss, and sweet contentment. We had no ice or snow, or piercing blasts in winter; and the heat of summer was tempered by the cool breezes of the Pacific Ocean, which gently lapped our lovely shores. The land, when cleared, was as rich and fertile as the farmer's heart could wish, yielding abundant pasturage both in summer and winter. The mountains sent down to us unfailing supplies of the purest water; we wanted no schemes of irrigation, for

"Green are our fields and fair our flowers, Our fountains never drumlie."

We had no plagues of locust, no animal or insect pests to destroy our crops or herbage. Rabbits had been introduced and turned loose at various times, but, instead of multiplying until they had become as numerous as the sand on the seashore, as had been the case in other parts of Australia, in Gippsland they invariably died; and it had been abundantly proved that rabbits had no more chance of living there than snakes in Ireland. And with regard to the salubrity of the climate, the first settlers lived so long that they were absolutely tired of life.