by Samuel Sidney (uncredited).
Originally published in Household Words (Bradbury & Evans) vol.2 #30 (19 Oct 1850).
"You see my family had been farmers and freeholders in the county for more than two hundred years; but my father being a more forward and colonial-like man than the rest of his neighbours made a good bit of money. He was fortunate enough to get some of Mr. Collings's calves, the beginning of the celebrated Durham breed, and to know their value before other people did. Then a coal field being found near his farm, and part of it wanted for works, he was able to sell that for a good price, and keeping our old house took a lot of additional land as a tenant on the V--. estate. He held at last near a thousand acres, and had all the benefit of war prices at an easy rent. It was like coining money in those days. We didn't set up to be gentle-folks like some, but we kept on steadily. There were ten of us, but as it happened, all girls but me, and I was the youngest but two. My elder sisters were married off quick, being well-favoured lasses, as likewise well-portioned.
"I was five-and-twenty turned when I met my missis at Tyemouth one summer; she was a neighbour's daughter; but he being a widower, she had lived away with an aunt, in Northumberland! We soon settled to be married in the autumn, but my mother dying put it off till the winter. Well, this death and my being the only son, brought it about that, instead of my father stocking a farm for me, I took my wife to live with him, and took a share of his farm, and I often think that, under Providence, this was the road that led me to Australia.
"Having a fancy that way, I took special charge of the horned stock; to please my missis I had given up hunting, and so set to work to follow Mr. Collings's example, and try what could be made of the short-horns; partly, perhaps, because our neighbours laughed at the notion, and I always like to think for myself. My head herd was a Yorkshireman, by the name of Tom Birkenshaw; he had been our head carter, but having broken his ankle bone, which set stiff lame, and so bad for travelling, he was made bullherd.
"Tom was, indeed, I may say he is, for he don't live far off, although he's getting old now, as knowing a fellow about cattle or horses as ever walked in shoe-leather. You'll mind a little man in a blue night-cap, with a crutch-handled stick. That was Birkenshaw. He had but two faults: he was apt to get a drop too much beer now and then, and he couldn't leave the game alone. There were preserves all round us, and if he'd been content with what was found on our farm it would not have mattered so much; but that did not suit him—he must be poaching in the very midst of the preserves. Then he had two dogs that could do anything but speak, as regular poachers and as fond of it as Tom himself was.
"Well, father warned him, and I warned and threatened, but it was no use. Go into his cottage when you would between August, when the leverets are so tender, and February, you were sure to smell game, though not a bit of fur or feather was to be seen; he used to say to me, 'Bless your heart, Master Gabriel, it's not the beasties I care for; it's going after them.' His lame leg rather interfered with his sport; for before that accident, there was not a man in the county could get nigh him if he got a fair start. Well, as I told him, to make a long story short, he was caught, one moonlight night, by the earl's gamekeeper, when he and his brindled dog Patch were enjoying themselves in a twelve-acre meadow of the Earl of D--'s; Patch driving the hares into the gins, and Birkenshaw taking them out and resetting them. The gamekeeper shot the dog from behind a hedge where he had been lying waiting, and chased my man, overtook him, and knocked him down. John jumped up, his blood boiling at the loss of Patch, caught the keeper a crack with a short cudgel, that laid him flat, took to his heels, and ran home and told no one.
"Two hours afterwards a party of watchers found the keeper lying where John had stretched him, groaning, bloody, and insensible. The next day he recovered his senses, and by midnight poor John was in Durham Castle, heavily ironed. He was tried at the next assizes, and sentenced to be transported for life. It was only by very strong interest that he escaped being hanged. Birkenshaw told the judge he would sooner be hanged, and many of his friends agreed that hanging could not be worse—so blind are we poor mortals to what is best for us. We promised to take care of his wife and two little boys. John was taken away ironed, on the top of the coach for London. He passed through the village and our farm, and there was not a dry eye. The miners wanted to rescue him, but we persuaded them it would do no good. Years passed before we ever heard whether he was dead or alive. His poor wife soon pined away and died, and the two little boys came to us. You'd scarcely believe it; but, 'fore their father had been gone six months, I caught them and my eldest son Ralph in the hay-loft making gins for hares. You may be sure I threshed them all well.
"Just before the war ended, when my two eldest were growing up, nice boys, big enough to ride to market with me, my father and I agreed to take another large arable farm, that had been very badly done by the last tenant, on a long lease; we thought we had a good bargain, and that it would be ready by the time my son Ralph was old enough to take to it; for although my father was getting on in years, he was as hale and as hearty as many a man of fifty. But the very week after signing the lease, as the old man was returning from Durham on his mare, that had carried him without shying or stumbling for nigh fourteen years, she slipped up in coming along a bridle-road and threw him against a stone wall, breaking his collar bone and cutting his head open; there he lay, through a frosty night, for many hours before he was found; he lingered several weeks, but never rallied. Long as we had lived together; I seemed to have lost him just when I needed him most.
"Before the year was out peace was signed, and down went prices. I had to pay off my sisters' fortunes, fixed by will when wheat was at 120s. a quarter. Then came a heavy bond to pay as security, that my father had given for a relation, who had taken contracts and made great sums through the war, but ended by a great mistake. All my troubles came at once; a coalpit we had a heavy stake in, and which I took from my sisters, because they had married far away, burst out with fire-damp, was filled with water, and then could not be cleared. So one way or another, what with the heavy sums needed for stocking and putting in heart the new farm, my ready money all melted away. Then came, after a short gleam of sunshine, a regular fall of prices of agricultural produce. The landlords spoke fair; they gave us an act of parliament that they said would keep corn at 80s., though even that would scarcely do for some of us; but we dined and drank toasts, hurrahed, and went home satisfied. Meat, wool, and corn all went down; it was quite plain, that if such times continued, at the same rents, break we all must. Those that had lived fast with small capital, began to go first. But you know, sir, a farmer dies as hard as a fox or a dingoe; he can't shift his pivot so easy as a tradesman or a manufacturer; and he takes a longer time to break, for the landlord who's the chief creditor, will wait a long time, knowing he can come in at last and sweep away all. Well, I could have managed to make a good fight with my old farm, by cutting down expenses, wearing an old coat, putting my hand to the plough; but how was I to save money for the children? Besides, the other farm, with so much money sunk on it, was a regular dead weight; and my father being gone, I was obliged to leave much to a bailiff.
"Things got very black indeed; and although they talked very loud in parliament and at county meetings, I could not see any real chance of good prices.
"Well, one day who should come up with a letter of introduction from Mr. Lambton but a sun-burnt foreign-looking gentleman, 'from New South Wales,' a Mr. M--, wanting to buy a lot of good short-horns, both bulls and heifers, thorough-bred horses and Cleveland bays, and implements, to take out; and likewise to hire a good farm-bailiff, and a man to take care of his horses out. He was sent to me, as one likely to tell him where to get the best of every thing. I rode about with him, sold him some stock, and naturally had a good deal of talk with him, was surprised to find that Botany Bay, the only place we'd ever heard of, was in New South Wales. When he found by my grumbling that I was not quite satisfied, he offered to use his influence if I would go out with my family and some labourers, to get me a grant of land where there would be scarcely a rent, and no taxes, if I would sail in the ship with his stock. He said I could, he was sure, make my fortune in ten years, and a lot more about what a country it was for cattle and sheep. Well, I didn't take much heed of it at first; I did not like the idea of leaving Old England, or taking my wife and family to Botany Bay. But I told all to my wife, and she did not say much, but she listened hard.
"The Lord be thanked, my father never made a gentleman of me; I took my turn at all farming work, from driving to ploughing, from cutting and plashing hedges to building a wheat-stack; likewise, I went into our forge and learned to make a set of horse-shoes and put them on, as well as to sharpen and mend all implements.
"I brought up my own lads the same way, and I found the use of it, and so have they.
"Well, as things got worse, I cut down all I could, worked early and late, and lived as hard nearly as my grandfather; and my wife never grumbled, or even looked sad, when I was by, but I used to see the tears running down her cheeks as she lay asleep, for we both knew there would be but one end, unless some great change took place in rents and price of corn, and that end was ruin. We were both thinking
of what Mr. Lambtou's friend had offered; but we said nothing to each other, for at that time people in the country looked on emigration and transportation as much the same thing, and Australia was thought a country of thieves and savages.
"It was a few days after I had paid my rent, I had tried to get a reduction, but the landlords of the second farm were only trustees, and said they could not do it; for the third year, the rent had come out of my capital, and I was sitting smoking a pipe, and wondering what was to become of us all, and whether Botany Bay was as good a place for a farmer as what Mr. M-- had told me, when the post-boy comes up on his pony, on his way to the castle, and whistles as having a letter. He was a new post-man (Bob Spurrier, that other lad, enlisted in the dragoons and was
killed at Waterloo;) the lasses were all in the dairy, so I stept out myself. Says he, 'Is there a woman here by the name of Molly Birkenshaw, 'cause I've a letter for her, and it's four and elevenpence, a letter from furrin parts, I take it.'
"When he said this you might have knocked me down with a feather. I knew in a moment where it was from,—the very place I had been thinking on that minute. So I stared at him a bit, and then I said, quite slow, 'There was a wench o' that name, but she's dead, but you can give me the letter, for her lads are here.'
"'Aye,' says he, 'but you must pay for it.'
"With that I snatches the letter from him, and throws him a crown piece, and off he goes, and I stood looking on it as if I was in a dream. There it was, plain enough, 'Molly Birkenshaw, Gnarledoak Farm, Lingscroft, near Durham, England,' and stamped 'Sydney, New South Wales, Ship-letter.' Chris. Birkenshaw came in soon after with a team, and we broke it to him gently. The poor lad cried above a bit. Well, we opened the letter, and, sure enough, it was from his father. I can show it you, for I keep it safe locked up; I call that letter my title-deed, for without it I should never have wonned here.
"He told how he had written several times, but his letters never came to hand, as he guessed himself. It seemed he had done well, having got assigned to a master that treated him well—he being valuable from his knowledge of cattle and horses; and that after a few years he had got his pardon for shooting a Bushranger. About this, he said (I'll show you the letter when we get home) 'he put two balls through my hat; but I fetched him down with one of my snap shots, without putting the gun to my shoulder, as he looked round a tree. You mind, Moggy, how I used to knock the rabbits that way, holding the gun across my knees; but there's no rabbits here, nor game worth speaking of, which is a great pity; but perhaps it is all for the best.' Then he went to tell how he'd got a fifty-acre grant and a small lot of cattle, and had made money by his wages and by attending to the great Mr. L--'s herd of breeders, and had bought grants of land from drinking fellows; and what a good country it was for all kinds of live stock; and what a profit wheat paid, the government wanting such a quantity of meal for the prisoners; and how land could be had on grant by a farmer with some money; and how drunken many of the people were, and how well sober people got on; 'for,' says he, 'I've given up drink, Moggy, ever since I got my liberty!' Then he asked after his old friends, and even the gamekeeper, hoping he had got over that clout; and after his old master, that was me, and wished Master Bowsted, a wild young gentleman that used to go poaching with Tom, might think of coming out; and then he gave a list of prices of cattle and sheep, and wages; and ended by saying he had sent 50l., to be paid through the Durham bank, to Mister Gabriel, that's me, for the passage of his wife and family; and if he did not hear this time, he should not write no more, but give it up for a bad job. And, sure enough, three days after came a notice that the money had come.
"Well, we spelled it over again and again; the two lads wept, and so did my wife; and I could scarcely help weeping myself, to think what a comfort it would have been to poor Moggy Birkenshaw if she had lived, and to think, too, what a help and warning this letter seemed. Well, I got on my nag, and took a turn round the farm, just to give me time to consider what or whether I should say any thing about emigrating to my wife. The time was come for me to make up my mind. Tom Birkenshaw's letter had turned the scale with me; but when I looked round, and saw in the distance the spires of the cathedral that had so often been a glad sign of home near, after a long absence, my heart almost failed me. The thought of a farewell for ever to the country and the county and the parish where I was born; of seeing no more the fields in which I had laboured and sported for nearly forty years, seemed indeed a draught too bitter. Then, again, I recalled my present position, sliding surely, in spite of my struggles, in spite of my clingings to every twig of stay—down, down to ruin; and my heart was hardened for any change that offered fair hopes of an honest living.
"At length, my mind was made up. I would speak to my wife that very evening, and find whether she would cross the seas, or fight it out with poverty at home. With this resolution I rode back, firmer in my saddle than I had been for many a day. It was dusk, and supper laid out: they were waiting for me for prayers; it was my second son Barnard's turn to read a chapter. My wife (it was not her custom) went herself, fetched the Bible, a lighted candle, and, putting her finger on a place, said to Barnard, in a voice that sounded as if she was swallowing her tears, 'There, read there,' and the boy read:—
"'Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee.'
"Then I looked at her and with a sad and serious smile, her eyes answered me, and I knew we were agreed.
"The next day we began to prepare for our long journey. Weary work it was and painful, deciding what to take and what to sell. Many a treasure was sacrificed; old oak presses, chairs, and bedsteads, that had belonged to our family for centuries, had to go under the auctioneer's hammer. But we went at the work with a will, and cleared away wholesale. We, who were old and the full-grown, were sad; but the children played and enjoyed the confusion, which made us still sadder.
"Having chosen what furniture would be useful, as well as what would take up little room and sell for nothing, and made a careful muster of tools and agricultural implements, half of which turned out useless, I selected three of my finest yearling bulls, and made a barter of other stock for a cart and a blood stallion.
"The sorest trial was the day of sale, and the remarks of my friends and neighbours. No criminal was ever considered more a doomed man; and on looking back, I often wonder how I had courage to persevere. I got rid of my farms at a great sacrifice; but having made up my mind to go, I thought the sooner I was gone the better.
"The only parties who would join me in emigrating were two young men, small farmers, Granby's father and Will Blackwood, who was killed by the Blacks near where we stand; he's buried by the chapel, but you can see the mounds where we covered over the savages. Budge and Grundy followed us two years afterwards. It was only those very hard up that would think of crossing the sea.
"As for the Squires they were very angry; they did not like the example set to tenants, and abused me as if I had been a deserter or a traitor. Emigration was not in fashion as it is now.
"Of friends of my own standing, one did not like the sea, another thought times would mend, another was getting ready when his wife stopped him, and so they stayed. Out of a dozen all came down to the workhouse or day-labour, except one, and he went to Canada and did well. Mr. M--, the gentleman from New South Wales, was delighted to hear of my going with such a useful party, and got me a cheap passage, on condition of our looking after his bulls, rams, and horses.
"We were a large party, and every one able to work, except the baby; but my capital had dwindled to a few hundred pounds. Every one of my servants has done well. Bill Bouser, my head farm-servant, paid his own passage; he's one of the richest men in the colony now. The two young Birkenshaws married two of my daughters; one of them is in Port Philip. Betty Ludlow, the dairy-maid, married my second son, Barnard. Hugh Sands, my ploughman, has a nice farm on the river; you saw him last night, a dark, stout little man; and Dolly Russell, our nurse, has married the rich Mr. N--, and lives in greater style than the governor's lady, which she deserves, for she was as good as she was pretty.
"We sailed to London from Newcastle in a smack, and sent the stock with the men and two of my lads by land. The misery of the voyage and the lodging in London would almost have turned us back if it had not been too late. Only my wife never gave in; and depend upon it, sir, in emigrating, a wife of the right sort is half the battle.
"We were five months from London to Port Jackson, calling in at the Cape for water and fresh provisions, but we only lost one bull. We were ready to kiss the ground when we landed. My third son George took a fancy to the sea; and though he stayed at home until we were settled, he went off, and now commands a whaler out of Sydney. I found it best to sell my live stock, for which I got great prices. Mr. M--'s letters put me pretty right; but within a week of landing, Tom Birkenshaw limped into our lodgings. We had written to him when we made up our minds, but the letter did not arrive much sooner than ourselves. Tom was much older, worn and grey, with downcast look, but still something that gave the idea of money in both pockets, and he rode a tidy nag. The meeting between him and his orphan lads was a very moving sight. It seemed curious that times should so turn round, that my best friend should be my herd, and he a prisoner too. I had influence to get a good grant, and Birkenshaw put me up to what land to ask for, and what official gentleman to conciliate by letting him have one of my horses on his own terms. Birkenshaw bought my team of oxen and waggons; I had a tent; he engaged me my hands, a bullock-driver, a stockman and two others, all from our neighbourhood, all prisoners.
"I came down to this place when there was not a settler within a hundred miles, and literally pitched my tent, a three-poled one, on the river side. Having been accustomed to find house and outbuildings, fences, fields, gardens, beside shops for all clothes and implements, ready to our hands, we had every thing to make, and very little to make it with. But I pulled off my coat and began, and for fifteen years, from daylight to dusk, never left off for six days a-week, besides teaching the children in the evening, when they were not too sleepy to listen to me. After fifteen years, I found I could rest a little, and now I only give a hand's turn at harvest or shearing time. But then I have had six more children born to me, besides grandchildren; and in this country truly we may say with the Psalmist, 'Children are an heritage of the Lord. As arrows in the hand of the strong man, so are children; happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them,' for food grows faster than mouths, and they are well earning their worth, when at home they would want a maid to look after them.
"It is true I have been very fortunate; there will never be such times again for making money—since the free grants of laud and the assignment of prisoners have both been done away with. Then my land has always been free from drought, and is right down good land, needing little work for clearing; although, as for that, you may take my word, there is more good land than the squatters like to own. Why, I have had four sets of servants that have done well, besides a lot of idle drinking fellows. There was my first bullock-driver, Frank Fetlock; he was transported for stealing corn to feed his master's horses; when he was before the magistrates they offered to let him off if he would enlist, as he was a very fine-looking fellow. He often laughed about it, saying what a good job it was he wouldn't consent, although he rued his answer when first sent to the hulks for transportation. Frank was an ingenious fellow, always at work on straw hats or stockwhips, or something, when not busy for me. When he left, he had a mare, a few head of stock, and a little money saved up to begin with. Yorkshire-like, he was a rare hand at chopping and swapping, and now he is one of the richest men in the district. Then there was Tom Nash, a stockman of mine; he came out as groom to Colonel I--, quite a fine gentleman flunkey when he arrived, a cockney too; he threw up his livery, because he saw where money was to be made, gave up all expenses, saved money, and is a squatter now, with perhaps as fine a stock as any in the colony. Those of my old neighbours from Gnarledoak, that have come out and laid down to work, have done well; go where you will, the hard workingman, with a large family, is thriving. But then there are failures. Farmer Cudworth had 3000l. when he landed; he was always grumbling, hated the country, hated the people, and made them hate him, spent as much money on clearing and fencing twenty acres as should have gone to crop a hundred; would stick to all his old country notions, lost his money, took to drinking, and died. Squire Brand's son came to me with a letter of introduction; he had 5000l., would not wait to learn any thing, bought sheep the Sydney bank had a mortgage on—a regular bad lot; then left all to his overseer while he was dancing at the governor's balls, playing the fashionable, and made a complete failure; he went home. And so you see, sir, the long and short of it is, that for a man that can work himself, this is a famous country, and likewise money is to be made by carefully laying out money in stock and waiting for the increase; but as a general rule the money made by gentlemen who have not much capital, and have not been accustomed to soil their hands, is by saving, living being cheap and neither shop nor fashions in the Bush to tempt into spending money idly. I could tell a score of stories about settlers I've known, of all sorts, that have done well, and that have made a regular mull of it. Fair words and hard work will carry you through; it's better to say come than go, if you want work done in the Colony. There was young C-- . But what's that by the fallen gum-tree; as I live there's a dingoe at a sick ewe. Loo Boomer, Loo Bounder! at him, good dogs!" The hounds caught sight just as master Dingoe began to steal across the plain, just like a great hill fox, only, instead of carrying his brush gallantly in the air, it was tucked miserably between his legs; away went the hounds, at full speed; we followed, leaping fallen trees and cracks, the old man standing up in his stirrup, with his hat in his hand, cheering the dogs at the top of his voice; after a sharp burst, just as master Dingoe was getting into a scrubby thicket, Boomer turned him, and Bounder pulled him down, not without receiving a grab that nearly cut off his fore leg; in one minute my knife laid the brute's throat open. This ended our gossip for that day, as I suspect Father Gabriel was rather ashamed that old sporting instincts and hatred of the Bushman's curse, the native dog, should have made him forget his position as an elder at Gabriel's Chapel.