'Bob-my-Boy.'

New Zealand Mail, 3 December 1896, Page 13

'Bob-my-Boy.'

CLASS 11. Stories of Adventure.

«. A STORY OF THE OLD DAYS. BY MRS KATHERINE ALLEN. CSpecially written for the New Zealand Mail.) PRIZE STORY. HERE is nothing- fresh or original in (Mp my reasons for leaving home. My mother was dead, and my father becoming infatuated with a widow, with encumbrances, married her, and—all the rest was a matter of course. I was literally .driven from home. I ran away. I cannot describe what I suffered—l, the heir of one of the oldest houses in England, a Bartram of Bartram cold, starvation and misery unspeakable, till I obtained a billet as cook’s boy on board the Elizabeth, going out to Botany Bay with a cargo of convicts and other etceteras, soldiers, and the captain’s wife and daughter, Bessie Gordon.

Bessie Gordon’s pitying eyes picked me out at once from the rough and criminal Crowd. She spoke to the captain, and I was promoted from cook’s boy to cabin boy, from purgatory to elysium, before my character became warped from contact with the worst criminals in all England. Could I ever forget her kindness, or, when the time came, and her life —and more —was in danger, could I desert her, basely desert her, to save my own valueless lifo ?

When tho convicts were all landed in Sydney, Captain Gordon, who had only sailed the ship out, and had an impoitant appointment connected with the convict establishment at Botany Bay, went ashore with his family, leaving the first mate to take the vessel home. The sailors all rau away, and I followed suit, having shaken the dust of old England off my feet for ever.

Besides, somewhere on that gorgeous, fiower-GOvered, sandhilled continent Bessie Gordon lived, and —I loved her. Every boy just entered on his teens loves somebody outside his own family ; generally it is somebody older than himself. I had no family, so I loved Bessie Gordon, better than other boys love their first love, since there was no one to divide my affections with.

But, alas ! no one can live on love alone. I tried to get work at the respectable houses about, but the convict servants shut the doors iu my face. They could read signs like a book. Through misery, hunger and heartbreak they could see I was not one of them.

At last, while I sat on the jetty one day, staring out at the blue waters in the harbour, wondering how it would feel to end everything there and then, a hand was laid on my shoulder, and a voice—a voice that in all the years after never changed its note of kindness to me —said :

‘ Want a billet, boy ? Jump aboard there. We’re just off to New Zealand a-whaling. Here, you fellows, look after this little chap,’ and thus it was that I met Captain John Guard, and was mixed up in the adventure which I am going to relate.

The Harriet was a vessel of about 250 tons, and Captain Guard had successfullyplied his calling- as a whaler on the coast of New Zealand since 1323. Consequently he was well acquainted with the coast generally, though Te Awaite, in Tory Channel, Queen Charlotte Sound, was his head-quarters. I had never lived till now. Captain Guard had taken a fancy to me, and promoted me whenever he could do so. He trusted me, too, and always left me in charge of the ship when he was ashore in Sydney. I had made no acquaintances in Sydney. Though my name —one of the proudest in England—would alone have procured me the entree into the best society of Sydney, I chose not to make use of it. When the captain asked my name I told him it was ‘ Bob/ I was christened ‘ Bob - the - Boy/ in the cook’s galley. Captain Guard called me ‘Bob-my-Boy’ as long as we were together, and though I bear another name now, ‘ Bob-rny-Boy ’ is the name I love best. ‘ Bob-my-Boy/ said Captain Guard one day, ‘ I’m going to be married this trip/ and so he was, and brought his wife on board just as we -were going to heave up anchor and start for New Zealand. There was something about Mrs Guard, tali and stately as she was, that reminded me of Bessie Gordon. Perhaps it was the thick, shining coils of golden hair, that gleamed through the meshes of her net veil. Perhaps it was the voice that stirred my heart. ‘ Bob-my-Boy, this is my wife. Bessie 1 —ah! it was she; I was not mistaken — ‘ this is my right hand, commonly known as “ Bob-my-Boy/’ ’ f When I knew him years ago,’ said Mrs Guard softly, ‘ he was called “ Bob -theBoy/” Misfortunes never come but in battalions. They had been piled high up on my head ; but nothing more could reach me. The last straw had broken the back of all my romantic, boyish hopes. My castles in Spain were in ruins. I had pushed my Bay up, only to find myself alone once pre, without hope. I. had saved my share

of the spoils of whaling with the object of offering them all to Bessie Gordon when they were worth offering—and myself—but now —well, Captain Guard was my hero, and gratitude was stronger than despair. The years passed quickly away. Two little children called Mrs Guard ‘mother,’ and Jack, the elder, was the pride and joy of the ship. His eyes were as keen as the most practised look-out’s for a whale. ‘ Bob, me boy,’ he would call out in his childish treble, ‘ ther9 she ’pouts.’ In 1834, Teddy, the baby, was yet in long clothes, the plaything of the ship, and the civilising influence which kept the rough old salts from using hard words whilst they dandled the baby in their arms. Even Mrs Guard had not the influence that tiny babe possessed, though the sailors did try to modify their language in her presence. One sailor had collected some dried specimens of New Zealand ferns at Te Awaite for an old savant in Sydney, who called each specimen by its botanical name. Asplenium bulbeferum, hymcnophyllum javanicum and todca superb a, would be grand as swears, lie could let off no end of steam if he could only master those big words, thought the old sailor. ‘ Larn ’em to me, sir,’ he said, * an’ I won’t never have to swear no more afore the capting’s lady.’ 1834 was a year of storms, gales and hurricanes, tempestuous seas and fogs. The men became restless and quarrelsome. The salt-water Professor made love to tho chief’s intended at Port Underwood, and the chief had to be conciliated with a big present. One of the old guns which we carried to protect ourselves from Bully Hayes was pretty well worn out, so the captain gave him that. The same old gun now lies outside tho Literary Institute in Blenheim, an object of historical interest. But the old gun did not keep the peace for long. ‘Bob-my-Boy,’ said Captain Guard, ‘a snug harbour’s the best place this sort of weather ; but I think we’d best rip anchor and cut across to Port Nick, or the Professor’ll bo losing the number cf his mess.’ So we went out to sea.

Out to sea with a regular hurricane blowing in the Strait, before which the ship simply flew like a bit of paper. There was only enough sail on to steady her, and that we had to replace every now and then as the one up would be blown into tatters. There was a thick fog and a tremendous sea—the very worst we had ever experienced on the coast of New Zealand. Hours passed, -which seemed like days ; we simply had no idea of time. The hatches were securely battened down, Mrs Guard and the children being in the cabin. The only food we tasted on deck was ship’s biscuits, washed down with a taste of rum. The noise wvas deafening, and Captain Guard had to shout in my ear with his trumpet. ‘ This is a tight fix, Bob-my-Boy.’ Hardly were the words uttered, when with a horrible trembling, as if she were a human being in some dire strait, the ship grounded on a beach, and swayed from side to side with each huge roller that came and went, and swept her deck from stem to stern.

To make our situation more appalling, an inky darkness surrounded us, and as we had no idea of our whereabouts, we could only hold on and pray for daylight. At last—as if the elements were satisfied with having buffeted us, aud cast us ashore on a strange place—the fog cleared, the wind abated, and the sun came out in its wintry brightness to smile us into hope. The poor old Harriot was past all hope, high up on a shingly beach, with gaping wounds, battered and done to death. We hardly thought of hostile natives in our anxiety to shelter Mrs Guard and the children, and scarcely were they under cover on the beach when a band of two or three hundred Maoris came suddenly down on us, demanding as their right all that the great sea had cast upon their shores. Then they suddenly disappeared. We threw up earthworks, for we knew full well they would return. They had warned us according to etiquette. We had left death behind us, but hero was another death —perhaps worse than death —more grim than the last staring us in the face.

For twenty-four hours v r e worked as men work only for their lives, feeling that behind the virgin bush, which grew down almost to the water’s edge, there were enemies hidden, watching each of our despairing efforts with malicious eyes. When the struggle came, as it did next morning at daybreak —it was not much of a struggle, for the enemy came down in overpowering numbers —wo were yet hardly prepared to resist, but still for a time we fought for the woman and two little children who crouched behind the flimsy barricade. Fought as Englishmen always do fight for their cause, whatever it may be; fought as men fight for their lives, meaning to render a good account of deeds, and make as many of the enemy bite the dust as they possibly could. But our little handful of men were simply knocked down like ninepins with the shower of spears and tomahawks that poured on our heads over the breastwork. Meet of us were wounded, some of us were dead. Our last powder was spent, and surrender was the only course open to us.

‘ Bob,-my-Boy,’ whispered Captain Guard, 'there is yet one chance for us. We must leave Bessie and the children. The Maoris will not harm them. See, there is foothold up the cliff, we can escape that way. The Maoris are preparing for another rush. Pass round the word and let us be off, or we are dead men, leaving those helpless creatures at the mercy of those savages for life/

‘ You will not leave them! you cannot leavo them, captain!’ I gaspod out, almost too much astonished at such a proposal, coining from such a loving husband and father, to move.

‘Can’t you see, Bob-my-boy, it’s the only ohanco for then? and for us. Alive,

we may help them; dead —as we shall be in five minutes more if we stay here—we fling them straight into their hands for ever. Come on, come on ! To the cliff, men; follow me, and save yourselves.’ Up the cliff went the remnant of our men, leaving a helpless woman with her babes at the mercy of a horde of wild savages. CHAPTER 11. ‘ Kill me, Bob-my-Boy, kill me.’ The Maoris were over the breastwork, literally swarming round us, with all the wildest passions of the savage painted in their faces. As yet they were intent on the wild flight of our men up the precipitous cliff. Showers of spears and tomahawks followed them, but none seemed to touch them. Presently no doubt their anger would be turned unon us. Mrs Guard thought so, for she was kneeling at my feet, with her long hair—which a cut from a tomahawk had set loose from its restraining comb —falling around her like a golden shower. ‘ Kill mo, Bob-my-Boy, kill me.’ I might have done so perhaps if ray hands had not been pinioned to my sides, and then —well, I must have killed myself too. Though there would have been justification in suck a deed, how could I have lived, how could I have walked the earth all these years and years, a murderer, and of the only woman I ever loved? God pity me. But I was saved from that by the action of the- Maoris, who had us tied before there was a chance of doing anything. Mrs Guard’s fair complexion, large blue eyes, and masses of golden hair quite surprised our captors, and the children with their rosy cheeks were also objects of wonderment to them. Hardly any of the natives of tho famous Rangituapeka pa had seen any white people, though stories of the wonderful colour of the people who came in groat canoes from countries far away over the sea had reached them, and once from their pa they had seen a great white bird —like the moas of old skimming along on the sea. That was all. We were taken to the Rangituapeka pa, and the days fled, and the weeks went on into months long dreai’y months of captivity—and not a sign by land or by sea to tell us that our friends had escaped, or if they had remembered us. And troubles were gathering thickly about our heads. The clematis hung in its white glory, crowning the tree tops in the bush below. The clematis was tne marriage symbol of the Te Narau tribe, and crowned the heads of all the Rangituapeka brides. Akina, tho daughter of the old chief next in command to Kereopa, was to have been Kereopa s bride this spring ; but the white ■woman with hair like the golden moon had turned away his heart, and now, according to Kereopa, the clematis must garland A-Betty’s head, and A-Betty, as the Maoris called Mrs Guard, must be Kereopa’s bride. Akina, who was jealous at first, suddenly turned round and insisted on A- Betty being married to Kereopa. -The reason was not far to seek; she also was a renegade to the traditions of her tribe, and loved an alien —in other words, she sighed for a pakeha husband, and I, loving but one woman in all the world, pretended to .love Akina to save her, and to get the marriage postponed. The clematis was turned into silken fluff, and the rata blossom turned the trees into a blaze of red, and still never a sign from the outer world that any one remembered us. Akina was tired of pretending she still loved Kereopa, and Kereopa was tired of waiting for a wife. Ropata as I was called by the Maoris—lived in fear of a worse trouble than any that had yet befallen us, and A-Betty was sinking fast into hopeless despair. ‘There is a way out of it, Bob-my-Boy, she said. ‘But for my children’s sake I will not take that way till there is not a particle of hope left, then—.’ Mrs Guard ended up with a scream and pointed to the sea, ‘A ship! a ship! two ships! Oh! Bob-my-Boy, wliat does that moan ? At last, oh ! at last, he’s coming. He has not forgotten us, as you said. Do you hear, Jack ? Baby, do you hear ? Your father is coming to save us, to save us, to save us!’ and wild screams, as wild as any Maori yells could possibly be, rent the air, high up on that prison pa. The Maoris were all round us, gazing first at the sea and then at mad A-Betty, who refused to marry their great chief. They had never seen a ship like that before—a ship that came sailing up, and up, and up, without paddles. ‘ Taipc- canoe ! taipo canoe !’ they cried. But Kereopa knew better. He was a great chief, and had been to Auckland aud tho Bay of Islands with his uncle, the great Hone Heke. lie had seen the war canoes of the pakelias, and heard tho guns thunder out a salute on the Queen’s Birthdaj 7 , and though ho knew —none better—that A-Betty was as good as lost to him even then, he fought for his rights —or what he thought were his rights. ‘A-Betty shall never leave. the pa, never! Neither the cowardly white man who crawls up the rocks like a taniwha, nor the taipo canoe that spits out fire and stones like Tanpo, shall take her away. Kereooa has said it.’

* If Bopata will stay, Akina will help A-Betty to get away,’ whispered the Maori girl in my ear. ‘ I owe you that, Akina, for your help so far. Out in all the wide world there is not a soul who will miss me, or give me a passing thought. Help that poor creature to get to her husband, and I will marry you to-morrow/ Then the Alligator’s guns thundered at the cliffs on which the pa Avas built, and a boat put off for the shore. Kereopa, full of a new plan, snatched up little Ted and ran down the steep track to the beach, whilst the Maoris ran hither and thither, panic-stricken. From the pa we could see, but not hoar’, what Avas going on below. Kereopa obstinately refused to give up either

Mrs Guard or Jack, whose winning ways had taken Kereopa’s heart by storm. ‘This is all/ he kept repeating, offering poor little frightened Ted to the officers. There was a scuffle, a pistol went off and Kereopa lay wounded to death on the beach.

After all he had been good to us during those six months of our captivity. But for him, and his manly forbearance, what would those six months have been to Mrs Guard ? She, no doubt, thought of that, and as he was carried up and laid at her feet with the dews of death already on his brow, in a rush of womanly feeling she took his dying head on her lap and wept bitter tears of sorrow on his face.

‘Let A-Betty go/ he murmured to Akina’s father. ‘Her heart is with the taniwha pakeha. He is taipo, and carries thunder in his canoe. A-Betty was the morning star of my heart, but her eyes looked always at the sea and the bush for a tangata, not Kereopa/ ‘ She shall go in peace/ responded the old chief.

‘ And Taka ?’ queried the dying chief. Ted was already with his father.

‘ Taka shall go/ The boat had returned to the ship, and the guns were thundering away at the foundations of the hitherto impregnable pa, each shot carrying away tons upon tons of rock.

* Ropata/ said Kereopa, ‘ Akina's father is an old man. When I am gone there will be no one to lead the tribe and keep up the prestige of the Rangituapekas. ‘ Akiua will be my wife/ I replied simply ; ‘ I have promised, and as I spoke another shot from the Alligator took effect on the pa, and the palisade on that side fell into the sea. Ere the thunder of the shot ceased echoing round the cliffs Kereopa ivas dead, and I, as representative of Akina’s father —who, like the rest, was helpless -with fright—hastily tied a bunch of dressed flax on a pole, and waved it, in token of surrender.

I did not witness the meeting of Captain and Mrs Guard, but afterwards, when I sought them, where they waited for me on the beach, the happy light in both faces left me nothing more to wish for. Captain Guard tried hard to persuade me to give up my Quixotic idea, and showed mo a paper wherein a certain Robert Heathcoto Bartram, who ran away from home in 18—, was earnestly requested to communicate with an eminent firm of solicitors in London. ‘And, Bob-my-Boy/ said the captain, ‘ that is a more suitable life for you than the one you purpose leading

here/ I looked away over sixteen thousand miles of sea and saw a fair English home which might be mine, and a slim, blueeyed English girl waiting for me on the broad terrace steps. On the other hand, I saw Akina, the dark-skinned daughter of the south. I remembered my promise to her, and knew that she was waiting for her Pakeha lover up there in the pa. And now through the long vista of years that divides that time from this come the echoes of those loving farewells on the beach, -when Mrs Guard’s arms clung round my neck like a sister s might and ‘ Good-bye, Bob-my-Boy,’ was the °last sound I heard of the voices I lovod best on earth.