Untitled

Otago Witness, Issue 1582, 18 March 1882, Page 25

Australia.

By E. Hudson.

Author of ' Broken Fetters,' ' The Qoldies of Golden ' ■ Terrace,' ' The Heir of Thorwell Manor/ &c.

(Specially written for the Witness.)

Chapter I. Tread softly— bow the headIn rev'rent silence bow ; No passing bell doth toll, Yet an immortal soul Is passing now. No mingling voices sound— An infant wail alone ; A sob suppresßed-*-again That short, deep gasp, and then The parting groan.

—Caroline Southey. her berth, in tho dark, close, comfortless steerage compartment of an emigrant vessel, a woman lay dying,— a few hours' old baby by her side. It was evening, ana the place was lighted by a dim oil lamp which swung from the low ceiling. The dying woman was not alone ; but she might as well have been : for the nurse, unmindful of her charge, half-sitting, halfleaning against the berth, was in a heavy sleep or stupor, from which the brisk entrance of the ship's doctor failed to arouse her. He was followed by the captain and a Mrs Smith, one of the passengers,— the dying woman having expressed a wish to have her child baptised that evening. The doctor uttered an exclamation as his eye took in the scene before him.

*Py the ashes of my last walking-stick,' he cried, ' put the woman has drunk the medicine and killed the patient !' It was even so. Occupied with other patients, the doctor had, after bringing this one safely through the crisis, left her for an hour in sole charge of the nurse, with directions to the latter to administer a stimulant at stated intervals. But the nurse was a slave of that vice which, more than all other vices, hardens the heart and destroys the conscience ; and no sooner was the doctor's back turned than she drank the whole of the cordial at a draught, and composed herself to repose, with the most apathetic indifference to the fate of her patient. And that fate, the doctor saw at once, would be death. With ordinary care at the proper time she would have rallied, but now it was too late.

The indignant captain ordered the wretched' woman 'to be carried to the deck, where unlimited buckets of sea-water, administered by the equally indignant sailors, restored her to consciousness. But there was no remorse for what slui had done. She was angry at having been found out and at the treatment she had received, but for the deed itself there was no compunction. Should such another opportunity occur to-morrow, she would act exactly i i the same way : not even the dread of punishment being able to conquer her deadly appetite. She had been a secret drinker for years — suspected, but never convicted ; and having since the beginning of the voyage behaved circumspectly, the doctor had had no idea that she was not to be trusted. But now the veil had been torn aside, and the last step between her and irretrievable ruin had been taken. Her husband — a Bober, respectable man— had been a publican. The trade had ruined their only daughter ; hence their emigration. And now to find his wife under ti e same curse ! The evils of drink were comity home to him now, as they never had done m all the years spent in a London gin palace. But to return to the dying woman bejow.

Round her berth were grouped the ship's doctor, the captain, and Mrs William Smith, who had shown the poor woman much kindness, and had promised her to look after the baby 'if anything should happen.' There it lay — poor little thing !— in the tight clasp of its mother's embrace, calmly asleep, while its fate trembled in the balance. She (the mother) lay in her narrow berth as if it had < been her coffin : as white, as still, as deathlike. She was in a stupor from which nothing could arouse her, except the attempt to remove her child; and that caused her so much distress that at length they desisted :it must 'be baptised where it lay. The doctor was about_ to commence the service, when he checked himself to ask, ' What is the child's name to be V A perplexing question, for no one had thought of it. 'Why, call it after its mother, of course,' said the captain. ' But what is her name ?' inquired the doctor.

Nobody knew. She had come on board as Mrs Eustace Smith, going out to Australia to join her husband, and that was all that was known about her.

'Ask her,' suggested the captain to Mrs Smith, who bent over the sick woman and made one more vain attempt to arouse her to consciousness.

' Come,' exclaimed the doctor, impatiently ; ' I cannot wait here all night, ry the ashes of my last walking-stick, put you ought to have thought of this- pefore. Yes, indeed !' ' Call her Australia, 5 said the captain. ' It's the name of the ship on which she was born, and of the country to which she is going. In my opinion she could riot have a better.' This suggestion met with general approval, and was carried out forthwith ; the doctor— for lack of a clergyman on board— reading the service, which he did in a rapid, business-like fashion, closing the book with a snap at the last ' Amea.' The sound, or something else, awoke the infant, which set up a feeble wail that penetrated the heavy ear of the dying mother, reusing her for a moment, before the nickering lamp of her life went out for ever. She stirred ; the white lids with their heavy fringe of black were slowly lifted ; the gaze or a pair of large, brown, startled-looking eyes,— eyes like those of a dying fawn, — rested for a moment on the group around her. and then sought the tiny upturned face of her baby. The sight seemed to restore her to consciousness, for a spasm of anguish shot across her features. Taking the mite of a hand which nestled in hers, she raised it to her lips, and closed her eyes as if hr prayer. For some minutes none of them dared to disturb her. Then there was a faint, fluttering sigh, and the doctor, stooping, laid his fingers on her pulse, then on her heart. :': ' She is gone,' he exclaimed, his voice all the sharper from the effort to conceal its huskiness ; ' she is gone, poor thing ! And, py the ashes of my last walking-stick, I don't know which is ,to be pitied most— her or the child. You, my good woman, will take care of it for the present?' he asked, turning to Mrs Smith. :* Indeed, I will, doctor,' was the hearty response ; 'I'll be a mother to it as long as I can, poor lamb !' And having by this time released it, with some difficulty, from its mother's arms, she clasped it in her own, with a pitying, motherly look on her honest, comely face which augured Veil for the infant as long as it should remain under her care.

,'The burial must be early to-morrow morning,' spoke the captain, in slow, measured accents, which contrasted with the quick, sharp, nervous utterance of the doctor. And nieanwhile,' he added, 'I will take charge of the effects.'

The berth was a bottom one, and the space underneath it was just large enough to accommodate a small box, which Mrs Smith now dtew out. It was the only one the dead woman had brought with her, and seemed ridiculously small for so long a journey, — speaking most expressively of the poverty of its owner.

'Is that, all?' inquired the captain, incredulously. 'Yes,' answered Mrs Smith; 'and for as small as it is it weren't full, but held her clothes, which I put in when she was took sick, to be out o' the way. She kep' the key under her pillow, likewise her purse, to be sure of it.' And thrusting her hand under the pillow, she brought forth the key, a well- worn purse of netted silk, and a small book. The latter was immediately pounced upon by the doctor, in hopes of its affording some clue to his late patient's identity; but he was disappointed. It was a small and evidently well-used pocket Bible ; and the inscription on the fly-leaf—' To my darling Wife, Sept. 3rd, 184—.— E. S.'— told nothing. The purse contained simply a few small coins, and one carefully preserved five-pound note. The poor woman's weddingring was removed and put with it, and everything replaced in the trunk, which the captain relocked, and, retaining the key in his own Eossession, went on deck. Mrs Smith took er charge to her own compartment ; and the doctor, seizing a substantial -looking walkingstick, which had all this time rested against the berth, went briskly off to send some one to perform the last sad duties for the unfortunate woman.