Adventures of Working Men. From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon

“I don’t know how we got there, but the next thing I remember is standing at the hut window with Mary holding little Joe tight in her arms, and me looking through at the cradle where our little thing of nine months old was lying; and my heart seemed to be turning to ice as I saw nestled in the foot of the cradle, partly hidden in the blanket, but with some of its horrible coils full in sight, and its head resting upon them, the largest snake I had seen since I had been in the country. The feeling was something awful, and I stood there for a few moments leaning upon the rough handle of the hoe I had caught up, not able to move, for my eyes were fixed upon the head of that hideous beast, and I expected every moment that the baby would wake and make some movement sufficient to irritate the snake, and then, whether poisonous or not, I felt that the little thing must die.

“What should I do? I asked myself, as the horrible feeling of helplessness wore off. If I crept in and reached the cradle-side unheard, I dared not chop at the beast for fear of injuring the child, for I could see that some of the folds lay right across it. I dared not make a noise, lest the next moment the child should awake as well as the reptile, for I knew the rapidity with which the horrible creatures could wreathe fold after fold round the object they attacked; while, if of a poisonous nature, they struck in an instant. Thoughts came swiftly enough, but they were unavailing, for to wait till the baby woke, or to go in and attack the snake, seemed equally dangerous. Even if I made a slight noise the danger seemed as great, since, though the snake might wake first and glide off, the probabilities were just as great that the child might wake at the same time.

“And so I turned over the chances again and again, my eyes all the while fixed upon the two sleeping occupants of the cradle, whose pleasant warmth had evidently attracted the reptile.

“‘I went in and saw it there,’ whispered my wife, and then, without taking my eyes for an instant from the snake, I whispered the one word ‘Gun,’ and she glided from my side.

“I did not know then, but she told me afterwards, how she had carried the little boy to a distance and given him some flowers to play with, while she crept back to the hut, and, reaching in at the kitchen window, brought me my gun, for I had not stirred. And now, as I grasped the piece in my hand, knowing though I did that it was loaded, it seemed of no use, for I dared not fire; but, with trembling hands, I felt in my pockets to see if there was a bullet in them, and then, softly pulling out the ramrod, I unscrewed the cover of the worm and drew the wadding, reversed the piece, and let the shot fall pattering out, when I softly forced down the bullet upon the powder, examined the cap, and stood ready waiting for a chance; for I thought that the shot might have scattered, and, if ever so little, I might have injured the child in place of its enemy.

“And there we stood for quite half an hour, watching intently that horrible beast comfortably nestled in the blanket, expecting momentarily that the baby would wake, while my hand trembled so that I could not hold the gun steady. One minute I was thinking that I had done wrong in changing the charge, the next minute that I was right; then I fancied that the gun might miss fire, or that I might slay my own child. A hundred horrible thoughts entered my mind before little Joe began to cry out to his mother, and she glided away, while I muttered to myself ‘Thank Heaven!’ for she was spared from seeing what followed.

“As if at one and the same moment, the child and the snake woke up. I saw the baby’s hand move, and its little arms thrown out, while from the motion beneath the blanket I knew that it must have kicked a little. Then there was a rapid movement in the cradle, and as I glanced along the gun-barrel taking aim, there was the whole of the horrible reptile exposed to view, coil gliding over coil as it seemed to fill the foot of the cradle; and now, had my gun been charged with shot, I should have fired, so as to have disabled some part of the creature’s body; but with only a single bullet I felt that the head must be the part attacked when opportunity served.

“Glide, glide, glide, one coil over the other quickly and easily, as if it were untying its knotted body, while now the head slowly rose from where it had lain, and crept nearer and nearer to the child’s face, the forked tongue darting in and out, and playing rapidly about the hideous mouth. I could see the glance of the snake’s eyes, and expected every moment to hear the child shriek out with terror, as the lowered head now rested over its breast. But no, the child lay perfectly still for a few moments, and then I stood trembling in every limb as I saw the snake’s head drawn back, and then begin to sway to and fro, and from side to side, the glistening neck of the beast gently undulating, whilst the tongue still darted in and out of the tight, dreadful-looking mouth.

“Now was the time when I should have fired, but I was too unnerved; and laying down my gun, I seized the hoe, meaning to attack the beast with the stout handle; but my hand fell paralysed to my side as I saw the little innocent in the cradle smile and then laugh at the gently undulating head of the snake; while, as the agony grew to be greater than I could bear, in seeing the little white hands try to catch at it as it swayed to and fro, my power seemed to come back. I snatched up the gun, and as the snake’s head was drawn back preparatory to striking, I pulled the trigger, when the sharp crack of the percussion cap alone followed – perhaps providentially, for in my trembling state I might have injured the child. Then I saw a rapid writhing of the coils in the cradle, and as the tail of the snake glided over the side, everything around me seemed to swim, and I tried to catch at the wall of the hut to save myself from falling.

“But that soon went off; and then, gazing in at the window, I tried to make out the whereabouts of my enemy, as I re-capped and tapped the gun, so that the powder might run up the nipple. The snake was nowhere to be seen, and darting in I seized the child, and carried it out to its mother, when, now feeling relieved of one horrible anxiety, I obtained my shot-pouch from the kitchen, rammed down a charge upon the bullet, and cautiously went in search of the reptile.

“I knew that he must still be in the part of the hut we used for a sleeping-place, and, after cautiously peering about, I came upon the hole where it had taken refuge – an opening between the roughly-sawn planks laid loosely down to form a floor. Unless there was an outlet beneath the woodwork, I felt that the beast must be there; and, to make it more probable, there was our cat, that we had bought a kitten in Sydney, gazing with staring eyes down at the hole.

“Just then I heard a soft rustling beneath my feet, and as I looked down, I could see between two boards the scaly body gliding along. The next moment there came the load report of the gun, the place was fall of smoke, there was a tremendous scuffling noise, and as I looked down between the boards where the charge had forced a passage through, there was no sign of the snake.

“‘Harry! Harry!’ shrieked my wife just then; and on rushing out, there was the beast writhing about in the path, evidently badly wounded, while some crushed-down flowers by the hut wall showed plainly the hole of communication. I never saw snake writhe and twist as that creature did, but I was too excited then to feel afraid, and a few blows from the butt-end of the gun laid it so that there was only a little movement left in its body, which did not stop for an hour or two after I had cut off his head with the axe.

“I should have liked to skin the beast, but I could not master my horror. I measured it, though: fourteen feet three inches long it was, and as thick as my arm; while, as to its weight, I saw the cradle rock to and fro heavily as it glided over the side.

“Snakes are scarce now in that part; for there isn’t a man in Queensland who does not wage war against them, and where there was one settler then, there are now scores. But all the same, if I had my time to come over again, knowing what I do, I should not hesitate for a moment if I were not doing well here. Snakes are bad, doctor, and the blacks are worse; but it was a free and healthy life out there, and one always felt as if one was getting on.”

“And not only felt,” said Harris smiling, “one was getting on. Yes, I agree with Harry Maine, I’d go out again to-morrow without a murmur; though, in my time, there weren’t any of your sort, doctor, within a hundred miles.”

“How did you manage, then, if you were ill?”

“We never were ill, doctor; and few as the medical men were, they seemed to be enough.”

Chapter Twenty One.

My Patient the Prison Warder

“To tell you the truth, doctor,” said a grey old patient of mine, “I don’t think I was ever fit to be a prison warder: I’m too soft. All the same, though, I’ve been at it for twenty-five years; and I’m head warder now, and could retire when I like upon a pension. I don’t know how I drifted into it, but I did. A dozen times over I’ve wanted to get into something else, but it has always seemed as if I was forced to stay on for the rest of my days. It’s been worse for me because I’ve always lived in the prison. It’s a dull life, perhaps; not that I feel it, for, according to my way of thinking, it is not the occupation, but the man’s heart which makes him dull. Depend upon it, hands and a thoughtful mind were not given us for nothing, and the more I think, the nearer I come to the conclusion that the busy life is the happy one after all. Now here I am, with plenty to take up my time in my duties, and plenty of studies of character within reach shut up all ready for me in the different cells.

“Gloomy place this, you’ll say, barred and bolted to keep any friends from getting in unasked; but I’m contented enough, and too busy generally to find fault.

“Yes, you may depend upon it your busy man is the happiest, for I’ve seen it again and again. The greatest punishment you can inflict upon a man is to shut him up with nothing to do, nothing to employ his time with, nothing to hinder the constant drag, drag of his thoughts, pulling him towards the past.

“Not always borrow and contrition, but recollections of drinking-bouts and successful robberies and their profits, debaucheries, and then longings for liberty once more. Of course, now and then we do get a really repentant fellow – not one of your cringing, fawning rascals, who turn up their eyes and feel so much better for the chaplain’s words, and so carefully learn all his texts; but honest rogues – men who have been sent here for their term of imprisonment, and who feel the bitterness and shame of their position – men who shudder as the barber’s scissors crop their hair, and who soon show in their appearance how their punishment is telling upon them. They don’t get fat and sleek, and jump up to make bows when you enter their cell, but hide all their troubles in their hearts, and go about their duties silently and doggedly.

“We had such a man here not long back now – Amos Ridding, in for poaching – and how that poor fellow beat against his cage bars! Poor fellow! I believe he was not a bad one at heart, but he had got himself mixed up with a poaching gang, and a keeper having been half killed, Amos was taken, and rightly or wrongly sent here for two years.

“We can soon pick out what I call the canters, and act accordingly; while where we see a poor fellow taking his confinement to heart, why, knowing how it tells on his mind, I do all I can for him to brighten him up – setting him at odd jobs about the place, gardening, and so on; while if he knows a trade, one that can be worked at in here, speaking to the governor, we set him to do something in that way, never letting him stand still for tools or material.

“But this poor fellow was unmanageable; he would work as hard as I liked, and as long as I liked, but the moment he was by himself he was pining again, fretting for his wife and children, and wearing himself away to skin and bone. I did not know what to do with him, and grew quite troubled at last, for I began to be afraid of having a summons from one of the under-warders, telling me that in a fit of that weary, despairing madness which comes upon men, poor Ridding had made away with himself.

“The summons came at last, but in a different form; for one morning I was roused at five o’clock to be told that the bird had beaten down the wires, and had escaped, and I had to go and tell the governor.

“‘Why, how did he manage it?’ I exclaimed angrily.

“‘Come and see,’ said the warder, and I went to the cell where the prisoner had been locked in the night before at eight o’clock, and then apparently he must have gone to work at once with an old nail at the setting of one of the iron bars in the window till he picked it slowly out, and then wrenched out first one and then another, leaving a passage big enough to allow his body to pass. The blankets and rug were gone, while a piece of the former yet hung to one of the bars, evidently having been used to let the prisoner down into the yard below.

“We were not long in reaching the lesser yard, which was about twenty feet beneath his window, and surrounded on all sides by high buildings. Here it was evident that he had made his way into the long passage between the workshops, a place covered in for the whole length with iron bars. But about half-way down we found where he had leaped up and caught the bars, and evidently, by placing his feet against them and forcing while he held on with his hands, strained till the iron gave way sufficiently for him to force his body through, when he would be able to lower himself into the large yard, where the high wall is, whose top is covered with loose heavy bricks, which are sure to fall if an attempt at escape is made.

“Not a brick was out of place, though, as far as I could see, till one of the men pointed out where three had fallen, and then, feeling satisfied in my own mind that the prisoner had escaped, I returned with the governor to his office, and sent out notices to the police.

“All at once one of the men ran in. ‘Found him, sir,’ he said.

“‘How? where?’ I said. ‘Is he in a cell?’

“‘No, sir,’ said the warder, ‘he’s a-top of the prison.’

“I jumped up, and hurried into the yard, to find men at watch, for some people had caught sight of the poor fellow’s head from a neighbouring house, and given notice to the gatekeeper.

“It was now plain enough that the prisoner had reached the top of the high wall, and then, probably from its being daylight, been afraid to descend, so he had climbed from thence, by means of a water-pipe, right on to the top of the prison, and was now lying concealed in one of the gutters.

“I sent up three men to the top of the prison, and then went up one of the buildings to see the capture made. I did not have to wait long before first one head and then another appeared above the trap-door, till the three men were upon the roof, which is rather extensive, consisting of high slated ridges, separated by wide lead gutters.

“The noise they made must have aroused the prisoner, for I saw him start up all at once, as if from sleep, and stand facing his pursuers.

“‘Of course he’ll give up, poor fellow,’ I muttered to myself; but I was mistaken, for the next moment I saw him scramble up one side of a ridge and slide down the other, in a way which showed that submission was far from his intention.

“Not to be outdone, the three men separated, and as one followed in the prisoner’s steps, the others tried to cut him off right and left.

“But for duty, I felt so much sympathy for the poor fellow, that I should have said, ‘Let him go.’ But all I could do was to gaze horror-stricken at the scene going on about thirty feet from where I stood. Once a warder was near enough to touch the prisoner, but he eluded the grasp, and led his pursuers right to the end of the building, each man, in the excitement of the chase, running fearlessly along the coping of the parapet, or dashing up and down the ridges in a way that chilled me with horror, as I thought of a fall full fifty feet into the stone-yard below.

“‘Thank God!’ I ejaculated at last, for at the second race round the building I saw one of the men drop behind a projection in hiding, and then, as the prisoner came round, the warder leaped up, caught him by the throat, and I thought all was over. But directly after I shuddered as I saw a deadly struggle going on within a foot of the parapet, and felt that the next moment must see the pair falling headlong to the ground. It was almost a relief to see them go down heavily into the gutter, and the prisoner leap up and continue his flight, pursued by the other two men, who had lagged behind to cut off their quarry.

“But a new plan was now being adopted by the pursuers, who crawled on hands and knees between the ridges, one going one way, the other another way, while to my astonishment I saw the prisoner stop at the corner where the brick-burdened wall touched the building, and let down a rope of knotted blanket, hitherto hidden in the lead gutter, to which it was somehow secured. The next instant the poor fellow was over the side, swinging backwards and forwards, and turning round and round as he lowered himself quickly, staring upwards at the men, who now came up and looked over at him.

“In that moment of peril I could do nothing but look on, for I felt, I may say, that something was going to happen. My hands were wet, the big drops stood upon my brow, while, when Ridding swung round, and I saw his dilated eyes, I shuddered again, just as the weak-knotted rope parted, and he fell with his back striking the wall, and dislodging some of the loose bricks, when I turned away from the window to run down; but not quickly enough to avoid hearing the sickening crash of the poor fellow’s fall upon the hard flags in the yard.

“The doctor was standing over Ridding when I went into his cell, and then, answering my inquiring look with a slight raising of the eyelids and a shake of the head, he went out and left me with the poor fellow, who smiled as I leant over his bed.

“‘Are you in much pain?’ I said.

“‘Only in one place,’ he whispered, touching his breast; and then no more was said for a minute or two, when I spoke a few encouraging words.

“‘No use, sir, no use,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t be cross with me. I couldn’t bear it any longer. I wanted to be with the wife and little ones once more. Tell ’em how it was.’

“The next morning the poor fellow was free – free from prison bonds – earthly bonds – all; and I was so upset with that affair that I sent in my resignation. It was returned to me with a note begging that I would reconsider my determination: and I did. But we have some most heart-rending cases at times.”