The Hanging of Mary Ann. Angela Badger
Uncle Richard did, just as you say yourself, times are harder. Why, she’s sixteen, she’s a strong girl – not given to the vapours and any fancies like that. Only last week I heard Job say she had to help him with one of the ewes, and he considered her as handy as any of the shepherds. Maybe she’s got her share of fancies and high falutin’ ideas but that girl’s got her feet on the ground. He just needs someone who’ll travel with him, keep him company and in good spirits and we know she does that alright. She’s always been his favourite. Mary Ann’s the one to go.”
“Such a long journey! Oh, if only he hadn’t had that fall. Why didn’t he listen to us. Old folks get too stiff for the saddle. If only Sydney wasn’t so far away.”
“We all know that, Papa, but if Dr Morton can’t undertake surgery of that kind then there’s nothing we can do about it. He’s got to take that journey. Mary Ann’ll look after him.”
“It’s dangerous, remember that. If the rain comes then it’s the swollen creeks. Or what if the old coach meets a calamity - that coach wasn’t new when we got it and it’s done us proud, what if we lose a wheel on that road? You can be held up for days. And then of course there’s always the bushrangers. If her dear mamma was still alive I’m sure she’d forbid it.”
“Well, she isn’t, is she?” Elizabeth muttered. Why was it always the women who had to make the decisions? Men were alright for matters on the property but they never seemed to get their thoughts straight when it came to the everyday things. “We have to do what’s best for the family and getting Grand-père to that surgeon’s the most important thing at the moment. And I say Mary Ann can well be spared. She’ll be beside him to fetch and carry and if he has a fall she can call on Job. She’s the obvious one. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’ll not be plagued with fancies or suffer from migraines or think every moving shadow’s a bushranger or a wild black! Let’s waste no more time. I’ll send a letter by the next mail.”
“Well, I suppose if Job’s with her nothing much can go wrong.”
For more years than the family could remember, Job had worked for the family. Everyone knew he’d lay down his life for them.
He had been assigned to Richard Guise as a lad of seventeen, newly arrived in the Colony and wishing he were dead every minute of the day.
Each night, lying amongst his fellows in the barracks, he tried to shut out the terrible new world where he found himself. Some said that when night blanketed the land in this awful place then it was daytime back in the old country, so he’d lie there screwing up his eyes and willing himself back amongst the spinneys and the hedgerows or on the banks of the stream which flowed through his valley far away in Dorset.
That was exactly where he’d been taken, on the banks of the Tarrant, caught one moonlit night by squire’s gamekeeper, tickling a trout for Old Ma’s supper.
All that had kept him sane was the remembrance of the fields, the cottages, the beechwoods and the river as it flowed past the villages in the valley on its way to the sea. His life had always been lived in the valley.
Unschooled and untaught, Job had learnt all he knew from the old’uns, and what else did he need? A strong frame and willing hands which worked their way from year to year following the calendar of the seasons. Spring brought the wood anemones and the first fluttering of the birds from their nests. Summer was ushered in by the lambs skipping along the time-honoured chalk trails cut into the side of the hills by generations of sheep stretching back beyond the Magna Carta. Chestnuts and mushrooms heralded in the coming of autumn, with the apples to pick and the last of the potatoes to dig up, but you had to be quick or Jack Frost would start painting his pictures on the window, the only glazed one in the cottage.
Job had not realised there could be any other world. The horror nearly sent him out of his mind. How would he survive? Where would he find a place in this cursing, bullying, toadying world of thieves, murderers, cutthroats and just the plain shifting mass of unfortunates who’d taken to the wrong side of the law to survive. For he was sharp; he soon realised that many a soldier and sailor had been spewed out when they were no longer needed for good King George’s battles, then added to the huge mass of those who were being put out of their traditional work by machines. Dorchester gaol was overflowing and he was lucky not to have been executed. He’d shivered through many a night as he’d lain in his cell, listening to the whispered stories. Boys as young as fourteen were hanged, even if the gaoler had to tie bricks on their feet for the drop.
Perhaps some kind angel watched out for Job because he weathered the gaol, the hulks and nearly six months crammed below decks,
When Richard Guise came searching for a farm hand and stood in the barracks at Sydney looking at the human debris sent over from the old country he didn’t expect much success and was particularly despondent. Ambitious, strong and forever increasing his acreages, he’d become completely despairing of the labour on offer. Free settlers weren’t prepared to give their time to such as him and the assigned labour often proved little better than a horde of cutthroats and thieves. And if they weren’t criminal in themselves they certainly weren’t versed in the ways of farming life. Petty criminals, miscreants from the city, soldiers and sailors thrown out on the streets. Men who had no idea that cows must be milked on time, sheds cleaned out, hay cut and stooked and all animals fed and watched.
“Mon dieu,” he’d complained to Elizabeth, “half of them don’t know one end of a cow from the other. You could tell, they’d be more trouble than they were worth.”
“So your journey was fruitless?”
“Well, I suppose I just have to settle for what I can get. Finally took this young fellow, I’d trust too young to have learnt any real vice but that’s a vain hope, I daresay.”
“You have to have someone.”
“Well I took a chance. This one was up for poaching, as I said, they’re all thieves. He looks young enough to learn some sense. But he’ll be like the rest, I wager, give satisfaction for a few weeks then lining his pockets whenever he can.”
And there, for once, Richard Guise was completely wrong. And Job never ceased to bless the day that his master took that chance. All the skills of farm life were at his fingertips: milking, shepherding, digging, planting, and everything vital to a property. He began his seven years labour on Richard Guise’s property out at Parramatta and his master soon learnt that Job could be trusted to milk the cows, shut up the fowls at night, watch out for straying sheep, and went about it willingly too. He needed no second bidding, animals had always been part of his life, their routines were as important to him as those of humankind.
And Job in his turn learnt even more. In this contrary new world the trees dropped their bark but not their leaves, huge birds screeched their way amongst the branches and streams dried up and disappeared, nothing like the Tarrant which flowed without ceasing between its grassy banks where old white shells of snails brought over by the Romans could still be found deep amongst the clumps of comfrey.
Quickly he learnt the ways of this new world and when his seven years of servitude were up and the time came for freedom Job could think of no other life than sharing the fortunes of the Guise family. He’d seen the births of so many children, the steady advancement of the family’s fortunes, he’d laboured through flood and fire and he trusted his master as much as Richard, in his turn, relied upon him. He considered himself fortunate and intended to stay with the Guise’s for the rest of his mortal span.
When the old coach rumbled out through the gates of Bywong and started on its long journey to the city, Job held the reins as usual.
Bags and boxes, rugs and canvas were piled up to such an extent that Mary Ann had to be squeezed into a corner so her grandfather could stretch his throbbing leg out to its full extent.
A tediously long journey lay ahead, the roads barely more than beaten tracks. Added to that, who was watching, who was lying in wait to rob and possibly even worse? But when there was no choice