Robbery Under Arms

My name’s Dick Marston, Sydney-side native. I’m twenty-nine years old, six feet in my stocking soles, and thirteen stone weight. Pretty strong and active with it, so they say. I don’t want to blow⁠—not here, any road⁠—but it takes a good man to put me on my back, or stand up to me with the gloves, or the naked mauleys. I can ride anything⁠—anything that ever was lapped in horsehide⁠—swim like a musk-duck, and track like a Myall blackfellow. Most things that a man can do I’m up to, and that’s all about it. As I lift myself now I can feel the muscle swell on my arm like a cricket ball, in spite of the⁠—well, in spite of everything.

The morning sun comes shining through the window bars; and ever since he was up have I been cursing the daylight, cursing myself, and them that brought me into the world. Did I curse mother, and the hour I was born into this miserable life?

Why should I curse the day? Why do I lie here, groaning; yes, crying like a child, and beating my head against the stone floor? I am not mad, though I am shut up in a cell. No. Better for me if I was. But it’s all up now; there’s no get away this time; and I, Dick Marston, as strong as a bullock, as active as a rock-wallaby, chock-full of life and spirits and health, have been tried for bushranging⁠—robbery under arms they call it⁠—and though the blood runs through my veins like the water in the mountain creeks, and every bit of bone and sinew is as sound as the day I was born, I must die on the gallows this day month.

“Go and get the brands⁠—confound you⁠—don’t stand there frightening the cattle,” says father, as the tired cattle, after smelling and jostling a bit, rushed into the yard. “You, Jim, make a fire, and look sharp about it. I want to brand old Polly’s calf and another or two.” Father came down to the hut while the brands were getting ready, and began to look at the harness-cask, which stood in a little back skillion. It was pretty empty; we had been living on eggs, bacon, and bread and butter for a week.

“Oh, mother! there’s such a pretty red calf in the yard,” I said, “with a star and a white spot on the flank; and there’s a yellow steer fat enough to kill!”

“What!” said mother, turning round and looking at father with her eyes staring⁠—a sort of dark blue they were⁠—people used to say mine and Jim’s were the same colour⁠—and her brown hair pushed back off her face, as if she was looking at a ghost. “Is it doing that again you are, after all you promised me, and you so nearly caught⁠—after the last one? Didn’t I go on my knees to ye to ask ye to drop it and lead a good life, and didn’t ye tell me ye’d never do the like again? And the poor innocent children, too, I wonder ye’ve the heart to do it.”

We walked our horses up to the edge of the mountain and looked over. It was like the end of the world. Far down there was a dark, dreadful drop into a sort of deep valley below. You couldn’t see the bottom of it. The trees on the mountain side looked like bushes, and they were big ironbarks and messmates too. On three sides of us was this awful, desolate-looking precipice⁠—a dreary, gloomy, Godforsaken kind of spot. The sky got cloudy, and the breeze turned cold and began to murmur and whistle in an odd, unnatural kind of way, while father, seeing how scared and puzzled I was, began to laugh. I shuddered. A thought crossed my mind that it might be the Enemy of Souls, in his shape, going to carry us off for doing such a piece of wickedness.

“Looks queer, doesn’t it?” says father, going to the brink and kicking down a boulder, that rolled and crashed down the steep mountain side, tearing its way through scrub and heath till it settled down in the glen below. “It won’t do for a man’s horse to slip, will it, boy? And yet there’s a track here into a fine large paddock, open and clear, too, where I’m going to put these cattle into.”

I stared at him, without speaking, thinking was he mad.

“No! the old man isn’t mad, youngster,” he said; “not yet, at least. I’m going to show you a trick that none of you native boys are up to, smart as you think yourselves.”

We stayed in there by the track, and after about half-an-hour we heard the two horses coming down slowly, step by step, kicking the stones down before them. Then we could hear a man groaning, as if he couldn’t bear the pain, and partly as if he was trying to smother it. Then another man’s voice, very soft and soothing like, trying to comfort another.

“My head’s afire, and these cursed ribs are grinding against one another every step of this infernal ladder. Is it far now?” How he groaned then!

“Just got the bottom; hold on a bit longer and you’ll be all right.”

Just then the leading horse came out into the open before the cave. We had a good look at him and his rider. I never forgot them. It was a bad day I ever saw either, and many a man had cause to say the same.

We went over to the yard, and Jim let down the rails and walked in. I stopped outside. Jim had his horse by the mane, and was patting his neck as mine came out, when three police troopers rose up from behind the bushes, and covering us with their rifles called out, “Stand, in the Queen’s name!”

Jim made one spring on to his horse’s back, drove his heels into his flank, and was out through the gate and halfway down the hill before you could wink.

Just as Jim cleared the gate a tall man rose up close behind me and took a cool pot at him with a revolver. I saw Jim’s hat fly off, and another bullet grazed his horse’s hip. I saw the hair fly, and the horse make a plunge that would have unseated most men with no saddle between their legs. But Jim sat close and steady and only threw up his arm and gave a shout as the old horse tore down the hill a few miles an hour faster.

“D⁠⸺⁠n those cartridges,” said the tall trooper; “they always put too much powder in them for close shooting. Now, Dick Marston!” he went on, putting his revolver to my head, “I’d rather not blow your brains out before your people, but if you don’t put up your hands by ⸻ I’ll shoot you where you stand.”