The Moonraker: a story of Australian life

Preface

. (to be read and not skipped.) " Imagination is the author of all error;" so says a most learned divine. Then logically there are no errors in this book, for it is a tale of real life. " Quorum pars magna fui " is the motto ; which means " I saw it or did it all myself." Enlightened reader, I am yours most truly, Richard Dumbledore. Buz Hall, Baconshire.

Chapter I

" What have you got there, my man ?" said a traveller on the Baconshire Downs to a clown, who was probing the depths of a pond with a long rake. " Zur," said the man, " I be a-fishing for that there cheese as you sees." The moon shone fair, and as he spoke the rustic made another dash at its reflec tion in the water. " Oh ! the ignorance of these country I folks," sighed the traveller, as having inquired the way to Uphill he spurred on. " Ah," chuckled the clown, " he bean't over-smart, he bean't," as with a more successful effort he dragged out of the pond a satisfactory keg of French brandy. Near the said village of Uphill runs a wild path, across which the hazel boughs meet, known to this day as the Smugglers' Road. In old times the way from the coast led across these downs, which form the highest point, the backbone of southern England.

At Ravenstown, some four miles from Uphill, in the memory of the last gener ation, there was an old barn attached to the Vicarage where the smugglers used to find shelter, and leave in return for their lodging a little cask of the right sort. And this was an understood thing until the residence of a strict Welsh clergy man whose conscience rebelled against this violation of law, and then the sea robbers and their cask were seen no more. As I said, Uphill and Ravenstown were about four miles apart, and the manorial rights of both were held by an ancient and powerful family. It was a sad day for Uphill when it was sundered from this patronage, and left to its farmers and farmyards, and to its tumble-down cotages, with none to set an example, no one to lead, no one to help. One Sunday when there was a sermon, and sometimes there was a sermon, at the little church, the preacher was attacking prodigality and want of thrift.

Farmer Butt, who had listened for some time with evident signs of approbation, at last i- — rose, and turning round to face the con gregation, endorsed the worthy minister's exhortation by exclaiming : " Ah, ah, take care of the money, take care of the money." And on this principle they acted. Men made money in those days, and they kept it. The modern gentlemen who drive nowadays to market, are as unlike their prototypes as leather gaiters and smocks are to black coats and plated harness. As regards the labourers too, the change is quite as great ; barley bread and beans formed the staple of their food — but they thrived on it and lived to fourscore years and more. There is an old lady in Uphill now alive who recounts her youthful prowess in ploughing One want pressed hard on all. In this, the highest village in England, there was but one well, more than one hundred yards in depth ; dug, so tradition says, when wages were fourpence a day.

The cottagers were supplied from the drip from the thatch over each cottage. Now the village rejoices in a magnificent tank, holding many thousands of gallons. And in the sultry harvest days it is a sight worthy of India, or of Tadmor, to see the clerk of the parish serving out four buckets to each household, the allow ance twice a week during times of drought, whilst the women with their yokes on their shoulder bless the name of their bene factor, who shall be nameless. Even now when the tank " gives out," water has to be carted from Willowbourne, about two miles distant. Willowbourne is supposed by some to have been so named from the willows which grow in its deep valley, and which are manufactured into a cloth which finds a ready market in Paris. The wood in its green state is subjected to three suc cessive impressions from a broad serrated plane ; a shaving some three or four inches wide is struck off, and the artisan or his boy then taking one end in his hand gives the shaving a flick as if cracking a whip, and the strip then sunders itself into threads, which are woven by the cottagers into a material somewhat resem bling Osnaburgh in appearance.

In old days Willowbourne, if tradition is true, was " a terrible gurt place," " little London, zur, it were called;" but a great sire swept away little London, and it never rose again from its ashes. The tall grey church tower, which shoots up from the deep depression in the hills, is said to have been built by John O'Gaunt, who made the wild downs around his hunting ground, and the "Willowbourne Chase " is a favourite meet of the hounds to this day. Tradition also tells how, down the long straggling row of hovels which once stretched into the hills, at curfew-time might be heard the clang of the iron gates of Lewisham Castle, which stood some two miles from the present village. But of the castle not one stone is left, and the great lords and ladies who hunted and hawked, and had castles on these inland downs, have de serted them, and too often their memory, save some mutilated statue or illegible record in the church, has perished with them.

There are some records, however, which have neither perished nor passed ; those of a race over whose relics scholars and antiquarians have fought the battle of ink. Around on every side are Tumuli and Cromlechs, the burying-places of the great, who, save this expression of their worth and power, lived in immemorial days. Too many of them, if not all, have been defaced by the spade and rifled, to gain some few bones, and an earthen pot, or some such treasure. Surely, when a mighty Assyrian Queen rebuked the avaricious monarch who broke open her sarcophagus in search of treasure with this inscription which met his eye : " If thou hadst not been the most godless of men, thou hadst not disturbed the sanctity of the tomb," she also rebuked those who in these pious days exhume the poor remains of their possible grandmothers.

They might be left in peace, with the brown, yellow, and blue down flowers growing over them, and old rooks cawing their requiem, as each evening they wing their way home to the forest. But these are days of science, and it is neces sary for the well-being of the human race to discover whether our ancestors were long-headed or round-headed ; perhaps the coming generations may characterise us in the Victorian era as belonging to both ! And let us leave to the too-often quoted New Zealander this question, which he will doubtless find difficult and delightful. The present race of Moon rakers, as they are called, is a broad shouldered, sturdy, " dour " generation, good labourers, and good soldiers when trained. In days not very long passed there used to be at the annual feast back-swording on a stage, where heads were broken and blood ran freely.

The Ravenstown villagers used to contest, and between Ravenstown and Willowbourne there was a grievous feud, of which I must give you an account by-and-by.

Chapter II

The great manorial baronet, who in old days reigned over Ravenstown and Uphill, used to call the former " The happy Valley." The dark firs which crown the hill under which the river runs, were planted at the request of a king, who suggested that wood was wanted to complete the beauty of the scene; and the king showed his taste. Once, when accompanied by the Vicar of the parish, the Baronet was riding across the grass land which skirts the wood, on which stands a cottage, so picturesque that it is called by way of eminence " The Cottage on the Plain ;" struck with the view, he asked his companion " Whose is that very pretty little resi dence ?" Gravely, for he was melodramatic in his powers, the Vicar answered, " Why, that belongs to a certain Baronet, Sir So-and-so," mentioning the name of the questioner.

But powerful in talent, wealth, and position as the great man was, there was one class in Ravens town whom neither power , nor wealth awed or controlled. There are few, if any, finer trout streams in the world than that which flows now among bulrushes where the pools are deep, or over the golden gravel on the shallows, through the Vale of Ravenstown. And among a host of poachers was one special family who claimed the right of privilege to net and wire trout and pheasant. It was said that an ancestor of this family had stood alone when the rights of the commons to fish and game were purchased by the great family. At any rate, once this sturdy Hampden of the village, old Ned, stood face to face with the great man, openly convicted of poaching. There was a club dinner at The Blue Lion, at which the Baronet presided, and at the first course were served trout so red and salmon-like that one glance showed their birthplace.

" Where did these come from ?" ex claimed the great man. Deprecatingly the landlord falttered out : " From od Ned, sir." " Bring the rascal here !" and at the word, the tall weather-beaten poacher stood before the Baronet, and met his eyes with an unflinching gaze. " You audacious scoundrel, do you dare to say these trout were not caught in my waters ?" " Dal it, oh !" said old Ned, whilst his grey eyes twinkled with drollery. " I was up this morning at four o'clock, and there, I seed these fish in my garden, nib bling at my cabbages, so I knocks 'em on the head." It was no use to prosecute the case, Ned was impregnable, and left the room amid roars of laughter. There was a powerful gang of wood and water robbers in those days, and many were the adventures of these minions of the Moon. Once it got about that a raid on the waters was arranged, and the keepers, with all the helpers they could muster, kept watch at the suspected place by the river.

Night passed — morning dawned; there was neither sight nor sound, save the quack of the drake and the deep cry of the moorhen. But what had been done in the woods ? The ruse had succeeded well. Many a pheasant had been bagged, and as the poachers left the keepers arrived in time to find a row of wires set down the main drive, and in mockery, lo and behold, a fish left in each wire. They could hardly meet the world's laugh, which the stern philosopher cannot scorn, much less a gamekeper. The old poaching tribe no longer exists, at any rate as it did in days gone by, and with it has passed the dour, iron, beanfed body and mind of the Moonraker. Dress and language have changed ; the red cloaks are no longer seen in the village church ; the smock-frock is rare ; once it was full dress, the very toga virilis of the labourer, and unlike other articles of attire it improved in appearance as time went on; the dull green, its original colour, vanished by degrees beneath wash-tub influence, and put on a bright and Sunday suited whiteness.

Manners, too, are more urbane, and some little knowledge of the world has sharpened tongue and wit. As an instance of dour stolidity and sturdy boorishness, the following story, well known in Uphill and Ravenstown, is told as follows : The hounds were running in the great forest of Beechwood, and one of the hunters, a friend of the great Marquis of Beechwood, sound himself enclosed in a ring fence, out of which he could not find exit ; seeing a labourer at work, he demanded in somewhat hasty tones : " By which way, my man, am I to get out of this field ?" The labourer turned round, stared at him, then silently resumed his work. More impetuously than gently the rider repeated the question, and then the Moon raker, with an expression of mingled pity and contempt, answered : " Why, the same way thee came in, thee vool."

Next day the man was summoned to appear before the Marquis, and when asked why he had so wantonly insulted a gentleman and a friend of his illustrious employer, he moaned out : " Why, rabbut it, the vool had his waist coat outside his cwoat." In those days a garment called a spencer was in fashion, and by wearing such, the gentleman had thus condemned himself to the reprobation of the simple and sullen woodsman. Another instance of the like dogged and independent spirit, is told as taking place in the same neighbour hood. Again it is a hunting day, a grand one, for the great Duke, the Statesman and General of the age, had joined the meet. There was much disappointment at Ravenstown when he was pointed out to the villagers as the man who had con quered " Bony." " Dal it, ah !" said one gaping rustic ; " he's as like old Sam Fowler as two r> peas.

The details of the run are now lost to memory, but this remains on record. Galloping up to a gap in a hedge the victor in a hundred battles was confronted by a Moonraker, who levelled a pitchfork at the rider. " Thee doesn't come through here," said the rustic spearman. " Hush, my man," said a gentleman who rode up ; " do you know who this is ? You are speaking to the Duke of Wellington." " I doan't care who he be," replied the man still firm ; " Maester said I wern't to let nobody ride over hisen wheat, or I was to stick this ere vork in him fust." 2 — " Quite right, my man," said the high featured rider quietly. " Quite right ; always obey orders," and he rode away ; and this is the only instance of any one or anything turning the Iron Duke.

Chapter III

The traveller, as he crosses the high five arched bridge which spans the river of Ravenstown valley, looks on one side on the old manorial house standing amidst its elms and limes ; and on the other on the waters which fall over the cascades under the bridge and spread their lacework of foam across the deep pool. The old house is silent, lonely and tenantless now ; " frequented by few is the grass-covered road" which leads up to it, once so neat and shining with bright yellow gravel ; but though " men may come and men may go, the stream flows on for ever ;" and on the flashboards of the dam may be seen, even by untrained eyes, the great trout industri ously keeping their place against the rush of waters or taking up a strategic position where the mingling currents afford a com parative calm, so that they may dash either way for plunder.

To trail a bright fly through the foam, and to see the broad golden side of a three-pounder as he rushes at the bait, to strike home sharp, and to feel the rod tugged down as if you had nabbed an alligator, whilst the monster scurries over the flashboards down down into the deep pool, is to feel and see what not even old Isaac himself could worthily describe. Very proud in days gone by were the magnates of Ravenstown Manor of their piscatorial rights ; and once a year the great man would drive in state down to a certain point where the said manorial rights, though good, were in abeyance, and with his own hands throw a small silken net into the stream, and this done return in state as he came. The river, once the haunt of British princes, now celebrated for British beer, is the glory of Ravenstown, and from this cause it arose that there was a deadly feud between its inhabitants and those of Willowbourne, the village which lies under Uphill.

It is a dangerous thing to disturb the embers of a smouldering fire and to irritate wounds now somewhat healed by time ; but let us hope that the ancient animosity will not be reawakened, specially as there is a blue-coated policeman now domiciled at Willowbourne and two at the rival village. All places are not equally blest. Ravenstown rejoices in one of the finest streams in England ; Willowbourne has a pond and two pumps ; and Uphill has one well, but it is too deep to get any water up easily, and several tanks ; thus all ought to be happy. But what will not pride and insolence do ? The youths of Ravenstown were always a naughty set, always ready to " terrify " their neighbours and to make a " caddie ;" and in this wise the feud, so legends say, arose. Besides the red trout and the large shoals of shining dace, and the robber pike with his sullen viperous glance looking out from the green weeds ; the rushes and alders of the Ravenstown river are tenanted by the moorhen and dabchick.

Perhaps the ornithologist may plead that dabchick is not correct as a name, if so, he may suggest the right one. Now the dabchick is a beautiful little fellow. He spends his time continually in diving ; down goes the small round head, up go the black-webbed feet, and like a fish the little dab goes in quest of food under the waves, and comes up again as dry as a toast ; and so on through the livelong day. Now, one of the Ravenstown youths " flushed with insolence and beer," managed to capture one of these charming little creatures, and concealing it in the vast pocket of his velveteen jacket, as the shades of evening fell, stole through the woods and over the furzy hill, till he beheld the lights of Willowbourne twinkling beneath him. The night was dark, and the streets silent, broken only by sounds of revelry from the Blue Boar.

He crept to the margin of the pond, and drawing out of his pocket the dear little dab, dropped him into the muddy water. Favoured by the darkness, this arch conspirator regained his native village in safety and unsuspected. Next morning all the Willowbournites, men, women, and children, mustered round the pond, and shouted with glory as the dabchick dived and rose again. But what was to be done ? This was evidently a portent as we read in old times when it rained fish in Etruria. A general council was held, and men talked, and still the diving went on. Now there was a wise man in Willow bourne in those days (there used to be such — where are they now ?), to him they deferred. "What is this strange crittur ?" " That," said Solon, " is a sea-swallow. He's corned from the sea, he be." " And what must we do to un ?"

" You must shoot un," was the oracular reply. There was a long gun in the village. This was carefully loaded ; the strongest man aimed it and pulled the trigger. The lock flashed, up went a puff of smoke, down went the dab, and over his head went the shot. Up came the dab tight and right as ever. This was repeated till it was feared ammunition would run short. Again counsel was sought of the wise, and under his direction a wall was hastily run up, with a hole through which the gun was pointed with deadly aim, the warning puff was seen no more and the cruel shot stretched the poor little dab lifeless on those muddy waters. Surely this was enough, but the youth of Ravenstown, not satisfied with this murderous enigma, again tested the energies of knowledge of their rivals by dropping in the midst of Willowbourne Street one of the large silver eels of Ravenstown river.

Again the wise man was consulted on this phenomenon. " What be this here ?" " Why this here," said Solon, " is a sarpent." " And what be we to do with un ?" " Why, you must kill un," answered the wise man. " And how be we to kill un ?" " Them sarpents dies by drowning. You maun drown un." The strongest man in the village grasped the eel and bore him to the pond, and he swam away as one to the manner born. As time went, on, the conspiracy was unravelled, and as knowledge increased, and men read, and travelled, and studied natural history more, the Willowbournites found out the dark and astute trick which had been played on them. In revenge they tell a counter tale — but there is some reason to question its truth. They say that a householder at Ravens town, wishing to encourage the rooks to build in his elm trees, ordered his butler in a black tail coat to climb up and sit amid the branches and cry " caw, caw," but that the ruse did not succeed.

Be this as it may, many memories have perished ; even now there is no record of the great battle which stained Willowbourne Chase with English blood, when and where Cavaliers and Roundheads joined in the fell revelry of war, but the legend of the sea-swallow, the sarpent, and the rooks, still hold its memory green.

Chapter IV

Steep and stony is the road which leads up from Willowbourne to Uphill. The mighty cart teams strain against the collar as they breast the hill. There is a place where, so tradition says, all the horses of the village came to a standstill with an empty waggon. A few trees are pointed out as the site of Dor's grave, but who or what Dor was, none can tell now. But here one day a cart team stopped as if stricken dead, " the 'osses was all of a muck of sweat and wouldn't gee nor come hither," so the tale runs ; more horses were sent for, all in vain till the spell was broken by an old woman. Another instance of witchcraft is recorded by an old carter as follows : " I were a shotfering off the team to drink at the pond by Dor's grave, when I looks up and I sees a gentleman on horseback with nar a head watch ing I." These headless Cavaliers seem to flourish in this neighbourhood ; as an old sexton of Ravenstown used to narrate how in a certain wood " you med see a woman riding on a 'oss with nar a head all in a blare of fire !"

It was in the village of Uphill that the great astronomer built an observatory, but all that can be learned now of interest about him, is that he had two cats, one big and one little ; and anxious that they also should take their observations at night, he had two holes made in the door, one for the big cat and another for the kitten. It is questioned, however, whether he ever resided in the village at all ; and so* to leave legends and tales of witches, and bygone days, let us look at Uphill and its surroundings. Far away on every side stretch the downs with their memorial mounds and vast camps — in summer-time carpeted with flowers, in winter a howling wilder ness. Yet although the winds sweep over the expanse with a bitterness and violence no greatcoat will keep out, yet who ever heard of a shepherd suffering from con sumption or chest complaints.

These pulmonary attacks, the scourge of our country, are comparatively unknown on the chalk downs. And many who spend more than they can afford in seaside lodgings redolent of gas and drainage, and of the last occupier who left his scarlet fever behind, might put off the day of their death by taking a cottage and a walk, with some bacon for breakfast, on the mossy, sweet, and matchless downs of Uphill. Very beautiful it is to see every morning the long array of race-horses on their different training grounds. Now wheeling in circles under the orders of the master, and then cantering off and vanishing in a strange shadowy way over the rise. At the time we write the Vicar of Up hill, Mr. Moreton, was a man who loved and understood horses as well as men, and visited alike his parish and his stable.

The Vicarage house, with its roses and honey suckles, looked bright and pleasant as most vicarages do and should ; but the chief objects of general admiration were a bevy of peafowl which sat on the white gates, spread their tails in the sun, and occasion ally mounted the roof. Japanese chicks with their snowy fluff, and guinea-fowl, added variety, while two gigantic cats guarded the house ; one of them trained as a retriever to bring in the game when the Vicar made a raid against the sparrows, against whom only he proclaimed war. His gardener, groom, and right-hand man, named Ford, with his son Ned, the hero of our tale, was the very slave of the menagerie at the Vicarage. Ford was always giving a " mou'ful of victuals " to one or other of the two or 3~2 four-legged parasites ; and if they were not supplied, he complained that he was troubled in mind, and that his sleep departed from him.

Chapter V

Grand and glorious were the names of the feathered and four-footed pets at Uphill Vicarage. Flora, a well-bred mare, with her two growing daughters, Minna and Brenda ; Daphne the cow, Hydarnes the master peacock, with his stately wife and brood ; Pasht the monster cat, and Doldrums who acted as retriever on sporting days. Amongst these, with the Brahma fowls, and the " rabbuts " as he called them in Moonraker phrase, little Edward Ford, proud of his father's and of his own responsibility, moved as a king. When visitors from London came, during the summer, it was Ned's office to marshal his little army, and show how gentle and well-disciplined they were. At his well-known cry, " Kalloo ! Kalloo 1" the peafowl would eat from his hand the Indian corn ; the Japanese chicks would cluster round him as he explained the characters and peculiarities of each ; even when he brought in a basket of eggs, he was not content till he had made clear to whom they each belonged : " Please, mum," he would say to Mrs. Moreton, " this is the grey hen's, this is the golden pullet's, and this is Mrs. Jappy's," with sundry remarks such as : " Please, sir, Mrs. Darnes is agoing to make a nest among the nettles in the stack-yard, and I be terrified, maybe a fox will get her."

Nothing escaped his sharp eye, he was always on the watch. But his greatest delight was to call to Minna, a yearling filly, and when his father had lifted him up, and put him on her back, to ride round the house in front of the drawing room, guiding the beautiful and gentle creature with a halter. " That's a strange little fellow," said a friend of Mr. Moreton's, a Mr. Fortescue, who was a great judge of horses, " and that's a singularly pretty filly. She is well bred, I am sure." " Yes," answered Mr. Moreton. " She descended from Eclipse, and she is quiet, owing to the treatment of my man Ford and his boy. My horses require no breaking in, they begin their education as soon as they are born. A horse will do what you want, when he knows what that is." u " True," said Mr. Fortescue, " quite true, generally, but I wish it was more practised.

We, who have dominion over the beasts, should then have less to answer for. That lad will make his fortune some day." " I wish," replied Mr. Moreton, "all the boys here were like him. I have one young Turk in the place, who cannot keep his hand from stones, nor his head from mischief ; he rejoices in the name of Jem Johnson ; he is the very opposite of Ned. I caught him one Sunday morning pelting a most lovely little squirrel, who was about to make his home in the Vicarage firs. Another day he was found tormenting a hedgehog." " He seems," said Mr. Fortescue, " to need rubbing down with an oaken towel. Why not lecture on these subjects, on Sundays ? The farmyard is the labourers' kingdom. He can be a merciless despot, or a merciful master, friend, and physician." "Well," answered Mr. Moreton, "I do that same, and with all my powers ; but I think if, as is done in France in a some what similar way, prizes were given to men who, like my man Ford and his boy, are worthy of their trust, it would do more good than all my sermons.

And if officers were appointed to see that the cattle were not ill-used, overworked, or underfed, then the farmyard would be regulated by a system of rewards and punishments which would be effectual. It is a scandal to our land to see so many horses blind with age and misery. And it is grievous to one who can read the expression of a horse's face, which is a sealed book to those who are not familiar with the animal, and indeed to some who are, to see the unutterably piteous look of the eye when he is wearied, worn, overdone and hungry. It is strange that suffering should make them blind, but it does. See," continued Mr. Moreton, " there's Brenda, that pretty thing just three years old; I can get off her back in the middle of the downs, fling her bridle on her neck, and she will walk by my side like a dog, stop at a word, and let me mount."