Read Online The Far Horizon by Gretta Curran Browne - Free Book Online

Wales.’
    ‘Is it? Well no one told me that!’
    ‘Well now I'm telling you, ain't I? New Souf Wales is in the continent of New 'Olland. Right slap bang in the middle of it!’
    ‘Then how comes they say we'll be there as soon as the ship docks? A ship can't dock in the middle of a continent. Even I knows that.’
    Joseph Bigg disregarded her question entirely and returned his eyes to the open sea.
    *
    In his cabin, Lachlan was still engrossed in his papers on New South Wales, and still frowning. While studying the records of his future charges, he had been utterly astonished at the number of crimes which had been marked down by the British magistrates as indicating "inherent evil" in the culprits, and which had resulted in transportation to the other side of the world.
    A young girl of ten had filched a pie; another had stolen a lady's lace handkerchief; another a pair of stockings; another a strip of lace from her mistress's sewing-box.
    Boys who had stolen carp out of someone else's pond or snatched fish out of private rivers; cooking a rabbit in the open after sundown. The list of young men and women who had married secretly, without the permission of their masters, was endless, and the sentence unduly severe – fourteen years in Botany Bay.
    ‘Look,’ he said to Elizabeth later, ‘look at these lists of hardened and vicious criminals! Some are no more than children! Look at this one – a young girl of twelve, of a good family, who foolishly borrowed and rode a neighbour's pony in a schoolgirl frolic – sentenced to seven years in Botany Bay! That neighbour must have been the Devil himself.’
    Elizabeth was also appalled as she read through the lists. There were vicious criminals there to be sure, but most were young adults who had committed various offences, none of any great calamity, but amongst them were scores upon scores of children whose crime would be considered as little more than a misdemeanour by any rational person.
    ‘And look here,’ said Lachlan. ‘An English soldier wounded on the battlefields of Europe and left crippled in one leg – seven years in Botany Bay for stealing a broom! A broom , for God's sake! He probably wanted to use it as a crutch.’
    He returned to the records and read on through the lists of hardened criminals awaiting the iron hand of his rule.
    In the past year alone, five girls of eleven years had been transported; seven girls of twelve years; thirty-two of fourteen years; sixty-five of fifteen years. The numbers for boys were even higher. All filchers of some little thing or another, and all sentenced to seven years in Botany Bay. He shook his head slowly. How on earth was he going to deal with such dangerous criminals?
    They were both still studying the lists when George Jarvis called to them excitedly to come up on deck—a seal had surfaced near the ship.
    ‘A seal?’ Lachlan smiled at Elizabeth. ‘The appearance of a seal usually means that land is not too far away.’
    Later they saw a number of whales. One came quite close to the ship, a big playful old thing that bobbled alongside, spurting water at them.
    They were in the Bass Strait. Every day their eyes were distanced on the far horizon, until they finally glimpsed land, then watched it draw closer and closer until the white cliffs of New South Wales stood outlined under a vivid blue sky.
    *
    Eight months after leaving England, the Dromedary and Hindustan lay at anchor in Sydney harbour. The vessel that Lachlan had hired and filled with provisions at the Cape of Good Hope had arrived only two days before them, and now had unloaded all her cargo to the delight of the hungry population of Sydney.
    The harbour was already filling with people hoping to catch an early glimpse of the new Governor, but the Dromedary was standing too far out for them to see anything more than a number of shadowy figures scuttling up and down the masts as she dropped all her canvas.
    On their last night on board ship, a double