'I had a child, too, a darling little Lucy.
* * * But this was too much happiness to
last; we had been  married just two years.
The 'Squire stopped at our cottage, as he was
riding by on his way to London, to settle about
a ploughing-match that he had determined to
make up for the next week, and talked over
a plan for breaking up a lot of old pasture.
A fortnight afterwards the bailiff came down
with a letter in his hand, and said with a grave
face, "Carden, I have some bad news for you;
the 'Squire has determined to give up farming,
and is going to foreign parts. I am to
discharge all the hinds as soon as I can get a
tenant for the farm. You are to be paid up
to Christmas, and you may keep the cottage
until the farm's let, but I rather think Farmer
Bullivant will take it."

Here was a blow; we had thought
ourselves provided for for life, and now we had a
home and a living to seek. Farmer Bullivant
would not keep me on, I knew well; he had
his own ploughman, a relation. Well, we
were put to sore straits; but at last I got
another place, although at lower wages, some
distance from my native village. Hard times
came on; wages were lowered again and
again; and at the same time a cry rose up
round the country against the threshing-machines
that were being very much used,
and were throwing a good many poor people
out of work. The people in England, sir, are
not as we are here, sir, a very few words, and
one or two desperate fellows can always lead
them; they are so ignorant, they are ready
for anything when they are badly off.

'I went up one night to get my wages, and
behold, when I got me to the farmer's house,
the bailiffs were in, and he going to be sold up,
and the winter coming on. I walked toward
home half mad; passing by a public-house,
who should be at the door but the 'Squire's
gamekeeper—he kept him on—and he being
sorry to see me so downcast, for he was a good
kind fellow, though a gamekeeper, would
make me take a glass with him; I think I
had not been in a public-house since I had
been married. The drink and the grief flew
up into my head; before I got home, I fell in
with a crowd of friends and fellow-labourers
holloing and shouting. They had been breaking
Farmer Bullivant's threshing machine,
and swore they would not leave one in the
county. I began to try to persuade them to
go away quietly, but they ended by persuading
me; we met a machine, as ill-luck would
have it, on the road just turning into Farmer
Grinder's stack-yard. We smashed it to
pieces; in the middle of the row the soldiers
came up. I was taken in the act, with about
twenty others; they lodged us in Winchester
gaol the same night. The assizes were
sitting; they tried us in batches, and found
us guilty almost as soon as we came into
court. I never saw my poor wife until the
moment when the judge sentenced me to
transportation for life. I hear her scream
often now; I wake with it in the middle
of the night. We had no time to get
any one to speak to character for us; we
had no lawyer or counsellor. Such poor
people as we were had no friends of any use.
The farmers who knew us were too angry and
too frightened—although some of them were
the first to speak against the threshing-machines.
Good Parson Calton had been
away, ill and dying, or I do not think it
would have happened. For where are we
poor countrymen to look for a friend wiser
than ourselves if the Parson or the 'Squire
does not stand by us?

'My wife came to see me in prison, and
wept so we could not talk much; for it was
so quick, so sudden—it seemed like a horrid
dream; for me to be a felon—for me, that
could not strike a blow against any man,
except in fair fight—that never wronged a
living soul out of a farthing—to be the same
as robbers and murderers! Well, I advised
her to get quit of all bits of furniture, and try
to get to service, through the Miss Caltons.
I knew they were not rich, and could not
help except by giving her a good name—by
giving a character to the convict's wife! We
were to have met again the next day; the
poor soul had walked twenty miles to
Winchester, and a fruit-woman that was in court
took pity on her when she fainted, and gave
her half her bed. But the same night I was
waked up from the first sound sleep I had
had since I was taken, and put into a coach
with a lot of others, with a guard of soldiers,
and sent off to the hulks; and in three days
we sailed for Botany Bay, as they called it in
England. Oh, sir, that time was terrible.
There were many on board that thought
the punishment a pleasure voyage. They
had no wives, no children to love. They had
no good name to lose; they had not lived in
one parish to know and love every stick and
stone in it. They boasted of their villany,
and joked at the disgraceful dress; they only
found fault with the food, and the labour of
helping to stow the ship; I did not care for
the food or the work. They made me a
constable on the voyage, and I landed with a
good character from the surgeon in charge.
I was assigned straight away to Major Z——.
You must have heard, sir, what a terrible
man he was. A rich man that had forgotten
he had once been poor. He had more cattle
and stock of all kinds than he could count;
he starved us, he cursed us, and very few
Mondays passed that he didn't take up five
or six for a flogging. But he was very glad
to get me and three or four of the same lot,
for it was not often such regular first-rate
husbandmen came into the colony, so we
were better treated than many. For in those
times, if masters could be hard where they
took a spite, still prisoners had a good chance
of getting on. Well, my spirits rose and I
began to have some hope when I found that,
with good luck, I might have my "ticket,"