Matthew Kneale - English passengers

I FOUND MYSELF in a plain sort of room, yellow evening sunlight shining on the bedclothes. A young woman I had never set eyes on before was looking at me, smiling as if I had made some joke, though I was sure I hardly could have.

Well, well, and good afternoon to you.

I felt dazed. Where is this place?

Dads farm, of course.

Have I been here long?

Nearly two days. She smiled again. We have been curious. You looked as if youd walked clean across the whole bush. Have you got a name?

Timothy Renshaw.

Im Liz. Liz Sheppard.

Recollections were returning, though they seemed long ago, and not quite real. I saw angels.

The smile dulled. Thats right. Dad carves them. Theyre all over the place.

It was another month before I heard the full truth about the angels. That morning Lizs father was away getting stores and her brothers were out checking fences, while Liz and I took ourselves away to the barn. Shed let me unbutton the top of her dress, and loosen her corset, and though I could have done with more loosening still, it was sweet enough for now. I was just enjoying myself nicely, in fact, when her mood suddenly changed.

Thats enough, she said crossly, pushing me back and hiding away those neat round breasts. Youve no right, really youve not.

I was quite put out. Whats wrong? You were happy enough just now.

She threw me an accusing look. You dont care about me. Im just some plaything for you.

Females have a way of growing serious at the very poorest time. Thats not true, I told her, though I dare say a good part of me was just hoping I might warm her into loosening herself once again. Instead she started crying.

I dont know why I let you near me. Youll only cause me hurt. A look came into her eyes, almost hunted. Youd never have looked at me if youd known.

Here was something new. Known what?

About Dad. Her voice, which was usually strong and without concern, fell hushed. He was a Port Arthur man. All he did was take some fellows bag at a coaching inn because he was hungry, and then hit back once when he shouldnt, but that was enough. It was at Port Arthur he started his stone carving. He made sculptures for the governors wifes garden.

I suppose I had begun to wonder. The previous Sunday I had finally been well enough to join them going to churcha little shed of a place with a tin roofand I had seen the neighbours looks.

Now she was angry. Go on, then. Run off and dont come back. After all, you wouldnt want to be seen walking with a convicts daughter.

I kissed her, and then she kissed me back, hungry. After that she loosened nicely, till I had almost the whole story, and a handsome sight she made, too, lying back on the hay.

Id already been helping a little on the farm by then, and that afternoon I saddled up the horse to check on the sheep down by the river, where Lizs father said hed seen a native wolf prowling. It was a fine day, the trees changing their colours for autumn, and it felt good to be riding across the land, a broad hat on my head for the sun and a cape on my shoulders in case it turned wet. There was something about this place that made me feel alive, in a way I never had done back in London.

It was hard to think of Mr. Sheppard as a Port Arthur man. With his sloping shoulders and his shy, startled look he seemed quietness itself. So I had kissed a convicts daughter. What would my mother say to that? It would hardly be the kind of news she would want to tell her society friends. Why, just thinking of Mother made me want to go back to the house there and then and loosen Liz again. It was none of their business what I did anymore. They had sent me here, and nearly killed me, too, so now everything was mine to decide. Why shouldnt I stay? I liked the life well enough. The farm didnt seem to make a great fortune, but the land wasnt bad, and Lizs family were able feed themselves without breaking their backs. Why, I even liked plants here. In London they had been just a chore that I had been pushed into studying, but here they were useful. The farm had several fields of wheat, as well as the kitchen garden, and a little apple orchard, too, while I had been able to give a few useful pieces of advice. And Liz? Even aside from the fact that she had nursed me back from death, she was a tempting-looking female, nicely curved, while she had shown me more affection than Id ever received from my own relatives. Yes, I might even marry a convicts daughter if I chose.

I saw one of the lambs had got through the fence and was out in the bush beyond, thinking himself so clever. Hed change his mind quick if a native wolf jumped out to take him for dinner. I went after him on the horse, though he gave me a good chase, dodging back and forth and landing me in the dirt once, before I finally caught him and dropped him back with the others. After that I mended the fence where hed slunk through, and it was almost dusk by the time I finally returned. Liz was still working in the kitchen garden and saw me riding by. She seemed recovered from her earlier upset.

Look at you, she called out with a laugh. I suppose Id picked up a good bit of dust. You look like a real Tasmanian.

It is just beyond St. Catherines Point, however, in the little village of Chale, that one of the islands most remarkable characters is to be found. Pay a visit to the delightful old church, from where one has such a fine view of the coast stretching away to westwards, and one may well discover, sitting just inside the porch, the cheery, ragged fellow who is known all across the island as the Messiah of Chale.

He was found by the village innkeeper on the shore beneath the dark and crumbling cliffs that typify this part of Wight. He was fleshless almost to death and looked half drowned, while how he came to be there is a mystery that is much discussed in Chale to this day. A number of timbers from what appeared to have been a rowing boat were nearby, but these were without lettering of any kind, while the poor unfortunate himself could offer no enlightenment, being too bereft of wits to repeat his own name. Whether this was his nature, or a consequence of some ocean ordealsome have suggested he succumbed to drinking seawater will doubtless never be known.

The innkeeper and his wife endeavoured to nurse him back to a state of tolerable bodily health, though sadly his mind remained lost, his chatter being greatly excitable yet all but without meaning. From the first he displayed a simple and most touching wish to visit the nearby church, whose bells he could hear ringing from his sickbed, and such was his enthusiasm for this house of God that, as soon as he was recovered, he quite insisted upon making his home in its porch. What a happy idiot he proved, smiling and uttering foolishness to any who would listen, and urging passersby to pray for their souls. Even left to himself he would talk volubly, looking to his right quite as if some invisible phantasm was sat beside him, whom he would inform of any small piece of news, from a change in the weather to the fact that a leaf had fallen upon his lap. Ask who he was speaking to and a strange look would come into his eyes, while his reply was always the same. My father. My father who art in heaven. It was this that inspired his nickname.

There was always somebody who would offer the Messiah a penny or a crust of bread, so he kept himself well enough. He was not, however, welcomed by all. He had, from the first, showed a great antipathy towards the vicar, Mr. Roberts, whom he would denounce on occasion as Beelzebubs fiend. Eventually Mr. Roberts was moved to suggest he be removed to an insane asylum. It emerged, however, that the Messiah was not without friends of his own, including a local farmer of nonconformist views, who was generous enough to offer him a place to dwell, being an empty outbuilding upon his land that had previously been used to house animals, which would seem only suitable for a Messiah. He lives there to this day, spending his hours sat upon the churchyard wall, cheerfully chattering to his father the deity. His fame has spread, even attracting the curiosity of those elsewhere upon the island. When visitors appear the Messiah delights in showing them a little overgrown patch of land, close beside his simple home, where the pigs used to bask in the sun, which he quite insists is the Garden of Eden!