The Potato Factory

Chapter Thirty-four

For nearly four years Mary had been processing her own malt in her malthouse at Strickland Falls, crushing and preparing the barley mash using the power from the water mill she had constructed. At last she had the money to erect the first of her brewery buildings and to begin work on the chimney stack which would eventually be required. The chimney needed bricks and the skill of a master builder, so it could only be constructed a small section at a time as money became available. The other buildings were made of stone quarried on her own property. Mary's plan was that one day the quarry would become a small lake to store water for the brewery and lend further beauty to the woodland surroundings.

She still lacked the means to create a complete commercial brewery and it seemed unlikely that she would ever possess them. The steam turbines and huge fermenting vats and giant casks she required to compete against the likes of Peter Degraves' modern Cascade Brewery needed the kind of finance she could only hope to raise with a wealthy partner.

It was not a prosperous time in the colony. Several of the smaller banks had collapsed and more than half of the free colonists were insolvent. The Bank of Van Diemen's Land would not readily invest in emancipists, particularly women, unless they had assets to secure the loan well in excess of the amount they wished to borrow. While there were private investors which a sharp lawyer might find in England, they usually demanded a controlling interest and Mary was determined that she would never allow anyone to threaten her independence.

The new buildings gave her the capacity to make much larger quantities of beer using the crystal-clear water that flowed from the falls. Furthermore, using time-honoured methods, she knew she would eventually own a small complete brewery which produced ale of a very high quality.

Though Mary was not considered a serious threat to any of the larger breweries, her Temperance Ale and Bitter Rosella had earned a reputation in the colony for their quality and some of the public houses not tied to the mainstream breweries now accepted Bitter Rosie by the barrel, which was a major boost to her production. In the past she had relied on supplying her beer in jugs brought by the purchaser, or in bottles. This had severely curtailed her output, for glass was a scarce commodity almost entirely imported from England.

However, it was through the production of bottled beer that Mary was to make her reputation. Ikey's nocturnal habits and excellent nose for gossip meant he was always the first to know what was contained in the manifest of any ship arriving into port. If there should be a consignment of bottles on board Mary instantly knew about it and purchased the lot before other merchants were any the wiser. She would also buy any bottles the ship used during the voyage, and many a ship's master knew her as Queen Bottle. In addition, any urchin who could lay his dirty little hands on a bottle knew it would fetch him a halfpenny at the Potato Factory.

Soon Mary had sufficient capital to order from England her first consignment of green quart beer bottles, which she used for her Temperance Ale, and so the Potato Factory became the first brewery to offer its product in sealed bottles to be consumed in the home. This meant that working folk, who could not afford to buy beer by the barrel, could purchase their beer not, as was the custom, by the jug, so that they had to hurry home in haste to keep the benefit of its good, creamy head, but in a sealed bottle to be enjoyed at their leisure. The other brewers sneered at this nonsensical notion. They sold their beer in barrels to be consumed in public houses, and those who wished to take it home could bring their jugs to the ale house to be filled. They felt certain that quantities as small as a quart sold in expensive glass bottles would never catch on with the poor, who were the largest portion of the population who drank beer. They also thought Mary's Temperance Ale label another silly affectation as paper was relatively expensive, and a label on a bottle of three-penny beer was regarded as an outrageous waste.

Although Mary was prepared to take a lower profit for her beer by bottling and labelling it, she would not compromise on its quality. The people of Hobart Town, and those who lived further out in the country, immediately saw the benefits of what they called 'picnic beer', which could be transported in small quantities and drunk at leisure.

People soon realised that while they initially paid an extra halfpenny for the bottle, if they returned the empty for another full one they paid only the usual price of threepence for their beer. Furthermore, if they wished to surrender an empty bottle without buying an additional bottle of beer, Mary refunded the halfpenny they'd paid on the original deposit.

Soon Mary was selling all the beer she could make, and it was only the lack of glass bottles which prevented her from selling more. Thus Mary invented the concept of bottled beer with a paper label to indicate its quality and brand which would in time become commonplace on mainland Australia.

Six years had passed since Mary had been granted her unconditional pardon, and she now found herself welcomed into the society of tradesmen, clerks and the free settlers of smaller means who were collectively known as third raters. As an emancipist Mary rightfully belonged two social ranks further down the ladder. But her great business success, ardent support of the Temperance Society, stubborn courage against the beer barons and quiet manners, together with her charitable work for the orphanage, elevated her to the lofty heights of the third social position in the class ranking of the colony, this, despite the knowledge that she employed the odious Isaac Solomon, whom it was rumoured as common scandal had once been her paramour.

Any other woman of Mary's dubious background would have greatly cherished this unexpected promotion to the better classes. Hannah, for instance, would have made much of the opportunity. But Mary was far too busy to profit from the social advantages of her newly acquired status. This was just as well, for it was soon enough to be taken away from her.

Before long the rumours concerning Tommo and Hawk were spreading among the tattle-tongues of Hobart Town. The very idea that Mary, an unmarried woman, should take in as her own children these so-called twins, said to have been left on her doorstep, and the fact that one was obviously of aboriginal extraction, horrified the respectable classes. The infants had only been with Mary two months when she was summoned to see Mr Emmett at his offices.

She was ushered into his chambers by a clerk, who silently indicated the chair in front of a large desk and immediately left. Mr Emmett was working on some papers and did not look up at Mary, who was uncertain as to whether she should wait for permission to be seated. She thought this most unusual for they had been friends a long time and, besides, he was an unfailingly courteous man.

'Sit down please, Mary,' Mr Emmett said, still not looking up. He continued to write for a full minute, so that Mary could hear only the scratching of the goose-feather quill against the paper and the slow, measured tic-toe of the pendulum from a wall clock to the left of his desk.

Mary sat quietly in the chair with her hands folded in her lap. She was not accustomed to meeting Mr Emmett in this manner. She always accorded him the respect he deserved as a first rater and high official of the government, but their relationship over the years had become a warm and familiar one. Mary was also aware that he took secret pride in what she had achieved and he would visit the clearing on the mountain to watch each new construction. He had been very useful in the obtaining of various licences, and a positive stalwart in her fights with the beer barons and others who did not like to see an emancipist and, in particular, a woman succeed at what they felt was most decidedly the province of a man.

Finally, and to Mary's relief, Mr Emmett looked up and smiled. 'Good afternoon, sir,' she said also smiling. Mary was still a pretty, slender woman, and today she was wearing a neat dress and best bonnet of a russet colour which complemented her lovely green eyes.

'My dear Mary,' Mr Emmett began, 'it is always such a pleasure to see you, though perhaps today is a somewhat less pleasant occasion.'

'Oh?' Mary exclaimed. 'Is there something I has done wrong, sir?'

Mr Emmett spread his hands and leaned back slightly, both gestures intended to relax her. 'You have done so well, Mary, and there are many, even in the government, who think most highly of you. I am sure you know how I feel about your success. We are good friends, do you not agree?'

'I take it a great honour to be counted your friend, sir.'

Mr Emmett cleared his throat and now leaned slightly forward across the desk. 'Mary, you must listen to me. It is not right that you should take these children to be your own. They do not have the right blood and it will turn out badly for all concerned.'

'Tommo and Hawk?' Mary exclaimed in surprise.

'Yes! If that be their names, you must be rid of them!'

Mary had never before heard such a harsh, uncompromising tone in Mr Emmett's voice. 'But why, sir?' she pleaded. 'They just be orphans, there be hundreds like them.'

'They will destroy you! We cannot have it!'

'Destroy me? But I loves them like me own!' Mary cried.

Mr Emmett shook his head impatiently. 'Mary, I will not lie to you, they be of an inferior species and the Lord God would not have us to mix with them. You have seen how the aboriginal people of this island are. There can be no place for them in this society. I beg you to see reason. This child will destroy you and the other, though thought to be white, is, I am told, a twin and therefore of the same stock!'

'Mr Emmett, you must help me please. These are my children and I wish them to be given my name!'

Mr Emmett shook his head. 'You were always of a most stubborn nature, Mary Abacus, but this time I am right! You cannot keep them. Besides, in the matter of a name, it can only be that of their father.' Mr Emmett was not a cruel man, but now he paused and raised one eyebrow. 'And God alone knows who he might be! The children of a whore and a nigger are not to be given a decent English name.'

'If I adopt them they shall have mine, it be decent enough!' Mary said defiantly.

'Should you be married, yes, that might be possible, but you are a spinster woman and the law will not allow you to adopt them.' The chief clerk paused and looked at Mary, whom he could see was deeply distressed. 'Do not try, Mary, it will be to no avail and I would personally interfere in the matter!'

Mary stood up and moved to where Mr Emmett sat behind his desk. She knelt beside him and held him by the sleeve with both her hands. 'Please, Mr Emmett, they be my children. I loves them as though they were my very own flesh and blood. You must help me, I begs you!'

'Mary, do not distress yourself so! And please be seated,' Mr Emmett said sternly. 'We are not in my garden now or in the woods at Strickland Falls.' He pulled his arm away, forcing Mary to rise and return to her chair. 'I have consulted the attorney general on this matter. You simply must give up these children, Mary. You have technically conspired in their abduction and, while God knows it is as much a technical crime as real on this island with the mother dead and the father unknown, it is a crime nonetheless. The children are wards of the State and must be given over to the foundling home.'

Mary half rose in her chair. 'But… but, they will die! I have seen what happens!'

'It is for the best, my dear. You will soon enough forget them.'

'And if I should find someone willing to adopt them?' Mary asked, a heartfelt sob escaping from her.

'What do you mean? Someone to adopt them, then give them over into your care?'

Mary nodded and sniffed. 'I loves them more than my life, sir.'

'Mary my dear, listen to me. They are scum! They will grow to be idiots! You have seen the vile offspring of harlots for yourself, the urchins in the streets in dirty rags, who grunt and snort like pigs, their minds not able to fully comprehend. These two of yours will be the same, even worse. They do not have the advantage of a full measure of English blood, but carry in their veins the instincts of the African savage, and God knows what else!'

'Sir, I were meself born o' the poorest class, the hopeless, the scum, as you calls it! I were myself a harlot! You have seen how in the orphanage we have brought children to learn, children what you said was hopeless, was scum, found bright and keen as any other. You said yourself you was wrong!'

'I am not wrong in this, Mary!' Mr Emmett said tersely. 'They were not black! Listen to me, please! There is more to this matter. The coroner thought not to make public his report of the results of the death of the prostitute known as Sperm Whale Sally, but it was his positive opinion that she died in childbirth. These are the two infants, the twins, born to her, are they not?'

Mary opened her mouth to reply and Mr Emmett lifted his index finger. 'Please do not lie to me, Mary. You and I have always spoken the truth.'

Mary sighed and looked directly at Mr Emmett, tears streaming down her cheeks. 'Ikey brought them home,' she said in a faltering voice.

'The morning the corpse was discovered?'

Mary nodded, biting her lower lip. Then she looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed.

'He stole them, Mary,' Mr Emmett said quietly. 'That is abduction. You helped in the kidnapping of two children and will be charged with complicity. If convicted you will both receive fourteen years!' He leaned back. 'For God's sake, woman, give them up now and nothing further will come of it!'

Mary felt the anger rising deep within her. On the streets of Hobart Town there were gangs of urchins in rags who were treated no better than stray dogs. It was so common to hear of street urchins of three and four years old found murdered having been brutally buggered, that the Colonial Times did not even make mention of it. These were the lost children of the island, so low in human reckoning that they barely existed in the minds of the general population. If they survived to the age of eight or nine they became hardened prostitutes, both male and female. Beyond the age of eleven, if they hadn't died of syphilis or some other infectious disease, most became drooling idiots or desperate criminals. Many were hanged before they reached fifteen years of age.

Newborn children, left by their destitute mothers on the steps of the foundling home, died more often than not and this was quietly condoned by the authorities. The King's orphanage could accommodate only a certain number, and was already thought to be a most onerous drain on the government coffers. Now the person Mary trusted more than any other in the world had turned against her, and was threatening her with prison for having saved two such children from certain death.

Mary knew that she was on her own again, that nothing had really changed. Her hand went to the Waterloo medal about her neck, and she held it tightly before looking up at Mr Emmett.

'You are wrong, sir! Ikey Solomon be their father!' Mary heard herself saying.

Mr Emmett's mouth fell open in astonishment. It was such a ludicrous assertion that he could not believe his ears. Several moments passed before he was able to speak. He shook his head in bewilderment.

'Mary Abacus, that is outrageous!' he cried. 'Ikey Solomon is a Jew!'

Mary looked directly into Mr Emmett's eyes. 'Hawk be a throwback, sir, on the maternal side.'

Mr Emmett remained quiet for a few moments and then he threw back his head and began to chuckle. Before long this had turned into genuine laughter. Eventually he stopped, removed his glasses and dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief. 'And Ikey is the willing and happy father, is he?'

Mary could no longer restrain herself. 'I don't know, sir. I ain't told him yet!'

With this they both commenced to howl with laughter. Mr Emmett was now quite beside himself with mirth, and it took several minutes to regain his composure.

'Mary, I shall speak to the attorney general.' He looked most fondly at her. 'I fear you will suffer greatly in the choice you have made. The respectable class will not forgive you for this great indiscretion, my dear.'

'And you, sir?' Mary asked. 'Will you?'

Mr Emmett looked suddenly most awkward and picked up his quill and twirled it in his fingers. Without looking at Mary he declared, 'Me? Oh I am simply an old fool who is too easily led by the nose by a pretty young woman.'

Mary smiled, though her eyes filled again with tears. 'And if they be proved idjits, Mr Emmett, sir, they will be as equally loved as if they were the brightest o' brats!'

There is not much that can be said about the first few years of a child's life. They all seem to grow alarmingly quickly, and if they are loved and healthy they are usually of a pleasant enough disposition. They are a source of great pleasure as well as of moments of great anxiety when they suffer from the multitudinous childhood complaints every parent must of necessity endure. But the pleasure of infants is only known to those who are with them daily; to others, children only become interesting when they can think and ask questions.

Mary was a dedicated mother to Tommo and Hawk, and the two little boys returned her love with affection and trust. Sometimes, when she was busy at other tasks, the mere thought of them would overwhelm her and she would burst into tears of sheer joy for the love she felt for them. Mary was sure that life could bring her no greater moments of happiness than when the little boys were tugging at her skirts and demanding affection. Had she given birth to them she felt she could not have loved them any more deeply.

From the outset it became apparent that they would be quite differently sized. Tommo, considering his gigantic parents, was small boned and delicate in appearance, though not in the least sickly, and Hawk was large and seemed to grow bigger each day. As a baby Tommo seemed content with the single breast of his wet nurse, while Hawk would take all he could extract from his own and then greedily feed on the remaining breast of the woman who suckled his brother.

Jessamy Hawkins had grown into a pretty young lady, much sought after by young men. But she was of a sensible and independent mind, quick witted and with a laconic humour, and she doted on the two infants. She called Hawk 'Dark Thought', and Tommo 'After Thought'.

Tommo seemed the more adventurous of the twins. He was always into some sort of mischief and, more often than not, Hawk would be the one caught with his fingers deep in the jam pot after being led there by Tommo. But Hawk questioned everything and, even as a small child, would not be put off by an incomplete answer.

Throughout their childhood they refused to be separated and Hawk sensed the need to protect the smaller Tommo against all-comers, dogs or other children who might want to harm him. Even if Mary grew angry with Tommo for some mischief and he fled from her, Hawk would stand in her way until, impatient and frustrated, she would slap him. The moment she did so, Hawk would stand firm and grin up at her. 'That's for Tommo, Mama!' he'd declare. 'He be punished now!'

Ikey, to his great surprise, confessed to being most fond of Mary's brats, but had nonetheless made Mary pay him ten pounds for each before he agreed to perjure himself by swearing he was their father. He protested that, as the world had never before heard of a black Jew, but with Hawk and Tommo given the name of Solomon, it was not appropriate that they be gentiles. Nevertheless, his conscience would be assuaged, he assured Mary, if she gave a donation of fifteen pounds to a fund created by Mr Louis Nathan to establish a synagogue for the four hundred and fifty Jews known to live in the colony. Ikey was getting older and increasingly he gave thought to his immortal soul. He thought it worthwhile to be in good standing within his faith. The remaining five pounds he wanted for an addition to Sperm Whale Sally's headstone.

Mary had paid for the burial of Marybelle Firkin, alias Sperm Whale Sally, who now rested among the respectable dead in St David's burial ground with both her names on her marble headstone, but she soon enough recouped the money.

Michael O'Flaherty, the proprietor of the Whale Fishery, had opened a fund for this purpose, and every whaleman who entered the port of Hobart in the year that followed had willingly given something towards Sperm Whale Sally's funeral expenses.

Sufficient money was raised to repay Mary and also to erect a handsome headstone made from expensive pure white marble imported from England. In fact, so grand was the headstone that it caused a furore among the church elders and the congregation, who felt it unbefitting that a whore should have a more impressive tombstone than the respectable and pious merchant John Rutkin who had been buried on the very same day.

There were even some who tried to insist that Sperm Whale Sally's grave be moved from consecrated ground, and there was talk of a petition to Governor Franklin, who had replaced Colonel Arthur.

But in the end the vicar, in a stirring sermon, pointed out that within his churchyard lay villains far greater than the giant whore, and that Mary Magdalene had herself been a scarlet women and had received the love and compassion of Jesus Christ. This had silenced the hotheads and, at the same time, caused a better quality of headstone to appear in the churchyard, the respectable classes not able to bear the shame of sealing their dead beneath a less imposing stone.

But despite the grandness of the memorial to Sperm Whale Sally, Ikey, in a rare display of sentiment, expressed his displeasure. He persuaded the stone mason who created the tombstone to procure a slab of rare bluestone and to carve from it the shape of a great sperm whale, and to inlay this onto the face of the existing white marble. Beneath this he caused to be engraved the words: So take up your doxy and drink your own ale And dance a fine jig to a fine fishy tale We'll fly the Blue Sally wherever we sail And drink to the health o' the great sperm whale!

It pleased Ikey greatly to know that the Blue Sally would forever fly above Sperm Whale Sally's grave and Mary was happy enough to meet the bill. Apart from Ikey's renewed religious scruples, she understood his sentimental desire to perpetuate in stone the spirit of the great sperm whale so that it might guard the grave of the mother of her two adopted sons.

And so yet another myth was born. At the beginning of the winter whaling season, for as long as men hunted the whale in the South Seas and came into port at Hobart Town, the captains and men of the great fully rigged brigantines and barques and the smaller local bay whalers would gather together at St David's church for a blessing of the whale fleet. After the blessing the ships' masters would pay for a barrel of rum to be consumed at the grave of Sperm Whale Sally. Each whaleman present would take a glass of rum and drink what became known as 'A Sally Salute', a tribute to the spirit of the great sperm whale. Then they would link arms, the Yankees and the British, Swedes, French, Portuguese and the islanders, and form a circle around the grave of sperm Whale Sally and sing the Blue Sally shanty. This they sang with a great deal more gusto than the dreary rendition of The Sailor's Hymn they had earlier been required to render within the church. It was claimed that there were whalemen who spoke no English but who could sing this elegy to the whale perfectly, having learned it by rote from some old tar during the lonely nights at sea.

Mary nurtured only one great anxiety during the first two years of raising Tommo and Hawk, which sprang from the damning words of Mr Emmett. 'Mary my dear, listen to me. They be scum! They will grow to be idiots!' She watched them intently in the cradle to see if their eyes followed her or whether they might be made to grab for some object she held or respond to some loving nonsensical sound she made to show a growing awareness. Her fears proved groundless. Tommo and Hawk cried and laughed, slept and ate and fell and walked and played like any other happy, healthy infants.

Mary left nothing to chance, though, and as soon as they could comprehend in the slightest she began reading to them. At four years old they could recite a host of nursery rhymes, the one closest to Mary's heart being Little Jack Horner, for it contained the two things she was most determined to give her children, good food and an education.

Mary was also determined that their morals should be of the strictest rectitude and they would be most severely punished should they not tell the truth. She had sent to England for a book with the rather long title, The Good Child's Delight; or, the road to knowledge. In short, entertaining lessons of one or two syllables; Nursery morals; chiefly in monosyllables. This she read to them so many times that Hawk, at the age of five, could recite the entire book. Others she bought from the Hobart Town Circulating Library, where she drove the stern-faced Mrs Deane quite mad with her requests for children's books. One of the boys' favourites, for they cried at each reading, was The Happy Courtship, Merry Marriage, and Pic Nic Dinner, of Cock Robin, and Jenny Wren. To which is added, alas! the doleful death of the bridegroom.

On their cots Mary constructed strings of wooden beads in the same configuration as an abacus, so that their earliest memories would be of the rattle and touch of the red and black beads in their tiny hands.

At five both children were well acquainted with the alphabet and could read well and write simple words upon their slates. Tommo was clever enough but would quickly become impatient, while Hawk seemed much more interested. At the age of seven, when Mary took them to Mrs Tibbett's primary school, an establishment which took the young children of the tradesmen rank, both Tommo and Hawk proved well in advance of other children in their class. Hawk was not only the largest child among his age group, he also stood out as the most intelligent.

Though children are not concerned with colour, their parents soon enough perceived the presence of Hawk and it did not take them long to complain about the black child. Mary was asked by Mrs Tibbett to remove Hawk and Tommo from the school.

It was a fight Mary knew she could not win, and she saw no point in venting her spleen on the hapless Mrs Tibbett, who seemed genuinely distressed that she was forced to make the demand. Besides, Mary felt that the school was holding back her children for the benefit of other children less well prepared.

So she determined that she would continue as she had begun and personally attend to the education of her two children. In this she had elicited Ikey's most reluctant assistance, particularly as she required that he teach them nothing in the way of dishonest practices. Ikey protested that he knew of no other way to teach an urchin, and that if he should be forbidden to teach Tommo and Hawk the gentle art of picking a pocket, or show them how to palm a card or otherwise cheat at cribbage, pick a simple lock, short change a customer, successfully enter a house though it be securely locked, or doctor a stolen watch, there was nothing contained in his lexicon of knowledge which he believed could be useful to them.

'You will teach them of human nature! They must grow up able to read a man or woman the way you do. How they stand or use their hands or smile or protest, how to know the fool from the villain and the good from the bad. Who to trust and who should be avoided. The manner o' the confidence man and the language o' the cheat and the liar. That is what I want them to know, Ikey Solomon!'

Ikey laughed. 'They are not Jews, my dear, they are not the raw material it has taken a thousand years and more to breed, so that this kind of wisdom is ingested without the need to think.'

'You must teach them, Ikey. Hawk most of all, for I fear greatly for him in this world where the dark people suffer even though they commit no crime, where the lowest wretch thinks himself superior to a black skin. You must teach Hawk to be a good reader of human nature.'

Ikey soon discovered that children with full bellies who are surrounded by love and attention make poor observers of human nature. Children learn the lessons in life by being thrown into life, and so he decided to take Hawk and Tommo to the races each Saturday. But first he taught them a new language. He found that both boys enjoyed the finger and hand actions which comprise the ancient silent language used among the traders in Petticoat Lane, Rosemary Lane, Whitechapel, Covent Garden and the other London markets. It is said that it is a language used by the Jews since the fall of the great temple of Solomon. That the Jews brought it to England in the Middle Ages and it became a language used in English prisons and had been brought to Port Arthur, where prisoners were not permitted to talk to each other. It was also most useful at the race track, where bookmakers talked to each other, setting the odds and laying of bets across the paddocks, and there it was commonly known as tic-tac.

Tommo and Hawk, like all young children, quickly learned the rudiments of this language and it did not take long before they added some of their own unique signs and devices, which meant they could silently communicate to each other on any subject.

Ikey was delighted with their progress, and when they were seven he would take them to the races, where they would move from one on-course bookmaker to the other sending back the odds to Ikey so that he was seldom caught short or 'holding the bundle' as it is known in racing parlance. In exposing them to the myriad people to be found at the Hobart races he was able to begin teaching Tommo and Hawk the lessons Mary wanted them to learn. Ikey taught them how to look at a crowd and break it into its various components.

'If you knows what you're looking for in a crowd, my dear, then you can read it like a book.' He looked down at Hawk. 'A crowd be composed o' what, Mr Dark Thought?'

Hawk looked at Ikey with his big serious eyes. 'Folks?'

'Folks! That be a right and splendid answer, very clever indeed!'

'What sort o' folks, Mr After Thought?' he asked Tommo.

'Very ugly ones what stinks!' Tommo replied, waiting for the giggle to come from Hawk.

'Well, well, well and we are the pretty ones what smells perfect are we then?' Ikey said. 'I stinks meself and I am not very pretty I admits. So be the crowd all like me? Like Ikey Solomon?'

'All sorts of different folks,' Hawk replied for Tommo.

'Yes! With all sorts o' different needs and deeds,' Ikey replied. 'Needs and deeds, that be what you have to learn, my dears. If you knows what folks needs, you can begin to understand their deeds.'

Ikey would patiently teach them how to spot the pickpocket, and to listen to the chatter of a tout, to notice the gestures and the patterns of speech of the confidence trickster, how to know when a man was a liar or a cheat. How body language was almost always the first way to judge a man.

'Then, when you've seen how he stands or sits or walks or uses his hands and his head, and he fits into a pattern, then, when you talks with him you listens with your stomachs, my dears.'

'Your stomach!' Tommo laughed. 'Be me belly button me new ear then?'

'That be most clever of you, Mister After Thought, most clever and to be remembered. "Let your belly button be your most important ear!" '

'Have you got a very big belly button then, Ikey?' Hawk asked. 'Big as your ear?'

'Huge, my dear!' Ikey slapped his pot belly. 'Nearly all be ear what's constantly listening.'

The two boys found this very funny. 'So what does you do with your ears on your head?' Hawk asked.

'Now that be another most clever question, Mister Dark Thought.' Ikey pulled at both his ears. 'These be your listening eyes.'

'Eyes can't listen!' both the boys shouted.

'Oh yes they can! If they be ears!' Ikey said solemnly.

'But ears can't see,' Hawk said emphatically.

'Oh yes they can! If they be eyes! Ears what is eyes and eyes what is ears is most important in the discovery o' human nature!'

'How?' they both chorused.

'Well, human speech be like pictures, only word pictures. When we speaks we paints a word picture what we wants others to see, but we only paints a part o' the picture what's in our heads. The other part, usually the most important part, we leaves behind, because it be the truth, the true picture. So your ears have to have eyes, so they can see how much o' the real picture what be in the head be contained in the words!'

'How then are eyes become ears?' Hawk asked.

'Well that be more complicated, but the way we moves our hands and heads, and folds our arms or opens them up, scratches our nose or puts our fingers over our lips, tugs our ear, twiddles our thumbs or fidgets, or puts one foot on the instep o' the other like Tommo be doing right now, that be what you calls the language o' the body. If you listen to the language o' the body with your eyes and sees the picture in the mind with your ears, you begins to get the drift o' the person, that is if you listens…'

'Through the ear in your belly?' Hawk shouted, delighted.

'Bravo! If he don't feel good in your stomach, then always trust it, my dears! Bad stomachs and bad men go well together!'

Tommo appeared to pay less attention to these lessons, but Hawk silently absorbed everything Ikey told him. Unlike his previous pupils in the Academy of Light Fingers, neither Tommo nor Hawk suffered from hunger and cold, homelessness or a lack of love. Privileged children only embrace the more difficult lessons in life when their survival is threatened and then it is often too late.

Both Mary's boys showed an early proficiency in numbers and constantly used the abacus, but once again it was Hawk who most quickly mastered the mysteries of calculation. By the time Ikey took them to the Saturday races Hawk carried his own small abacus and could calculate the odds in an instant and send them by sign language to his brother. Tommo would stand well outside the betting ring but where Ikey could glance up at him while he worked, and as he began to prosper as a bookmaker he came to rely increasingly on the two boys.

Mary spent as much time as she could spare with the boys tramping on the great mountain, and at Strickland Falls, and soon they knew the deeply wooded slopes and crags well enough to spend long hours exploring on their own. They hunted the shy opossum, who slept during the day in hollow tree trunks, and searched for birds' eggs, though Mary forbade them to gather the eggs or trap the rosellas and green parrots not yet able to fly, but which were sufficiently well feathered to sell in the markets.

Once, close to Strickland Falls, Hawk had his arm deep within the hole in a tree trunk looking for birds' eggs when he was bitten by a snake. Within a couple of minutes he had presented his puffed and swollen forefinger to Mary, who was fortunately working at the new buildings for the Potato Factory.

Mary lost no time and, consulting Dr Forster's Book of Colonial Medicine, she applied a tourniquet high up on Hawk's arm and sliced open the bite with a sharp knife, drawing a deep line down the flesh of his forefinger while ignoring his desperate yowling. Then she sucked the poison from the wound, spat it out, and applied a liberal sprinkling of Condi's Crystals or, as it was called in the book, Permanganate of Potash. Though Hawk's hand remained swollen for a week, his forefinger recovered well, the scar from Mary's over-zealous cut being more damaging and permanent in its effect than the serpent's bite itself.

Mary was a strict mother who expected them to work. They gathered watercress and learned to tickle the mountain trout, and hunt for yabbies, the small freshwater crayfish abundant in the mountain streams, so that they would often bring home a bountiful supply. Sometimes they sold what they caught or gathered at the markets. They collected oysters off the rocks in the bay and set lobster traps, and both boys could swim like fish by the time they were five years old. At seven they were independent and spirited and in the rough and tumble of life in Hobart Town, where children of the poor grew up quickly and street urchins scavenged to stay alive, they mostly held their own. Though they would often enough come home to Mary torn, bleeding and beaten, robbed of the pennies or even a mighty sixpence they had earned.

Hawk's dark colour was almost always the problem, with the street urchins taking great delight in going after him. If Tommo and Hawk saw one of the gangs approaching and escape proved impossible, they ran until they found a wall and then, with their backs to it, would turn and fight their opponents. If they were not outnumbered they gave as much as they got and more. The street urchins learned to regard them with respect and to attack only in sizeable numbers, engaging the two boys just long enough to steal their catch, a brace of wood pigeons or several trout, a clutch of wild duck eggs or a couple of opossum.

Mary would patch them up, but offered little in the way of comfort. She loved her precious children so deeply that she often felt close to tears when they returned home with a black eye, bleeding nose or a thick lip. But she knew it was a hard world, and that they must learn to come to terms with it.

It was Ikey who finally gave them the key to a less eventful life. The two boys appeared at breakfast one morning, Tommo with both eyes shut and a swollen lip, and Hawk with one eye shut and a bruised and enlarged nose.

'Been in the wars, has we, then, my dears?' Ikey said.

'They've been fighting again,' Mary said, placing two bowls of porridge on the table. 'A couple o' proper hooligans, them two!'

'It were not our fault, Mama, it be the wild boys again!' Tommo said indignantly.

'You must run, don't fight them, just run,' Mary said emphatically. 'It's not cowardly to run, only prudent.'

'We had a bag of oysters what took two hours to collect,' Hawk protested. 'It were fourpence worth at least!'

'You can't run with a bag of oysters!' Tommo explained further.

'Well they got the oysters and you both got black eyes and fat lips and a bleeding nose, where's the sense to that?'

'We ain't scared, Mama,' Tommo said. 'Hawk hit three o' them terrible hard and I kicked one o' them in the shins so he went howling!'

'Of course, my dears, fisticuffs be all very well,' Ikey said, picking his teeth. 'But a much sharper sword would be your tongue!'

If the eyes of both boys had not been so well closed they would have rolled them in unison.

'They be idjits, Uncle Ikey. You can't try no reasoning on them, they not like us decent folks,' Tommo said.

'Don't you speak like that, Tommo Solomon!' Mary remonstrated. 'They be poor brats what's had no chance in life. They does the best they can to stay alive! They be just as decent as us given half a chance!'

'Talk to them, my dears, use your wits,' Ikey said. 'Wits be much more powerful than fists.' He rose from the table and stretched his arms above his shoulders. 'I'll be off, then. No lessons today, your Uncle Ikey's had a long, hard night.'

Later that morning the two boys were sitting on Mary's magic rock on the slopes of the mountain when Hawk turned to Tommo. 'What's you think Ikey be on about this morning?' he asked.

Tommo shrugged. 'It be Ikey stuff we be supposed to understand but can't.'

'I got an idea,' Hawk said.

Two days later the two boys found themselves accosted by five street urchins. They'd just returned from their lobster traps and their sack was bulging and bumping with six live lobsters they were hoping to sell to Mrs McKinney's fish shop for threepence.

Hawk looked at Tommo and the smaller boy nodded.

'Wotcha got?' the biggest of the urchins demanded.

Tommo and Hawk remained silent, and the snot-nose who had asked the original question made a grab for the bag in Hawk's hand.

'Careful,' Tommo shouted. 'They be magic lobsters what can curse you!'

The boy drew back confused. 'Wotcha mean?'

Hawk opened the bag, brought out a plump lobster and held it up above his head. The creature's claws and feelers waved wildly in the air.

'They can read your mind, them lobsters!'

The boys standing around jeered. 'That be fuckin' stoopid!' the first boy answered. 'Lobsters what can read me mind!'

Hawk pushed the live lobster into the face of the boy, who reeled back.

'Yeah, bullshit!' another of the urchins shouted. 'Ain't no lobsters what can do that!'

'Not your ordinary lobsters, that I admits, but these be special magic ones,' Tommo said quickly. 'It be the secret curse o' the people from Africa!'

'Who, him? The nigger?' the boy said, pointing to Hawk.

Hawk grinned. 'Black magic!' he said.

'Wanna see?' Tommo asked.

The urchins had now forgotten their original intention to rob Tommo and Hawk of the bag. 'Yeah!' they chorused.

'You brave enough to take the chance to be cursed by the great African lobster what swum all the way to visit us from the Cape o' Good Hope in Africa?' Tommo asked the eldest of the boys.

The urchin hesitated but then, seeing the others looking at him, said, 'It be stoopid! That be a fuckin' lobster like any uvver what's in the river.'

'G'warn, show us the magic!' the urchins challenged Tommo.

'Don't be cheeky!' Tommo said to the bunch of skinny boys standing around him. 'Or we'll curse the lot of you, not only him.' He scowled at the boy who had first accosted them and beckoned to the gang in a low voice. 'Come here where that African lobster creature can't hear what you is saying! Come right away all of you to that tree.' He pointed to a swamp oak about fifty feet away.

The urchins and their leader followed Tommo and stood beside the tree. 'Now I wants you each to whisper your name in me ear, one at a time, and then we'll ask the magic lobster to tell me brother what knows lobster language to tell us what your name be!' Tommo pointed to their original attacker. 'You what be double cursed already for saying it be a lobster what come from the river, you go first. Whisper your name in me ear with your back to the magic African lobster me brother's holding.'

Tommo knew the boy was known as Boxey, because his head was almost square. 'George,' Boxey whispered slyly into Tommo's ear, though loud enough for those gathered around to hear him. There was a giggle from the others at their leader's foxy trick.

Tommo stood facing Hawk fifty feet away and signalled him using the silent language. Hawk held the lobster up to his ear and appeared to listen. Then he shook his head and then the crustacean, and listened once more. Suddenly a big smile appeared on his face. 'The magic African lobster says the name given be George, but Boxey be the name what's real!' he shouted back at them.

The mouths of the urchins standing around Tommo fell open, and Boxey became very red in the face.

'You be careful, mate!' Tommo growled. 'Or you could be in real big trouble!'

Hawk suddenly held the lobster back to his ear. 'The magic African lobster says if any boy gives him a wrong name again they be double cursed to drown at sea!' he shouted.

There was a further gasp of astonishment from the boys.

'You!' Tommo said, pointing to a skinny urchin who was dressed in rags with great holes showing through, 'Come and whisper your name.' The boy, even smaller than Tommo, looked up at him terrified. 'I dunno what's me real name, they calls me Minnow.' His eyes pleaded with Tommo. 'I don't wanna be cursed, please!'

'Yeah, well I'll do me best,' Tommo said. 'But I can't make no promise. Turn your back to the magic lobster so he can't see your lips,' he commanded sternly. The urchin, shaking all over, did as he was told.

Moments later Hawk called back, 'Minnow!'

Tommo turned to the leader of the gang. 'Boxey, you be real lucky this time! But be warned!' He turned to the other urchins. 'Anyone want to take a chance o' being cursed?' There were no further volunteers and so Tommo called over to Hawk, 'Put the lobster in the bag and come over!'

As Hawk approached the gang they started to back away from him. 'Don't run!' Tommo said. 'We got to lift the curse first!'

'What's you mean?' Boxey asked suspiciously, his voice slightly tremulous. 'You said we wasn't cursed if we be careful.' He seemed brighter than the others and suddenly asked, 'How come he's your brother and he be black?'

'That's what I means, we got to lift the curse!' Tommo replied.

'I were born same as him,' Hawk explained, pointing to Tommo. 'Same's me brother, but I got cursed by the horrible African lobster and now I's black, see!'

'What you just seen here be black magic and folk's not s'posed to see black magic,' Tommo said. 'So me brother, what's turned black and is now the black magician what's forced to pass on the curse, will wave the lobster over your heads and then the curse be lifted. Now, if you please, a circle. Hold hands and make a circle. I'll tell you when to close your eyes!'

The boys formed into a circle holding hands with Hawk in the centre. Hawk lifted a lobster out of the bag and held it high above his head.

'Close your eyes tight now!' Tommo instructed. 'If you peeks you is cursed for life and you drowns all horrible out to sea but before that you turns black!'

Hawk started to recite:

Tommo waited for Hawk to place the lobster back into the bag. 'You can open your eyes, you be safe now,' Tommo instructed. 'Curse be lifted, but scarper quick and stay out of our way!' He then repeated Hawk's lines. 'Beware the black magician's curse, or things what's bad will soon be worse!'

'G'warn, clear off!' Hawk shouted, scowling fiercely. The urchins, terror etched on their dirty faces, turned and fled for their lives.

The two boys waited a few moments, most pleased with themselves. Then Hawk took up the wriggling bag of lobsters and they started to laugh. They continued laughing all the way up the hill to Mrs McKinney's fish shop.

'I reckons maybe Uncle Ikey be right,' Hawk said finally, then turned to Tommo and asked, 'Was you scared?'

'Yeah, shittin' meself!'

'Me too, but I reckon it's much better than getting your nose busted!'

'Blood' oath!' Tommo said happily.