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Later
generations
of
Armstrongs
insisted
he
came
of
Somerset
gentlefolk
who
had
lost
their
fortune
following
the
American
Revolution
,
and
that
his
crime
was
nonexistent
,
but
none
of
them
had
ever
tried
very
hard
to
trace
their
illustrious
ancestor
's
background
.
They
just
basked
in
his
reflected
glory
and
improvised
somewhat
.
Whatever
his
origins
and
status
in
English
life
,
the
young
Roderick
Armstrong
was
a
tartar
.
All
through
the
unspeakable
eight
months
'
voyage
to
New
South
Wales
he
proved
a
stubborn
,
difficult
prisoner
,
further
endearing
himself
to
his
ship
's
officers
by
refusing
to
die
.
When
he
arrived
in
Sydney
in
1803
his
behavior
worsened
,
so
he
was
shipped
to
Norfolk
Island
and
the
prison
for
intractables
.
Nothing
improved
his
conduct
.
They
starved
him
;
they
immured
him
in
a
cell
so
small
he
could
neither
sit
,
stand
nor
lie
;
they
flogged
him
to
jellied
pulp
;
they
chained
him
to
a
rock
in
the
sea
and
let
him
half-drown
.
And
he
laughed
at
them
,
a
skinny
collection
of
bones
in
filthy
canvas
,
not
a
tooth
in
his
mouth
or
an
inch
of
his
skin
unscarred
,
lit
from
within
by
a
fire
of
bitterness
and
defiance
nothing
seemed
to
quench
.
At
the
beginning
of
each
day
he
willed
himself
not
to
die
,
and
at
the
end
of
each
day
he
laughed
in
triumph
to
find
himself
still
alive
.
In
1810
he
was
sent
to
Van
Diemen
's
Land
,
put
in
a
chain
gang
and
set
to
hew
a
road
through
the
iron-hard
sandstone
country
behind
Hobart
.
At
first
opportunity
he
had
used
his
pick
to
hack
a
hole
in
the
chest
of
the
trooper
commanding
the
expedition
;
he
and
ten
other
convicts
massacred
five
more
troopers
by
shaving
the
flesh
from
their
bones
an
inch
at
a
time
until
they
died
screaming
in
agony
.
For
they
and
their
guards
were
beasts
,
elemental
creatures
whose
emotions
had
atrophied
to
the
subhuman
.
Roderick
Armstrong
could
no
more
have
gone
off
into
his
escape
leaving
his
tormentors
intact
or
quickly
dead
than
he
could
have
reconciled
himself
to
being
a
convict
.
With
the
rum
and
bread
and
jerky
they
took
from
the
troopers
,
the
eleven
men
fought
their
way
through
miles
of
freezing
rain
forest
and
came
out
at
the
whaling
station
of
Hobart
,
where
they
stole
a
longboat
and
set
off
across
the
Tasman
Sea
without
food
,
water
or
sails
.
When
the
longboat
washed
ashore
on
the
wild
west
coast
of
New
Zealand
's
South
Island
,
Roderick
Armstrong
and
two
other
men
were
still
alive
.
He
never
spoke
of
that
incredible
journey
,
but
it
was
whispered
that
the
three
had
survived
by
killing
and
eating
their
weaker
companions
.
That
was
just
nine
years
after
he
had
been
transported
from
England
.
He
was
yet
a
young
man
,
but
he
looked
sixty
.
By
the
time
the
first
officially
sanctioned
settlers
arrived
in
New
Zealand
in
1840
,
he
had
hewn
lands
for
himself
in
the
rich
Canterbury
district
of
the
South
Island
,
"
married
"
a
Maori
woman
and
sired
a
brood
of
thirteen
handsome
half-Polynesian
children
.
And
by
1860
the
Armstrongs
were
colonial
aristocrats
,
sent
their
male
offspring
to
exclusive
schools
back
in
England
,
and
amply
proved
by
their
cunning
and
acquisitiveness
that
they
were
indeed
true
descendants
of
a
remarkable
,
formidable
man
.
Roderick
's
grandson
James
had
fathered
Fiona
in
1880
,
the
only
daughter
among
a
total
of
fifteen
children
.
If
Fee
missed
the
more
austere
Protestant
rites
of
her
childhood
,
she
never
said
so
.
She
tolerated
Paddy
's
religious
convictions
and
attended
Mass
with
him
,
saw
to
it
that
her
children
worshipped
an
exclusively
Catholic
God
.
But
because
she
had
never
converted
,
the
little
touches
were
missing
,
like
grace
before
meals
and
prayers
before
bed
,
an
everyday
holiness
.
*
*
*
Aside
from
that
one
trip
into
Wahine
eighteen
months
before
,
Meggie
had
never
been
farther
from
home
than
the
barn
and
smithy
in
the
hollow
.
On
the
morning
of
her
first
day
at
school
she
was
so
excited
she
vomited
her
breakfast
,
and
had
to
be
bundled
back
into
her
bedroom
to
be
washed
and
changed
.
Off
came
the
lovely
new
costume
of
navy
blue
with
a
big
white
sailor
collar
,
on
went
her
horrid
brown
wincey
which
buttoned
high
around
her
little
neck
and
always
felt
as
if
it
were
choking
her
.
