little Scots woman had wept bitter tears. 'Acht, I couldnae bear the bairn t' suffer. I had nae milk in me teets nor ought t' save its wee life.'
The Reverend William Bedford, the drunken chaplain to the convicts who, in God's name, had been among the large concourse assembled to witness the last moments of Mary McLaughlan, preached a sermon while almost sober in the prison chapel on the Sunday following the hanging.
'She stood dressed in a snow-white garment with a black ribbon tied about her waist and a certain hope of forgiveness supported her in her final hour and, it is my belief, she died contrite and resigned.' Bedford looked about his congregation. Not all were prisoners and the townsfolk sat separated from the lewd looks of the male convicts by a curtain. 'On the falling of the drop, the instant before her mortal scene was closed, she did utter but three words of penitence, 'Oh! my God!' though this may well have been a curse, I have chosen to see it as a plea to heaven for forgiveness! Hers was the dreadful crime of murder, the cold-blooded killing of the little innocent offspring of her own bosom.' He paused again, for he was in good form and had for once the complete attention of his congregation. 'Well has this first step to error been compared to the burning spark which, when lighted, may carry destruction to inconceivable bounds. But will mankind take a lesson from this?' He shook his head slowly then banged his fist upon the pulpit. 'Cannot the horrible tenacity be broken with which the Devil keeps his hold, when once he has put his finger on his victim?' The Reverend Bedford let this last sentiment reach the minds of his congregation before he added in a voice both sorrowful and low, 'I think not'.
And so the act committed by a desperate woman was entered into the history of the island as the most heinous of all crimes committed in that place of infamy.
Mary had always had a great love for children, though she would never be able to bear one of her own. She came to look upon the children in the orphanage as belonging to the women in the prison and therefore as her responsibility. Her heart seemed torn asunder when each newly weaned infant was taken away from its mother. On many occasions she had begged the prison authorities to allow the infants to stay, or even that the mothers might be allowed to visit their children at the orphanage on the Sabbath.
The reply had always been the same. The prisoner mother had no rights to a child born out of wedlock, nor could the prison authorities accept responsibility for its care. The best interests of the newborn infant were served away from the malignant pollutants of the prison atmosphere, where under the supervision of a benign government, a child would benefit from a Christian upbringing in the Reverend Thomas Smedley's Wesleyan Orphanage.
And so Mary had passed the first year and a half of her sentence in Van Diemen's Land, though one more aspect should be added which was to be of paramount importance to her future. She was naturally inclined to gardening, though she couldn't think why this should be, as her life had been spent almost entirely on cobblestones in decaying courts and alleys devoid of even a blade of grass. The names of flowers were quite unknown to her, but for the daffodil, rose and violet, and these three only because urchins sold them on the streets of London.
She loved to work in the potato patch and never failed to be surprised when, upon pulling up a dark green, hairy-leafed plant she would find attached to its slender roots great creamy orbs fit for the plate of a king. A little further digging would reveal more of the wonderful tubers and her hands, buried in the rich, damp soil, would for a moment seem whole, her long, slender fingers restored and beautiful.
In the new Female Factory her knowledge and disposition for gardening were recognised, and she was allowed to leave the bakery and spend all her prison working hours at this task. Mary talked to the Irish women in the Factory about the manner of growing potatoes, and learned much from them which improved the crop grown in the prison gardens. This, in particular, from Margaret Keating, who added further to her knowledge with information on the making of poteen, sometimes known as 'Irish whisky'. This is usually made from barley, but potatoes may be used instead. Though each kind has an altogether different taste, both are most astonishingly intoxicating.
Mary soon showed that her proficiency with potatoes carried over to Indian corn, cabbage, carrots and other vegetables. She asked that Ann Gower be allowed to work with her as well as several of the Irish women accustomed to working the soil, including Margaret Keating. She also asked that a good-sized shed be built so that the garden implements could be safely stored and the seeding potatoes successfully propagated. Behind this shed she proposed to build a hothouse for propagating seeds. This, she convinced the prison authorities, was because of the unpredictable weather, where frosts and cold snaps late into spring and early summer could destroy half an acre of vegetable seedlings overnight. This second project was considered to be outside the authority of the prison as it involved the purchase of glass, and was referred to the chief clerk of the colonial secretary's department, Mr Emmett.
Mary had greatly impressed Mr Emmett, who saw her use her abacus to calculate the cost of losing two crops as they had done the previous year to sudden cold snaps. She had offset this against the price of the materials, all of which, but for the glass used in the construction, were made by the male prisoners with only the smallest cost to the treasury.
For the hothouse Mary proposed a clever modification. She planned to build into one of the brick end walls a kiln which could be worked from the outside of the building. Ann explained to the authorities that one of the Irish women, skilled in the making of pots, had discovered a clay pit near the rivulet. The clay there was thought to be of excellent quality for pots. Mary proposed that they would produce water and plant pots for sale to the townsfolk and, with the advent of the hothouse, ornamental plants could be grown. The profits from this enterprise would go directly to the coffers of the colony. The chief clerk now took a keen interest in the hothouse as if the idea had been his own. He accepted the proposal and agreed that the hothouse should be built, together with the abutting kiln, a pottery drying shed and two wheels for turning the clay.
Mary had yet another modification in mind, though not one she thought to mention to the chief clerk. She requested of the prisoner bricklayer to construct a wide hearth on the inside of the end wall of the hothouse, which contained the kiln on its outside. This would be back-to-back with the kiln, so that there would be a fireplace with a good platform, wide working mouth and a double chimney flue shared by both hearth and kiln.
When, to Margaret Keating's precise instructions, the structure was complete, they had the basis of a first- class poteen still. The kiln could be fired separately from the outside and the hearth, if needs be, made to carry a fire of its own on the inside. Mary had a carpenter construct a door to the opening of the hearth, which had four stout wooden shelves built into its outside surface. If the authorities should arrive unexpectedly when the still was in progress the fire could be quickly doused, and the door closed to conceal it. Numerous pots containing plants could be hastily placed upon the shelves as though this was their permanent resting place. Smoke from the recently doused fire would carry up the chimney, where it could always be explained as being caused by the operation of the outside kiln.
All that was now required was the equipment needed to place within the hearth. This consisted of the numerous thin copper pipes which would be fed through the back wall of the hearth into the kiln so that they would be further heated by it, as well as the two chambers needed for the condensation and distillation of the spirit. These copper chambers would reside within the mouth of the hearth, where only a very small fire was needed to keep the water within the main cylinder producing the steam required for the distillation of the potatoes which had been set to ferment.
Ann Gower, who had not the slightest inclination to use a hoe or break her back in a potato patch, was nevertheless perfectly willing to work in a trade she knew best. Whoring in prison gained only a sixpence at a time, whereas in the private enterprise of the prison gardens she could command a quick shilling. She was given the task of procuring the pipes, cylinders and other equipment required for the still.
Ann took up permanent residence in the newly completed shed, where she soon attracted a regular clientele. She quickly discovered those among her clients who had the means to steal, or the skill to fashion and install what Mary required in pipes and cylinders, valves and taps.
They had been most fortunate to chance upon a randy mechanic who was masterful in his knowledge of pipes and pressures. By employing his considerable engineering skill Mary constructed a still which, with the turning of no more than half a dozen nuts, could be disassembled and quickly hidden in a specially constructed cavity, which was revealed by lifting one of the large flagstones which comprised the floor of the hothouse.
In return for their services, those few men who had been involved in supply and construction of the still were happy enough to be repaid in a free weekly fulfilment from Ann Gower for the period of 'snow to snow'. This was the time from the last snowfall on Mount Wellington to the first of the following winter, or, if they were exceedingly unlucky, to a summer fall, which was not unknown in these parts.
