'My meetings with Mr. Done have been merely friendly. It would not amuse you in the least to hear our conversation repeated.' Lucy felt that her face was scarlet. She was angry and combative.
'Come, now, is that fair?' continued Mrs. Macdougal, patiently sad.
'You know you are the heroine of the ship's romance. We're just aching with curiosity about it.'
'Mrs. Macdougal, you amaze me!'
'We have scarcely talked of anything else for weeks, and I did think you'd put your trust in me.'
The girl was standing with squared shoulders and erect head, a patch of colour on either cheek, a courageous spark in either eye, and wrath in every gesture and in every line of her slim figure.
'Is this true?' she said. 'Do you mean to tell me that my friendship with Mr. Done has been the subject of the usual idle chatter here, day and night?'
'What could you expect, my dear?'
'That I have been criticised and scandalized and spied upon?'
'But with the nicest feelings and the best wishes. What else was there to interest anyone? I thought you understood. It was so romantic and delightful, and we were all so pleased to find him taking a real interest in you. The people quite expect you to become engaged, you know. It would be a most delightful ending, would it not?'
'It is a shame—a great shame!' cried Lucy. These people have no decency. I will tell you this, Mrs. Macdougal that no word of what you speak of has passed between Mr. Done and me.'
Mrs. Macdougal was quite grieved. 'The passengers will be disappointed she said. 'I'm afraid they won't think it quite nice of you. You see, these things are expected to end prettily. It's customary.'
It's very absurd and very mean.'
Mrs. Macdougal shook her head ominously. The thought of the chagrin of the cabins, deprived of a satisfactory climax to their little romance, filled her with gravest apprehension. Her strong belief was that Done and Lucy owed it as a sacred duty to the eternal verities, as set forth in popular fiction, to marry. If they failed to conform, they gave people good grounds for a grievance.
Lucy Woodrow's spirit was up in arms. The girl who had feared nothing so much as to find herself at variance with her fellows, and had believed the affection and the goodwill of those about her to be the first essentials to happiness, felt no weakness, no lack of self-reliance, now that she was in some measure pitted against the many. She resented the conduct of the passengers in making her the subject of their tittle-tattle with a bitterness she had never felt before. In overlooking her actions and assuming a right to influence her in a purely personal matter, these people were guilty of an insolence to which she would not submit. She thought she discovered a certain antagonism amongst those with whom she presently came into contact, and the opposition developed character. Pride came to her aid. No doubt some peeping Tom or prying woman had been witness to the theft of kisses. In that case the incident would now be a theme of conversation in the cabins. She could not trust Mrs. Macdougal to withhold from the gossips a single word of their conversation. Lucy's determination was to show herself superior to the ship's opinion; she would not have it thought she was influenced one way or the other, and for that reason it was necessary that there should be no appearance of a quarrel between herself and Done.
She found him sitting on a gun-carriage, and seated herself by his side, having offered her hand in token of amity.
Jim's heart had never been so light; his cherished animosities were fled for the time being. But conversation was difficult. He detected a difference in the girl that was not explicable to him, and imagined that she was still angry. He realized, too, that she was at a disadvantage, because of the service he had rendered her, and presently blurted something like an apology.
'I suppose I oughtn't to have done that the other night?' he said.
'No,' she murmured. Her head was bowed, and her foot tapped tremulously on the deck.
'It's the sort of thing the respectables pretend to be shocked at, isn't it? Well, I regretted it immediately.' His voice had grown softer. 'I did, upon my word!'
'Please don't speak of it,' she pleaded. In truth, the apology troubled her deeply where the offence had left no pain. She wished it had never been spoken The thought of it had power to provoke tears long after.
The Francis Cadman sailed majestically through the Heads into Port Phillip on a beautiful Sunday morning in November, when the beneficent spring was merging into a fiery Southern summer. The sun blazed with tropic splendour in a sky of unspotted sapphire; the blue, translucent waters danced in unison with the hearts on deck, rippling into gold and silver and the sparkle of a myriad diamonds. Eager eyes saw the symbols of wealth in all things, and a fever of exultation and expectancy burned in the ship. Done was like a man drunken. It was as if sunshine were a strange, new thing to him, as if he had never breathed deeply and truly the good air of God till now. He had big affectionate impulses; he felt that the sailors were fine fellows, his shipmates cheerful souls. He would have liked to shake hands all round and assure them of his friendship, but sailors and passengers were full of their own affairs, and took no notice of him. For two days past there had been much whispering amongst the crew and the men under contract to work the ship that had been left crewless in Australian waters. Done detected an undercurrent of excitement, and noticed many guarded consultations. That there was some conspiracy afloat he was convinced, but the plotting was conducted in so cheerful—even hilarious—a spirit that he suspected no evil.
The ship was anchored off Queenscliff to bide the coming of the noisy, grimy, paddle-tug engaged to tow her wearily into Hobson's Bay, and up to her berth by the primitive river wharf. And now speculation and curiosity were awakened in the cabins by the peculiar conduct of Captain Evan in stationing armed sailors along the ship, larboard and starboard.
Shortly after, Done, who was watching developments with keen interest, saw a Scandinavian seaman named Jorgensen steal over the side, and slip into the sea like a porpoise. Jorgensen struck out for the shore, swimming under water for the most part, till he had covered a distance of about two hundred yards from the ship. Others, including the armed sailors, had witnessed Jorgensen's escape, but no one spoke.
Nearly an hour passed, and then Jim saw that two boats were coming towards them from a distant point. At the sight of these there was a rush of sailors. No orders had been given, but a score of men busied themselves lowering the Francis Cadman's boats, laughing at their work and joking uproariously. Others came singing and yelling from the forecastle and up through the hatchways, with bundles which they piled on the deck. All order was abolished; the jubilant cries of the sailors were echoed back from the shores over the placid sea.
Captain Evan stood upon the deck, pale with passion, gesticulating furiously, shouting orders that no one heard. Every time he opened his lips the sailors responded with louder yells of cheerful derision. Evan rushed at one of the armed sailors, cursing heroically.
'Fire on them! Fire, I tell you!' he cried.
The man paid not the slightest heed, and Captain Evan, snatching the gun from his hands, levelled it at the boatswain.
'Down on your knees, you mutinous dog!' he thundered.
The boatswain grinned amiably, and thrust his finger into the barrel of the piece.
'By the holy, we've spiked your gun, Captain!' he said.
Evan pulled the trigger. The cap snapped and nothing more, and now, worked into an ungovernable passion, he clubbed his gun, and bringing the stock down upon the boatswain's head, stretched him upon the deck with a cracked skull. Swinging his weapon, the Captain dashed at the men, but a dozen pair of hands were on him, and he was dragged down. Bently, the first mate, who went to his assistance, was served similarly. In a few moments they lay helpless, trussed like turkeys ready for the roasting. The cabin passengers gathered about, white-faced, full of terror, thinking of piracy and all its attendant horrors. Some of the women were screaming. The sailors lifted Evan and Bently; and Done, who was watching the turn of events, greatly agitated, was startled into a new train of thought by a woman who had thrown herself at his feet, clinging to his knees, crying:
'Help him! help him! They are going to do murder!'
It was Mrs. Macdougal. Done started forward, and half a dozen sailors moved to intercept him.
'You don't mean mischief?' he said.
'Devil a bit!' replied a big Irishman. 'We'll stow them out of harm's way till we're safe on shore, an' never a mischief will be done to annywon at all. Come along, Captain darlin',' he added. 'Ye'll rist aisier in yer cabin. We're goin' diggin' fer the gould, an' not all the fiends out iv Connaught could shtop us.'
Captain and mate were bestowed under lock and key, and, like a band of schoolboys at breaking-up, the men continued their mutinous work. One section had started a quaint chanty; the rest caught it up presently, and with the rhythm of the song came something like order among the mutineers. Singing lustily, they piled their baggage into the boats, and Done, who had recovered the feeling of annoyance his impulsive interference had occasioned him, watched them, rejoicing in sympathy. He had brought no particular respect for law and order from the Old Land, and this happy revolt delighted him. He would have loved to join the merry adventurers in their defiance of authority. It was grand! Lustily he sang the chanty, and as the boats, loaded down with sailors and their traps, and towing astern in the warm sea strings of deserters for whom there was no room aboard, moved off, he leaned over the bulwarks waving his hat, and shouted with all the power of his lungs:
'Good luck to you, boys!'
They answered with a cheer, forgetting all differences in their present robust animal spirits. Ryan sprang up in one of the boats.
'Come wid us, man; why don't you?' he cried.
Jim had a strong impulse to follow, but a small hand seized his.
'No, no—please, no!' whispered Lucy at his side.
He shook his head at the men. After all, there was no occasion for him to run away; he was bound to no man.
The sailors had taken the key of the Captain's cabin with them, and by the time Evan and the mate were liberated the crew of the Francis Cadman and all the sailors under contract to the distracted owners of vessels riding idle and helpless on Corio Bay and Hobson's Bay had disappeared amongst the ti-tree fringing the shore, leaving the ship's boats afloat. Five sailors remained aboard—one, the boatswain, was temporarily disabled; two of the others were sick and bedridden. Captain Evan stood on the main hatchway and reviewed the situation, and in his manner of expressing himself there remained no trace whatever of the suave autocrat of the cabins. In less than an hour his voyage had been converted into an utter and ignominious failure.
The journey from the Heads to the river mouth in the wake of the tug-boat Platypus, slow and toil some, set Jim in an itch of impatience. He was longing to feel land under his feet once more, and was leaning over the side, his awkwardly-packed canvas bag of belongings at his feet, watching the line of Liardit Beach, with its few dingy buildings standing back from the sea, apprehensive lest this, after all, should prove to be Melbourne, his brave city of refuge, when Lucy Woodrow approached him to say farewell.
'They tell me we are very near our journey's end,' she said. 'I wish to ask you a favour before you go.'
She looked strong and confident, and he was grateful there were to be no tears, having anticipated something like a scene. She had prepared to land, too, and wore a dark dress he had not seen before, and a quaint little hat that became her well. He thought her beautiful. The idea of parting with her hurt now, and his pulse stirred impatiently. The admiration in his eyes caused a flush to relieve the pale olive of her cheeks.
'I'll do anything you ask,' he said,
'It is a very little thing. This is Mrs. Macdougal's address. I want you to promise to write to me.'
'I will.'
'Your life in this new land will be active and adventurous, I'm sure, but some day, in one month, or two, or perhaps a year, you will find time to send me a letter to say how you are, and how the strange country pleases you?'
'You are the only human creature I have met in friendship,' he said, betrayed into warmth by her unaffected concern. 'I can never forget you, Lucy.' He used her Christian name for the first time.
'Thank you, James,' she answered simply.
'No, no—Jim! Jim!' He had been called James only by the parson and the magistrates of Chisley, and he despised the unctuousness that seemed to cling to the name.
'Thank you, Jim,' she said, smiling. 'You see,' she continued gravely, 'what you have done for me makes it impossible that I can ever be careless about your welfare. I shall always want to know where you are, and if you are well and happy.'
'I'm not used to this sort of thing,' he stammered.
I bear it badly.' And, indeed, he had a most amazing disposition to lapse into tears The disposition was never near to mastering him, but there it was.
She saw his agitation, and it warmed the mothering feeling which, though still a child in heart and years his junior, she had long felt for the big, strong, friendless youngster.
'You will take this, won't you? I intend it as a little keepsake.'
She proffered a small gold locket somewhat shyly, and blushed deeply when he opened it and discovered a tiny miniature of herself. He was pleased to have it, and told her so in a graceless way.
'Do you mean to go ashore at once?' she asked presently.
'Yes; just as soon as I can.'
'Mrs. Macdougal is ready, and I suppose we leave the ship immediately.'
He took her small hand in his. 'Good-bye,' he said. He longed to hold her in his arms again.
'Good-bye,' she whispered.
'I hope you'll find things easy for you out there, and that you will be happy.'
'I think I shall. I am going to try hard for happiness—to be as happy as
I once was. Say you will try too.'
He looked at the wide sweep of blue sky, and the new land swathed in a golden atmosphere of glorious sunshine and more glorious hopes, and did not smile at her idea of happiness recoverable by distraint.
Mrs. Macdougal bustled up. She had brought dresses from Europe with the object of prostrating what little feminine society there was in the neighbourhood of Boobyalla, and wore one of them now. If her colour was not all natural, it was a very excellent imitation. She looked charming.
'Sure you are quite ready, my dear?' she said. 'Macdougal will be waiting. Macdougal of Boobyalla, you know.' This to Jim: 'And he's a most impatient wretch. Saying au revoir?' she queried archly, after a pause.
'I was bidding Mr. Done good-bye,' said Lucy.
'It is very sad, parting with old friends,' murmured Mrs. Macdougal, with veiled eyes.
'Sadder parting with new ones,' replied Jim, glancing towards Lucy.
'Oh yes, it is, is it not? But you will come and visit us some time at
Boobyalla. We are shipmates, and that's a sort of relationship in
Australia.'
Done thanked her, but equivocated. He could not see himself as the guest of the great Donald Macdougal, J.P., of Boobyalla. The lady experienced a glow of impatience. Only a hobbledehoy could prefer Lucy Woodrow's immature charms to the ripe perfections of a woman of her years.
VI
JIM was the first off the Francis Cadman on the Monday afternoon when she drew alongside the rough Yarra wharf just under Bateman's Hill, and when he set his foot on Australian soil he planted one tendril of his heart there. He let fall his bag, and looked about him. The arrival of the ship had occasioned no interest that he could discover. Perhaps the news was not yet common property. A dusty road along the banks of the river on his right led to the town; there were a few scattered houses of dark stone and primitive design on the hill before him, beside which the lawless gum-trees flourished. The day was intensely hot; a wind that might have breathed o'er the infernal regions whipped up clouds of dust, and spun them into fantastic shapes, filling eyes and lungs, but no discomfort could dull the joy he felt on coming into his kingdom. He had turned his back to the wind to wait the passing of a sirocco of sand, when a double-seated American waggon, drawn by two steaming horses, flashed on him out of the storm, driving him headlong to the ground, and coming to a standstill within a few feet. The bag had served as a buffer, and the deeply-ploughed roadway made a soft bed, so that no bones were broken; but Done arose with all his fighting instincts aflame, and turned upon the driver.
'You murderous ruffian!' he cried. 'I've a mind to break—'
He stopped short, one foot upon the step, one hand grasping the ironwork of the seat, staring at the driver, suddenly disarmed. The man on the seat was a grizzled, malformed creature of about fifty, with a deeply-wrinkled small face, burnt a dark tan, and almost covered with a tangle of short, crisp, iron-gray whiskers. The suggestion of a rough-haired terrier was so strong that Done expected the brute to bark at him. The small eyes in the protecting shade of tufted brows, like miniature overhanging horns, were keen and shrewd This extraordinary head was supported by a small and shapeless body, the legs of which were much too long and extremely thin, as were the arms also; but the wrists and hands, strained to hold the restive horses, were hard, corded, and hairy, suggesting a gorilla-like vitality in the curious man. Done let himself down to the roadway again. One could not fight with so miserable a cripple.
'You drive like a madman, mister,' he said in a milder tone.
'Maybe yer off the ship just now?' said the ape like driver, quite ignoring Done's grievance and his words. 'So bein', you can tell we if there's a Mistress Macdougal aboard her.'
The man kept his eyes on his horses; his heels were firmly set on the footboard. It. needed all the strength of his iron wrists to restrain the beasts—tall, lean bays, with a certain piratical rakishness about them, long-maned and long-tailed, effective weapons against the voracious flies that swarmed over their rumps. Their powerful frames showed through clean, healthy hides, and their blood in the proud carriage of their heads and their hot impatience under restraint. A half-caste aboriginal boy, dressed apparently in his master's old clothes—and the master's own clothes were none too new—sprawled on the bottom of the vehicle, and grinned at Done in a friendly way over the tailboard. Jim resented the cripple's contempt for his wrongs, and ignored the question put to him. He was taking up his belongings again, when Mrs. Macdougal herself fluttered by.
'Why, Mack!' she cried.
The driver's eyes left his horses' ears for a moment, and rested on the lady. They displayed no particular feeling.
'Hello, missus!' he said casually, adding, after a pause: 'Best jump up.
Nags a bit fresh.'
Jim walked on. So this was Donald Macdougal, J.P., of Boobyalla. The young man's annoyance fell from him. He thought of the devoted husband's greeting after their long parting, and laughed aloud. Macdougal of Boobyalla was no demonstrative lover. A few minutes later the waggon dashed past Done; the bays were being driven at a gallop, and the vehicle fairly jumped on the broken road. The young man caught a glimpse of Lucy clinging desperately to her seat, and then waggon and horses were buried in a dust-cloud of their own making, which was whirled away at a terrific pace, and spun out of his view round a distant corner.
Done plodded along with his bag upon his shoulder. He had no definite plan of action. He thought now of looking about him for a day or two before leaving for the fields. No doubt it would be an easy matter to get accommodation at some hotel or lodging-house. After that he would move with the throng, and his future actions would depend upon such knowledge as he might be able to gather from the experienced people with whom he came in contact. He presently had ample proof that the driving of Macdougal of Boobyalla was nothing extraordinary here. Three horsemen passed him at a racing speed, and with much shouting and cracking of whips, and a wild, bewhiskered Bushman, driving two horses in a light, giglike vehicle, charged through the dust at a pace implying some business of life or death; but a little further on Jim came upon the steaming pair tethered to a post outside a rough structure labelled the 'Miner's Rest,' and at the bar stood the driver toying lazily with a nobbler of brandy. He passed groups of men lounging against the building and sitting in the street, all smoking, none showing particular concern about anything. Their lethargy surprised him. He had expected to find the town mad with excitement, to behold here the gold fever blazing without restraint; but wherever there was a post to lean against a man was leaning against it, exactly as if there were nothing doing, and the world had not just run demented over the richness of their Victorian fields. It remained for him to learn that this very excitement provoked a corresponding lassitude, and that when the Australian diggers were not indulging in the extreme of frenzied exertion or boisterous recreation their inertia surpassed that of their own koala, the native sloth.
Ere he reached the busier part of the town, Jim made the disconcerting discovery that he was a marked man, an object of public contumely. He had heard calls of derision at various points along the road, and was convinced now that for some reason or another he was exciting the laughter and badinage of the men. This was a painful shock to Done's happiness. The situation recalled Chisley, and something of the old Ishmael stirred within him. He set his teeth and hurried on. 'Pea-souper!' was the epithet most in favour amongst his tormentors. Why 'Pea-souper!' Jim could not understand. He could see no aptness in its application to him, and yet it was certainly a term of mockery. 'Pea-souper!' The taunt had an ignominious flavour. It hurt because it recalled so much of what he had travelled halfway round the world to escape.
He plunged into Elizabeth Street as if seeking cover. Here the crowd was thick, and one man might pass unheeded. Elizabeth Street was the busiest thoroughfare of Melbourne—a miserable, unformed street, the buildings of which were perched on either side of a gully. Pedestrians who were not sober ran serious risks of falling from the footpaths into the roadway below, a rather serious fall in places. Plunged is the right word; the road was churned into a dust-pit, on the footpath the dust lay ankle-deep, and people on foot had the appearance of wading through shallow water. Occasional gusts of the hot north wind seemed to lift the Street like a blanket, and shake its yellow, insinuating dust in the faces of the people.
Here Done found the characteristic lassitude of the unemployed digger and the surging life of a town suddenly thronged with the adventurous men of the earth blended in a strange medley. Men were lounging everywhere, talking and smoking, or merely sunk in a state of abstraction. The talk was all of digging. The miners were exchanging news, rumour and opinions, and lying about their past takings, or the fabulous patches they had just missed—lying patiently and pertinaciously. Many faces were marked and discoloured from recent debauches. Lowly inebriates slept peacefully in the dust, one with his head affectionately pillowed on a dog that snarled and snapped at anyone coming within three feet of its master.
There was little variety in the dress worn. Even the man who had not been two miles from Melbourne affected the manner of the digger, and donned his uniform. Cabbage-tree hats or billycocks were on every head, and for the rest a gray or blue jumper tucked into Clay-stained trousers and Wellington boots satisfied the majority. A few swells and 'flash' diggers exhibited a lively fancy in puggaries and silk sashes and velvet corduroys and natty patent-leather leggings, but anything more pretentious was received with unmistakable manifestations of popular disfavour. A large bullock-team hauling a waggon load of bales blundered slowly along the road, the weary cattle swinging from side to side under the lash of the bullocky, who yelled hoarse profanity with the volubility of an auctioneer and the vocabulary of a Yankee skipper unchecked by authority. A little further on another team, drawn up before a hotel, lay sprawling, half buried, the patient bullocks twisted into painful angles by reason of their yokes, quietly chewing the cud. Riders and drivers conformed to no rule of the road, and maintained a headlong pace implying a great contempt for horseflesh, and no more respect for their own limbs than for the neck of the merest stranger. From the bars, which were frequent, came a babel of laughter and shouting. To the 'Pea-souper' every thing was new and wonderful.
A squalid aboriginal swathed in an old tablecloth fresh from some breakfast started from a corner, pointing a long, dirty finger at Done, and grinning a wide grin.
'Yah! dam new chum!' he said. Then he laughed as only an Australian black can, with a glitter of seemingly endless white teeth, and a strident roar that might have been heard a mile off.
'New chum!' This appellation had been thrown at Done a dozen times.
'Pea-souper!' trumpeted a horseman through his hands. There were sarcastic references to 'limejuice,' and Jim was asked by several strangers, with a show of much concern, if his mother knew he was out. 'Does your mother know you're out?' was then a new and popular street gag, and the query implied a childlike incapability of taking care of himself on the part of the person addressed, and was generally accepted as a choice piece of humour. Jim heard so many references to the 'new chum's bundle' that he was presently satisfied he owed all these unpleasant little attentions to the burden he carried, and he determined to rid himself of it at the first opportunity. Turning into Bourke Street, he eventually found a hotel where there was comparative peace. Entering, he called for a drink.
'New chum?' queried the barman, after serving him.
'I suppose I am,' replied Jim. 'Look here, would you mind telling me what in the devil's name a new chum is?'
'A new chum is a man fresh from home.'
'From England?'
'Scotland, Ireland, anywhere else, if he's green and inexperienced.
Miners from the Californian fields don't rank as new chums.'
'And how am I known as a new chum?'
The barman grinned. 'That'll tell on you all over the place,' he said, indicating the bag. 'That's a true new chum's bundle. No Australian would expatriate himself by carrying his goods in that fashion. He makes them up in a roll, straps them, and carries them in a sling on his back. His bundle is then a swag. The swag is the Australian's national badge.'
'Well, I'm hanged if that isn't a little thing to make a row about. Do you reckon it shameful to be a new chum, then?'
'Not exactly. No offence is intended; the men jeer out of mere harmless devilment. The new churn's got so much to learn here, he can't help looking a born fool as a general thing.'
'And pea-souper and lime-juicer?'
'They've been hazing you properly, mate. Pea-soupers and lime-juicers are strangers off shipboard. They'd never have spotted you, though, without the bundle. There's no raw-meat tint about you; you're tanned like a native. Buy a blue jumper and get a cabbage-tree up in place of that cap, and you'd pass muster as a Sydney-sider born and bred.'
'A cabbage-tree?'
'Hat—straw. Get a second-hand one if you can: they're more appreciated. Usually a man likes to colour his own hat as he colours his own pipe; but you're eager to meet the Australian prejudice against newness. Another bit of advice,' continued the bar-man, who was glad of the chance to turn his vast antipodean experience to some account. 'If you happen to be anybody in particular, as you love your peace of mind and your bodily comfort, don't speak of it.'
'Luckily, I'm nobody in particular.'
'That's all right. I was idiot enough to let it be known that I was afflicted with an aristocratic name, and I had to hold this job against banter enough to drive a cow daft. Now my name's Smith.'
'Are you a new chum, then?'
'Lord no! I've been out seven weeks.'
It was Jim's turn to laugh. 'Well,' he said, 'if a man can qualify as a representative Australian in seven weeks, I'm not going to complain.'
The barman provided much more valuable information. Bed and board could not be had at that establishment for love or money, and, furthermore, it was unlikely Jim would be able to find lodgings anywhere in Melbourne.
'I suppose you can take care of yourself—you look a likely man,' he said. 'Well, the nights are so warm no man needs a dwelling. When you're tired of knocking round to-night, take your traps down by the river, roll yourself in your blanket in the lee of a gum-tree, and sleep there. Did it myself for a week, and only had to put up one fight all the time. Sleeping out's no hardship here. Meanwhile, in exchange for the latest news from down under, I'll dump your swag, and keep an eye on her till you call again.'
The young fellow's ready friendship was most grateful to Done, and he remained in the bar till a run of business rendered further conversation impossible, picking up useful knowledge by the way, and presently discovering the barman to be a gentleman with an expensive polish, whose most earnest desire was to hide his gentility and disguise the contingent gloss under a brave assumption of the manners and speech peculiar to the people of the rough young democracy.
Tea that evening was the most expensive meal Jim Done had ever eaten, and far from being the best; but his appetite was equal to anything, and the fare on the Francis Cadman had not been so dainty as to give him any epicurean prejudices. It was night when Jim came from the primitive restaurant, darkness having come down with a suddenness surprising to a new chum accustomed to long twilights. Jim had taken tea in a tent near Paddy's Market. Here scores of tents of all sorts and sizes were huddled together. All cooking was done out of doors. Fires were everywhere, their glow, reflected brightly on the canvas of the 'flies,' giving a fantastic brilliance to the scene. Life stirred around him, jubilant, bounteous, pulsing life. The levity of the people was without limit. Their childishness astonished Done, but he lived to find this a characteristic of the diggers in all parts; even the roughest men in the roughest camps exhibited a schoolboy's love of horseplay and a great capacity for primitive happiness. It was as if the people, having thrown off the more galling restraints of civilization and order, felt their limbs and spirits free for the first time, and exercised both with the freedom and, the austere critic may say, the foolishness of mountain goats.
Jim's whole being was infected with the spirit of the place, his blood danced. He had discarded his cap for a well-seasoned cabbage-tree, and wore a blue jumper under his coat, and now passed unheeded, excepting when a jovial digger, flown with brandy and success, roared a 'Good luck, mate!' or commanded him in to drink. Social restraints were gone; equality ruled the road; all men were brothers, and friendships of ten minutes' standing were as sacred as the ties of kinship.
The night was young, but already turbulent. The hot wind had passed, and the air was sweet and free from dust. As he moved along the street, Done's ear caught the squeak and the twang of fiddle and banjo coming through the confusion of voices. Step-dancing and singing were the most popular delights. The ability to sing a comic song badly was passport enough in digger society. The streets were lit with kerosene. Here and there a slush lamp or a torch blazed before an establishment seeking notoriety, shedding a note of lurid colour upon the faces of the bearded men thronging the footpath. If there were laws controlling all these elements, Jim failed to discover a sign of them; neither did he see sign of the flagrant lawlessness he had been led to expect. The absence of arms surprised him most of all. He looked to find knives and revolvers in every belt, but saw no display of weapons, and noting the bluff, lumbering kindliness animating the crowd, he thought of his own small but carefully selected arsenal with some contempt.
Jim Done walked about the streets for two hours, interested in everything, disappointed with nothing. All this satisfied the craving that had driven him from home. Here he was one of the people, a man amongst men, accepted at his face and physical value by fellow-creatures who respected most the fearless eye and the strong arm. Moreover, there were no signs of those hated forces, respectability, piety, conventionality, all of which had seemed to range themselves automatically on the side of his enemies.
He came to a large wooden hall with a row of lamps blazing along its front and a foreign sign over the door. From within floated strains of music and the beating of many feet. Jim entered. The place was crowded with hairy diggers—mostly successful, he learned presently. The atmosphere was heavy with smoke. A wild dance was going on, and several sets held the floor. Half a dozen of the most fortunate of the men had female partners, the others danced 'bucks,' man and man, and the pounding of their heavy boots and the yells of laughter provoked by their clumsy movements quite drowned the music of the feeble orchestra, crowded away in the far corner of the room. Along one end ran an unplaned wooden counter, where two or three barmen were kept busy serving gin, brandy, and rum to the parched dancers. When the dance was ended there was a rush for the bar, and Jim found now that dancing did not go by favour, the hands of the fair being bestowed upon the highest bidders. One tall, lack-haired, laughing girl, with the figure and face of a Bacchante, sprang upon a chair, shaking aloft a yellow scarf, and was auctioned for the next dance amidst a storm of bidding and a hurricane of merriment. She was borne down the room in the arms of the triumphant digger, who had paid thirty 'weights' for his bouncing partner—six pounds for ten minutes' dancing, and the proud purchaser couldn't dance a step!
Jim watched the women curiously; they were a new type to him—young, virile, red-lipped, flushed with wine, shameless in the face of the crowd, their faces kindled with laughter. They led the men in their wild revel—pagans absolute. One in particular attracted Done; she was tall, dark-eyed, and black-haired. This, in conjunction with the bold combination of red and black in her costume, gave him the belief that she was Spanish. There was about her some suggestion of character and strength that pleased him. She romped like a child; her merriment was clean and unforced. He saw nothing of the corruption that Vice is supposed to stamp upon the faces of her votaries. These women, despite the feeble kerosene lights, the tobacco-smoke, and the bare, ugly walls, might have been participants in the revels of Dionysus.
Several times, passing him in the dance, the eyes of the Spaniard flashed into his own, and she smiled. When the dance was ended she confronted him.
'Sure, you're goin' to dance wid me, ain't ye now?' she said in the most mellifluous brogue.
Done shook his head and laughed with diffidence.
'No, thanks,' he said. 'I'm not a rich digger. Only a poor new chum,' he added, hoping to carry conviction.
'Straight from the Ould Country, is it?' asked the girl eagerly. 'Have ye the word of ould Ireland, an' how does she stand? The dance is yours for the shmallest token.'
'I'm sorry I don't know Ireland,' said Jim.
'Then I'll give you the dance fer natural love an' affection.'
Done protested that he could not dance, but the laughing girl dragged him into the thick of it.
'Come along!' she cried, dropping the brogue. 'I'm a patriot, and I love you for the green in your eye.'
Jim danced. He was literally forced into it, and presently found himself getting along quite decently in a barbaric sort of polka. When the music ceased he followed the custom of the country, and shouted for his partner. She drank sherry. He left the hall a few minutes later, with the girl's kiss, lightly given, tingling on his lips, and walked away quickly, treading on air. Presently he began to question himself. Why this growing exuberance? Was it drink? Never before had he felt its influence. He pulled himself together. He was crowding his sensation: it was time to cry a halt.
The young man returned to the hotel where he had left his belongings. The long bar was crowded with men. The hotel was little more than a large tent with a pretentious wooden front. It was illumined by a single lamp suspended above the counter. This lamp lit up the faces of the men gathered under it, but beyond the countenances of the customers faded into a mist of tobacco-smoke, deepening into darkness in the corners.
Done leant against the bar, watching the scene, still curious, content to wait till the busy barman had leisure to attend to him. After a few moments he found himself an object of most marked interest to a tall, thin digger, perched on an up-ended barrel, drinking porter. The man was watching him narrowly, and at length, as if to leave no doubt of his attentions, he stepped down, and, standing squarely in front of Done, looked him closely in the face. Jim returned the stare, finding curiosity deepen into surprise, and surprise into conviction, in the countenance confronting him.
'Solo!' cried the man. 'Solo, by all that's holy!' As he spoke he sprang between Jim and the door way, as if to cut off escape. 'Bail up!' he said; 'we've got you tight this trip.'
'You're making a mistake, I think, mate,' said Jim. 'Anyhow, my name is not Solo.'
'That's a bluff! I know you too damn well! Boys,' continued the miner, addressing the crowd, 'it's Solo. I'll wager my soul on it. Get at him! There's five hundred cold guineas on his head!'
'I tell you you're wrong!' blurted Done.
The tall man waited for no further argument, but jumped at Done, and they closed. There was a short struggle, and Jim put his opponent down with an old Cousin-Jack trick that he had often tried on better men.
'The man's drunk!' said Jim, as the crowd narrowed in on him. He set his back against the counter, prepared to make a good fight.
A raw-boned, brown-faced native of about twenty-six grappled with him, but only as a pretence, as Done speedily found.
'Bolt, or you're a done man!' whispered the Australian at his ear. 'When I smash the lamp, over the counter and under the tent, and skedaddle for your life!'
This young fellow allowed himself to be thrown off, and backed into the crowd. The long man, who had recovered his wind, turned to address the men.
'It's Solo, mates,' he said, 'and there's five hundred waiting for us if we take him.'
The men moved forward in a body, but just then a pewter crashed into the lamp, and there was darkness. Acting on his new friend's advice, Done cleared the counter at a bound, and dived under the canvas. Picking himself up, he ran into the darkness. He heard footsteps following him, and increased his pace, stumbling on the strange ground. But a voice assured him.
'Keep to the right! Make for cover!' panted his pursuer.
VII
FINDING only one man following, Jim Done ceased running on reaching a clump of trees, and presently he was joined by the young Australian who had aided him.
'My colonial, you sprint like an emu!' gasped the latter. 'All the same, that was a mad sort o' thing to do.'
'What was?'
'Why, showin' yourself 'bout here with the cheek of a dashed commissioner, while there's five hundred on your head, hot or cold, live or dead, an' every trooper in the country whim' to give his long ears to pot you.'
'But you are quite wrong; I'm not this Solo.'
'Not Solo! That won't wash. Wasn't I there with Long Aleck when you got away with the gold Hoban hid in our nosebag other side o' Geelong?'
'You're on the wrong scent. My name is Done. I'm a new chum, landed only this morning off the Francis Cadman.'
'Here, let's look you over again.' The stranger struck a match, and, shielding it with his hands, examined Jim's face. 'Dunno,' he said, 'but p'r'aps you are a bit young. Still, rig a beard around that chiv of yours, and it's Solo to the life.'
'If it's worth while, walk down to the ship with me, and I'll satisfy you in two minutes.'
Your word's good enough for me. Solo or no, taint my deal.'
'Well, you've gone to some trouble to help me out of a hole, and I'm obliged.' Done offered his hand, and the other shook it heartily. 'You might tell me who and what this Solo is,' continued Jim.
'Smartest, coolest, most darin' gold-thief in Australia. Outlawed for robbery under arms, wanted by all the police 'tween here and the Murray, and his head's worth five hundred to you 'r me, 'r any yob that can rob him of it. He works alone. What his right name is no one knows.'
'That's all a bright look-out for me!' laughed Jim. 'But if he's such an infernal scoundrel, and he's robbed you among the rest, why come to his rescue?'
''Pon my soul, I dunno I' replied the Australian, scratching his head dubiously, ''less it's 'cause of his pluck 'n' the dashed pleasant, gentlemanly way he has o' doin' things. By the way, what 're you out for? Goin' diggin'? Got a mate? Where 're you makin'?'
'I'm going digging. I have no mate. I can't say what field I'm making for till I know more about them.'
'Look here, take in my points.' The native struck another match, and held it that Done might make an inventory of his perfections. 'Five foot ten high, strong as a horse, sound in wind and limb, know the country, know the game, been on three fields, want a mate. Name's Micah Wentworth Burton—Mike for short. Got all traps, pans, shovels, picks, cradle, tub, windlass, barrow. Long Aleck—chap that attacked you—was my mate; he's turning teamster. Take me on, an' here's my hand. We're made for a pair.'
Burton stopped for lack of wind. He jerked his words with a slight nasal intonation, and his manner and his action indicated a characteristic impetuosity. Done was astounded at his own seeming good fortune and the other's rash confidence.
'Come,' he said doubtingly, 'do you mean to say you'll go into partnership in this desperate way with a man you don't know, but whom you suspect of being a notorious rogue, and give him all the advantages of your property and your knowledge?'
'Will I? My oath! Is it a deal? All that about Solo is off. I might 'a' known he had too much horse-sense to mooch about Melbourne disguised only in a daily shave. As for the rest, blast it! we're men. I take you on chance, you take me on spec. We can look after ourselves, I s'pose. Well, what say?'
'I couldn't ask for anything better. The only objection to the arrangement is that I take all and give nothing.'
'Done, then! But don't you run away with a wrong idea. There 're heaps o' decent men an' good miners in Melbourne who'd jump at a mate of your stamp. Come along to my tent up Canvas Town to-night. There's a spare bunk. Aleck started on a jamboree that won't mature for a week. We can talk things into order.'
Jim Done awoke next morning with a fear in his heart that he had made a fool of himself. His mate was sitting just without the tent, grilling chops on a piece of hoop-iron twisted into a grid. Jim's head felt new to him, and ached badly; old doubts, old prejudices, possessed him. Why should all the regard this stranger expressed have developed in an acquaintanceship of minutes? Why should Burton be so eager to bestow benefits upon him? That was not the customary way of men. He got up, dressed and washed, and took breakfast with his mate, and the sullen suspicion lingered; but Mike talked volubly, questioning nothing, and as the morning wore on his obvious sincerity won on Done, and ere they turned their backs upon Melbourne the Australian's spontaneous, careless confidence in him and his open-hearted cordiality planted in Done the seeds of one of those strong, lasting friendships which are never half expressed in words, although they may sometimes be attested in eloquent and heroic actions.
On the afternoon of his second day in Melbourne Jim saw Lucy Woodrow once more. She passed in Macdougal's trap as Done and his mate were walking along Swanston Street. She looked very pretty, and was laughing gaily at something her companion had said. The sight of that companion affected Jim in a peculiar way. He looked a man of about forty, strongly but sparely built; his face, clean-shaven but for the triangle of hair coming just below the ears, had a cameo-like correctness of outline; the lips were firm and full, the eyes deep. He wore one of the flat-brimmed bell-toppers fashionable at the time, a skirted coat, and a high collar. In a flash the whole man was photographed on Jim's mind—why he could not understand. The sensations given him by the sight of that face were quite apart from the pang he experienced on noting Lucy's apparent interest in the man. Jim felt for the miniature in his pocket. It was hard to believe that only about twenty-four hours had sped since their parting. Looking back now over so much that was strange, he thought as many weeks might have gone in the interval.
'Monkey Mack,' said Mike, following the direction of Jim's eyes.
'Do you know him?'
'Everybody knows of him. Owns the best-stocked station out of New South. Made a pile through the rushes, selling stock at famine prices. Richest squatter in Vic, an' that dirty mean he won't wash 'cause o' the ruinous wear and tear on soap. Used to go round collecting the wool the sheep scraped off on his fences an' trees, an' for years cadged his toby, (tobacco, you know) off passing teamsters; then, when the teamsters shied at him, gave up smokin'. Owns thousands of acres an' hundreds o' thousands o' pounds, an' wears toe-rags, an' yet lets his wife have what she likes, an' spend what she pleases. That was his wife 'long side him.'
'Yes, she came over in our ship.'
'Shipmates, eh? That's as good as first-cousins.'
'Who was the other man?'
'Donno. Looked like something just blown ashore. Very superior, likely. Mrs Mack's got a weakness for gentility. She was a neighbourin' squatter's milkmaid, they say.'
'Well, Macdougal's not mean in the matter of horseflesh.'
'Right. That's his other great extravagance. See, he gets about badly on those spider-legs of his, and makes up for his misfortune when he splits across a horse. He breeds the best, drives like a fiend, an' can ride anythin' lapped in hide.'
A week later Done and Burton were on their way to Forest Creek diggings. Everything worth working on Ballarat was pegged out, Mike said. Forest Creek was the new Eldorado. Their tools and stores were four days ahead, in the care of an experienced teamster whom Mike knew well, and whom he could trust to pull through, despite the abominable roads and the misfortunes that had knocked up many a well-found team and marked the track with crippled horses and stranded wagons. For two days Jim had carried his swag through the Australian Bush, and one night he had slept on the brown grass, using his folded blanket for a pillow, the camp-fire flickering palely at a distance, the wide-branching, dreamy gum-trees spreading their limbs above him, the warmth of summer in the scented air Already the instincts of the Bushman were developing in him. He began to feel a friendship for the towering gums in their flaunting independence; their proud individuality pleased him. To his mind they reflected the spirit of the people—it must be the spirit of the land. Nowhere in their feathery elegance did he find a law of conformity; each tree was a law unto itself, tall and strong and slender, youthful and buoyant, opening fond arms to the blue sky. The absence of the sap-greens of England conveyed at first an impression of barrenness, but that wore off, and the artistic side of his nature fed upon the soft harmonies of faded grass and subdued green foliage nursing misty purples in its shade. The ground was his bed and chair and table; never had he been so intimate with Mother Earth. Here she was uncontaminated, the soil was sweet, and it gave no hint of untold generations of dead fattening the grass upon which he couched as in sweet hay. From the earth he drew an ardent patriotism. He was already a more enthusiastic Australian than the loose-limbed native with whom he fraternized.
They camped five miles beyond Miner's Rest on the second night, preferring the comparative solitude of the Bush to the scant accommodation and some what boisterous company at the shanty lately established to cater for the fortune-hunters streaming to the new rushes. Mike selected the spot and dropped his swag.
'We've tramped far enough to-day,' he said. 'You'll find water just over that rise there. I'll light the fire.'
'So you've been over this part before,' said Jim, unstrapping the billy from his mate's swag.
'No; this is new country to me.'
'Then, how do you know I shall find water beyond that hillock?'
''Pon my soul, I don't know why I know,' Mike answered; 'but I'll wager my share of our first tub it's there.'
Jim found the water. There was a water-hole in a small creek at the spot indicated. His mate's knowledge of things about him in the Bush, things unseen and unheard, had seemed uncanny at first; he was getting used to it now. Mike was born in the Bush, and the greater part of his life had been spent in it. He knew it as thoroughly as its familiar animals did, and much in the same way, without being aware of his knowledge, which was mainly instinctive. The billy was on the blazing fire, and Done sat watching Mike smartly mixing a damper in the lid. To Jim this, too, was a wonderful accomplishment. Water and flour were deftly manipulated until a ball of dough that quite filled the small lid resulted. It was done with the cleanness and quickness of a conjuring trick. The dough was divided into two pats, to be cooked under the hot ashes. Then Mike improvised his wire grid again, and in a few minutes the steak he had carried in a dilly-bag from Miner's Rest was sizzling and spitting over the embers.
Done's admiration for his mate was growing rapidly. Mike looked like a model in new copper, kneeling by the fire, his face thrown back, reflecting the glow of the flame in the surrounding dusk. Jim realized what had gone to the making of that hard, lean frame, and, proud as he was of his own strength, envied the other his endurance. He knew that Burton had been making concessions to him throughout their journey, that he could have walked miles further in the time without fatigue, carrying his swag as jauntily as if it were a butterfly poised on his back. His boyish exuberance of manner when stirred was in direct contrast to the quiet assurance with which he went about ordinary affairs. He was never in difficulties, never at a loss; the Bush was his living-room, bedroom, and larder. He had already shown himself independent of what the stores could provide when a meal was wanted. Mike might have been a pink Adonis in another climate and under other conditions; his gray eyes and fair moustache were in almost ludicrous contrast with his tanned hide—he appeared to be bound in morocco.
After their meal Jim spread himself upon the ground, his head pillowed on the swag, stretching his tired limbs. Mike sat smoking, and there was silence over and about them. One of those brief hushes, when all the night voices are stilled and the trees merge into black, motionless masses, was upon the Bush, and it infected the men. All day they had marched with the throng; their tramp had never been lonely, thousands of men were moving upon Forest Creek, and every now and again they passed a toiling party burdened with tools and utensils, or were passed in turn by more enthusiastic spirits pushing on, eager for a share in the treasure of Red Gully, Diamond Gully, and Castlemaine. The shouts of the joyous travellers were still echoing in Done's ears.
He had seen diggers on the track under varying fortunes, cursing dreadfully by broken-down teams, urging on their dull bullocks—slow, but very sure—singing exuberantly as they paced by, carrying heavy swags with light hearts, shouting as they went, under the impulse of a common hope that begot friendliness in all; and yet each man was armed now—there was a revolver or a pistol in every belt. They came out of the Bush, and the Bush swallowed them again—strange groups. Two Jim passed he recognised as sailors off the Francis Cadman: one was in the shafts of a loaded wheel barrow, the other, with a rope over his shoulder, trudged ahead, towing manfully, both as merry as boys at play, despite the ten days' journey ahead of them.
'Good luck, mate!' 'Good luck!' The trees showered kindly wishes, and hearty compliments danced from lip to lip. A spirit of irrepressible jollity laughed in the land. Drays, waggons, buggies, cabs, vehicles of all kinds, were pressed into the service of the adventurers. Four diggers went roaring by in a dilapidated landau that had seen vice-regal service in Hobart Town, driven by a fifth blackguard dressed in an old livery, and they brandished champagne bottles, and scattered the liquid gold like emperors—lucky pioneers from Buninyong. A ragged, bare-footed, hatless urchin, a stowaway fresh from the streets of London, whipped behind, as he might have done a few weeks earlier on a Bishop's carriage in Rotten Row. The mates next encountered a band of Chinamen carrying their burdens on bamboos, covering the ground smartly with their springing trot and cackling gaily as they went; then a 'hatter,' drunk as a lord rolling heavily, his hands in his pockets, his hat jauntily set on the back of his head, bellowing the latest comic song, a lonely soul; then a dray, piled high with cradles, pans, picks, shovels, swags, and a miscellaneous cargo, on the top of which perched a bulky Irishwoman, going to the diggings to make her fortune as the proprietress of the Forest Creek Laundry. This and much more in the depths of a pathless forest, the grave solitude of which was disturbed only for the moment as each jocund company hastened on into the mysterious vastness ahead, or fell back into the dense Bush that lay behind. That anybody could have a definite idea whither he was going in this ocean of trees, that engulfed them all like stones dropped into the sea, Done found it hard to believe.
'You're a curious kind of devil, Jim,' said Mike, who had been watching
Done closely during the last few minutes.
'How's that?'
'You don't talk. Worse still, you don't smoke.'
'No; in England I had neither mates nor friends, and smoking's a convivial disease—a kid catches it from his companions.'
'I might have guessed you were bred a "hatter"; you're as dumb as a mute.'
'Same reason, Mike; but I'm getting over it. I'm getting over a good many things rather too suddenly. I'm sort of mentally breathless. A year ago I'd have sworn that friendship and good-fellowship were impossible to me.'
'Go on!'
'And just now I'm feeling things too keenly to talk much about them.'
''Nough said, Jimmy; I ain't complaining.' Mike knocked the ashes from his pipe on his boot. 'I s'pose I'd best get somethin' for breakfast,' he said, rising and stretching himself.
'What, here?' Jim looked about him into the darkness.
'Here or hereabouts. Keep an eye on the swags. I won't be gone more'n an hour at the outside.'
Micah Burton went off into the dense Bush, that to Jim looked grimly unpromising, and the latter lay back upon the grass again, with quite a luxurious sensation. The hard day's walking made this rest peculiarly agreeable: he had eaten well, his mind was at peace—he no longer concerned himself with psychological theories—he was content to live and feel.
Sharply out of the silence came a ringing report. Jim was jerked to a sitting posture, listening with all his ears. The report was repeated several times, a fusillade of shots, followed by faint echoes of a voice raised in anger. There was an interval of quiet, and when the sound broke in again Done sighed contentedly, and relapsed into his former position. He recognised the crack of a cattle-whip. In a minute or two he heard the voice of the bullocky admonishing Bally and Spot with a burst of alliterative invective, and presently the leaders came labouring out of the darkness, the great red bullocks, with bowed heads, moving slowly and with that suggestion of impassive invincibility that goes always with a big team of good working bullocks in action.
'Hello, mate!' cried someone beyond in the shadows.
'Hello, there!'
'Plenty o' water 'bout?'
'A creek down to the left.'
'Right-o! We'll camp here, Stony. Woa, Strawberry! Woa, there, Spot!
Bally! Blackboy!'
The cattle came to a standstill, and while the others busied themselves unyoking the team, one man went off through the trees, and presently returned, carrying a billy he had just filled. He kicked the fire together, threw on a few pieces of wood, and began to prepare a meal, paying no attention to Jim, who lay watching him. It was not customary to say 'By your leave!' in little matters of this kind. On the track every man's company was supposed to be welcome. Following a habit of observation, Jim examined the man without curiosity. He was thin, sandy-haired, and wiry, about forty-five, with restless hands, and a cowed, half-sullen expression—a drinker of strong drinks of the kind manufactured at the shanties, corrosive liquids that ate the souls out of men in quick order.
Having disposed of the bullocks, the tinkling of whose bells was a foreign note in the night, two others came to the fire, carrying the tucker-box. They were brothers, long, bearded, brown-faced Australians of the runs, going up to the rush with stores for Coolan and Smith, or Aberdeen, the universal providers of the Roaring Fifties.
'Hurry up that blasted quart-pot, Stony!' ejaculated the elder of the two. 'I feel as if I'd done a three days' perish-me!'
The men ate hungrily, sitting about in the light of the fire, drinking the hot tea from pannikins and from the billy lid, and as they ate they talked. Done was beginning to find himself at home in the society of men. The humanities were finding place in his soul. Everything about these people interested him—their work, their pleasures, their ideas. They were so closely in touch with vital things, so tolerant. They cherished no political, social, and religious convictions to the exclusion of their fellow-men.
Burton returned, swinging four featherless birds. The invasion of their camp did not surprise him. He greeted the strangers cheerfully, and held the birds up for Jim's inspection.
'Our breakfast,' he said. 'Fat 'n young.'
'Where did they come from?'
'A lagoon half a mile up the creek. Four shots, four duck.' He touched his revolver.
'But Nature doesn't provide plucked birds for our benefit.'
'Skinned an' cleaned 'em at the water.'
The teamsters were not averse to boiled duck and broth for breakfast, and the two billies were soon steaming on the camp-fire, while the company yarned and smoked. It was nearly ten o'clock, and all hands were thinking of taking to their blankets for the night, when a sixth man came quietly through the trees, unobserved until his greeting disturbed them. Done had to turn on his side to look at the newcomer, a handsome, beardless man in the garb of a digger, but much more scrupulous in the matter of cleanliness and fit than the majority.
'I did not like the society at the Rest,' he said, 'and walked on, looking for quieter company.'
'Make yourself at home,' answered Mike. 'There's tea in the pannikin, an' there's grub in the dilly-bag. You're not carryin' traps.'
'No. Sent everything ahead but this 'possum rug. Thanks for—'
He ceased speaking. His face had been composed, almost colourless; into it there sprang an expression of amazement, which deepened into an animal ferocity shocking to see. The mouth twitched spasmodically, the eyes caught the glare of the flame, and glowed with a catlike lustre. Surprised, Done turned in the direction of his glance, and discovered the man Stony crouching on the other side of the fire, his weak, tremulous hands stretched out before him, his face gray as ashes and convulsed with horror. Glaring at the stranger, he lifted his hands, thrusting the vision from him, and a cry of terror burst in his throat, as the man sprang at him, bearing him to the ground as a tiger might have done, groping fiercely at his throat with iron fingers. Stony lay on his back; his enemy, kneeling on his body, choking him, bent his face down, and cried fiercely:
'It is you, then? I am not mistaken! You know me, you dog, and you know that I mean to tear the heart out of you!'
Releasing his grip on the flesh, he wrenched at Stony's shirt, ripping it at the neck.
'Help!' gasped the prostrate wretch. 'For the love of God, help!'
'There's your brand—your brand, Peter!' He thrust his face into Stony's again, and all the hate that a face can carry and that a voice can convey was betrayed in his expression and his words. 'Do you know what I have endured, Peter? Do you know what I have suffered?'
Clutching at Stony's throat again, he bored his knee into the body under him, his arms became rigid with the power of his grip, and Stony lay choking, clawing feebly at the other's sleeves, his face distorted into a hideous caricature.
The other men stood about, watching, the Australians reluctant to interfere in a quarrel they did not understand. It was Done who seized the stranger, tearing him off his victim, and then Mike and a teamster laid hands upon him, while Stony was writhing and panting on the ground. The digger offered no resistance; he seemed unconscious of everything but his hatred and his vengeance, and his eyes never moved from Stony.
'We draw the line at cold-blooded murder, mate!' said Mike, but the other gave no answer.
Stony had picked himself up, and, casting one horrified look at his enemy, turned away, and plunged into the blackness of the Bush, running like a frightened animal.
'What's he been up to, anyhow?' asked one of the teamsters, as they released the stranger. The latter did not reply, but instantly darted after the runaway. The four men listened to the retreating footsteps, and presently the Bush echoed two pistol shots fired in rapid succession. The birds murmured and moved in the trees, a monkey-bear grunted disgustedly, and then all was still again.
VIII
FOR some little time the four men stood with their faces turned in the direction Stony and his pursuer had taken, listening breathlessly, and then they went to their blankets again. Done was greatly disturbed; the others took it more as a matter of course.
'You won't follow them?' said Jim.
'Well,' one of the brothers replied, 'I ain't particularly busy just now, but my hands are too full for that kind of foolishness.'
'He meant murder!'
'Somethin' too like it to please old Stony.'
'What do you think it was all about?'
'Can't say. Long grudge, evidently.'
'The clean-shaven man was a lag,' said Mike. 'Convict,' he added, seeing a question in Jim's eye. 'Maybe your friend lagged him.'
'Don't know him from a crow,' replied the teamster addressed. 'We're taking some traps and ware up to the Creek for him on our load, and he travelled along.'
'I think you're mistaken about that man being a convict, Burton,' said
Done to Mike later, breaking a long silence.
'Sure I'm not. Saw the cuff-marks on his wrists as he was battling with
Stony. Why?'
'He's the man who was in the trap with Macdougal of Boobyalla the other day in Swanston Street.'
'The swell in the choker and double-decker?'
'Yes. For some reason his face impressed me. I couldn't mistake it.'
'Didn't notice it; but if he's own brother to Governor Latrobe himself,
I'll take my affie he's a lag.'
The mates overtook the carter with their tent and stores and tools within a day's journey of the rush, and pushed on to secure a claim. Done's first sight of a busy goldfield was gained on a clear, sunny morning, when, after passing through Sawpit Gully, they came upon the beginning of the long lead that comprised many rushes, known as Forest Creek. The impression Jim retained was a semi-humorous one of humans reduced to the proportions and the dignity of ants, engaged upon the business of ants wrought to a pitch of excitement by some grand windfall at their doors. Little figures bustled about, carrying burdens; pigmies swarmed along the lead. The holes, with their white and yellow tips, were clustered as close together as the cells in a great honeycomb, and into the shafts and out of them bobbed hurrying, eager creatures. The whirring of windlasses, the clatter of nail-keg buckets, the incessant calls, 'Look up below!' and the distinct ringing of hammer on anvil, blended into a quaint symphony of labour. The swish, swish, swish, of the wet dirt in the cradle-hoppers and the rattling of the tailings thrown from the shovels providing an unvarying substratum of sound. There were tents everywhere, large and small, dotting the distance, but clustering into a township of canvas to the right of the Creek, and over the scene floated a faint mirage, so that the whole field and all in it quivered in the warm ascending air, the gauzy effect aiding the idea of stagy unreality.
At the first sight of the lead Mike threw his hat into the air and cheered wildly. Another party coming in were beating their jaded horses to a run, the men jumping beside the team mad with joy, shouting like maniacs. On all hands were the waggons and drays unloading by tents not yet fully erected. The men who were not busy at their claims or puddling, cradling or panning-off dishes by the creek, were breathlessly engaged upon the work of getting their canvas houses into order and be stowing their goods; newcomers passed unheeded, however boisterous.
'Before tea we'll have our pegs in here, Jim,' said Mike joyfully.
They had been walking since two hours before daybreak, but elation possessed them to the exclusion of all thought of fatigue. The sight of the field of action set Jim's sinews twitching; he longed for the strife, and found some difficulty in restraining himself from running with the preceding party pell-mell on to the creek. But he had nothing of the gold-seeker's fever in his blood; the thought of amassing a fortune had merely occurred to him: it was the free, strong, exhilarating life that stirred him most deeply.