He blessed his reverend friend for having taught him an art in a dunghole where idiots and savages teach crank. He blessed his reverence's four bones, his favorite imprecation of the benevolent kind. I conclude the four bones meant the arms and legs. If so it would have been more to the point had he blessed the fifth—the skull.
Jenny came in and found him gloating over his virtuous shillings. She stared. He told her what he had been about these two days past, his difficulties, his success, the admiration his work excited throughout the capital (he must exaggerate a little or it would not be Tom Robinson), and the wealth he was amassing.
Jenny was glad to hear this, very glad, but she scolded him well for pawning his hat. “Why didn't you ask me?” said she; “I would have lent you a pound or even two, or given them you for any honest purpose.” And Jenny pouted and got up a little quarrel.
The next day a gentleman caught Robinson and made him paint two doors in his fancy villa. Satin-wood this time; and he received three pounds three shillings, a good dinner, and what Bohemians all adore—Praise. Now as he returned in the evening a sudden misgiving came to him. “I have not thought once of Bathurst to-day. I see—all this money-making is a contrivance to keep me in Sydney. It is absurd my coining paint at this rate. I see your game, my lad; either I am to fall into bad company again, or to be split upon and nabbed for that last job. To-morrow I will be on the road to Bathurst. I can paint there just as well as here; besides I have got my orders from his reverence to go, and I'll go.”
He told Jane his resolution. She made no answer. While these two were sitting cozily by the fireside—for since Robinson took to working hard all day he began to relish the hearth at night—suddenly cheerful, boisterous voices, and Mr. Miles and two friends burst in and would have an extempore supper, and nothing else would serve these libertines but mutton-chops off the gridiron. So they invaded the kitchen. Out ran Jenny to avoid them—or put on a smarter cap; and Robinson was to cut the chops and lay a cloth on the dresser and help cook. While his master went off to the cellar the two rakes who remained chattered and laughed both pretty loud. They had dined together and the bottle had not stood still.
“I have heard that voice before,” thought Robinson. “It is a very peculiar voice. Whose voice is that?”
He looked the gentleman full in the face and could hardly suppress a movement of surprise.
The gentleman by the instinct of the eye caught his, and his attention was suddenly attracted to Robinson, and from that moment his eye was never off Robinson, following him everywhere. Robinson affected not to notice this; the chops were grilling, Jenny came in and bustled about and pretended not to hear the side-compliments of the libertines. Presently the young gentleman with the peculiar voice took out his pocketbook and said, “I have a bet to propose. I'll bet you fifty pounds I find the man you two hunted down the road on Monday night.”
“No takers,” replied Mr. Hazeltine with his mouth full.
“Stop a bit. I don't care if I make a time bet,” said Miles. “How soon will you bet you catch him?”
“In half an hour,” was the cool reply. And the Honorable George while making it managed at the same time in a sauntering sort of way to put himself between Robinson and the door that led out into the garden. Robinson eyed him in silence and never moved.
“In half a hour. That is a fair bet,” said Mr. Miles. “Shall I take him?”
“Better not; he is a knowing one. He has seen him to earth somewhere or he would not offer you such a bet.”
“Well, I'll bet you five to three,” proposed the Honorable George.
“Done!”
“Done!”
Robinson put in a hasty word: “And what is to become of Thimble-rig Jem, sir?” These words, addressed to Mr. Lascelles, produced a singular effect. That gentleman gave an immediate shiver, as if a bullet had passed clean through him and out again, then opened his eyes and looked first at one door then at the other as if hesitating which he should go by. Robinson continued, addressing him with marked respect, “What I mean, sir, is that there is a government reward of two hundred pounds for Thimble-rig Jem, and the police wouldn't like to be drawn away from two hundred pounds after a poor fellow like him you saw on Monday night, one that is only suspected and no reward offered. Now Jem is a notorious culprit.”
“Who is this Jem, my man? What is he?” asked Mr. Lascelles with a composure that contrasted remarkably with his late emotion.
“A convict escaped from Norfolk Island, sir; an old offender. I fell in with him once. He has forgotten me I dare say, but I never forget a man. They say he has grown a mustache and whiskers and passes himself off for a nob; but I could swear to him.”
“How? By what?” cried Mr. Miles.
“If he should ever be fool enough to get in my way—”
“Hang Thimble-rig Jem,” cried Hazeltine. “Is it a bet, Lascelles?”
“What?”
“That you nab our one in half an hour?” Mr. Lascelles affected an aristocratic drawl. “No, I was joking. I couldn't afford to leave the fire for thirty pounds. Why should I run after the poor dayvil? Find him yourselves. He never annoyed me. Got a cigar, Miles?”
After their chops, etc., the rakes went off to finish the night elsewhere.
“There, they are gone at last! Why, Jenny, how pale you look!” said Robinson, not seeing the color of his own cheek. “What is wrong?” Jenny answered by sitting down and bursting out crying. Tom sat opposite her with his eyes on the ground.
“Oh, what I have gone through this day!” cried Jenny. “Oh! oh! oh! oh!” sobbing convulsively.
What could Tom do but console her? And she found it so agreeable to be consoled that she prolonged her distress. An impressionable Bohemian on one side a fireplace, and a sweet, pretty girl crying on the other, what wonder that two o'clock in the morning found this pair sitting on the same side of the fire aforesaid—her hand in his?
The next morning at six o'clock Jenny was down to make his breakfast for him before starting. If she had said, “Don't go,” it is to be feared the temptation would have been too strong, but she did not; she said sorrowfully, “You are right to leave this town.” She never explained. Tom never heard from her own lips how far her suspicions went. He was a coward, and seeing how shrewd she was, was afraid to ask her; and she was one of your natural ladies who can leave a thing unsaid out of delicacy.
Tom Robinson was what Jenny called “capital company.” He had won her admiration by his conversation, his stories of life, and now and then a song, and by his good looks and good nature. She disguised her affection admirably until he was in danger and about to leave her—and then she betrayed herself. If she was fire he was tow. At last it came to this: “Don't you cry so, dear girl. I have got a question to put to you—IF I COME BACK A BETTER MAN THAN I GO, WILL YOU BE MRS. ROBINSON?”
“Yes.”
CHAPTER LI.
ROBINSON started for Bathurst. Just before he got clear of the town he passed the poor man's cottage who had lent him the board. “Bless me, how came I to forget him?” said he. At that moment the man came out to go to work. “Here I am,” said Robinson, meeting him full, “and here is your board;” showing it to him painted in squares. “Can't afford to give it you back—it is my advertisement. But here is half-a-crown for it and for your trusting me.”
“Well, to be sure,” cried the man. “Now who'd have thought this? Why, if the world is not turning honest. But half-a-crown is too much; 'tain't worth the half of it.”
“It was worth five pounds to me. I got employment through it. Look here,” and he showed him several pounds in silver; “all this came from your board; so take your half-crown and my thanks on the head of it.”
The half-crown lay in the man's palm; he looked in Robinson's face. “Well,” cried he with astonishment, “you are the honestest man ever I fell in with.”
“I am the honestest man! You will go to heaven for saying those words to me,” cried Robinson warmly and with agitation. “Good-by, my good, charitable soul; you deserve ten times what you have got,” and Robinson made off.
The other, as soon as he recovered the shock, shouted after him, “Good-by, honest man, and good luck wherever you go.”
And Robinson heard him scuttle about and hastily convene small boys and dispatch them down the road to look at an honest man. But the young wood did not kindle at his enthusiasm. Had the rarity been a bear with a monkey on him, well and good.
“I'm pretty well paid for a little honesty,” thought Robinson. He stepped gallantly out in high spirits, and thought of Jenny, and fell in love with her, and saw in her affection yet another inducement to be honest and industrious. Nothing of note happened on his way to Bathurst, except that one day as he was tramping along very hot and thirsty a luscious prickly pear hung over a wall, and many a respectable man would have taken it without scruple; but Tom was so afraid of beginning again he turned his back on it and ran on instead of walking to make sure.
When he reached Bathurst his purse was very low, and he had a good many more miles to go, and not feeling quite sure of his welcome he did not care to be penniless, so he went round the town with his advertising-board and very soon was painting doors in Bathurst. He found the natives stingier here than in Sydney, and they had a notion a traveler like him ought to work much cheaper than an established man; but still he put by something every day.
He had been three days in the town when a man stepped up to him as he finished a job and asked him to go home with him. The man took him to a small but rather neat shop, plumber's, glazier's and painter's.
“Why, you don't want me,” said Robinson; “we are in the same line of business.”
“Step in,” said the man. In a few words he let Robinson know that he had a great bargain to offer him. “I am going to sell the shop,” said he. “It is a business I never much fancied, and I had rather sell it to a stranger than to a Bathurst man, for the trade have offended me. There is not a man in the colony can work like you, and you may make a little fortune here.”
Robinson's eyes sparkled a moment, then he replied, “I am too poor to buy a business. What do you want for it?”
“Only sixty pounds for the articles in the shop and the good will and all.”
“Well, I dare say it is moderate, but how am I to find sixty pounds?”
“I'll make it as light as a feather. Five pounds down. Five pounds in a month; after that—ten pounds a month till we are clear. Take possession and sell the goods and work the good-will on payment of the first five.”
“That is very liberal,” said Robinson. “Well, give me till next Thursday and I'll bring you the first five.”
“Oh, I can't do that; I give you the first offer, but into the market it goes this evening, and no later.”
“I'll call this evening and see if I can do it.” Robinson tried to make up the money, but it was not to be done. Then fell a terrible temptation upon him. Handling George Fielding's letter with his delicate fingers, he had satisfied himself there was a bank-note in it. Why not borrow this bank-note? The shop would soon repay it. The idea rushed over him like a flood. At the same moment he took fright at it. “Lord, help me!” he ejaculated.
He rushed to a shop, bought two or three sheets of brown paper and a lot of wafers. With nimble fingers he put the letter in one parcel, that parcel in another, that in another, and so on till there were a dozen envelopes between him and the irregular loan. This done he confided the grand parcel to his landlord.
“Give it me when I start.”
He went no more near the little shop till he had made seven pounds; then he went. The shop and business had been sold just twenty-four hours. Robinson groaned. “If I had not been so very honest! Never mind. I must take the bitter with the sweet.”
For all that the town became distasteful to him. He bought a cheap revolver—for there was a talk of bushrangers in the neighborhood—and started to walk to George Fielding's farm. He reached it in the evening.
“There is no George Fielding here,” was the news. “He left this more than six months ago.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Not I.”
Robinson had to ask everybody he met where George Fielding was gone to. At last, by good luck, he fell in with George's friend, McLaughlan, who told him it was twenty-five miles off.
“Twenty-five miles? that must be for to-morrow, then.”
McLaughlan told him he knew George Fielding very well. “He is a fine lad.” Then he asked Robinson what was his business. Robinson took down a very thin light board with ornamented words painted on it.
“That is my business,” said he.
At the sight of a real business the worthy Scot offered to take care of him for the night, and put him on the road to Fielding's next morning. Next morning Robinson painted his front door as a return for bed and breakfast. McLaughlan gave him somewhat intricate instructions for to-morrow's route. Robinson followed them and soon lost his way. He was set right again, but lost it again; and after a tremendous day's walk made up his mind he should have to camp in the open air and without his supper—when he heard a dog baying in the distance. “There is a house of some kind anyway,” thought Robinson, “but where?—I see none—better make for the dog.”
He made straight for the sound, but still he could not see any house. At last, however, coming over a hill he found a house beneath him, and on the other side of this house the dog was howling incessantly. Robinson came down the hill, walked round the house, and there sat the dog on the steps.
“Well, it is you for howling anyway,” said Robinson.
“Anybody at home?” he shouted. No one answered, and the dog howled on.
“Why, the place is deserted, I think. Haven't I seen that dog before? Why, it is Carlo! Here, Carlo, poor fellow, Carlo, what is the matter?”
The dog gave a little whimper as Robinson stooped and patted him, but no sign of positive recognition, but he pattered into the house. Robinson followed him, and there he found the man he had come to see—stretched on his bed—pale and hollow-eyed and grisly—and looking like a corpse in the fading light.
Robinson was awestruck. “Oh! what is this?” said he. “Have I come all this way to bury him?”
He leaned over and felt his heart; it beat feebly but equably, and he muttered something unintelligible when Robinson touched him. Then Robinson struck a light, and right glad he was to find a cauldron full of gelatinized beef soup. He warmed some and ate a great supper, and Carlo sat and whimpered, and then wagged his tail and plucked up more and more spirit, and finally recognized Tom all in a moment somehow and announced the fact by one great disconnected bark and a saltatory motion. This done he turned to and also ate a voracious supper. Robinson rolled himself up in George's great-coat and slept like a top on the floor. Next morning he was waked by a tapping, and there was Carlo seated bolt upright with his tail beating the floor because George was sitting up in the bed looking about him in a puzzled way.
“Jacky,” said he, “is that you?”
Robinson got up, rubbed his eyes, and came toward the bed. George stared in his face and rubbed his eyes, too, for he thought he must be under an ocular delusion. “Who are you?”
“A friend.”
“Well! I didn't think to see you under a roof of mine again.”
“Just the welcome I expected,” thought Robinson bitterly. He answered coldly: “Well, as soon as you are well you can turn me out of your house, but I should say you are not strong enough to do it just now.”
“No, I am weak enough, but I am better—I could eat something.”
“Oh, you could do that! what! even if I cooked it? Here goes, then.”
Tom lit the fire and warmed some beef soup. George ate some, but very little; however he drank a great jugful of water—then dozed and fell into a fine perspiration. It was a favorable crisis, and from that moment youth and a sound constitution began to pull him through; moreover no assassin had been there with his lancet.
Behold the thief turned nurse! The next day as he pottered about clearing the room, opening or shutting the windows, cooking and serving, he noticed George's eye following him everywhere with a placid wonder which at last broke into words:
“You take a deal of trouble about me.”
“I do,” was the dry answer.
“It is very good of you, but—”
“You would as lieve it was anybody else; but your other friends have left you to die like a dog,” said Robinson sarcastically. “Well, they left you when you were sick—I'll leave you when you are well.”
“What for? Seems to me that you have earned a right to stay as long as you are minded. The man that stands by me in trouble I won't bid him go when the sun shines again.”
And at this precise point in his sentence, without the least warning, Mr. Fielding ignited himself—and inquired with fury whether it came within Robinson's individual experience that George Fielding was of an ungrateful turn, or whether such was the general voice of fame. “Now, don't you get in a rage and burst your boiler,” said Robinson. “Well, George—without joking, though—I have been kind to you. Not for nursing you—what Christian would not do that for his countryman and his old landlord sick in a desert?—but what would you think of me if I told you I had come a hundred and sixty miles to bring you a letter? I wouldn't show it you before, for they say exciting them is bad for fever, but I think I may venture now; here it is.” And Robinson tore off one by one the twelve envelopes, to George's astonishment and curiosity. “There.”
“I don't know the hand,” said George. But opening the inclosure he caught a glance of a hand he did know, and let everything else drop on the bed, while he held this and gazed at it, and the color flushed into his white cheek. “Oh!” cried he, and worshipped it in silence again; then opened it and devoured it. First came some precious words of affection and encouragement. He kissed the letter. “You are a good fellow to bring me such a treasure; and I'll never forget it as long as I live!”
Then he went back to the letter. “There is something about you, Tom!”
“About me?”
“She tells me you never had a father, not to say a father—”
“She says true.”
“Susan says that is a great disadvantage to any man, and so it is—and—poor fellow—”
“What?”
“She says they came between your sweetheart and you—Oh! poor Tom!”
“What?”
“You lost your sweetheart; no wonder you went astray after that. What would become of me if I lost my Susan? And—ay, you were always better than me, Susan. She says she and I have never been sore tempted like you.”
“Bless her little heart for making excuses for a poor fellow; but she was always a charitable, kind-hearted young lady.”
“Wasn't she, Tom?”
“And what sweet eyes!”
“Ain't they, Tom? brimful of heaven I call them.”
“And when she used to smile on you, Master George, oh! the ivories.”
“Now you take my hand this minute. How foolish I am. I can't see—now you shall read it on to me because you brought it.”
“'And you, George, that are as honest a man as ever lived, do keep him by you a while, and keep him in the right way. He is well-disposed but weak—do it to oblige me.'”
“Will you stay with me, Tom?” inquired George, cheerful and business-like. “I am not a lucky man, but while I have a shilling there's sixpence for the man that brought me this—dew in the desert I call it. And to think you have seen her since I have; how was she looking; had she her beautiful color; what did she say to you with her own mouth?”
Then Robinson had to recall every word Susan had said to him; this done, George took the inclosure. “Stop, here is something for you: 'George Fielding is requested to give this to Robinson for the use of Thomas Sinclair.' There you are, Tom—well!—what is the matter?”
“Nothing. It is a name I have not heard a while. I did not know any creature but me knew it; is it glamour, or what?”
“Why, Tom! what is the matter? don't look like that. Open it, and let us see what there is inside.”
Robinson opened it, and there was the five-pound note for him, with this line: “If you have regained the name of Sinclair, keep it.”
Robinson ran out of the house, and walked to and fro in a state of exaltation. “I'm well paid for my journey; I'm well paid for not fingering that note! Who would not be honest if they knew the sweets? How could he know my name? is he really more than man? Keep it? Will I not!”
CHAPTER LII.
THE old attachment was revived. Robinson had always a great regard for George, and after nursing and bringing him through a dangerous illness this feeling doubled. And as for George, the man who had brought him a letter from Susan one hundred and sixty miles became such a benefactor in his eyes that he thought nothing good enough for him.
In a very few days George was about again and on his pony, and he and Robinson and Carlo went a shepherding. One or two bullocks had gone to Jericho while George lay ill, and the poor fellow's heart was sore when he looked at his diminished substance and lost time. Robinson threw himself heart and soul into the business, and was of great service to George; but after a bit he found it a dull life.
George saw this, and said to him: “You would do better in a town. I should be sorry to lose you, but if you take my advice you will turn your back on unlucky George, and try the paint-brush in Bathurst.”
For Robinson had told him all about it—and painted his front door. “Can't afford to part from Honesty,” was the firm reply.
George breathed again. Robinson was a great comfort to the weak, solitary, and now desponding man. One day for a change they had a thirty-mile walk, to see a farmer that had some beasts to sell a great bargain; he was going to boil them down if he could not find a customer. They found them all just sold. “Just my luck,” said George.
They came home another way. Returning home, George was silent and depressed.
Robinson was silent, but appeared to be swelling with some grand idea. Every now and then he shot ahead under its influence. When they got home and were seated at supper, he suddenly put this question to George, “Did you ever hear of any gold being found in these parts?”
“No! never!”
“What, not in any part of the country?”
“No! never!”
“Well, that is odd!”
“I am afraid it is a very bad country for that.”
“Ay to make it in, but not to find it in.”
“What do you mean?”
“George,” said the other, lowering his voice mysteriously, “in our walk to-day we passed places that brought my heart into my mouth; for if this was only California those places would be pockets of gold.”
“But you see it is not California, but Australia, where all the world knows there is nothing of what your mind is running on.”
“Don't say 'knows,' say 'thinks.' Has it ever been searched for gold?”
“I'll be bound it has; or, if not, with so many eyes constantly looking on every foot of soil a speck or two would have come to light.”
“One would think so; but it is astonishing how blind folks are, till they are taught how to look, and where to look. 'Tis the mind that sees things, George, not the eye.”
“Ah!” said George with a sigh, “this chat puts me in mind of 'The Grove.' Do you mind how you used to pester everybody to go out to California?”
“Yes! and I wish we were there now.”
“And all your talk used to be gold—gold—gold.”
“As well say it as think it.”
“That is true. Well, we shall be very busy all day to-morrow, but in the afternoon dig for gold an hour or two—then you will be satisfied.”
“But it is no use digging here; it was full five-and-twenty miles from here the likely-looking place.”
“Then why didn't you stop me at the place?”
“Why?” replied Robinson, sourly, “because his reverence did so snub me whenever I got upon that favorite topic, that I really had got out of the habit. I was ashamed to say, 'George, let us stop on the road and try for gold with our finger-nails.' I knew I should only get laughed at.”
“Well,” said George sarcastically, “since the gold mine is twenty-five miles off, and our work is round about the door, suppose we pen sheep to-morrow—and dig for gold when there is nothing better to be done.”
Robinson sighed. Unbucolical to the last degree was the spirit in which our Bohemian tended the flocks next morning.
His thoughts were deeper than the soil. And every evening up came the old topic. Oh! how sick George got of it. At last one night he said: “My lad, I should like to tell you a story—but I suppose I shall make a bungle of it; shan't cut the furrow clean I am doubtful.”
“Never mind; try!”
“Well, then. Once upon a time there was an old chap that had heard or read about treasures being found in odd places, a pot full of guineas or something; and it took root in his heart till nothing would serve him but he must find a pot of guineas, too; he used to poke about all the old ruins, grubbing away, and would have taken up the floor of the church, but the churchwardens would not have it. One morning he comes down and says to his wife, 'It is all right, old woman, I've found the treasure.'
“'No! have you, though?' says she.
“'Yes!' says he; 'leastways, it is as good as found; it is only waiting till I've had my breakfast, and then I'll go out and fetch it in.'
“'La, John, but how did you find it?'
“'It was revealed to me in a dream,' says he, as grave as a judge.
“'And where is it?' asks the old woman.
“'Under a tree in our own orchard—no farther,' says he.
“'Oh, John! how long you are at breakfast to-day!' Up they both got and into the orchard. 'Now, which tree is it under?'
“John, he scratches his head, 'Blest if I know.'
“'Why, you old ninny,' says the mistress, 'didn't you take the trouble to notice?'
“'That I did,' said he; 'I saw plain enough which tree it was in my dream, but now they muddle it all, there are so many of 'em.'
“'Drat your stupid old head,' says she, 'why didn't you put a nick on the right one at the time?'”
Robinson burst out laughing. George chuckled. “Oh!” said he, “there were a pair of them for wisdom, you may take your oath of that. 'Well,' says he, 'I must dig till I find the right one.' The wife she loses heart at this; for there was eighty apple-trees, and a score of cherry-trees. 'Mind you don't cut the roots,' says she, and she heaves a sigh. John he gives them bad language, root and branch. 'What signifies cut or no cut; the old faggots—they don't bear me a bushel of fruit the whole lot. They used to bear two sacks apiece in father's time. Drat 'em.'
“'Well, John,' says the old woman, smoothing him down; 'father used to give them a deal of attention.'—' 'Tain't that! 'tain't that!' says he quick and spiteful-like; 'they have got old like ourselves, and good for fire-wood.' Out pickax and spade and digs three foot deep round one, and finding nothing but mould goes at another, makes a little mound all round him, too—no guinea-pot. Well, the village let him dig three or four quiet enough; but after that curiosity was awakened, and while John was digging, and that was all day, there was mostly seven or eight watching through the fence and passing jests. After a bit a fashion came up of flinging a stone or two at John; then John he brought out his gun loaded with dust-shot along with his pick and spade, and the first stone came he fired sharp in that direction and then loaded again. So they took that hint, and John dug on in peace—till about the fourth Sunday—and then the parson had a slap at him in church. 'Folks were not to heap up to themselves treasures on earth,' was all his discourse.”
“Well, but,” said Robinson, “this one was only heaping up mould.”
“So it seemed when he had dug the five-score holes, for no pot of gold didn't come to light. Then the neighbors called the orchard 'Jacobs' Folly;' his name was Jacobs—John Jacobs. 'Now then, wife,' says he, 'suppose you and I look out for another village to live in, for their gibes are more than I can bear.' Old woman begins to cry. 'Been here so long—brought me home here, John—when we were first married, John—and I was a comely lass, and you the smartest young man I ever saw, to my fancy any way; couldn't sleep or eat my victuals in any house but this.'
“'Oh! couldn't ye? Well, then, we must stay; perhaps it will blow over.'—'Like everything else, John; but, dear John, do ye fill in those holes; the young folk come far and wide on Sundays to see them.'
“'Wife, I haven't the heart,' says he. 'You see, when I was digging for the treasure I was always a-going to find, it kept my heart up; but take out shovel and fill them in—I'd as lieve dine off white of egg on a Sunday.' So for six blessed months the heaps were out in the heat and frost till the end of February, and then when the weather broke the old man takes heart and fills them in, and the village soon forgot 'Jacobs' Folly' because it was out of sight. Comes April, and out burst the trees. 'Wife,' says he, 'our bloom is richer than I have known it this many a year, it is richer than our neighbors'.' Bloom dies, and then out come about a million little green things quite hard.”
“Ay! ay!” said Robinson; “I see.”
“Michaelmas-day the old trees were staggering and the branches down to the ground with the crop; thirty shillings on every tree one with another; and so on for the next year, and the next; sometimes more, sometimes less, according to the year. Trees were old and wanted a change. His letting in the air to them, and turning the subsoil up to the frost and sun, had renewed their youth. So by that he learned that tillage is the way to get treasure from the earth. Men are ungrateful at times, but the soil is never ungrateful, it always makes a return for the pains we give it.”
“Well, George,” said Robinson, “thank you for your story; it is a very good one, and after it I'll never dig for gold in a garden. But now suppose a bare rock or an old river's bed, or a mass of shingles or pipe-clay, would you dig or manure them for crops?”
“Why, of course not.”
“Well, those are the sort of places in which nature has planted a yellower crop and a richer crop than tillage ever produced. And I believe there are plums of gold not thirty miles from here in such spots waiting only to be dug out.”
“Well, Tom, I have wasted a parable, that is all. Good-night; I hope to sleep and be ready for a good day's work to-morrow. You shall dream of digging up gold here—if you like.”
“I'll never speak of it again,” said Robinson doggedly.
If you want to make a man a bad companion, interdict altogether the topic that happens to interest him. Robinson ceased to vent his chimera. So it swelled and swelled in his heart, and he became silent, absorbed, absent and out of spirits. “Ah!” thought George, “poor fellow, he is very dull. He won't stay beside me much longer.”
This conviction was so strong that he hesitated to close with an advantageous offer that came to him from his friend, Mr. Winchester. That gentleman had taken a lease of a fine run some thirty miles from George. He had written George that he was to go and look at it, and if he liked it better than his own he was to take it. Mr. Winchester could make no considerable use of either for some time to come.
George hesitated. He felt himself so weak-handed with only Robinson, who might leave him, and a shepherd lad he had just hired. However his hands were unexpectedly strengthened.
One day as the two friends were washing a sheep an armed savage suddenly stood before them. Robinson dropped the sheep and stood on his defense, but George cried out, “No! no! it is Jacky! Why, Jacky, where on earth have you been?” And he came warmly toward him. Jacky fled to a small eminence and made warlike preparations. “You stop you a good while and I speak. Who you?”
“Who am I? stupid. Why, who should I be but George Fielding?”
“I see you one George Fielding, but I not know you dis George Fielding. George die. I see him die. You alive. You please you call dog Carlo! Carlo wise dog.”
“Well, I never! Hie, Carlo! Carlo!”
Up came Carlo full pelt. George patted him, and Carlo wagged his tail and pranced about in the shape of a reaping-hook. Jacky came instantly down, showed his ivories, and admitted his friend's existence on the word of the dog. “Jacky a good deal glad because you not dead now. When black fellow die he never live any more. Black fellow stupid fellow. I tink I like white fellow a good deal bigger than black fellow. Now I stay with you a good while.”
George's hands thus strengthened he wrote and told Mr. Winchester he would go to the new ground, which, as far as he could remember, was very good, and would inspect it, and probably make the exchange with thanks. It was arranged that in two days' time the three friends should go together, inspect the new ground and build a temporary hut there.
Meantime Robinson and Jacky make great friends. Robinson showed him one or two sleight-of-hand tricks that stamped him at once a superior being in Jacky's eyes, and Jacky showed Robinson a thing or two He threw his boomerang and made it travel a couple of hundred yards, and return and hover over his head like a bird and settle at his feet; but he was shy of throwing his spear. “Keep spear for when um angry, not throw him straight now.
“Don't you believe that, Tom,” said George. “Fact is the little varmint can't hit anything with 'em. Now look at that piece of bark leaning against that tree. You don't hit it. Come, try, Jacky.” Jacky yawned and threw a spear carelessly. It went close by but did not hit it.
“Didn't I tell you so?” said George. “I'd stand before him and his spears all day with nothing but a cricket-stump in my hand, and never be hit, and never brag, neither.” Jacky showed his ivories. “When I down at Sydney white man put up a little wood and a bit of white money for Jacky. Then Jacky throw straight a good deal.”
“Now hark to that! black skin or white skin 'tis all the same; we can't do our best till we are paid for it. Don't you encourage him, Tom, I won't have it.”
The two started early one fine morning for the new ground, distant full thirty miles. At first starting Robinson was in high glee; his nature delighted in change; but George was sad and silent. Three times he had changed his ground and always for the better. But to what end. These starts in early morning for fresh places used once to make him buoyant, but not now. All that was over. He persisted doggedly, and did his best like a man, but in his secret heart not one grain of hope was left. Indeed it was but the other day he had written to Susan and told her it was not possible he could make a thousand pounds. The difficulties were too many, and then his losses had been too great. And he told her he felt it was scarcely fair to keep her to her promise. “You would waste all your youth, Susan, dear, waiting for me.” And he told her how he loved her and never should love another; but left her free.
To add to his troubles he was scarcely well of the fever when he caught a touch of rheumatism; and the stalwart young fellow limped along by Robinson's side, and instead of his distancing Jacky as he used in better days, Jacky rattled on ahead and having got on the trail of an opossum announced his intention of hunting it down and then following the human trail. “Me catch you before the sun go, and bring opossum—then we eat a good deal.” And off glided Jacky after his opossum.
The pair plodded and limped on in gloomy silence, for at a part of the road where they emerged from green meadows on rocks and broken ground Robinson's tongue had suddenly ceased.
They plodded on, one sad and stiff, the other thoughtful. Any one meeting the pair would have pitied them. Ill-success was stamped on them. Their features were so good, their fortunes so unkind. Their clothes were sadly worn, their beards neglected, their looks thoughtful and sad. The convert to honesty stole more than one look at the noble figure that limped beside him and the handsome face in which gentle, uncomplaining sorrow seemed to be a tenant for life; and to the credit of our nature be it said that his eyes filled and his heart yearned. “Oh, Honesty!” said he, “you are ill-paid here. I have been well paid for my little bit of you, but here is a life of honesty and a life of ill-luck and bitter disappointment. Poor George! poor, dear George! Leave you? never while I have hands to work and a brain to devise!”
They now began slowly to mount a gentle slope that ended in a long black snakelike hill. “When we get to that hill we shall see my new pasture,” said George. “New or old, I doubt 'twill be all the same.”
And he sighed and relapsed into silence. Meantime Jacky had killed his opossum and was now following their trail at an easy trot.
Leaving the two sad ones with worn clothes and heavy hearts plodding slowly and stiffly up the long rough slope, our story runs on before and gains the rocky platform they are making for and looks both ways—back toward the sad ones and forward over a grand, long, sweeping valley. This pasture is rich in proportion as it recedes from this huge backbone of rock that comes from the stony mountains and pierces and divides the meadows as a cape the sea. In the foreground the grass suffers from its stern neighbor, is cut up here and there by the channels of defunct torrents, and dotted with fragments of rock, some of which seem to have pierced the bosom of the soil from below, others have been detached at different epochs from the parent rock and rolled into the valley. But these wounds are only discovered on inspection; at a general glance from the rocky road into the dale the prospect is large, rich and laughing; fairer pastures are to be found in that favored land, but this sparkles at you like an emerald roughly set, and where the backbone of rock gives a sudden twist bursts out all at once broad smiling in your face—a land flowing with milk and every bush a thousand nosegays. At the angle above-mentioned, which commanded a double view, a man was standing watching some object or objects not visible to his three companions; they were working some yards lower down by the side of a rivulet that brawled and bounded down the hill. Every now and then an inquiry was shouted up to that individual, who was evidently a sort of scout or sentinel. At last one of the men in the ravine came up and bade the scout go down.
“I'll soon tell you whether we shall have to knock off work.” And he turned the corner and disappeared.
He shaded both his eyes with his hands, for the sun was glaring. About a mile off he saw two men coming slowly up by a zig-zag path toward the very point where he stood. Presently the men stopped and examined the prospect, each in his own way. The taller one took a wide survey of the low ground, and calling his companion to him appeared to point out to him some beauty or peculiarity of the region. Our scout stepped back and called down to his companions, “Shepherds!”
He then strolled back to his post with no particular anxiety. Arrived there his uneasiness seemed to revive. The shorter of the two strangers had lagged behind his comrade, and the watcher observed, that he was carrying on a close and earnest inspection of the ground in detail.
He peered into the hollows and loitered in every ravine. This gave singular offense to the keen eye that was now upon him. Presently he was seen to stop and call his taller companion to him, and point with great earnestness first to something at their feet, then to the backbone of rocks; and it so happened by mere accident that his finger took nearly the direction of the very spot where the observer of all his movements stood. The man started back out of sight and called in a low voice to his comrades,
“Come here.”
They came straggling up with troubled and lowering faces. “Lie down and watch them,” said the leader. The men stooped and crawled forward to some stunted bushes, behind which they lay down and watched in silence the unconscious pair who were now about two furlongs distant. The shorter of the two still loitered behind his companion, and inspected the ground with particular interest. The leader of the band, who went by the name of Black Will, muttered a curse upon his inquisitiveness. The others assented all but one, a huge fellow whom the others addressed as Jem. “Nonsense,” said Jem, “dozens pass this way and are none the wiser.”
“Ay,” replied Black Will, “with their noses in the air. But that is a notice-taking fellow. Look at him with his eyes forever on the rocks, or in the gullies, or—there if he is not picking up a stone and breaking it!”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Jem incredulously, “how many thousand have picked up stones and broke them and all, and never known what we know.”
“He has been in the same oven as we,” retorted the other.
Here one of the others put in his word. “That is not likely, captain; but if it is so there are no two ways. A secret is no secret if all the world is to know it.”
“You remember our oath, Jem,” said the leader sternly.
“Why should I forget it more than another?” replied the other angrily.
“Have you all your knives?” asked the captain gloomily. The men nodded assent.
“Cross them with me as we did when we took our oath first.”
The men stretched out each a brawny arm, and a long sharp knife, so that all the points came together in a focus; and this action suited well with their fierce and animal features, their long neglected beards, their matted hair and their gleaming eyes. It looked the prologue to some deed of blood. This done, at another word from their ruffianly leader they turned away from the angle in the rock and plunged hastily down the ravine; but they had scarcely taken thirty steps when they suddenly disappeared.
In the neighborhood of the small stream I have mentioned was a cavern of irregular shape that served these men for a habitation and place of concealment. Nature had not done all. The stone was soft, and the natural cavity had been enlarged and made a comfortable retreat enough for the hardy men whose home it was. A few feet from the mouth of the cave on one side grew a stout bush that added to the shelter and the concealment, and on the other the men themselves had placed two or three huge stones, which, from the attitude the rogues had given them, appeared, like many others, to have rolled thither years ago from the rock above.
In this retreat the whole band were now silently couched, two of them in the mouth of the cave, Black Will and another lying flat on their stomachs watching the angle of the road for the two men who must pass that way, and listening for every sound. Black Will was carefully and quietly sharpening his knife on one of the stones and casting back every now and then a meaning glance to his companions. The pertinacity with which he held to his idea began to tell on them, and they sat in an attitude of sullen and terrible suspicion. But Jem wore a look of contemptuous incredulity. However small a society may be, if it is a human one jealousy shall creep in. Jem grudged Black Will his captaincy. Jem was intellectually a bit of a brute. He was a stronger man than Will, and therefore thought it hard that merely because Will was a keener spirit, Will should be over him. Half an hour passed thus, and the two travelers did not make their appearance.
“Not even coming this way at all,” said Jem.
“Hush!” replied Will sternly, “hold your tongue. They must come this way, and they can't be far off. Jem, you can crawl out and see where they are, if you are clever enough to keep that great body out of sight.”
Jem resented this doubt cast upon his adroitness, and crawled out among the bushes. He had scarcely got twenty yards when he halted and made a signal that the men were in sight. Soon afterward he came back with less precaution. “They are sitting eating their dinner close by, just on the sunny side of the rock—shepherds, as I told you—got a dog. Go yourself if you don't believe me.”
The leader went to the spot, and soon after returned and said quietly, “Pals, I dare say he is right. Lie still till they have had their dinner; they are going farther, no doubt.”
Soon after this he gave a hasty signal of silence, for George and Robinson at that moment came round the corner of the rock and stood on the road not fifty yards above them. Here they paused as the valley burst on their view, and George pointed out its qualities to his comrade. “It is not first-rate, Tom, but there is good grass in patches, and plenty of water.”
Robinson, instead of replying or giving his mind to the prospect said to George, “Why, where is he?”
“Who?”
“The man that I saw standing at this corner a while ago. He came round this way I'll be sworn.”
“He is gone away, I suppose. I never saw any one, for my part.”
“I did, though. Gone away? How could he go away? The road is in sight for miles, and not a creature on it. He is vanished.”
“I don't see him anyway, Tom.”
“Of course you don't, he is vanished into the bowels of the earth. I don't like gentlemen that vanish into the bowels of the earth.”
“How suspicious you are! Bushrangers again, I suppose. They are always running in your mind—them and gold.”
“You know the country, George. Here, take my stick.” And he handed George a long stick with a heavy iron ferule. “If a man is safe here he owes it to himself, not to his neighbor.”
“Then why do you give me your weapon?” said George with a smile.
“I haven't,” was the reply. “I carry my sting out of sight, like a humble bee.” And Mr. Robinson winked mysteriously, and the process seemed to relieve his mind and soothe his suspicions. He then fell to inspecting the rocks; and when George pointed out to him the broad and distant pasture he said, in an absent way, “Yes;” and turning round George found him with his eyes glued to the ground at his feet, and his mind in a deep reverie. George was vexed, and said somewhat warmly, “Why, Tom, the place is worth looking at now we are come to it, surely.”
Robinson made no direct reply. “George,” said he thoughtfully, “how far have you got toward your thousand pounds?”
“Oh, Tom! don't ask me, don't remind me! How can I ever make it? No market within a thousand miles of any place in this confounded country! Forced to boil down sheep into tallow and sell them for the price of a wild duck! I have left my Susan, and I have lost her. Oh, why did you remind me?”
“So much for the farming lay. Don't you be down-hearted, there's better cards in the pack than the five of spades; and the farther I go and the more I see of this country the surer I am. There is a good day coming for you and me. Listen, George. When I shut my eyes for a moment now where I stand, and then open them—I'm in California.”
“Dreaming?”
“No, wide awake—wider than you are now. George, look at these hills; you could not tell them from the golden range of California.. But that is not all; when you look into them you find they are made of the same stuff, too—granite, mica and quartz. Now don't you be cross.”
“No! no! why should I? Show me,” said George, trying out of kindheartedness to take an interest in this subject, which had so often wearied him.
“Well, here are two of them. That great dark bit out there is mica, and all this that runs in a vein like is quartz. Quartz and mica are the natural home of gold; and some gold is to be found at home still, but the main of it has been washed out and scattered like seed all over the neighboring clays. You see, George, the world is a thousand times older than most folks think, and water has been working upon gold thousands and thousands of years before ever a man stood upon the earth, ay or a dog either, Carlo, for as wise as you look squatting out there thinking of nothing and pretending to be thinking of everything.”
“Well, drop gold,” said George, “and tell me what this is,” and he handed Robinson a small fossil.
Robinson eyed it with wonder and interest. “Where on earth did you find this?”
“Hard by; what is it?”
“Plenty of these in California. What is it? Why, I'll tell you; it is a pale old Joey.”
“You don't say so; looks like a shell.”
“Sit down a moment, George, and let us look at it. He bids me drop gold—and then goes and shows me a proof of gold that never deceived us out there.”
“You are mad. How can this be a sign of gold? I tell you it is a shell.”
“And I tell you that where these things are found among mica, quartz and granite, there gold is to be found if men have the wit, the patience and the skill to look for it. I can't tell you why; the laws of gold puzzle deeper heads than mine, but so it is. I seem to smell gold all round me here.” And Robinson flushed all over, so powerfully did the great idea of gold seated here on his native throne grapple and agitate his mind.
“Tom,” said the other doggedly, “if there is as much gold on the ground of New South Wales as will make me a wedding-ring—I am a Dutchman;” and he got up calmly and jerked the pale old Joey a tremendous way into the valley.
This action put Robinson's blood up. “George,” cried he, springing up like fire and bringing his foot down sharp upon the rocky floor, “IF I DON'T STAND UPON GOLD—I'M D——D!”
And a wild but true inspiration seemed to be upon the man; a stranger could hardly have helped believing him, but George had heard a good deal of this, though the mania had never gone quite so far. He said quickly, “Come, let us go down into the pasture.”
“Not I,” replied Robinson. “Come, George, prejudice is for babies, experience for men. Here is an unknown country with all the signs of gold thicker than ever. I have got a calabash—stay and try for gold in this gully; it looks to me just like the mouth of a purse.”
“Not I.”
“I will, then.”
“Why not? I don't think you will find anything in it, but anyway you will have a better chance when I am not by to spoil you. Luck is all against me. If I want rain, comes drought; if I want sun, look for a deluge, if there is money to be made by a thing I'm out of it; to be lost, I'm in it; if I loved a vixen she'd drop into my arms like a medlar; I love an angel and that is why I shall never have her, never. From a game of marbles to the game of life I never had a grain of luck like other people. Leave me, Tom, and try if you can find gold; you will have a chance, my poor fellow, if unlucky George is not aside you.”
“Leave you, George! not if I know it.”
“You are to blame if you don't. Turn your back on me as I did on you in England.”
“Never! I'd rather not find gold than part with honesty. There, I'm coming—let us go—quick—come, let us leave here.” And the two men left the road and turned their faces and their steps across the ravine.
During all this dialogue the men in the cave had strained both eyes and ears to comprehend the speakers. The distance was too great for them to catch all the words, but this much was clear from the first, that one of the men wished to stay on the spot for some purpose, and the other to go on; but presently, as the speakers warmed, a word traveled down the breeze that made the four ruffians start and turn red with surprise, and the next moment darken with anger and apprehension. The word came again and again; they all heard it—its open vowel gave it a sonorous ring; it seemed to fly farther than any other word the speaker uttered, or perhaps when he came to it he spoke it louder than smaller words, or the hearers' ears were watching for it.
The men interchanged terrible looks, and then they grasped their knives and watched their leader's eye for some deadly signal. Again and again the word “g-o-l-d” came like an Aeolian note into the secret cave, and each time eye sought eye and read the unlucky speaker's death-warrant there. But when George prevailed and the two men started for the valley, the men in the cave cast uncertain looks on one another, and he we have called Jem drew a long breath and said brutally, yet with something of satisfaction, “You have saved your bacon this time.” The voices now drew near and the men crouched close, for George and Robinson passed within fifteen yards of them. They were talking now about matters connected with George's business, for Robinson made a violent effort and dropped his favorite theme to oblige his comrade. They passed near the cave, and presently their backs were turned to it.
“Good-by, my lads,” whispered Jem. “And curse you for making us lose a good half hour,” muttered another of the gang. The words were scarce out of his mouth before a sudden rustle was heard and there was Carlo. He had pulled up in mid career and stood transfixed with astonishment, literally pointing the gang; it was but for a moment—he did not like the looks of the men at all; he gave a sharp bark that made George and Robinson turn quickly round, and then he went on hunting.
“A kangaroo!” shouted Robinson, “it must have got up near that bush; come and look—if it is we will hunt it down.”
George turned back with him, but on reflection he said, “No! Tom, we have a long road to go, let us keep on, if you please;” and they once more turned their backs to the cave, whistled Carlo, and stepped briskly out toward the valley. A few yards before them was the brook I have already noticed—it was about three yards broad at this spot. However, Robinson, who was determined not to make George lose any more time, took the lead and giving himself the benefit of a run, cleared it like a buck. But as he was in the air his eye caught some object on this side the brook, and making a little circle on the other side, he came back with ludicrous precipitancy, and jumping short, landed with one foot on shore and one in the stream. George burst out laughing.
“Do you see this?” cried Robinson.
“Yes; somebody has been digging a hole here,” said George very coolly.
“Come higher up,” cried Robinson, all in a flutter—“do you see this?”
“Yes; it is another hole.”
“'It is. Do you see this wet, too?”
“I see there has been some water spilled by the brook side.”
“What kind of work has been done here? have they been digging potatoes, farmer?”
“Don't be foolish, Tom.”
“Is it any kind of work you know? Here is another trench dug.”
“No! it is nothing in my way, that is the truth.”
“But it is work the signs of which I know as well as you know a plowed field from a turnpike-road.”
“Why, what is it then?”
“It is gold washing.”
“You don't say so, Tom.”
“This is gold washing as beginners practice it in California and Mexico and Peru, and wherever gold-dust is found. They have been working with a pan, they haven't got such a thing as a cradle in this country. Come lower down; this was yesterday's work, let us find to-day's.”
The two men now ran down the stream busy as dogs hunting an otter. A little lower down they found both banks of the stream pitted with holes about two feet deep and the sides drenched with water from it.
“Well, if it is so, you need not look so pale; why, dear me, how pale you are, Tom!”
“You would be pale,” gasped Tom, “if you could see what a day this is for you and me, ay! and for all the world, old England especially. George, in a month there will be five thousand men working round this little spot. Ay! come,” cried he, shouting wildly at the top of his voice, “there is plenty for all. GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! I have found it. I, Tom Robinson, I've found it, and I grudge it to no man. I, a thief that was, make a present of it to its rightful owner, and that is all the world. Here GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!”
Though George hardly understood his companion's words, he was carried away by the torrent of his enthusiasm, and even as Robinson spoke his cheeks in turn flushed and his eyes flashed, and he grasped his friend's hands warmly, and cried, “GOLD! GOLD! blessings on it if it takes me to Susan; GOLD! GOLD!”
The poor fellows' triumph and friendly exultation lasted but a moment; the words were scarce out of Robinson's mouth when to his surprise George started from him, turned very pale, but at the same time lifted his iron-shod stick high in the air and clinched his teeth with desperate resolution. Four men with shaggy beards and wild faces and murderous eyes were literally upon them, each with a long glittering knife raised in the air.
At that fearful moment George learned the value of a friend that had seen adventure and crime; rapid and fierce and unexpected as the attack was, Robinson was not caught off his guard. His hand went like lightning into his bosom, and the assailants, in the very act of striking, were met in the face by the long glistening barrels of a rifle revolver, while the cool, wicked eye behind it showed them nothing was to be hoped in that quarter from flurry, or haste, or indecision.
The two men nearest the revolver started back, the other two neither recoiled nor advanced, but merely hung fire. George made a movement to throw himself upon them; but Robinson seized him fiercely by the arm—he said steadily but sternly, “Keep cool, young man—no running among their knives while they are four. Strike across me and I shall guard you till we have thinned.”
“Will you?” said Black Will, “here, pals!” The four assailants came together like a fan for a moment and took a whisper from their leader. They then spread out like a fan and began to encircle their antagonists, so as to attack on both sides at once.
“Back to the water, George,” cried Robinson quickly, “to the broad part here.” Robinson calculated that the stream would protect his rear, and that safe he was content to wait and profit by the slightest error of his numerous assailants; this, however, was to a certain degree a miscalculation, for the huge ruffian we have called Jem sprang boldly across the stream higher up and prepared to attack the men behind, the moment they should be engaged with his comrades. The others no sooner saw him in position than they rushed desperately upon George and Robinson in the form of a crescent, and as they came on Jem came flying knife in hand to plunge it into Robinson's back. As the front assailants neared them, true to his promise, Robinson fired across George, and the outside man received a bullet in his shoulder-blade, and turning round like a top fell upon his knees. Unluckily George wasted a blow at this man which sung idly over him, he dropping his head and losing his knife and his powers at the very moment. By this means Robinson, the moment he had fired his pistol, had no less than three assailants; one of these George struck behind the neck so furiously with a back-handed stroke of his iron-shod stick that he fell senseless at Robinson's feet. The other, met in front by the revolver, recoiled, but kept Robinson at bay while Jem sprang on him from the rear. This attack was the most dangerous of all; in fact, neither Robinson nor George had time to defend themselves against him even if they had seen him, which they did not. Now as Jem was in the very act of making his spring from the other side of the brook, a spear glanced like a streak of light past the principal combatants and pierced Jem through and through the fleshy part of the thigh, and there stood Jacky at forty yards' distance, with the hand still raised from which the spear had flown, and his emu-like eye glittering with the light of battle.
Jem, instead of bounding clear over the stream, fell heavily into the middle of it and lay writhing and floundering at George's mercy, who turning in alarm at the sound stood over him with his long deadly staff whirling and swinging round his head in the air, while Robinson placed one foot firmly on the stunned man's right arm and threatened the leader Black Will with his pistol, and at the same moment with a wild and piercing yell Jacky came down in leaps like a kangaroo, his tomahawk flourished over his head, his features entirely changed, and the thirst of blood written upon every inch of him. Black Will was preparing to run away and leave his wounded companions, but at sight of the fleet savage he stood still and roared out for mercy. “Quarter! quarter!” cried Black Will.
“Down on your knees!” cried Robinson in a terrible voice.
The man fell on his knees, and in that posture Jacky would certainly have knocked out his brains but that Robinson pointed the pistol at his head and forbade him; and Carlo, who had arrived hastily at the sound of battle, in great excitement but not with clear ideas, seeing Jacky, whom he always looked on as a wild animal, opposed in some way to Robinson, seized him directly by the leg from behind and held him howling in a vise. “Hold your cursed noise, all of you,” roared Robinson. “D'ye ask quarter?”