Читать книгу The Emu's Head - Carlton Dawe - Страница 4

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The diggings at Dead Man’s Flat had been in full swing for close on five months, and during that time hundreds upon hundreds of men had come and gone, some departing with their pockets full of the precious metal, others poorer than when they arrived. This is the fate which clings to all such places—nay, is it not the fate of every phase of life? The man in the hole a few feet from you may find a deposit which will make him rich for life, while you work day after day, barely gaining enough to keep the breath in your body. This is the sort of fate which, cur-like, worries poor humanity. The rich man’s horses splash the poor man’s ragged coat; the shop windows gleam none the less temptingly because countless hungry eyes glare in upon them; the rich feed none the less sumptuously because the thousands starve. This, again, is the fate which it seems necessary the children of men should suffer.

There were rich and poor at Dead Man’s Flat, as there are in every community, but there was this difference—the rich man never splashed the poor, never flaunted his riches, which, somehow, made poverty endurable. Indeed, it would have been somewhat difficult to say who were the rich and poor of that busy place, for no one but the men themselves knew their own monetary value. A large felt hat, a pair of big boots (if you could afford them), coarse trousers, and a Crimean shirt, and you had the millionaire or beggar of Dead Man’s Flat—though it would be ten to one the beggar was the sprucer of the two. This, however, as most of us may know from personal experience, is a state of things not confined to any particular locality.

At one time it was thought a new Ballarat or Bendigo had been discovered in this grimly-named place, and men rushed from all parts of the country to participate in the hunt for the yellow metal. Clerks flung aside their pens, barristers their briefs, and even clergymen their prayer-books. The ships in port were deserted by their crews; there they lay upon the waters month after month, with never a soul to man them, in spite of the bribe of high wages. The British squadron lost every man it allowed to step on shore, and numerous stories were told of the blue-jackets letting themselves over the side in the darkness, and, spurning the danger from sharks, strike out for the promised land; even the upright guardians of the law cast aside their helmets and batons for the slouch hat and the pick and shovel. Oh, they were mad days, when every man, woman, and child had the gold fever fierce upon them; when the pick and shovel were the only implements worth owning, and when he who had no wealth but that of health and courage, set out on his long tramp to the El Dorado. They were strange times, too, and men went about with their lives in their hands; for, what with the convict blood and the blackguardism of California, things were not always too carefully regulated in those mixed masses of humanity. Yet they were man-making epochs, too, and to them Australia owes that sturdy self-reliance which is so conspicuous in her sons. Accustomed to a life of adventure, and inured to hardships consequent upon the opening up of a new country, they have none of those effeminate qualms which the more ancient nations so assiduously cultivate. Their fathers roughed it before them, and they too have had their share of toil. They have the man’s strength with the disdain of trivialities; will take the best that comes and hope for better luck in the future. These men will stand firm in a crisis—ay, and fight, too, when their country needs them.

Dead Man’s Flat was now an irregular mass of white canvas tents, dotted here and there with a more substantial hut of bark, while away on the top of the hill, surrounded by a strong fence of saplings, stood a large slab and zinc building, which was used as court-house, police barracks, and hospital. Here the diggers had to come to get their “miner’s right,” or license, before they were allowed to peg out a claim, or, in other words, to work; for without that government certificate a man was liable to have his claim “jumped” at any moment, his hoardings confiscated, and himself fined. At the foot of the hill above-mentioned a great creek pursued its irregular course, supplying the miners with plenty of water for their pans and cradles, and like the roar of thunder afar off was the noise of those rocking cradles when the whole camp was in full swing.

To the right of this creek, and stretching away for many miles in the distance, was the rich plain of Dead Man’s Flat—rich in two ways; first, because of its alluvial deposits, and secondly, on account of its well-grassed and well-shrubbed surface. This second reason, however, was of little moment to the thousands who swarmed the diggings. They cared not how many sheep and cattle it would raise, or how much good corn might bend its graceful head to every breeze. They had come to work for gold, and to the gold-digger there is no colour but yellow. So they clung to the banks of the great creek and hollowed them out for miles, till one looking at them from a distance saw nothing but thousands of little mounds. Yet to thread those little hillocks, even in broad day, was a work of no small danger and difficulty, for every mound represented a hole from six to twelve feet deep, and often more, which any false step might precipitate you into, much to the danger of life and limb. To attempt such an undertaking at night was proportionately serious, though the less honest of this mixed community had many a time blessed the darkness and the danger of the road; and , many an upright man had trudged off to his claim in the morning only to find that it had been worked out during the night, and that whatever gold it might have yielded had gone into the pockets of another. But honesty, unlike justice, is not always blind. It was rarely robbed a second time, being quick to perceive how much more profitable it was to work out the hole before it left it for the night.

This, however, was but one of the lesser trials to which the good were subjected, for the righteous have many grievous burdens to bear in this world of ours. It was not only that a man had first to find the gold, but it was invariably a greater bother to him, once he had found it, than the want of it had hitherto proved; for if it once became known that he had such and such a sum in his possession, the rascals of the community (and you will find them hanging to the skirts of all classes) at once made it their object to relieve him, in one way or another, of his burden. A revolver in his belt by day, a revolver beneath his head at night. In fact it might be said that he ate, slept, and worked with a revolver in one hand.

Now such a life might be termed exceedingly exciting, and it undoubtedly was, but it was an excitement of which a man might easily tire. It was better to get rid of the cursed stuff than live in a perpetual torment, and if the digger were a sociable fellow he would make tracks for the nearest grog shanty, and flaunt his riches like a king. There was nothing mean about the digger of those days either. The gold was easily won and easily spent, and he would treat a bar-full of loafers to the best of wine, and then play skittles with quart bottles of champagne in the place of ninepins. They were indeed flourishing times for the genial Boniface, and many a man who is now rolling in riches has good cause to think kindly of the grog shanty his father kept in the early days. The digger, like the proverbial sailor, was generous to a fault. “Here,” he would say, “a dozen of your best champagne, and take it out of that,” and to the smiling landlord he would toss a bag of gold-dust which would pay for the wine full twenty times. And whenever a theatrical company appeared at that out-of-the way spot, they were sure of a golden welcome, for the diggers would throw bags of gold-dust at their favourite performers in lieu of bouquets. But after all there is nothing strange in this. The system is still adhered to in many theatres, only the gold is now become solid, and people are more polite—they do not heave their gold like diggers, they present it like gentlemen. One night, so the story goes, a company playing at Dead Man’s Flat put up the tragedy of Hamlet but that sombre piece not proving to the taste of the audience, they rebelled when it was half through, stopped the performance, and unanimously demanded a song and dance. And when Hamlet, the Ghost, and Ophelia did a breakdown, the little bags of precious dust flew in a shower upon the stage, proving that all concerned were, or should have been, satisfied.

Oh, yes, there was much fun even on Dead Man’s Flat, for there were some jovial boys among that miscellaneous crowd. True the fun was not always dignified nor the humour superfine, but it made men happy, lightened their irksome burdens, and kept them in touch with the human world. It was a bad thing, that gold-fever, worse than many people imagine, and to free men from it, even for an hour, was an inestimable boon But are we ever free of it, and need we go up the country to Dead Man’s Flat to see it? Methinks any great modern city can show more of this most hideous of diseases in one day than such insignificant places as Dead Man’s Flat can in a lifetime.

The town, proper, of Dead Man’s Flat lay about a mile from the centre of the diggings, though the latter really stretched from the town full five miles down the creek. Some years before the opening of our narrative there had been a Rush in this part of the country, and this township of which we speak was left as a memento of it. It was the usual one-street village with half-a-dozen public-houses, a couple of weatherboard chapels, and sundry other habitations of slabs, zinc, or weather-boards, with here and there an ugly box of German brick. These were all left standing after the first Rush, and when the diggers forsook the place these inelegant edifices fell into general neglect. It was a dull look-out for Dead Man’s Flat in those days, and the inhabitants who had known it for the few weeks in which it had flourished, were never tired of singing the glories of the happy past. It was like the Greeks of the present time reviewing the days of old, or the modern Roman contemplating the fact that his townsmen were once the masters of the world—at least, this is how it would have appeared to the old inhabitants, though to the ordinary observer it may have suggested no such thoughts.

Dead Man’s Flat, however, struggled on in obscurity for many years, till one day a new vitality was infused into its almost lifeless body. A party of fossickers, after vainly seeking fortune among the ruins of the old diggings, which were above the town, went further down the creek and there struck the rich alluvial deposits, the fame of which was soon to bring thousands of eager workers from all parts of the country. Then the light of joy was once more seen in the eyes of the old inhabitants, and in a fortnight the population rose from one hundred and sixty to ten thousand. Coaches and traps rattled into the old town every hour of the day, and those who had been rich enough to ride reported that hundreds more were tramping in their wake. Oh, there was some life in the old place then, the house of mourning was changed to one of revelry. A dozen new buildings went up every day, and though they might not have been as durable or picturesque as a Norman tower, they certainly added to the extent and variety of the city.

But of all the jolly places in Dead Man’s Flat, the saloon of the Emu’s Head was the jolliest, and to this cheerful rendezvous the diggers trooped of a night to drink, smoke, and yarn, and, if they felt so inclined, gamble away their hard-earned gold. Mr. Peter Logan, the worthy gentleman who ruled this abode of Bacchus, had no objection. He had a nice little room there at the back of the bar, nice and quiet-like, and he would even take a hand himself, if the gentlemen had no objection. At first the gentlemen had none, but when Mr. Logan invariably rose with their little bags of gold bulging out his pockets, they grew suspicious, and at last decided that they would no more admit him to their play, telling him that he was much too clever for them. At this Mr. Logan laughed good-humouredly, confessed they didn’t know much about cards, and then asked them if they had any orders to give. A more fastidious person than the rotund Boniface might have felt and shown annoyance at these covert reflections on his honour, but your good landlord never quarrels with your good patron; besides, Mr. Logan’s patrons would have taken him up, if he had made himself objectionable, and tossed him from the room without a moment’s hesitation.

Mr. Peter Logan, at the time our chronicle opens, was between forty and fifty years of age, fat, red of face, with that hard look about the mouth which comes of a hard life. He was, however, or had been, a man of some presence, and though he may never have been distinctly handsome, he yet bore traces of past good looks. But Mr. Logan, like many more unfortunates, had run to fat. The friends of our boyhood, the sweethearts of our callow days—where and what are they now? He, poor fellow, has developed an enormous waist, and grunts like a hog when he stoops to lace up those confounded boots; while she, poor thing, her delicate profile gone beneath a shapeless growth, pants and fumes as she struggles to encircle with a twenty-two inch stay a good thirty inches of solid flesh, not counting the hips—which have expanded enormously. Such is the fate to which the decently covered youth may look forward. Her arms are plump now, her breast full; she is a picture-girl. But wait till she is married a few years. Yet, no, no! We cannot even bear to contemplate the cold-blooded, heartless ways of that inexorable tyrant—Time.

Mr. Logan had certainly run to fat, though why he should have done so he could not tell you, because, as he would explain, as a boy he was nothing better than a skeleton. This is one of the little weaknesses of all stout people. They are eternally cramming down your throat that, once on a time, they were mere shadows of men and women. I never meet my friend Jones without he complains bitterly of his lot. “And yet,” he wails, “there was a time when I was as thin as a lath, and had an arm like a candle.” Poor old Jones! I never yet called on Mrs. Robinson, who turns the scale at fifteen stone, without hearing her remark, in a casual sort of way, that she wore an eighteen-inch corset on the day of her marriage. Now it is my private opinion that she and Jones were always inclined to obesity, and I likewise believe that Mr. Logan was doomed from birth to carry more than his just portion of flesh, for I never met anyone who ever knew him when he wasn’t “stoutish.” Anyway, as he stands in the far corner of his bar to-night, his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his fat elbows, no collar on his fat neck (Mr. Logan never wore a collar—he hadn’t room for one), and a big cigar stuck in his mouth, which he occasionally withdraws from that sweet receptacle with his left hand, the third finger of which is missing, though the other three are profusely bedecked with jewels, he looks the strangest mixture of man and beast that one could wish to see. How he ever induced that dashing woman over yonder to marry him is a thing none of his patrons can comprehend. But that by the way. At present he is deep in conversation with a somewhat shaggy-looking individual, who every now and again sweeps the saloon with a quick glance from a pair of hard black eyes.

The fun, however, continues with undiminished vigour; songs are sung, jokes cracked, and occasionally some inebriate lurches into the middle of the floor and begins a step-dance, which is invariably wound up by a breakdown of the right sort; for someone, equally drunk, unexpectedly launches into him, and both go sprawling to the floor. Others, the more dashing of the assembly, fellows who tidy themselves up before they come out for the night, who have lady mothers and sisters in different part of the country, or who, perchance, were somebodies away in England, once on a time (for all classes and conditions meet on the Australian gold-fields), these, I say, lounge over the bar, making violent love to the pretty landlady. But she takes their pleasantries good-naturedly, laughs when they laugh; though she brings them sharply up if they attempt undue familiarities. But they all like her, and will put up with anything she says or does, for is she not singularly attractive, and does not the poet tell us that beauty will draw men by a single hair? And she is decidedly pretty, or, rather, handsome. There is not another woman like her in the place, and if you were to question the diggers they would declare to a man that she was the finest woman they had ever set eyes on. And she was the sort of woman for whom such men might be expected to possess unbounded admiration. Tall and strong; a figure as firm and upright as an athlete’s; yet splendidly symmetrical—a woman all over. A clear fresh face, dark but wonderfully sweet; a full mouth, capable of the sweetest and most contemptuous of expressions; two great brown burning eyes. Such was Mrs. Catherine Logan, or, as she was familiarly termed (behind her back), “Kitty of the Emu’s Head”—for such was the title of a ballad which some poetic digger had penned in her honour.

How such a woman had ever condescended to link her life with Mr. Peter Logan was, as we have said, the greatest puzzle to her numerous admirers; and more than one drunken man had put the question to her, only to be snapped at for his pains, and laughed at by his companions. Logan was not a half-bad sort of fellow, everybody admitted that, and if he was fat and coarse-looking, that was merely a misfortune which might befall any man; yet there was something indescribable about him which made the match seem ludicrous, and no one could look at husband and wife without wondering how the two ever came together. Woman’s perversity, they supposed. No one yet had ever been able to account for the ways of the sex; and they could no more understand this union than the ordinary person can understand why the delicately-nurtured young lady should be depraved enough to elope with her groom.

The dandies of the diggings swarm about her to-night as usual; they open the bottles for her, and beg to be allowed to come behind the bar and wash up the glasses, but to all these entreaties she turns a deaf ear, nor does she seem to know that they are paying her the most extravagant compliments. She seems pre-occupied, ill at ease, and every moment she can spare from her duties her eyes flash towards the door. She evidently expects someone, and presently that expectation is gratified. The door swings back and a young man enters the saloon. The woman’s eyes emit a glad light, and her hand trembles so that the neck of the bottle rings on the rim of the tumbler.