Читать книгу A Tail of Gold - David Hennessey - Страница 9

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THE Major was distraught and preoccupied the following morning. He had slept badly, and had no appetite for breakfast. He scanned the newspaper with feverish interest; but found nothing there about yesterday's tragedy. Evidently the corpse still sat undiscovered in the silence of Gammage's board room.

He would have given much to have been able to tell his wife, and he looked across to her when the others had left the breakfast room with the words on his lips; but a sickening sense of apprehension choked his utterance. Yet as he had told himself a hundred times, he had not killed the woman.

'No,' said an accusing conscience; 'but you benefit by her death. You put her into Gammage's office, and with such a weight in the chair, the wheel marks of the castors will show that she came there from your private room. Remember what a hurry you were in, you may have dropped something that will betray you. Your clerk may, as likely as not, know all about it; borrowed the chair perhaps from Gammage's people, and left the woman sitting in your room, to wait your return. You are sure to be connected with the affair, some one must have seen you in the city. You are always getting into some frightful mess through that cursed fetish of yours. Why don't you clear out from Melbourne, until the thing has blown over?'

It was pitiable to see the horror, which, at these thoughts, overspread the man's face. It was not from recent guilt; but it was as though this last tragedy had stirred up the memory of other crimes, and for fully a minute his face worked as though some evil inward spasm distorted it.

'I won't face it,' he whispered to himself at last. 'I will get away somewhere into the country until it's all blown over.'

Smart was naturally resourceful. He had been in tight places before, and after a few minutes' consideration a plan suggested itself. He had intended to go over to The Firs, and ask Will Monckton to take a stroll with him, for he was curious to hear the South African story which Will offered to tell at the club; and, further, he had some business propositions he wanted to discuss with him.

Monckton had had some experience as a mining engineer and metallurgist, and had taken a degree at the University, and the Major proposed to use him in a business way in the inspection of some mining property. In the meantime, he would ask Monckton to call at the office on the morrow, and would tell his clerk that he had been called away on business and might not be back for several days.

Monckton's knowledge of the Major from a business standpoint was very slight. Mrs. Maguire and Molly often made fun of his military pretensions and officious ways; but Will's knowledge of the world told him that many a man who was laughed at in society and thought little of by his family was shrewd in business, and apt to astonish people on occasion by what he could do. There was one link between them moreover; both men were habitually well groomed and dressed. Will was inclined to foppishness, and the Major was spick and span from head to foot. It is astonishing how the having of even one thing in common can make men respect each other.

Incidentally, Will had heard something of the Major's fetish; but it had never occurred to him to attach importance to it. It was something too close at hand for him to see. Besides, he did not want to be unemployed, and the Major had hinted at good business which they might do together. Being young, Monckton was flattered at the prospect of being associated with the Major in some big mining scheme. Every young mining engineer in Melbourne, in those days, had visions of a new Golden Mile, or Mount Morgan.

Smart arranged with Will Monckton, over the telephone, wrote a plausible letter to his bank, put money in his purse, and, as an afterthought, a couple of ten pound notes extra, to provide against unforeseen contingencies, and started by the mid-day train for Reefton. He would see Jeremiah Rex, the manager of the Black Horse Gully Mine, with whom he had done business, and who knew him well by repute, and would go on next morning by coach to Seldom Seen, and later on to Never Mind. There he would be well out of the way of letters and telegrams, and might remain, hidden as it were in the bush, for a week.

There was a prospector somewhere in the Seldom Seen country, named Joe Chandler, who had once or twice sent him down samples of sulphide ores, gold and tin. He might find out, perhaps, where he was and look him up. Chandler might possibly tell him something he wanted to know about mining in the Dark River country.

It was wonderful how relieved the Major felt when the last suburban station was left behind, and the train, on an up grade, coughed along through great paddocks of dried up pasture and stopped ever and anon at country stations. He would be out of Melbourne, he thought, during the whole of the Christmas and New Year holidays, as would be half the business men of the city.

Gammage, of course, would be at home, and, as a member of the Upper House and Minister of the Crown, would be well able to deal with the corpse. He knew Gammage of old, and laughed as he imagined his wrath when the gruesome discovery should be made. But it would never become public, if Gammage could hush it up. 'And I'll bet my boots he will,' thought Smart. 'It's not likely that a Minister of the Crown will tolerate a scandal like that getting into the newspapers.'

He felt quite jovial, as he struck a match and lit his cigar. If Gammage had had anything to do with the affair, he'd been euchred, and if he hadn't, it would furnish him with food for thought, until the Major's return.

The train was now running upon a level track at greater speed. Melbourne no longer oppressed the Major. Gammage and the office were miles away, and he was on his own, for a week at any rate. He began to feel quite young and light-hearted, as the reaction took possession of his mind. Mrs. Smart was of the cold, diffident, kiss-me-not-please class of wives. Husbands of such women are apt to be somewhat erratic when they are out on their own, and it was so with Boswell Smart.

At the next station, a well-dressed girl of about twenty stepped into the carriage corridor. The Major actually brushed past her as he went to get a whisky at the bar. It was Julia Careless, daughter of the publican at Seldom Seen. She remembered having seen Major Smart up that way once before. She had a good memory for faces, but could not recall his name, so she took the seat exactly opposite the one he had vacated.

On his return, the Major, with a pleasant smile, said: 'Madam, this is a smoking carriage.'

'I am used to tobacco, and the other carriages are full,' replied the girl.

The Major bowed, put the window half down, to free the carriage of any surplus smoke, and lit another cigar.

Then he talked and laughed with Julia Careless all the way to Reefton.

He found her quite communicative. She knew Jeremiah Rex and guessed she could find out where Joe Chandler was camped. She had reserved a box seat with Charley Bousak, the driver of the Seldom Seen coach, and if he wanted the other one he had better book it the moment they got in. She informed the Major that she was stopping at Miss Marcon's hotel, which was the best in Reefton, and as the coach started before six in the morning, she would advise him to stay there too. Presently the train slowed down and stopped at the Reefton station.

'Dear me, how quickly the time has gone,' exclaimed the Major. At which Miss Careless blushed, smiled, and said it had.

Reefton was one of the smaller mining towns of the northern auriferous area. After securing accommodation at Miss Marcon's hotel and booking the remaining box seat on the coach, the Major strolled out to have a look around the township and to find Jeremiah Rex.

Reefton lay in a hollow, encompassed by gullies leading from the surrounding hills into the one main thoroughfare of the tiny township. They mostly bore fanciful names, as Wattle Gully, Sailor, Garden, Black-horse, Dead-man's, Charcoal, Specimen, Horse-shoe, Iron-bark, and other similar nomenclature. Up these gullies were irregular tracks or roadways leading to various mines or claims; or in some cases farms or dwellings.

The little cottages and gardens, mostly home-built on half-acre blocks held by miners'-rights, were located within a couple of miles' radius; while here and there were the more pretentious residences of some store-keeper, manager, dredge-boss, or engineer.

The Major could see only three modern, two-storied houses. One was the residence of the landed proprietor, and was known as The Grange; another that of the manager and part proprietor of the Bobby Burns Gold-mine, and the third that of Jeremiah Rex, the portly manager of the Blackhorse Gully Gold-mine.

The town made no pretentions to beauty of situation or architectural grace. Its churches and schools, town-hall and post-office, were sprinkled along the main street, or haphazard up adjoining gullies. With one exception, they were mostly squat, ugly buildings, and scattered among them were the gaunt ruins of old-time habitations crumbling to decay. There were unoccupied hotels, a dilapidated Bank building, a couple of defunct two-storied brick mills with lofty chimneys, some unroofed dwelling houses and vacant allotments of land showing the outcrop of old foundations; all of which revealed to the passer-by the fact that like the big world, of which it formed so small a part, Reefton had a past.

It was from the low hills, however, which upheaved from the hollow through which the creek ran, that this past was most in evidence. From a neighbouring height, the surroundings of the town had the appearance of stretches of newly ploughed ground; but closer scrutiny showed that the brown barrenness was caused by the whole country having been denuded of its surface soil and vegetation by early gold sluicers; by whom the shallow alluvial soil had been washed into the creeks and gullies in the search for gold.

Forty years before, Reefton had been a marvellously rich alluvial gold field. A one man's claim had pegged only eight yards by eight, and out of such small areas, gold to the value of hundreds sterling had been taken. Men had gathered there by thousands, money had flowed like water. Pipes were lit with bank notes, horses shod with gold, and all the vagaries of easily won wealth had been freely indulged in.

With the working out of the precious metal the frenzy passed, and with it most of the inhabitants. At the time of Major Smart's visit, Reefton had dropped down to normal temperature, and its means of living were a couple of mines, some fossicking, hydraulic sluicing, and the dredges which worked the creeks and gullies for the gold still to be found in the tailings left by the rough and ready operations of earlier days.

But the feature of Reefton was the deep mine and crushing plant of the Bobby Burns Gold Mining Company, the roar of whose forty head of nine hundred pound stamps sounded, for a mile or more around the district, like the monotonous beat of ocean waves. The smoke-stack of the mine rose in the very centre of the town, and its battery-house stood up the main street, in close proximity to the principal store-keepers', butchers', and bakers' shops.

Here, where the lofty poppet-heads carrying the winding gear rose in the very centre of the town, the roar of the battery was deafening. In the bar of the Miners' Arms Hotel, a stranger could scarcely hear himself speak. But that battery was the pulsating heart of Reefton, and the prosperity of the place was gauged by the number of shifts during which its hoarse roar was heard, as it pounded the yellow gold out of the hard white quartz; for it crushed not only for itself, but for the Black Horse Gully mine. If it was silent in the daytime there was general apprehension. The mine paid, even on the low grade ore obtained from the higher levels of the Bobby Burns; but every true Reeftonite believed that when the mine was sunk to the two thousand foot level, Reefton would become the queen city of the Southern State.

But it was the Black Horse Gully mine which, after all, was the main support of Reefton. It worked three eight hour shifts six days a week, and employed in various ways four hundred men. The proprietor-manager of that mine was King of Reefton.

Jeremiah Rex was of Cornish extraction and a Methodist of the Methodists. The Major described him afterward to Will Monckton as a short, stoutish, rough-spoken man, with a broad red face, small eyes, a large flat nose and square-set chin. But he had made money and knew how to keep it, and under his autocratic rule Reefton lived and moved and had its being. Not that Jeremiah Rex was a bad man. He was far from it. At the head of his church, he superintended the Sunday School, fixed the amount of the seat rents, and threatened defaulters to the church funds or non-attendants with no work at the mine unless they mended their ways. But he would brook no rival, and in consequence quarrels in the community over Municipal and other matters were bitter and prolonged.

He tolerated other churches in the town, but they must not make themselves too prominent. He would even make use of them to promote the welfare of societies of which he had control; but from the Mayor to the policeman, and the post-mistress to the lamplighter, he claimed, and for years received, obsequious deference.

It need hardly be said, that the sayings and doings of Captain Rex (for so he was called, after the fashion of mining men in Cornwall) furnished Reefton with a constant topic for talk. Above ground or below, the opinions and the doings of the Black Horse mine manager and his family supplied an unfailing subject for conversation; and truth to tell, he and his family furnished ample material for town talk.

This little mining township, by the way, was something of a new experience to Smart, as it would have been to thousands of other people in the Commonwealth; for the popular idea that an Australian must needs know Australia is a tremendous fallacy. It is a great and wide land: a land of mysterious and awful distances; and the bulk of those who inhabit it are located in a few big towns, or sparsely scattered upon the Eastern seaboard.

That night, with a full moon shining brightly on the one broad street of Reefton, thronged now with miners and their wives and sons and daughters, who had come in for recreation—or as they laughingly said: 'To do the block '—it seemed to the Major, as he smoked alone upon the hotel veranda that a strange parable ebbed and flowed in front of him.

That broad street was the high road for traffic between the capital of Commerce in the North, and that of Government and Aristocracy in the South, and as the great crushing mill roared and thundered, and the careless crowd streamed to and fro, heedless of the noise through long familiarity, imperious imagination again gripped the Major's mind, and that one street of the diminutive town seemed to him the inlet and outlet of two eternities.

But it was not for long that serious thoughts possessed the mind of Boswell Smart, for, through Jeremiah Rex, the news of his arrival had gone around the township, and presently the local lawyer, the doctor, a couple of mining managers, and one or two others boarding in the hotel, made his acquaintance, and fixed up a card party with the intention of easing the new arrival of some of his superfluous cash—it seems as though gambling was of necessity indigenous in such places as this—but they did not know the Major. Before he turned into bed, at two o'clock in the morning, he had won ten pounds from them!

As he said 'good-night' to the doctor, he told him confidentially that when he came up the country, mine inspecting, it was usual for him to make the natives pay his costs.

'Don't you think you're rather drunk, sir?' stammered the doctor.