Читать книгу The Last Chance: A Tale of the Golden West - Rolf Boldrewood - Страница 4

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As a Commissioner of Goldfields, and Police Magistrate, in New South Wales, it is hardly necessary to say that Arnold Banneret’s pay was not conspicuously in advance of the necessaries of life. Necessaries which may be thus catalogued: a couple of decent ride-and-drive horses, a light, much-enduring buggy, clothes and books, boots and shoes, bread and butter, for half-a-dozen growing boys and girls—with an occasional trip to the seaside, and a regularly recurring doctor’s bill; while the Rev. Mr.Wilson’s quarterly accounts for the eldest boy’s board and tuition had also a knack of turning up inconveniently soon, as it appeared to paterfamilias, after his departure to school.

He was leaning against the corner of the police barrack, having just returned from a long official ride with Inspector Falcon, revolving the question of ways and means, or else the conflicting evidence in a knotty, complicated mining case, upon which he had reserved his decision. He had invested all the money he could spare (this was before the [2] latest mining Act) in a promising claim, which had turned out worthless. His tradespeople, usually forbearing, had suddenly disclosed monetary pressure—requiring to be relieved by cash payment. Altogether, the outlook was overclouded—there was even a presage of storm and stress.

The Inspector had departed to dress for dinner, invited thereto by a wandering globe-trotter, known to his family in England. The Commissioner’s clerk, newly married, had gone home to his wife the moment the clock struck four—indeed, a few minutes earlier.

It was growing late; the minor officials had retired to their several quarters. His horse was finishing the corn which had been graciously ordered for him by the Inspector, and, strange to say, though in the centre of a populous goldfield, a feeling of loneliness and silence, almost oppressive, commenced to manifest itself.

He was about to bridle his horse, and depart for his home, a few miles distant from the goldfields ‘township’ of Barrawong, where ten thousand miners with their families, tradespeople, officials, and camp-followers generally, had made provisional homes, when his eye was attracted by a man at some distance, walking slowly towards him. A footsore tramp, evidently—‘remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.’ As he approached, Banneret’s experienced eye told him that the man before him had been ill—probably short of food—had broken down on the road, and was now straining every nerve to get to town, probably to be admitted into the Public [3] Hospital, so often a haven of rest and refreshment to the invalid wayfarer. When the ‘traveller,’ as a nomadic labourer is termed in Australia, came up to the barrack, the Commissioner was shocked at his emaciated appearance and deathlike pallor. His hollow cheeks and bloodshot eyes proclaimed a struggle with weakness, dangerously protracted. His patched and threadbare garments told a tale of want and absolute poverty, rare in this land of careless plenty and comparative extravagance. It appeared as if the succour might even now come too late, as to sailors stricken with that mysterious malady of the sea, which decimates long-exiled crews, landing them only to die, with the scent in their nostrils of the freshly turned loam. As he came within a few paces of the Commissioner, he staggered and almost fell. That official sprang forward and caught him by the arm. ‘Why, Jack Waters!’ he said—‘I should hardly have known you. What have you been doing to yourself?’

‘It’s what’s left of me,’ said the exhausted man, hardly able to speak, it would seem, and trying as he did so to manage a sickly smile—a most melancholy attempt. ‘Where I’ve been and what I’ve gone through’s a long story; you might be in it towards the end, so we’d better come into the “Reefer’s Arms” (old Bill Barker’s alive yet, I suppose) and talk it over a bit. You know me, Mr.Banneret, this years and years, and you always found me straight, didn’t you?’

‘Certainly I have; I never thought anything [4] to the contrary. But what’s this great affair you want me to hear about? Won’t it do to-morrow? Stay at Barker’s to-night; I’ll shout your night’s lodging, you know.’

‘To-morrow mightn’t do, sir; and if you’ll take a fool’s advice, you’ll get his back room to sit in, where we can yarn without people hearin’ all we say, and do a bit o’ business, comfortable like. And it is business, my word! You don’t hear the like every day.’

The Commissioner, as became his office, was not in the habit of hobnobbing with miners promiscuously. He was reserved of manner, more affable indeed to the ordinary miners than to his equals, whom he treated with scant courtesy—particularly if his temper was ruffled.

But this man was an exceptional inhabitant of the gold region. Having known him for many years, he was in a position to prove against all comers that he was one of the most energetic, honest, capable workers that he had ever known upon this or other goldfields.

When about to be sold up, through no fault of his own, having gone security for a friend, the Commissioner came forward and provided a guarantee. This prevented the forced sale, after which Jack had a stroke of luck, and repaid every farthing. Since this occurrence he had been what the Commissioner called ‘ridiculously grateful.’

Departing from his ordinary custom, and walking into the ‘Reefer’s Arms,’ he asked the landlord, a burly ex-miner, popularly known as Bill the [5] Puddler, ‘if there was any one in the inner parlour?’

‘The shareholders in the “Blue Lookout” had it all the morning—a-settling after their last wash-up—but they’ve just cleared, and you can set there, quiet and comfortable, Commissioner. Why, what’s the matter with you, Jack?’ he continued, looking with sudden interest at the worn limbs and sunken features of the digger.

‘Had the fever at Ding Dong. Want the Commissioner to get me into the hospital—going to make my will first. Send us in a bottle o’ beer, and a bite o’ bread and cheese, and don’t yabber.’

As he spoke, the exhausted man reeled rather than walked along the passage leading to an inner apartment, and opening the door with a show of familiarity, threw himself upon the well-worn sofa, which, with a few chairs of various patterns, and a serviceable table, made up the furniture of the room. Then he closed his eyes as if about to faint.

Mr.Banneret walked quickly towards him, but he put up his hand warningly, and murmured, ‘All right directly. Wake up when Bill’s a-coming; that’s what’s the matter.’

Although the wayfarer closed his eyes and lay as if insensible, he raised himself when the host appeared a few minutes later, and assumed an air of comparative alertness.

That it was a miserable assumption Mr.Barker appeared to divine, as he drew the cork, and poured out two glasses of the bitter beer, departing without [6] further comment, and casting as he went a searching glance at the miner who was so ‘infernally down on his luck,’ as he would have phrased it. His footsteps had no sooner ceased to be audible, after reaching the end of the corridor, than the miner drained his glass, with a sigh of deepest satisfaction, saying, ‘Here’s luck this time. Would you mind lockin’ the door careful, sir? It’ll save my bones a bit, and they won’t stand much. You’ll see my dart directly.’

This precaution being duly carried out, he proceeded to unbutton a tattered woollen shirt. Below this was another in rather more careful preservation. Placing his hand in the region of his belt he produced a long canvas package, which had been secured to it, and which fitted closely round his body above the hips.

‘Blest if I didn’t think it was goin’ to cut me in two this last week,’ he said, throwing it on the table; ‘it rubbed me awful, and I dursn’t take it off and give any one a show to collar it. There was rough coves where it come from, you bet, as would have had a man’s life for half the stuff that’s there. Please to open it, sir. Take your knife to the stitchin’; it ain’t been touched since I put it in.’

The end being ripped open, and part of the side of the twine-stitched casing, the quartz specimens thus released rolled out on the table. They were rich indeed—almost fabulously so.

The Commissioner’s experienced eye gleamed, and even the sunken orbs of the miner showed a fresh, though faint glimmer, as the pale stones [7] ‘strung together with gold,’ in miner’s parlance, lay heaped together.

‘And do you mean to say, with five hundred pounds worth of specimens and nuggets in your pocket’—here he took up a small lump of pure gold—‘a five-ounce bit, if it’s anything—you nearly starved yourself to death—nearly died on the road? Hang it, man! you’ve run it too fine altogether.’

‘Couldn’t help it, Commissioner. What was I to do? You know what a new rush is like. Wouldn’t they have tracked me up, and pegged over the ground, if they’d known I’d gold about me? I’d have lost my year’s work—hard work, and lonely—starving myself all the while; perhaps had a crack on the head as well. And then where’d we been? For I’m going to give you a half share, Commissioner, if you’ll see me through, so’s I can go back, and take up the lease proper and shipshape. I hadn’t a shillin’ when I come away from the find, nor an ounce of flour, nor a bit of sugar; meat I hadn’t seen for a month; I was afraid to go for it. So I gammoned sick when I come in. It didn’t take any painting to do that. Said I’d been doin’ a “perish” in the ranges (wrong direction, of course), and was all broke up. Begged most of the way back—many a long mile, too—and here I am!’

‘Take another glass of beer,’ said the Commissioner, ‘and finish the bread and cheese. I’m going to dine. And now what do you want me to do?’

‘You’ll find me five hundred pound, [8] Commissioner; less won’t do. It’s a long way to travel, but that says nothin’. That’ll about fix up the lease deposits—the rations, cart and horses—and what’s wanted for me and a mate. That’s all I’ll take if I can get a good one that can work and hold his tongue. I’ll transfer half my share in the lease to you, and a better day’s work you never done in your life. You see this—it’s nothing to what’s below. I covered the reef up. Sixteen foot wide, good walls, thick with gold, reg’lar jeweller’s shop.’

‘Well, of course, you know, I’ve heard all this before. Heard it all, and more too. Seen specimens as good as these, and better; and what did it all come to? Duffered out inside of three months, and never paid for candles.’

‘I’ve been diggin’ nigh hard thirty year—been a “forty-niner,” and so help me, God Almighty! I never dropped across a show like this afore—or within miles of it—for the real, solid stuff.’

‘Well, but five hundred pounds is a large sum. I’m not a rich man, you all know. It gives me enough to do to pay the butcher and baker. I should have to give security over everything I possess to raise it. Mr.Bright, the banker, would not advance it without security, to save my life, I had almost said. He dared not do it, for one thing.’

‘Now, look here, Commissioner! did you ever know me tell a lie? I drink a bit, sometimes, but’—and here the wasted form was straightened with an effort, and the hollow eyes gazed into the magistrate’s face with an intensity almost appalling—‘no [9] living man can say that Jack Waters told a lie, or hid the truth. When I say I saw and touched, by the Lord Almighty! what ’ud make you and me, and a dozen more, rich for life, won’t you believe me?’ and here, as if exhausted by the temporary excitement, the old man sank upon his knees, and raising his hands, as if in prayer, cried aloud, ‘For God’s sake, Commissioner! for the sake of your wife and children, go into this thing with me, or you’ll repent it to the last day of your life.’

Arnold Banneret gazed at the kneeling figure, stood for one minute in earnest thought, and then said: ‘All right, I’ll risk it. We’d better call it “The Last Chance,” for if it fails, I’m a ruined man.’

‘You’ll never be ruined this side of the grave, sir,’ said the miner, as he slowly rose to his feet. ‘If you mortgage the shirt on your back, and the shoes off your feet, it’s the best day’s work you ever did. I’ve seen a man write a cheque for a half share in the No.1 British Hill, as was offered him on the ground floor. He jibbed on it, and tore up the cheque. He knows now that he tore up a fortune that day. But you’ll be right, Commissioner. There’s no go-back in you, I know from old times.’

‘True enough, Jack; I don’t change my line. Well, we must get to business. I’ll have an agreement drawn up, in case of accidents, as well as a transfer of the half share in the claim—I’ll find the five hundred pounds. By the bye, there’s another thing—how about the grog?’

[10] ‘From the day I leave here, sir, I don’t touch a drop, if it was to save my life, till the first crushing’s out. Then you’ll have enough to pay managers and wages men, enough to run a town—you can do without poor old Jack Waters, even if he does break out, and something tells me he won’t—till the biggest part of the thing’s through. What’s more, I’ll make my will, and leave you the whole boiling, so if anything should happen to me, you’ll have the lot.’

‘That’s unnecessary. I couldn’t take your share, in any case, on any account. Your relations ought to come first, you know.’

‘Relations?’ echoed the old man, with a strange laugh. ‘When I ran away from home in Cornwall, I had only two people as cared to own me—my poor mother, the fellow that married her, and killed her with ill usage. She’s dead years ago, and he’s in—well, I won’t say where—he might have repented, you know. There’s no living soul claimed kin with me when I was poor, and I’m not going to give ’em a chance when I’m rich. No, you shall have the lot, to do what you like with, when poor old Jack takes up his last claim in the alluvial. And now I’ll have a bath, a square meal, and a good sleep till to-morrow, while you take charge of these specimens, and work the Bank business—Mr.Bright is a good sort, and he’ll spring a bit if he sees his way.’

.........

The Commissioner proceeded to his office, where he carefully locked up the precious stones—precious in every sense of the word—in the [11] Government safe. He made a second inspection, after which his brow cleared, and the usual confident expression returned to his features. Before leaving for his home he had a private interview with his banker, who was fully acquainted with his pecuniary position.

‘How do, Banneret? pleased to see you; your quarter’s pay has just come in. That’s all right as far as it goes—so you want five hundred pounds for a mining venture? Rather a speculation, of course. But we’re all in that line here, worse luck. I dropped a hundred over that rascally “Blue Lookout”—blue enough it turned out—and there’s “Flash in the Pan” that I nearly bought into, paying a whacking dividend, and getting better as it goes down. You’ll give security, of course? What is it?’

‘Every mortal thing I’ve got—cows and horses, buggy and harness, furniture, saddles and bridles. Everything but the wife and children. You may put the whole lot into a Bill of Sale, and sell me up if the thing goes wrong.’

‘Hum! ha! We’ll see about that. But of course the directors look at the security, and slang me if I give you an over-draft without it. I’ll have it ready to-morrow. The show’s extra good, I suppose?’

‘Out and out; never saw anything like it.’

‘Yes—of course, I know, and as safe as houses. They all are. Well, good-bye; I wish you luck. You won’t stay and dine with me?’

‘Thanks very much. I must go home’; and they parted—the banker to dine at the hotel [12] ordinary, and forget his business worries over a game of billiards afterwards; the Commissioner to ride home in the dark, revolving in his mind the pros and cons of the most risky speculation in which he had embarked for a while—after indeed resolving that never again would he risk a penny in those infernal gambling, deceitful, fascinating gold shares which, like the Sirens of old, lured the unwary to destruction, sooner or later.