Читать книгу The Ghost Camp - Rolf Boldrewood, Rolf Boldrewood - Страница 2

Mr. Blount, as he sat before the fire, enjoying his final pipe before retiring for the night, was free to confess that he had rarely spent a more satisfactory evening – even in the far-famed, old-fashioned, road-side inns of old England. The night was cold – Carter’s forecast had been accurate. It was a hard frost, such as his short stay in a coast city had not acquainted him with. The wide bush fire-place, with a couple of back logs, threw out a luxurious warmth, before which, in a comfortable arm-chair, he had been reading the weekly paper with interest.

The well-cooked, juicy steak, the crisp potatoes, the apple-pie with bounteous cream, constituted a meal which a keen-edged appetite rendered sufficient for all present needs. The difficult ride and too hazardous adventure constituted a fair day’s work – being indeed sufficiently fatiguing to justify rest without bordering on exhaustion. It was a case of jam satis.

He looked forward to an enjoyable night’s sleep, was even aware of a growing sense of relief that he was not required to take the road next morning. The cob would be better for a few days’ rest, before doing more mountain work. He would like also to ramble about this neighbourhood, and see what the farms and sluicing claims were like. And a better base of operations than the Bunjil Hotel, no man need desire.

He had gone to the stable with Carter, as became a prudent horse-owner, where he had seen the cob comfortably bedded down for the night with a plenteous supply of sweet-smelling oaten hay before him, and an unstinted feed of maize in the manger.

“They’re all right for the night,” said Carter. “Your nag will be the better for a bit of a turn round to-morrow afternoon, just to keep his legs from swellin’. I’ll be off about sunrise, and back again the fourth day, or early the next. They’ll look after you here, till then.”

Mr. Blount was of opinion that he could look after himself from what he had seen of the establishment, and said so, but “was nevertheless much obliged to him for getting him such good quarters.” So to bed, as Mr. Pepys hath it, but before doing so, he rang the bell, and questioned Sheila – for that was her name, as he had ascertained by direct inquiry – as to the bath arrangements.

“I shall want a cold bath at half-past seven – a shower bath, for choice. Is there one?”

“Oh, yes – but very few go in for it this time of year. The P.M. does, when he comes round, and the Goldfields Warden. It’s one of those baths that you fill and draw up over your head. Then you pull a string.”

“That will do very well.”

“All right – I’ll tell George; but won’t it be very cold? It’s a hard frost to-night.”

“No – the colder it is, the warmer you feel after it.”

“Well, good-night, sir! Breakfast at half-past eight o’clock. Is that right? Would you like sausages, boiled eggs and toast?”

“Yes! nothing could be better. My appetite seems improving already.”

The Kookaburra chorus, and the flute accompaniment of the magpies in the neighbouring tree tops, awakened Mr. Blount, who had not so much as turned round in bed since about five minutes after he had deposited himself between the clean lavender-scented sheets. Looking out, he faintly discerned the dawn light, and also that the face of the country was as white as if it had been snowing. He heard voices in the verandah, and saw Little-River-Jack’s horse led out, looking as fresh as paint. That gentleman, lighting his pipe carefully, mounted and started off at a fast amble up the road which skirted the range, and led towards a gap in the hills. Mr. Blount thought it would be as well to wait until Sheila had the fire well under way, by which he intended to toast himself after the arctic discipline of the shower bath, with the thermometer at 28 degrees Fahrenheit.

The bi-weekly mail had providentially arrived at breakfast time, bringing in its bags the local district newspaper, and a metropolitan weekly which skimmed the cream from the cables and telegrams of the day. This was sufficiently interesting to hold him to the arm-chair, in slippered ease, for the greater part of an hour, while he lingered over his second cup of tea.

His boots, renovated from travel stains and mud, standing ready, he determined on a stroll, and took counsel with Sheila, as to a favourable locality.

The damsel was respectful, but conversed with him on terms of perfect conversational equality. She had also been fairly educated, and was free from vulgarity of tone or accent. To him, straight from the old country, a distinctly unfamiliar type worth studying.

“Where would you advise me to go for a walk?” he said. “It’s good walking weather, and I can’t sit in the house this fine morning, though you have made such a lovely fire.”

“I should go up the creek, and have a look at the sluicing claim. People say it’s worth seeing. You can’t miss it if you follow up stream, and you’ll hear the ‘water gun’ a mile before you come to it.”

“‘Water gun?’ What ever is that?”

“Oh! it’s the name of a big hose with a four-inch nozzle at the end. They lead the water for the race into it, and then turn it against the creek bank; that undermines tons of the stuff they want to sluice – you’ll hear it coming down like a house falling!”

“And what becomes of it then?”

“Oh! it goes into the tail-race, and after that it’s led into the riffles and troughs – the water keeps driving along, and they’ve some way of washing the clay and gravel out, and leaving the gold behind.”

“And does it pay well?”

“They say so. It only costs a penny a ton to wash, or something like that. It’s the cheapest way the stuff can be treated. Our boys saw it used in California, and brought it over here.”

So, after taking a last fond look at the cob, and wishing he could exchange him for Keewah, but doubting if any amount of boot would induce Carter to part with his favourite, he set out along the bank of the river and faced the uplands.

His boots were thick, his heart was light – the sun illumined the frost-white trunks, and diamond-sprayed branches of the pines and eucalypts – the air was keen and bracing. “What a glorious thing it is to be alive on a day like this,” he told himself. “How glad I am that I decided to leave Melbourne!” As he stepped along with all the elasticity of youth’s high health and boundless optimism, he marked the features of the land. There were wheel-tracks on this road, which he was pleased to note. Though the soil was rich, and also damp at the base of the hills and on the flats, it was sound, so that with reasonable care he was enabled to keep his feet dry. He saw pools from which the wild duck flew on his approach. A blue crane, the heron of Australia (Ardea) rose from the reeds; while from time to time the wallaroo (the kangaroo of the mountain-side) put in appearance to his great delight.

The sun came out, glorifying the wide and varied landscape and the cloudless azure against which the snow-covered mountain summits glittered like silver coronets. Birds of unknown note and plumage called and chirped. All Nature, recovering from the cold and darkness of the night, made haste to greet the brilliant apparition of the sun god.

Keeping within sight of the creek – the course of which he was pledged to follow – he became aware of a dull monotonous sound, which he somehow connected with machinery. It was varied by occasional reports like muffled blasts, as of the fall of heavy bodies. “That is the sluicing claim,” he told himself, “and I shall see the wonderful ‘water gun,’ which Sheila told me of. Quite an adventure!” The claim was farther off than he at first judged, but after climbing with stout heart a “stey brae,” he looked down on the sluicing appliances, and marvelled at the inventive ingenuity which the gold industry had developed. Before him was a ravine down which a torrent of water was rushing with great force and rapidity, bearing along in its course clay, gravel, quartz, and even boulders of respectable size.

He was civilly received by the claim-holders; the manager – an ex-Californian miner – remarking, “Yes, sir, I’m a ‘forty-niner,’ – worked at Suttor’s Mill first year gold was struck there. This is a pretty big thing, though it ain’t a circumstance to some I’ve seen in Arizona and Colorado. This water’s led five hundred feet from these workings. See it play on the face of the hill-side yonder – reckon we’ve cut it away two hundred feet from grass.”

Mr. Blount looked with amazement at the thin, vicious, thread of water, which, directed against the lower and middle strata of the mass of ferruginous slate, had laid bare the alluvium through which ran an ancient river, silted up and overlaid for centuries. The course of this long dead and buried stream could be traced by the water-worn boulders and the smoothness of the rocks which had formed its bed. Where he stood, there had been a fall of forty feet as shown by the formation of the rocky channel.

The manager civilly directed the “gunner” to lower the weapon, and aim it at a spot nearer to where Blount was standing. He much marvelled to see the stones torn from the “face” and sent flying in the air, creating a fair-sized geyser where the water smote the cliff. In this fashion of undermining hundreds of tons are brought down from time to time, to be driven by the roaring torrent into the “tail-race,” whence they pass into the “sluice-box,” and so on to the creek, leaving the gold behind in the riffle bars.

“I suppose it’s not an expensive way of treating the ore in the rough?” queried Blount.

“I reckon not. Cheapest way on airth. The labour we pay at present only comes to one man to a thousand yards. This company has been paying dividends for fifteen years!”

Mr. Blount thanked the obliging American, who, like all respectable miners, was well-mannered to strangers, the sole exception being in the case of a party that have “struck gold” in a secluded spot, and naturally do not desire all the world to know about it. But even they are less rude than evasive.

He looked at his watch and decided that he had not more than enough time to get back to Bunjil in time for lunch. So he shook hands with Mr. Hiram Endicott and set out for that nucleus of civilisation.

Making rather better time on the return journey, he arrived much pleased with himself, considering that he had accomplished an important advance in bush-craft and mineralogy.

Sheila welcomed him in a clean print dress, with a smiling face, but expressed a faint surprise at his safe return, and at his having found the road to the sluice-working, and back.

“Why! how could I lose the way?” he demanded, justly indignant. “Was not the creek a sufficiently safe guide?”

“Oh! it can be done,” answered the girl archly. “There was a gentleman followed the creek the wrong way, and got among the ranges before he found out his mistake; and another one – he was a newspaper editor – thought he’d make a near cut, found himself miles lower down, and didn’t get back before dark. My word! how hungry he was, and cross too!”

“Well, I’m not very hungry or even cross – but I’m going to wash my hands, after which lunch will be ready, I suppose?”

“You’ve just guessed it,” she replied. “You’ll have tea, I suppose?”

“Certainly. Whether Australia was created to develop the tea and sugar industry, or tea to provide a portable and refreshing beverage for the inhabitants to work, and travel, or even fight on, is not finally decided, but they go wondrous well together.”

After an entirely satisfactory lunch, Mr. Blount bethought him of the cob – and knowing, as do all Englishmen, that to do your duty to your neighbour when he is a horse, you must exercise him at least once a day, he sent for George, and requested that he should be brought forth. In a few moments the valuable animal arrived, looking quite spruce and spirited, with coat much smoother and mane tidied; quite like an English covert hack, as Mr. Blount told himself. His legs had filled somewhat, but the groom assured Blount that that was nothing, and would go off.

Taking counsel of the landlord on this occasion, that worthy host said, “Would you like to see an old hand about here that could tell you a few stories about the early days?”

“Like?” answered Mr. Blount with effusion, “nothing better.” It was one of his besetting virtues to know all about the denizens of any place – particularly if partly civilised – wherever he happened to sojourn for a season. It is chiefly a peculiarity of the imaginative-sympathetic nature whereby much knowledge of sorts is acquired – sometimes. But there is a reverse side to the shield.

“George! Ge-or-ge!” shouted the landlord, “catch the old mare and bring her round. Look slippy!”

George fled away like the wind, with a sieve and a bridle in his hand, and going to the corner of a small grass paddock, under false pretences induced an elderly bay mare to come up to him (there being no corn in the sieve), then he basely slipped the reins over her head and led her away captive.

The landlord reappeared with a pair of long-necked spurs buckled on to his heels, and getting swiftly into the saddle, started the old mare off at a shuffling walk. She was a character in her way. Her coat was rough, her tail was long, there was a certain amount of hair on her legs, and yes! she was slightly lame on the near fore-leg. But her eye was bright, her shoulder oblique; and as she reined up at a touch of the rusty snaffle and stuck out her tail, Arab fashion, she began to show class, Mr. Blount thought.

“She’ll be all right, directly,” said the landlord, noticing Mr. Blount’s scrutiny of the leg, “I never know whether it’s rheumatism, or one of her dodges – she’s as sound as a bell after a mile.” To add to her smart appearance, she had no shoes.

They passed quickly through cornfields and meadow lands, rich in pasture, and showing signs of an occasional heavy crop. The agriculture was careless, as is chiefly the case where Nature does so much that man excuses himself for doing little. A cottage on the south side of the road surrounded by a well-cultivated orchard furnished the exception which proves the rule. Mr. Middleton opened the rough but effective gate, with a patent self-closing latch, without dismounting from his mare, who squeezed her shoulder against it, as if she thought she could open it herself. “Steady!” said her owner – “this gate’s not an uphill one – she’ll push up a gate hung to slam down hill as if she knew who made it. She does know a lot of things you wouldn’t expect of her.” Holding the gate open till Mr. Blount and the cob were safely through, he led the way to the cottage, from which issued a tall, upright, elderly man, with a distinctly military bearing.

“This is Mr. Blount, Sergeant,” said the host, “staying at my place for a day or two – just from England, as you see! I told him you knew all about this side, and the people in it – old hands, and new.”

“Ay! the people – the people!” said the old man meditatively. “The land’s a’ richt – fresh and innocent, just as God made it, but the people! the de’il made them on purpose to hide in these mountains and gullies, and show what manner of folk could grow up in a far country, where they were a law unto themselves.”

“There was wild work in those days before you came up, Sergeant, I believe!” asserted the landlord, tentatively.

“Ay! was there,” and the old light began to shine in the trooper’s eyes. “Battle, murder, and sudden death, every kind of villany that the wicked heart of man could plan, or his cruel hand carry out. But you’ll come ben and tak’ a cup of tea? The weather’s gey and cauld the noo.”

Mr. Blount would be only too pleased. So the horses were “hung up” to the neat fence of the garden, and the visitors walked into the spotless, neat parlour.

“Sit ye doon,” said the Sergeant – “Beenie, bring in tea, and some scones.” A fresh-coloured country damsel, who presently appeared bearing a jug of milk and the other requisites, had evidently been within hearing. “My wife and bairns are doon country,” he explained, “or she would have been prood to mak’ you welcome, sir. I’m by ma lane the noo – but she’ll be back next week, thank God; it’s awfu’ lonesome, when she’s awa.”

“You knew Coke, Chamberlain, and Armstrong, all that crowd – didn’t you, Sergeant?” queried the landlord.

“That did I – and they knew me before I’d done with them, murdering dogs that they were! People used to say that I’d never die in my bed. That this one or that had sworn to shoot me – or roast me alive if they could tak’ me. But I never gave them a chance. I was young and strong in those days – as active as a mountain cat in my Hieland home, and could ride for twenty-four hours at a stretch, if I had special wark in hand. Old Donald Bane here could tell fine tales if he could talk” – pointing to a grand-looking old grey, feeding in a patch of lucerne. “The General let me have him when he was cast, that’s ten years syne. We got our pensions then, and we’re just hanging it out thegither.”

“I suppose there are no bad characters in this neighbourhood now, Sergeant?” said Blount. “Everything looks very quiet and peaceful.”

“I wouldna say that,” answered the veteran, cautiously. “There’s many a mile of rough country, between here and the Upper Sturt, and there’s apt to be rough characters to match the country. Cattle are high, too. A dozen head of fat cattle comes to over a hundred pound – that’s easy earned if they’re driven all night, and sold to butchers that have one yard at the back of a range, and another in the stringy-bark township, to take the down off.”

“Yet one wouldn’t think such things could be carried on easily in this part of the country – where there seem to be so many watchful eyes; but I must have a longer ride this lovely morning, so I shall be much obliged if you and our host here will dine with me at seven o’clock, when we can have leisure to talk. You’re all by yourself, Sergeant, you know, so there’s no excuse.”

The Sergeant accepted with pleasure; the host was afraid he would be too busy about the bar at the dinner hour, but would look in afterwards, before the evening was spent. So it was settled, and the recent acquaintances rode away.

“What a fine old fellow the Sergeant is!” said Blount; “how wonderfully neat and trim everything inside the house and out is kept.”

“You’ll generally notice that about a place when the owner has been in the police; the inspector blows up the troopers if there is a button off, or a boot not cleaned. You’d think they’d let a prisoner go, to hear him talk. Barracks – stable – carbine – horse – all have to be neat and clean, polished up to the nines. Once they get the habit of that they never leave it off, and after they settle down in a country place, as it might be here, they set a good example to the farmers and bush people.”

“So the police force promotes order in more ways than one – they root out dishonesty and crime as well – they’re a grand institution of the country.”

“Well, yes, they are,” assented the landlord without enthusiasm, “though they’re not all built the way the Sergeant is. I don’t say but what they’re a trifle hard on publicans now and again for selling a drink to a traveller on a Sunday. But if it’s the law, they’re bound to uphold it. We’d be a deal worse off without them, and that’s the truth.”

Blount and the landlord rode down the course of the stream with much interest, as far as the Englishman was concerned. For the other, the landscape was a thing of course. The rich meadow land which bordered the stream – the far blue mountains – the fat bullocks and sleek horses feeding in the fields – the sheep on their way to market, were to him an ancient and settled order of things, as little provocative of curiosity as if they had existed from the foundation of the world. He had been familiar from childhood with them, or with similar stock and scenery.

But the stranger’s interest and constant inquiry were unceasing. Everything was new to him. The fences, the crops, the maize, of which the tall stems were still standing in their rows, though occasionally stripped and thrown down by the pigs which were rooting among them and gleaning the smaller cobs left behind in the harvest plucking. A certain carelessness of husbandry was noticed by the critic from over sea. The hedges were mostly untrimmed, the plough too often left in the furrow; the weeds, “thick-coming carpet after rain,” untouched by the scarifier; the fences broken, hedges indifferently trimmed.

“This sort of farming wouldn’t go down in England.”

“Perhaps not. Never was there,” replied the Australian Boniface; “but these chaps are mostly so well off, that they don’t mind losing a trifle this way, rather than have too many men to pay and feed. Labour’s cheap in England, I’m told; here it’s dear. So the farmer crowds on all he can get till harvest and shearin’s past, then he pays off all hands, except an old crawler or two, to milk cows and draw wood and water. Afterwards he hires no more till ploughing begins again.”

“There does seem to be a reason for that, and other things I have observed,” assented Mr. Blount. “I suppose in time everything will be nearer English, or perhaps American ideas. More likely the last. Machinery for everything, and no time for decent leisurely country work.”

“Yes, sir – that’s about it,” said Mr. Middleton, looking at his watch, “and now we’ve just time to get back for your lunch, and to tell my old woman that the Sergeant’s coming to dine with you.”

“Doesn’t your mare trot?” said Blount, as they moved off, “it seems to me that Australian horses have only two paces, walk and canter. She doesn’t seem lame now.”

“I think sometimes it’s only her villany; she’s going as sound as a bell now. Yes! she can trot a bit when she likes.”

The cob, a fair performer, had just started, when Mr. Middleton gave the mare’s left ear a gentle screw, which induced her to alter her pace from a slow canter to a trot. “Trot, old woman!” he said, and settling to that useful pace, she caught up the cob. Mr. Blount gradually increased his pace – the old mare kept level with him, till after a dig with the spurs, and a refresher with the hunting crop, it became apparent that the cob was “on his top,” in stable phrase, doing a fair ten or eleven miles an hour.

“Are ye trotting now?” said the landlord, taking the old mare by the head.

“Yes! oh, yes – and pretty fair going, isn’t it?”

“Not bad, but this old cripple can do better.” On which, as if she had heard the words, the old mare stretched out her neck and passed the cob “like a shot!” as her owner afterwards stated when describing the affair to an admiring audience in the bar room.

The cob, after an ineffectual attempt to keep up, was fain to break into a hand gallop, upon which the old mare was pulled up, and the rider explained that it took a professional to beat old “Slavey”; but that owing to her uncertain temper, he had been unable to “take on” aspiring amateurs, and so missed good wagers.

“You might have ‘taken me on’ for a pound or two,” said Mr. Blount, “if you had cared to back her, for I certainly should not have thought she could have beaten my cob. She doesn’t seem built for trotting – does she?”

“She is a bit of a take down,” admitted Mr. Middleton, “but I don’t bet with gentlemen as stays in my house. Though her coat’s rough, she’s a turn better bred than she looks. Got good blood on both sides, and you can drive her in single or double harness, and ride her too, as far and as fast as you like. There’s no doubt she’s a useful animal, for you can’t put her wrong.”

“You wouldn’t care to sell her?”

“No! I couldn’t part with her. My wife and the children drive her. She’s so good all round, and quiet too; and though there’s lots of horses in the district, it’s wonderful what a time it takes to pick up a real good one.”

“Quite Arab like! I was told people would sell anything in Australia, especially horseflesh. There’s the luncheon bell! Well, I’ve had a pleasant morning, and even with the prospect of dinner at seven o’clock, I feel equal to a modest meal, just to keep up the system. It’s wonderful what an appetite I’ve had lately.”

Mr. Blount fed cautiously, with an eye to dinner at no distant period. Sheila was much excited at the idea of the Sergeant coming to dine with him.

“He’s a splendid old chap,” said she. “Such tales I used to hear about him when I was a kiddie at school. Many a day when he’s been out after cattle-stealers, and bushrangers, people said he’d never come back alive. He was never afraid, though, and he made them afraid of him before he was done.”

“By the way, where did you go to school, Sheila? You speak excellent English, and you haven’t any twang or drawl, like some of the colonial girls.”

“Oh! at She-oak Flat. There was a State school there, and mother kept us at it pretty regular, rain or shine, no staying at home, whatever the weather was like or the roads, and we had three miles to walk, there and back.”

“So you didn’t go to Melbourne, or Sydney?”

“No! Never been away from Bunjil. I suppose I shall see the sea some day.”

“Never seen the sea – the sea? You astonish me!”

“Never in my life. Do I look different or anything?”

“You look very nice, and talk very well too. I begin to think the seaside’s overrated; but I must take another walk, or the landlord will think I don’t do his dinner justice. What’s it to be?”

“Well, a turkey poult for one thing; the rest you’ll see when the covers are taken off.”

“Quite right. It’s impertinent curiosity, I’m aware.”

“Oh! not that, but we’re going to astonish you, if we can.”

Upon this Mr. Blount put on his boots again; they had been splashed in the morning, and required drying. Crossing the creek upon a rustic bridge, which seemed to depend more upon a fallen tree than on any recognised plan of engineering, he turned his steps up stream, and faced the Alpine range. The afternoon, like the morning, was golden bright, though a hint of frost began to be felt in the clear keen air. The road was fairly good, and had been formed and macadamised in needful places.

It lay between the rushing creek on one side, towards which there was a considerable drop, and the line of foot-hills on the other, leaving just room for meeting vehicles to pass one another, though it needed the accurate driving of bush experts to ensure safety. Water-races, flumes, and open ditches crossed the road, testifying to the existence of gold-workings in the neighbourhood, while an occasional miner on his way to the township of Bunjil emerged from an unfrequented track and made towards, what was to him, the King’s Highway. Once he heard the tinkling of bells, when suddenly there came round a corner a train of thirty or forty pack-horses, with all manner of sacks and bags, and even boxes on their backs. There were a few mules also in the drove, to whom was accorded the privilege of leadership, as on any block or halt taking place, they pushed their way to the front, and set off up or down the track with decision, as if better instructed than the rank and file.

“Ha! ‘Bell-horses, bell-horses, what time o’ day? One o’clock, two o’clock, three and away,’ as we used to say at school. Puts one in mind of Devonshire,” murmured the tourist. “Many a keg of smuggled spirits was carried on the backs of the packers, with their bells. I daresay an occasional breach of custom-house regulations has occurred now and then if the truth were told. I wouldn’t mind being quartered here at all. It’s a droll world!” Mr. Blount’s rambles and reveries came to an end half an hour after sunset, which just left him time to get back to his hostelry, make some change for dinner, and toast himself before the fire, in anticipation of the arrival of his guest. The Sergeant arrived with military punctuality, a few minutes before the hour, having donned for the occasion a well-worn, well-brushed uniform, in which he looked like a “non-com.” recommended for the Victoria Cross.

He greeted Sheila cordially and expressed a favourable opinion as to her growth, and development, since she used to play hockey and cricket with the boys at She-oak Flat. “And right weel did she play,” he continued, addressing himself to his entertainer, “she won the half-mile race too, against all comers, didn’t you, Sheila?”

“I was pretty smart then, wasn’t I, Sergeant? Do you remember fishing me out of the creek, when I slipped off the log?”

“I mind weel, I thocht you were a swimmer, till I saw ye go down, head under; so I was fain to loup into ten feet of snow water and catch a cold that was nigh the deeth o’ me. I misdooted gin ye were worth it a’! What think ye?”

The girl shook her head at him, her dark, grey eyes bright with merriment, as she tripped out of the room, to reappear with the turkey poult before referred to. “She’s a grand lassie!” said the Sergeant, looking after her admiringly, “and as guid as she’s bonnie. The men and women that are reared among these hills are about the finest people the land turns out! The women are aye the best, it’s a pity the lads are not always sae weel guided. If there was a Hieland regiment here to draft some of thae lang-leggit lads into ilka year, it would be the making of the haill countryside.”

“Very likely there will be, some day, but do you think they would stand the discipline?”

“Deevil a doot on’t, they’re easy guided when they have gentlemen to deal with as offishers; as for scouting, and outpost duty, they’re born for it. Fighting’s just meat and drink to them, ance they get fair started.”

“English people don’t think so,” said the tourist. “They’ve always opposed the idea of having a naval reserve here, though everybody that’s lived in the country long enough to know will tell me that Sydney Harbour lads are born sailors, and if there are many of the mountain boys like my friend ‘Little-River-Jack,’ they should make the best light cavalry in the world.”

The Sergeant bent a searching eye on the speaker. “‘Little-River-Jack,’ ay, I ken the callant brawly. Ride, aye, that can he, and he’s a freend, ye say?”

“Well, I came here with him. He showed me the way, an I wouldn’t swear he didn’t save my life, coming over that Razor-back pinch, on the Divide, as he called it.”

“And so ye cam’ on the Divide wi’ him, ou, ay? And ye’re gangin’ awa’ wi’ him to see the country?”

“Yes! I hear he knows every inch of it from the head of the Sturt to the Lower Narran, besides the mountain gold diggings. I’m going to see one of them, with him, when he comes to-morrow. There’s nothing strange about that, is there?”

“I wadna say; he joost buys gold in a sma’ way, and bullocks, for the flesher-folk, aboot the heid o’ the river. There’s talk whiles that he’s ower sib with the O’Hara gang, but I dinna ken o’ my ain knowledge.”

“Not proven, I suppose – the Scottish verdict, eh! Sergeant?”

The dinner was a success. The soup was fair. The fish represented by a Murray cod, about five pound weight, truly excellent. The turkey poult, like most country-bred birds, incomparably plump and tender, was roasted to a turn. The other adjuncts in strict keeping with the pièce de résistance.

The guest declined to join his entertainer in a bottle of Reisling, preferring a glass of whisky and water. Towards the close of the entertainment the landlord was announced, who took neither wine nor whisky, excusing himself on the ground that he had already been compelled “for the good of the house” to drink with more than one customer.

“I shall have to take to a decanter of toast and water, coloured to look like sherry. This ‘What’ll you have, Boss?’ business, is getting too hot for me lately, and the men don’t like to see you afraid to taste your own liquor. But, as long as it’s something, they don’t seem to care what it is. I’ll take a cigar, though, sir, so as to be good company.”

One of the tourist’s extra quality Flor de Habanas being lighted the conversation grew more intimate, and bordering on the confidential. The Sergeant was prevailed upon to mix a tumbler of toddy, the night being cold, and the landlord, whose tongue had been previously loosened, among the choice spirits in the second dining-room, incited the Sergeant to give the company the benefit of his reminiscences.

“It’s cold enough, and a man that came in late,” said he, “could feel the frozen grass as stiff as wire. But the Sergeant’s been out many a night as bad, with nothing but his coat to sleep in, and afraid to make a fire for fear of giving away where his camp was.”

“Ay!” said the Sergeant, and his face settled into one of grim resolve, changing not suddenly, but, as it were, stage after stage.

“I mind one chase I had after an outlawed chiel that began wi’ horse-stealing, and cattle ‘duffing’ (they ca’ it in these parts), and ended in bloodshed maist foul and deleeberate. Ye’ve heard of Sub-Inspector Dayrell?”

“Should think I had,” said the landlord. “It was before I took this house; I was at Beechworth then, but every one heard of the case. He was the officer that ‘shopped’ Ned Lawless, and a young swell from the old country. There was a girl in it too. Eumeralla was where he arrested them, and everybody knew there was something ‘cronk’ about it.”

“The verra mon! He’s gane to his accoont, and Ned’s serving his sentence. I aye misdooted that the evidence against Lance Trevanion (that was his name, he cam’ of kenned folk in Devon,) was ‘cookit,’ and weel cookit too, for his destruction, puir laddie.”

“Then you think he was innocent?”

“As innocent as the lassie that brocht in the denner.”

“What sentence did he get?”

“Five years’ imprisonment – wi’ hard labour. But he didna sairve it. He flitted frae the hulk Success where they sent him after he nigh killed Warder Bracker. He was a dour man and a cruel; he’d made his boast that he’d ‘break’ Trevanion, as he called it, because he couldna get him to knuckle doon to him like ither convicts, puir craters! So he worked him harder and harder – complained o’ him for insolence – got him to the dark cell – once and again insulted him when there was nae ither body to hear – and one day gave him a kick, joost as he’d been a dog in his road.

“That was mair than enough. Clean mad and desperate, Trevanion rushed at him, had him doon, and him wi’ his hands in his throttle, before he could cry on the guard. His eyes were starting out of his head – he was black in the face and senseless, when a warder from outside the cell who heard the scuffle, pulled him off. Anither ten seconds, and Bracker would have been a dead man – as it was, he was that lang coming to, that the doctor gave him up.”

“What sentence did he get? They’d have hanged him long ago?” queried the host.

“He’d have got ‘life,’ or all the same twenty years’ gaol; but Bracker had been had up for cruelty to prisoners in another gaol before, and Mr. Melrose the Comptroller and the Visiting Justice were dead against a’ kinds o’ oppression, so they ordered a thorough inquiry. Some of the prisoners swore they’d seen Bracker knocking Trevanion about. He’d been ‘dark-celled’ for weeks on bread and water. When he came out he could hardly stand up. They’d heard him swear at Trevanion and call him a loafing impostor – and other names. The evidence went clear against him. Mr. McAlpine said Bracker ought to have had a year in gaol himself, and recommended his dismissal. So he left the service, and a good thing too. I’m no sayin’ that some of the convicts o’ the early fifties were not desperate deevils, as ever stretched halter. But they were paying for their ineequities – a high price too, when they’re lockit up night and day, working the whiles with airn chains on their limbs. And they that would make that lot harder and heavier, had hearts like the nether millstane.”

“What became of Trevanion, after all?”

“He was sent to the hulk Success. No great relief, ane would think. But it was better than stone walls. He had the sea and the sky around him day and night. It made a new man of him, they say. And before the year was oot (he had plenty money, ye see), he dropped into a boat through the port hole, one dark night, just before the awfullest storm ye ever saw. Horses were waitin’ on him next day, and ye’ll no hinder him frae winning to the New Rush at Tin Pot Flat Omeo, where he worked as a miner and prospector, for twa year and mair, under the name of ‘Ballarat Harry.’”

“Could not the police find him?” queried the tourist. “They were said to be awfully smart in the goldfields days.”

“Yes!” said the old Sergeant solemnly, “they did find him, but they could do naething till him.”

“You don’t say so! Well, this is a strange country. He was identified, I suppose?” said the stranger. “Why was that?”

“Because he was deid, puir laddie! We pulled him up from a shaft saxty feet deep, wi’ a bullet through him, and his head split with an axe. It was Kate Lawless that found him – her husband, Larry Trevenna and the murdering spawn o’ hell, Caleb Coke, had slain him for his gold – and it may be for ither reasons.”

“Good God! what a tragedy! Did the scoundrels escape?”

“Coke did by turning King’s evidence. But Trevenna’s wife rode near a hundred miles on end to give Dayrell the office. He ran Trevenna down in Melbourne, just as he had taken his passage to England under a false name. He was found guilty, and hanged.”

“Then Trevenna’s wife worked the case up against her own husband? How was that?”

“Weel, aweel, I’ll no deny the case was what may be tairmed compleecated – sair mixed up. Lance Trevanion had been her sweetheart, and when she jaloused, owing to Dayrell’s wiles, that he had thrown her over, she just gave the weight o’ her evidence against him, on his trial for having a stolen horse in his possession, knowing it to be stolen. Then in rage and desperation, for she repented sair, when she saw what her treachery had brought on him, she married Trevenna, who used her like a dog, they say, and was aye jealous of Lance Trevanion. And her cousin Tessie Lawless, it was her that got him frae the hulk.”

“Oh! another woman!” murmured Blount; “as you say, Sergeant, it is a trifle mixed up. Who was she in love with?”

“Just Lance, and nae ither. She was true as steel, and never ceased working for him night and day till she got a warder in the hulk weel bribit, and persuadit twa gentlemen that lived in Fishermen’s Bend by wild-fowling to tak’ him awa’ in their dinghy and find a guide and twa horses that brought him to Omeo. A wild, uncanny spot it was then, I warrant ye. Then the young lady, his cousin that came frae England to marry him – ”

“What do I hear, Sergeant? Another woman in love with the ill-fated hero; that makes three– in love with the same man at the same time. It sounds incredible. And were they really fond of him?”

“Woman’s a mysterious crea-a-tion, I’ve aye held, since she first walkit in the gairden o’ Eden,” quoth the Sergeant impressively. “Either of the Lawless girls would have died for him – and gloried in it. Kate, that was his ruin, wild and undeesciplined as she was, but for the poison that Dayrell insteeled into her, wad ha’ laid her head on the block to save his. Puir Tessie did die for him, as ye may ca’ it, for she went into Melbourne Hospital when the fever was at its fiercest, and cried that they should give her the warst cases. The puir sick diggers and sailors called her ‘The Angel of the Fever Ward,’ and there she wrought, and wrought, day after day, and night after night, until she catchit it hersel’, and so the end came. The doctors and the ither attendants said she hadna the strength to strive against it.”

“A jewel of a girl!” quoth the Englishman; “why didn’t he marry her?”

“She wouldn’t marry him,” said the Sergeant. “She kenned he was promised to his cousin, a great leddy frae the auld country, who came all the way to Australia to find him, and she said he must keep his troth.”

“Women seem to differ in Australia much as they do elsewhere,” mused the stranger.

“And what for no?” queried the old trooper; “there’s bad and good all over the world – men as weel’s women – and the more you see of this country, the more you’ll find it oot. If they’re born unlike from the start, they’re as different from one another as your cob (as ye ca’ him) frae ‘Little-River-Jack’s’ Keewah that can climb like a goat, or from Middleton’s auld ‘Slavey’ that can gallop twenty miles before breakfast, or draw a buggy sixty miles a day at a pinch. But if we get talking horse, we’ll no quit till cockcraw.”