There was still, however, one haunting mystery, one problem unsolved,
in the solution of which Mrs. Banneret felt more interest than in all
the other uncertainties and sensational historiettes put together.
Who and what was Mrs. Lilburne? Handsome, strikingly so,
indeed—refined—cultured—aristocratic _au bout des ongles_; what
strange movement of the hour hand of fate had brought her to the often
distasteful work, the dire climatic hardships of a hospital nurse on a
West Australian goldfield? Who could doubt her stainless purity who
gazed on the banded hair—the calm, brave countenance, equally free
from doubt or fear—the sweet, sad eyes which so rarely gave token of
the spirit-light which illumined them, at rarest moments, ‘like
melancholy stars,’ of which Mrs. Banneret said they always reminded
her. Had she lost, by death, by desertion, by treachery, her soul’s
idol, to whom she had been vowed in happy, radiant girlhood’s day?
What a ‘phantom of delight’ must she then have appeared to her social
world—at that entrancing age, when ‘standing with reluctant feet,
where the brook and river meet,’ she had so fully realised the poet’s
dream!—the dream of all poets that ever strove to paint the delicious
embodiment of soul and sense, the flower season of happy, innocent,
loveliest girlhood.
However, it was distinctly patent to all the inquiring or admiring
minds of Pilot Mount that the oracle, in the case of Nurse Lilburne’s
antecedents, was at present dumb, nor could cries or lamentations
extract an answer. To Mrs. Banneret once, indeed, she relented so far
as to say, ‘Some day you will know, if to any one I may show gratitude
for true friendship and womanly sympathy. In the meantime think of me
only as Nurse Lilburne. For your husband I have only done what I would
have done for the humblest miner. And may God grant that some day I
may be counted worthy to receive payment in kind!’
So they parted on the last day of the Bannerets’ sojourn on the great
‘Last Chance’ goldfield, as it was now called,—famed throughout all
Australia as the wonderland of that Far South land which had given so
many wonders and surprises to the old world, and to the country which
had founded it; which a hundred years from its birth, in peril from
starvation, from conquest, from criminal surroundings and ignorant
misrepresentation, had established an export trade of many millions,
and borne sons who fought shoulder to shoulder with Britain’s best
troops in defence of the Empire.
Mrs. Banneret was not the only person on the goldfields who was
interested in the story of Nurse Lilburne’s life. So attractive, so
exceptional a personage could not long remain in such a community,
where the men outnumbered the women in the ratio of at least a hundred
to one, without being admired, flattered, besieged, indeed, by
importunate suitors who were only too willing to condone her
past—whatever it might have been. But to all such approaches she was
adamant. She quietly put them by, not coldly or haughtily, but with a
nun-like aloofness, as if all matters unconnected with her duties were
not only impossible of acceptance, but even of consideration. Even the
most ordinary civilities, such as a seat in a buggy or pony cart to
the Polo Club matches, or the races connected with the club formed for
the encouragement of that fashionable game, were quietly declined,
even though proffered by the president, a married man, whose wife had
always been most friendly and sympathetic. Jim Allerton, whose tandem
was the admiration of all beholders, implored her to honour him by
accepting a seat to the ground—the day being brilliant, with a cool
breeze—the occasion certain to be historical in years to come; such an
opportunity would perhaps never occur again: the Governor of West
Australia, with his wife and daughter, were to be present. She smiled
graciously, and confessed that she could not have refused such an
offer—once upon a time—but now—he must excuse her. Jim retired
heartbroken, so he said.
He was not the only admirer—the Adonis of the field, Eachin Durward, a
tall, handsome, grand-looking Highlander, was known to be devoted to
her,—was well-off too,—would have left for Europe _via_ Cairo, and the
East generally, if only she would deign to express a wish—a preference
for any particular route. But she was dumb as the Sphinx.
As deaf also, to all entreaties of men, as she who sits by the
Pyramids—sad, silent, awful in lonely sorrow—in wisdom unspeakable, in
experience vast—in knowledge coeval with the æons, whose memorial—save
of her, and the eternal pyramidal monuments—hath perished.
* * * * *
Eastward ho! Home again,—blessed word, thrice blessed reality. The hot
desert blast—the dust—the heat—the swarming flies—the glaring sun at
noon—the scarce less tyrannous heat at even,—all things that bore so
hard on frail humanity—all left behind for a season! What a paradise
of hope and joy seemed opening before the ‘happy pair,’ in truest
re-adjusted sense of the word. And the calm, peaceful savour of all
the best joys of life was heightened by the recurring thought that
under all things there was the solid foundation of success—success
undoubted—ungrudged—won by enterprise and work, a wide-spread
treasure-house in which so many of the most honest toilers of earth
were permitted, nay, invited to share.
With health assured—indeed benefited by recovery from the dread
fever-grip—so rarely relaxed—it seemed apparent that he, Arnold
Banneret, ‘never looked better,’ as his friends assured him, than on
his return from the Golden West—that fateful Eldorado which numbered
so many of the best and noblest of Australia’s—Britain’s—sons among
the ‘unreturning brave.’
The voyage completed—the harbour—the haven par excellence of all fair
havens, regained, the meeting on the wharf—of the entire family—wild
with joy, and shouting all kinds of differing information, in one
breath—all rosy with health and frantic with delight, may be left to
be imagined by those home-returning parents of similar experiences.
Nothing had gone wrong. The household had been discreetly, lovingly,
capably managed in the absence of the high-contracting parties of the
little state,—that state, when multiplied by thousands and ten
thousands, which makes so much in valour, virtue, and stability, in
the onward march of Empire.
Again established in their most comfortable house, on one of the
heights which overlooked the harbour on the winding highway to the
South Head—a dream of beauty by day or starlit night, by sweet
moonrise or palest dawn—unequalled, unapproachable beneath the
Southern Cross—how pure, how peaceful, how unspeakable was their
happiness! What avenues of enjoyment opening out daily, stretching in
the future to illimitable distance, filled the perspective!
The New Holland Club, of which Mr. Banneret had for many years been a
member, again opened its arms to receive the absent member, whom they
thought never again to behold. Reports had reached them that he was
dead—not expected to survive, what not? It is not a wholly unpleasant
sensation to personally contradict the report of one’s decease,—that
report, ‘upon the best authority,’ quoted from the morning papers,
that one has been cut off in the flower of one’s youth, or the zenith
of one’s fame, as the case may be. Even there the candid friend is not
wholly at a disadvantage. ‘No idea that I was such a fine fellow,’
says Horatio, returning, let us say, from Philippi, where he was
reported slain. ‘Really,’ drawls the inevitable ‘friend,’ ‘but, you
know, dear boy, people exaggerate so fearfully on such occasions!’
It is good to be rich, for some, for many reasons. It is good even to
be thought rich, if one is not thereby tempted to spend extravagantly.
As mankind are constituted, whether the money is inherited, gained by
accident, by the hardly reputable means of gambling, so long as it is
known to be there, a certain kind of respect and deference goes along
with its possession. Perhaps in Arnold Banneret’s case, whose
exploration of an inhospitable desert where men’s lives were but as
counters in the game, and had been expended as recklessly, it disposed
the critics of the clubs and swagger hotels to regard him as having
achieved true distinction. Younger sons and others, who had gone out
with hazy ideas of digging a fortune out of the dreary wastes, of
which they had heard, and had returned to the city without one,
comprehended the preliminary hardships which he must have undergone.
They enlarged upon these, in all good faith, until the readers of
newspapers and the public generally were disposed to look upon him as
a general of Division and a scientific millionaire combined.
‘Heard of him before,’ men would say in the smoking room. ‘Been at the
front all his life. Squatter in old days—took up outside country—rows
with blacks—bushrangers, that sort of man. Dropped his money when
stock went down. Took to the Civil Service later on. Wife and
children—so on. Makes up his mind to be Goldfields Warden—tired of
that—believed in another cast of the dice—goes to W.A.—and before he’s
been there a month, hits on the discovery of the age—the biggest of
the century—regular Mount Morgan, y’know.’
‘Mayn’t be quite as big a quarry as that,’ interposes another man—a
pastoralist, whose grizzled beard and bronzed countenance has ‘Waste
Lands of the Crown’ writ large thereon—‘but told by men, been there
and seen, half a dozen fortunes in it,’ and so on, and so on. Thus the
hero-worship progressed.
Rich—beyond any of _his_ dreams of avarice—so far, he saw himself so
high on the ladder of prosperity that he began to consider how he
might benefit those friends and relations (perhaps) whom he had so
often pitied, lamenting at the same time his inability to aid them. It
was one of the anomalies of life, he had reflected, that people in
possession of superfluous means seldom showed much disposition to use
them in this way; while those who, like himself, would have taken
pleasure in dispensing timely aid seldom had the wherewithal to
gratify benevolent intentions. However, if the future yields of the
‘Last Chance’ kept up its present rate, there would be enough, and to
spare, for years to come. He could enact the Uncle from India—they are
always rich (or used to be)—for the benefit of deserving relations who
would be touchingly grateful to the end of their lives. How he could
assist all benevolent institutions—repay those who had been kind to
him in the early struggles of his life! He had a good memory for such
positions and people. Then, after a few years, which he could spend
comfortably, not to say luxuriously, in Sydney—he would take the
family to England. The boys would be of an age to benefit by
public-school training, preparatory to being entered at Oxford or
Cambridge. He would buy an estate—not too large, but sufficiently so,
to give them the pleasures of English country life, without the
drawbacks of having to attend to the responsibilities and details of a
large estate. He might even go into parliament—that was to be managed
more easily in the old country than in the new one, where the low
suffrage, combined with the intense jealousy which wealth and a
cultured intellect aroused in the lower-class voters, made it
difficult, if not impossible, for their possessor to enter parliament.
However, these hopes and enterprises were for the future to justify
and develop in action. For the present here was he, Arnold Banneret,
back again in Sydney—safe and sound, fully recovered from the fever
scourge of outside habitations—wife and children well—heartily
enjoying his recovered freedom from anxiety, the society of his
friends, and in a moderate way the prestige which had accrued to him
as a favourite of fortune, and a successful, energetic, worthy
recipient of her gifts.
Of the good things now so lavishly bestowed upon them his wife had her
full share. Always ready to indulge her with such pleasures as he
could afford, and knowing well that in the matter of expenditure she
was far more prudent, as well as practical, than himself—he had
relinquished to her willingly in his official days the power to draw
on a separate bank account, into which his pay as it came in was
deposited. From this she was expected to provide for household
expenses—dress—schooling—all things needful for their station in life.
He contracted to discharge his private personal expenses,—having
subsidiary grants, such as coroners’ and other fees, travelling
allowances for the long rides and drives he was obliged to take in
connection with mining matters, the settlement of disputes about
claims, or reports on the sale of auriferous lands: in fact, upon the
thousand and one matters only to be settled satisfactorily by the
presence and judicial action of the resident magistrate.
Now, of course, Mrs. Banneret’s bank account was increased—enlarged
upon a scale commensurate with the imposing amounts which regularly
arrived from the goldfield of Balgowrie in the district of Sturt, in
the colony of West Australia. Like most married women, the spending of
money gratified her, more especially when she had no doubt of the
solvency of the bank account, and the propriety of the manner in which
it was disbursed. That the children should be well and handsomely
dressed, as became their station in life, was to her a matter not only
of right and justice, but of keen enjoyment. That they were enabled to
join in such entertainments as were suited to their age, and station
in life, was also a part of her satisfaction. They had often, in
former days, been denied these innocent pleasures—to her secret
mortification. Now and henceforth this disability was abrogated for
all future time.
How very delightful it all was! What a glorious thing was life! (Of
course there were drawbacks—but they must be expected.) Here Arnold
Banneret’s mind reverted to that little hospital at Pilot Mount, to
the delirious patient in one bed—suspected in lucid intervals to be
himself—to Nurse Lilburne’s grave, compassionate face—to the dead
miner but two beds away—to the empty couch, which had been occupied
last night!
Thinking of such things, a wave of deep and earnest gratitude to the
Lord and Giver of Life for a while took possession of all his
faculties, to the exclusion of all merely pleasurable sensations.
While sitting in the broad, flower-wreathed verandah, as the evening
shadows deepened into those of night, and looking over the waveless
water-plain of the harbour, lit up from time to time by the lights of
passing steamers—the silence broken but by their warning bells—the
deep blue heavens, star fretted, and but faintly luminous in the
southern midnight—the hands of the husband and wife stole together;
for they were lovers still, though so long wedded. ‘Oh, Arnold!’ said
the wife, ‘is not this a fragment of Paradise, after what we have gone
through, and do you think it will—it _can_ last? I feel almost too
happy. God has indeed answered our prayers—in many an eventide it has
been light, but this is the crown—the glory of all our life!’
‘That we have fought our fight fairly—through good and evil hap—I
think we are entitled to say, though humbly; and thankfully do I
acknowledge God’s mercy and goodness in the troubled times of our
married life. But it really looks now as if peace was declared, and
the war was over. Let us trust so, and hope that in time to come, as
in the past, a hand may be stretched out to save in time of need. May
our children who have their lives before them, with all their trials
and dangers, be not less happy, less fortunate than we have been!’
* * * * *
Years passed on. The family of Banneret had become accustomed to
living at the rate of four or five thousand a year—not by any means so
difficult a task as declining from that desirable income to as many
hundreds. They were accredited members of the ‘Upper Ten,’ as
translated into Australian Society terms.
Their parents having belonged to well-known colonial families, the
young people found themselves invited to all the gaieties going. They
had many old friends and relatives—some in influential positions—who
stood loyally by them, so that in all the more desirable festivities,
from a Government House ball or garden party, to the annual regatta
in the harbour, the available members of the family were always in the
front rank. Races, hunt clubs, tennis matches—golf—water
parties—theatricals—church and hospital bazaars,—they enjoyed them
all: in moderation, be it spoken, always. There was no reckless
abandonment to pleasure, no love of excitement for that reason only.
But their temperaments held a strong infusion of _la joie de vivre_,
which, along with energy and intelligence above the average, rendered
it possible for them to combine much healthy recreation with a
reasonable outlook on the great issues of life. The mild but firm
parental rule was always available to restrain enthusiasm, to check
impulsive imprudence. Thus all things progressed satisfactorily, in an
apparently well-balanced mean between comfort and extravagance.
All reasonable indulgence in the pleasures of youth for the young
people, with the calm satisfactions of middle age for the seniors,
seemed assured. Not only for the present, but for years in advance,
their position was unassailable by fate. Mrs. Banneret, to be sure,
could not help suggesting from time to time, in a mild, tentative way,
that they were _too_ happy, the sky was too bright, the outlook too
fair to last—something adverse _must_ happen—it was unnatural that
this fairyland, lotos-eating state of matters should remain unchanged!
‘My dear,’ he would make answer, ‘surely you are not going to take the
part of the—a—what’s-his-name—at the feast. Must I hire a slave to
repeat at intervals, “Arnold Banneret, thou art mortal”? I have never
been unthankful for the blessings which in God’s great mercy have been
showered upon us. My whole being is permeated with thankfulness. In
our small way we have done good according to our lights, in the way of
charity and benevolence, to our fellow-creatures. But I decline to be
apprehensive, in advance of disaster—for which I may state that I
shall not be wholly unprepared. If it comes, we can stand up to it, as
we have done before—more than once—without repining or presumption. In
the meantime let us enjoy ourselves while we may.’
It was strange—passing strange—as the members of this family had
occasion to reflect full many a time and oft, in the aftertime—that
immediately after this conversation the great banking disaster
which smote cities, towns, villages, throughout Australia,
broke like a tidal wave over the land. Ancient mercantile
institutions—time-honoured banks—mortgage and agency companies—loan
and building companies felt the blow. Banks on deposit, offering high
rates of interest, while chiefly unsound, swept thousands of the
lesser investors into a whirlpool of ruin. Fine old crusted banks,
whose solvency had never been questioned, were whelmed in one common
cataclysm.
A panic set in. After the first few banks and loan agencies fell,
other banks and institutions hitherto unquestioned thought it good
policy to go down before the blast in good company, and so profit by
the general overthrow to reconstruct. This latter process consisted in
writing off as great a volume of inconvenient liabilities as the
shareholding public would permit, without too great an outcry, and
starting on a new, unencumbered career—free from vexatious hindrance
or liability. They were much in the position of the deeply laden bark
that in stormy weather, amid mountainous seas, jettisons the cargo,
the weight of which may disturb buoyancy at a critical moment. It is
not asserted that all interest due on deposits or debentures was
sacrificed. It went into a reserve fund of deferred payments, which,
after a decent interval, were eventually paid up. But many of the
humbler depositors lost the savings of years, and this was the hardest
part of all—being no longer able to pay the calls which were necessary
for the financial existence of the institution in question. Perhaps
this unsparing treatment, though apparently harsh to individuals, was
the safer policy. And at this eventful period, when long-trusted
financial houses in Britain tottered to their fall, the Premier of the
oldest Australian colony, himself a native-born Australian, took the
strong, perhaps unprecedented step of declaring bank-notes to be a
legal tender. To the ordinary citizen, much more to the rural
depositor, a bank-note had always represented ready cash.
The movement was well timed. It inspired confidence and calmed the
apprehension of general as well as individual wreck and ruin. In a
sister colony the Government of the day, with paternally indulgent
policy, directed all banks to close for three days—presumably to
permit time for declaration of a policy. All the banks availed
themselves of this, with the exception of _four_, who refused to
comply with the quasi-royal edict. Three of them were old and
long-established—coeval almost with the birth of the colony and the
infancy of the commercial system. The fourth was comparatively new and
unknown. Yet it rode out the gale as gallantly as its more dignified
compeers. The news was communicated to Mr. Banneret with startling
suddenness by one of his school-boy sons, who, returning from town at
lunch time, it being the holiday season, greeted him with the
question, ‘Father, have you heard the news?’
‘No; what is it?’
‘The Bank of New Holland has stopped payment.’
‘What? The Bank—_that_ Bank! Impossible! Are you sure?’
‘Well, Jack Burton’s brother is accountant. He told me; some of the
other fellows knew about it. And the door’s shut. I went to look.
Burton says lots of other ones will stop. They are refusing bank-notes
at the railway.’
Mr. Banneret groaned. ‘And is this the end of my life’s work?’ he
thought—‘a bolt from the blue, and so on. Well, it’s lucky I put that
thirty thousand into the British “Reduced Counsels,” as Mr. Weller,
senr., called them. Rum time to fall back on Dickens, isn’t it? Might
find a worse author, though. We shall have to adopt “Reduced Counsels”
literally, it appears. Tell your mother I want her.’
His countenance informed that good wife and trusty mother that
_something_ had happened out of the common track of surprises.
‘What is it? Anything the matter with Reggie and Rosamond?’ They were
on their way to England by the P. & O. boat _Ispahan_.
‘Well, nothing very serious; but there’s a difficulty about money.’
‘Is that all? How did it come about? No imprudence, I hope?’
‘Not on Reggie’s part. Read his cable—short and strong: “_Credit
stopped. Please arrange._”’
‘How did it happen? I feel so relieved. Money’s nothing, compared with
health, or accident. I thought Reggie might be ill, or hurt. But tell
me.’
‘The main facts are, that all the banks in Sydney, beginning with the
Eastern, have stopped payment, provisionally at present, pending
reconstruction, liquidation, or some other delayed arrangement, the
immediate effect of which is, that nobody can get any money just at
present.’
‘What—none at all? Whatever shall we do?’
‘I daresay I can manage a small advance. I put thirty thousand pounds
into British Consols, as a stand-by in case of accidents. So we can
pay the butcher and baker, at any rate.’
‘But the mine hasn’t stopped?’
‘No, thank God! It’s a pity I banked the last month’s dividend,
though. It’s going better than ever. So, when next month’s comes in, I
can put it into a trust account. Meanwhile I have wired a draft for
£500 to Reggie.’
‘Poor things! It must have given them a cruel shock.’
‘Yes, indeed; but some of their fellow-passengers must have had a
worse one. Hard lines to have to come back when they were half-way
home, like the Thompsons and Franklins. Poor Mrs. Franklin! She was
only telling me last week what a round of the Continent she and the
girls proposed.’
* * * * *
This cyclonic disturbance abated in time; matters moved on again in
their accustomed order. But there were wrecks left behind—mercantile,
moral, and political—which no future prosperity could re-establish.
Long was it indeed before the fatal year of 18— was even partially
restored, much less forgotten. But, as Mrs. Banneret truly said,
‘Money counts as nothing in family history compared with health.’ And
this was only a temporary inconvenience, as the Bank of New Holland
paid up all liabilities eventually, with interest up to date.
Paterfamilias betook himself to one of the banks which had weathered
the storm, and found that with the promise of removing the account of
the ‘Last Chance’ Gold Mining Company to their long-established
corporation, he could have practically all the money he needed. Which
was certainly satisfactory. So the Banneret family went on their way
rejoicing, and denied themselves, as ‘before the war,’ nothing in
reason. The younger boys and girls went to high-class schools, as
before; learned all the extras and accomplishments; played football,
tennis, hockey, and cricket; rowed and yachted in the harbour; took
the whole round of exercises in mind and body for which no people in
the British Empire are more eager than the youthful Australian.
It was now nearly five years since Arnold Banneret had seen the
mine—the centre and source of the family fortunes. He had been kept
fully posted up in its progress and development, in the size and
splendour of the city which had arisen around Pilot Mount, the grand
scheme of water supply which had been successfully completed, the
electric lighting of public and private buildings, streets, etc., but
he thought it advisable to have personal evidence as to all these
wonders and miracles. Besides, he was getting rather tired of the
almost too easy and prosperous routine of his daily life. Travel had
always been the very breath of his nostrils, the very salt and savour
of his life. He would try the tonic again.
* * * * *
How different were all things from the rude discomfort of his first
visit!—the earlier stages and stopping-places grown from camps to
villages, from villages to towns, from towns to cities having mayors
and aldermen; telegraph and post offices, court-houses and churches,
in almost, as the newly arrived traveller considered, unnecessary
profusion. However, the gold returns had kept up—that was the main,
the chief consideration. This month’s return from the field had been
the largest yet. Other centres of gold production had been discovered,
and were advancing along the road to riches and recognition. There had
been cases of excessive capitalisation, of course; but nothing that
had in any way trenched upon the reputation or resources of the parent
mine.
Arnold Banneret arrived late, and preferred to dine and sleep at the
Palace Hotel—as, of course, the leading caravanserai at the city was
named.
Here, though partly prepared for a series of surprises, he was
genuinely amazed at the luxurious details of the apartments and the
comparative excellence of the cuisine: fresh fish brought daily by
train from the coast, packed in ice; fruit forwarded in the same way;
the duly-kept saddle of mutton—the sirloin,—all good of their kind.
Though the tariff savoured rather of a recent war, the retiring
traveller was not disposed to find fault. The service generally was
good, the attendance most creditable. Having slept the sleep of the
just (and the tired-out), and arranged for an early breakfast, he left
for Pilot Mount in a hired buggy, behind a pair of fresh, well-groomed
horses.
A hot climate has its days of tyranny and oppression, but there are
compensating advantages—even in summer. By leaving shortly after
sunrise, you secure a sample of climate which is little short of
perfection,—especially, as in this particular experience, where there
is no wind. The sun appeared to be slowly, almost imperceptibly,
disengaging his golden sphere from the mists and vapours of the lower
world, and as he rose regally from his couch, all nature appeared to
welcome the life-giving presence of the fire-worshipping god. Far as
eye could see, over the mighty sweep of plain that stretched to the
horizon, were the evidences of recent occupation, more or less
connected with the great industry which had lured the army of toilers,
that Mr. Banneret saw before him, into the gold-seekers’ ranks—some
destined to fortune, some to poverty, sickness, and death. In his
own case, how nearly had his career come to an untimely end! His
heart swelled with thankfulness as he remembered the hospital
experiences—the lonely boding days, the faithful watchers by his
couch, the unspeakable relief of convalescence.
As he neared the monolith which had been the pillar of hope and
guidance in his journey through the wilderness, he was conscious of a
certain feeling of disappointment in noting the comparatively small
size of the encampment round the mine. He had expected a township of
larger proportions, and had not reckoned on the attraction of the
Great Aqueduct, recently completed, which will always stand as a
monument to the courage and foresight of the Minister who planned and
carried it through to successful fulfilment. May he live to crown his
life-work with the completion of that other great undertaking with
which his name will be always indissolubly connected! Worthily and
suitably should the name be venerated, as of one who, himself a son of
the soil, had, as an explorer, dared the perils of that waterless
desert region.
Not being tied to time on this occasion, and having the satisfaction
of seeing all things going well with the mine, Mr. Banneret permitted
himself a season of leisure and recreation, so to speak, which suited
his personal tastes. He carefully inspected the machinery and general
working of the ‘Reward Claim,’ as among the mining community it was
generally known; the hundred head of stamps, the Diehl process of
extraction, which inexorably dragged the last grain of the precious
metal from the crushed rock. The wages men, the shift, and underground
‘boss,’ respectively and individually, were carefully noted and
interviewed by him. Practised in the art of eliciting information and
making acquaintance with the various and heterogeneous population of a
goldfield, he from time to time noted, quietly and unobtrusively, many
of the leaders and men of mark in the community. The results of this
inquiry, he deemed, might be of value to him in time to come.
In his peregrinations he met with many individuals whom he had known
or heard of under different circumstances. The majority of these were
unaffectedly pleased to see him—even, rather to his surprise, some of
those to whom he had been compelled officially to award pains and
penalties. This seemed to make no difference in the cordiality of
their recognition. Offenders under such circumstances rarely bear
malice, as long as they believe in the justice and impartiality of the
decision. The criminal classes, as a body, do not harbour revengeful
feelings against administrators of justice. Their common expression
is: ‘It’s the law, and it’s his business to carry it out. It’s all in
the day’s work.’ True, they do not approve of the official ‘going out
of his way’ to arrest a convict. To any ordinary advantage, taken in
pursuit or capture, they do not object. ‘It’s his business to run us
in, and ours to get away,’ they admit. ‘But he ought to play the
game.’ If he fails in this particular, they conspire to be revenged.
And as colonial history tells us, they are prone to inflict terrible
vengeance in such cases.
It was strangely interesting in its way for the retired magistrate—so
unobtrusive of dress and manner, as he rambled from camp to camp in
the early mornings or late afternoons, when the wind had ceased and
the sun had lost his fiercer rays—to come across the men or women whom
he had known under such different conditions of life and occupation in
the long-dead days of his earlier life. Some had risen curiously high,
while others had fallen unspeakably low.
It was pathetic to mark the sudden gleam of recognition, impossible to
suppress, that lit up the eyes, and for an instant transformed the
features of the ‘old hand,’ well known—_too_ well known, in fact—to
the police of more than one colony; the half-humble, half-defiant
change of manner, as if to say, ‘I am free now, and unless I get into
fresh “trouble” neither you nor any living man can touch me.’
To such he made a point of speaking a few words, such as, ‘Doing well,
Connor? Fine field this? Anything fresh turned up?’ Whatever the
answer, it would merely mean that he, the Commissioner, the man of
dread and awful powers in days gone by, had simply recognised him:
that it depended wholly upon his future conduct whether that fact
would tend to his injury. More than one of such former acquaintances
sought him out at his hotel, and trusted that he would not ‘put the
police’ on him. He was earning an honest living, and sending money to
his wife and family in Melbourne, Sydney, or Hobart, as the case might
be. ‘My good fellow,’ Mr. Banneret would reply, ‘as long as you behave
yourself, I would much rather that you did well than not. You are
getting another chance here, far away from people that know you and
what you have been. It is no business of mine to inform the police, or
any one else. Don’t drink; work hard—I know you can do _that_—and see
that your people in Melbourne are not starving while you’re living
comfortably here.’
‘No fear, sir! I sent ’em twenty pound last mail.’ So the man of a
chequered career went back to his tent with his heart lightened, and a
renewed resolve to go straight and reform—if indeed such a changing of
spots of the proverbial member of the carnivora were possible.
Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t. In any case his heart was
softened, and the impulse to a better life, faint though it might have
been, was distinct.
One day he came upon a claim of four men’s ground at which the
shareholders had evidently been working hard, judging by the size of
their ‘tip.’ The men on top were, apparently, new arrivals, judging by
their fresh complexions and ruddy faces.
‘Now, Sailor Bill!’ said the taller man, ‘what are you a-thinkin’
of?—the clapper’s gone twice—to haul up. Dick Andrews ’ll know you’re
wool-gathering agin, same as you was when you lowered the bucket
yesterday, without puttin’ the “sprag” in, and nearly finished him.’
‘Hang Dick, and you too! I was a-thinkin’ if it was true as I seen in
the paper—as the p’leece was agoin’ to make a raid, as they call it,
upon the runaway sailors on the field here. There’s a goodish lot, you
know. They won’t get me. Afore I’d go home in that old tub as I come
out in, with that devil of a skipper and his mate as is worse, I’d
chuck myself down the deepest hole in the field, and make an end of
it.’
‘Better show them cornstalk fellers, as they call theirselves, that an
Englishman can do any work as they can, and handle any tools. It don’t
do to let ’em have the laugh at us, Bill.’
‘Well, I’ll give my mind a bit closer to it after this, but the chaps
work like navvies—and it’s not the only trade they’ve larnt, I can
see. Wonder what they’ve been at afore they come here?—there’s summat
queer about ’em, I’ll swear.’
‘Don’t know and don’t care. They’re hard-workin’ smart hands at mining
work—and that’s all we care about. There goes the double clapper—it’s
dinner time.’
Up came the bucket to the brace, with the man referred to as ‘Dick’
therein—a tall man, fully six feet in height, or perhaps an inch over.
He was well made, though he carried but little flesh, and had the air
of being fully acquainted with mining and pastoral matters. He wore a
beard, with a full moustache hiding his mouth and withholding the
expression of his face from the casual observer.
He spoke with the drawling intonation peculiar to the natives of New
South Wales, more especially those reared in the country towns of the
interior. His features were regular, his eyes grey and apparently
unobservant, though, like those of other races remote from cities and
the haunts of men, there were few objects, or incidents, which were
not quickly and comprehensively revealed to their vision. The
countenance was impassive, as of a man who was not desirous of
imparting his thoughts to chance comrades, and at the same time too
little interested in the minor matters of life to furnish conversation
about them. His hair and beard, of a fair or light brown hue, were
streaked with grey. Verging upon middle age, he was probably a few
years older, though the activity which he showed when roused to
exertion forbade the idea. Indifferent and careless as to surroundings
as he appeared to the ordinary observer, there was a hint of calm
watchfulness about his air and lounging pose which, as of a hunter in
‘Injun country,’ conveyed the idea that it would be difficult to take
him by surprise.
The Commissioner looked fixedly at him. The man returned his gaze with
a quiet steadiness, at once remote from fear or defiance, yet as one
ready for the next movement, whether hostile or pacific.
‘I see you know me, sir,’ said the man; ‘it’s a good few years since
we met last. You won’t give me away?’—and here the expression changed
to that of a hunted creature, which, driven into the last stronghold,
has yet the defiant courage of the wolf quarry amid the baying hounds.
‘My good fellow, you don’t suppose I bother myself about likenesses
for all the people I’ve met during the last twenty years. I may have
seen you, or some one like you, before; but I’m a mine-owner now, and
I don’t know that I could swear to you positively. But _if_ you’ve
done anything in another colony, under another name, that has brought
you into trouble with the police, don’t get into any scrapes here; and
if ever you’re arrested again, it won’t be through me, mind that.’
‘God bless you, sir!’ said the man. ‘You’ve not changed. If I’m
“copped” again, it won’t matter, for I’ll be a dead man.’
Mr. Banneret walked away—rather hastily, as though he could not trust
himself to say more. ‘Poor devil!’ he said to himself—almost
audibly—‘I wonder how he will end? The odds are a hundred to one
against him; that’s a good paying claim, I hear, and he may—only
_may_—save up his share. He’s afraid to drink for fear of letting out
secrets—there’s a price on his head too—a big reward—which some of his
own “friends” wouldn’t mind handling. Well, there’s the last of the
lawless lot. “’Tis pity of him too,” as the Douglas said.’ It was
rather past the hour of the mid-day meal when he regained Pilot Mount,
and his face still wore an expression of doubt, almost of anxiety, as
he entered the tent, where Mr. Newstead’s lively chatter, and
Southwater’s more serious observations about business matters, and the
probable month’s ‘clean up,’ chased the cloud from his brow.
Not only smoothly, but on the crest of the wave of prosperity, with
fair wind, and every sail set, sped on the ‘Last Chance’—that argosy
in special favour with gods and men.