Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=HZg9AQAAMAAJ
(Michigan State University)
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
AT THE SIGN
OF
THE SILVER FLAGON.
AT THE SIGN
OF
THE SILVER FLAGON.
BY
B. L. FARJEON.
AUTHOR OF "BLADE-O'-GRASS," "JOSHUA MARVEL," "LONDON'S HEART," "GRIF,"
"BREAD-AND-CHEESE AND KISSES," "AN ISLAND PEARL," ETC.
NEW EDITION.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1877.
[_Right of translation reserved by the Author._]
CONTENTS.
-----------
PART I.--AT THE OTHER END OF THE WORLD.
CHAP.
I. SILVER CREEK TOWNSHIP.
II. HOW BABY OBTAINED HER SHARE IN THE STAR DRAMATIC COMPANY.
III. THE OPENING OF THE THEATRE, AND WHAT PART BABY TOOK IN
THE PERFORMANCES.
IV. MR. HART SEARCHES FOR A GOLDEN REEF.
V. PHILIP'S RIDE FOR FLOWERS FOR MARGARET.
VI. ROMEO AND JULIET.
VII. AH, PHILIP, MY SON! I, ALSO, HAVE A GIRL WHOM I LOVE.
VIII. GOD BLESS EVERYBODY.
IX. A MAN OF METTLE.
X. TO-MORROW IS ST. VALENTINE'S DAY.
XI. "I AM GOING TO SPEAK OUT," SAID PHILIP.
XII. "PRAY FOR RAIN, MY DARLING."
XIII. "WHAT IF THERE ARE VILLAINS AND SCOUNDRELS IN THE WORLD?"
HE CRIED. "WE WILL NEVER LOSE OUR FAITH IN GOD AND
MAN--NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!"
XIV. "THIS IS LIKE THE DAWN OF LIFE, MY SWEET."
XV. PHILIP IS CONVINCED OF THE EFFICACY OF MARGARET'S PRAYERS.
XVI. THE CHRISTENING OF THE WILLIAM SMITH.
XVII. NATURE PUNISHES THE THIEF.
XVIII. WILLIAM SMITH'S AMBITION.
XIX. MR. HART PROMISES TO WAIT A LITTLE LONGER.
XX. THEY FLEW LIKE MADMEN INTO THE TOWN.
XXI. DRIVEN BY LOVE INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH.
XXII. "DEAR OLD FELLOW! GOD BLESS MARGARET AND YOU!"
-----------
PART II--HOME.
I. THE CURTAIN FALLS FOR A BRIEF SPACE.
II. "THE WORLD IS FULL OF SWEET AND BEAUTIFUL PLACES."
III. CUSTOS ROTULORUM.
IV. IT WAS JUST SUCH A DAY AS THIS; AND THE AIR WAS SWEET,
AND LIFE WAS SWEET.
V. A STRANGE STORY.
VI. MR. LEWIS NATHAN INTRODUCES HIMSELF.
VII. MARGARET TAKES THE HELM.
VIII. "SHE NEVER TOLD HER LOVE."
IX. LUCY'S PRINCE APPEARS ON THE SCENE.
X. THE THEORY OF FRIENDSHIP.
XI. A PEEP INTO BLUEBEARD'S ROOM.
XII. MR. HART DECLARES THAT HONESTY HAS DIED OUT OF THE WORLD.
PART III.--THE DINNER OF THIRTEEN.
I. STRANGE PREPARATIONS FOR THE DINNER.
II. ARRIVAL OF BUT ONE AT A DINNER FOR THIRTEEN.
III. ARRIVAL OF UNEXPECTED GUESTS.
IV. MARGARET'S TRIUMPH.
AT THE
SIGN OF THE SILVER FLAGON.
Part the First.
AT THE OTHER END OF THE WORLD.
AT THE
SIGN OF THE SILVER FLAGON.
CHAPTER I.
SILVER CREEK TOWNSHIP.
It is December, and the sun marks the record of a hundred and six in
the shade. We are at the golden end of the world, in Australia, at
Silver Creek, twelve months ago a wilderness, now a busy and thriving
township. Within this brief space, an infant in the history of cities
has grown into what promises to become a strong and healthy man.
Unknown, unthought of but a year ago, the name of Silver Creek is
already a household word in a new and flourishing colony, and holds an
important place in the journals of commerce.
There are turnings and thoroughfares in Silver Creek sufficiently
irregular to drive land surveyors into a state of distraction, and
there is but one street which exhibits anything like regularity in its
formation; but this is a result more of accident than design. It is
the principal street in the township, and is lined with wooden
tenements and calico tents, in which the business of the town is
transacted. Stores of every description, in which all things
necessary, and many things unnecessary, for the requirements of life,
are to be found within the limits of this thoroughfare, which is known
to the residents as High Street. If you are curious in such matters,
you may calculate how many stores High Street contains by setting its
length at a mile and a half, and giving each store an average frontage
of sixteen feet. A few of the buildings are of wood, the majority of
calico, and the inhabitants of one Englishman's castle can hear the
inhabitants of the next talking and bargaining during the day, and
sighing and murmuring during the night. Not that the inhabitants of
Silver Creek are all Englishmen. Other nations thirsting to have their
fingers in the golden pie, have sent their representatives across the
seas and through the bush, and Americans, Germans, Frenchmen,
Spaniards, Italians, Mongols, and Africans, form a rare Tower-of-Babel
community. As, however, they have all been drawn thither by one
magnet--fashioned of bright gold--they do not emulate the
Tower-of-Babel folk, but hob-a-nob amicably with one another, and make
common cause of it with the ubiquitous Englishman. The pie is a rich
one, but the fruit is unequally distributed, and there are many waste
places in it (unfortunately not seen until the crust is dived into),
the discovery of which brings disappointment and despair to the hungry
seekers. The despair does not last long; they are soon tearing up the
earth again, animated by new hopes of coming suddenly upon rich
pockets of gold.
High Street had only one side, where the stores were built. Opposite,
it was open ground for a distance of some four hundred yards; then
commenced the upland, on the ridge of which a long thin range of
wooden buildings was erected, which formed the Government Camp, where
the official business of the township was transacted. There were the
resident-magistrate's court, the treasury, and, in dangerous
proximity, the gaol, and all the other necessary adjuncts of civil
government. The goldfields' commissioner, or the warden, as he was
usually called, and his staff, and the resident magistrate, and a few
of the lesser luminaries, dwelt there in snug habitations with their
Chinese cooks, who were rare masters at crust and paste--which is but
natural, as they are proverbially light-fingered. There these children
of the sun and the moon chattered, and cooked, and smoked opium in
their little wooden pipes, of which they were as tenderly solicitous
as though they had been children of their blood; and went elsewhere,
to the vilest and dirtiest nest of thoroughfares the imagination can
conjure up, and which was known as the Chinese Camp, to gamble away
their hard earnings. In this camp, of course, was the Joss-House, with
its absurd and senseless mummeries; and there, also, were certain
dens, which every night were filled with Chinamen, smoking themselves
into helpless idiocy. The provision stores in the Chinese camp were
stocked with curiosities in the eating way which made fastidious
persons shudder: such as preserved slugs and snails (delicious
delicacies to the Chinese palate), and bottles crammed with what
seemed to be pieces of preserved monkey, while thousands of shreds of
shrivelled meat hung from the calico roofs, which were black with
smoke. These shreds weighed about an ounce each, and looked like the
dried and twisted skins and tails of rats. To judge from the
glistening pig-like eyes of the children of the celestial sphere when
these morsels were on their platters, and they were preparing to
discuss them with their chop-sticks, they must have contained some
exquisite and delectable charm, which was hidden from the sight and
sense of the English barbarian. If ever night was made hideous, the
the Chinamen made it so in their dirty camp with the clanging of their
gongs and tom-toms, and the harsh treble of their voices. To
unaccustomed ears it appeared as though Bedlam had been turned loose
in this remote part of the globe.
Between the Government Camp and the High Street ran a valley through
which a sparkling stream of water meandered; this was the Silver
Creek, from which the township derived its name. At the back of the
High Street stores, dotting the hills and gullies for miles around,
and in the rear again of the Government Camp, were the white tents of
the gold-diggers. There was a range of hills from which one could look
down upon the scene, and it was well worth the labour to climb this
height on a moonlight night, and gaze at the perspective of snow-white
roofs, beneath which the tired miners were sleeping, and at the silver
stream of water threading its way through the undulations. Then there
were the Government buildings, prettily situated, and here and there
clumps of silver-bark trees, and, in the distance, shadows of great
ranges melting into the clouds. It was a picturesque scene, and the
solemn silence and its romantic history afforded food for the mind as
well as for the eye.
The Silver Creek diggings more than fulfilled the promise of its name,
for gold was found in its soil instead of silver. It was first
discovered by Chinamen, who had been hunted off another goldfield
fifty miles away, where their presence had been considered an
abomination by the European miners. They brought this judgment on
themselves by stealing, in the dead of the night, golden dirt which
did not by right belong to them, and severe skirmishes had taken place
between the rival races, in which the Chinamen were worsted. They had
to fly for their lives, and they wandered wearily, and yet with
spirit, further into the interior of the country, prospecting here and
there for gold, but without satisfactory results until they reached
the hitherto unexplored district of Silver Creek. Here, by their
discovery of the precious metal, their wanderings came to an end, and
they pitched their tents and lit their fires, and worked undisturbed
for a few weeks, getting much gold, and laughing doubtless in their
capacious sleeves at the lucky chance which had led them to the place.
But if they had indulged in the dream of keeping Silver Creek and its
precious deposit all to themselves, it was rudely disturbed one fine
morning, and they screeched like magpies when they saw six lusty
Tipperary men march on to their diggings, and stick their picks into
the ground. The Mongolian saw his enemy before him, and waited in
dread for what was to come.
The following was the order of the proceedings of the Tipperary men:
They first stuck their picks into the ground, at a distance of about
twenty yards apart from each other; then they clustered together, and
tightened their belts. When these were arranged to their satisfaction,
they solemnly and simultaneously produced six cutty pipes, all very
short and very black, and carefully lighted them. Being now, with
their pipes held firmly between their teeth, prepared for action, they
sauntered in an indolent kind of way towards the shafts at which the
Chinamen were working, and pausing at one, watched the man at the
windlass winding up the bucket. The Chinamen spoke not a word; the
Tipperary men spoke not a word. For full five minutes this was the
state of things, and the Chinamen proceeded sullenly with their work;
from screeching magpies, they were transformed into mute,
fear-stricken slaves. Wrath and animosity were in their hearts, but
outwardly they were the humblest of mortals. Their sallow faces grew
sallower, and they cursed their ill-fortune; for it happened that when
the Tipperary men appeared upon the scene, they were pulling up
wash-dirt, in which specks of gold could be plainly seen. But they
cursed in silence.
"How deep, John?" asked one of the Tipperary men, touching the
Chinaman gently on his blue dungaree sleeve.
He referred to the depth of the shaft at which the Chinaman was
working.
John did not reply.
But be it here understood that on Australasian and doubtless other
goldfields, all Chinamen have but one name--John--not given to them by
their godfathers and godmothers; and the countrymen of Confucius have
meekly accepted it.
The Tipperary man repeated his question.
"How deep, John?"
John preserved silence. The Tipperary man and his mates followed suit
for a few seconds. Then he broke cover again.
"M'lenty gold, John?"
M'lenty means plenty; this was everywhere recognised as Chinaman's
English.
"M'lenty gold, John?"
Compelled to reply by the sense of danger which the slightly raised
tone in which this second question was repeated conveyed to the
sensitive soul of the Mongolian, John looked blankly into the face of
his interlocutor, and said, with all the innocence of a babe.
"Me no sabby!"
Perhaps no race in the world combines so much simplicity with so much
cunning as the Chinese. They utter falsehoods, as children do, with an
absolute conviction that it will be believed. In this instance, it
need scarcely be said that John understood perfectly the nature of the
inquiries addressed to him, and professed ignorance from a mingled
feeling of cunning, impotent anger, and helplessness.
The Tipperary man quietly knocked the ashes out of his pipe against
the barrel of the windlass, and sticking it in his belt, produced from
his pocket a cake of Cavendish tobacco and a great spring knife. His
mates followed his example. They knocked the ashes out of their pipes,
and began cutting up sticks of Cavendish tobacco with great spring
knives. There was a wicked click in their knives as they opened them.
The Chinamen's eyes grew white, and they sighed for thunderbolts, or
lightning to strike these desperadoes into ashes, or for some secret
and as effectual means of getting rid of them. The Tipperary men
leisurely filled their pipes, applied a match to them, and puffed away
till they were well lighted. Then the one who had acted as spokesman
took the Chinaman's ear between his fingers, and the foreigner
betrayed himself by yelling out, "What for, you? What for, you?"
Another Tipperary man laid hold of the handle of the windlass, and the
Chinaman was whirled aside, screaming and yelling, and, after spinning
like a teetotum for a dozen yards, found himself in a favourable
position for studying the celestial sphere. A third Tipperary man put
his foot into the bucket which was about to be sent empty to the
bottom of the shaft, and grasped the rope above him with one firm
hand, while the second man, working at the windlass, slowly unwound
the rope, and let his mate down the pit.
The yelling of the Chinaman who had been whirled from the windlass
brought every one of his companions to the spot. They formed quite a
small colony, numbering in all, twenty-two souls. The Tipperary men
would have grinned had they been told that they were surrounded by
twenty-two souls. They knew as much of theology as a laughing jackass
does, but, had they been put to it, they certainly would have denied
with powerful emphasis that Chinamen have souls. They saw around them
twenty-two pasty faces, and twenty-two bodies dressed in blue
dungaree; had the Chinamen turned their backs, the Tipperary men would
have seen twenty-two pigtails dangling from the crowns of the
Chinamen's heads, all trembling simultaneously and responsively from
agitation. This feature in the scene was curious and unique; but,
indeed, speaking in a dramatic sense, the entire situation was
stirring and interesting. One Tipperary man was hanging between heaven
and earth, with his foot in a bucket; a second was letting him down
the shaft. So that there were four Tipperary men left to confront, and
if necessary do battle with, twenty-two Chinamen. Long odds: but the
Tipperary men did not seem to think so, did not seem even to consider
that there was the slightest danger. Certainly they trifled with their
knives, but they trifled with them unconcernedly, opening and shutting
them with cruel clicks, and as though they had not the slightest
notion that they might be required for the cutting-up of Chinamen
instead of the cutting-up of tobacco. These Tipperary men--or, as they
should be more properly called, Tipperary boys--looked upon Chinamen
as the scum of the earth, as so many cattle. And the Chinamen, in this
instance, really did behave as though they were dirt beneath the feet
of the Tipperary boys. They screamed, they stamped, they expostulated,
they flashed their fingers in each other's faces, but not in the faces
of the Tipperary boys; but they did nothing more. The Tipperary boys
scarcely looking at the Chinamen, calmly sucked at their pipes and
played with their knives.
Suddenly a great screeching was heard at the bottom of the shaft,
which might have come from twenty hungry and venomous cats let loose
upon one another; the Chinamen made a movement towards the shaft, but
did not approach close enough to mingle with the Tipperary boys. The
screeching continued, and an Irish oath or two, heartily uttered, gave
it variety. A voice was heard from below, calling out one single word:
"Up!"
The moment this word was uttered, the man at the windlass worked at
the handle, and began to wind up the rope. There was a heavy weight at
the end of it but the muscles of the Tipperary boy were equal to
greater emergencies, and he turned the handle slowly and easily, until
there came in view the shaven head of another Chinaman, and then an
antique weazened face, in which wrath and dismay were strongly
expressed. The man at the windlass, stooping, clutched with his left
hand the collar of the antique Chinaman, and pulling him out of the
bucket, flung him among his companions, who instantly recommenced
screaming, and chattering, and gesticulating with so much vehemence
that one might have imagined that their tongues had just been loosened
for the first time for twenty years. The arrival from the lower
regions was much older than his companions: their faces were large and
expressionless, his was small and vivacious; theirs were smooth, and
looked as though they were made out of dirty dough, his was lined and
wrinkled, and looked like an old and elaborate carving: their eyes
were mild and fishlike, his were full of dark fire. Evidently he was
the leader of the Chinese crew, for the moment he recovered his breath
he began to harangue them with almost frenzied eloquence. A man of
spirit he, inciting his mates to open resistance. His fingers flashed
the number of friends and foes as his tongue uttered them--five to
twenty-three; he even drew partly out of its sheath a long, thin,
glittering knife--but nothing came of it, for one of the Tipperary
boys, observing the action, caught him instantly by the neck, dragged
him from the midst of his companions, wrested the knife from his hand,
and hurled him far away on the other side of the Chinamen. It was the
work of an instant, and the twenty-three Mongolians--twenty-two on one
side, one on the other--looked on, cowed and trembling.
What had occurred at the bottom of the shaft is soon told. The
Tipperary boy, when he stepped out of the bucket and landed on _terra
firma_, found the antique Chinaman busily at work in the gutter, where
the gold was found. The intruder made short work of it, trying pacific
means first. He pointed to the rope and the bucket, and motioned to
the Chinaman that he was wanted above. The Chinaman shook his head,
and did not understand. The Tipperary boy, not being in the humour to
waste time, seized him, placed him by main force in the bucket, and
then called to his mate to haul up. Having a sensible regard for his
limbs, the antique Chinaman was compelled to hold on to the rope.
After this a tape-line was let down the shaft, and the depth measured:
then the man below busied himself in tracing the bearing of the gold
gutter, its dip and direction, and what was the nature of the earth
above and below it. Having satisfied himself upon these points, he
half filled the bucket with the auriferous soil, and, stepping into
it, was pulled to heaven's light.
"All right, mates," was all he said.
Then he took a tin dish which belonged to the Chinamen, and, filling
it with the earth he had dug out of the gold gutter, walked towards
the creek, followed by his mates and the rightful owners. He washed
the earth carefully and deftly, and with experienced hands: all of
them looked on, animated by various feelings, as he swung the dish
round and round. Soon the gold came into view, dotting the lessened
earth brightly, like stars in a dirty sky: little by little all the
earth was washed away, and the pure gold lay in a little heap in the
corner of the tin dish. One of the Irishmen produced a pair of gold
scales, and the gold was weighed.
"Four pennyweights to the dish," he said.
"How thick is the wash-dirt?" asked one, of him who had been below.
"About two foot and a half," was the reply.
Hurrah! It was a fortune if they could get claims on the gutter. The
Chinamen waited anxiously. What were their enemies now about to do?
The man who had washed the gold held it towards the rightful owner.
"M'lenty gold, John," he said, with a pleasant laugh.
Somewhat more satisfied as to the honesty of the intentions of the
Tipperary boys, the Chinamen nodded their heads violently enough
almost to shake them off, and found their tongues and their
understanding.
"Yes, yes. M'lenty gold! Englishman welly good man! Englishman get
m'lenty gold!" And pointed to some distance, with tempting fingers, to
show where gold was sure to be found in larger quantities.
"All right, John," they said; "we don't want your claims. We only want
to find out the lay of the gutter. There's room enough for all at
present."
The Chinamen, understanding now the English language, of which they
were before so ignorant, became gratefully effusive. The old man
darted forward to take the four pennyweights of gold.
"Stop, though," said a Tipperary boy, the lawyer of the company. "Have
you got Miners' Rights! Where's your Miners' Rights?"
Without their Miners' Rights--which, it may be necessary to explain,
were parchment grants from her Majesty the Queen, to mine the soil for
gold, at the rate of one pound per year per man--the claims which the
Chinamen were working were not legally theirs, and could be taken from
them at a moment's notice. In reply to the query, twenty-three hands
were thrust into twenty-three blue dungaree bosoms, and twenty-three
pieces of parchment were waved like flags of freedom triumphantly in
the air. The gold was returned to the rightful owners, and the
Tipperary boys marked out claims for themselves on the line of the
gutter, and were fortunate enough to hit the mark. Next day more men
arrived on the ground, and the gold rush having set in, in less than
three months the township of Silver Creek was formed. Diggers and
traders flocked there from all quarters, and a strangely mixed crew
was soon assembled together.