The Gold-diggers or The Miracle
"DEAR MOLL,
"This is exactly what happened yesterday. Young Outram says that it is
very important for us to keep notes, in case the Thingummy Society
should want to know all about it one of these days.
"To begin with I was late for breakfast, so I grabbed your letter and
stuck it in my pocket, along with a roll, and bolted. Everything as
usual till about 2.30. Bibs was trying to knock some maths into our
heads, which I call pretty hard luck on a chap who has crawled to the
top of his left wing while shots were dropping round like hail. He
looked fairly fed-up. It was tremendously hot and my head ached, and
Young Outram had a rag-nail on his first finger which he said was
causing him frightful agony, when I suddenly remembered the roll and
found your letter. So we ate the roll and read it, I mean we read your
letter and ate it--anyway, we were looking at that photograph and
thinking that the boy looked a pretty decent sort, and wishing we were
him instead of ourselves when suddenly he appeared! He really did, I'm
not making this up. At the window just where the parrot was yesterday.
And the funny thing is that we don't usually sit at that desk for
maths, but the other room was having something done to it, so we did
yesterday. The chap stared at us, and Y. O. said, 'Hullo!' and he said,
'Hullo!' And Y. O. said, 'Who are you?' And he said, 'I'm a
Time-traveller!' And we said, 'What the dickens is a Time-traveller?'
And he said 'Like to come and see?' And we said, 'You bet your hat!'
And he said, 'Hold my fist and shut your eyes!' So we did, and next
thing we knew we were floating on our backs in the sea as calm and cool
as cucumbers, and the raft was bobbing about, and you know the rest. At
least, we suppose you do. That's what we want to know. Hugh told us the
Time-traveller yarn. It sounds a fairly tall tale, but we've heard
taller from chaps who were at the front. The point is, how can we go
back? London is a rotten hole in this weather.
"Your affec. bro.,
"DICK."
Mollie read this letter as she ate her morning oatcake. So her spell
had worked! The question was, would it work again? For obviously she
could not continue sending away photographs without causing remarks to
be made and questions asked. She did not see how she could do anything
more herself; they must just trust to luck, at any rate till she saw
Prudence again.
It was rather odd, when she came to think of it, that she had not
questioned Dick yesterday about how they had got over. But the fact was
that, after the first surprise of seeing them, she had forgotten. "I
forget about Now and only remember Then," she said to herself. "There
is so much to do the time simply flies and comes to an end far too
soon."
When she arrived downstairs that morning she found that her sofa had
been carried out of doors. It was a lovely day. Here in the country the
leaves still retained their early freshness, and from where she lay she
could see the downs, mistily green against the pale morning blue of the
sky. The rose-garden, with its smoothly mown grass paths, its pergolas
and arches, its standards and dwarfs, was coming into bloom so fast
under the June sunshine that Mollie thought she might almost see a bud
swell into a full-blown rose if she watched steadily enough. Caroline
Testout had already dropped some of her pink blossoms, which lay
scattered about the path in rosy patches, reminding Mollie of Grizzel
and her shells. She smiled to herself and then sighed, as her eyes
wandered from the rose-garden to the long red brick wall beyond, where
the sweet cherries grew. The fruit was turning scarlet under an orderly
net, which had been put up to protect it from the greedy little birds.
Everything was so tidy, she thought. No one would dare to pull off
those rose petals for scent-making purposes, nor to gather those
cherries merely to play at making jam with. Chauncery was lovely and
spacious compared to the house in North Kensington, and the well-kept
gardens were a pleasure to look at, but----
"I don't think England is big enough to hold children," she said to
Aunt Mary, who sat near, reading the _Aeroplane_, with some neglected
needlework lying in her lap.
Aunt Mary looked up with a surprised expression: "I am sorry you are
feeling so crowded up," she said. "Would you like me to move a little
farther away?"
"No, thank you," Mollie answered, with a laugh, "I have room to breathe
even with you there. What I mean is----" she paused for a moment,
wrinkling her brow, and then went on: "London isn't like this; it's
full of poky holes. Ours is bad enough, but from the train you can see
much, much worse places than ours. Sometimes I wonder how people can
live in them, and yet Mother says they are not the worst. There is
simply no room for children to play, so they play on the streets and
sometimes get killed. The Girl Guides are going to help, but it takes a
long time "--Mollie shook her head thoughtfully--"and there is so
little time too; at home I never have any time to do anything except
work or Guiding. I have no time to think in, except after I am in bed,
and I go to sleep so horribly soon." She shook her head again and
sighed deeply.
"Well, that's one good thing to be thankful for," Aunt Mary said
cheerfully, dropping her paper and taking up her sewing, "and there are
the holidays for thinking in. I wouldn't think too much, if I were you.
You'll get plenty of that when you are old," and Aunt Mary sighed too,
as if she did not find her own thoughts very gay affairs always.
"But I want to think of things now that will be useful long before I am
old," Mollie persisted. "There is such a _tremendous_ lot of things to
be done, Aunt Mary. And things have to be thoughts long before they are
things. I expect the person who invented aeroplanes thought about them
for ages and ages before he began to make one."
"I haven't the slightest doubt of it," Aunt Mary agreed, "but you are
wandering from your subject, which was the smallness of Great Britain."
"No, I'm not--at least not exactly, I want to make Great Britain
greater, and I can't think of a way. I should like to have plenty of
room and plenty of time."
"That won't be an easy problem for you to solve, my lambkin," Aunt Mary
said. "As a matter of fact there is room enough, in the country, but
people prefer to live in towns. You will have to hire a pied piper and
pipe all the babies into the fields."
Mollie shook her head, her eyes resting again upon the distant downs.
"I don't know," she said seriously, "but something will have to be done
some day, Aunt Mary, besides play-centres. They are good, but they
aren't enough. Too many children die. Mother goes to a children's home
once a week, and she took me once. You should just see those babies.
And they could be such dear little things too. Why--" Mollie hesitated
for a moment and then went on, "Why don't more people go to live in
Australia and Canada? The maps are full of empty spaces."
"Ah, Mollie my dear, that's not so easy as it sounds," Aunt Mary said,
folding up her work and rising to her feet. "There are all sorts of
complications when it comes to shifting camp from the Old World to the
New. But perhaps--perhaps if everyone in this old country could be
persuaded to think of the children first--! In the meantime I must go
and get lunch for my particular child."
Probably Aunt Mary's mind was running on those sick babies of the poor
as she played to Mollie that afternoon, for her fingers wandered off
into the tune of a song she had not heard sung since her childhood:
"'T is the song, the sigh of the weary:
Hard times, hard times, come again no more!
Many days you have lingered around our cottage door--
Oh, hard times, come again no more!"
Mollie lay listening, the unopened album in her lap. She was drowsy
after her morning in the garden, and thought she would rest her eyes by
closing them for five minutes. "A little darkness will do them good
after all that sunshine," she murmured to herself.
It was very pleasant lying in the quiet room, on that broad sofa,
listening to Aunt Mary's soft music. Mingling with the sound of the
piano was the droning hum of a foolish bee, who had got on the wrong
side of the window and was now making vain efforts to fly home again
through the glass. A delicious scent came from somewhere--perhaps from
the syringa bushes growing just outside the open window. Mollie's lazy
eyelids fell over her eyes--"Just five minutes--"
"Five minutes," said the clock. "Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Twenty--"
"How soundly the child sleeps," Aunt Mary whispered, peeping in a
little later to look at her niece. "These afternoon naps are the best
thing in the world for her overworked little brain. I wish I could fill
Chauncery with children, and let them run wild in the garden." She
felt, not for the first time, how duty seemed to pull two ways at once,
for there were many things she would fain have done had her duty to her
mother not stood in the way.
Someone else came and looked at Mollie.
"Asleep!" Prudence exclaimed, with a smile. "Never mind, I can manage.
It is getting very easy."
* * * * *
Mollie did not open her eyes the moment she woke up; she lay still,
enjoying the warmth, the sweet scents, and the balmy air, so different
from the cold winds of early spring. Presently she yawned, stretched
herself like a sleepy kitten, and finally sat up and opened the lazy
eyes.
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "Prue must have come and found me
asleep. I wonder where she is."
She rose to her feet and looked about her as usual. She was in a place
quite different from any she had seen hitherto. At her back stretched
an orange-grove--there was no mistaking it, for the trees, planted
evenly in rows, were laden with thousands of oranges, ripe and unripe,
while the waxy white blossom with its golden heart still grew in
clusters among the glossy dark leaves, sending its perfume out with the
warm wind far and near. Before her, divided from the grove by a narrow,
roughly fenced road, Mollie saw a wide, undulating plain, its surface
covered somewhat scantily with coarse grass and occasional clumps of
bracken. There were gum trees, large and small, their thin blue-green
leaves hanging limply from the grey boughs, and throwing but little
shade on the ground beneath. Some distance away a creek wound between
wide banks of shingly sand and low boulders. At the nearer end a gum
tree had fallen across the stream and had been left to form a crossing.
Mollie thought it did not look a very inviting bridge to cross on a
dark night.
It looked hot out there in the open. Mollie turned back to the
orange-grove, cool and inviting, and had almost decided to explore in
that direction, when the sound of voices fell upon her ear, and,
turning again, she saw a group of children crossing the scrub land in
front. In spite of wide hats and sunbonnets they were easily
recognizable. The boys were walking in front and carried spades and
pickaxes over their shoulders; the two girls were loitering along
behind, and carried between them a large round article which might be a
tub, a cradle, or a sieve. They were heading for the creek, and, as
Mollie watched, Hugh lifted his hand and pointed towards the fallen log.
"Dick and Jerry are first to-day, and they have got over without any
help from me," Mollie said to herself, with a tinge of jealousy, which,
however, she quickly got rid of--jealousy not being part of a Girl
Guide's equipment. She put her hands up to her mouth in the way she had
seen the Australians do, and shouted "Cooo-eeeeeee!", with a creditably
sustained shrill note at the end. Her call brought the children to a
standstill, and they waited for her to join them.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"We are going to dig for gold," Prudence answered, as they started
again. "Hugh says there is gold in the river-bed. The boys dig, and we
sift the diggings in this cradle, which rocks in the water so that all
the dirt runs out and the gold stays in--at least, it would if there
were any to stay. Last year we dug for ever so long, but never got any
gold at all. We found some pretty crystals, though."
"I found a purple one just like an amethyst," Grizzel joined in; "but
Mr. Fraser said it wasn't. Then I found a white one like a diamond, and
a green one. I polished them with all my might, but I lost them except
the green one. I hid it in a tree like the person who shot an arrow
into the air, only my tree is a gum instead of an oak. I expect it is
there still unbroke if it hasn't been stolen by a magpie or a blackie."
When they reached the creek the boys laid down their tools, and Hugh
studied the lie of the land with an intent expression.
"We'll begin about here," he decided presently. "Last year we dug
higher up, but I shouldn't wonder if gold silts downwards and collects
in a hollow. This is about the hollowest place I have found yet. The
soil in these old alluvial beds is often auriferous," he went on; "Mr.
Fraser says this was once quite a respectable river, but years of dry
seasons shrank it up. It will never go quite dry, because there is a
good spring up there, and that is why he chose this place for his
oranges. Irrigation is absolutely necessary for an orange-grove."
"Are we allowed to eat the oranges?" Dick asked anxiously, as a breath
of scented wind blew across him.
"Oh yes--as many as we like. But we must dig first," Hugh replied
firmly, lifting his spade as he spoke and planting it upright in the
sandy soil. "First we must peg out our claims. There's a good deal of
luck about gold-digging, of course, but you'd better look round and
choose your own spot."
After some consideration the children decided to throw in their lot
with Hugh, who was the only one among them who knew what gold looked
like in its raw state.
"You can keep half and the rest of us will go shares in the other
half," Dick suggested, quite forgetting in his interest that
Time-travellers cannot carry profits with them on their travels. The
plan sounded fair, however, so they agreed to it.
"It is possible that we may not find _gold_," Hugh said, as he marked
out a square within which to begin operations; "but we are pretty sure
to find something. Australian soil is extraordinarily rich in products.
I should think it must be about the richest soil in the world."
"I hope it won't be ants," Prudence said nervously. "I do hate ants."
"Aunts!" exclaimed Jerry, not understanding Prue's Scottish-Australian
pronunciation. "Why the dickens should we find aunts in a river-bed? Do
they all drown themselves out here? Aunts can be jolly nice too--or
jolly nasty, according to circs."
"They're _always_ nasty here," Grizzel said emphatically, "I never met
a nice ant in my life. They bite like red-hot nippers."
"Bite! Oh, I see," said Jerry, "you mean black aunts," vague memories
of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and Aunt Chloe floating in the back of his
brain. "I thought you meant white aunts. I didn't know that aborigines
were as fierce as all that."
"I have never seen any white ants here," said Prudence, who called the
native Australians blacks when she spoke of them and a-borry-jines when
she read about them. "Uncle Jim says there are a great many in India,
and they eat his books."
Jerry looked bewildered. "Of course there's lots of 'em in India," he
said, "but I never heard of them eating books."
"I expect your uncle means that they devour novels," suggested Mollie.
"No, he doesn't. He says they eat a tunnel through all his books from
one end to the other. And they stuff up the keyholes."
"Your uncle's aunts must be quaint old birds then," Jerry said
unbelievingly.
"But they aren't birds at all, they're _ants_," cried Grizzel.
A loud cackle from Hugh, whose grin had been growing wider and wider,
now interrupted the discussion: "Ho, ho, ho! One of you is talking
about aunts--your Aunt Maria--and the other is talking about ants--the
beasts that go to the sluggard," he exploded. "You _are_ a pair of
muffs! He, he, he!"
"'Go to the ant, thou sluggard'," Mollie quoted slowly. "Oh--_Jerry_--"
It took them some time to recover from this little misunderstanding.
"Next time I see Aunt Mary--bites like red-hot nippers--oh dear!"
"Well, come on and dig now," Hugh ordered at last, twisting a cord
neatly round his last peg as he spoke. "If you go on laughing like that
you'll soon begin to cry, and this mine will never get started."
Thus adjured they rolled up their sleeves and set to work. Pickaxes
were of no use in that sandy soil. The boys used their spades, and the
girls carried the turned-up sand to the creek, washing it with the
utmost care in the cinder-sifter. But their efforts met with no
success. Neither gold nor anything else, except pebbles, rewarded their
toil.
"It's always like that," Hugh said at last, sitting down on the edge of
the hole they had dug. "Gold is the most gambly stuff imaginable. We
know a lady who was as poor as a washerwoman one day, and then at
breakfast one morning she got a letter to say her goldmine shares had
struck a reef, and she got so rich she simply didn't know what to do
with her money. She came to see Papa about it. She was an old maid, so
naturally there wasn't much she wanted. You never know who is going to
be rich and who poor, with a goldmine. Some of these pebbles are quite
valuable," he continued, running a handful of shingle through his
fingers, "there are amethysts and opals and topazes in some river beds.
I have never found one myself, but I've picked up some pretty good
crystals."
"I think I'll go and look for mine," said Grizzel. "I hid it in a tree
near here. I am tired of gold-digging, and my feet are hot. I shall
dabble them in the creek and eat an orange."
She got up as she spoke and went off towards a particularly
gaunt-looking tree. Its trunk had split open, showing a hollow large
enough to hold several people; for some distance around its roots
protruded through the ground like old bones. Grizzel disappeared into
the hollow trunk, whence she presently emerged with an air of triumph.
"I've got it safe and sound. Now I'm going to get an orange."
Jerry eyed the orange-grove lovingly. Digging is thirsty work.
"Let's all go," said Hugh. "Orange juice is one of the most restorative
things in the world; if we eat enough we will be ready to make a fresh
start in half an hour or so. Very likely we shall have better luck next
time."
It was hot, and the change from the glaring sunshine into the cool
dampness of the orange-grove was very pleasant. The beautiful fruit
hung invitingly from the branches with a colour and fragrance unknown
to London shops. There were many varieties, and the Australian children
wandered critically from tree to tree.
"I'm not sure whether I like navels or bloods best," Hugh remarked,
"but perhaps on the whole, for pure refreshment, navels."
He stopped, as he spoke, before a tree on which grew oranges larger
than the London children had ever seen in their lives--immense, smooth,
opulent-looking globes of rich golden yellow. For a time silence
reigned, while six people covered themselves with juice, "Like the
ointment that ran down Aaron's beard," Grizzel said, and the ground in
the neighbourhood assumed an auriferous hue that made the inventor sigh.
"I wish we could find a place where nuggets lay about like that," he
said rather pensively; "it would be awfully jolly."
"It would be," agreed the others, "most awfully jolly."
"I think I'd as soon have oranges as gold," Grizzel said reflectively,
looking down at the peel-strewn earth. "Think how nice it would be if
you were in the very middle of a scorching desert, and dying of thirst
like the men in _Five Weeks in a Balloon_, to find a lovely orange tree
covered with juicy oranges. It would be nicer than finding gold."
"You do talk silly slithers," Hugh said derisively. "Who ever found a
beautiful orange tree in the middle of a desert? You _might_ find gold
and bribe an Arab to give you water."
"You _might_ find an orange tree in an oasis," Grizzel said huffily. "I
am going to bathe my feet in the creek. Go and look for your old gold.
You won't find it."
"All right, Carroty-cross-patch. You won't get any if we do," Hugh
replied politely.
"Don't want it, Goggle-eyed-guinea-pig." Grizzel got up and walked off,
her sun-bonnet dangling down her back and her red curls waving over her
head. No one took any notice of these little amenities. No one
remembered that the ointment which ran down Aaron's beard was like
brethren dwelling together in unity--a good and pleasant thing. They
were all brothers or sisters and accustomed to such mellifluous modes
of address.
"We'd better go back and dig in a new place," said Hugh; "the light
will begin to fade before very long."
They gathered up their orange peel and buried it tidily, and then
stepped out of the cool grove into the hot sunshine with some
reluctance. But gold-digging is not mere play, as Hugh reminded them.
If you want to find a large nugget you begin by looking for small ones,
and the search undoubtedly entails some hard work.
The new diggings were no more productive than the old. The boys worked
industriously, digging widely rather than deeply. It was decidedly
monotonous work, and Dick began to think that for pure excitement
gold-digging showed up poorly beside football. Their backs ached, their
hands were blistered, and the shingly pebbles got into their shoes.
They were hot and thirsty, and into the minds of four of them crept a
suspicion that Grizzel had chosen the better way of spending the time.
They could see her sitting on a boulder, her feet in the water and her
hands occupied with her crystal, which she was rubbing in a leisurely
way on a stone, as one sharpens slate-pencils. The afternoon wore on;
the sun seemed to gain in speed as he slanted down the sky, and tree
shadows lay about the ground like long thin skeletons. A herd of cows,
on their way to the milking-shed, trailed lazily past the weary
diggers, reminding them of tea-time with its refreshing drinks and
soothing cream and butter.
Jerry stood up, dropping his spade and stretching his arms above his
head.
"I'm tired," he announced. "Let's hang our spades on a gummy tree and
sit beside Carrots for a bit. I'd like to dabble my little feet too,
before walking home."
Hugh assented somewhat reluctantly; he would have preferred to continue
digging while daylight lasted. "We've done _something_," he said, as
they took off their shoes and stockings; "we've found where gold isn't,
and that's rather important."
"I know lots of places where it isn't," said Dick, putting his hands in
his pockets, "I could have told you that without digging for a whole
afternoon, if I'd known it was important."
"Of course I mean when it isn't where it might be," Hugh amended,
taking no notice of Dick's gibe. "It's what Papa calls the process of
elimination. You've got to do it with almost everything worth having
really. You've only got to look at this river bed to see there's pretty
sure to be something worth having there--in fact I know there is. It
may not be gold, but it's something."
"How do you know it?" Mollie asked curiously. "I don't see anything
particular about the river bed. It doesn't look half so likely as the
gold patch in the road beside your cherry garden."
"I can't tell you how, but I do. Just you wait and see. To-morrow I
think I'll try the old place again. I shall go on trying till I find
something, either gold or precious stones. There might even be
diamonds; there are in some river beds."
"Look," said Grizzel, holding out her hand with the stone in it, "I
have rubbed a bit off one side at last. If I rub long enough it will
come bright all over."
A small, roughly eight-sided crystal lay in the palm of her hand. Six
sides were dull and colourless, the remaining two sides were clear and
transparent.
"I rubbed my bit off exactly opposite the bit that was clean already,"
she went on, "so that I could look through it at the sun." She turned
the crystal over and held it up as she spoke. A dazzling flash of
pale-green light darted out, as though an unearthly finger were
pointing at the sun. It was gone in a moment, and the stone looked dull
and rough as before.
"What was that?" Grizzel asked, in a startled voice. "Is it going to go
off like fireworks?"
"Give it to me," said Hugh, taking it from Grizzel's unresisting
fingers. He held it up as she had done, and again the pale-green light
flashed out. He moved it slightly from side to side, and with his
movements the green light took on the shining hues of a rainbow.
"It's like a diamond," said Prudence in an awed voice.
"It _is_ a diamond," cried Hugh. "I knew it! I knew it! I said so!
Grizzel found it in the place we dug last year. Grizzel found it, but
it was me that looked for it, because I knew! Where this one was there
will be more. _We have found a diamond bed!_"
"If Grizzel hadn't rubbed it so hard you would never have known,"
Prudence reminded him. "She rubbed that bit for _weeks_ last year."
Hugh turned the crystal over and over, examining it on every side.
"Diamonds are terrifically hard," he explained more calmly. "It takes
months to cut and polish a diamond properly. Grizzel's pretty good at
sticking to a thing; I'll say that for her. I'm glad the first diamond
was found by her."
"Well--it will take me some time to polish it all over," Grizzel said,
with a sigh. "If I did nothing else all day long but rub it on a stone
it would be clean in about six months."
"Who does this land belong to?" Jerry asked. "Is it your father's?"
"Oh, no--it's Mr. Eraser's. For miles around the land is his. That's
the man we are staying with."
"Then the diamond is Mr. Fraser's, not yours or Grizzel's," Jerry
pronounced.
There was a short silence. "Mr. Fraser said I might have all the gold I
found," Hugh said, in a doubtful tone.
"I expect he guessed that you wouldn't find any," Jerry responded. "But
a diamond like that is a different thing. If it really is a diamond it
is probably pretty valuable--perhaps it is worth a hundred pounds. You
can't walk off with a hundred pounds without telling."
"Well, we'll show it to him. Of course we'll tell him we have found a
diamond bed," Hugh answered.
"It's my diamond," Grizzel declared. "I found it and I rubbed it and it
slept under my pillow, and I hid it and I love it and it's mine. I
don't care what anybody says."
"Mr. Fraser will most likely give you lots of money for it," Mollie
suggested soothingly, "and then you can go and buy something nicer than
a diamond."
"I don't want lots of money. I want my own dear little stone that I
rubbed myself," Grizzel repeated, tears starting to her eyes. "Why
should Mr. Fraser take my stone and chop it all up with horrible sharp
grinding knives? It's mine. I found it."
"You'll have to show it to him first," Hugh said decisively, "whether
you found it or not. If you keep it you will be a thief, and perhaps
you will be sent to prison."
"Then I'd rather let it go back to its home in the river bed," Grizzel
cried passionately. As she spoke she snatched the crystal from Hugh's
hand; there was a flash of green light--a splash--and it was gone.
She turned and ran, sobbing and crying. Prudence followed, bent upon
comforting her. Mollie looked scared, Jerry laughed, Hugh shrugged his
shoulders:
"Just like a girl!" he said. "It doesn't matter; we'll find more. But
that was a good diamond; I'd have liked to show it to Mr. Fraser. We'd
better collect our things and go home."
Three of them turned away, but Dick lingered behind. His quick eyes,
trained to watching the flight of balls of all sizes from footballs to
golf-balls, had taken accurate note of the spot where that little
splash had been. There were still circles widening round it. The creek
looked shallow just there.
"If I scooped up the sand carefully _now_, as likely as not I'd
retrieve that stone," he said to himself. "Grizzel is a decent little
kid; she'll be sorry by and by, and, besides, the old chap ought to
have his diamond if it really is a diamond. Diamonds aren't so jolly
easy to come by as Hugh seems to think. That white stone is almost in
the middle of the circle--I'll make for that."
"Don't wait for me," he shouted after the others, "I'm coming in a
jiff." He waited till he saw them turn their somewhat dejected and
preoccupied backs upon the scene of the late disaster, and then
transferred his attention to the creek. At the point where he stood the
water was comparatively deep; it had evidently formed a channel for
itself, helped, probably, by a slender waterfall which dropped over a
large boulder on the higher ground some distance beyond the fallen tree.
"I can crawl over that and drop off at the shallow part," he thought,
"I'll have to look sharp or the circles will be gone."
He rolled up his already short flannels and started. The tree was by no
means steady--it rolled and shook under his weight; but, as the worst
that could happen would be a good soaking, he did not worry overmuch,
and soon slid off into the shallow stream. As he had predicted, the
water there barely reached to his knees. He scrutinized the
ever-widening circle, now faint and irregular, and, calculating the
distance from its edge to its centre, he fixed his eyes intently upon
the white stone and cautiously waded towards it, his movements in the
water breaking up the last traces of the circle. When he reached the
white stone he halted.
"It was here, almost to a T, or my name is not Richard Gordon," he
muttered, and, stooping carefully, he scooped up a double handful of
shingly sand from the river bottom. He stood up, letting the water run
away through his tightly closed fingers. As he bent his head to examine
the pebbles left in his hand, a sunbeam darted over his shoulder--there
was a flash of pale green.
"Got it, by jinks!" he chuckled exultantly. "First go-off! Good for
you, Richard, my boy--your eye is pretty well in and no mistake. Come
out of that, my young diamond, and let's have a look at you--you'd do
A1 for heliographing with."
Dick soon scrambled to shore, and stood for a moment looking after the
others, now far ahead. "I'll put him back in the hollow trunk where
Grizzel hid him," he decided, with a twinkle in his eyes. "It might be
rather a lark--"
A sharp sprint brought him up with the other two boys, who were
awaiting his arrival seated on the top of a slip-rail, Mollie having
gone in search of Prudence and Grizzel.
"What on earth have you been doing?" Hugh demanded. "Have you been
swimming?"
"I was only having a look round," Dick answered, with a wink at Jerry;
"I thought I'd do a little prospecting on my own."
"Why didn't you tell me, you beast?" Jerry asked, linking his arm into
Dick's affectionately.
Dick answered by a friendly punch on the head. "Who is Mr. Fraser?" he
asked Hugh, settling himself in his place on the rail.
"He is a man we know," Hugh replied rather vaguely. "He owns all this
part and is as rich as a nabob, but he isn't married, so he lives up
here all alone, with two or three Chinese servants in the house. He
once lived in China. He's awfully fond of gardening, and pictures, and
that sort of thing, like my mater. He's a merchant and he owns ships.
He's a great friend of the pater's, and he comes in about once a week
to hear the mater sing, and they yarn away about home and spout poetry.
But he is quite a jolly sort of chap when you get him alone. His house
is called Drink Between, which wouldn't be a bad name for a book if you
wanted to write one."
"Jolly good name for a pub, if you wanted to keep one," Jerry remarked.
"I shouldn't wonder if he got it from some old coaching inn of the
olden times--though, of course, we are in the olden times already, if
it comes to that--fairly old, at any rate."
"No, he got it from a place at home where Prince Charlie once had a
drink. When the girls are here he gets in a couple of women to look
after them. Other times he only has his heathen Chinee lot, and jolly
good they are! That is, of course, if you like stewed puppy and bird's
nest," Hugh added solemnly; "I love 'em myself."
"Adore 'em," Jerry said, smacking his lips. "Never lose a chance of
having puppy-tail hash when we can get it, do we, old son?"
"Rather not," Dick replied. "Remember those bird's-nest tarts our old
woman at the tuck-shop used to make before butter got so scarce?
Scrumptious!"
The appearance of the girls interrupted these flights of masculine
fancy. Grizzel still looked subdued, but the tears were dried, and she
was listening politely to Mollie's tuneful advice to "Pack your
troubles in your own kit-bag, and smile, smile, smile". Hugh shouted to
them to hurry up or they would be late for tea, and soon the little
party was under way again, as cheerful as if diamonds had never been
heard of. They were now in sight of Drink Between; a square, solidly
built house, with a wide veranda and balcony on three sides of it,
completely hidden at present under a pale-purple drapery of wistaria.
"It looks like an amethyst," Mollie said admiringly, as they drew near.
"I never saw such a purple house as that before."
The inside of Drink Between was entirely different from any of the
other Australian houses which Mollie had been in. They entered by a
side door which opened straight on to a narrow stairway. The girls
climbed up to their bedroom, a large airy apartment opening on to the
balcony.
"Where are your father and mother and Baby?" Mollie asked, as they
washed away the remains of oranges and gold-digging.
"Papa and Mamma have to go and meet an immigrant ship to-morrow, so
they aren't coming up till afterwards. And Baby and Bridget are with
them."
"What's an immigrant ship?" asked Mollie.
"A ship full of immigrants," Prudence replied, brushing out her curls
with conscientious care. "Immigrants are people who get their passage
out for nothing, or for very little, and then they go to work here.
Mamma is getting a new cook because ours is going to be married. And
Papa likes to meet the Scotch immigrants and say welcome to Australia
to them. Bridget was an immigrant, but she says she will soon be
Australian."
"I see," said Mollie thoughtfully. "Are they ever married? I mean--do
children come with their parents?"
"Yes, lots of them. Are you ready, Mollie? The boys are getting
impatient. I can hear them growling."
Feeling very fresh and clean in white muslin frocks with pale-blue
sashes, the girls descended by a different and much wider staircase
than the one they had gone up by. They stepped off the stairs straight
into a large hall, or living-room, which apparently occupied half the
floor of the house, for on two sides it opened on to the veranda, and
on the third side into a large bamboo house; the fourth wall was
unbroken but for one door. The room was painted white, and the floor
covered with fine white Chinese matting, over which lay a few Eastern
rugs, their once rich and glowing colours now dimmed by time and the
tread of generations of feet. Through the wide-open French windows
could be seen the long, graceful streamers of wistaria, hanging from
the arched boughs round the veranda like a lace veil. Against this
background grew masses of pale-pink and blue hydrangeas, with their
flat fragile flowers and broad leaves. The bamboo house was given
wholly to ferns, over which a fountain was playing, and under the fine
spray the green fronds glistened as freshly as though they grew in the
heart of an English wood.
The sun was now setting, and its crimson glow shone through the mauve
wistaria, filling the room with an opal-coloured light which made
Mollie think of fairyland. It fell with a peculiarly pleasant effect
upon a round tea-table spread for tea. She had never seen such fine and
snowy damask, such shining silver, or such delicately transparent china
cups and saucers. Even Grannie's well-kept table paled before the
exquisite freshness of this one. As for the food part--there was a
crystal bowl of yellow clotted cream, a plate of gossamer balls which
were probably intended to pass for scones, a twist of gold which was
most likely meant for bread, and dishes of preserves unknown to the
English children--tiny green oranges in syrup, scarlet rose-berries,
and jellies like amber and topaz, looking as though some of Hugh's
precious stones had been cooked for his tea.
They were about half-way through this beautiful meal when there was a
sound of footsteps on the matting, and a Chinese servant appeared,
bearing a large iced birthday cake set on a silver tray.
"Hullo, Ah Kew! What you gottee there?" called Hugh, under the
impression that he was speaking pidgin-English to perfection.
"Master talkee to-day b'long he burfday," Ah Kew replied. "He talkee
my, wanchee cook makee one piecee burfday-cake." He set the cake down
in front of Prudence as he spoke.
"Welly good, Ah Kew, Master b'long quitey righty," said Hugh
approvingly. "Cook makee jolly-good cakee, me eat jolly-good cakee.
Cook pleased, me pleased, cakee pleased, all jolly-welly pleased."
Ah Kew smiled a slow and mysterious smile, his black eyes closing up
under his slanting eyebrows, and his blue-capped head nodding. He
glanced over the tea-table.
"Tea b'long all plopper?" he asked anxiously. "S'pose you wanchee more
can have plenty more."
"No, thank you, Ah Kew, me eatee more me bustee," Hugh replied
politely. Ah Kew nodded his head again and departed, his pigtail
flapping against the long skirts of his blue cotton coat.
Prudence cut the beautiful cake and distributed large slices all round.
No grown-up person was present to make sensible remarks about not
eating too much, which was a good or a bad thing "according to circs"
as Jerry would say.
The children were all tired after their hard work and excitement; Mr.
Fraser was not coming home till late, and had left a message to say
that he expected to find everyone fast asleep in bed when he got back;
so, after a tour of exploration round the house and its immediate
neighbourhood, they went off to their rooms, and soon most of them were
asleep.
Not all of them, however. Whether it was the cake, or the change of
air, or the strange bed, or still stranger circumstances, or all
combined, it would be hard to say, but it seemed to Dick that the
longer he lay in bed the more wakeful he became. The thought of the
diamond began to worry him, and soon assumed gigantic proportions in
his mind. Suppose it got lost. Perhaps it was worth a hundred pounds,
as Jerry had suggested. Suppose a magpie flew off with it. It might be
worth more than a hundred; perhaps two hundred pounds. What if a
blackfellow stole it, or the tree fell down in the night, or got burnt
up. It is true that none of these things had happened during the months
in which it had lain there before, but _then_ no one had known that it
was valuable. It would be just like luck, or rather unluck, if
something happened this particular night. Dick's knowledge of diamonds
was so small that it could be hardly said to exist, and he now began to
have nightmarish visions of huge sums of money--thousands of pounds
perhaps, lost through his folly. To be sure, no one knew that he had
put the diamond back in the tree. But he knew himself, which was the
main thing. He tossed from side to side restlessly. A new thought
perplexed him. How could anything he did or left undone matter now,
seeing that he wasn't going to be born for another thirty years? He
belonged to the future, and the future could not influence the
present--at least, he supposed not, but funny things did happen.
Anyhow, this was _his_ present for the moment, and he had his usual
irritating conscience.
He got out of bed at last and went to the window. There was such a
flood of moonlight that out-of-doors was almost as light as day. Why
not slip into his clothes and scoot down to the bottom of the
scrub-land, and collect that diamond? It would be better than tossing
about in bed, and afterwards he would go calmly to sleep. The
difficulty would be to get out of the house. Probably Ah Kew was on the
watch for his master, and, if he saw Dick, would remark "no can do", or
words to that effect.
Dick went to the edge of the balcony and looked over; it was not very
far from the ground, but it was too far to jump. How about the wistaria
boughs? They looked pretty tough--he decided to try, and if he
fell--well, he had smashed himself up before this more than once, and
no doubt would do so again. A few tumbles more or less wouldn't make
much difference to him, especially, he reflected, as he was bound to
get back to 1920 somehow or other. He could hardly kill himself now if
he tried.
He reached the ground with nothing worse than a few scratches to his
credit, and set off along the path by which they had come in the
afternoon, keeping well in the shadow of the hedge in case Ah Kew's
beady eyes should be on the outlook. So long as he was within the
grounds of the house he felt confident and cheerful, but when he
reached the slip-rail and looked over into the land beyond he felt some
of his courage oozing away.
It looked eerie, that strange, unfamiliar country, in this white light.
There were dead trees standing here and there, and their pale trunks
took unpleasant shapes--they might conceivably be something else than
trees--not ghosts, of course; there were no such things as ghosts. All
the tales he had ever read about Australia suddenly started up in his
mind--tales of deadly snakes, of bushrangers, of blackfellows, who had
methods of their own of doing you in. One might go through a good deal
without being actually _killed_. Now that he came to think of it,
Australia in the 'seventies was a wildish sort of place--in some parts
at any rate. He wished that he was surer where he was--how far away
from civilization. He supposed that Ned Kelly and his gang were still
at large.
But, of course, he could not go back. He stepped cautiously from tree
to tree, keeping to the black shadows as much as possible. He could
hear the sound of that little waterfall quite distinctly, and see the
moonlight on the rippling shallows of the creek--now he could see the
gum tree he was making for--he had taken particular notice of a crooked
bough--what on earth was that?
A wild piercing shriek from somewhere beyond the creek brought him
suddenly to a standstill, his heart in his mouth. Undoubtedly a woman
was being murdered or tortured. Blackfellows, probably, as Ned Kelly
made a point of not hurting women--at least so it said in _Robbery
Under Arms_. Dick wondered what exactly the blackfellows had done to
the woman--and there was the blood-curdling shriek again!
He stood still. After all, why not leave the diamond till daylight? He
had been a silly ass to imagine all that rubbish about it, and a much
sillier ass to leave his safe bedroom and come out to this wild and
desolate spot all alone. If he had brought Jerry--
Ah, Jerry! There had been that affair of Jerry's eldest brother and the
guns. Ten wounds. Both legs shot off. "Stick it out, you chaps." The
very last words he spoke in this world, sweeter in Jerry's ear, Dick
knew, than the finest poetry ever written. He gathered himself together
and went on. It would never do to begin a habit of _not_ sticking it
out. For, wherever he was, he was always Dick Gordon to himself--a
person for whom he wished to have a considerable amount of respect.
He wished that the orange grove, so cool and lovely by day, did not
look so dark and mysterious by night.
At last! Here was the old tree. Now for it. He stepped round, prepared
to enter the empty hollow regardless of possible snakes or blacks, when
he heard a sound that made the hair rise on his head and the back of
his neck feel queer, for it was unmistakably a child crying inside the
tree. The child of the murdered woman, he thought. So the blacks _were_
near--perhaps inside the tree at this very moment. The idea flitted
across his mind that there was an extraordinary difference between
reading about a thing and experiencing it. As the child's sobs
continued he shrunk together--he would rather meet an enemy in the open
and be shot at twenty times than face these savage and mysterious
blacks--and then he suddenly decided that, if there were a child there,
he must go and look for it and do his best, blacks or no blacks.
But at that very instant the crying stopped and turned to speaking:
"Please, God, let there be a miracle. Just this once, God. I'm sorry,
God; I'll be good if you'll make a miracle. Only this once. I am very,
very sorry." The crying began again.
"Grizzel!" exclaimed Dick, his fears all vanishing like darkness before
light. "How on earth did she get there? She'll be frightened into fits
if she sees me." He moved back a little distance and stopped to think.
The best plan would be to call her softly, he decided.
"Grizzel! Where are you, Grizzel? Are you there, kiddy? It's Dick
calling. Are you in your tree? I'm coming--look out!"
[Illustration: DICK STARTED VIOLENTLY]
He came up to the hollow opening and looked in. It was Grizzel sure
enough, in her little dressing-gown, her face blotched with tears and
her curls crushed and tumbled. Dick put an arm round her: "Don't cry,
kiddy; the diamond is all right."
"Oh, Dick, I did hope there might be a miracle," she sobbed, burying
her head on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. My poor little diamond, all
those years and years shut up in the ground! It had just one look at
the sun and then I threw it back. Oh, Dick, if God would only make a
miracle this _once_ and put my diamond back!"
Dick felt a choky sensation in his throat as the thin little arm
tightened round his neck.
"It's all right, Grizzel," he whispered, "we'll find the diamond--let
my arm loose a moment." He groped round, and in another minute the
stone was in his hand. He turned it over, and a pale-green ray darted
out, more unearthly than ever in the moonlight.
Grizzel gave a cry as he laid it on her palm. "My diamond! The miracle!
I _thought_ it would happen! I just _thought_ God hadn't forgotten the
way! Oh, Dick, I am so glad! I am so glad! My own dear little diamond!"
Dick had not the heart to explain at the moment that there had been no
miracle, and Grizzel was far too preoccupied with her own joy and
relief to wonder what had brought Dick to her tree just then; and
besides, he thought vaguely, one never knows.
"We must be going in," he said; "it's ever so late and we'll be
cotched. How on earth did you get out?"
"Down the back stairs. The others were asleep, but I could not sleep,
thinking of my little diamond in the cold river--" at that moment a
wild shriek rang out again, and Dick started violently.
"It's only a curlew calling to his friend," Grizzel said, creeping out
of the hollow. "They scream exactly like people being killed, but it's
only their way; they mean to be kind."
Dick drew a long breath. A wild bird and a crying child! Suppose he had
gone back! Thank goodness he hadn't, but it was a near shave.
The boy and girl walked happily along, hand in hand. They had reached
the slip-rail and were climbing over, when a tall man appeared from the
garden of Drink Between.
"_Grizzel!_ What in the wide creation are you doing here at this hour
of night, or rather morning? Do you know it is nearly one o'clock? And
what are you doing, young man?"
"Oh, Mr. Fraser--it's Mr. Fraser," she explained, turning to Dick, and
such a confused tale followed, in which crystals, gold-mines, diamonds,
wickedness, and miracles were all jumbled together, that Mr. Fraser
decided that a glass of milk, a biscuit, and bed, had better pave the
way to a fuller explanation next day.
Ah Kew let them in with a wise smile and several nods of his head, and
soon both Dick and Grizzel were sleeping as soundly as the other four
Time-travellers.
"It is a green diamond," Mr. Fraser pronounced next morning, "but what
its value is we cannot tell until it is cut and polished. Then it will
belong to Grizzel, to have and to hold till death do them part. If you
really have found a diamond-mine, youngsters, something will have to be
done about shares. Who finds keeps, you know. We'll have the place
properly surveyed and see what happens. But don't begin counting your
chickens too soon--these Australian diamond-mines are tricksy things;
you never know how they are going to pan out. Wait a bit before you
plan what to do with your fortune."
Mollie, Dick, and Jerry suddenly felt very sad as they remembered that
they were out of this stroke of luck. Whatever happened, Fortune was
not preparing to smile on _them_, at least not in a way that would be
of any immediate practical use to them when they got back to London.
And a fortune apiece would have come in so very handy just now--just
forty years hence, that is. The boys made up their minds to investigate
this matter of fortunes in the colonies directly they got home.
Hugh tossed up his hat and caught it again: "We'll be jolly rich," he
cried. "The Mater will get her trip home, and the Pater needn't worry
about bills and subscription lists any more, and I'll get that
camera--oh, 'hard times, hard times, come again no more!'"
* * * * *
Mollie sat up. The clock was still ticking minutes into hours, hours
into days, days into weeks and months and years.
"Oh dear," she said, "I do wonder--"
"Wonder what, my Molliekins?" asked Aunt Mary, preceding Hester with
the tea-tray.
"I wonder," Mollie repeated, and then began to laugh. "I don't suppose
you ever bit like red-hot nippers, did you, Aunt Mary?"