THE CANVAS CITY
The travelers had been variously advised as to their best road to
Melbourne from a certain point; but what they did (by pure accident) was
to come out on the Williamstown promontory and get a second lift (by
sheer luck) in a boat just leaving for the Sandridge side. They were
even luckier than they knew. The gain in mileage was very considerable.
And there was sun enough still upon the waters for them to see with
their own eyes the derelict sail of all nations and of every rig,
swinging forlornly with the turning tide, their blistered timbers
cracking for some paint, and all hands at the diggings.
But the sun was sinking when the two friends landed at Liardet's Jetty,
and came at once by the Sandridge Road to the first thin sprinkling of
the tents which formed the Melbourne of those days. The track ran in
ruts through sand and dust as fine as tooth-powder; they trudged beside
it over scanty grass, with here and there a star-shaped flower without
the slightest scent. Gum-trees of many kinds, some with the white bark
peeling from their trunks, others smooth and leafless as gigantic bones,
made amends with their peculiar aroma. There was a shrill twittering of
the most unmusical birds, the croak of bullfrogs from a neighbouring
lagoon, a more familiar buzz of flies, a tinfoil rustle of brown grass
at every step. Once the grass rustled before Denis's foot came down, and
in a second he had stamped the life out of his first snake--a long black
fellow with a white waistcoat and pink stripes. Doherty held it up in
horror.
"That's not the way to kill a snake," said he. "Jump out of the road if
you haven't a stick. It's lucky for you that you came down on his right
end, or he'd have been up your leg like a lamplighter, and in a few
minutes you'd 'a' been as stiff as him. Poisonous? I believe you,
mister! You thank your stars, and don't do it again."
And Denis went on with a cold coating to an active skin, but without a
syllable until Doherty drew his attention to a marquee under the trees,
with a brass plate stitched to the canvas; and when they got near enough
to read the legend it was ESTABLISHMENT FOR YOUNG LADIES, in tremendous
capitals; there was even a blackboard nailed to a blue gum, with benches
fixed to stumps, and every accessory but the young ladies themselves.
Denis was prepared to meet them two-and-two in the next glade, but the
multiplication of tents soon put this one out of his head, and their
infinite variety became apparent as they drew together into streets.
There were canvas cones, canvas polygons, canvas in every figure
defined by Euclid and in more that baffle definition. A cricket tent had
a publican's sign swinging from an overhanging branch. A red lamp
surmounted the nearer of two uprights which carried a pole with a sheet
stretched across it; the doctor crawled out of this his surgery, and lit
up with a brawny arm, as the travelers passed. Denis thought it still
quite light, but when they came to the first bricks and mortar, as it
seemed but a few yards further, there was just enough rose in the dusk
for good eyes to glean from the notice-board in front of the house that
its three rooms and its strip of yard were to let at L400. And in
another minute it was night.
An unpleasant feature of these canvas streets was that slops and refuse
were hurled into the middle of them, while cast-off clothing literally
lined the sides; but as a light twinkled at one tent, and a fire blazed
up outside the next, the picturesque contrasts afforded by the firelit
faces, the inconceivable jumble of grades and races, blinded Denis to
all else. Now it was a drayman with a single eye-glass, now a gentle
face at the wash-tub and a diamond flashing through the suds. The
peoples might have been shot by the shovelful from their respective
soils; yellow Yankee, gross German, suspicious Spaniard, sunny Italian,
burly Dane and murderous Malay, there they all were, so many separate
ingredients newly flung into the pot. A noticeable link was the
hook-nosed Jew who spoke every language and hailed from every clime.
And either there were more Chinamen even than Europeans, or their blue
breeches and their beehive hats brought them oftener to the eye. But the
usually drunken blackfellow and his invariably degenerate gin were
already becoming scarce in their own land.
Denis and Jim drifted with this cosmopolitan crowd across a bridge, into
a region of fewer tents, better lights, more weather-board walls, and
not a few of bricks and mortar. A veranda where a free fight was raging
turned out to be that of the General Post Office; the flag flying over
it celebrated the arrival of an English mail, and it was for their
letters that the poor folk fought. One shook himself clear with his
letter in his hand, and an indescribable look of happiness on his face,
as Denis looked on enviously. In an innkeeper's yard hard by, the horses
of a bullock-team scratched the panels of a resplendent brougham; and
though this was evidently the fashionable quarter, judging by the
numbers of regular shops, the gutters were swollen to such rivers that
in places drays acted as ferry-boats across them. In some of the shop
windows the things were marked VERY DEAR to tempt the plutocratic
plebeian; but in nearly all there was a legend which went to one head at
least--the legend of GOLD BOUGHT IN ANY QUANTITY.
"There must be plenty going after all," said Denis, "or you wouldn't see
that at every turn."
Doherty agreed without enthusiasm; it was what he had always held; but
the surface excitement of his years was not proof against a ravenous
appetite, whereas Denis could have gone on and on without a bite. Yet
they were really in search of modest fare, and were actually
reconnoitring a large and flaring shanty, which rather chilled the
frugal blood in Denis, when a choice harangue was poured into them from
the veranda; and there sat a gorilla of a man, his shirt half-hidden by
his beard, dipping a pannikin in a bucket between his knees, and
spilling the contents as he waved it to the pair.
"Come in, ye cripples!" roared he. "Come and have a pannikin o'
champagne with ole Bullocky, or by the hokey you'll be stretched out
stiff!"
And with that the true gorilla fell to pelting them with the empty
champagne bottles that surrounded him, until Denis cried a truce and led
the way in, laughing, under a storm of drunken banter from the
successful digger and his friends.
"A new chum, I see!" said Bullocky, rolling an unsteady eye over Denis
when he had handed him the pannikin. "Another blessed 'Jack ashore,' by
the cut of ye; deserting orf'cer, I shouldn't wonder! All the more
reason listen me: none of your damn quarter-deck airs here, you know.
There ain't no blessed orf'cers aboard this little craft. We're all in
the cuddy or afore the mast--w'ich you please--so you can just sweat all
the notions you ever had. And if you don't empty that there pannikin
down your own gullet----"
A huge fist finished the sentence with a terrifying shake, as Denis was
in the act of handing the tin mug to the open-mouthed Doherty.
"We haven't had our supper yet," he explained. "It's dangerous stuff on
empty stomachs."
"Not had your suppers?" thundered Bullocky; a lurch took him to the
tap-room door, where he gave the order in a roar. "Now you drink up," he
went on, with ferocious hospitality, as another lurch brought him back.
"It cost five pounds a bottle, and if it ain't good enough for scum like
you, I'll stretch the two of ye stiff till your grub's ready."
And the genial brute bellowed with laughter until the veranda shook, and
flinging off a wideawake garnished with an ostrich feather, stuck his
great head into the bucket of champagne and drank like his betters of
the field. As a result, Denis and Jim had their meal in peace, for it
was but lukewarm mutton and sodden duff, and while they ate, one of his
friends informed them that "Bullocky" was the short for Bullock Creek,
Bendigo, of which the great man was patron sinner, having made several
fortunes there that year, and spent them in the way they saw. "Which
isn't so bad," added his friend, who did discredit to a better class,
"for a gentleman from over the way."
Denis asked him what he meant.
"An old hand from Van Diemen's Land," the man answered in a despicable
undertone. And Denis felt inclined to tell the old hand, who now
returned to crown his hospitality by forcing a nugget apiece upon the
two beginners.
"But it must be worth fifty pounds!" exclaimed Denis, in vain protest,
as he handled his.
"Fifty smacks in the mouth!" thundered Bullocky preparing to administer
them. "You ain't on your dam' quarter-deck now!"
"Very well," said Denis, "we'll keep them for luck, rather than come to
blows about it; and we really must thank you----"
"You dare!" interrupted Bullocky, with another flourish of his hairy
fist. "It's no more'n wot I'd do for any other scum with all their
troubles ahead on 'em. I ain't got no troubles fore nor aft; I'm Lord
God o' Bullock Creek, I am, and I ain't done with you yet; you come
along o' me."
So saying, he led the way toward certain sounds of revelry which had
begun to fill the lulls between his detonations. And in a marquee
crowded with diggers, and reeking with the fumes from pipe and pot, the
trio were in time for the last lines of a song from a buffoon on the
platform at one end:
"And when you think it's all serene--
Pop goes the weasel!"
It was the latest song from England, and was vociferously encored; but
not for the first time, it seemed, and the mountebank would only bow and
scrape. In an instant the rank air was yellow with flying orange-peel.
But Bullocky handed Jim a nugget to throw for him, which Mr. Doherty
discharged with such effect that it hit the performer on one leg and
sent him hopping round the stage on the other, until the nature of the
projectile was discovered, and the song given yet again. At its close
the plutocrat's party were accorded a table in front, and more drink
ordered to Denis's embarrassment. "Careful, Jimmy," he contrived to
whisper, and received a reassuring kick under the table by way of reply.
A poor painted girl, with a voice that had some little sweetness left,
and a pathos all its own, came next with a song just old enough to have
associations for some of those who heard. It was, however, a sweet song
in itself, and in a few bars a hush had fallen on the audience; even
Bullocky sat back in his chair, his huge beard leveled at the singer.
"You are going far away, far away from poor Jeannette;
There's no one left to love me now, and you too will forget;
But my heart will be with you wherever you may go--
Can you look me in the face and say the same, Jeannot?
When you wear the jacket red, and the beautiful cockade,
Oh! I fear you will forget all the promises you made.
With a gun upon your shoulder and a bayonet by your side,
You'll be taking some proud lady and be making her your bride--
You'll be taking some proud lady and be making her your bride!"
So it ran; and Denis caught himself pressing his dear new amulet to his
heart. He was so saddened that he did not see Bullocky until he heard
him roar, "No, he won't, my dear! I'll stretch him stiff and stark if he
do!" at which one behind gave a laugh, and so brought that formidable
fist within an inch of his nose, while with the other paw the gorilla
dashed away a tear that ought to have filled a wineglass. Denis lost
half the next verse in watching him. Bullocky was now sprawling across
the table, his great face hidden in the hirsute folds of his powerful
arms.
"Oh! if I were King of France, or still better Pope of Rome,
I'd have no fighting men abroad, no weeping maids at home.
All the world should be at peace, or, if kings must show their might,
Why, let them who make the quarrel be the only ones to fight--
Yes, let them who make the quarrel be the only ones to fight!"
Bullocky's shoulders were heaving with vinous sobs. He did not join in
the tempest of applause, and before the last verse had been repeated his
emotions reached their anti-climax in a sounding snore. Denis gave
Doherty a nod, and they deserted under cover of the final furore.
Near the exit of the marquee a degenerate sailor reeled into them; and
it shocked Denis slowly to identify the blurred features of his late
shipmate, the chief officer of the _North Foreland_. It was but a week
since he had given evidence as clear as it was creditable at the inquest
in Mr. Kitto's wool-shed.
"Seen you come in," said the mate. "Thought you was in blue water by
this time."
"How so?" asked Denis.
"Homeward bound," hiccoughed the mate.
"I'm not going home yet," said Denis. "I'm going to try my luck on the
diggings first."
The chief swayed incredulous. "Thought that was all plain sailin'?" said
he. "Thought you was to go home with 'em, an' marry her at t' other end
if not at this? Well, well, you might just as well have taken my
advice!"
"What advice?" asked Denis, coldly.
"It was just as you was swep' overboard," explained the mate. "You
didn't hear it; and if you had it wouldn't've been no use without the
boat; but I was goin' to tell you to stand out to sea like I did; and
you might as well, don't you see? Drawn your pay at the agent's yet?" he
added as Denis was turning away.
"Not yet; that's what I've come for; but I only got here to-night."
"Ah," said the chief, "I have! I wish I was you!" And Denis left him
with the tears in his eyes.
Outside the marquee a crowd had collected, and with reason, for in the
centre stood a blacksmith with a shod horse whose four hoofs he was
displaying in turn; and it was shod with pure gold, which he rubbed with
a leather until the horseshoes shone again in the glare of the naked
flame that lit the entrance to the booth. Denis knew it must be
Bullocky's steed, and they had not to ask a question to gather that it
was.
"How about the dark side now?" whispered Doherty, slipping an arm
through his hero's as they walked away.