heat of the antipodean summer had toned down into the rich mellow
hues of autumn. It was never a lovely place to look upon. There was
something hopelessly prosaic in the two bare rugged ridges, seamed and
scarred by the hand of man, with iron arms of windlasses, and broken
buckets projecting everywhere through the endless little hillocks of
red earth. Down the middle ran the deeply rutted road from Buckhurst,
winding along and crossing the sluggish tide of Harper’s Creek by
a crumbling wooden bridge. Beyond the bridge lay the cluster of
little huts with the Colonial Bar and the Grocery towering in all the
dignity of whitewash among the humble dwellings around. The assayer’s
veranda-lined house lay above the gulches on the side of the slope
nearly opposite the dilapidated specimen of architecture of which our
friend Abe was so unreasonably proud.
There was one other building which might have come under the category
of what an inhabitant of the Sluice would have described as a “public
edifice” with a comprehensive wave of his pipe which conjured up images
of an endless vista of colonnades and minarets. This was the Baptist
chapel, a modest little shingle-roofed erection on the bend of the
river about a mile above the settlement. It was from this that the
town looked at its best, when the harsh outlines and crude colors were
somewhat softened by distance. On that particular morning the stream
looked pretty as it meandered down the valley; pretty, too, was the
long rising upland behind, with its luxuriant green covering; and
prettiest of all was Miss Carrie Sinclair, as she laid down the basket
of ferns which she was carrying, and stopped upon the summit of the
rising ground.
Something seemed to be amiss with that young lady. There was a look
of anxiety upon her face which contrasted strangely with her usual
appearance of piquant insouciance. Some recent annoyance had left its
traces upon her. Perhaps it was to walk it off that she had rambled
down the valley; certain it is that she inhaled the fresh breezes
of the woodlands as if their resinous fragrance bore with them some
antidote for human sorrow.
She stood for some time gazing at the view before her. She could
see her father’s house, like a white dot upon the hill-side, though
strangely enough it was a blue reek of smoke upon the opposite slope
which seemed to attract the greater part of her attention. She lingered
there, watching it with a wistful look in her hazel eyes. Then the
loneliness of her situation seemed to strike her, and she felt one of
those spasmodic fits of unreasoning terror to which the bravest women
are subject. Tales of natives and of bushrangers, their daring and
their cruelty, flashed across her. She glanced at the great mysterious
stretch of silent bushland beside her, and stooped to pick up her
basket with the intention of hurrying along the road in the direction
of the gulches. She started round, and hardly suppressed a scream as
a long, red-flannelled arm shot out from behind her and withdrew the
basket from her very grasp.
The figure which met her eye would to some have seemed little
calculated to allay her fears. The high boots, the rough shirt, and the
broad girdle with its weapons of death were, however, too familiar to
Miss Carrie to be objects of terror; and when above them all she saw
a pair of tender blue eyes looking down upon her, and a half-abashed
smile lurking under a thick yellow mustache, she knew that for the
remainder of that walk ranger and black would be equally powerless to
harm her.
“Oh, Mr. Durton,” she said, “how you did startle me!”
“I’m sorry, miss,” said Abe, in great trepidation at having caused his
idol one moment’s uneasiness. “You see,” he continued, with simple
cunning, “the weather bein’ fine and my partner gone prospectin’,
I thought I’d walk up to Hagley’s Hill and round back by the bend,
and there I sees you accidental-like and promiscuous a-standin’ on a
hillock.” This astounding falsehood was reeled off by the miner with
great fluency, and an artificial sincerity which at once stamped it as
a fabrication. Bones had concocted and rehearsed it while tracking the
little footsteps in the clay, and looked upon it as the very depth of
human guile. Miss Carrie did not venture upon a remark, but there was a
gleam of amusement in her eyes which puzzled her lover.
Abe was in good spirits this morning. It may have been the sunshine,
or it may have been the rapid rise of shares in the Conemara, which
lightened his heart. I am inclined to think, however, that it was
referable to neither of these causes. Simple as he was, the scene which
he had witnessed the night before could only lead to one conclusion.
He pictured himself walking as wildly down the valley under similar
circumstances, and his heart was touched with pity for his rival. He
felt very certain that the ill-omened face of Mr. Thomas Ferguson of
Rochdale Ferry would never more be seen within the walls of Azalea
Villa. Then why did she refuse him? He was handsome, he was fairly
rich. Could it----? no, it couldn’t; of course it couldn’t; how could
it! The idea was ridiculous--so very ridiculous that it had fermented
in the young man’s brain all night, and that he could do nothing but
ponder over it in the morning, and cherish it in his perturbed bosom.
They passed down the red pathway together, and along by the river’s
bank. Abe had relapsed into his normal condition of taciturnity. He
had made one gallant effort to hold forth upon the subject of ferns,
stimulated by the basket which he held in his hand, but the theme was
not a thrilling one, and after a spasmodic flicker he had abandoned
the attempt. While coming along he had been full of racy anecdotes and
humorous observations. He had rehearsed innumerable remarks which were
to be poured into Miss Sinclair’s appreciative ear. But now his brain
seemed of a sudden to have become a vacuum, and utterly devoid of any
idea save an insane and overpowering impulse to comment upon the heat
of the sun. No astronomer who ever reckoned a parallax was so entirely
absorbed in the condition of the celestial bodies as honest Bones while
he trudged along by the slow-flowing Australian river.
Suddenly his conversation with his partner came back into his mind.
What was it Boss had said upon the subject? “Tell her how they live at
the mines.” He revolved it in his brain. It seemed a curious thing to
talk about; but Boss had said it, and Boss was always right. He would
take the plunge; so, with a premonitory hem he blurted out:
“They live mostly on bacon and beans in the valley.”
He could not see what effect this communication had upon his
companion. He was too tall to be able to peer under the little straw
bonnet. She did not answer. He would try again.
“Mutton on Sundays,” he said.
Even this failed to arouse any enthusiasm. In fact she seemed to be
laughing. Boss was evidently wrong. The young man was in despair. The
sight of a ruined hut beside the pathway conjured up a fresh idea. He
grasped at it as a drowning man to a straw.
“Cockney Jack built that,” he remarked. “Lived there till he died.”
“What did he die of?” asked his companion.
“Three star brandy,” said Abe, decisively. “I used to come over of a
night when he was bad and sit by him. Poor chap! he had a wife and
two children in Putney. He’d rave, and call me Polly, by the hour. He
was cleaned out, hadn’t a red cent; but the boys collected rough gold
enough to see him through. He’s buried there in that shaft; that was
his claim, so we just dropped him down it an’ filled it up. Put down
his pick too, an’ a spade an’ a bucket, so’s he’d feel kinder perky and
at home.”
Miss Carrie seemed more interested now.
“Do they often die like that?” she asked.
“Well, brandy kills many; but there’s more get’s dropped--shot, you
know.”
“I don’t mean that. Do many men die alone and miserable down there,
with no one to care for them?” and she pointed to the cluster of houses
beneath them. “Is there anyone dying now? It is awful to think of.”
“There’s none as I knows on likely to throw up their hand.”
“I wish you wouldn’t use so much slang, Mr. Durton,” said Carrie,
looking up at him reprovingly out of her violet eyes. It was strange
what an air of proprietorship this young lady was gradually assuming
toward her gigantic companion. “You know it isn’t polite. You should
get a dictionary and learn the proper words.”
“Ah, that’s it!” said Bones, apologetically. “It’s gettin’ your hand on
the proper one. When you’ve not got a steam drill, you’ve got to put up
with a pick.”
“Yes, but it’s easy if you really try. You could say that a man was
’dying,’ or ’moribund,’ if you like.”
“That’s it,” said the miner, enthusiastically. “’Moribund’! That’s
a word. Why, you could lay over Boss Morgan in the matter of words.
’Moribund!’ There’s some sound about that.”
Carrie laughed.
“It’s not the sound you must think of, but whether it will express your
meaning. Seriously, Mr. Durton, if anyone should be ill in the camp you
must let me know. I can nurse, and I might be of use. You will, won’t
you?”
Abe readily acquiesced, and relapsed into silence as he pondered over
the possibility of inoculating himself with some long and tedious
disease. There was a mad dog reported from Buckhurst. Perhaps something
might be done with that.
“And now I must say good-morning,” said Carrie, as they came to the
spot where a crooked pathway branched off from the track and wound up
to Azalea Villa. “Thank you ever so much for escorting me.”
In vain Abe pleaded for the additional hundred yards, and adduced the
overwhelming weight of the diminutive basket as a cogent reason. The
young lady was inexorable. She had taken him too far out of his way
already. She was ashamed of herself; she wouldn’t hear of it.
So poor Bones departed in a mixture of many opposite feelings. He had
interested her. She had spoken kindly to him. But then she had sent
him away before there was any necessity; she couldn’t care much about
him if she would do that. I think he might have felt a little more
cheerful, however, had he seen Miss Carrie Sinclair as she watched
his retiring figure from the garden-gate with a loving look upon her
saucy face, and a mischievous smile at his bent head and desponding
appearance.
The Colonial Bar was the favorite haunt of the inhabitants of
Harvey’s Sluice in their hours of relaxation. There had been a fierce
competition between it and the rival establishment termed the Grocery,
which, in spite of its innocent appellation, aspired also to dispense
spirituous refreshments. The importation of chairs into the latter had
led to the appearance of a settee in the former. Spittoons appeared
in the Grocery against a picture in the Bar, and, as the frequenters
expressed it, the honors were even. When, however, the Grocery led a
window-curtain, and its opponent returned a snuggery and a mirror, the
game was declared to be in favor of the latter, and Harvey’s Sluice
showed its sense of the spirit of the proprietor by withdrawing their
custom from his opponent.
Though every man was at liberty to swagger into the Bar itself, and
bask in the shimmer of its many colored bottles, there was a general
feeling that the snuggery, or special apartment, should be reserved
for the use of the more prominent citizens. It was in this room that
committees met, that opulent companies were conceived and born, and
that inquests were generally held. The latter, I regret to state,
was, in 1861, a pretty frequent ceremony at the Sluice; and the
findings of the coroner were sometimes characterized by a fine breezy
originality. Witness when Bully Burke, a notorious desperado, was shot
down by a quiet young medical man, and a sympathetic jury brought in
that “the deceased had met his death in an ill-advised attempt to stop
a pistol-ball while in motion,” a verdict which was looked upon as a
triumph of jurisprudence in the camp, as simultaneously exonerating the
culprit, and adhering to the rigid and undeniable truth.
On this particular evening there was an assemblage of notabilities in
the snuggery, though no such pathological ceremony had called them
together. Many changes had occurred of late which merited discussion;
and it was in this chamber, gorgeous in all the effete luxury of the
mirror and settee, that Harvey Sluice was wont to exchange ideas. The
recent cleansing of the population was still causing some ferment in
men’s minds. Then there was Miss Sinclair and her movements to be
commented on, and the paying lead in the Conemara, and the recent
rumors of bushrangers. It was no wonder that the leading men in the
township had come together in the Colonial Bar.
The rangers were the present subject of discussion. For some few days
rumors of their presence had been flying about, and an uneasy feeling
had pervaded the colony. Physical fear was a thing little known in
Harvey’s Sluice. The miners would have turned out to hunt down the
desperadoes with as much zest as if they had been so many kangaroos. It
was the presence of a large quantity of gold in the town which caused
anxiety. It was felt that the fruits of their labor must be secured
at any cost. Messages had been sent over to Buckhurst for as many
troopers as could be spared, and in the mean time the main street of
the Sluice was paraded at night by volunteer sentinels.
A fresh impetus had been given to the panic by the report brought in
to-day by Jim Struggles. Jim was of an ambitious and aspiring turn of
mind, and after gazing in silent disgust at his last week’s clean up,
he had metaphorically shaken the clay of Harvey’s Sluice from his feet,
and had started off into the woods with the intention of prospecting
round until he could hit upon some likely piece of ground for himself.
Jim’s story was that he was sitting upon a fallen trunk eating his
mid-day damper and rusty bacon, when his trained ear had caught the
clink of horses’ hoofs. He had hardly time to take the precaution of
rolling off the tree and crouching down behind it, before a troop of
men came riding down through the bush, and passed within a stone-throw
of him.
“There was Bill Smeaton and Murphy Duff,” said Struggles, naming two
notorious ruffians; “and there was three more that I couldn’t rightly
see. And they took the trail to the right, and looked like business all
over, with their guns in their hands.”
Jim was submitted to a searching cross-examination that evening; but
nothing could shake his testimony or throw a further light upon what he
had seen. He told the story several times and at long intervals; and
though there might be a pleasing variety in the minor incidents, the
main facts were always identically the same. The matter began to look
serious.
There were a few, however, who were loudly sceptical as to the
existence of the rangers, and the most prominent of these was a young
man who was perched on a barrel in the centre of the room, and was
evidently one of the leading spirits in the community. We have already
seen that dark curling hair, lack-lustre eye, and thin cruel lip in the
person of Black Tom Ferguson, the rejected suitor of Miss Sinclair.
He was easily distinguishable from the rest of the party by a tweed
coat, and other symptoms of effeminacy in his dress, which might have
brought him into disrepute had he not, like Abe Durton’s partner,
early established the reputation of being a quietly desperate man.
On the present occasion he seemed somewhat under the influence of
liquor, a rare occurrence with him, and probably to be ascribed to his
recent disappointment. He was almost fierce in his denunciation of Jim
Struggles and his story.
“It’s always the same,” he said; “if a man meets a few travellers in
the bush, he’s bound to come back raving about rangers. If they’d seen
Struggles there, they would have gone off with a long yarn about a
ranger crouching behind a tree. As to recognizing people riding fast
among tree-trunks--it is an impossibility.”
Struggles, however, stoutly maintained his original assertion, and all
the sarcasms and arguments of his opponent were thrown away upon his
stolid complacency. It was noticed that Ferguson seemed unaccountably
put out about the whole matter. Something seemed to be on his mind,
too; for occasionally he would spring off his perch and pace up and
down the room with an abstracted and very forbidding look upon his
swarthy face. It was a relief to everyone when suddenly catching up his
hat, and wishing the company a curt “Good-night,” he walked off through
the bar, and into the street beyond.
“Seems kinder put out,” remarked Long McCoy.
“He can’t be afeard of the rangers, surely,” said Joe Shamus, another
man of consequence, and principal shareholder of the El Dorado.
“No, he’s not the man to be afraid,” answered another. “There’s
something queer about him the last day or two. He’s been long trips in
the woods without any tools. They do say that the assayer’s daughter
has chucked him over.”
“Quite right too. A darned sight too good for him,” remarked several
voices.
“It’s odds but he has another try,” said Shamus. “He’s a hard man to
beat when he’s set his mind on a thing.”
“Abe Durton’s the horse to win,” remarked Houlahan, a little bearded
Irishman. “It’s sivin to four I’d be willin’ to lay on him.”
“And you’d be afther losing your money, a-vich,” said a young man with
a laugh. “She’ll want more brains than ever Bones had in his skull, you
bet.”
“Who’s seen Bones to-day?” asked McCoy.
“I’ve seen him,” said the young miner. “He came round all through the
camp asking for a dictionary--wanted to write a letter likely.”
“I saw him readin’ it,” said Shamus. “He came over to me and told me
he’d struck something good at the first show. Showed me a word about as
long as your arm--’abdicate,’ or something.”
“It’s a rich man he is now, I suppose,” said the Irishman.
“Well, he’s about made his pile. He holds a hundred feet of the
Conemara, and the shares go up every hour. If he’d sell out he’d be
about fit to go home.”
“Guess he wants to take somebody home with him,” said another. “Old
Joshua wouldn’t object, seein’ that the money is there.”
I think it has been already recorded in this narrative that Jim
Struggles, the wandering prospector, had gained the reputation of being
the wit of the camp. It was not only in airy badinage, but in the
conception and execution of more pretentious practical pleasantries
that Jim had earned his reputation. His adventure in the morning had
caused a certain stagnation in his usual flow of humor; but the company
and his potations were gradually restoring him to a more cheerful
state of mind. He had been brooding in silence over some idea since
the departure of Ferguson, and he now proceeded to evolve it to his
expectant companions.
“Say, boys,” he began. “What day’s this?”
“Friday, ain’t it?”
“No, not that. What day of the month?”
“Darned if I know!”
“Well, I’ll tell you now. It’s the first o’ April. I’ve got a calendar
in the hut as says so.”
“What if it is?” said several voices.
“Well, don’t you see, it’s All Fools’ day. Couldn’t we fix up some
little joke on some one, eh? Couldn’t we get a laugh out of it? Now
there’s old Bones, for instance; he’ll never smell a rat. Couldn’t we
send him off somewhere and watch him go maybe? We’d have something to
chaff him on for a month to come, eh?”
There was a general murmur of assent. A joke, however poor, was always
welcome to the Sluice. The broader the point, the more thoroughly was
it appreciated. There was no morbid delicacy of feeling in the gulches.
“Where shall we send him?” was the query.
Jim Struggles was buried in thought for a moment. Then an unhallowed
inspiration seemed to come over him, and he laughed uproariously,
rubbing his hands between his knees in the excess of his delight.
“Well, what is it?” asked the eager audience.
“See here, boys. There’s Miss Sinclair. You was saying as Abe’s gone
on her. She don’t fancy him much you think. Suppose we write him a
note--send it him to-night, you know.”
“Well, what then?” said McCoy.
“Well, pretend the note is from her, d’ye see? Put her name at the
bottom. Let on as she wants him to come up an’ meet her in the garden
at twelve. He’s bound to go. He’ll think she wants to go off with him.
It’ll be the biggest thing played this year.”
There was a roar of laughter. The idea conjured up of honest Bones
mooning about in the garden, and of old Joshua coming out to
remonstrate with a double-barrelled shot-gun, was irresistibly comic.
The plan was approved of unanimously.
“Here’s pencil and here’s paper,” said the humorist. “Who’s goin’ to
write the letter?”
“Write it yourself, Jim,” said Shamus.
“Well, what shall I say?”
“Say what you think right.”
“I don’t know how she’d put it,” said Jim, scratching his head in great
perplexity. “However, Bones will never know the differ. How will this
do? ‘Dear old man. Come to the garden at twelve to-night, else I’ll
never speak to you again,’ eh?”
“No, that’s not the style,” said the young miner. “Mind, she’s a lass
of eddication. She’d put it kinder flowery and soft.”
“Well, write it yourself,” said Jim, sulkily, handing him over the
pencil.
“This is the sort of thing,” said the miner, moistening the point of it
in his mouth. “’When the moon is in the sky--’”
“There it is. That’s bully,” from the company.
“’And the stars a-shinin’ bright, meet, O meet me, Adolphus, by the
garden-gate at twelve.’”
“His name ain’t Adolphus,” objected a critic.
“That’s how the poetry comes in,” said the miner. “It’s kinder
fanciful, d’ye see. Sounds a darned sight better than Abe. Trust him
for guessing who she means. I’ll sign it Carrie. There!”
This epistle was gravely passed round the room from hand to hand, and
reverentially gazed upon as being a remarkable production of the human
brain. It was then folded up and committed to the care of a small
boy, who was solemnly charged under dire threats to deliver it at the
shanty, and to make off before any awkward questions were asked him.
It was only after he had disappeared in the darkness that some slight
compunction visited one or two of the company.
“Ain’t it playing it rather low on the girl?” said Shamus.
“And rough on old Bones?” suggested another.
However, these objections were overruled by the majority, and
disappeared entirely upon the appearance of a second jorum of whiskey.
The matter had almost been forgotten by the time that Abe had received
his note, and was spelling it out with a palpitating heart under the
light of his solitary candle.
* * * * *
That night has long been remembered in Harvey’s Sluice. A fitful breeze
was sweeping down from the distant mountains, moaning and sighing among
the deserted claims. Dark clouds were hurrying across the moon, one
moment throwing a shadow over the landscape, and the next allowing the
silvery radiance to shine down, cold and clear upon the little valley,
and bathe in a weird mysterious light the great stretch of bushland on
either side of it. A great loneliness seemed to rest on the face of
Nature. Men remarked afterward on the strange eerie atmosphere which
hung over the little town.
It was in the darkness that Abe Durton sallied out from his little
shanty. His partner, Boss Morgan, was still absent in the bush, so that
beyond the ever-watchful Blinky there was no living being to observe
his movements. A feeling of mild surprise filled his simple soul that
his angel’s delicate fingers could have formed those great straggling
hieroglyphics; however, there was the name at the foot, and that was
enough for him. She wanted him, no matter for what, and with a heart as
pure and as heroic as any knight-errant, this rough miner went forth at
the summons of his love.
He groped his way up the steep winding track which led to Azalea Villa.
There was a little clump of small trees and shrubs about fifty yards
from the entrance of the garden. Abe stopped for a moment when he had
reached them in order to collect himself. It was hardly twelve yet, so
that he had a few minutes to spare. He stood under their dark canopy
peering at the white house vaguely outlined in front of him. A plain
enough little dwelling-place to any prosaic mortal, but girt with
reverence and awe in the eyes of the lover.