The trooper came back to the log with the two 'new chums,' as he, a
native-born Australian, would have called them, and turned his back
while Trevanion handed Hastings his digging license. He then faced
round. 'You've been arrested according to law for digging in Growlers'
Gully without a license. Do you now produce one?' Hastings handed him
the parchment slip before referred to. 'You hand me this license all
correct and regular. I now discharge you from custody, and,' continued
the trooper, evidently thinking he ought to say something magisterial
and impressive, 'I hope it will be a warning to you.' He then unlocked
the padlock, which was passed through a chain which held the handcuff
which was round the man's ankle, and released him.
Hastings laughed as he stood up and stretched himself. 'I expected a few
strange experiences when I started to dig gold in this extraordinary
country, but I never thought to be chained up to a log by the leg.
However, it's all in the day's work. You've only done your duty, Doolan,
and indeed you've stretched it a bit in letting me off. I'll perhaps be
able to do you a good turn some day. Good-bye.'
'Now Mr. ----,--I really don't know your name,--Trevanion, thanks, I see
you and your friend are just off the ship and therefore not up to the
wicked ways of digging life. I may say now that I hold myself deeply
indebted to you. In requital, if you'll come to Growlers' Gully, where
I'm hanging out, I can lay you on to a "show," as we miners call it,
that may turn out something good.'
'We know nothing as yet,' said Lance. 'We're quite raw and
inexperienced, therefore shall be very glad to go to Growlers' Gully or
any other place, if there's a chance of setting to work in good
earnest.'
'The best thing you can do, then,' said his new friend, 'is to walk out
there and stay in our tent to-night. To-morrow you can get back and show
your party the way. It's no good staying where you are.'
'Done with you,' said Lance. 'Jack, you can go back and tell your wife,'
and away they went. After walking three or four miles, a kind of open
ravine, which in Australia is called a gully, presented itself. The
tents were thinner and the miners not quite so busy. 'That's our tent,'
said Hastings, 'and there's my mate sitting on a log outside, smoking
and wondering what's become of me. Hulloa! Bob, did you think I was lost
or in chokee? This is Mr. Trevanion; he's stood my friend or else I
should have spent the night on the chain, so we must lay him on to a
show, if there's one in the gully.'
'It's a nice way to treat a Christian, chaining of him up like a dorg,
ain't it, sir?' said the miner slowly. 'It'll raise trouble some day,
I'll go bail. Proud to see you, sir. There's plenty of tea in the billy,
it'll soon warm up. Luckily I baked last night and there's a goodish
lump of corned silver-side of beef. You'll be ready for dinner, both on
ye, I reckon.'
'This child is,' said Hastings, and 'Mr. Trevanion has had a goodish
walk, which ought to sharpen his appetite. That's right, Bob.'
As he spoke, his companion, who, if slow of speech, was evidently a man
of action, placed some tin plates on a small table in the tent, knives
and forks, with a large loaf, half a round of cold corned beef, and a
bottle of pickles. This done, he poured out two pint pannikins of tea,
and sitting a little way off outside, filled his pipe and lit it afresh.
'Mind them Irishmen that took up number six claim above Jackson's?'
inquired he.
'Think I do,' mumbled Hastings, whose mouth, like some people's hearts,
was too full for utterance. 'Think I do; what about them?'
'What about 'em?' returned Bob. 'Why, they've jacked up and cut it. Said
they wanted summut more certain. A dashed good show, I call it.'
'There's a chance for you, Trevanion,' said Hastings. 'Go and peg it out
the moment you've finished this humble meal. You've got twenty-four
hours to be at work in it. But the sooner you make a start the better. I
shouldn't like to see you lose it. Bob will go with you.'
Lance made very good time over the corned beef, which he couldn't be
induced to leave for a while. But he and Bob made a formal pegging out
half an hour afterwards, thus taking legal possession of two men's
ground.
The very next morning saw the party duly installed. Mrs. Polwarth and
Tottie had arrived, the tent was pitched, a fireplace made, the windlass
fitted with a new rope, and Lance and Jack working away as if they had
been mining all their lives.
For nearly a fortnight the two men toiled and delved, one winding up and
the other picking and shovelling away at the various strata which
intervened between them and the precious ore they hoped to discover.
'We shan't get no gold here, I don't believe,' quoth Jack, mournfully,
one day. 'I've heard of a grand diggings only fifty miles off. I'm
warned they're a-pickin' of it up in handfuls.'
'It wants ten days to the end of the month,' replied Lance. 'I like to
stick to things when I've begun. Suppose we make up our minds to keep at
it till then. It isn't fair to Hastings to run away without a good
trial.'
'All right, Mr. Lance, we'll give it till the thirty-first. If we don't
hit it then, I'm off to Forest Creek for good. Until then we'll see who
can work the hardest.'
As far as manual labour was concerned there had now come to be perfect
equality between the man of birth and the son of toil. Stalwart and
symmetrical always, the frame of Lance Trevanion had now acquired from
daily labour and simple food the muscle and elasticity of an athlete in
full training. Hour after hour could he swing the pick and lift the
shovel weighted with clay and gravel, or wind up the heavy raw hide
bucket, fully loaded, without the slightest sense of fatigue, with
hardly a quickening of the breath. The healthful, yet abundant, food
always procurable at a prosperous digging, amply sufficed for all their
needs; the sound and dreamless sleep restored strength and tissue, and
sent them forth ready, even eager for the morning's toil.
As Lance walked among the tents, or strolled up the busy lighted street
on Saturday night, resplendent in clean flannels or a half-worn
shooting-jacket of fashionable cut, many an admirer of form, even in
that _lanista_ of magnificent athletes, the flower of the adventurous
manhood of many a clime, stopped to make favourable comment on the
handsome young Englishman who had come to the gully with 'Callao'
Hastings.
Just one day before the last one of the month, when the partners were
already inquiring the distance of the first stage to Forest Creek, Lance
broke into a stratum of decomposed rock mingled with quartz gravel. This
was from a foot to eighteen inches in depth, and extended across the
shaft. They did not know--ignorant as they were of the humblest mining
lore--what had happened till they consulted their guide, philosopher,
and friend, Hastings.
'Why, you've bottomed,' he made answer, with a look of profound wisdom,
'I'll go down and have a look at the "wash."'
They lowered him down. Ten minutes after he sent up the bucket,
half-full; then, after the rope was lowered, came up himself. 'Get a tin
dish and carry it down to the creek till I wash the "prospect,"' quoth
he.
He filled the dish with the 'wash-dirt,' as he called it, dipped it
again and again in the yellow waters of the creek, sending out the
clay-stained water with a circular twist of his wrist, in a way
incomprehensible to Lance and Jack. Lastly, when bit by bit all the clay
and gravel had disappeared, leaving but a narrow ring of black and gray
sand around the bottom of the dish, he spoke again--
'Look there,' he said meaningly.
They looked, and saw dull red and yellow streaks on the upper edge of
close-lying grains, with an occasional pea-like pebble of the same
colour.
'Is that--is that----?' asked Lance in a husky voice.
'Gold!' shouted Hastings, 'yes, that's what it is. I call it an ounce to
the dish, with eighteen inches of wash-dirt for the whole width of the
claim; your fortune's made. It's a golden hole, nothing less, and one of
the richest on the field.'
* * * * *
So it was.... Day after day the partners cradled the precious gravel;
day after day they returned to their tent with a tin pannikin or camp
kettle containing enough of the precious metal to cause the most
pleasurable excitement in the owners, and to occasion exaggerated
reports of their wealth and the inexhaustible richness of the claim to
pervade the field.
'You'll have to look out now,' said Hastings, impressively, one day.
'You've got a most dangerous and unenviable reputation. You've supposed
to have gold untold in your tent. Do you know what that means here?'
'But we take our gold to the Commissioner every day,' said Lance, 'and
we see it sealed up and labelled and put in a safe before we leave.'
'That's all very well, and the most sensible thing you could do, but
nothing will persuade some of those fellows, with which the gully is
getting too full to please me, that you don't keep gold or cash in your
tent.'
'Well, what of that?'
'What of that among some of the greatest scoundrels unhung? Fellows that
for a ten-pound note would chop Mrs. Polwarth up for sausages and fry
Tottie with bread sauce, after knocking both of you on the head? You
don't know what a real bad digging crowd is, and when you do it may be
too late.'
* * * * *
Now the reign of Plutus had set in, as far as Lance and his companion
were concerned. A few short weeks and how had their prospects changed.
What was now their position?--shovelling in gold at the rate of five
hundred pounds a week per man. It seemed like a dream, a fairy tale to
Lance. A year or so at most of this kind of work and he would be able to
return to England in the triumphant position of a man who had seen the
world, who had been, as the phrase runs, the architect of his own
fortune, who had boldly accepted the alternative rather than own himself
in the wrong, and who now had carried out what he had vowed to do in
spite of the incredulity of disapproving friends.
And his cousin, his beloved Estelle, what would be her feelings? He
wrote to her at once, telling her to abandon all doubt and fear on his
account. Where were her prophecies now? He should always bless the day
on which he sailed for Australia. He might even go the length of
thanking his father for his stern reproof, his unjust severities. After
all it had been for the best. It had made a man of him. Instead of
lounging about at home, or idling on the continent (for he would never
have taken his degree if he had stayed at Oxford till he was gray), he
had seen what a new country was like, met numbers of the most
interesting people, learned how to carry himself among all sorts of
queer characters, learned to work with his hands and to show himself a
man among men. To crown all, he was making eight or ten thousand a year.
With a little judicious speculation he was very likely to double or
quadruple this. And in three years from the day he left she would see
him back again, he had almost said dead or alive. What talks they would
have over his adventures and wonderful, really wonderful, experience!
loving each other as of old and rejoicing in one another's society. The
life agreed with him splendidly. He was in famous condition, and except
that he was sunburned and a little browner, there was no change to speak
of. She would be able to judge if he had altered for the worse in manner
or lost form. Perhaps he had roughened a little by associating with all
sorts and conditions of men, but it would soon come back again when once
more he found himself among his own people and near his heart's darling,
Estelle.
Thus far the welcome letter--how welcome those alone can tell who have
longed for tidings from a far country, who have waited with the
heart-sickness of hope long deferred, and have at length snatched at the
precious missive that told of safety and success, even of the
approaching return.
Estelle Chaloner treasured this missive from a far country, read it and
re-read it day after day: she watched the features change and the colour
fade from her uncle's face as he listened to the exulting cry with which
she announced a letter from Lance, watched the stern face soften and
heard the first words of regret which had passed his lips since the day
of wrath and despair.
'I was hard upon the boy, perhaps,--it's this accursed family temper, I
suppose,' he said. 'Where is the lad that isn't a fool in some way or
other! We are a stubborn breed, and once heated slow to cool. Tell him
when you write that he will be welcome again at Wychwood. Not to stay
away too long, though, whatever his good fortune may be, for I am not
the man I was, Estelle, and I should like to see my boy's face again,
before--before I die.'
Here the hard voice changed, the stern man turned his head. Could this
be Sir Mervyn? thought Estelle. In all her previous knowledge of him she
had never known him to express regret for any act, speech, or opinion
whatever, however placed in the wrong by after-consequences. That he
should be really regretful and repentant struck her in the light of a
species of miracle. More than that, it imbued her with a vague fear, as
if there was some impending ill when such an abnormal change took place
in the social atmosphere.
'Do not grieve, my dearest uncle,' said she, winding her arms around
him, with a look of beseeching tenderness. 'I know, from the way Lance
has written to me, that he has long since ceased to harbour resentment.
He knows that he was in the wrong, though he, and I too, must I confess
it, at the time, thought that you were too hard upon him. Depend upon it
we shall see him in a year, if not less, and all will be forgotten in
the joy of his return, in the triumph of his success.'
'God grant it,' said the old man, 'but I have evil dreams. I believe the
devil enters into a Trevanion at times. Perhaps Lance may break the
spell. If he has an angel for his wife like my darling Estelle, it will
be all the more likely.'
* * * * *
Trevanion and party, of Number Six, Growlers' Gully, were 'fair on
it'--'had struck it rich, and no mistake,' in miners' parlance. Fame and
fortune were both theirs, assured, unchallenged; the fame, as in too
many cases in this world, considerably in advance of the fortune. His
partner, Polwarth, a shrewd, long-headed 'Cousin Jack' (as the Cornish
miners are called), stuck steadily to his work, stayed at home with his
wife and child, and beyond building a comfortable weatherboard-fronted
bark cottage for them, made no difference in his equilibrium.
But it was otherwise with Lance Trevanion. His striking appearance, his
manner and bearing, his reputation for wealth, coupled with romantic
tales of his family circumstances, commenced to make him a personage of
consideration, as well as to cause his society to be sought after in the
higher social strata in and around Ballarat. Even at the Gully, now that
it had developed a true and defined 'lead'--the auriferous course of a
dead and buried river of the past--a couple of branch banks had been
established, shops and hotels had sprung up.
All created organisms, during certain periods of their existence, are
capable of development. The conditions being varied, plants and animals,
including that strangely-constituted vertebrate, man, suddenly or by
graduation, but not less surely, expand and change, or decrease and
degenerate, as the case may be. Physical expansion does not invariably
presume moral advancement, and, indeed, the removal of restrictive
pecuniary conditions occasionally conduces to the reverse result. Alas!
that the delightful freedom from restraints which our civilisation
renders galling, which is often described by the phrase 'money being no
object,' should, in itself, be ofttimes that broad road leading to
irrevocable ruin, to destruction of body and soul.
When a man arises from sound and untroubled slumber at or about five
'A.M. in the morning,' _vide_ Mr. Chuckster, and within an hour is
commencing a long day's work, which process is continued week in, week
out, with the exception of Sundays, there is not much room or
opportunity for the Enemy of man, who proverbially finds work for 'the
unemployed.'
These, and chiefly for such reasons, were the dangers of 'Growlers'
Gully' during the early period of their existence--an eminently peaceful
and virtuous community. Hard at work from morn till dewy eve, that is
from daylight to dark, a matter of fourteen hours, there was scant space
or opportunity for riotous living. A quiet talk over their pipes before
the so-early bedtime, a glass of beer or grog at the unpretending
shanty, which, before the era of hotel licenses, was compulsorily modest
and unobtrusive, was the outside dissipation indulged in by the
'Growlers.' There was sufficient prosperity to produce hope and
contentment, but not enough, except in rarely exceptional cases, to
bring forth the evil craving for luxury and excitement. There was no
theatre, no gaming saloon (under the rose, of course), no inrush of
fiends, male and female, as upon a diggings of published richness; and
therein lay safety, had they known it, such as should have made every
man thankful, and every woman deeply grateful to the Higher Power that
had so ordered their destiny and surroundings.
So might, perchance, have continued their Arcadian freedom from evil had
not the exceptional richness of Number Six been known and bruited
abroad. But, somehow, principally through Lance's carelessness, it had
leaked out, been spread far and wide, been wildly exaggerated, and now,
every day new arrivals from the most unlikely places in other colonies
testified to the brilliant reputation which 'Growlers' had acquired.
Greatness, indeed, had been thrust upon them. There was no escaping the
celebrity, wholly undesired by the more thoughtful and fore-casting
miners. But the majority of the adventurers of the day were young and
inexperienced. Intoxicated with their suddenly-acquired wealth, they
were splendidly reckless as to the morrow. They ever welcomed the
irruption of the heterogeneous army of strangers which invaded their
hitherto rather close borough. They treated their rash migration, made
upon the flimsiest reports, as a humorous incident wholly appropriate to
goldfield life. As for the risks to which such an admixture might fairly
be held to expose the safety and solvency of the community, they were
contemptuously indifferent.