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THE TALE OF TIMBER TOWN.
THE TALE
OF TIMBER TOWN
BY
A. A. GRACE
(_Author of "Tales of a Dying Race,"
"Maoriland Stories," "Folk-Tales of the Maori,"
"Hone Tiki Dialogues," &c._)
GORDON & GOTCH
Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Launceston, Wellington,
Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, N.Z.
1914
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PROEM 9
CHAPTER
I. The Master-Goldsmith 11
II. The Wreck of The Mersey Witch 15
III. The Pilot's Daughter 18
IV. Rachel Varnhagen 24
V. Bill the Prospector 30
VI. The Father of Timber Town 33
VII. Cut-Throat Euchre 35
VIII. The Yellow Flag 43
IX. What looked like Courting 48
X. Hocussed 51
XI. The Temptation of the Devil 57
XII. Rock Cod and Macaroni 62
XIII. What the Bush Robin Saw 65
XIV. The Robbery of the Mails 68
XV. Dealing Mostly with Money 73
XVI. The Wages of Sin 77
XVII. Rachel's Wiles 81
XVIII. Digging 83
XIX. A Den of Thieves 86
XX. Gold and Roses 91
XXI. The Foundation of the Gold League 96
XXII. Women's Ways 101
XXIII. Forewarned, Forearmed 108
XXIV. The Goldsmith Comes to Town 112
XXV. Fishing 119
XXVI. A Small, but Important Link in the Story 124
XXVII. The Signal-Tree 127
XXVIII. The Goldsmith Comes to Town the Second Time 130
XXIX. Amiria Plays her Highest Card in the Game of Love 134
XXX. In Tresco's Cave 139
XXXI. The Perturbations of the Bank Manager 145
XXXII. The Quietude of Timber Town is Disturbed 147
XXXIII. The Gold League Washes Up 150
XXXIV. The Goldsmith Comes to Town the Third Time 153
XXXV. Bail 156
XXXVI. In Durance Vile 160
XXXVII. Benjamin's Redemption 164
XXXVIII. The Way to Manage the Law 173
XXXIX. Tresco Makes the Ring 178
EPILOGUE 183
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
Carlyle Smythe, in his interesting reminiscences of Mark Twain,
printed in _Life_, says that, of all the stories which interested
the great American writer while travelling with him through Australasia,
the tragical story which is the basis of "The Tale of Timber Town"
fascinated the celebrated author more than any other. The version which
Mark Twain read was the re-print of the verbatim report of the most
remarkable trial ever held in New Zealand, and perhaps south of the
Line, and there is no cause for wonder in his interest. I, too, have
studied and re-studied that narrative, with its absorbing psychological
and sociological problems; I have interrogated persons who knew the
chief characters in the story; I have studied the locality, and know
intimately the scene of the tragedy: and even though "The Tale of Timber
Town" has in the writing taxed my energies for many a month, I have by
no means exhausted the theme which so enthralled Mark Twain.
I have tried to reproduce the characters and atmosphere of those
stirring days, when L1,000,000 worth of gold was brought into Timber
Town in nine months; and I have sought to reproduce the characters and
atmosphere of Timber Town, rather than to resuscitate the harrowing
details of a dreadful crime. I have tried to show how it was possible
for such a tragedy to take place, as was that which so absorbed Mark
Twain, and why it was that the tale stirred in him an interest which
somewhat surprised Carlyle Smythe.
Here in Timber Town I met them--the unassuming celebrity, and the young
_entrepreneur_. The great humorist, alack! will never read the tale as I
have told it, but I am hopeful, that in "The Tale of Timber Town," his
erstwhile companion and the public will perceive the literary value of
the theme which arrested the attention of so great a writer as Mark
Twain.
"The Tale of Timber Town" first appeared in the pages of _The Otago
Witness_, whose proprietors I desire to thank for introducing the story
to the public, and for the courtesy of permitting me to reserve the
right of reproduction of the work in book-form.
_Timber Town._ A.A.G.
PROEM.
Timber Town lay like a toy city at the bottom of a basin. Its
wooden houses, each placed neatly in the middle of a little
garden-plot, had been painted brightly for the delight of the
children. There were whole streets of wooden shops, with verandahs
in front of them to shade the real imported goods in their windows;
and three wooden churches, freshly painted to suit the tastes of their
respective--and respectable--congregations; there was a wooden Town Hall,
painted grey; a wooden Post Office, painted brown; a red college, where
boys in white disported upon a green field; a fawn-coloured school,
with a playground full of pinafored little girls; and a Red Tape
Office--designed in true Elizabethan style, with cupolas, vanes,
fantastic chimney-tops, embayed windows, wondrous parapets--built
entirely of wood and painted the colour of Devonshire cream, with
grit in the paint to make it look like stone.
Along the streets ran a toy tram, pulled by a single horse, which was
driven by a man who moved his arms just as if they were real, and who
puffed genuine clouds of smoke from his tobacco-pipe. Ladies dressed
in bright colours walked up and down the trim side-paths, with gaudy
sunshades in their hands; knocked at doors, went calling, and looked
into the shop windows, just like actual people.
It was the game of playing at living. The sky shone brightly overhead;
around the town stood hills which no romantic scene-painter could have
bettered; the air of the man with water-cart, of the auctioneer's man
with bell, and of the people popping in and out of the shops, was the
air of those who did these things for love of play-acting on a stage.
As a matter of fact, there was nothing to worry about, in Timber Town;
no ragged beggars, no yelling hawkers, no sad-eyed, care-worn people, no
thought for to-morrow. The chimneys smoked for breakfast regularly at
eight o'clock every morning; the play of living began at nine, when the
smiling folk met in the streets and turned, the men into their offices
to play at business, the women into the shops where meat and good things
to eat were to be had for little more than love. Between twelve and two
o'clock everybody went home to dinner, and the cabs which stood in front
of the wooden Post Office, and dogs which slept on the pavement beneath
the verandahs, held possession of the streets.
But if anyone would see the beauty and fashion of Timber Town, from four
to five in the afternoon was the hour. Then wives and daughters, having
finished playing at house-keeping for the day, put on their gayest
costumes, and visited the milliners. Southern Cross Street buzzed with
gaudy life; pretty women bowed, and polite men raised their hats--just
as people do in real cities--but, as everybody knew everybody else, the
bowing and hat-raising were general, just as they are when the leading
lady comes into the presence of the chorus on the stage. Then the vision
of gossiping, smiling humanity would pass away--the shops put up their
shutters at six o'clock; the game was over for the day, and all the
chimneys smoked for tea.
Timber Town by night, except when the full moon shone, was sombre, with
nothing doing. The street lamps burnt but indifferent gas; people stayed
indoors, and read the piquant paragraphs of _The Pioneer Bushman_,
Timber Town's evening journal, or fashioned those gay dresses which by
day helped to make the town so bright, and went to bed early and slept
with a soundness and tranquillity, well-earned by the labour of playing
so quaintly at the game of life.
The hills which surrounded the little town pressed so closely upon it,
that by sheer weight they seemed likely to crush its frail houses into
matchwood. On one side mountains, some bare and rugged, some clothed
with forest, rose behind the foot-hills, and behind them more mountains,
which seemed to rise like the great green billows of an angry sea. On
one side stretched the blue of the distant forest-covered ranges, upon
the other the azure of the encroaching ocean, which, finding a way
between the encircling hills, insinuated its creeping tides into the
town itself. And overhead spread the blue sky, for the sky above Timber
Town was blue nine days out of ten, and the clouds, when they came,
performed their gloomy mission quickly and dispersed with despatch, that
the sun might smile again and the playing of the people continue.
No nest in the forest was ever more securely hid than was Timber Town
from the outside world. Secreted at the end of a deep bay, that bay was
itself screened from the ocean outside by an extensive island and a
sandspit which stretched for many a mile.
Inaccessible by land, the little town was reached only by water, and
there, in that quiet eddy of the great ocean, lived its quiet, quaint,
unique existence.
In such a place men's characters develop along their own lines, and,
lacking that process of mental trituration which goes on in large cities
where many minds meet, they frequently attain an interesting if strange
maturity. In such a community there is opportunity for the contemplation
of mankind ignorant of poverty; and such a happy state, begotten of
plenty and nurtured by freedom, has its natural expression in the
demeanour of the people. It was not characteristic of Timber Town to
hoard, but rather to spend. In a climate bright through the whole year,
it was not natural that the sorrows of life, where life was one long
game, should press heavily upon the players.
But we come upon the little timber town at a time of transition from
sequestered peace to the roar and rush of a mining boom, and if the
stirring events of that time seem to change the tranquil aspect of the
scene, it is only that a breeze of life from outside sweeps over its
surface, as when a gust of wind, rushing from high mountains upon some
quiet lake nestling at their feet, stirs the placid waters into foam.
So through the wild scene, when the villain comes upon the stage and the
hidden treasure is brought to light, though the play may seem to lose
its pastoral character, it is to be remembered that if tragedy may
endure for the night, comedy comes surely enough in the morning.
* * * * *
THE TALE OF TIMBER TOWN.
CHAPTER I.
The Master-Goldsmith.
Jake Ruggles leant over the goldsmith's bench, put the end of his
blow-pipe into the gas-flame, and impinged a little oxygenized jet
upon the silver buckle he was soldering. He was a thin, undersized,
rabbit-faced youth, whose head was thatched with a shock of coarse black
hair. He possessed a pair of spreading black eyebrows upon a forehead
which was white when well washed, for Nature had done honestly by the
top of his head, but had realised, when his chin was reached, the
fatuity of spending more time upon the moulding and adornment of the
person of Jake Ruggles.
The master-goldsmith was a rubicund man, with a face which Jake, in a
rage, had once described as that of "a pig with the measles." But this
was, without doubt, a gross perversion of the truth. Benjamin Tresco's
countenance was as benign as that of Bacchus, and as open as the day.
Its chief peculiarity was that the brow and lashes of one eye were
white, while piebald patches adorned his otherwise red head.
In his own eyes, the most important person in Timber Town was Benjamin
Tresco. But it was natural for him to think so, for he was the only man
of his trade in a town of six thousand people. He was a portly person
who took a broad view of life, and it was his habit to remark, when folk
commented on his rotundity, "I _am_ big. I don't deny it. But I can't
help myself--God A'mighty made me big, big in body, big in brain, big
in appetite, big in desire to break every established law and accepted
custom; but I am prevented from giving rein to my impulses by the
expansiveness of my soul. That I developed myself. I could go up
the street and rob the Kangaroo Bank; I could go to Mr. Crewe, the
millionaire, and compel him at the pistol's mouth to transfer me the
hoards of his life-time; I could get blazing drunk three nights a week;
I could kidnap Varnhagen's pretty daughter, and carry her off to the
mountains; but my soul prevents me--I am the battle-ground of contending
passions. One half of me says, 'Benjamin, do these things'; the
other half says, 'Tresco, abstain. Be magnanimous: spare them!' My
appetites--and they are enormous--say, 'Benjamin Tresco, have a real
good time while you can; sail in, an' catch a-holt of pleasure with
both hands.' But my better part says, 'Take your pleasure in mutual
enjoyments, Benjamin; fix your mind on book-learning and the elevating
Arts of peace.' I am a bone of contention between Virtue and License,
an' the Devil only knows which will get me in the end."
But at the time of introduction he was quietly engraving a little plate
of gold, which was destined to adorn the watch-chain of the Mayor, who,
after Mr. Crewe, was Timber Town's most opulent citizen.
When the craftsman engraves, he fastens his plate of gold to the end of
a piece of wood, long enough to be held conveniently in the hand, and as
thick as the width of the precious metal. This he holds in his left
hand, and in his right the graver with which he nicks out little pieces
of gold according to design, which pieces fall into the apron of the
bench--and, behold! he is engraving. The work needs contemplation,
concentration, and attention; for every good goldsmith carries the
details of the design in his head. But, that morning, there seemed to be
none of these qualities in Benjamin Tresco. He dropped his work with a
suddenness that endangered its fastenings of pitch, rapped the bench
with the round butt of his graver, and glared ferociously at Jake
Ruggles.
"What ha' you got there?" he asked fiercely of his apprentice, who sat
with him at the bench and was now working industriously with a blow-pipe
upon the hoop of a gold ring. "Who told you to stop soldering the
buckles?"
Jake turned his head sideways and looked at his master, like a ferret
examining an angry terrier; alert, deliberate, and full of resource.
"It's a bit of a ring I was give to mend," he replied, "up at The Lucky
Digger."
Tresco stretched out a long arm, and took the gem. Then he drew a deep
breath.
"You've begun early, young man," he exclaimed. "Would you poach on my
preserves? The young lady whose finger that ring adorns I am wont to
regard as my especial property, an' a half-fledged young _pukeko_, like
you, presumes to cut me out! _You_ mend that lady's trinkets? _You_ lean
over a bar, an' court beauty adorned in the latest fashion? _You_ make
love to my 'piece' by fixing up her jewels? Young man, you've begun too
early. Now, look-a-here, I shall do this job myself--for love--I shall
deliver this ring with my own hand." Tresco chuckled softly, and Jake
laughed out loud.
The scene had been a piece of play-acting. The apprentice, who knew his
master's weakness for the pretty bar-maid at The Lucky Digger was, as
he expressed himself, "taking a rise out of the boss," and Tresco's
simulated wrath was the crisis for which he had schemed. Between the two
there existed a queer comradeship, which had been growing for more than
two years, so that the bald, rotund, red-faced goldsmith had come to
regard the shock-headed, rat-faced apprentice more as a son than as an
assistant; whilst Jake would say to the youth of his "push," "Huh! none
o' yer bashin' an' knockin' about fer me--the boss an' me's chums. Huh!
you should be in _my_ boots--we have our pint between us reg'lar at
eleven, just like pals."
Picking up the ring with a pair of tweezers, the master-jeweller first
examined its stone--a diamond--through a powerful lens. Next, with a
small feather he took up some little bits of chopped gold from where
they lay mixed with borax and water upon a piece of slate; these he
placed deftly where the gold hoop was weak; over the top of them he laid
a delicate slip of gold, and bound the whole together with wire as thin
as thread. This done, he put the jewel upon a piece of charred wood,
thrust the end of his blow-pipe into the flame of the gas-burner, which
he pulled towards him, and with three or four gentle puffs through the
pipe the mend was made. The goldsmith threw the ring in the "pickle," a
green, deadly-looking chemical in an earthenware pot upon the floor.
Tresco was what the doctors call "a man of full habit." He ate largely,
drank deeply, slept heavily, but, alas! he was a bachelor. There was no
comfortable woman in the room at the back of his workshop to call in
sweet falsetto, "Benjamin, come to dinner! Come at once: the steak's
getting cold!" As he used to say, "This my domicile lacks the female
touch--there's too much tobacco-ashes an' cobwebs about it: the women
seem kind o' scared to come near, as if I might turn out to be a dog
that bites."
The ring being pickled, Benjamin fished it out of the green liquid and
washed it in a bowl of clean water. A little filing and scraping, a
little rubbing with emery-paper, and the goldsmith burnished the yellow
circlet till it shone bright and new.
"Who knows?" he exclaimed, holding up the glistening gem, "who knows but
it is the ring of the future Mrs. T.? Lord love her, I have forty-eight
pairs of socks full of holes, all washed and put away, waiting for
her to darn. Think of the domestic comfort of nearly fifty pairs of
newly-darned socks; with her sitting, stitching, on one side of the
fire, and saying, 'Benjamin, these ready-made socks are no good: _I_
must knit them for you in future,' and me, on the other side, smiling
like a Cheshire cat with pure delight, and saying: 'Annie, my dear,
you're an angel compacted of comfort and kindness: my love, would you
pass me a paper-light, _if_ you please?' But in the meantime the bird
must be caught. I go to catch it."
He slipped his dirty apron over his head, put on his coat and
weather-beaten hat of strange outlandish shape, placed the ring in a
dainty, silk-lined case, and sallied forth into the street.
Timber Town burst on his benignant gaze. Over against him stood a great
wooden shop, painted brilliant blue; along the street was another, of
bright red; but most of the buildings were a sober stone-colour or some
shade of modest grey or brown. One side of the street was verandah'd
along its whole length, and the walks on either side of the macadamised
road were asphalted. Benjamin, wearing the air of Bacchus courting the
morning, walked a hundred yards or so, till he came to the centre of the
town, where four streets met. At one corner stood the Kangaroo Bank; at
another a big clothing-shop; at the two others Timber Town's rival
hostelries--The Bushman's Tavern and The Lucky Digger. The Bank and
hotels, conspicuous amid the other buildings, had no verandahs in front
of them, but each was freshly painted; the Bushman's Tavern a
slate-blue, The Lucky Digger a duck-egg green.
The sun was hot; the iron on the roofs ticked in the heat and reflected
the rays of heaven. Benjamin paused on the edge of the pavement, mopped
his perspiring brow, and contemplated the garish scene. Opposite the
wooden Post Office, which flanked the "clothing emporium," stretched a
rank of the most outlandish vehicles that ever came within the category
of cabs licensed to carry passengers. Some were barouches which must
have been ancient when Victoria was crowned, and concerning which there
was a legend that they came out to the settlement in the first ships, in
1842; others were landaus, constructed on lines substantial enough to
resist collision with an armoured train; but the majority were built on
a strange American plan, with a canopy of dingy leather and a step
behind, so that the fare, after progressing sideways like a crab,
descended, at his journey's end, as does a burglar from "Black Maria."
Along the footpaths walked, in a leisurely manner, a goodly sprinkling
of Timber Town's citizens, with never a ragged figure among them.
Perhaps the seediest-looking citizen "on the block" was Tresco himself,
but what he lacked in tailoring he made good in serene benignity of
countenance. His features, which beamed like the sun shining above him,
were recognised by all who passed by. It was, "How do, Benjamin; bobbin'
up, old party?" "Mornin', Tresco. You remind me of the rooster that
found the jewel--you look so bloomin' contented with yourself." "Ah!
good day, Mr. Tresco. I hope I see you well. Remember, I still have that
nice little bit of property for sale. Take you to see it any time you
like."
With Benjamin it was, "How do, Ginger? In a hurry? Go it--you'll race
the hands round the clock yet." "Good morning, Mr. Flint. Lovely
weather, yes, but hot. Now, half-a-pint is refreshing, but you lawyers
have no time--too many mortgages, conveyances, bills of sale to think
about. I understand. Good morning." "Why, certainly, Boscoe, my beloved
pal. Did you say 'half'?--I care not if it's a pint. Let us to the
blushing Hebe of the bar."
Tresco and his friend, Boscoe, entered the portals of The Lucky Digger.
Behind the bar stood a majestic figure arrayed in purple and fine linen.
She had the development of an Amazon and the fresh face of a girl from
the shires of England. Through the down on her cheek "red as a rose was
she."
Tresco advanced as to the shrine of a goddess, and leant deferentially
over the bar. Never a word spoke he till the resplendent deity had
finished speaking to two commercial travellers who smoked cigars, and
then, as her eyes met his, he said simply, "Two pints, if you please,
miss."
The liquor fell frothing into two tankards; Boscoe put down the money,
and the goddess withdrew to the society of the bagmen, who talked to her
confidentially, as to their own familiar friend.
Tresco eyed the group, smilingly, and said, "The toffs are in the
cheese, Boscoe. You'd think they'd a monopoly of Gentle Annie. But wait
till I get on the job."
Boscoe, a wizened little tinsmith, with the grime of his trade upon him,
looked vacuously to his front, and buried his nose in his pot of beer.
"Flash wimmen an't in my line," said he, as he smacked his lips, "not
but this yer an't a fine 'piece.' But she'd cost a gold mine in clo'es
alone, let alone brooches and fallals. I couldn't never run it." Here
one of the gaudy bagmen stretched out his hand, and fingered the
bar-maid's rings. The girl seemed nothing annoyed at this awkward
attention, but when her admirer's fingers stole to her creamy chin, she
stepped back, drew herself up with infinite dignity, and said with
perfect enunciation, "Well, you _have_ got an impudence. I must go and
wash my face."
She was about to leave the bar, when Tresco called after her, "My dear,
one minute." From his pocket he drew the dainty ring-case, and held it
out to the girl, who took it eagerly. In a moment the gem was on her
finger. "You dear old bag of tricks!" she exclaimed. "Is it for me?"
"Most certainly," said Benjamin. "One moment." He took the ring between
his forefinger and thumb, as if he were a conjurer about to perform,
glanced triumphantly round the bar-room, held the girl's hand gallantly
in his, deliberately replaced the ring on her finger, and said, "With
this ring I thee wed; with my body I thee worship; with all my worldly
goods I thee endow."
"Thanks, I'll take the ring," retorted the bar-maid, with mock annoyance
and a toss of her head, "but, really, I can't be bothered with your old
carcase."
"Pleasing delusion," said Tresco, unruffled. "It's your own ring!"
A close, quick scrutiny, and the girl had recognised her refurbished
jewel.
"You bald-headed rogue!" she exclaimed. But Tresco had vanished, and
nothing but his laugh came back through the swinging glass-door.
The bagmen laughed too. But Gentle Annie regarded them indignantly, and
in scornful silence, which she broke to say, "And _now_ I shall go and
wash my face."