. . . . . . . . .The final arrangements which heralded the departure of the Banneret family from Carjagong, where they had led a tranquil and, on the whole, happy existence, were carried out successfully. The address and testimonial were presented in due form. In the address the departing official was credited with all the virtues; and the testimonial, which took the form of coin of the realm, was a liquid asset which had been decidedly useful in former flittings of exceptional expensiveness.They reached Sydney, by coach and train, without mishap or difficulty. The children were joyous, and unceasing in their wonder and admiration of wayside novelties, including snow, to a fall of which they were, for the first time in their lives, introduced.The day on which they re-entered Sydney will always be marked with a white stone in the annals of the family. It was the opening month of the southern spring, and no more brilliant specimen of that gladsome season could have been presented to the eyes of the travellers. They had left a region where, though the climate was comparatively mild, the lingering winter months were austere. Hence the semi-tropical warmth of the air, the[91]blue, cloudless sky of the metropolis, were grateful as novelties to the wayfarers from the interior. The younger olive-branches had of course in their ten years’ sojourn rarely seen the sea; the elder ones had but dim remembrance of it; and when the first sight of the historic harbour burst upon their gaze from the balcony of their hotel, a cry of wonder and amazement could not be suppressed, in spite of the nurse’s remonstrance.‘Not quite so much noise, my dears!’ said the watchful mother. ‘You must learn not to shout and cry out at everything you see, or else people will think you are wild bush children, that have never been taught anything. You will see so many new things every day.’‘Yes, we know, mother,’ said the eldest girl. ‘But there is onlyoneharbour! Doesn’t it look bright and beautiful to-day? It is almost calm, like a great lake. How the little white-sailed boats go skimming over it, like sea-birds! There is a beautiful ship being towed in by a little tug steamer. And, oh, here comes the mail-boat; how quiet and dignified she is! She wants no tug, does she? That’s the best of a steamer: she can get along, fair weather or foul.’‘Sometimes, when a great storm catches her, even she has to “slow down,” as sailors say; but generally, of course, she is independent of wind and weather. And now it is nearly lunch time, so we must all go and get ready.’‘I went out in a sailing-boat,’ said Reggie, with an air of experience, ‘last summer when I was down. Didn’t she lean over, too? But, oh, how[92]she did cut through the water! It was grand. And another day Mr. Northam took out me and the Merton boys in his steam-yacht to Middle Harbour. I liked that almost better. We had such a jolly lunch, and went on shore afterwards. It was ever so hot, so we bathed, and ate rock oysters, and had no end of fun. The country’s all very well, but give me the sea at Christmas time.’‘You’ll be at the King’s School next week,’ said his mother, with quiet emphasis, ‘so I advise you to make the most of your time for a few days. I can’t have you idling about town, and losing precious opportunities.’Reggie’s face fell just the least bit at this announcement, but soon recovered its uniformly cheerful expression.‘Can’t we stay till we go into the new house; that won’t be long, I suppose?’‘Not a day longer than I can help, my boy. School is your most important affair for the next three or four years, and your father expects you to distinguish yourselves—that is, you and Eric; Jack must stay with Miss Charters for another year. Just fancy what a fine time you’ll have! Ever so many playfellows—cricket and football, hare and hounds, steeplechases, all kinds of games. You’ll be so happy after the first week that you won’t want to come home.’‘I shall never feel likethat, mother!’ said the boy feelingly. ‘Don’t make any mistake.’. . . . . . . . .The eventful step was fully carried out; a[93]comfortable house in one of the picturesque suburbs of Sydney was rented and furnished; the father’s farewells were made—those adieus sometimes temporary, but which the heart is prone to suggest may be eternal; and as the mail-boat majestically moved on her course through the great sandstone gates of the landlocked haven, the tears fell fast from the eyes of more than one of the little party as her smoke faded from view behind the lofty headland.. . . . . . . . .Again the week-long voyage—the sighting of the far western ports—the hasty landing—the railway crowding—the short stay at Perth—the uneventful, uninteresting overland journey through country which nothing but the possession of goldfields could render interesting, though occasionally touching upon patches more or less agricultural or pastoral. The motley crowd of pilgrims to the Mecca of Mammon was indeed a medley, as are all goldfields crusades. Runaway sailors, deserting soldiers, shepherds, stockriders, navvies, nobodies, gentlemen ‘formerly in the army,’ Cambridge and Oxford graduates, ex-Queensland squatters—some with two horses, some with a packhorse only, but by far the greater number depending entirely upon the all-sufficing ‘bluey’ (or blue blanket) carried on the shoulders, and containing the owner’s food, wardrobe, cooking utensils, and worldly possessions generally. Southern Cross, a year-old town, was not materially different in architecture, dust, flies, banks, and blasphemy, from ‘rushes’ with which the Commissioner had[94]been familiar, only ‘more so,’ perhaps—every discomfort and departure from civilised life being strongly accentuated. A much-begrudged hour or two was spent, or rather wasted here, and through the clear, starlit night the expedition pushed silently onward. Taking counsel of past experience, the leader had left little to the chances of the journey. He had provided a substantial waggonette, heavier than the first vehicle in which he and old Waters had travelled to the Pilot Mount; a forty-gallon cask for water—a good-sized condenser, in case they ran short of the indispensable element—chaff and oats sufficient for their four horses, with tinned meat and fish to ensure a variety of ‘cuisine’; rifles, repeaters, and double-barrels, with revolvers in good order, and plenty of ammunition; also a fair-sized tent, with folding-table and seats, as a lengthened stay at the claim, which was now a certainty, would need these accessories for reasonable comfort, now that there was no doubt of the reef being permanent, rich, wide, and going down equally so—indeed better the deeper it went down. After leaving Southern Cross the desert journey recommenced, but now there was no difficulty in finding the road. Every kind of track was printed in large type upon the broad sheet of the Waste. Carts and waggons, horses and bullock teams, had been there. The camels, following one behind the other, had left their soft, narrow paths through sand-hill and spinifex plain, salt lake and clay pan. This they could note as they went through mulga and low acacia scrub until Pilot Hill, as[95]the eminence had been named, was sighted. Some of the ‘soaks’ emptied by the horses and camel trains had not refilled, but their reserve of cask water stood well to them in temporary need. And after a journey neither protracted nor arduous, they greeted old Jack and Southwater, who had managed to put up a comfortable shanty, and pointed proudly to a ‘township’ of tents, and hessian edifices, occupying a considerable stretch of country.Great congratulations greeted them from the resident partners, and much curiosity was expressed as to the nature of the supplies which they had brought with them, as well as of those which were to follow on, with the machinery, and all the component parts of the up-to-date plant, which were even now on the road. As the prospectors and shareholders in the Reward Claim, they were objects of respectful admiration, and praised in the local newspapers for endurance, high intelligence, courage, all sorts of heroic qualities—the whole finished off with the golden crown of success, which never fails to irradiate the wearer and his surroundings.Awaking from his humble but not uncomfortable couch in the tent, which had been pitched without loss of time, Arnold Banneret gazed around the wide expanse with grateful and, indeed, enviable feelings. Here was, if not the goal of his ambition, a near approach to it. He had neared the winning-post, and though the trophy had not as yet been placed in his hands, there was no moral doubt that he would shortly be in possession[96]of the coveted prize—and what a prize it would be! Well worth the toil, the risk, the anxiety which he had gone through, the years of hard work—sometimes indeed pressing closely upon his powers of mind and body. With but a moderate income, he had cheerfully faced the task of providing for the wants of a large family. They had been fed and clothed, educated and prepared for their station in life as gentlefolk. At times there had been but the narrowest margin—at times painful doubt, depressing anxiety.But the parents had never despaired. A gleam of hope—a ray of sunshine even when skies were darkest—had never failed to illumine the path. One of the partners in the social-personal-national enterprise (it is unnecessary to inquire which) had never faltered or swerved from the solemn contract; and now, after years of doubt and struggle, the goal was won. Success was assured—it was almost a moral certainty,—a life-long provision for him and his, an assured position, a name and fame, even distinction, for all their future life. As he stood before his tent door and watched the red-gold sun invade the unclouded firmament, when the morning mists, unlike the heavier masses of more favoured climes, made haste to disperse and disappear, he could have fancied himself an Arab sheikh. There were no Bedouins within sight, a fact on which he congratulated himself. But a long line of camels with their turbaned drivers, coming ‘up from the under world,’ supplied proof that the desert conditions were not wholly, absolutely non-existent.[97]How differently indeed the point of view adds to or subtracts from the treatment of any given situation. To the famished explorer with beaten horses or starving camels, how drear and terrible the outlook over the ‘sun-scorched desert, wild and bare’—the stunted shrubs, the stony surface, the arid waste! Weak and low, faint with hunger, or frantic with thirst, he can barely summon sufficient energy to make one last effort for the hidden spring and—life.Here, before the Commissioner, lay the same landscape—but for the scattered huts and tents, as carelessly distributed over the forlorn levels as if they had been rained down from the sky in some abnormal storm-burst. Yet the man in front of the tent saw so much besides the dusky levels—the stunted, colourless copses, with their distorted, dwarfish acacia trees—the restless team and saddle horses crowding around the drays as if imploring provender, too sensible of the sterility of the land to waste time in wandering on a vain search for pasture. The risen sun, which so many a fainting straggler cursed, as the red globe rose higher through the pitiless firmament, was to him the symbol of honour and happiness to come. The far distance, in which a pale mist shrouded the naked rocks and scarred cliffs of a barrier range, was grandly mysterious in his eyes, as concealing treasure untold. The bells which now commenced to mingle and blend as the teams came in, or were driven towards the Pilot Mount, clanged and jangled not without a certain rude melody. An occasional flight of waterfowl on their way to the[98]coast, or a far inland lake, passed in swaying files high overhead—guided, who shall say by what course of reasoning or memory, to river, mere, or lake? And like the historic mariner, his heart went out to the birds, and ‘he blessed them unawares.’ His heart, full of joy and thankfulness, was softened by the relief from care which had been granted to him, and he wished well to all living things. The day which began with the sun’s blessing on him and his, so to speak, continued and ended with the same—in strict consonance with the feelings of the principal shareholder in the ‘Last Chance,’ now far heralded as a treasure claim. As the sun rose high and yet higher at mid-day, and lingeringly dwelt up crag and hollow, sand waste and scrub, until the utmost limit of his course, it was more or less oppressive to the crowd of toilers, who had worked since dawn. But what of that? The air was dry, fresh, and, to the unworn constitutions of the greater number of the workers on ‘the field,’ invigorating. There was no hint of enervating moisture in the heated air which the north wind sent along, in steady waves, from the innermost deserts. Clothing was of the lightest possible texture, and as little of it as conventions would allow—though here, as in all Australian congregations, when leisure and recreation cried truce to the excitement of toil, the canons of British taste were observed. And in favour of the climate, which had no tropical disabilities or defects, the nights—inestimable blessing—were cool.The breakfast hour permitted a free and full[99]discussion of ways and means—men and machinery—past and present—with sketch notes of the general rise and progress of the partnership during his absence.Nothing could have been more satisfactory. ‘The men had all worked first-rate,’ old Jack said—‘the swell as hard as any of ’em—perhaps harder.’ Mr. Southwater was a terror for hard graft, and would have a claim of his own some day. He was a born bushman, could work dead reckoning, and would make a smart sailor-man, if ever he got the chance. He’d come to something, no fear! Con Heffernan was as good a chap as ever handled a pick—a ‘rale white man.’ Everything had gone on first-rate—no rows, and all as smooth as a greased hide rope.Mr. Newstead said he thought he would go home, now he could raise the passage money on his shares; but he’d leave a good man in his place. To which determination he promptly gave effect. All was now plain sailing. Of course there was hard unremitting work. From daylight to dark, no rest for head and hand; but then there was much to show for it. The arrivals of men and merchandise were large and exciting. Carpenters, machinists, ‘wages men’—as ordinary mine labourers were called—arrived in hundreds.Claims were taken up for miles around the Pilot Mount, in every direction: claims for alluvial; reef claims, wherever there was a lump of quartz as big as a cricket ball; water claims, whereverthe drainage from a ‘soak’ would fill a bucket in a day; ‘dry-blowing claims,’ wherever a[100]speck of gold could be extracted by one of the most primitive of all processes. All this various assemblage contributed doubtless to the name and fame of the far-bruited ‘Last Chance,’ of which the shares rose in value until the original holders looked on themselves as prospective, if not indeed, actual millionaires. But there was another side to the shield, which commenced to make itself clearly apparent through the somewhat blurred and distorted social atmosphere.Among the miscellaneous crowd of adventurers and tourists who had dared the privations of desert travel, was a contingent of lady nurses. These meritorious women, not less daring than the reckless miners who had faced death in so many shapes, in so many lands, had joined the army of hope at the earliest stage that transit could be guaranteed.Theyknew, none better, how soon the fever scourge of crowded camps, civil or military, would ‘take up a claim,’ ever widening and expansive, sheltered by the dark wing of Azrael. How many a day, how many a night, in burning heat or freezing cold, had each volunteer for the ‘forlorn hope’ of Christian charity watched by the delirious, fever-stricken patient, whose fate it was to sink lower and lower, until he gasped out his life, holding the hand of his truest friend in need, or, faintly rallying, lived to greet the ‘opening paradise’ of ‘the common air, the fields, the skies,’ and to know himself once more a man among men!At first, in the inevitable turmoil, the rush and hurry of a big and daily-growing field, but[101]scant attention was bestowed upon the dread disease, or the ‘cases’ which began to multiply. The report that Jack Wilson was ‘down with the fever,’ or Pat Murphy had ‘got it bad, and mightn’t recover,’ was little heeded, but when poor Pat died, and was followed to the grave by an imposing array of miners, public interest was aroused. A committee of miners and citizens was elected, a hospital site was determined upon, and on the following day (Monday) a building of hessian and poles was commenced, and notable progress made before nightfall. Subscriptions poured in: the big mine gave twenty guineas, other firms and claims in proportion, but all liberally, not to say generously, and, within a week, a building not particularly ornate, but weather-tight, and suitably provided with beds and subdivisions, with the all-sufficing corrugated iron roof, was ‘inaugurated,’ as the local journal proudly described the opening ceremony, by a large and influential gathering of citizens. It may be mentioned that the mining arrangement of eight-hour ‘shifts’ was resorted to, the urgency of the occasion justifying this departure from routine and trade habitudes.The ex-Commissioner had always, at his several commands and headquarters, taken an interest in the hospital question, having in his official life been brought into contact with the dreadful accidents and deadly epidemics from which no mining communities are free. So he made it his business to call in due form upon the nurses, who formed the vanguard of the Nightingale[102]battalion, and assure them of his sympathetic aid if such should be needed. He ordered improvements to be made in the buildings, and guaranteed the expense incurred. He also arranged a ‘little dinner’ in their honour at the principal (and only) hotel, to which, besides his partner, Mr. Southwater, he invited the Warden of the district, as well as other persons in authority, and a few leading citizens with their wives. The entertainment passed off extremely well, and was appreciated by the mining contingent, as recognising the lady nurses’ position and, as such, giving them social standing.It was just as well that Mr. Banneret made himself acquainted with the hospital and thepersonnelof its guardian angels—a term used by himself in the aftertime—as, within a month after the official opening, he was himself an inmate of the institution referred to.Yes! there was no immunity, no safeguarding by means of careful sanitation at the claim, temperate living, box baths (though these were in the nature of luxuries), an elevated situation—precautions which, under other circumstances, and in other places, had baffled the fever fiend. First a queer feeling, half-cold and shivering, half-hot and feverish; then a racking headache, vainly endured, and struggled against in hope of relief—worse on the next day; then the ordinary symptoms: a sleepless night, a half-conscious feeling of ‘lightheadedness.’ On the morrow, word went through the camp that Mr. Banneret, of the great Reward Claim at Pilot Mount, was[103]in the hospital, ‘down with typhoid.’ The building had been full for days, but one bed had been vacated, at the instance of Head Physician Death, and into the empty cot the ‘respected chief shareholder in the well-known Reward Claim’ (see theMiner’s Mentorof the day, ‘Personal Column’) and ex-Commissioner of Barrawong was deposited. On the morning which followed, the patient was in a high fever, raving in delirium, temperature 105 degrees. The doctor pronounced it a definite case of typhoid. On the first day of the seizure—how sudden and cruel it was!—he had written to his wife that he had dropped in for a ‘feverish attack,’ but not to be alarmed—would probably pass off in a day or two—she knew he had felt that way before; but had thought it wiser, considering the heat of the climate, to go to bed for a day or two. The hospital was really most comfortable, and well managed; in Mrs. Lilburne he had, she would be glad to hear, a most capable and attentive nurse. She was on no account to be alarmed, or todreamof coming over—which would only be an expensive and disagreeable journey for her. Mrs. Lilburne would write and tell her how he was getting on. It was a great nuisance—indeed, most disappointing—that this sort of thing should have happened, and that he had more than once been tempted to wish himself back at poor old Barrawong; though, of course, they had gone through the same epidemic there, when poor young Danvers, the curate at the township, and Mr. Thornton, who was past middle age, with ever so many other people, had[104]died, and it seemed to be in the nature of a lottery who should catch it and who should escape, who should live and who should die. He was glad to hear that Reggie was getting on so well at school, and that the other children were thriving. He had got little Winnie’s letter, and would answer it to-morrow, etc. When the morrow came, as before stated, he was not in a condition to write or read letters, or indeed to perform any of the literary duties which had previously occupied much of his time. The doctor and the nurse were engaged in anxious consultation—the one taking his temperature, which the nurse registered very carefully; both faces wearing a very serious, indeed anxious expression.‘You think it will go hard with him, doctor?’ queried she.‘Can’t say at this stage,’ said the medico, with a professional air of immobility; ‘must run its course. A great deal will depend on his constitution and the nursing. I am glad it wasyourturn, Mrs. Lilburne.’‘He shan’t fail for that, doctor, if I keep going,’ said the pale, refined-looking woman.‘I know, I know,’ replied the man of life and death. ‘But don’tyouget laid up, or I don’t know what we shall do. Good morning!’ And the hard-worked physician walked out, and drove off along the dusty track at a pace much above the regulation rate.‘That Mrs. Lilburne, as she called herself,’ thought he—‘I don’t know whether it’s her right name, or, indeed, whether any of their names are[105]reallytheir own—a lot of mystery about nurses in back block hospitals, I’ve always found—but this one is different from the rank and file. I wonder what her history is—must have some sort ofpast, as the new slang is: husband cleared out from her, or she from him; married before, and forgot to mention it. Talk about lawyers having secrets! we doctors could beat them hollow if we only chose to let them out—which we don’t. We are the real father confessors, if the world only knew. Anyhow, this poor chap is lucky to have Madonna Lilburne to look after him. I’m afraid it’s a poor look-out for him; hard lines, too, when he’s the richest man on the field. Fortune of war, I suppose; can’t be helped.’The patient had written a comforting letter, as he thought, to his wife. It had, however, quite a different effect. Mrs. Banneret knew her husband of old, and could gauge his every thought and action.A man averse to speaking of minor ailments, he was always worse than he appeared to be, in consequence of this habit of reticence. He despised the habit of complaint with which men that he knew were in the habit of disturbing the household and their wives. Consequently he fell into the other extreme: delaying the notice which would have procured aid or arrested illness. He had repeated the imprudence, she could plainly perceive. Fever probably had set in. He might be even now in the dangerous stage. How dangerous, how short the interval between it and the last journalistic reference: ‘We regret to[106]have to announce,’ etc., she knew well. Had she not seen from the West Australian papers, which she scanned so eagerly, the portentous death-roll, in which she prayed to God—how earnestly who can tell—that her husband’s name might never be found? There was no time to be lost; join him of course she would; was he to die, alone and untended except by unknown, perhaps incapable women, who had been lured to the goldfield by exaggerated reports of easily found fortune—adventuresses, or worse? It was agony to think of his being left in such hands. She read and re-read his letter—perhaps the last he would ever write. Of course he had made the best of it; he always did. But there was much to be done, much to be thought out. The mail steamer sailed to-morrow. She would—shemustgo to him. The time was short—too short. The Adelaide express would be in time? No! she would get on board—the railway might meet with an accident—a strike was threatened by the employees if wages or privileges were reduced. Heartless wretches! What did they care for sickness and death—the grief of the widow, the orphans left fatherless? It must be admitted that in this hour of misery, almost of despair, her righteous indignation was fervid, glowing, and would have burnt up the Trades Hall delegates like so many priests of Baal had she had the prophetic power.With but a short interval granted to natural sorrow, action was quickly taken. The children were too young to be left unguarded. But in the city where she, where her mother, indeed, had[107]been born, she had many relatives—not a few staunch family friends. They came forward in her hour of need. A cousin, capable and sympathetic, volunteered to supervise the household in her absence. Needful preparation was quickly made. Far into the night she sat and wrote, leaving minute instructions—even farewells, in case she took infection. And at noon on the following day, amid the crowd of passengers on board theKashmir, bound for EuropeviaWestern Australia, stood Marcia, the wife of Arnold Banneret, lately the Commissioner of Barrawong town and district, but now the largest shareholder in the well-known Reward Claim and—a patient in the fever ward of Pilot Mount local hospital.Shipwreck rarely occurs among first-class liners like theKashmir, P. & O., but thereissuch a thing as a broken shaft. As a rule it is calculable within a few hours when such a marine miracle of speed, comfort, and ordered energy arrives at her destination. Such was the case when theKashmirarrived at Adelaide.She was met at the landing by a friend of the family, who handed her atelegram:—On board P. & O. steamerKashmir.—Mr. Banneret better. Dr. Horton considers crisis past. No need for haste.But the sick man’s wife was of a different way of thinking. ‘I shall be for ever grateful to you for your kindness,’ she said, ‘but I can only rest when I am where my husband lies sick. Pray God it may not be unto death, and that I am not too late.’‘I can assure you,’ said the kindly matron,[108]‘that you may trust Dr. Horton implicitly. He objects to messages that disguise the truth. He would not have permitted this to be sent if not strictly reliable.’‘Thank God! thank God! if it be so. And now when does the train start?’‘You won’t think of leaving to-night, surely? We counted upon your staying with us till to-morrow.’‘I am sorry to seem uncourteous, but I cannot lose an hour that may be used in bringing me nearer to him. I ordered my luggage to be sent to the railway station. The Captain assured me that it should be done.’‘You are very determined,’ said Mrs. Hampton, smiling, ‘but I will not press you further, if you will stay with us on your return?’‘Most willingly, and will do anything you like to ask me. If my husband is well, and returning with me, as I trust he will, you will find me quite a different woman.’‘Then we’ll have a cup of tea, and I’ll drive you to the station. There is sure to be some one we know going on, and I can assure you of a guide, and perhaps a companion.’Thus reassured, the wifely anxiety became somewhat lessened, and she consented to a hasty meal before being driven to the railway station. Here she found that an engaged carriage had been thoughtfully secured for her, and that her lighter luggage had been placed therein, while the attentive guard placed the checks in her hand for the trunks.[109]With hearty thanks, and a cordial handclasp, she said adieu to the friend in need. Just before the train started, a well-dressed, ladylike woman was introduced as Mrs. Wharton, and took her seat beside her. ‘Nearly lost my passage,’ she said, ‘but you know how one is rushed at the last moment. However, here I am, and as I live near Kalgoorlie, I shall be glad to give you any information that may be useful. This is your first visit, I hear.’‘Yes, indeed! and but for my husband’s illness I should not have thought of making it now.’The strange lady’s face changed to an expression of sympathy and regret, as she said, ‘Not too serious, I hope?’‘He is in the hospital, ill with typhoid fever. I have had a telegram from the doctor attending him. He thinks the crisis past, and that he is mending.’‘What was the doctor’s name?’‘Horton. Mrs. Hampton said he was strictly reliable.’‘So he is. He always thinks it better that people should be told the truth—you may depend upon his report absolutely.’‘Thank you so much! I feel encouraged to think that the worst is over. You have been living at Kalgoorlie, I think you said?’‘Oh yes! for several years; but I have only just returned from England, where my young people are at school. They are all well, I am thankful to say, and I am returning to live with my husband for another two or three years, after[110]which, as our mine, the “Golden Helmet,” is paying well, I trust we may go to England for good.’‘And do you like living here?’‘Oh! I have to like it, or be separated from my husband, which I could not endure. After all, the life up here is not unendurable. The winter is pleasant enough. And in the hottest part of the summer we get away to the coast for a month or two. It’s not so bad as one would think. We visit about among ourselves. There are a few nice families, and the young people have polo, racing, and an occasional ball. We see many English people of good family from time to time—more perhaps than in the older communities—and manage to exist very tolerably.’. . . . . . . . .So the day and the long night in the train passed not uncomfortably. At the stopping stages refreshments were procurable.The wearied women slept soundly at intervals, and as the morning broke, and found them still speeding across the interminable waste, the cool breeze, after they had dressed and breakfasted, refreshed them considerably. Mrs. Banneret began to lose the haggard air as of one expectant of evil—of nameless dread, and responded to her companion’s efforts to induce a more cheerful frame of mind.. . . . . . . . .Pilot Hill was descried at last—the township reached; and then a journey had to be taken by coach, for of course the mail service had been contracted for by an American firm. Fast coaches, with well-fed horses, had succeeded to the slow[111]and toilsome waggonette-travelling. Short stages were alone thought of, and with only a minimum of discomfort Mrs. Banneret found herself at the Royal Palace Hotel, where a note written with a very shaky hand awaitedher:—My darling Wife—I tried my best to prevent your taking this unnecessary journey—you will own—but, as usual, you would have your own way. A week ago it looked as if you would arrive just in time to see my grave—in the cemetery, which is filling all too quickly. Now, thanks to Mrs. Lilburne and Dr. Horton, you will discover what is left of me. I must leave off, and lie down to gather strength to welcome you.—Always your fond husband,Arnold Banneret.The woman knelt down in the queer little bedroom, where she and her luggage—dust-covered and travel-stained—had been deposited, and poured forth her thanks to that Great Being who had once again listened to her prayer, and restored him for whose love and companionship she chiefly lived. Only allowing the shortest interval for adjustment of dress and removal of dust, Marcia Banneret hardly waited for a guide to the hospital. That reached, she walked quietly into the convalescent ward, and kneeling by the bed which held a wasted, pallid, altered man, whom she hardly at first recognised as her husband, she flung herself on her knees, and sobbed out her love for him and gratitude to the Most High—almost in the same breath.How changed from the strong man whom she last saw at their old home!—a man whom travel, toil, privation of any ordinary kind, in whatever weather it might be—winter storm or summer[112]heat—seemed but to refresh and invigorate. And now, how shrunken, nerveless, emaciated!—every trace of colour fled from his bronzed cheek, and supplanted by the saffron hue which confinement of any kind conjoined with disease brings even to the most robust.Was this indeed Arnold Banneret? When he saw himself in the glass he hardly recognised his own features.‘I am afraid I must interrupt the interview, Mrs. Banneret,’ said a low, carefully modulated voice, as, after premonitory tapping, the slender, graceful form of Nurse Lilburne entered the room; ‘but, with apologies to you, Dr. Horton cautioned me against the danger of over-fatigue or excitement at meeting you. I feel certain you will pardon me. We have to be so careful against the chance of a relapse.’‘I will pardon everything, and only wish to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the care you have taken, and the saving of my husband’s life. I shall never forget it, believe me. We shall both cherish you as a valued friend to the end of our days. And now, I will say good-bye. I suppose I may come again in the evening?’‘Oh, certainly!—I can depute some of my duties to you with safety, at this stage.’. . . . . . . . .From that day it may easily be understood that the patient’s convalescence steadily advanced, that his progress in health was comparatively rapid. His strength, indeed, took longer to build up than he imagined would be the case. After leaving his[113]bed for the first time he could not walk without support, and even dressing had to be effected by easy stages. However, if the progress of gaining strength was slow, it was sure, and before the month was out he was, to use the common phrase, ‘a new man.’Then he was able to be driven round the field by his wife—to observe, and, in a sense, to enjoy the unfamiliar points of this most extraordinary region—surely one of the most amazing storehouses of the Golden Lure ever unearthed by civilised man. Though the soil was barren and rock-strewn, the rainfall scanty and uncertain, the heat of midsummer terrific, the miners had already made pathetic, not wholly unsuccessful efforts to establish gardens—a few vegetables, and the commoner sort of flowers, carefully watered, repaid their pains. Even the desert shrubs and wild flowers were heedfully transplanted, and in many instances embellished the humble homes, temporary though they might be, which sprang up in the wilderness. In some instances, where the ground was apparently all rock, holes and excavations had been blasted out and filled with alluvial, wherein the bulbs and roots put forth their shoots.Nor was the goldfield, now so populous, and with a reputation which had been bruited over the Anglo-Saxon world, deficient in what was known as ‘society people.’ Not to mention the Honourable Mr. This and Lord John That, who had taken up their abode there—there were dozens of scions of well-known families from the eastern[114]colonies, who had not only come to take a hand in the game of Golden Hazard, here played for such alarming stakes—but who had brought their wives.These ladies, who had heard of Mrs. Banneret, and sympathised with her in her husband’s dangerous illness, ‘called upon her,’ as the conventional phrase runs, which visits had, of course, to be returned. So that she found herself soon provided with a large and congenial visiting-list.‘Really, I quite begin to like this place,’ she said to her husband one day, when they were driving home in the cool of the evening from a centre a few miles distant from Pilot Mount, where they had heard of the presence of an old friend; ‘and what a nice pony this is—quite a pleasure to drive her. The roads are so good too. Very different country from poor old Barrawong, with its box forests, and our good, clean, dear bungalow, with the old, old garden, and the dear river. Fancy a river here! The young people get to like it, I suppose—though this cemetery has a list of young—ah! such young inmates, I can’t bear to think of it. Sons and brothers, wives and husbands who will never go back! It is too dreadful.’‘You must endeavournotto think of it, dear,’ he said softly. ‘You will be able to takemeback, that is one comfort. And as the mine is doing so well—better than well—phenomenally, I think—mind you—only think—we may be able to go east, as they say here, by the mail steamer after the next. And if the “Last Chance” keeps up its[115]present, or probable output—we shall not return, but leave the working of it, and all business that hangs thereby, to our partners and the other shareholders.’‘Oh, what a joy that will be!’ she exclaimed, clasping her hands—which, as she held the whip in one of them, caused the pony mare to make a rush. For a hundred yards or so the pony refused to be stopped, but there were neither trees nor stumps on the road, so the hotel was safely reached. The mail letters had just come in, and from these it was learned that the children were well and matters generally all that could be wished. Things being in this blissful and satisfactory state, Mr. Banneret and his wife quitted Pilot Mount, the latter in a very different state of mind from that in which she had reached it. As for her stay at the field—she thought she should look back to it (after, of course, her husband’s recovery was assured) as really a most interesting and pleasant experience. Everything was so fresh and new, even to her who had been so many years a resident on goldfields. The people were, many of them, lately from Britain, America, or the Continent of Europe: all sorts of young men unattached, who had never seen Australia before, many of them of good, even aristocratic families, not occupied in any profession, eager and anxious to have their share of the treasure which Dame Nature was distributing with lavish hand; men from old colonial families, who brought their wives with them, or sent for them after they had secured an investment likely to be permanent. These were[116]the most solid and influential components of the hastily gathered and yet firmly welded framework of society.They decided who among the women were to be ‘called on’—or to be left out of the visiting circle. They acquired all necessary information on that head, inspected credentials, advised young men for their good—and generally constituted the higher public opinion which governed, with more or less authority, the manners and morals of their little state. They gave ‘teas’ at the Polo Club and race meetings, inviting desirable persons and excluding such as had given social offence. No hard and fast rule was openly promulgated, but in an unobtrusive way the combined influence made itself felt, and those who were hardy enough to withstand it found in the long run that they had taken up a wrong position.Of course, among the heterogeneous community there were individuals and groups whose antecedents were shrouded in mystery.All that was known of them or could be divined about their former professions or occupations, adventures, characters, or relations was that they had arrived by the mail boat of a certain date, and had been working in this alluvial claim or that reef—for the last year. They were certainly ‘human warriors,’ as Dickens’s taxidermist was wont to express it. Mr. and Mrs. Winstanley, admittedly good-looking, well-mannered, presentable—were suspected of not being legally married.There was no proof, either one way or the[117]other—if the rumour was not well founded, injustice was done to an innocent woman. If otherwise, those families who had permitted intercourse with wives and daughters repented in sackcloth and ashes when the truth came out. For it must not for one moment be assumed that the colonial social canons are one whit less rigid on such subjects than in the mother-land. If anything, Mrs. Grundy is a potentate whose power is greater and whose punishments are more terrible than in the ancestral home.Mrs. Banneret had necessarily been drawn into closer association with Nurse Lilburne than with any other assistant in the hospital. She it was who had tended her husband through the most serious stages—the most dangerous crisis in the course of his deadly seizure. With his life actually trembling in the balance, she it was who had bathed the burning brow, had measured so carefully and administered so punctually the healing draught; had been in very truth the ministering angel of the poet’s fancy. No other woman, save and excepting his own wife, could have been so capable, so delicately deft, so conscientious—so devoted, even to the danger of her own health. She had brought him through the valley of the shadow, Dr. Horton said, and he did not believe another woman in Australia—let alone in Pilot Mount—would have done it. It may be imagined what gratitude was felt by Mrs. Banneret when she saw her husband by her side, fully recovered and looking, except for a certain pallor, which some people thought became him, better than ever. Now[118]that they were able to drive about together—which the doctor had strongly recommended, as a daily recreation, favourable to perfect recovery—various novelties and unexpected discoveries in their new world of Arabian Nights treasure-land displayed themselves before her. Restricted to the routine of domesticity hitherto—an exacting though not unwelcome round of duties—her imagination, always daring and impatient of control, luxuriated in excursions around and amidst ‘the burghers of this desert city.’ What mysteries lay hidden in the past lives of the women, the men, who daily worked or strolleden flâneuron the highways and byways!That quietly dressed, not quite elderly, not quite young visitor from the old country, who was he? He had a military air, and the stamp which ‘formerly in the army’ invariably impresses on the individual so privileged. The ‘horsey man,’ the abscondu, the aristocratic tourist, on for a hasty inspection, with a view to chance a thousand or two on the Big Bonanza, or the Golden Horn,—they were there. Itmightturn up trumps—like Great Wolder, which had paid a million and a half in dividends and was going strong still. Others again, who played deeply, and were chiefly undesirable.As the field increased in population and prestige, the stream of holiday or home-going capitalists made Perth their headquarters. Once there, the ‘Weld,’ an exclusive and fashionable club, naturally attracted notice, and afforded a more or less luxurious home for those who desired[119]to enjoy their sojourn by the waters of the Swan River, and to feel the ocean breezes on a sun-tanned cheek. As an honorary or permanent member, the candidate required to be proposed and seconded by leading members of the club, who were held responsible for his conduct and character, so that it may be imagined that both were subjected to close supervision. It was not, therefore, probable that the black sheep of other lands, much less of colonial families, would find pasture, even in that Terra Incognita, a West Australian goldfield.
. . . . . . . . .
The final arrangements which heralded the departure of the Banneret family from Carjagong, where they had led a tranquil and, on the whole, happy existence, were carried out successfully. The address and testimonial were presented in due form. In the address the departing official was credited with all the virtues; and the testimonial, which took the form of coin of the realm, was a liquid asset which had been decidedly useful in former flittings of exceptional expensiveness.
They reached Sydney, by coach and train, without mishap or difficulty. The children were joyous, and unceasing in their wonder and admiration of wayside novelties, including snow, to a fall of which they were, for the first time in their lives, introduced.
The day on which they re-entered Sydney will always be marked with a white stone in the annals of the family. It was the opening month of the southern spring, and no more brilliant specimen of that gladsome season could have been presented to the eyes of the travellers. They had left a region where, though the climate was comparatively mild, the lingering winter months were austere. Hence the semi-tropical warmth of the air, the[91]blue, cloudless sky of the metropolis, were grateful as novelties to the wayfarers from the interior. The younger olive-branches had of course in their ten years’ sojourn rarely seen the sea; the elder ones had but dim remembrance of it; and when the first sight of the historic harbour burst upon their gaze from the balcony of their hotel, a cry of wonder and amazement could not be suppressed, in spite of the nurse’s remonstrance.
‘Not quite so much noise, my dears!’ said the watchful mother. ‘You must learn not to shout and cry out at everything you see, or else people will think you are wild bush children, that have never been taught anything. You will see so many new things every day.’
‘Yes, we know, mother,’ said the eldest girl. ‘But there is onlyoneharbour! Doesn’t it look bright and beautiful to-day? It is almost calm, like a great lake. How the little white-sailed boats go skimming over it, like sea-birds! There is a beautiful ship being towed in by a little tug steamer. And, oh, here comes the mail-boat; how quiet and dignified she is! She wants no tug, does she? That’s the best of a steamer: she can get along, fair weather or foul.’
‘Sometimes, when a great storm catches her, even she has to “slow down,” as sailors say; but generally, of course, she is independent of wind and weather. And now it is nearly lunch time, so we must all go and get ready.’
‘I went out in a sailing-boat,’ said Reggie, with an air of experience, ‘last summer when I was down. Didn’t she lean over, too? But, oh, how[92]she did cut through the water! It was grand. And another day Mr. Northam took out me and the Merton boys in his steam-yacht to Middle Harbour. I liked that almost better. We had such a jolly lunch, and went on shore afterwards. It was ever so hot, so we bathed, and ate rock oysters, and had no end of fun. The country’s all very well, but give me the sea at Christmas time.’
‘You’ll be at the King’s School next week,’ said his mother, with quiet emphasis, ‘so I advise you to make the most of your time for a few days. I can’t have you idling about town, and losing precious opportunities.’
Reggie’s face fell just the least bit at this announcement, but soon recovered its uniformly cheerful expression.
‘Can’t we stay till we go into the new house; that won’t be long, I suppose?’
‘Not a day longer than I can help, my boy. School is your most important affair for the next three or four years, and your father expects you to distinguish yourselves—that is, you and Eric; Jack must stay with Miss Charters for another year. Just fancy what a fine time you’ll have! Ever so many playfellows—cricket and football, hare and hounds, steeplechases, all kinds of games. You’ll be so happy after the first week that you won’t want to come home.’
‘I shall never feel likethat, mother!’ said the boy feelingly. ‘Don’t make any mistake.’
. . . . . . . . .
The eventful step was fully carried out; a[93]comfortable house in one of the picturesque suburbs of Sydney was rented and furnished; the father’s farewells were made—those adieus sometimes temporary, but which the heart is prone to suggest may be eternal; and as the mail-boat majestically moved on her course through the great sandstone gates of the landlocked haven, the tears fell fast from the eyes of more than one of the little party as her smoke faded from view behind the lofty headland.
. . . . . . . . .
Again the week-long voyage—the sighting of the far western ports—the hasty landing—the railway crowding—the short stay at Perth—the uneventful, uninteresting overland journey through country which nothing but the possession of goldfields could render interesting, though occasionally touching upon patches more or less agricultural or pastoral. The motley crowd of pilgrims to the Mecca of Mammon was indeed a medley, as are all goldfields crusades. Runaway sailors, deserting soldiers, shepherds, stockriders, navvies, nobodies, gentlemen ‘formerly in the army,’ Cambridge and Oxford graduates, ex-Queensland squatters—some with two horses, some with a packhorse only, but by far the greater number depending entirely upon the all-sufficing ‘bluey’ (or blue blanket) carried on the shoulders, and containing the owner’s food, wardrobe, cooking utensils, and worldly possessions generally. Southern Cross, a year-old town, was not materially different in architecture, dust, flies, banks, and blasphemy, from ‘rushes’ with which the Commissioner had[94]been familiar, only ‘more so,’ perhaps—every discomfort and departure from civilised life being strongly accentuated. A much-begrudged hour or two was spent, or rather wasted here, and through the clear, starlit night the expedition pushed silently onward. Taking counsel of past experience, the leader had left little to the chances of the journey. He had provided a substantial waggonette, heavier than the first vehicle in which he and old Waters had travelled to the Pilot Mount; a forty-gallon cask for water—a good-sized condenser, in case they ran short of the indispensable element—chaff and oats sufficient for their four horses, with tinned meat and fish to ensure a variety of ‘cuisine’; rifles, repeaters, and double-barrels, with revolvers in good order, and plenty of ammunition; also a fair-sized tent, with folding-table and seats, as a lengthened stay at the claim, which was now a certainty, would need these accessories for reasonable comfort, now that there was no doubt of the reef being permanent, rich, wide, and going down equally so—indeed better the deeper it went down. After leaving Southern Cross the desert journey recommenced, but now there was no difficulty in finding the road. Every kind of track was printed in large type upon the broad sheet of the Waste. Carts and waggons, horses and bullock teams, had been there. The camels, following one behind the other, had left their soft, narrow paths through sand-hill and spinifex plain, salt lake and clay pan. This they could note as they went through mulga and low acacia scrub until Pilot Hill, as[95]the eminence had been named, was sighted. Some of the ‘soaks’ emptied by the horses and camel trains had not refilled, but their reserve of cask water stood well to them in temporary need. And after a journey neither protracted nor arduous, they greeted old Jack and Southwater, who had managed to put up a comfortable shanty, and pointed proudly to a ‘township’ of tents, and hessian edifices, occupying a considerable stretch of country.
Great congratulations greeted them from the resident partners, and much curiosity was expressed as to the nature of the supplies which they had brought with them, as well as of those which were to follow on, with the machinery, and all the component parts of the up-to-date plant, which were even now on the road. As the prospectors and shareholders in the Reward Claim, they were objects of respectful admiration, and praised in the local newspapers for endurance, high intelligence, courage, all sorts of heroic qualities—the whole finished off with the golden crown of success, which never fails to irradiate the wearer and his surroundings.
Awaking from his humble but not uncomfortable couch in the tent, which had been pitched without loss of time, Arnold Banneret gazed around the wide expanse with grateful and, indeed, enviable feelings. Here was, if not the goal of his ambition, a near approach to it. He had neared the winning-post, and though the trophy had not as yet been placed in his hands, there was no moral doubt that he would shortly be in possession[96]of the coveted prize—and what a prize it would be! Well worth the toil, the risk, the anxiety which he had gone through, the years of hard work—sometimes indeed pressing closely upon his powers of mind and body. With but a moderate income, he had cheerfully faced the task of providing for the wants of a large family. They had been fed and clothed, educated and prepared for their station in life as gentlefolk. At times there had been but the narrowest margin—at times painful doubt, depressing anxiety.
But the parents had never despaired. A gleam of hope—a ray of sunshine even when skies were darkest—had never failed to illumine the path. One of the partners in the social-personal-national enterprise (it is unnecessary to inquire which) had never faltered or swerved from the solemn contract; and now, after years of doubt and struggle, the goal was won. Success was assured—it was almost a moral certainty,—a life-long provision for him and his, an assured position, a name and fame, even distinction, for all their future life. As he stood before his tent door and watched the red-gold sun invade the unclouded firmament, when the morning mists, unlike the heavier masses of more favoured climes, made haste to disperse and disappear, he could have fancied himself an Arab sheikh. There were no Bedouins within sight, a fact on which he congratulated himself. But a long line of camels with their turbaned drivers, coming ‘up from the under world,’ supplied proof that the desert conditions were not wholly, absolutely non-existent.
[97]How differently indeed the point of view adds to or subtracts from the treatment of any given situation. To the famished explorer with beaten horses or starving camels, how drear and terrible the outlook over the ‘sun-scorched desert, wild and bare’—the stunted shrubs, the stony surface, the arid waste! Weak and low, faint with hunger, or frantic with thirst, he can barely summon sufficient energy to make one last effort for the hidden spring and—life.
Here, before the Commissioner, lay the same landscape—but for the scattered huts and tents, as carelessly distributed over the forlorn levels as if they had been rained down from the sky in some abnormal storm-burst. Yet the man in front of the tent saw so much besides the dusky levels—the stunted, colourless copses, with their distorted, dwarfish acacia trees—the restless team and saddle horses crowding around the drays as if imploring provender, too sensible of the sterility of the land to waste time in wandering on a vain search for pasture. The risen sun, which so many a fainting straggler cursed, as the red globe rose higher through the pitiless firmament, was to him the symbol of honour and happiness to come. The far distance, in which a pale mist shrouded the naked rocks and scarred cliffs of a barrier range, was grandly mysterious in his eyes, as concealing treasure untold. The bells which now commenced to mingle and blend as the teams came in, or were driven towards the Pilot Mount, clanged and jangled not without a certain rude melody. An occasional flight of waterfowl on their way to the[98]coast, or a far inland lake, passed in swaying files high overhead—guided, who shall say by what course of reasoning or memory, to river, mere, or lake? And like the historic mariner, his heart went out to the birds, and ‘he blessed them unawares.’ His heart, full of joy and thankfulness, was softened by the relief from care which had been granted to him, and he wished well to all living things. The day which began with the sun’s blessing on him and his, so to speak, continued and ended with the same—in strict consonance with the feelings of the principal shareholder in the ‘Last Chance,’ now far heralded as a treasure claim. As the sun rose high and yet higher at mid-day, and lingeringly dwelt up crag and hollow, sand waste and scrub, until the utmost limit of his course, it was more or less oppressive to the crowd of toilers, who had worked since dawn. But what of that? The air was dry, fresh, and, to the unworn constitutions of the greater number of the workers on ‘the field,’ invigorating. There was no hint of enervating moisture in the heated air which the north wind sent along, in steady waves, from the innermost deserts. Clothing was of the lightest possible texture, and as little of it as conventions would allow—though here, as in all Australian congregations, when leisure and recreation cried truce to the excitement of toil, the canons of British taste were observed. And in favour of the climate, which had no tropical disabilities or defects, the nights—inestimable blessing—were cool.
The breakfast hour permitted a free and full[99]discussion of ways and means—men and machinery—past and present—with sketch notes of the general rise and progress of the partnership during his absence.
Nothing could have been more satisfactory. ‘The men had all worked first-rate,’ old Jack said—‘the swell as hard as any of ’em—perhaps harder.’ Mr. Southwater was a terror for hard graft, and would have a claim of his own some day. He was a born bushman, could work dead reckoning, and would make a smart sailor-man, if ever he got the chance. He’d come to something, no fear! Con Heffernan was as good a chap as ever handled a pick—a ‘rale white man.’ Everything had gone on first-rate—no rows, and all as smooth as a greased hide rope.
Mr. Newstead said he thought he would go home, now he could raise the passage money on his shares; but he’d leave a good man in his place. To which determination he promptly gave effect. All was now plain sailing. Of course there was hard unremitting work. From daylight to dark, no rest for head and hand; but then there was much to show for it. The arrivals of men and merchandise were large and exciting. Carpenters, machinists, ‘wages men’—as ordinary mine labourers were called—arrived in hundreds.
Claims were taken up for miles around the Pilot Mount, in every direction: claims for alluvial; reef claims, wherever there was a lump of quartz as big as a cricket ball; water claims, whereverthe drainage from a ‘soak’ would fill a bucket in a day; ‘dry-blowing claims,’ wherever a[100]speck of gold could be extracted by one of the most primitive of all processes. All this various assemblage contributed doubtless to the name and fame of the far-bruited ‘Last Chance,’ of which the shares rose in value until the original holders looked on themselves as prospective, if not indeed, actual millionaires. But there was another side to the shield, which commenced to make itself clearly apparent through the somewhat blurred and distorted social atmosphere.
Among the miscellaneous crowd of adventurers and tourists who had dared the privations of desert travel, was a contingent of lady nurses. These meritorious women, not less daring than the reckless miners who had faced death in so many shapes, in so many lands, had joined the army of hope at the earliest stage that transit could be guaranteed.Theyknew, none better, how soon the fever scourge of crowded camps, civil or military, would ‘take up a claim,’ ever widening and expansive, sheltered by the dark wing of Azrael. How many a day, how many a night, in burning heat or freezing cold, had each volunteer for the ‘forlorn hope’ of Christian charity watched by the delirious, fever-stricken patient, whose fate it was to sink lower and lower, until he gasped out his life, holding the hand of his truest friend in need, or, faintly rallying, lived to greet the ‘opening paradise’ of ‘the common air, the fields, the skies,’ and to know himself once more a man among men!
At first, in the inevitable turmoil, the rush and hurry of a big and daily-growing field, but[101]scant attention was bestowed upon the dread disease, or the ‘cases’ which began to multiply. The report that Jack Wilson was ‘down with the fever,’ or Pat Murphy had ‘got it bad, and mightn’t recover,’ was little heeded, but when poor Pat died, and was followed to the grave by an imposing array of miners, public interest was aroused. A committee of miners and citizens was elected, a hospital site was determined upon, and on the following day (Monday) a building of hessian and poles was commenced, and notable progress made before nightfall. Subscriptions poured in: the big mine gave twenty guineas, other firms and claims in proportion, but all liberally, not to say generously, and, within a week, a building not particularly ornate, but weather-tight, and suitably provided with beds and subdivisions, with the all-sufficing corrugated iron roof, was ‘inaugurated,’ as the local journal proudly described the opening ceremony, by a large and influential gathering of citizens. It may be mentioned that the mining arrangement of eight-hour ‘shifts’ was resorted to, the urgency of the occasion justifying this departure from routine and trade habitudes.
The ex-Commissioner had always, at his several commands and headquarters, taken an interest in the hospital question, having in his official life been brought into contact with the dreadful accidents and deadly epidemics from which no mining communities are free. So he made it his business to call in due form upon the nurses, who formed the vanguard of the Nightingale[102]battalion, and assure them of his sympathetic aid if such should be needed. He ordered improvements to be made in the buildings, and guaranteed the expense incurred. He also arranged a ‘little dinner’ in their honour at the principal (and only) hotel, to which, besides his partner, Mr. Southwater, he invited the Warden of the district, as well as other persons in authority, and a few leading citizens with their wives. The entertainment passed off extremely well, and was appreciated by the mining contingent, as recognising the lady nurses’ position and, as such, giving them social standing.
It was just as well that Mr. Banneret made himself acquainted with the hospital and thepersonnelof its guardian angels—a term used by himself in the aftertime—as, within a month after the official opening, he was himself an inmate of the institution referred to.
Yes! there was no immunity, no safeguarding by means of careful sanitation at the claim, temperate living, box baths (though these were in the nature of luxuries), an elevated situation—precautions which, under other circumstances, and in other places, had baffled the fever fiend. First a queer feeling, half-cold and shivering, half-hot and feverish; then a racking headache, vainly endured, and struggled against in hope of relief—worse on the next day; then the ordinary symptoms: a sleepless night, a half-conscious feeling of ‘lightheadedness.’ On the morrow, word went through the camp that Mr. Banneret, of the great Reward Claim at Pilot Mount, was[103]in the hospital, ‘down with typhoid.’ The building had been full for days, but one bed had been vacated, at the instance of Head Physician Death, and into the empty cot the ‘respected chief shareholder in the well-known Reward Claim’ (see theMiner’s Mentorof the day, ‘Personal Column’) and ex-Commissioner of Barrawong was deposited. On the morning which followed, the patient was in a high fever, raving in delirium, temperature 105 degrees. The doctor pronounced it a definite case of typhoid. On the first day of the seizure—how sudden and cruel it was!—he had written to his wife that he had dropped in for a ‘feverish attack,’ but not to be alarmed—would probably pass off in a day or two—she knew he had felt that way before; but had thought it wiser, considering the heat of the climate, to go to bed for a day or two. The hospital was really most comfortable, and well managed; in Mrs. Lilburne he had, she would be glad to hear, a most capable and attentive nurse. She was on no account to be alarmed, or todreamof coming over—which would only be an expensive and disagreeable journey for her. Mrs. Lilburne would write and tell her how he was getting on. It was a great nuisance—indeed, most disappointing—that this sort of thing should have happened, and that he had more than once been tempted to wish himself back at poor old Barrawong; though, of course, they had gone through the same epidemic there, when poor young Danvers, the curate at the township, and Mr. Thornton, who was past middle age, with ever so many other people, had[104]died, and it seemed to be in the nature of a lottery who should catch it and who should escape, who should live and who should die. He was glad to hear that Reggie was getting on so well at school, and that the other children were thriving. He had got little Winnie’s letter, and would answer it to-morrow, etc. When the morrow came, as before stated, he was not in a condition to write or read letters, or indeed to perform any of the literary duties which had previously occupied much of his time. The doctor and the nurse were engaged in anxious consultation—the one taking his temperature, which the nurse registered very carefully; both faces wearing a very serious, indeed anxious expression.
‘You think it will go hard with him, doctor?’ queried she.
‘Can’t say at this stage,’ said the medico, with a professional air of immobility; ‘must run its course. A great deal will depend on his constitution and the nursing. I am glad it wasyourturn, Mrs. Lilburne.’
‘He shan’t fail for that, doctor, if I keep going,’ said the pale, refined-looking woman.
‘I know, I know,’ replied the man of life and death. ‘But don’tyouget laid up, or I don’t know what we shall do. Good morning!’ And the hard-worked physician walked out, and drove off along the dusty track at a pace much above the regulation rate.
‘That Mrs. Lilburne, as she called herself,’ thought he—‘I don’t know whether it’s her right name, or, indeed, whether any of their names are[105]reallytheir own—a lot of mystery about nurses in back block hospitals, I’ve always found—but this one is different from the rank and file. I wonder what her history is—must have some sort ofpast, as the new slang is: husband cleared out from her, or she from him; married before, and forgot to mention it. Talk about lawyers having secrets! we doctors could beat them hollow if we only chose to let them out—which we don’t. We are the real father confessors, if the world only knew. Anyhow, this poor chap is lucky to have Madonna Lilburne to look after him. I’m afraid it’s a poor look-out for him; hard lines, too, when he’s the richest man on the field. Fortune of war, I suppose; can’t be helped.’
The patient had written a comforting letter, as he thought, to his wife. It had, however, quite a different effect. Mrs. Banneret knew her husband of old, and could gauge his every thought and action.
A man averse to speaking of minor ailments, he was always worse than he appeared to be, in consequence of this habit of reticence. He despised the habit of complaint with which men that he knew were in the habit of disturbing the household and their wives. Consequently he fell into the other extreme: delaying the notice which would have procured aid or arrested illness. He had repeated the imprudence, she could plainly perceive. Fever probably had set in. He might be even now in the dangerous stage. How dangerous, how short the interval between it and the last journalistic reference: ‘We regret to[106]have to announce,’ etc., she knew well. Had she not seen from the West Australian papers, which she scanned so eagerly, the portentous death-roll, in which she prayed to God—how earnestly who can tell—that her husband’s name might never be found? There was no time to be lost; join him of course she would; was he to die, alone and untended except by unknown, perhaps incapable women, who had been lured to the goldfield by exaggerated reports of easily found fortune—adventuresses, or worse? It was agony to think of his being left in such hands. She read and re-read his letter—perhaps the last he would ever write. Of course he had made the best of it; he always did. But there was much to be done, much to be thought out. The mail steamer sailed to-morrow. She would—shemustgo to him. The time was short—too short. The Adelaide express would be in time? No! she would get on board—the railway might meet with an accident—a strike was threatened by the employees if wages or privileges were reduced. Heartless wretches! What did they care for sickness and death—the grief of the widow, the orphans left fatherless? It must be admitted that in this hour of misery, almost of despair, her righteous indignation was fervid, glowing, and would have burnt up the Trades Hall delegates like so many priests of Baal had she had the prophetic power.
With but a short interval granted to natural sorrow, action was quickly taken. The children were too young to be left unguarded. But in the city where she, where her mother, indeed, had[107]been born, she had many relatives—not a few staunch family friends. They came forward in her hour of need. A cousin, capable and sympathetic, volunteered to supervise the household in her absence. Needful preparation was quickly made. Far into the night she sat and wrote, leaving minute instructions—even farewells, in case she took infection. And at noon on the following day, amid the crowd of passengers on board theKashmir, bound for EuropeviaWestern Australia, stood Marcia, the wife of Arnold Banneret, lately the Commissioner of Barrawong town and district, but now the largest shareholder in the well-known Reward Claim and—a patient in the fever ward of Pilot Mount local hospital.
Shipwreck rarely occurs among first-class liners like theKashmir, P. & O., but thereissuch a thing as a broken shaft. As a rule it is calculable within a few hours when such a marine miracle of speed, comfort, and ordered energy arrives at her destination. Such was the case when theKashmirarrived at Adelaide.
She was met at the landing by a friend of the family, who handed her atelegram:—
On board P. & O. steamerKashmir.—Mr. Banneret better. Dr. Horton considers crisis past. No need for haste.
On board P. & O. steamerKashmir.—Mr. Banneret better. Dr. Horton considers crisis past. No need for haste.
But the sick man’s wife was of a different way of thinking. ‘I shall be for ever grateful to you for your kindness,’ she said, ‘but I can only rest when I am where my husband lies sick. Pray God it may not be unto death, and that I am not too late.’
‘I can assure you,’ said the kindly matron,[108]‘that you may trust Dr. Horton implicitly. He objects to messages that disguise the truth. He would not have permitted this to be sent if not strictly reliable.’
‘Thank God! thank God! if it be so. And now when does the train start?’
‘You won’t think of leaving to-night, surely? We counted upon your staying with us till to-morrow.’
‘I am sorry to seem uncourteous, but I cannot lose an hour that may be used in bringing me nearer to him. I ordered my luggage to be sent to the railway station. The Captain assured me that it should be done.’
‘You are very determined,’ said Mrs. Hampton, smiling, ‘but I will not press you further, if you will stay with us on your return?’
‘Most willingly, and will do anything you like to ask me. If my husband is well, and returning with me, as I trust he will, you will find me quite a different woman.’
‘Then we’ll have a cup of tea, and I’ll drive you to the station. There is sure to be some one we know going on, and I can assure you of a guide, and perhaps a companion.’
Thus reassured, the wifely anxiety became somewhat lessened, and she consented to a hasty meal before being driven to the railway station. Here she found that an engaged carriage had been thoughtfully secured for her, and that her lighter luggage had been placed therein, while the attentive guard placed the checks in her hand for the trunks.
[109]With hearty thanks, and a cordial handclasp, she said adieu to the friend in need. Just before the train started, a well-dressed, ladylike woman was introduced as Mrs. Wharton, and took her seat beside her. ‘Nearly lost my passage,’ she said, ‘but you know how one is rushed at the last moment. However, here I am, and as I live near Kalgoorlie, I shall be glad to give you any information that may be useful. This is your first visit, I hear.’
‘Yes, indeed! and but for my husband’s illness I should not have thought of making it now.’
The strange lady’s face changed to an expression of sympathy and regret, as she said, ‘Not too serious, I hope?’
‘He is in the hospital, ill with typhoid fever. I have had a telegram from the doctor attending him. He thinks the crisis past, and that he is mending.’
‘What was the doctor’s name?’
‘Horton. Mrs. Hampton said he was strictly reliable.’
‘So he is. He always thinks it better that people should be told the truth—you may depend upon his report absolutely.’
‘Thank you so much! I feel encouraged to think that the worst is over. You have been living at Kalgoorlie, I think you said?’
‘Oh yes! for several years; but I have only just returned from England, where my young people are at school. They are all well, I am thankful to say, and I am returning to live with my husband for another two or three years, after[110]which, as our mine, the “Golden Helmet,” is paying well, I trust we may go to England for good.’
‘And do you like living here?’
‘Oh! I have to like it, or be separated from my husband, which I could not endure. After all, the life up here is not unendurable. The winter is pleasant enough. And in the hottest part of the summer we get away to the coast for a month or two. It’s not so bad as one would think. We visit about among ourselves. There are a few nice families, and the young people have polo, racing, and an occasional ball. We see many English people of good family from time to time—more perhaps than in the older communities—and manage to exist very tolerably.’
. . . . . . . . .
So the day and the long night in the train passed not uncomfortably. At the stopping stages refreshments were procurable.
The wearied women slept soundly at intervals, and as the morning broke, and found them still speeding across the interminable waste, the cool breeze, after they had dressed and breakfasted, refreshed them considerably. Mrs. Banneret began to lose the haggard air as of one expectant of evil—of nameless dread, and responded to her companion’s efforts to induce a more cheerful frame of mind.
. . . . . . . . .
Pilot Hill was descried at last—the township reached; and then a journey had to be taken by coach, for of course the mail service had been contracted for by an American firm. Fast coaches, with well-fed horses, had succeeded to the slow[111]and toilsome waggonette-travelling. Short stages were alone thought of, and with only a minimum of discomfort Mrs. Banneret found herself at the Royal Palace Hotel, where a note written with a very shaky hand awaitedher:—
My darling Wife—I tried my best to prevent your taking this unnecessary journey—you will own—but, as usual, you would have your own way. A week ago it looked as if you would arrive just in time to see my grave—in the cemetery, which is filling all too quickly. Now, thanks to Mrs. Lilburne and Dr. Horton, you will discover what is left of me. I must leave off, and lie down to gather strength to welcome you.—Always your fond husband,Arnold Banneret.
My darling Wife—I tried my best to prevent your taking this unnecessary journey—you will own—but, as usual, you would have your own way. A week ago it looked as if you would arrive just in time to see my grave—in the cemetery, which is filling all too quickly. Now, thanks to Mrs. Lilburne and Dr. Horton, you will discover what is left of me. I must leave off, and lie down to gather strength to welcome you.—Always your fond husband,Arnold Banneret.
The woman knelt down in the queer little bedroom, where she and her luggage—dust-covered and travel-stained—had been deposited, and poured forth her thanks to that Great Being who had once again listened to her prayer, and restored him for whose love and companionship she chiefly lived. Only allowing the shortest interval for adjustment of dress and removal of dust, Marcia Banneret hardly waited for a guide to the hospital. That reached, she walked quietly into the convalescent ward, and kneeling by the bed which held a wasted, pallid, altered man, whom she hardly at first recognised as her husband, she flung herself on her knees, and sobbed out her love for him and gratitude to the Most High—almost in the same breath.
How changed from the strong man whom she last saw at their old home!—a man whom travel, toil, privation of any ordinary kind, in whatever weather it might be—winter storm or summer[112]heat—seemed but to refresh and invigorate. And now, how shrunken, nerveless, emaciated!—every trace of colour fled from his bronzed cheek, and supplanted by the saffron hue which confinement of any kind conjoined with disease brings even to the most robust.
Was this indeed Arnold Banneret? When he saw himself in the glass he hardly recognised his own features.
‘I am afraid I must interrupt the interview, Mrs. Banneret,’ said a low, carefully modulated voice, as, after premonitory tapping, the slender, graceful form of Nurse Lilburne entered the room; ‘but, with apologies to you, Dr. Horton cautioned me against the danger of over-fatigue or excitement at meeting you. I feel certain you will pardon me. We have to be so careful against the chance of a relapse.’
‘I will pardon everything, and only wish to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the care you have taken, and the saving of my husband’s life. I shall never forget it, believe me. We shall both cherish you as a valued friend to the end of our days. And now, I will say good-bye. I suppose I may come again in the evening?’
‘Oh, certainly!—I can depute some of my duties to you with safety, at this stage.’
. . . . . . . . .
From that day it may easily be understood that the patient’s convalescence steadily advanced, that his progress in health was comparatively rapid. His strength, indeed, took longer to build up than he imagined would be the case. After leaving his[113]bed for the first time he could not walk without support, and even dressing had to be effected by easy stages. However, if the progress of gaining strength was slow, it was sure, and before the month was out he was, to use the common phrase, ‘a new man.’
Then he was able to be driven round the field by his wife—to observe, and, in a sense, to enjoy the unfamiliar points of this most extraordinary region—surely one of the most amazing storehouses of the Golden Lure ever unearthed by civilised man. Though the soil was barren and rock-strewn, the rainfall scanty and uncertain, the heat of midsummer terrific, the miners had already made pathetic, not wholly unsuccessful efforts to establish gardens—a few vegetables, and the commoner sort of flowers, carefully watered, repaid their pains. Even the desert shrubs and wild flowers were heedfully transplanted, and in many instances embellished the humble homes, temporary though they might be, which sprang up in the wilderness. In some instances, where the ground was apparently all rock, holes and excavations had been blasted out and filled with alluvial, wherein the bulbs and roots put forth their shoots.
Nor was the goldfield, now so populous, and with a reputation which had been bruited over the Anglo-Saxon world, deficient in what was known as ‘society people.’ Not to mention the Honourable Mr. This and Lord John That, who had taken up their abode there—there were dozens of scions of well-known families from the eastern[114]colonies, who had not only come to take a hand in the game of Golden Hazard, here played for such alarming stakes—but who had brought their wives.
These ladies, who had heard of Mrs. Banneret, and sympathised with her in her husband’s dangerous illness, ‘called upon her,’ as the conventional phrase runs, which visits had, of course, to be returned. So that she found herself soon provided with a large and congenial visiting-list.
‘Really, I quite begin to like this place,’ she said to her husband one day, when they were driving home in the cool of the evening from a centre a few miles distant from Pilot Mount, where they had heard of the presence of an old friend; ‘and what a nice pony this is—quite a pleasure to drive her. The roads are so good too. Very different country from poor old Barrawong, with its box forests, and our good, clean, dear bungalow, with the old, old garden, and the dear river. Fancy a river here! The young people get to like it, I suppose—though this cemetery has a list of young—ah! such young inmates, I can’t bear to think of it. Sons and brothers, wives and husbands who will never go back! It is too dreadful.’
‘You must endeavournotto think of it, dear,’ he said softly. ‘You will be able to takemeback, that is one comfort. And as the mine is doing so well—better than well—phenomenally, I think—mind you—only think—we may be able to go east, as they say here, by the mail steamer after the next. And if the “Last Chance” keeps up its[115]present, or probable output—we shall not return, but leave the working of it, and all business that hangs thereby, to our partners and the other shareholders.’
‘Oh, what a joy that will be!’ she exclaimed, clasping her hands—which, as she held the whip in one of them, caused the pony mare to make a rush. For a hundred yards or so the pony refused to be stopped, but there were neither trees nor stumps on the road, so the hotel was safely reached. The mail letters had just come in, and from these it was learned that the children were well and matters generally all that could be wished. Things being in this blissful and satisfactory state, Mr. Banneret and his wife quitted Pilot Mount, the latter in a very different state of mind from that in which she had reached it. As for her stay at the field—she thought she should look back to it (after, of course, her husband’s recovery was assured) as really a most interesting and pleasant experience. Everything was so fresh and new, even to her who had been so many years a resident on goldfields. The people were, many of them, lately from Britain, America, or the Continent of Europe: all sorts of young men unattached, who had never seen Australia before, many of them of good, even aristocratic families, not occupied in any profession, eager and anxious to have their share of the treasure which Dame Nature was distributing with lavish hand; men from old colonial families, who brought their wives with them, or sent for them after they had secured an investment likely to be permanent. These were[116]the most solid and influential components of the hastily gathered and yet firmly welded framework of society.
They decided who among the women were to be ‘called on’—or to be left out of the visiting circle. They acquired all necessary information on that head, inspected credentials, advised young men for their good—and generally constituted the higher public opinion which governed, with more or less authority, the manners and morals of their little state. They gave ‘teas’ at the Polo Club and race meetings, inviting desirable persons and excluding such as had given social offence. No hard and fast rule was openly promulgated, but in an unobtrusive way the combined influence made itself felt, and those who were hardy enough to withstand it found in the long run that they had taken up a wrong position.
Of course, among the heterogeneous community there were individuals and groups whose antecedents were shrouded in mystery.
All that was known of them or could be divined about their former professions or occupations, adventures, characters, or relations was that they had arrived by the mail boat of a certain date, and had been working in this alluvial claim or that reef—for the last year. They were certainly ‘human warriors,’ as Dickens’s taxidermist was wont to express it. Mr. and Mrs. Winstanley, admittedly good-looking, well-mannered, presentable—were suspected of not being legally married.
There was no proof, either one way or the[117]other—if the rumour was not well founded, injustice was done to an innocent woman. If otherwise, those families who had permitted intercourse with wives and daughters repented in sackcloth and ashes when the truth came out. For it must not for one moment be assumed that the colonial social canons are one whit less rigid on such subjects than in the mother-land. If anything, Mrs. Grundy is a potentate whose power is greater and whose punishments are more terrible than in the ancestral home.
Mrs. Banneret had necessarily been drawn into closer association with Nurse Lilburne than with any other assistant in the hospital. She it was who had tended her husband through the most serious stages—the most dangerous crisis in the course of his deadly seizure. With his life actually trembling in the balance, she it was who had bathed the burning brow, had measured so carefully and administered so punctually the healing draught; had been in very truth the ministering angel of the poet’s fancy. No other woman, save and excepting his own wife, could have been so capable, so delicately deft, so conscientious—so devoted, even to the danger of her own health. She had brought him through the valley of the shadow, Dr. Horton said, and he did not believe another woman in Australia—let alone in Pilot Mount—would have done it. It may be imagined what gratitude was felt by Mrs. Banneret when she saw her husband by her side, fully recovered and looking, except for a certain pallor, which some people thought became him, better than ever. Now[118]that they were able to drive about together—which the doctor had strongly recommended, as a daily recreation, favourable to perfect recovery—various novelties and unexpected discoveries in their new world of Arabian Nights treasure-land displayed themselves before her. Restricted to the routine of domesticity hitherto—an exacting though not unwelcome round of duties—her imagination, always daring and impatient of control, luxuriated in excursions around and amidst ‘the burghers of this desert city.’ What mysteries lay hidden in the past lives of the women, the men, who daily worked or strolleden flâneuron the highways and byways!
That quietly dressed, not quite elderly, not quite young visitor from the old country, who was he? He had a military air, and the stamp which ‘formerly in the army’ invariably impresses on the individual so privileged. The ‘horsey man,’ the abscondu, the aristocratic tourist, on for a hasty inspection, with a view to chance a thousand or two on the Big Bonanza, or the Golden Horn,—they were there. Itmightturn up trumps—like Great Wolder, which had paid a million and a half in dividends and was going strong still. Others again, who played deeply, and were chiefly undesirable.
As the field increased in population and prestige, the stream of holiday or home-going capitalists made Perth their headquarters. Once there, the ‘Weld,’ an exclusive and fashionable club, naturally attracted notice, and afforded a more or less luxurious home for those who desired[119]to enjoy their sojourn by the waters of the Swan River, and to feel the ocean breezes on a sun-tanned cheek. As an honorary or permanent member, the candidate required to be proposed and seconded by leading members of the club, who were held responsible for his conduct and character, so that it may be imagined that both were subjected to close supervision. It was not, therefore, probable that the black sheep of other lands, much less of colonial families, would find pasture, even in that Terra Incognita, a West Australian goldfield.