“We’ll turn him into the paddock up the hill,” said Rose. “Dinner’s ready, and I’m sure the horse is not more hungry than some of us.”
“None more so than Mr. Scarlett an’ myself,” said Sartoris, “—— we’ve not had a sit-down meal since we were wrecked.”
Rachel Varnhagen.
He sat on a wool-bale in his “store,” amid bags of sugar, chests of tea, boxes of tobacco, octaves of spirits, coils of fencing-wire, bales of hops, rolls of carpets and floor-cloth, piles of factory-made clothes, and a miscellaneous collection of merchandise.
Old Varnhagen was a general merchant who, with equal complacency, would sell a cask of whisky, or purchase the entire wool-clip of a “run” as big as an English county. Raising his eyes from a keg of nails, he glanced lovingly round upon his abundant stock in trade; rubbed his fat hands together; chuckled; placed one great hand on his capacious stomach to support himself as his laughter vibrated through his ponderous body, and then he said, “’Tear me, ’tear me, it all com’ to this. ’Tear, ’tear, how it make me laff. It jus’ com’ to this: the Maoris have got his cargo. All Mr. Cookenden’s scheming to beat me gifs me the pull over him. ’Tear me, it make me ill with laffing. If I believed in a God, I should say Jehovah haf after all turn his face from the Gentile, and fight for his Chosen People. The cargo is outside the port: a breath of wind, and it is strewn along the shore. Now, that’s what I call an intervention of Providence.”
He got off the wool-bale much in the manner in which a big seal clumsily takes the water, and walked up and down his store; hands in pockets, hat on the back of his head, and a complacent smile overspreading his face. As he paused at the end of the long alleyway, formed by his piles of merchandise, and turned again to traverse the length of the warehouse, he struck an attitude of contemplation.
“Ah! but the insurance?” he exclaimed. As he stood, with bent head and grave looks, he was the typical Jew of the Ghetto; crafty, timid, watchful, cynical, cruel; his grizzled hair, close-clipped, crisp, and curly; his face pensive, and yellow as a lemon.
“But he will haf seen to that: I gif him that much credit. But in the meantime he is without his goods, and the money won’t be paid for months. That gif me a six-months’ pull over him.”
The old smile came back, and he began to pace the store once more.
There was a rippling laugh at the further end of the building where Varnhagen’s private office, partitioned off with glass and boards from the rest of the store, opened on the street. It was a laugh the old man knew well, for he hopped behind a big pile of bales like a boy playing hide-and-seek, and held his breath in expectation.
Presently, there bustled into the warehouse a vision of muslin and ribbons. Her face was the face of an angel. It did not contain a feature that might not have been a Madonna’s. She had a lemon-yellow complexion, brightened by a flush of carmine in the cheeks; her eyes were like two large, lustrous, black pearls; her hair, parted in the middle, was glossy and waving; her eyebrows were pencilled and black; her lips were as red as the petals of the geranium. But though this galaxy of beauties attracted, it was the exquisite moulding of the face that riveted the attention of Packett, the Jew’s storeman, who had conducted the dream of loveliness to the scene.
She tapped the floor impatiently with her parasol.
“Fa-ther!”
She stamped her dainty foot in pretty anger.
“The aggravating old bird! I expect he’s hiding somewhere.”
There came a gurgling chuckle from amid the piled-up bales.
The girl stood, listening. “Come out of that!” she cried. But there was never another sound—the chuckling had ceased.
She skirmished down a by-alley, and stormed a kopje of rugs and linoleums; but found nothing except the store tom-cat in hiding on the top. Having climbed down the further side, she found herself in a difficult country of enamelled ware and wooden buckets, but successfully extricating herself from this entanglement she ascended a spur of carpet-rolls, and triumphantly crowned the summit of the lofty mountain of wool-bales. The country round lay at her feet,and half-concealed behind a barrel of Portland cement she saw the crouching form of the enemy.
Her head was up among the timbers of the roof, and hanging to nails in the cross-beams were countless twisted lengths of clothesline, and with these dangerous projectiles she began to harass the foe. Amid the hail of hempen missiles the white flag was hoisted, and the enemy surrendered.
“Rachel! Rachel! Come down, my girl. You’ll break your peautiful neck. Packett, what you stand there for like a wooden verandah-post? Go up, and help Miss Varnhagen down. Take care!—my ’tear Rachel!—look out for that bucket!—mind that coil of rubber-belting! Pe careful! That bale of hops is ofer! My ’tear child, stand still, I tell you; wait till I get the ladder.”
With Packett in a position to cut off retreat, and the precipice of wool-bales in front, Rachel sat down and shook with laughter.
Varnhagen naturally argued that his pretty daughter’s foot, now that the tables were so suddenly turned upon her, would with the storeman’s assistance be quickly set upon the top rung of the ladder which was now in position. But he had not yet learned all Rachel’s stratagems.
“No!” she cried. “I think I’ll stay here.”
“My child, my Rachel, you will fall!”
“Oh, dear, no: it’s as firm as a rock. No, Packett, you can go down. I shall stay here.”
“But, my ’tear Rachel, you’ll be killed! Come down, I beg.”
“Will you promise to do what I want?”
“My ’tear daughter, let us talk afterwards. I can think of nothing while you are in danger of being killed in a moment!”
“I want that gold watch in Tresco’s window. I sha’n’t come down till you say I can have it.”
“My peautiful Rachel, it is too expensive. I will import you one for half the price. Come down before it is too late.”
“What’s the good of watches in London? I want that watch at Tresco’s, to wear going calling. Consent, father, before it is too late.”
“My loafly, how much was the watch?”
“Twenty-five pounds.”
“Oh, that is too much. First, you will ruin me, and kill yourself afterwards to spite my poverty. Rachel, you make your poor old father quite ill.”
“Then I am to have the watch?”
“Nefer mind the watch. Some other time talk to me of the watch. Come down safe to your old father, before you get killed.”
“But Idomind the watch. It’s what I came for. I shall stay here till you consent.”
“Oh, Rachel, you haf no heart. You don’t loaf your father.”
“You don’t love your daughter, else you’d give me what I want.”
“I not loaf you, Rachel! Didn’t I gif you that ring last week, and the red silk dress the week pefore? Come down, my child, and next birthday you shall have a better watch than in all Tresco’s shop. My ’tear Rachel, my ’tear child, you’ll be killed; and what good will be your father’s money to him then? Oh! that bale moved. Rachel! sit still.”
“Then you’ll give me the watch?”
“Yes, yes. You shall have the watch. Come down now, while Packett holds your hand.”
“Can I have it to-day?”
“Be careful, Packett. Oh! that bale is almost ofer.”
“Will you give it me this morning, father?”
“Yes, yes, this morning.”
“Before I go home to dinner?”
“Yes, pefore dinner.”
“Then, Packett, give me your hand. I will come down.”
The dainty victress placed her little foot firmly on the uppermost rung; and while Packett held the top, and the merchant the bottom, of the ladder, the dream of muslin and ribbons descended to the floor.
Old Varnhagen gave a sigh of relief.
“You’ll nefer do that again, Rachel?”
“I hope I shall never need to.”
“You shouldn’t upset your poor old father like that, Rachel.”
“You shouldn’t drive me to use such means to make you do your duty.”
“My duty!”
“Yes, to give me that watch.”
“Ah, the watch. I forgot it.”
“I shall go now, and get it.”
“Yes, my child, get it.”
“I’ll say you will pay at the end of the month.”
“Yes, I will pay—perhaps at the end of the month, perhaps it will go towards a contra account for watches I shall supply to Tresco. We shall see.”
“Good-bye, father.”
“Good-bye, Rachel; but won’t you gif your old father a kiss pefore you go?”
The vision of muslin and ribbons laid her parasol upon an upturned barrel, and came towards the portly Jew. Her soft dress was crumpled by his fat hand, and her pretty head was nestled on his shoulder.
“Ah! my ’tear Rachel. Ah! my peautiful. You loaf your old father. My liddle taughter, I gif you everything; and you loaf me very moch, eh?”
“Of course, I do. And won’t it look well with a brand-new gold chain to match?”
“Next time my child wants something, she won’t climb on the wool-bales and nearly kill herself?”
“Of course not. I shall wear it this afternoon when I go out calling.”
“Now kiss me, and run away while I make some more money for my liddle Rachel.”
The saintly face raised itself, and looked with a smile into the face of the old Jew; and then the bright red lips fixed themselves upon his wrinkled cheek.
“You are a good girl; you are my own child; you shall have everything you ask; you shall have all I’ve got to give.”
“Good-bye, father. Thanks awfully much.”
“Good-bye, Rachel.”
The girl turned; the little heels tapped regularly on the floor; the pigeon-like walk was resumed; and Rachel Varnhagen, watched by the loving eyes of her father, passed into the street.
The gold-buying clerk at the Kangaroo Bank was an immaculately dressed young man with a taste for jewelry. In his tie he wore a pearl, in a gold setting shaped like a diminutive human hand; his watch-chain was of gold, wrought in a wonderful and extravagant design. As he stepped through the swinging, glazed doors of the Bank, and stood on the broad step without, at the witching hour of twelve, he twirled his small black moustache so as to display to advantage the sparkling diamond ring which encircled the little finger of his left hand. His Semitic features wore an expression of great self-satisfaction, and his knowing air betokened intimate knowledge of the world and all that therein is. He nodded familiarly to a couple of young men who passed by, and glanced with the appreciativeeye of a connoisseur at the shop-girls who were walking briskly to their dinners.
Loitering across the pavement he stood upon the curbing, and looked wistfully up and down the street. Presently there hove in sight a figure that riveted his attention: it was Rachel Varnhagen, with muslins blowing in the breeze and ribbons which streamed behind, approaching like a ship in full sail.
The gold-clerk crossed over the street to meet her, and raised his hat.
“You’re in an awful hurry. Where bound, Rachel?”
“Ifyourold Dad toldyouto go and buy a gold watch and chain,you’dbe in a hurry, lest he might change his mind.”
“My soul hankers after something dearer than watches and chains. If your Dad would give me leave, I’d annex his most precious jewel before he could say, ‘Knife!’ He’d never get a chance to change his mind. But he always says, ‘My boy, you wait till you’re a manager, and can give me a big overdraft.’ At that rate we shall have to wait till Doomsday.”
“The watch is at Tresco’s. Come along: help me turn the shop upside down to find the dandiest.”
“How d’you manage to get round the Governor, Rachel? I’d like to know the dodge.”
“He wouldn’t mind ifyoufell off a stack of bales and broke your neck. He’d say, ‘Thank God! that solves that liddle difficulty.’”
“Wool bales? Has wool gone up? I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t, stupid. If you were on the top of a pile of swaying bales, old Podge would say, ‘Packett, take away the ladder: that nice young man must stay there. It’s better for him to die than marry Rachel—she’d drive him mad with bills in a month.’”
“Oh, that wouldn’t trouble me—I’d draw onhim.”
“Oh, would you?” Rachel laughed sceptically. “You don’t know the Gov. if you think that. You couldn’t bluff him into paying a shilling. ButImanage him all right.Ican get what I want, from a trip to Sydney to a gold watch, dear boy.”
“Then why don’t you squeeze a honeymoon out of him?—that would be something new, Rachel.”
She actually paused in her haste.
“Wouldn’t it be splendid!” she exclaimed, putting her parasol well back behind her head, so that the glow of its crimson silk formed a telling background to her face. “Wouldn’t it be gorgeous? But as soon as I’m married he will say, ‘No, Rachel, my dear child, your poor old father is supplanted—your husband now has the sole privilege of satisfying your expensive tastes. Depend on him for everything you want.’ What a magnificent time I should have on your twelve notes a month!”
The spruce bank-clerk was subdued in a moment, in the twinkling of one of Rachel’s beautiful black eyes—his matrimonial intentions had been rudely reduced to a basis of pounds, shillings and pence.
But just at this embarrassing point of the conversation they turned into Tresco’s doorway, and confronted the rubicund goldsmith, whose beaming smile seemed to fill the whole shop.
“I saw an awf’ly jolly watch in your window,” said Rachel.
“Probably. Nothing more likely, Miss Varnhagen,” replied Benjamin. “Gold or silver?”
“Gold, of course! Let me see what you’ve got.”
“Why, certainly.” Tresco took gold watches from the window, from the glass case on the counter, from the glass cupboard that stood against the wall, from the depths of the great iron safe, from everywhere, and placed them in front of the pretty Jewess. Then he glanced with self-approval at the bank-clerk, and said:“I guarantee them to keep perfect time. And, after all, there’s nothing like a good watch—a young lady cannot keep her appointments, or a young man be on time, without a watch. Most important: no one should be without it.”
Rachel was examining the chronometers, one by one; opening and shutting their cases, examining their dials, peering into their mysterious works. She had taken off her gloves, and her pretty hands, ornamented with dainty rings, were displayed in all their shapeliness and delicacy.
“What’s the price?” she asked.
“Prices to suit all buyers,” said Tresco. “They go from ten pounds upwards. This is the one I recommend—it carries a guarantee for five years—jewelled throughout, in good, strong case—duplex escapement—compensation balance. Price £25.” He held up a gold chronometer in a case which was flat and square, with rounded corners, and engraved elaborately—a watch which would catch the eye and induce comment.
The jeweller had gauged the taste of his fair customer.
“Oh! the duck.”
“The identical article, the ideal lady’s watch,” said Tresco, unctuously.
“And now the chain,” said Rachel.
Benjamin took a dozen lady’s watch-guards from a blue velvet pad, and handed them to the girl.
The gold clerk of the Kangaroo Bank stood by, and watched, as Rachel held the dainty chains, one by one, across her bust.
“Quite right, sir, quite right,” remarked the goldsmith. “When a gentleman makes a present to a lady, let him do the thing handsome. Them’s my sentiments.”
The girl looked at Tresco, and laughed.
“This is to be booked to my father,” she said. “There, that’s the one I like best.” She held out an elaborate chain, with a round bauble hanging from it. “If you had to depend on Mr. Zahn, here, you’d have to wait till the cows came home.”
Benjamin was wrapping up the watch in a quantity of tissue paper.
“No, no. I’ll wear it,” exclaimed Rachel. One dainty hand stretched forward and took the watch, while the other held the chain. “There,” she said, as she handed the precious purchase to her sweetheart, “fix it on.”
She threw her head back, laid her hand lightly on the young man’s arm, and allowed him to tuck the watch into her bodice and fasten the chain around her neck.
He lingered long over the process.
“Yes, I would,” said the voice from behind the counter. “I most certainly should give her one on the cheek, as a reward. Don’t mind me; I’ve done it myself when I was young, before I lost my looks.”
The young man stepped back, and Rachel, after the manner of a pouter pigeon, nestled her chin on her breast, in her endeavour to see how the watch looked in wearing. Then she tapped the floor with the toe of her shoe indignantly, and said, looking straight at the goldsmith: “You lost your looks? What a find they must have been for the man who picked them up. If I were you, I’d advertise for them, and offer a handsome a reward—they must be valuable.”
“Most certainly, they were,” replied Benjamin, his smile spreading across his broad countenance, “they were the talk of all my lady friends and the envy of my rivals.”
“I expect it was the rivals that spoilt them. But don’t cry over spilt milk, old gentleman.”
“Certainly not, most decidedly not—there are compensations. The price of the watch and chain is £33.”
“Never mind the price.Idon’t want to know the price—that’ll interest my Dad. Send the account to him, and make yourself happy.”
And, touching her sweetheart’s arm as a signal for departure, the dazzling vision of muslins and ribbons vanished from the shop.
Bill the Prospector.
He came down the street like a dog that has strayed into church during sermon-time; a masterless man without a domicile. He was unkempt and travel-stained; his moleskin trousers, held up by a strap buckled round his waist, were trodden down at the heels; under the hem of his coat, a thing of rents and patches, protruded the brass end of a knife-sheath. His back was bent under the weight of his neat, compact swag, which contained his six-by-eight tent and the blankets and gear necessary to a bushman. He helped his weary steps with a longmanukastick, to which still clung the rough red bark, and looking neither to left nor right, he steadfastly trudged along the middle of the road. What with his ragged black beard which grew almost to his eyes, and the brim of his slouch hat, which had once been black, but was now green with age and weather, only the point of his rather characterless nose and his two bright black eyes were visible. But though to all appearances he was a desperate ruffian, capable of robbery and cold-blooded murder, his was a welcome figure in Timber Town. Men turned to look at him as he tramped past in his heavy, mud-stained blucher boots. One man, standing outside The Lucky Digger, asked him if he had “struck it rich.” But the “swagger” looked at the man, without replying.
“Come and have a drink, mate,” said another.
“Ain’t thirsty,” replied the “swagger.”
“Let ’im alone,” said a third. “Can’t you see he’s bin working a ‘duffer’?”
Benjamin Tresco, standing on the curb of the pavement, watched the advent of the prospector with an altogether remarkable interest, which rose to positive restlessness when he saw the digger pause before the entrance of the Kangaroo Bank.
The ill-clad, dirty stranger pushed through the swinging, glass door, stood with his hobnailed boots on the tesselated pavement inside the bank, and contemplated the Semitic face of the spruce clerk who, with the glittering gold-scales by his side, stood behind the polished mahogany counter.
But either the place looked too grand and expensive, or else the clerk’s appearance offended, but the “swagger” backed out of the building, and stood once more upon the asphalt, wearing the air of a stray dog with no home or friends.
Tresco crossed the street. With extended hand, portly mien, and benign countenance, he approached the digger, after the manner of a benevolent sidesman in a church.
“Selling gold, mate?” He spoke in his most confidential manner. “Come this way.Iwill help you.”
Down the street he took the derelict, like a ship in full sail towing a battered, mastless craft into a haven of safety.
Having brought the “swagger” to a safe anchorage inside his shop, Tresco shut the door, to the exclusion of all intruders; took his gold-scales from a shelf where they had stood, unused and dusty, for many a month; stepped behind the counter, and said, in his best business manner: “Now, sir.”
The digger unhitched his swag and dropped it unceremoniously on the floor, stood his longmanukastick against the wall, thrust his hand inside his “jumper,” looked at the goldsmith’s rubicund face, drew out a long canvas bag which was tied at the neck with a leather boot-lace, and said, in a hoarse whisper, “There, mister, that’s my pile.”
Tresco balanced the bag in his hand.
“You’ve kind o’ struck it,” he said, as he looked at the digger with a blandness which could not have been equalled.
The digger may have grinned, or he may have scowled—Tresco could not tell—but, to all intents and purposes, he remained imperturbable, for his wilderness of hair and beard, aided by his hat, covered the landscape of his face.
“Ja-ake!” roared the goldsmith, in his rasping, raucous voice, as though the apprentice were quarter of a mile away. “Come here, you young limb!”
The shock-headed, rat-faced youth shot like a shrapnel shell from the workshop, and burst upon the astonished digger’s gaze.
“Take this bob and a jug,” said the goldsmith, “and fetch a quart. We’ll drink your health,” he added, turning to the man with the gold, “and a continual run of good luck.”
The digger for the first time found his full voice. It was as though the silent company of the wood-hens in the “bush” had caused the hinges of his speech to become rusty. His words jerked themselves spasmodically from behind his beard, and his sentences halted, half-finished.
“Yes. That’s so. If you ask me. Nice pile? Oh, yes. Good streak o’ luck. Good streak, as you say. Yes. Ha, ha! Ho, ho!” He actually broke into a laugh.
Tresco polished the brass dish of his scales, which had grown dim and dirty with disuse; then he untied the bag of gold, and poured the rich contents into the dish. The gold lay in a lovely, dull yellow heap.
“Clean, rough gold,” said Tresco, peering closely at the precious mound, and stirring it with his grimy forefinger. “It’ll go £3 15s. You’re in luck, mister. You’ve struck it rich, and”—he assumed his most benignant expression—“there’s plenty more where this came from, eh?”
“You bet,” said the digger. “Oh, yes, any Gawd’s quantity.” He laughed again. “You must think me pretty green, mister.” He continued to laugh. “How much for the lot?”
Tresco spread the gold over the surface of the dish in a layer, and, puffing gently but adroitly, he winnowed it with his nicotine-ladened breath till no particle of sand remained with the gold. Then he put the dish on the scales, and weighed the digger’s “find.”
“Eighty-two ounces ten pennyweights six grains,” he said, with infinite deliberation, and began to figure on a piece of paper. Seemingly, the goldsmith’s arithmetic was as rusty as the digger’s speech, for the sum took so long to work out that the owner of the gold had time to cut a “fill” of tobacco from a black plug, charge his pipe, and smoke for fully five minutes, before Tresco proclaimed the total. This he did with a triumphant wave of the pen.
“Three hundred and nine pounds seven shillings and elevenpence farthing. That’s as near as I can get it. Nice clean gold, mister.”
He looked at the digger; the digger looked at him.
“What name?” asked Tresco. “To whom shall I draw the cheque?”
“That’s good! My name?” laughed the digger. “I s’pose it’s usual, eh?”
“De-cidedly.”
“Sometimes they call me Bill the Prospector, sometimes Bill the Hatter. I ain’t particular. I’ve got no choice. Take which you like.”
“‘Pay Bill the Prospector, or Order, three hundred and nine pounds.’ No, sir, that will hardlee do. I want your real name, your proper legal title.”
“Sounds grand, don’t it? ‘Legal title,’ eh? But if you must have it—though it ar’n’t hardly ever used—put me down Bill Wurcott. That suit, eh?—Bill Wurcott?”
Tresco began to draw the cheque.
“Never mind the silver,” said the digger. “Make it three hundred an’ nine quid.” And just then Jake entered with the quart jug, tripped over the digger’s swag, spilt half-a-pint of beer on the floor, recovered himself in time to save the balance, and exclaimed, “Holee smoke!”
“Tell yer what,” said the digger. “Let the young feller have the change. Good idea, eh?”
Jake grinned—he grasped the situation in a split second.
The digger took the cheque from Tresco, looked at it upside-down, and said, “That’s all right,” folded it up, put it in his breeches’ pocket just as if it had been a common one-pound note, and remarked, “Well, I must make a git. So-long.”
“No, sir,” said the goldsmith. “There is the beer: here are the men. No, sir; not thus must you depart. Refresh the inner man. Follow me. We must drink your health and continued good fortune.”
Carefully carrying the beer, Tresco led the way to his workshop, placed the jug on his bench, and soon the amber-coloured liquor foamed in two long glasses.
The digger put his pint to his hairy lips, said, “Kia ora.Here’s fun,” drank deep and gasped—the froth ornamenting his moustache. “The first drop I’ve tasted this three months.”
“You must ha’ come from way back, where there’re no shanties,” risked Tresco.
“From way back,” acknowledged the digger.
“Twelve solid weeks? Youmusthave a thirst.”
“Pretty fair, you bet.” The digger groped about in the depth of his pocket, and drew forth a fine nugget. “Look at that,” he said, with his usual chuckle.
Tresco balanced the lump of gold in his deft hand.
“Three ounces?”
“Three, six.”
“’Nother little cheque. Turn out your pockets, mister. I’ll buy all you’ve got.”
“That’s the lot,” said the digger, taking back the nugget and fingering it lovingly. “I don’t sell that—it’s my lucky bit; the first I found.” Another chuckle. “Tell you what. Some day you can make me something outer this, something to wear for a charm. No alloy, you understand; all pure gold. And use the whole nugget.”
Tresco pursed his lips, and looked contemplative.
“A three-ounce charm, worn round the neck, might strangle a digger in a swollen creek. Where’d his luck be then? But how about your missis? Can’t you divide it?”
The digger laughed his loudest.
“Give it the missis! That’s good. The missis’d want more’n an ounce and a half for her share. Mister, wimmen’s expensive.”
“Ain’t you got no kid to share the charm with?”
“Now you’re gettin’ at me”—the chuckle again—“worse ’an ever. You’re gettin’ at me fine. Look ’ere, I’m goin’ to quit: I’m off.”
“But, in the meantime, what am I to do with this nice piece of gold? I could make a ring for each of your fingers, and some for your toes. I could pretty near make you a collarette, to wear when you go to evening parties in a low-necked dress, or a watch chain more massive than the bloomin’ Mayor’s. There’s twelve pounds’ worth of gold in that piece.”
The digger looked perplexed. The problem puzzled him.
“How’d an amulet suit you?” suggested the goldsmith.
“A what?”
“A circle for the arm, with a charm device chased on it.”
“A bit like a woman, that—eh, mister?”
“Not at all. The Prince o’ Wales, an’ the Dook o’ York, an’ all theelitewears ’em. It’d be quite the fashion.”
The digger returned the nugget to his pocket. “I call you a dam’ amusin’ cuss, I do that. You’re a goer. There ain’t no keepin’ up with the likes o’you. You shall make what you blame well please—we’ll talk about it by-and-by. But for the present, where’s the best pub?”
“The Lucky Digger,” said Jake, without hesitation.
“Certainly,” reiterated Tresco. “You’ll pass it on your way to the Bank.”
“Well, so-long,” said the digger. “See you later.” And, shouldering his swag, he held out his horny hand.
“I reckon,” said the goldsmith. “Eight o’clock this evening. So-long.” And the digger went out.
Tresco stood on his doorstep, and with half-shut eyes watched the prospector to the door of The Lucky Digger.
“Can’t locate it,” he mused, “and I know where all the gold, sold in this town, comes from. Nor I can’t locatehim. But he’s struck it, and struck it rich.”
There were birch twigs caught in the straps of the digger’s “swag,” and he had a bit ofrataflower stuck in the band of his hat. “That’s where he’s come from!” Tresco pointed in the direction of the great range of mountains which could be seen distinctly through the window of his workshop.
“What’s it worth?” asked Jake, who stood beside his master.
“The gold? Not a penny less than £3/17/-an ounce, my son.”
“An’ you give £3/15/-. Good business, boss.”
“I drew him a cheque for three hundred pounds, and I haven’t credit at the bank for three hundred shillings. So I must go and sell this gold before he has time to present my cheque. Pretty close sailing, Jake.
“But mark me, young shaver. There’s better times to come. If the discovery of this galoot don’t mean a gold boom in Timber Town, you may send the crier round and call me a flathead. Things is goin’ to hum.”
The Father of Timber Town.
“I never heard the like of it!” exclaimed Mr. Crewe. “You say, eighty-two ounces of gold? You say it came from within fifty miles of Timber Town? Why, sir, the matter must be looked into.” The old gentleman’s voice rose to a shrill treble. “Yes, indeed, itmust.”
They were sitting in the Timber Town Club: the ancient Mr. Crewe, Scarlett, and Cathro, a little man who rejoiced in the company of the rich octogenarian.
“I’m new at this sort of thing,” said Scarlett: “I’ve just come off the sea. But when the digger took a big bit of gold from his pocket,I looked at it, open-eyed—I can tell you that. I called the landlord, and ordered drinks—I thought that the right thing to do. And, by George! it was. The ruffianly-looking digger drank his beer, insisted on calling for more, and then locked the door.”
Mr. Crewe was watching the speaker closely, and hung on every word he uttered. Glancing at the lean and wizened Cathro, he said, “You hear that, Cathro? He locked the door, sir. Did you ever hear the like?”
“From inside his shirt,” Scarlett continued, “he drew a fat bundle of bank notes, which he placed upon the table. Taking a crisp one-pound note from the pile, he folded it into a paper-light, and said, ‘I could light my pipe with this an’ never feel it.’
"‘Don’t think of such a thing,’ I said, and placed a sovereign on the table, ‘I’ll toss you for it.’
“‘Right!’ said my hairy friend. ‘Sudden death?’
“‘Sudden death,’ I said.
“‘Heads,’ said he.”
“Think of that, now!” exclaimed Mr. Crewe. “The true digger, Cathro, the true digger, I know thegenus—there’s no mistaking it. Most interesting. Go on, sir.”
“The coin came down tails, and I pocketed the bank-note.
“‘Lookyer here, mate,’ said my affluent friend. ‘That don’t matter. We’ll see if I can’t get it back,’ and he put another note on the table. I won that, too. He doubled the stakes, and still I won.
“‘You had luck on the gold-fields,’ I said, ‘but when you come to town things go dead against you.’
“‘Luck!’ he cried. ‘Now watch me. If I lost the whole of thisyer bloomin’ pile, I could start off to-morrer mornin’ an, before nightfall, I’d be on ground where a week’s work would give me back all I’d lost. An’ never a soul in this blank, blank town knows where the claim is.’”
“Well, well,” gasped old Mr. Crewe; his body bent forward, and his eyes peering into Scarlett’s face. “I’ve lived here since the settlement was founded. I got here when the people lived in nothing better than Maoriwharesand tents, when the ground on which this very club stands was a flax-swamp. I have seen this town grow, sir, from a camp to the principal town of a province. I know every man and boy living in it, do I not, Cathro? I know every hill and creek within fifty miles of it; I’ve explored every part of the bush, and I tell you I never saw payable gold in any stream nearer than Maori Gully, to reach which you must go by sea.”
“What about the man’s mates?” asked Cathro.
“I asked him about them,” replied Scarlett. “I said, ‘You have partners in this thing, I suppose.’ ‘You mean pals,’ he said. ‘No, sir. I’m a hatter—no one knows the place but me. I’m sole possessor of hundreds of thousands of ounces of gold. There’s my Miner’s Right.’ He threw a dirty parchment document on the table, drawn out in the name of William Wurcott.”
“Wurcott? Wurcott?” repeated Mr. Crewe, contemplatively. “I don’t know the name. The man doesn’t belong to Timber Town.”
“You speak as though you thought no one but a Timber Town man should get these good things.” Cathro smiled as he spoke.
“No, sir,” retorted the old gentleman, testily. “I said no such thing, sir. I simply said he did not belong to this town. But you must agree with me, it’s a precious strange thing that we men of this place have for years been searching the country round here for gold, and, by Jupiter! a stranger, an outsider, a mere interloper, a miserable ‘hatter’ from God knows where, discovers gold two days’ journey from the town, and brings in over eighty ounces?” The old man’s voice ran up to a falsetto, he stroked his nose with his forefinger and thumb, he broke into the shrill laugh of an octogenarian.“And the rascal boasts he can get a hundred ounces more in a week or two! We must look into the matter—we must see what it means.”
The three men smoked silently and solemnly.
“Scarlett, here, owns the man’s personal acquaintance,” said Cathro. “The game is to go mates with him—Scarlett, the ‘hatter,’ and myself.”
All three of them sat silent, and thought hard.
“But what if your ‘hatter’ won’t fraternize?” asked Mr. Crewe. “You young men are naturally sanguine, but I know these diggers. They may be communicative enough over a glass, but next day the rack and thumbscrews wouldn’t extract a syllable from them.”
“All the more reason why we should go, and see the digger what time Scarlett deems him to be happy in his cups.” This was Cathro’s suggestion, and he added, “If he won’t take us as mates, we may at least learn the locality of his discovery. With your knowledge of the country, Mr. Crewe, the rest should be easy.”
“It all sounds very simple,” replied the venerable gentleman, “but experience has taught me that big stakes are not won quite so easily. However, we shall see. When our friend, Scarlett, is ready,weare ready; and when I say I take up a matter of this kind, you know I mean to go through with it, even if I have to visit the spot myself and prospect on my own account. For believe me, gentlemen, this may be the biggest event in the history of Timber Town.” Mr. Crewe had risen to his feet, and was walking to and fro in front of the younger men. “If payable gold were found in these hills, this town would double its population in three months, business would flourish, and everybody would have his pockets lined with gold. I don’t talk apocryphally. I have seen such things repeatedly, upon the Coast. I have seen small townships literally flooded with gold, and yet a pair of boots, a tweed coat, and the commonest necessaries of life, could not be procured there for love or money.”
Cut-throat Euchre.
“Give the stranger time to sort his cards,” said the thin American, with the close-cropped head.
“Why, certainly, certainly,” replied the big and bloated Englishman, who sat opposite. “Well, my noble, what will you do?”
The Prospector, who was the third player, looked up from his “hand” and drummed the table with the ends of his dirty fingers.
“What do I make it? Why, I turn it down.”
“Pass again,” said the American.
“Ditto,” said the Englishman.
“Then this time I make it ‘Spades,’” said the digger, bearded to the eyes; his tangled thatch of black hair hiding his forehead, and his clothes such as would have hardly tempted a rag-picker.
“You make it ‘next,’ eh?” It was the Englishman who spoke.
“We’ll put you through, siree,” said the American, who was a small man, without an atom of superfluous flesh on his bones. His hair stood upright on his head, his dough-coloured face wore a perpetual smile, and he was the happy possessor of a gold eye-tooth with which he constantly bit his moustache. The player who had come to aid him in plucking the pigeon was a big man with a florid complexion and heavy, sensuous features, which, however, wore a good-natured expression.
The game was cut-throat euchre; one pound points. So that each of the three players contributed five pounds to the pool, which lay, gold, silver and bank-notes, in a tempting pile in the middle of the table.
“Left Bower, gen’lemen,” said the digger, placing the Knave of Clubs on the table.
“The deuce!” exclaimed the florid man.
“Can’t help you, partner,” said the man with the gold tooth, playing a low card.
“One trick,” said the digger, and he put down the Knave of Spades. “There’s his mate.”
“Right Bower, egad!” exclaimed the big man, who was evidently minus trumps.
The pasty-faced American played the Ace of Spades without saying a word.
“A blanky march!” cried the digger. “Look-a-here. How’s that for high?” and he placed on the table his three remaining cards—the King, Queen, and ten of trumps.
The other players showed their hands, which were full of red cards.
“Up, and one to spare,” exclaimed the digger, and took the pool.
About fifty pounds, divided into three unequal piles, lay on the table, and beside each player’s money stood a glass.
The florid man was shuffling the pack, and the other two were arranging their marking cards, when the door opened slowly, and the Father of Timber Town, followed by Cathro and Scarlett, entered the room.
“Well, well. Hard at it, eh, Garsett?” said the genial old gentleman, addressing himself to the Englishman. “Cut-throat euchre, by Jupiter! A ruinous game, Mr. Lichfield,”—to the man with the gold tooth—“but your opponent”—pointing with his stick to the digger—“seems to have all the luck. Look at his pile, Cathro. Your digger friend, eh, Scarlett? Look at his pile—the man’s winning.”
Scarlett nodded.
“He’s in luck again,” said Mr. Crewe; “in luck again, by all that’s mighty.”
The pool was made up, the cards were dealt, and the game continued. The nine of Hearts was the “turn-up” card.
“Pass,” said Lichfield.
“Then I order you up,” said the digger.
The burly Garsett drew a card from his “hand,” placed it under the pack, and said, “Go ahead. Hearts are trumps.”
The gentleman with the gold tooth played the King of Hearts, the digger a small trump, and Garsett his turn-up card.
“Ace of Spades,” said Lichfield, playing that card.
“Trump,” said the digger, as he put down the Queen of Hearts.
“Ace of trumps!” exclaimed Garsett, and took the trick.
“’Strewth!” cried the man from the “bush.” “But let’s see your next.”
“You haven’t a hope,” said the big gambler. “Two to one in notes we euchre you.”
“Done,” replied the digger, and he took a dirty one-pound bank-note from his heap of money.
“Most exciting,” exclaimed Mr. Crewe. “Quite spirited. The trumps must all be out, Cathro. Let us see what all this betting means.”
“Right Bower,” said the Englishman.
“Ho-ho! stranger,” the American cried. “I guess that pound belongs to Mr. Garsett.”
The digger put the Knave of Diamonds on the table, and handed the money to his florid antagonist.
“Your friend is set back two points, Scarlett.” It was Mr. Crewe that spoke. “England and America divide the pool.”
The digger looked up at the Father of Timber Town.
“If you gen’l’men wish to bet on the game, well and good,” he said, somewhat heatedly. “But if you’re not game to back your opinion, then keep your blanky mouths shut!”
Old Mr. Crewe was as nettled at this unlooked-for attack as if a battery of artillery had suddenly opened upon him.
“Heh! What?” he exclaimed. “You hear that, Cathro? Scarlett, you hear what your friend says? He wants to bet on the game, and that after being euchred and losing his pound to Mr. Garsett. Why, certainly, sir. I’ll back my opinion with the greatest pleasure. I’ll stake a five-pound note on it. You’ll lose this game, sir.”
“Done,” said the digger, and he counted out five sovereigns and placed them in a little heap by themselves.
Mr. Crewe had not come prepared for a “night out with the boys.” He found some silver in his pocket and two pounds in his sovereign-case.
“Hah! no matter,” he said. “Cathro, call the landlord. I take your bet, sir”—to the digger—“most certainly I take it, but one minute, give me one minute.”
“If there’s any difficulty in raising the cash,” said the digger, fingering his pile of money, “I won’t press the matter.Idon’t want your blanky coin. I can easy do without it.”
The portly, rubicund landlord of the Lucky Digger entered the room.
“Ah, Townson,” said old Mr. Crewe, “good evening. We have a little bet on, Townson, a little bet between this gentleman from away back and myself, and I find I’m without the necessary cash. I want five pounds. I’ll give you my IOU.”
“Not at all,” replied the landlord, in a small high voice, totally surprising as issuing from such a portly person, “no IOU. I’ll gladly let you have twenty.”
“Five is all I want, Townson; and I expect to double it immediately, and then I shall be quite in funds.”
The landlord disappeared and came back with a small tray, on which was a bundle of bank-notes, some dirty, some clean and crisp. The Father of Timber Town counted the money. “Twenty pounds, Townson. Very well. You shall have it in the morning. Remind me, Cathro, that I owe Mr. Townson twenty pounds.”
The digger looked with surprise at the man who could conjure money from a publican.
“Who in Hades areyou?” he asked, as Mr. Crewe placed his £5 beside the digger’s. “D’you own the blanky pub?”
“No, he owns the town,” interposed Garsett.
The digger was upon his feet in a moment.
“Proud to meet you, mister,” he cried. “Glad to have this bet with you. I like to bet with a gen’l’man. Make it ten, sir, and I shall be happier still.”
“No, no,” replied the ancient Mr. Crewe. “You said five, and five it shall be. That’s quite enough for you to lose on one game.”
“You think so? That’s your blanky opinion? See that?” The digger pointed to his heap of money. “Where that come from there’s enough to buy your tin-pot town three times over.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Crewe. “I’m glad to hear it. Bring your money, and you shall have the town.”
“Order, gentlemen, order,” cried the dough-faced man. “I guess we’re here to play cards, and cards we’re going to play. If you three gentlemen cann’t watch the game peaceably, it’ll be my disagreeable duty to fire you out—and that right smart.”
And just at this interesting moment entered Gentle Annie. She walked with little steps; propelling her plenitude silently but for the rustle of her silk skirt. In her hand she held a scented handkerchief, like any lady in a drawing-room; her hair, black at the roots and auburn at the ends, was wreathed, coil on coil, upon the top of her head; her face, which gave away all her secrets, was saucy, expressive of self-satisfaction, petulance, and vanity. And yet it was a handsome face; but it lacked mobility, the chin was too strong, the grey eyes wanted expression, though they were ever on the watch for an admiring glance.
“The angel has come to pour oil upon the troubled waters,” said the flabby, florid man, looking up from his cards at the splendid bar-maid.
Gentle Annie regarded the speaker boldly, smiled, and coloured with pleasure.
“To pour whisky down your throats,” she said, laughing—“that would be nearer the mark.”
“And produce a more pleasing effect,” said Garsett.
“Attend to the game,” said the American. “Spades are trumps.”
“Pass,” said the digger.
“Then down she goes,” said the Englishman.
“Pass again,” said the American.
“I make it Diamonds, and cross the blanky suit,” said the digger.
Gentle Annie turned to the Father of Timber Town.
“There’s a gentleman wants to see you, Mr. Crewe,” she said.
“Very good, very good; bring him in—he has as much right here as I.”
“He said he’d wait for you in the bar-parlour.”
“But, my girl, I must watch the game: I have a five-pound note on it. Yes, a five-pound note!”
“Think of that, now,” said Gentle Annie, running her bejewelled hand over her face. “You’ll be bankrupt before morning. But never mind, old gentleman,”—she deftly corrected the set of Mr. Crewe’s coat, and fastened its top button—“you’ll always find a friend and protector inme.”
“My good girl, what a future! The tender mercies of bar-maids are cruel. ‘The daughter of the horse-leech’—he! he!—where did you get all those rings from?—I don’t often quote Scripture, but I find it knows all about women. Cathro, you must watch the game for me: I have to see a party in the bar. Watch the game, Cathro, watch the game.”
The old gentleman, leaning heavily upon his stick, walked slowly to the door, and Gentle Annie, humming a tune, walked briskly before, in all the glory of exuberant health and youth.
When Mr. Crewe entered the bar-parlour he was confronted by the bulky figure of Benjamin Tresco, who was enjoying a glass of beer and the last issue ofThe Pioneer Bushman. Between the goldsmith’s lips was the amber mouthpiece of a straight-stemmed briar pipe, a smile of contentment played over the breadth of his ruddy countenance, and his ejaculations were made under some deep and pleasurable excitement.
“By the living hokey! What times, eh?” He slapped his thigh with his heavy hand. “The town won’t know itself! We’ll all be bloomin’ millionaires. Ah! good evening, Mr. Crewe. Auspicious occasion. Happy to meet you, sir.” Benjamin had risen, and was motioning the Father of Timber Town to a seat upon the couch, where he himself had been sitting. “You will perceive that I am enjoying a light refresher. Have something yourself at my expense, I beg.”
Mr. Crewe’s manner was very stiff. He knew Tresco well. It was not so much that he resented the goldsmith’s familiar manner, asthat, with the instinct of hisgenus, he suspected the unfolding of some money-making scheme for which he was to find the capital. Therefore he fairly bristled with caution.
“Thank you, nothing.” He spoke with great dignity. “You sent for me. What do you wish to say, sir?”
Benjamin looked at the rich man through his spectacles, without which he found it impossible to read the masterpieces of the editor ofThe Pioneer Bushman; pursed his lips, to indicate that he hardly relished the old gentleman’s manner; scrutinised the columns of the newspaper for a desired paragraph, on which, when found, he placed a substantial forefinger; and then, glancing at Mr. Crewe, he said abruptly, “Read that, boss,” and puffed furiously at his pipe, while he watched the old man’s face through a thick cloud of tobacco smoke.
Mr. Crewe read the paragraph; folded up the paper, and placed it on the couch beside him; looked at the ceiling; glanced round the room; turned his keen eyes on Tresco, and said:—
“Well, what of that? I saw that an hour ago. It’s very fine, if true; very fine, indeed.”
“True, mister?Ibought the goldmyself!Igave the information to the ‘buster’! Now, here is my plan. I know this gold isnewgold—it’s no relation to any gold I ever bought before. It comes from a virgin field. By the special knowledge I possess as a gold-buyer, I am able to say that; and you know when a virgin field yields readily as much as eighty-two ounces, the odds are in favour of it yielding thousands. Look at the Golden Bar. You remember that?—eight thousand ounces in two days, and the field’s been worked ever since. Then there was Greenstone Gully—a man came into town with fifty ounces, and the party that tracked him made two thousand ounces within a month. Those finds were at a distance, but this one is a local affair. How do I know?—my special knowledge, mister; my intuitive reading of signs which prognosticate coming events; my knowledge of the characters and ways of diggers. All this I am willing to place at your disposal, on one condition, Mr. Crewe; and that condition is that we are partners in the speculation. I find the field—otherwise the partnership lapses—and you find me £200 and the little capital required. I engage to do my part within a week.”
Mr. Crewe stroked his nose with his forefinger and thumb, as was his habit when in deep contemplation.
“But—ah—what if I were to tell you that I can find the field entirely by my own exertions? What do you say to that, Mr. Tresco? What do you say to that?”
“I say, sir, without the least hesitation, that youneverwill find it. I say that you will spend money and valuable time in a wild-goose chase, whereasIshall be entirely successful.”
“We shall see,” said Mr. Crewe, rising from his seat, “we shall see. Don’t try to coerce me, sir; don’t try to coerceme!”
“I haven’t the least desire in that direction.” Benjamin’s face assumed the expression of a cherub. “Nothing is further from my thoughts. I know of a good thing—my special knowledge qualifies me to make the most of it; I offer you the refusal of ‘chipping in’ with me, and you, I understand, refuse. Very well, Mr. Crewe,Iam satisfied;youare satisfied; all is amicably settled. I go to place my offer where it will be accepted. Good evening, sir.”
Benjamin put his nondescript, weather-worn hat on his semi-bald head, and departed with as much dignity as his ponderous person could assume.
“And now,” said Mr. Crewe to himself, as the departing figure of the goldsmith disappeared, “we will go and see the result of our little bet; we will see whether we have lost or gained the sum of five pounds.”
The old man, taking his stick firmly in his hand, stumped down the passage to the door of the room where the gamblers played, and, as he turned the handle, he was greeted with a torrent of shouts, high words, and the noise of a falling table.
There, on the floor, lay gold and bank notes, scattered in every direction amid broken chairs, playing cards, and struggling men.
Mr. Crewe paused on the threshold. In the whirl and dust of the tumult he could discern the digger’s wilderness of hair, the bulky form of Garsett, and the thin American, in a tangled, writhing mass. His friend Cathro was looking on with open mouth and trembling hands, ineffectual, inactive. But Scarlett, making a sudden rush into the melee, seized the lucky digger, and dragged him, infuriated, struggling, swearing, from the unwieldy Garsett, on whose throat his grimy fingers were tightly fixed.
“Well, well,” exclaimed Mr. Crewe. “Landlord! landlord! Scarlett, be careful—you’ll strangle that man!”
Scarlett pinioned the digger’s arms from behind, and rendered him harmless; Garsett sat on the floor fingering his throat, and gasping; while Lichfield lay unconscious, with his head under the broken table.
“Fair play!” shouted the digger. “I’ve bin robbed. Le’me get at him. I’ll break his blanky neck. Cheat a gen’leman at cards, will you? Le’me get at him. Le’go, I tell yer—who’s quarrelling withyou?” But he struggled in vain, for Scarlett’s hold on him was tighter than a vice’s.
“Stand quiet, man,” he expostulated. “There was no cheating.”
“The fat bloke fudged a card. I was pickin’ up a quid from the floor—he fudged a card. Le’go o’ me, an’ I’ll fight you fair.”
“Stand quiet, I tell you, or you’ll be handed over to the police.”
The digger turned his hairy visage round, and glanced angrily into Jack’s eyes.
“You’ll call in the traps?—you long-legged swine!” With a mighty back-kick, the Prospector lodged the heel of his heavy boot fairly on Scarlett’s shin. In a moment he had struggled free, and faced round.
“Put up your fists!” he cried. “I fight fair, I fight fair.”
There was a whirlwind of blows, and then a figure fell to the floor with a thud like that of a felled tree. It was the lucky digger, and he lay still and quiet amid the wreckage of the fight.
“Here,” said Cathro, handing Mr. Crewe ten pounds. “Take your money—our friend the digger lost the game.”
“This is most unfortunate, Cathro.” But as he spoke, the Father of Timber Town pocketed the gold. “Did I not see Scarlett knock that man down? This is extremely unfortunate. I have just refused the offer of a man who avers—who avers, mind you—that he can put us on this new gold-field in a week, but I trusted to Scarlett’s diplomacy with the digger: I come back, and what do I see? I see my friend Scarlett knock the man down! There he lies as insensible as a log.”
“It looks,” said Cathro, “as if our little plan had fallen through.”
“Fallen through? We have made the unhappy error of interfering in a game of cards. We should have stood off, sir, and when a quarrel arose—I know these diggers; I have been one of them myself, and I understand them, Cathro—when a quarrel arose we should have interposed on behalf of the digger, and he would have been our friend for ever. Now all the gold in the country wouldn’t bribe him to have dealings with us.”
The noise of the fight had brought upon the scene all the occupants of the bar. They stood in a group, silent and expectant, just inside the room. The landlord, who was with them, came forward, and bent over the inanimate form of the Prospector. “I thinkthis is likely to be a case for the police,” said he, as he rose, and stood erect. “The man may be alive, or he may be dead—I’m not a doctor: I can’t tell—but there’s likely to be trouble in store for the gentlemen in the room at the time of the fight.”
Suddenly an energetic figure pushed its way through the group of spectators, and Benjamin Tresco, wearing an air of supreme wisdom, and with a manner which would not have disgraced a medico celebrated for his “good bedside manner,” commenced to examine the prostrate man. First, he unbuttoned the insensible digger’s waistcoat, and placed his hand over his heart; next, he felt his pulse. “This man,” he said deliberately, like an oracle, “has been grossly manhandled; he is seriously injured, but with care we shall pull him round. My dear”—to Gentle Annie, who stood at his elbow, in her silks and jewels, the personification of Folly at a funeral—“a drop of your very best brandy—real cognac, mind you, and be as quick as you possibly can.”
With the help of Scarlett, Tresco placed the digger upon the couch. In the midst of this operation the big card-player and his attenuated accomplice, whose unconsciousness had been more feigned than actual, were about to slip from the room, when Mr. Crewe’s voice was heard loudly above the chatter, “Stop! stop those men, there!” The old gentleman’s stick was pointed dramatically towards the retreating figures. “They know more about this affair than is good for them.”
Four or five men immediately seized Garsett and Lichfield, led them back to the centre of the room, and stood guard over them.
At this moment, Gentle Annie re-entered with theeau de vie; and Tresco, who was bustling importantly about his patient, administrated the restorative dexterously to the unconscious digger, and then awaited results. He stood, with one hand on the man’s forehead and the other he held free to gesticulate with, in emphasis of his speech:—
“This gentleman is going to recover—with proper care, and in skilled hands. He has received a severe contusion on the cranium, but apart from that he is not much the worse for his ‘scrap.’ See, he opens his eyes. Ah! they are closed again. There!—they open again. He is coming round. In a few minutes he will be his old, breathing, pulsating self. The least that can be expected in the circumstances, is that the gentlemen implicated, who have thus been saved most disagreeable consequences by the timely interference of skilled hands, the least they can do is to shout drinks for the crowd.”
He paused, and a seraphic smile lighted his broad face.
“Hear, hear!” cried a voice from behind the spectators by the door.
“Just what the doctor ordered,” said another.
“There’s enough money on the floor,” remarked a third, “for the whole lot of us to swim in champagne.”
“My eye’s on it,” said Tresco. “It’s what gave me my inspiration. The lady will pick it up while you name your drinks to the landlord. Mine’s this liqueur brandy, neat. Let the lady pick up those notes there: a lady has a soul above suspicion—let her collect the money, and we’ll hold a court of enquiry when this gentleman here is able to give his evidence.”
The digger was now gazing in a befogged manner at the faces around him; and Gentle Annie, having collected all the money of the gamblers in a tray, placed it on the small table which stood against the wall.
“Now, doctor,” said a tall man with a tawny beard, “take your fee; it’s you restored the gent. Take your fee: is it two guineas, or do you make it five?”
“‘Doctor,’ did you say? No, Moonlight, my respected friend, I scorn the title. Doctors are a brood that batten on the ills of others. First day: ‘A pain internally, madam? Very serious. I will send you some medicine. Two guineas. Yes, the sum of two guineas.’ Next day: ‘Ah, the pain is no better, madam? Go on taking the medicine. Fee? Two guineas,ifyou please.’ And so on till the pain cures itself. If not, the patient grows worse, dies, is buried, and the doctor’s fees accrue proportionately. But we will suppose that the patient has some incurable tumour. The doctor comes, examines, looks wise, shakes his head, says the only chance is to operate; but it will be touch and go, just a toss up. He gets his knives, opens up the patient, and by good luck touches no vital part. Then the patient is saved, and it’s ‘My work, gentlemen, entirely my work. That’s what skill will do. My fee is forty-five guineas.’ That’s how he makes up for the folks that don’t pay. Doctor,me? No, Moonlight, my friend, I am a practitioner who treats for love. No fee; no fee at all. But, Annie, my dear, I’ll trouble you for that glass of brandy.”
The digger was contemplating Tresco’s face with a look of bewildered astonishment. “An’ who the blanky blank areyou?” he exclaimed, with all his native uncouthness. “What the blank do you want to take my clo’es off of me for? Who the blue infernal——” All eyes were fixed on his contused countenance and the enormous bump on his temple. “Ah! there’s the gent that shook me of five quid. I’ll remember you, old party. An’ as for you two spielers—you thought to fleece me. I’ll give you what for! An’ there’s the other toff, ’im that biffed me. Fancy bein’ flattened out by a toney remittance man! Wonderful. I call it British pluck, real bull-dog courage—three to one, an’ me the littlest of the lot, bar one. Oh, it’s grand. It pays a man to keep his mouth shut, when he comes to Timber Town with money in his pocket.”
The eyes of the spectators began to turn angrily upon Lichfield and Garsett, who, looking guilty as thieves, stood uneasy and apart; but Scarlett stepped forward, and was about to speak in self-defence, when Mr. Crewe offered to explain the situation.
“I ask you to listen to me for one moment,” he said; “I ask you to take my explanation as that of a disinterested party, a mere looker on. These three gentlemen”—he pointed to the three euchre players—“were having a game of cards, quite a friendly game of cards, in which a considerable sum of money was changing hands. My friend Scarlett, here, was looking on with me, when for some cause a quarrel arose. Next thing, the gentleman here on the sofa was attacking his opponents in the game with an empty bottle—you can see the pieces of broken glass amongst the cards upon the floor. Now, a bottle is a very dangerous weapon, a very dangerous weapon indeed; I might say a deadly weapon. Then it was that Mr. Scarlett interfered. He pulled off our friend, and was attacked—I saw this with my own eyes—attacked violently, and in self-defence he struck this gentleman, and inadvertently stunned him. That, I assure you, is exactly how the case stands. No great damage is done. The difference is settled, and, of course, the game is over.”
“An’ ’e,” said the digger, raising himself to a sitting posture, “’eshook me for five quid. The wily ol’e serpint. ’E never done nothin’—’e only shook me for five quid.”
“Count the money into three equal parts, landlord,” said the Father of Timber Town. “It’s perfectly true, Ididrelieve the gentleman of five pounds; but it was the result of a bet, of a bet he himself insisted on. He would have made it even heavier, had I allowed him. But here is the money—he can have it back. I return it. I bet with no man who begrudges to pay money he fairly loses; but I have no further dealings with such a man.”
“Oh, you think I want the blanky money, do you?” cried the digger. “You’re the ol’e gen’leman as is said to own the crimson town, ain’t you? Well, keep that five quid, an’ ’elp to paint it crimsoner.Idon’t want the money.Ican get plenty more where it came from, just for the pickin’ of it up. You keep it, ol’e feller, an’ by an’ by I’ll come and buy the town clean over your head.”