Chapter 10

The deputation of two returned after another conference.

'How would you take it,' asked the first speaker--. 'mind, we're just asking, being anxious to bring about a friendly meeting--how would you take it if our man gave you a bit of a clip over the ear?'

This was put as a reasonable possibility, and as a simple and pleasant method of establishing a casus belli that might satisfy Done's ridiculous punctilio.

'I'd take it very badly,' said Jim warmly, 'and probably knock your man's confounded head off his shoulders with this pick-handle.'

''Twouldn't be done unfriendly,' said the second man in a hurt tone.

'Why doesn't your man show himself?'

'They guessed his beauty would prejudice you,' said the Prodigal. 'You might have conscientious scruples, and refuse to do anything to mar so perfect a specimen of Nature's handiwork.'

One of the strangers beckoned, and his party advanced with their champion. Done gazed wonderingly at the man they brought against him. Brummy the Nut was perhaps five feet nine inches in height, but walked in the stooping attitude of a person under a burden, his long arms swinging in a manner that strengthened the hint of gorilla in his broad, battered face; he dragged his feet as if the ball and chain were still at his heels, and, despite the enormous strength suggested by his massive limbs and great trunk, bore himself with a childish meekness in ludicrous contrast with his sinister appearance. All that long years in a convict hell could do to rob a man of the grace of humanity and harden him to pain and labour had been done for Brummy the Nut. The Nut favoured Jim, Mike, and the Prodigal each with a duck of the head and a movement of his hand towards the forehead.

'This is our man, Brummy the Nut,' said the party's spokesman.

'Well, Brummy, I won't fight you,' replied Done. Brummy ducked his head again, and muttered something in a husky voice about being 'proud to hey a fr'en'ly go with any gent ez is a gent.'

'He's a gentleman amateur like yourself,' said the spokesman persuasively 'and a fairer fighter never stripped.'

'Oh, make tracks!' retorted Burton with some impatience. 'We're tired. Set your man-eater at a red-gum butt or a bull--something in his class.'

'It's very disappointing after coming so far to oblige you.'

'You didn't receive a pressing invitation from any body here,' said Jim.

'Any other day,' ventured the Nut deferentially in his small, hoarse voice, intelligible only at intervals. 'Way o' friendship--no ill-feelin's--gent ez is a gent--no 'arm did.'

'I'll not fight you at any time,' Done replied. 'You see, Brummy, my friend hesitates to raise false hopes in your heart,' said the Prodigal. 'He might promise to punch the hair and hide off you at some future date, and then disappoint all your tender, joyful anticipations; but he's not a man of that sort: he tells you straight he wouldn't attempt to 'spoil beauty like yours for all the gilt in the Gravel Pits.'

'Gent don't wanter fight,' whispered Brummy; 'tha's all right--no 'arm did.' Brummy was the only man of his party who betrayed no feeling whatever in the matter.

There was a further conference, and the spokesman turned to Jim again.

Brummy claims the championship of Diamond Gully,' he said.

'That's no business of mine. He's welcome to claim anything he takes a fancy to for me,' replied Jim.

'No ill-feelin's----way o' frien'ship,' said the husky champion; and he made his curious salutation again, and went shuffling off with his keepers, who had the airs of sorely ill-used citizens.

'Well,' gasped Jim, 'if this is what a man brings down on himself by waging a casual battle in his own defence, I'll be careful to keep out of fights in the future.'

However, Jim Done was not again called upon to do battle while he remained on Diamond Gully. The reputation he had won was a guarantee against further molestation and Aurora's open and unabashed devotion prevented any approach to serious rivalry. The girl still preserved her manner of a boon companion in the presence of Mrs. Ben Kyley's customers, but no man of them was given occasion for the ghost of a hope of supplanting Jim in her tempestuous heart. She now assumed towards Done an attitude of happy submission; the quizzical insistence on his boyishness was abandoned: she acknowledged her master with an exuberant rapture that had not the faintest suspicion of coyness, and although Jim often blushed under it, and experienced a great uneasiness in the course of a public demonstration, Aurora showed a barbaric disregard for contemporary opinion. She felt no shame in the presence of her emotions, and consequently had no impulse to hide them. She beguiled Jim from his work to take long rambles; she devoted herself to him, to the neglect of Mrs. Ben Kyley's patrons.

Mike Burton was often lonely in his tent, and often Mrs. Kyley stormed at Jim, highly vociferous and wildly pantomimic, but good-natured and sympathetic at bottom, for there was a vagabondish harmony between the two women that made them fast friends, and caused Mary Kyley to feel a share in Aurora's happiness.

The writing of the letter to Lucy Woodrow was now indefinitely postponed, and Jim found himself reluctant to open the box containing Lucy's locket. When his hand fell upon it by chance he put it by hastily, as if it were just possible that the face in the trinket might force itself upon his attention. He never lived to understand this fugitive idea, for the thoughts were cast aside just as hastily, and with an absurd touch of impatience.

The young man had given himself up to Aurora's influence. The plenitude and the ardour of her love carried him along; he felt at times like a twig in a torrent, but the sensation was luxurious, and another joy of life was with him. He opened wide arms to it. Once again he saw the world with new eyes, and for having despised and mistrusted it so found it the more adorable. He squared his shoulders and experienced a curious sensation of physical growth and accrued manhood. Two years ago he might have weighed his feelings for Aurora and hers for him, and sought out motives; to-day he went along the flow of life, unresisting, with a leaping heart, and had he been questioned would have said that not he but the world had changed.

Mike Burton watched the development of events in a judicial way, without offering any comment. There had not been a waste month in his life for as long as he could remember. In spite of his busy days and his Bush breeding, he had been much in touch with the humanities, and he knew men and women well enough to expect no startling surprises from them; but Jim was a curiosity. With a certain robustness of character, no little knowledge, and considerable worldly wisdom in abstract matters, the younger man yet seemed to bring a boy's mind to bear upon actualities, and excited himself absurdly over matters which, from Mike's patriarchal point of view, were merely the expected events of existence--the things that happen to all men, and about which no man need distress himself. He had seen a good deal of the women of the camps, and thought he knew the types well. He summed up Aurora to his own satisfaction: 'Like an eel--easy to catch, but hard to hold!' Amongst other pleasant qualities, Mike had the comfortable human one of often being wrong in his estimates of men and women and things. He expected the girl's infatuation to wear itself out quickly, and meanwhile possessed his soul with patience, prospected here and there, tried new claims, and found a few payable and one rich before the summer came again; but he wanted to try the other rushes, and the winter passed without his having broached the matter to Done.

Jim was quite ignorant of the fact that he was making unfair demands upon his mate's loyalty. They were doing well on the whole; the life on Diamond Gully had lost none of its attractiveness--it was still vigorous and eventful. There had been a riot in Forest Creek during May, providing a stirring week, and many alarms and excursions on the part of the miners and the license-hunters. Solo had visited Diamond Gully again, and neatly victimized Cootmeyer--a gold-buyer at one of the stores--gagging his victim with his own bacon-knife, and imprisoning him in a salt-pork barrel. The revolutionary feeling in the hearts of the men had increased in intensity, and the talk about the camp-fires stirred the bad blood to fever-heat. To Done time had gone on wings so swift that he could not mark its flight. Burton, a nomad in blood and breeding, thirsted for change, and in ordinary circumstances would have rolled his swag and gone on alone long ago; but the liking he had for Jim was the strongest emotion that had crept into his stolid soul, excepting only the affection he bore for a certain black-browed boss-cockie's daughter on the Sydney side, and be found it hard to break away. But Aurora's hold on Jim had not weakened so far as he could judge, and the time came at length when his restless spirit drove him on. He broke the news to Jim one night as they lay in their bunks, he smoking, Jim reading.

'I'm full o' this, old man,' he said abruptly.

'Of what?'

'Oh, of Diamond Gully! I reckon it's played out or thereabouts.'

'And we got twelve ounces a man for the last week's work.

'Not enough, Jimmy. Not more 'n wages, an' men like you 'n me should be in the thickest an' richest of it. I'm gettin' along to-morrow.'

'You mean to say you are going?' Done jerked himself on to his elbow and stared across the tent at his mate.

'Um--m Mean to try a new rush.'

'Anything wrong, Mike? Have I been getting on your raw lately? You want to break up this partner ship of ours.'

'My oath, no!' Mike had raised himself eagerly, and was looking at Jim.

Then you reckoned on having me along?'

'No; I thought maybe you wouldn't care to pad out from here jes' yet awhile.

'If it rests with me, mate, where you go I go. You've given me a bit of a jolt, old man.'

'You'll come, then?' cried Mike.

'Why, yes! What should keep me?'

The two men gripped hands, and a few minutes of, silence followed, during which Mike's pipe went out and Jim's book fell to the floor. Both were more moved than they cared to show.

'This makes things much more comfortable,' said Burton presently.

'Where do we go?'

'To Jim Crow, an' from there we may make tracks to Ballarat.

'To Ballarat!' The name epitomized all that Done knew of mining life and the aspirations of the diggers.

'Yes, Jim. If there's goin' to be fightin', we must be in it.'

'Mike,' said Jim, breaking the thoughtful silence that followed, 'what put into your head the mad idea that I would want to break with you? God, man, I'd be a desolate, helpless wastrel without you!'

'Aurora!' said Mike sententiously.

'Aurora!' Jim sat up abruptly, and then sank slowly back upon his pillow again. It was very curious, but till this moment no thought of Aurora had occurred to him.

Mike blew out the candle, and it was quite half an hour later when he said, speaking as if the conversation had just been dropped: 'You'll go all the same, Jimmy?'

'Yes,' said Jim, with the emphasis of a man making a resolution.

XII

AURORA! What would she say? What would she do? It was less the thought of his losing Aurora than the picture of her great distress that worried him. She would be broken-hearted. And yet go he must, there was no question of that; he had not come to Australia to tether himself to a woman's apron strings, even though that woman be the brightest and winsomest of her sex--excepting one. He smuggled that saving clause in in a cowardly way. He had carefully masked his treachery even to his own eyes, and yet it was treachery that was in his bones. Of course, he must assure her that they would meet again: they were not necessarily parting for ever; but even as these thoughts worked in his mind he was not conscious of any anxiety at the prospect of a lasting separation. Jim did not realize to what extent the passion for Aurora had fastened upon his blood; he still liked her, there remained a decided tenderness, and he hated the idea of hurting her or causing her grief. This was the better part of his liking for the girl, but the vehement selfishness seemed to have gone from his love, and without a fierce note of selfishness love becomes as pale as friendship. She had been a wonder, a revelation, a great glory; she had become merely an attractive, handsome girl, rather exuberant in her affection. If Done were our villain we could show him unmanly, ignoble, and vile for all this, but not one voluntary impulse went to the making of his present attitude; it was a development entirely foreign to his will, and that much at least must be remembered in the defence of our hero.

Mike put off their departure a day. He had intended leaving the tools and camp-ware with his mate, but now it was necessary to make arrangements with a teamster to follow them to the new rush with their property.

Done approached Aurora with great misgivings; he expected a passionate demonstration. There had been no sign of waning affection on her part; on the contrary, she had seemed to grow more devoted to him.

'Burton thinks this field is pretty well worked out,' said Jim, as a preparatory announcement.

'Well, I suppose it is, Jimmy. Been panning out badly of late?'

'Not very badly, old girl; but not good enough compared with what we hear of from the other fields.'

She was sitting on the counter, holding his arm, and turned and looked sharply into his face.

'You're off?' she said.

Done nodded his head, and watched her apprehensively. She was not disturbed; next moment there was merriment in the eyes turned up to him from where her head nestled on his breast.

'Mike thinks we are wasting valuable time here.'

And you are, too. Good luck go wid you, ma bouchal' She kissed the point of his chin.

'You don't mind, Aurora?' He had come in shivering with apprehension at the prospect of a passionate outburst, knowing the possibilities of her fervid temperament, and now experienced some sense of disappointment at finding her unmoved.

'Mind, darlin'? Cud I expect to be keepin' you here all the days of your life? Where are you going?'

'To the new diggin's, Jim Crow.'

'It's a wild field, they tell me, Jimmy. No fighting, mind. Leastwise, none for other girls.'

'We start early in the morning.'

'I'll be up to throw an old shoe after you.'

'I came to say good-bye to-night.'

'Good-bye, is it?' She flashed upon him, her face crimsoned, and a look, half fearful, half angry, glowed in her splendid eyes. But the feeling was only momentary; laughter rippled into her cheeks again, and she wound her arms about his neck. 'Good-bye?' she said. 'And isn't it breakin' your heart you are to be sayin' good-bye to me?'

Done clasped her closer, and kissed her, stirred by her warmth and her beauty.

'Ah, my dear, dear boy, you may say good-bye to me a thousand times if you'll cure the sting with such kisses,' she said softly.

When Jim returned to their tent he found Burton already abed. Mike continued to read his paper, smoking placidly, but he was feeling no little concern. He had feared the result of that last interview with Aurora, and now waited the word from Done, who seated himself on his bunk and unlaced his boots in silence.

'She took it without a whimper,' he said presently.

'No!'

'She didn't speak a word or raise a finger to keep me.'

'Well, I'm blowed!' Burton was openly delighted; not so Done, who, true to the contrariness of poor human nature, was apparently quite depressed.

Jim Crow, maddest of fields, like Tarrangower, which came later, resort of the most turbulent spirits, and a favourite centre with runaway convicts, gold-robbers, and the riffraff of the rushes, was still young when Burton and Done went, hastening down the hills on to the lead, with the thin but turbulent stream of diggers, but its character was already formed. Here the revolver was counted among the necessities of life, and although the main body of the diggers, as on all the other fields, were sober, industrious, and decent men, there was so strong a leaven of dare-devils and so varied an admixture of rogues and vagabonds that Jim Crow quickly won itself an unenviable reputation on all the rushes, from Buninyong to Bendigo, and, rich as it was, diggers found it as difficult to keep their gold as to win it. The Jim Crow ranges were within an hour's flight, and offered splendid cover for the members of Coleman's gang, or the friends of Black Douglas, or any other rapscallion who preferred stealing gold to seeking it.

On the day of their arrival at Jim Crow the mates pegged out a claim and pitched their tent, which Mike had added to his swag. With the help of Mrs. Ben Kyley, they had succeeded in depositing the larger part of their earnings at Diamond Gully in a Melbourne bank, and now they were hampered with no great responsibility in the way of riches. That night Jim and Mike walked over the field, through the clustering tents, and Jim discovered that what he had taken for a wild life at Diamond Gully was peace itself compared with the devilment and disorder of a new field. Jim Crow had opened well, the first discoveries were enormously rich, and the restless diggers were pouring in from all quarters, and glare and confusion and a babel of music and tongues rioted in the camp. Here, again, Jim was struck with the untamed boyishness of the miners; their levity was that of coarse, healthy children. 'Is it civilization that is choking gaiety out of the souls of men?' he asked himself.

Done had a curious experience on the following day. He had gone to the tent to light the fire, boil the billy, and prepare the mid-day meal, and was carrying water from a convenient spring, when, in passing the tent of their nearest neighbours, twin brothers named Peetree, the first prospectors of Jim Crow, he was startled by a furious yell, more like the howl of a madman than the cry of a sentient creature. Jim turned and looked about. There was nobody within sight from whom the amazing sound could have come, but as he stood the cry was repeated. Done set down his billy, and, approaching the tent, peeped in. There was nobody there, but again the wild cry rang out. He looked under the bunks, and then walked round the tent, but discovered nothing to explain the mystery. He paused dubiously, suspecting a trick, when for the fourth time he heard the marrow-chilling scream, and this time so near that he sprang aside in real alarm. Against the side of the tent, chocked to prevent its rolling, was a barrel, brought to Jim Crow by the Peetrees to be cut into two puddling-tubs, no doubt. Jim examined it suspiciously.

'Le' me out, yer swines! le' me out!' cried a shrill old voice, following the words with a long dolorous howl, not unlike that of a moonstruck cur.

'Who the devil are you?' asked Done. 'What are you doing in there?'

His words only served to enrage the man in the cask; he had a paroxysm of linguistic fury, and curses spouted from the bunghole a geyser of profanity.

'I'll be the death o' you when I get loose!' screamed the prisoner. Another long-drawn yell followed, and then sounds as of a terrible struggle going on inside, with occasional cries and curses.

Done was greatly perplexed, but there was, he thought, only one course open to him. A fellow-creature was pent in the barrel, and it was manifestly his duty to go to the rescue. He had seized the Peetrees' axe with the intention of knocking in the head of the cask, when a warning shout from the direction of the lead caused him to desist. One of the Peetree brothers was running up from their claim. He arrived angry and breathless.

'What in thunder 're you up to?' he panted.

'There's a man in that barrel,' answered Jim.

'Well, I'm likely to know all about that, ain't I? Drop that axe and mooch along after your own business.'

'I don't know,' said Done, 'but it seems to me that this is almost any man's business. You're not at liberty to keep a fellow-creature cooped in a barrel at your own pleasure, even on Jim Crow.'

'That's just so, but the man in there's my father, which makes a dif'rence, perhaps.'

'Your father? Are you keeping the old man in pickle?'

'No; we're keeping him outer mischief, an' that ought to be enough for you.'

'Of course, I don't want to interfere with your family arrangements, but this is a bit out of the ordinary, and you'll admit my action was only natural.' Jim picked up his billy and crossed to his own tent, the man in the barrel breaking into fresh clamour, and calling down Heaven's vengeance on his son's head through the bunghole.

'Shut up, you infernal ole idiot!' cried the dutiful son. While Done was busy over the fire, Peetree junior drove the bung into the barrel, and then rejoined our hero.

'Naturally, you wouldn't understan',' he said, jerking his thumb towards the barrel, 'but the ole man's such a dashed nuisance when he's on we gotter do somethin' with him.' The tone was apologetic.

'I dare say you are quite justified,' Jim answered. 'A man doesn't keep his father in a barrel for mere amusement.'

'No, he don't ordinary, does he?' answered the native gravely. 'Fact is, the dad goes on a tear now 'n again, an' we pen him up to sober off. We can look after him all right after knocking off, but if we was to let him loose while we was at work he'd go pourin' Bill Mooney's fork-lightnin' gin into him till he had his bluchers full o' snakes 'an the whole lead swarmin' with fantods. So when he starts to work up a jamboree we pull off his boots an' tuck him in the tub, fastens the head, an' leave him till he's willin' to think better of it.'

'Well, that's bringing up a father in the way he should go,' laughed Jim. 'I apologize for attempting to break into your inebriates' retreat.'

'Inebriates' retreat!' A wide grin slowly developed on Peetree's gaunt face. 'That's a first name for it,' he said. 'Hanged if we don't have it painted up!'

'A sign of some kind is necessary. But isn't the old man likely to suffocate with that bung in?'

'Not he; there's heaps o' breathin' in the cask. That bung's just to gag him awhile.'

That evening after tea the two sons, with old Peetree under guard between them, joined the mates at their fire. Harry, Jim's friend of the morning's adventure, was about twenty-eight, tall and bony, with the shoulder stoop of a hard worker. Con and the father had the same general peculiarities. The three were identical in height and complexion, and in their mannerism and tricks of speech; but to-night the old man had a vacant, helpless expression, and seemed for the greater part of the time unconscious of the company he was in, and looked furtively about him into the night, muttering strangely to himself, and picking eagerly at his shirt-sleeves. The sons pressed their father to a sitting position, and then seated themselves one on each side, mounting guard.

'See, we got him loose again,' said Harry.

'He's milder to-night,' answered Done. 'What's the matter with him?'

'Only a touch o' the jims. He's liable to howl a bit now 'n again, but don't mind him. He's all right. Ain't you, dad?' He gave the old man's head an affectionate push.

'Once he takes to smoke he's comin' round,' said Con Peetree, making a vain attempt to induce the old man to draw at his pipe.

'There ain't a finer ole tough walkin' when he's off the licker,' said the elder proudly, 'an' not a better miner-ever lived.'