Chapter 5

'Well, I'm hanged if that isn't a little thing to make a row about. Do you reckon it shameful to be a new chum, then?'

'Not exactly. No offence is intended; the men jeer out of mere harmless devilment. The new churn's got so much to learn here, he can't help looking a born fool as a general thing.'

'And pea-souper and lime-juicer?'

'They've been hazing you properly, mate. Pea-soupers and lime-juicers are strangers off shipboard. They'd never have spotted you, though, without the bundle. There's no raw-meat tint about you; you're tanned like a native. Buy a blue jumper and get a cabbage-tree up in place of that cap, and you'd pass muster as a Sydney-sider born and bred.'

'A cabbage-tree?'

'Hat--straw. Get a second-hand one if you can: they're more appreciated. Usually a man likes to colour his own hat as he colours his own pipe; but you're eager to meet the Australian prejudice against newness. Another bit of advice,' continued the bar-man, who was glad of the chance to turn his vast antipodean experience to some account. 'If you happen to be anybody in particular, as you love your peace of mind and your bodily comfort, don't speak of it.'

'Luckily, I'm nobody in particular.'

'That's all right. I was idiot enough to let it be known that I was afflicted with an aristocratic name, and I had to hold this job against banter enough to drive a cow daft. Now my name's Smith.'

'Are you a new chum, then?'

'Lord no! I've been out seven weeks.'

It was Jim's turn to laugh. 'Well,' he said, 'if a man can qualify as a representative Australian in seven weeks, I'm not going to complain.'

The barman provided much more valuable information. Bed and board could not be had at that establishment for love or money, and, furthermore, it was unlikely Jim would be able to find lodgings anywhere in Melbourne.

'I suppose you can take care of yourself--you look a likely man,' he said. 'Well, the nights are so warm no man needs a dwelling. When you're tired of knocking round to-night, take your traps down by the river, roll yourself in your blanket in the lee of a gum-tree, and sleep there. Did it myself for a week, and only had to put up one fight all the time. Sleeping out's no hardship here. Meanwhile, in exchange for the latest news from down under, I'll dump your swag, and keep an eye on her till you call again.'

The young fellow's ready friendship was most grateful to Done, and he remained in the bar till a run of business rendered further conversation impossible, picking up useful knowledge by the way, and presently discovering the barman to be a gentleman with an expensive polish, whose most earnest desire was to hide his gentility and disguise the contingent gloss under a brave assumption of the manners and speech peculiar to the people of the rough young democracy.

Tea that evening was the most expensive meal Jim Done had ever eaten, and far from being the best; but his appetite was equal to anything, and the fare on the Francis Cadman had not been so dainty as to give him any epicurean prejudices. It was night when Jim came from the primitive restaurant, darkness having come down with a suddenness surprising to a new chum accustomed to long twilights. Jim had taken tea in a tent near Paddy's Market. Here scores of tents of all sorts and sizes were huddled together. All cooking was done out of doors. Fires were everywhere, their glow, reflected brightly on the canvas of the 'flies,' giving a fantastic brilliance to the scene. Life stirred around him, jubilant, bounteous, pulsing life. The levity of the people was without limit. Their childishness astonished Done, but he lived to find this a characteristic of the diggers in all parts; even the roughest men in the roughest camps exhibited a schoolboy's love of horseplay and a great capacity for primitive happiness. It was as if the people, having thrown off the more galling restraints of civilization and order, felt their limbs and spirits free for the first time, and exercised both with the freedom and, the austere critic may say, the foolishness of mountain goats.

Jim's whole being was infected with the spirit of the place, his blood danced. He had discarded his cap for a well-seasoned cabbage-tree, and wore a blue jumper under his coat, and now passed unheeded, excepting when a jovial digger, flown with brandy and success, roared a 'Good luck, mate!' or commanded him in to drink. Social restraints were gone; equality ruled the road; all men were brothers, and friendships of ten minutes' standing were as sacred as the ties of kinship.

The night was young, but already turbulent. The hot wind had passed, and the air was sweet and free from dust. As he moved along the street, Done's ear caught the squeak and the twang of fiddle and banjo coming through the confusion of voices. Step-dancing and singing were the most popular delights. The ability to sing a comic song badly was passport enough in digger society. The streets were lit with kerosene. Here and there a slush lamp or a torch blazed before an establishment seeking notoriety, shedding a note of lurid colour upon the faces of the bearded men thronging the footpath. If there were laws controlling all these elements, Jim failed to discover a sign of them; neither did he see sign of the flagrant lawlessness he had been led to expect. The absence of arms surprised him most of all. He looked to find knives and revolvers in every belt, but saw no display of weapons, and noting the bluff, lumbering kindliness animating the crowd, he thought of his own small but carefully selected arsenal with some contempt.

Jim Done walked about the streets for two hours, interested in everything, disappointed with nothing. All this satisfied the craving that had driven him from home. Here he was one of the people, a man amongst men, accepted at his face and physical value by fellow-creatures who respected most the fearless eye and the strong arm. Moreover, there were no signs of those hated forces, respectability, piety, conventionality, all of which had seemed to range themselves automatically on the side of his enemies.

He came to a large wooden hall with a row of lamps blazing along its front and a foreign sign over the door. From within floated strains of music and the beating of many feet. Jim entered. The place was crowded with hairy diggers--mostly successful, he learned presently. The atmosphere was heavy with smoke. A wild dance was going on, and several sets held the floor. Half a dozen of the most fortunate of the men had female partners, the others danced 'bucks,' man and man, and the pounding of their heavy boots and the yells of laughter provoked by their clumsy movements quite drowned the music of the feeble orchestra, crowded away in the far corner of the room. Along one end ran an unplaned wooden counter, where two or three barmen were kept busy serving gin, brandy, and rum to the parched dancers. When the dance was ended there was a rush for the bar, and Jim found now that dancing did not go by favour, the hands of the fair being bestowed upon the highest bidders. One tall, lack-haired, laughing girl, with the figure and face of a Bacchante, sprang upon a chair, shaking aloft a yellow scarf, and was auctioned for the next dance amidst a storm of bidding and a hurricane of merriment. She was borne down the room in the arms of the triumphant digger, who had paid thirty 'weights' for his bouncing partner--six pounds for ten minutes' dancing, and the proud purchaser couldn't dance a step!

Jim watched the women curiously; they were a new type to him--young, virile, red-lipped, flushed with wine, shameless in the face of the crowd, their faces kindled with laughter. They led the men in their wild revel--pagans absolute. One in particular attracted Done; she was tall, dark-eyed, and black-haired. This, in conjunction with the bold combination of red and black in her costume, gave him the belief that she was Spanish. There was about her some suggestion of character and strength that pleased him. She romped like a child; her merriment was clean and unforced. He saw nothing of the corruption that Vice is supposed to stamp upon the faces of her votaries. These women, despite the feeble kerosene lights, the tobacco-smoke, and the bare, ugly walls, might have been participants in the revels of Dionysus.

Several times, passing him in the dance, the eyes of the Spaniard flashed into his own, and she smiled. When the dance was ended she confronted him.

'Sure, you're goin' to dance wid me, ain't ye now?' she said in the most mellifluous brogue.

Done shook his head and laughed with diffidence.

'No, thanks,' he said. 'I'm not a rich digger. Only a poor new chum,' he added, hoping to carry conviction.

'Straight from the Ould Country, is it?' asked the girl eagerly. 'Have ye the word of ould Ireland, an' how does she stand? The dance is yours for the shmallest token.'

'I'm sorry I don't know Ireland,' said Jim.

'Then I'll give you the dance fer natural love an' affection.'

Done protested that he could not dance, but the laughing girl dragged him into the thick of it.

'Come along!' she cried, dropping the brogue. 'I'm a patriot, and I love you for the green in your eye.'

Jim danced. He was literally forced into it, and presently found himself getting along quite decently in a barbaric sort of polka. When the music ceased he followed the custom of the country, and shouted for his partner. She drank sherry. He left the hall a few minutes later, with the girl's kiss, lightly given, tingling on his lips, and walked away quickly, treading on air. Presently he began to question himself. Why this growing exuberance? Was it drink? Never before had he felt its influence. He pulled himself together. He was crowding his sensation: it was time to cry a halt.

The young man returned to the hotel where he had left his belongings. The long bar was crowded with men. The hotel was little more than a large tent with a pretentious wooden front. It was illumined by a single lamp suspended above the counter. This lamp lit up the faces of the men gathered under it, but beyond the countenances of the customers faded into a mist of tobacco-smoke, deepening into darkness in the corners.

Done leant against the bar, watching the scene, still curious, content to wait till the busy barman had leisure to attend to him. After a few moments he found himself an object of most marked interest to a tall, thin digger, perched on an up-ended barrel, drinking porter. The man was watching him narrowly, and at length, as if to leave no doubt of his attentions, he stepped down, and, standing squarely in front of Done, looked him closely in the face. Jim returned the stare, finding curiosity deepen into surprise, and surprise into conviction, in the countenance confronting him.

'Solo!' cried the man. 'Solo, by all that's holy!' As he spoke he sprang between Jim and the door way, as if to cut off escape. 'Bail up!' he said; 'we've got you tight this trip.'

'You're making a mistake, I think, mate,' said Jim. 'Anyhow, my name is not Solo.'

'That's a bluff! I know you too damn well! Boys,' continued the miner, addressing the crowd, 'it's Solo. I'll wager my soul on it. Get at him! There's five hundred cold guineas on his head!'

'I tell you you're wrong!' blurted Done.

The tall man waited for no further argument, but jumped at Done, and they closed. There was a short struggle, and Jim put his opponent down with an old Cousin-Jack trick that he had often tried on better men.

'The man's drunk!' said Jim, as the crowd narrowed in on him. He set his back against the counter, prepared to make a good fight.

A raw-boned, brown-faced native of about twenty-six grappled with him, but only as a pretence, as Done speedily found.

'Bolt, or you're a done man!' whispered the Australian at his ear. 'When I smash the lamp, over the counter and under the tent, and skedaddle for your life!'

This young fellow allowed himself to be thrown off, and backed into the crowd. The long man, who had recovered his wind, turned to address the men.

'It's Solo, mates,' he said, 'and there's five hundred waiting for us if we take him.'

The men moved forward in a body, but just then a pewter crashed into the lamp, and there was darkness. Acting on his new friend's advice, Done cleared the counter at a bound, and dived under the canvas. Picking himself up, he ran into the darkness. He heard footsteps following him, and increased his pace, stumbling on the strange ground. But a voice assured him.

'Keep to the right! Make for cover!' panted his pursuer.

VII

FINDING only one man following, Jim Done ceased running on reaching a clump of trees, and presently he was joined by the young Australian who had aided him.

'My colonial, you sprint like an emu!' gasped the latter. 'All the same, that was a mad sort o' thing to do.'

'What was?'

'Why, showin' yourself 'bout here with the cheek of a dashed commissioner, while there's five hundred on your head, hot or cold, live or dead, an' every trooper in the country whim' to give his long ears to pot you.'

'But you are quite wrong; I'm not this Solo.'

'Not Solo! That won't wash. Wasn't I there with Long Aleck when you got away with the gold Hoban hid in our nosebag other side o' Geelong?'

'You're on the wrong scent. My name is Done. I'm a new chum, landed only this morning off the Francis Cadman.'

'Here, let's look you over again.' The stranger struck a match, and, shielding it with his hands, examined Jim's face. 'Dunno,' he said, 'but p'r'aps you are a bit young. Still, rig a beard around that chiv of yours, and it's Solo to the life.'

'If it's worth while, walk down to the ship with me, and I'll satisfy you in two minutes.'

Your word's good enough for me. Solo or no, taint my deal.'

'Well, you've gone to some trouble to help me out of a hole, and I'm obliged.' Done offered his hand, and the other shook it heartily. 'You might tell me who and what this Solo is,' continued Jim.

'Smartest, coolest, most darin' gold-thief in Australia. Outlawed for robbery under arms, wanted by all the police 'tween here and the Murray, and his head's worth five hundred to you 'r me, 'r any yob that can rob him of it. He works alone. What his right name is no one knows.'

'That's all a bright look-out for me!' laughed Jim. 'But if he's such an infernal scoundrel, and he's robbed you among the rest, why come to his rescue?'

''Pon my soul, I dunno I' replied the Australian, scratching his head dubiously, ''less it's 'cause of his pluck 'n' the dashed pleasant, gentlemanly way he has o' doin' things. By the way, what 're you out for? Goin' diggin'? Got a mate? Where 're you makin'?'

'I'm going digging. I have no mate. I can't say what field I'm making for till I know more about them.'

'Look here, take in my points.' The native struck another match, and held it that Done might make an inventory of his perfections. 'Five foot ten high, strong as a horse, sound in wind and limb, know the country, know the game, been on three fields, want a mate. Name's Micah Wentworth Burton--Mike for short. Got all traps, pans, shovels, picks, cradle, tub, windlass, barrow. Long Aleck--chap that attacked you--was my mate; he's turning teamster. Take me on, an' here's my hand. We're made for a pair.'

Burton stopped for lack of wind. He jerked his words with a slight nasal intonation, and his manner and his action indicated a characteristic impetuosity. Done was astounded at his own seeming good fortune and the other's rash confidence.

'Come,' he said doubtingly, 'do you mean to say you'll go into partnership in this desperate way with a man you don't know, but whom you suspect of being a notorious rogue, and give him all the advantages of your property and your knowledge?'

'Will I? My oath! Is it a deal? All that about Solo is off. I might 'a' known he had too much horse-sense to mooch about Melbourne disguised only in a daily shave. As for the rest, blast it! we're men. I take you on chance, you take me on spec. We can look after ourselves, I s'pose. Well, what say?'

'I couldn't ask for anything better. The only objection to the arrangement is that I take all and give nothing.'

'Done, then! But don't you run away with a wrong idea. There 're heaps o' decent men an' good miners in Melbourne who'd jump at a mate of your stamp. Come along to my tent up Canvas Town to-night. There's a spare bunk. Aleck started on a jamboree that won't mature for a week. We can talk things into order.'

Jim Done awoke next morning with a fear in his heart that he had made a fool of himself. His mate was sitting just without the tent, grilling chops on a piece of hoop-iron twisted into a grid. Jim's head felt new to him, and ached badly; old doubts, old prejudices, possessed him. Why should all the regard this stranger expressed have developed in an acquaintanceship of minutes? Why should Burton be so eager to bestow benefits upon him? That was not the customary way of men. He got up, dressed and washed, and took breakfast with his mate, and the sullen suspicion lingered; but Mike talked volubly, questioning nothing, and as the morning wore on his obvious sincerity won on Done, and ere they turned their backs upon Melbourne the Australian's spontaneous, careless confidence in him and his open-hearted cordiality planted in Done the seeds of one of those strong, lasting friendships which are never half expressed in words, although they may sometimes be attested in eloquent and heroic actions.

On the afternoon of his second day in Melbourne Jim saw Lucy Woodrow once more. She passed in Macdougal's trap as Done and his mate were walking along Swanston Street. She looked very pretty, and was laughing gaily at something her companion had said. The sight of that companion affected Jim in a peculiar way. He looked a man of about forty, strongly but sparely built; his face, clean-shaven but for the triangle of hair coming just below the ears, had a cameo-like correctness of outline; the lips were firm and full, the eyes deep. He wore one of the flat-brimmed bell-toppers fashionable at the time, a skirted coat, and a high collar. In a flash the whole man was photographed on Jim's mind--why he could not understand. The sensations given him by the sight of that face were quite apart from the pang he experienced on noting Lucy's apparent interest in the man. Jim felt for the miniature in his pocket. It was hard to believe that only about twenty-four hours had sped since their parting. Looking back now over so much that was strange, he thought as many weeks might have gone in the interval.

'Monkey Mack,' said Mike, following the direction of Jim's eyes.

'Do you know him?'

'Everybody knows of him. Owns the best-stocked station out of New South. Made a pile through the rushes, selling stock at famine prices. Richest squatter in Vic, an' that dirty mean he won't wash 'cause o' the ruinous wear and tear on soap. Used to go round collecting the wool the sheep scraped off on his fences an' trees, an' for years cadged his toby, (tobacco, you know) off passing teamsters; then, when the teamsters shied at him, gave up smokin'. Owns thousands of acres an' hundreds o' thousands o' pounds, an' wears toe-rags, an' yet lets his wife have what she likes, an' spend what she pleases. That was his wife 'long side him.'

'Yes, she came over in our ship.'

'Shipmates, eh? That's as good as first-cousins.'

'Who was the other man?'

'Donno. Looked like something just blown ashore. Very superior, likely. Mrs Mack's got a weakness for gentility. She was a neighbourin' squatter's milkmaid, they say.'

'Well, Macdougal's not mean in the matter of horseflesh.'

'Right. That's his other great extravagance. See, he gets about badly on those spider-legs of his, and makes up for his misfortune when he splits across a horse. He breeds the best, drives like a fiend, an' can ride anythin' lapped in hide.'

A week later Done and Burton were on their way to Forest Creek diggings. Everything worth working on Ballarat was pegged out, Mike said. Forest Creek was the new Eldorado. Their tools and stores were four days ahead, in the care of an experienced teamster whom Mike knew well, and whom he could trust to pull through, despite the abominable roads and the misfortunes that had knocked up many a well-found team and marked the track with crippled horses and stranded wagons. For two days Jim had carried his swag through the Australian Bush, and one night he had slept on the brown grass, using his folded blanket for a pillow, the camp-fire flickering palely at a distance, the wide-branching, dreamy gum-trees spreading their limbs above him, the warmth of summer in the scented air Already the instincts of the Bushman were developing in him. He began to feel a friendship for the towering gums in their flaunting independence; their proud individuality pleased him. To his mind they reflected the spirit of the people--it must be the spirit of the land. Nowhere in their feathery elegance did he find a law of conformity; each tree was a law unto itself, tall and strong and slender, youthful and buoyant, opening fond arms to the blue sky. The absence of the sap-greens of England conveyed at first an impression of barrenness, but that wore off, and the artistic side of his nature fed upon the soft harmonies of faded grass and subdued green foliage nursing misty purples in its shade. The ground was his bed and chair and table; never had he been so intimate with Mother Earth. Here she was uncontaminated, the soil was sweet, and it gave no hint of untold generations of dead fattening the grass upon which he couched as in sweet hay. From the earth he drew an ardent patriotism. He was already a more enthusiastic Australian than the loose-limbed native with whom he fraternized.

They camped five miles beyond Miner's Rest on the second night, preferring the comparative solitude of the Bush to the scant accommodation and some what boisterous company at the shanty lately established to cater for the fortune-hunters streaming to the new rushes. Mike selected the spot and dropped his swag.

'We've tramped far enough to-day,' he said. 'You'll find water just over that rise there. I'll light the fire.'

'So you've been over this part before,' said Jim, unstrapping the billy from his mate's swag.

'No; this is new country to me.'

'Then, how do you know I shall find water beyond that hillock?'

''Pon my soul, I don't know why I know,' Mike answered; 'but I'll wager my share of our first tub it's there.'

Jim found the water. There was a water-hole in a small creek at the spot indicated. His mate's knowledge of things about him in the Bush, things unseen and unheard, had seemed uncanny at first; he was getting used to it now. Mike was born in the Bush, and the greater part of his life had been spent in it. He knew it as thoroughly as its familiar animals did, and much in the same way, without being aware of his knowledge, which was mainly instinctive. The billy was on the blazing fire, and Done sat watching Mike smartly mixing a damper in the lid. To Jim this, too, was a wonderful accomplishment. Water and flour were deftly manipulated until a ball of dough that quite filled the small lid resulted. It was done with the cleanness and quickness of a conjuring trick. The dough was divided into two pats, to be cooked under the hot ashes. Then Mike improvised his wire grid again, and in a few minutes the steak he had carried in a dilly-bag from Miner's Rest was sizzling and spitting over the embers.