Chapter 8

Jim had supposed the tolerance of man towards man, the absence of petty prejudices, and the large appreciation of individual liberty that belonged to the character of a brave, self population to be manifestations of an absolute freedom; he found the men fired with a passionate aspiration for liberty, just as the masses in England had been five years earlier, and possessed of even more substantial reasons for revolt. The idea of the young republic delighted him; he was already prepared to shed his blood in establishing that glorious ideal. Stories he had heard of the indignities to which the miners were subjected by an insolent bureaucracy, of men being hunted down like dingoes and beaten with the drawn swords of the troopers because of their failure to comply with the outrageous licensing decrees, bred in him a hatred akin to that felt by the diggers who had suffered in person.

But Done's first experience of a license-hunt was largely farcical. Mr. Commissioner McPhee had chosen a sweltering hot day for his hunt. Most of the diggers on Diamond Gully were below, sheltered from the mordant rays of a sun that blazed in the cloudless sky, so close to earth that its heat struck the face like a licking flame. Jim had just brought some picks from the smithy, when he saw the troopers, headed by the magnate on a fine chestnut, descend upon the gully, their glazed cap-peaks and their swords flashing gaily in the sun. The mounted men divided at the head of the gully, and came down on each side of the lead; the foot police followed Commissioner McPhee, head Serang and cock of the walk from Sawpit Gully to Castlemaine. The duty of the foot police was to rouse the diggers out of their drives, and enforce the orders of the high and mighty McPhee. On Diamond Gully the wash was so shallow that the police had no difficulty in getting the men to the surface, and the inrush of the troopers was the signal for a swarming The men poured from the crowded claims, and in a few seconds the gully was awakened to violent action, and given over to tumult.

The air resounded with the yells of the miners, raised in warning and derision. 'Jo!--Jo!--Jo!' The cries travelled the whole length of the lead, like a salute of musketry. Mike came up the rope, hand over hand.

'A license-hunt,' he said. 'Now you'll see how these gaol warders amuse themselves.'

'What are we supposed to do?'

'Have your license handy. Show it to Huntsman McPhee, and keep your hands off his hounds.'

Mr. Commissioner was not having much trouble; he came through the claims like a monarch demanding obeisance and tribute, and the shouts of the miners followed him. 'Jo!--Jo!--Jo!' The men made a sort of chorus of the jibe. A fistful of wet pipe-clay thrown from the cover of a tip struck the sergeant of troopers in the face, and he spurred his horse furiously towards the spot. There was a rush of police and diggers, and a bit of a melee resulted, but Sergeant Wallis received no satisfaction. Four or five unlicensed diggers had been captured, luckless workers for whom Fortune had spread no favours, and these were handed over to the mounted police, who guarded them with drawn swords, accelerating their movements with blows of the blade and not infrequent prickings, for the hatred in which the diggers held the troopers was not more fierce than the troopers' hatred for the men.

Done and Burton stood on the little hillock of mulluck about their shaft, watching the course of events, when the Grand Serang rode at them. He was a fine stamp of a man, and loved an effect in which he was the central figure. It was becoming in a mere digger to make way for the horse of Mr. Commissioner. Burton, however, stood his ground, the flush burning through his tan, and, rather than give way an inch or be run down, raised his hand and struck the noble nag of the big official on the nose with his palm, with the result that the chestnut went up on his hind-legs, pawing the air, and rattled down the tip on his heels, while the crowding diggers, to whom any indignity inflicted upon a commissioner, however trivial, was a joy and a solace, set up a shout of scornful laughter.

'What the devil, sir, do you mean by striking my horse?' thundered the irascible McPhee.

'I don't care to be ridden down like a thieving dingo' replied Mike.

'Sergeant, search this impudent jackanapes, and if his license isn't O.K., jam the beggar into the logs!'

At this point another handful of white clay was thrown from the back of the crowd, and this time McPhee was the target. The clay struck hint in the breast, and clung to his black cloth. Again there was a rush of indignant and amazed under-strappers, and the Commissioner, crimson with wrath, raised himself in his stirrups and shouted orders, the execution of which it was beyond even his great power to enforce. They enjoined the immediate precipitation of the offenders into the Bottomless Pit.

A diversion was created by the sudden appearance of a new quarry. A slim youth had darted from behind one of the piles of mullock, and was running at full speed up the lead towards the head of the gully, followed by three foot police.

'After him!' shouted McPhee.

A couple of troopers and two more foot police joined in the chase, but the youngster was a good runner and very cunning. He kept to the mined ground, where the troopers would certainly have broken their necks had they put their horses after him, and springing like a wallaby he cleared the holes, and darted in and out amongst the tips, to the utter confusion of the lubberly and ill-conditioned pursuers. Straight up the lead he ran, and now all the foot police were hunting him, while the troopers rode along the right and the left of the gully to keep him from breaking for the tents, or for Boulder Hill, where there were hiding places amongst the big rocks and in the wombat-holes under them.

'Run him down!' shouted McPhee, furious after the indignities that had been put upon his high office. 'Five pounds to the man who nabs him!'

The diggers shouted a grand chorus of encouragement to the lad, and added a cry of contempt for Mr. Commissioner and all his horde. A number of the men joined in the chase, to add to the confusion of the police. The rest, crowded on the higher ground, formed a large audience, and a more enthusiastic audience, or a more vociferous one for its size, had never witnessed a sporting event in wide Australia. The excitement grew with every successful trick of the runaway, and now he was leading his hunters in and out amongst the claims at the gully's head, apparently quite indifferent to the heat of the day or the stress of the chase. The miners were giving the youth all the assistance they could by devising hindrances for the police. Barrows, picks, shovels, buckets, and hide-bags found their way under the legs of the pursuers, windlass-ropes were stretched to trip them up, and preoccupied miners jostled them at every turn, and endeavoured to detain them in argument.

Presently the prisoners, in the charge of three troopers, finding attention diverted from them, seized the opportunity to make a bolt for the hunted digger's haven of refuge, Boulder Hill, and the confusion of tongues swelled to one rapturous howl at the sight. The unlicensed diggers spread, running their best, and dodging smartly to avoid the horses. One poor devil went down under the hoofs of a big roan, and there arose another roar of different portent.

The youngster was being hemmed in amongst a few claims on the extreme left. The troopers had stationed themselves beyond, and the police were closing in on him, while the crowd yelled encouragement and advice. With a rush and a reckless spring from a mullock-heap, the youth cleared his enemies again, and came racing up the gully once more, the baffled police and a number of miners following pell-mell, the troopers cantering on the wings of the hunt. If the boy could reach the crowd where it was thickest there was a chance for him, but he was running straight at Commissioner McPhee, who sat upon his horse watching the chase, and relieving his official feelings with a flow of elegant objurgation.

On came the young digger, the cheers swelling as he advanced. The men of Diamond Gully had never so thoroughly enjoyed anything in the nature of a chase. It seemed that the race was to be to the swift. The crowd parted to take the runner to its heart, when Sergeant Wallis threw himself from his horse, and the young digger simply sank panting into his arms. Wallis put on a grip that had reduced many a recalcitrant convict to order, and looked inquiringly at McPhee, who had ridden to the spot. The crowd closed round, overlooking the scene from mullock-heaps and windlass-stands.

'Produce your license, you rascal!' roared the Commissioner.

The youth was too short of breath to speak, and remained panting under Wallis's hand.

'He has no license, sergeant. Run him in!' said McPhee.

'Sure, Commissioner dear, what'd I be doin' wid a license whin I'm only a woman?' The captive plucked the billycock from her head, and a mass of black hair fell over her shoulders.

Done, who had pressed to the front, recognised Aurora. That section of the crowd which saw and understood sent up a shout of surprise and jubilation. Wallis retained his grip on the girl, and the sight of his hands upon her stirred a savage resentment in Jim. He made a rush at the sergeant, but Mike was beside him and held him.

'Don't be a fool, Jim. Don't give them a chance,' he said. 'She's right as rain. McPhee can do nothing to her; he'll lumber you if you only open your mouth!'

'What'll I do with him--her, sir?' asked Wallis.

'A pretty chase you've led us, you vixen!' blurted the Serang. 'For two pins I'd chain you to the nearest log, and give the flies a treat.'

'Would hairpins do, Mack dear?' panted Aurora, thrusting an impertinent, flushed, handsome face up at the Serang, and feeling amongst her tangled hair.

There had been an expectant hush upon the men for the last few moments. On this broke a great bovine roar of merriment from the opulent lungs of Mrs. Ben Kyley, who stood foremost in the ring surrounding McPhee, the sergeant, and the girl, her strong white hands, suspiciously pipeclayed, supporting her shaking sides. The familiar guffaw was infectious; the diggers caught it up, and, laughing like madmen, closed in on Wallis, snatched his prisoner from his hands, and, hoisting her shoulder high, bore her off in triumph.

Commissioner McPhee, surrounded by his minions, rode from Diamond Gully that afternoon with one prisoner--the man who had been run down, and the crowd that ushered him out bore Aurora Griffiths aloft, and sang a long chant of derision, which, keenly as he felt it, the Serang did not dare resent.

X

NATURALLY, Aurora's popularity was greatly increased, and the tent of Mrs. Ben Kyley became a favourite rendezvous. The girl's good looks and her good and Mrs. Kyley's own breezy, genial disposition, were sufficient to assure a large interest on the part of the men; but Aurora, in taking action against the troopers, had identified herself with the enemies of officialdom. Thenceforth she was a public character. There were not so many women about the rush but that scores of sober, reputable diggers would have travelled far and drunk much indifferent rum merely for the privilege of gazing upon the merry, handsome face of a girl like Aurora Griffiths. Now she was in some measure their championess there was more reason for offering devotion at her shrine, and Kyley's saw busy nights.

'Why did you do it?' asked Jim a few nights later, throwing into his words a hint of reproach. Done was unconsciously assuming some little air of proprietorship over Aurora. Whenever the girl noticed it smiles sparkled in the corners of her brown eyes.

'Pure devilment! What else?' she answered.

'Wasn't it a little--just a little--' He was at a loss to express himself, and Aurora's laugh chimed in.

'The dear boy's brought his sinse iv propriety wid him!' she cried. 'Maybe ye' have a few words to say on moral conduct an' the dacent observances iv polite society, an' ye'll be axin' me to put on a proper decorum before the min. Arrah! ye have some purty maxims for young ladies, an' a heap iv illegant an' rare ideals iv yer own as to what's good an' becomin' in young persons iv the other sex, haven't ye, dear?'

'No, no, no!' cried Done, shocked to find how easily he had slipped into the attitude of the common moralist.

'I stand on my merits and my lack of them, Jimmy. There's only one of me here!' She touched her breast. 'And good, bad, or indifferent, my friends must take me whole.'

'Whole, then.'

'Wait, boy, you don't know a fifth of it yet.'

'Do your worst, and test my devotion, Aurora. I defy you!' Jim was getting on.

'Devil doubt you. You're a bold man, Mister Jimmy Done, an' I like your cheek, for all it's as smooth as my own.' She touched his face caressingly with her fingers, and turned to serve clamouring customers at the other end of the counter.

'Good-night, mate,' said a quiet voice at Jim's elbow. Done turned quickly, and started back a step with some amazement on beholding the pale, impassive face of the stranger who had attacked Stony at their camp in the Black Forest. The man was smoking a cigar. He was dressed after the manner of a successful digger, with a touch of vanity. He regarded Jim earnestly, and the young man experienced again the peculiar feeling the first sight of this stranger had provoked.

'Good-night,' he said.

'I see you recollect me.'

'Oh yes. Did Stony quite escape you that night?'

'He did, thank's to you, Done.'

'A man couldn't see murder done under his very nose without stirring a hand.'

'Don't apologize. I have no grievance. If I had killed him I should have regretted it more than the death of my dearest friend, although no man from the time of Cain had better excuse for murder. I suppose you have not seen the man since?'

'No!' answered Jim with emphasis.

'Meaning that you would not tell me if you had. You need not fear being an accessory before the act. I want Stony alive, Mr. Done.'

'Mister Done!' Jim laughed. 'I did not think there was a Mister on the camp. But how do you know my name?'

'I have heard it here to-night half a dozen times. My name is Wat Ryder--Walter Ryder, but mono syllabic Christian names are insisted on amongst our friends.' He pointed his cigar towards the diggers at the tables. 'Forgive me,' he continued in an even voice, 'but your scrutiny of me is suggestive. May I ask what there is in my appearance or my manner that disturbs you?'

The question was put without feeling of any kind, but it startled Jim a little. He was surprised to find that he had betrayed any trace of his emotion.

'Well,' he said, 'my experience of you has not been commonplace.'

'You mean that affair in the Bush?--a casual fight, with the usual loud language merely, for all you know.' Ryder maintained silence for a few moments. He was studying his cigar when he spoke again. 'By the way,' he said abruptly, 'I know a good deal about you, Done, if you came out in the Francis Cadman. He expected this announcement to have some effect.

'I saw you one day in Melbourne,' Jim replied. 'You were driving with Mrs. Macdougal.'

'Mrs. Donald Macdougal of Boobyalla,' said Ryder gravely.

'She was a shipmate of mine.'

Yes; and you saw my face for a moment in Melbourne and remembered it. You observe narrowly and quickly, Mr. Done. It was not Mrs. Macdougal who was most communicative on the interesting subject I have broached, however, but a very charming young friend of hers, Miss Woodrow. The young lady's concern was excusable in view of certain services, but nevertheless flattering. She asked me to constitute myself a sort of foster-Providence over you if we ever met, Mr. Done.'

Jim laughed to smother a pang.

'Do I need it, Mr. Ryder?' he asked. He fancied there was a flutter of the other's eye towards Aurora, but Ryder did not reply to the question. 'Miss Woodrow told me of the rescue,' he said, 'of your solitary disposition, and spoke of a life of suffering in England.'

Done's lips tightened; he squared his shoulders. The fear that had possessed him on leaving his birthplace was no longer upon him, but he desired no revelations, no digging into the past, and there was a hint of motive in the other's tone--he was inviting confidence. For a few moments Ryder bent a keen glance upon the younger man, his face bowed and in shadow, toying with his cigar.

'Jo!' yelled a voice out in the darkness.

Instantly every pannikin was emptied on the floor, and thrust into a digger's shirt.

'The traps!' cried Mrs. Ben, and her rum-jug flew into a tub of water behind the counter. Several bundles of washing were tossed out, a loaf of bread was thrust upon Done, and at the same moment the door was thrown back, and in marched Sergeant Wallis, followed by five police. Mrs. Ben Kyley was not surprised, and had expected that Aurora's imposition would bring a raid down upon her sooner or later, and here it was.

'You're selling sly grog here, ma'am,' said Wallis, sniffing like a retriever.

Ben Kyley rose silently from his stool and approached Wallis.

'Sit you down, Ben Kyley!' roared Mrs. Ben; and Kyley returned as silently to his seat, and sat smoking throughout the scene that followed, apparently quite listless.

'Am I selling sly grog, Mr. Sergeant? Then it's a miracle where it comes from. I haven't a drop in the place, or I'd stand you a nobbler gladly. It's my opinion there are worse-looking men than Sergeant Wallis in gaol.'

'Rubbish, ma'am! the place reeks of rum,' said Wallis.

'A bit of a bottle Quigley shouted for the boys, this being his birthday.'

'Quigley has too many birthdays. Search the place, boys!'

The police commenced a systematic search of the tent, examining both compartments, and trying the earthen floor for a secret cellar. They found nothing, and meanwhile Mrs. Kyley was bantering Wallis with boisterous good-fellowship.

'The idea of an officer of your penetration, sergeant, mistaking a poor washerwoman's tent for a grog-shop.'

The poor washerwoman does a big business, Mrs. Kyley.'

'Not amongst the police, Sergeant Wallis. It is a miserable living a washerwoman would make out of them. I hear they beat their shirts with a stick once a month, as we dusted the carpets in the old Country.'

'We can find nothing, sergeant,' said one of the police.

'Remember how Imeson tricked you all at Bendigo, Wallis, with a hollow tent-pole that held ten gallons of brandy.'

'I do, Mrs. Kyley. You were Mrs. Imeson then.'

'And if you have the luck I may be Mrs. Wallis one of these days.'

'Heaven forbid, ma'am!'

'Don't waste your prayers on me, sergeant. Maybe I deserve even that, my sins being many and various.'

'And sly grog-selling is one of them. But I'll have you there yet, my good woman.' Wallis turned his thumb down.

'Remember I am only a poor weak woman when that happens, sergeant. Will you have a drink before going? There's a nip left in Quigley's bottle.'

'No, ma'am, I don't drink,' answered Wallis from the door.

'Then, sergeant, commit your nose for perjury. It's bearing false witness against you all over the field.'

There was a yell of laughter, interspersed with the usual cries of 'Jo!' as Wallis passed out after his men, and the diggers bombarded Mrs. Kyley with the bundles of washing that had been hastily distributed amongst them. Ben Kyley followed the police out, and presently returned and nodded to Mary, who seized her jug and dived through the canvas partition. She was back again in a minute with a jug full of spirits.

'My shout, lads!' she cried. 'Roll up, and drink the health and long life of Mary Kyley!'

The device that enabled the washerwoman to deceive the police was known to a few of the diggers, but they kept the secret well. Her tent was pitched close to a big hollow gum-tree. High up in the butt nestled a barrel of rum, the bottom coated with cinders, like the interior of the burnt tree. From this barrel a pipe came down under the bark to a neatly disguised little trap-door where the canvas lay against the butt. A hidden slit in the tent corresponded with the trap-door. It was Ben's office to replenish the barrel at night, with kegs brought from their safe hiding-place in an abandoned claim, over which was pitched the tent of his mate, Sandy Harris. Mary had adopted this plan on three rushes, and her savings, regularly banked in Melbourne, already assumed the proportions of a modest fortune.

When the police were gone Jim looked about him in search of Ryder, but his acquaintance had disappeared. As his friendship with Aurora Griffiths ripened, Done shook off thoughts of Lucy Woodrow, since they never came without an underlying sense of accusation. He was enjoying his present life to the full. In his heart was a great kindness towards the people with whom he mingled. He was naturally sociable, a lover of his kind, and recognised now that half the torment of his life since coming to manhood had arisen from his isolation, from the lack of opportunities of gratifying this affection. He admired Aurora, comparing her with his youthful ideal, the strong animal, self-reliant, careless of custom. True, she lacked the intellectual superiority with which he had endowed his defiant Dulcinea, but he had even forgotten to take delight in his own mental excellence of late, so that did matter. He only concerned himself with living now. He was quite at his ease in Aurora's society, and the atmosphere on the Kyley establishment pleased him. The place was full of interest, but his warmest interest was in the full-blooded pagan who officiated as Hebe to the assembled diggers.

He had quite respectable qualms at times, seeing her the object of so much rough gallantry--qualms he stifled instantly as being in flat rebellion to his fine philosophy of individualism as applied to behaviour. His rights of man must be rights of women too. But, for all that, there was much comfort in the belief that Aurora showed no preference elsewhere. Quigley's prominence as a suitor was not due to any partiality on the part of the girl, but rather to Quigley's own aggressive character, and his imperturbability under her eloquent banter. To be sure, she persisted in treating Jim as an interesting boy, a line of conduct he found somewhat absurd, but which was partly the vein of her humour, and partly due to his inexperience in the role of Don Juan.

So the merry months passed, and the mates worked claim after claim on Diamond Gully, doing much prospecting work and sinking sundry duffers, but unearthing sufficient gold to make Done's riches a good deal of a nuisance to him, although translated into the biggest bank-notes available. During all this time Quigley's dislike for Jim was only kept within bounds by the vein of flippancy that ran through Aurora's demonstrations of preference for the younger man. The quarrel was inevitable, however, and it was precipitated by a half-drunken demonstration of affection towards Aurora on Quigley's part, which the girl resented with a savageness that betrayed an unexpected trait.