The Tale of Timber Town

The Supreme Court sat in the large hall of the wooden building, ornate with all the decorations of the Elizabethan style, which has been referred to in these pages as the Red Ta...

"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 tempte...

Scarlett had a day upon his hands while his gold-seeking _confreres_ of the League made their preparations for the journey to Bush Robin Creek. To loiter about the town meant th...

Timber Town was in a state of commotion. The news of the discovery of the new gold-field had spread far and wide, and every steamer which came into the port was crowded with cla...

Below her were gravelled walks and terraced flower-beds, cut out of the hill-side on which the quaint, gabled house stood; her fragrant, small domain carefully secreted behind a...

He was naturally a sociable man, and loved the company of his fellows, but here he was living a hermit's existence, shut up in the bowels of the earth, with no better associates...

The clematis which shaded the verandah was a rich mass of purple flowers, where bees sucked their store of honey; the rose bushes, in the glory of their second blooming, scented...

The goldsmith sat at his bench; his spectacles on his nose, his apron round the place where his waist should have been, and in his hands the implements of his craft. Nobody had...

It may have been that the Prospector's brief appearance in Court had roused the public spirit latent in his hirsute breast, or it may have been that his taciturnity had been cas...

The goldsmith was happy. His glass was before him, between his teeth was the stem of his pipe, and in consequence his face beamed with contentment, pleasure, good humour, and in...

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-c...

Mr. Crewe sat in the Timber Town Club with his satellite, Cathro, beside him. The old gentleman was smoking a well-seasoned briar pipe, from which he puffed clouds of smoke cont...

Tresco and the Prospector were eating their "tucker" beneath the boughs of a spreading black-birch. In front of them burned brightly a fire of dead branches, suspended above whi...

As he sneezed and coughed, and watered at the eyes, he muttered, "This is the time of all others that I feel the lack of Betsy Jane or a loving wife."

"It's a bad business, a terrible bad business," said Captain Summerhayes, "to be charged with robbery and cold-blooded murder. I was in the Court. I heard the Resident Magistrat...

Scarlett was bound for the gold-fields. He bestrode a tall chestnut mare, with white "socks." In the cool of the morning, with the dew sparkling on the hedges and the birds twit...

Down a by-lane in the outskirts of Timber Town stood a dilapidated wooden cottage. Its windows lacked many panes, its walls were bare of paint, the shingles of its roof were rot...

The man standing at the horse's head ran round to the back of his "express"--a vehicle not unlike a square tray on four wheels--and, letting down the tail-board, pulled out a nu...

Jake Ruggles leant over the goldsmith's bench, put the end of his blow-pipe into the gas-flame, and impinged a little oxygenized jet upon the silver buckle he was soldering. He...

The harbour of Timber Town was formed by a low-lying island shaped like a long lizard, which stretched itself across an indentation in the coast-line, and the tail of which join...

A case of bottling-plums, the bloom still on their purple cheeks, stood on the kitchen table. Beside it stood Rose, her arms bare to the elbows, and a snowy apron flowing from b...

As Pilot Summerhayes turned up the street, after having deposited his money, he might well have passed the goldsmith, hurrying towards the warehouse of Crookenden and Co. to rec...

In his hand he held a letter, at which he glanced furtively, as if he feared to be caught in the act of reading, although the only eyes that possibly could have detected him wer...

Rose was looking at her dainty shoe, the point of which protruded from beneath her skirt; while Scarlett's eyes were fixed on the magnificent panorama of mountains which stretch...

The Maori is a brown man. His hair is straight, coarse, black, and bright as jet. His eyes are brown, his teeth are pearly white; and, when he smiles, those brown eyes sparkle a...

"I jest walked in," said Dolphin, "an' I says, 'About thisyer gold-escort: when does it start?' I says. The shrivelled party with the whiskers looks at me acrost the counter, an...

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...

The Timber Town Club was filled with ineffable calm. The hum of convivial voices was hushed, the clicking billiard-balls were still, no merry groups of congenial spirits chatted...

The Pilot's crew, standing at the top of the slip, grinned broadly, and fired at the fishermen a volley of chaff which diverted the Italian's attention from his mate in the boat.

Moonlight and Scarlett were glad with the delight of success, for inside their tent, which was pitched beside Bush Robin Creek, lay almost as much gold as one of them could conv...

Tresco stood in the yellow light of the paraffin lamp, and gazed in wonderment at Gentle Annie. He was a tattered and mournful object; his boots worn out, his trousers a marvel...

The Bush Robin had a pale yellow breast, and his dominion extended from the waterfall, at the bottom of which lay a deep, dark, green pool, to the place where the _rimu_ tree ha...

Throughout the canvas town which had sprung up on the diggings, the news that the "toffs" were to divide their profits had created the widest interest, and in every calico shant...

It was the time of the autumn blooms. With a pair of garden scissors she cut the choicest flowers, and placed them upon the snowy napkin which covered the contents of her basket...

The crowd which had gathered in front of the verandah of the Post Office of Timber Town was made up, as is not uncommon with crowds, of all sorts and conditions of men. There we...

"My dear, it's never wise to tell a woman all you know or all you've got. But I don't mind telling you this much: I had luck, or I wouldn't be able to satisfy _your_ little whims."

The windows of the Kangaroo Bank were ablaze with light, although the town clock had struck eleven. It was the dolorous hour when the landlord of The Lucky Digger, obliged by re...

Rachel Varnhagen walked down the main street of Timber Town, with the same bustling gait, the same radiant face, the same air of possessing the whole earth, as when the reader f...

"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 lo...