In the Roaring Fifties by Edward Dyson (best books to read for teens TXT) 📕

'We're weak mortals, an' every one iv us is born again wid the new sun. I'd not have ye bind the strange man ye may be to-morrow wid oaths, an' I won't bind the unknown colleen I may be for the likes iv ye.'

'But to-day?'

'To-day? To-day I love you with a big, big heart!' she said, with deep feeling. 'Kiss me!'

'Knock off!' cried Burton, whose head appeared suddenly at the mouth of the shaft. 'I reckoned you'd had time to get through with that.'

'Och! we've been a long time gittin' through wid it, an' we're not through yet,' said Aurora, shaking Mike warmly by the hand. 'You may have one for yourself--there.' She placed her finger on a dimple, and Mike kissed her gallantly enough. 'Ah!' she sighed, 'you love another. The kiss betrays you.'

Something that might have been a blush, had the deep tan of his skin permitted such a thing, warmed Burton's cheek.

'And where's Mrs. Ben?' he asked.

'Somewhere about the field.'

'They are with you?' said Jim.

'To be sure; and the whole business--bakery, laundry, and light refreshments--has followed at my skirt with proper humility.'

'They pitch tents here?'

'Ben and Mary are now seeking a good business site.'

'Adjacent to a hollow tree?'

'The same bein' a convanyint haunt fer Mary Kyley's familiar evil shpirits.'

Done laughed, giving Aurora a one-armed, parenthetical hug. 'They wouldn't part with you, then?'

'They would not, nor I with them. Dan's been as good as a mother to me. But how is the luck, boys?'

'Great,' answered Mike. 'We dropped on a patch here.'

'Come and see us cradle the last tubful, and I'll give you the prettiest bit in the hopper,' said Jim.

'Not a colour! The heart nugget you gave me long ago has worn tender places all over me.' She tugged at the thin ribbon about her neck. 'I'll carry no more.'

Done did not press the point, although he knew that she took gifts of quaintly-shaped nuggets from the other men with the indifference of a queen accepting tribute.

Mrs. Ben Kyley greeted the mates with noisy joviality when they met, and Ben took his pipe from his mouth, and said he was 'right down blarsted glad,' which amounted to quite a demonstration, coming from him. Within two days the tents were up, and Mrs. Kyley's business was resumed, and was carried on as at Diamond Gully, and with much the same success. But here for some time Ben's services as 'chucker-out' were more in requisition, spirits being more unruly on Jim Crow. One night he even had to fight a five-round battle with a riotous young Cousin Jack, in which engagement Done seconded him by special request. Ben triumphed, but came out of the contest with a black eye and an inflamed nose of a preposterous size, at which Mary was virtuously indignant.

'You, a professional, fighting for diversion like any fool of a gentleman!' she said scornfully.

'Man mus' keep his hand in,' replied Ben.

'If you can't attend to your duties without making such a mess of yourself, you'd better have a month's notice. What was the good of me taking on a pugilist if I'm to have fighting about the place continually?'

'Come, come, Mrs. Ben,' said Jim; 'if you treat him like this when he wins, what would you do if he lost?'

'Divorce him and take up with the Cornishman!' replied the raffish washerwoman, exploding into Gargantuan laughter.

Done had often thought of Ryder since the night of the troopers' raid on Mrs. Kyley's grog-store, but had seen nothing of him in the meantime. Mike recalled him to his mind again as they were lying out in the moonlight on a Sunday night about two weeks later.

'Remember the chap that tried to throttle Stony that night in the Black Forest?' he said. 'Saw him on the lead to-day.'

'You did? Ryder was hunting Stony on Diamond Gully.'

'He's gettin' pretty warm, then. Stony's here too. That's his tent above the bend to the left. He's a hatter, an' works a lone hand in the shallow ground.'

'Then trouble's brewing for Mr. Stony.'

'You seemed to feel for him. Better drop him the word, hadn't you?'

'No. My sympathies are with the other man, and as he means something short of manslaughter, Stony can take his chances.'

It was not long after this that Jim encountered Stony in Mary Kyley's tent. He was drinking alone, and drinking with the feverish haste of a man who deliberately seeks intoxication. He was more tremulous than when Done first met him, and his face had the colour, and looked as if it might have the consistency, of putty. The man was an instinctive hater: he lived alone, worked alone, and desired no companionship. Previous to the gold discoveries he had served for years in the capacity of shepherd on one of the big Australian sheep-runs, and had lived cut off from communion with his kind in the great lone land, absorbing into his blood the spirit of solitude that broods in the Bush and in time robs man of his gregarious impulses.

Jim had been in the shanty about an hour, and was standing with his back to the counter; Stony was sitting in the corner, his hands clasped between his knees, his eyes fixed upon the floor, unconscious of his surroundings, when the flap of the tent was lifted, and Ryder stepped in, running a keen, searching eye over the company. Jim saw him start as his gaze encountered Stony. He paused for a moment, and then slipped back into darkness, dropping the tent-door after him. Done understood his intention. 'He will wait,' he said to himself, and determined to watch events. Ryder had awakened in him an extraordinary interest.

Stony sat in a state of abstraction for close upon half an hour, and when he arose and left the place Jim followed him. The night was dark, and Stony had disappeared, but the young man walked quietly in the direction of the hatter's camp. He could see nothing of either man, and had decided that he was mistaken regarding Ryder's intention, when a low but blood-chilling sound--the noise made by a man fighting against strangulation--broke upon his ear. He had been seeking for this, but the shock unnerved him for a moment.


XIII

PEERING through the darkness, Done discovered the shadowy figures of two men. The figures were rigid upon the ground. There was no further sound. The young man approached closely and stood by Ryder, dropping his hand upon his shoulder. There was just light enough for him to see a revolver snatched from the belt, or a movement of such suggestiveness, but he fastened on that right arm with a grip to which it succumbed instantly.

'It is I, Jim Done!' he said.

'Save me! Save me!' cried Stony in accents of supreme terror.

'Why do you interfere?' asked Ryder with a ring of anger. 'What interest can you have in this hound?'

'None,' replied Jim. 'I followed from the shanty, guessing something would happen. I'm shamefully curious.'

'You are a fool! It might have cost you your life.'

'You certainly do not show any particular respect for human life.' Jim released the other's arm.

'For Christ's sake don't leave me!' moaned Stony. 'He means murder!'

'I have told you I value this man's life. I tell you again I have no intention of killing him, but I hate him so that the ravenous desire to crush the soul out of him is hard to resist. There is a story he must tell me; when that is told he may go. If he refuses to tell there is no power on God's earth to keep me from my vengeance. But he shall tell--the craven shall tell! There'll be no further mischief done, I promise you. Leave us.'

'For the love of Heaven!' pleaded Stony. 'He'll kill! He'll kill!'

'I have your word,' said Jim.

'My word of honour,' answered Ryder.

'If it's broken, I swear to help you to your hanging.'

'I tell you, I want this man alive.'

'Good-night!'

'Help!' screamed Stony; but the other's hand was at his throat again.

'Listen, you foul cur!' Ryder said. 'I mean to spare you, but you must tell--tell all!'

Jim Done turned and walked away, leaving the enemies alone. Next morning he saw Stony moving about his tent, and experienced a feeling of relief. He had been unable to divest himself of a sense of responsibility for the safety of the miserable hatter.

By this time quite a strong friendship had grown up between the three Peetrees and Done and Burton. Joshua Peetree, whom the twins called Josh, with a friendly absence of formalities, was found in his sober moments to share the moral qualities of his sons, and had the same quiet, deliberative manner of speech, as if every sentence, even those of the most insignificant character, were subjected to two or three successive processes of investigation internally before delivery. Indeed, the men spoke so little en famille that they might have lost ordinary power of easy articulation. Speech was hardly necessary between the three; they understood each other by something very like telepathic divination. At least, so it appeared to Done, who was puzzled again and again to see the ideas of one brother anticipated by the other, and his wishes met without any communication, audible or visible, to the third person. Men who have lived together in the Bush for the better part of their lives, cut off from other society and outside interest, often develop this quaint instinct of mutual apprehension. The Peetrees were not unsociable, but with them conversation was not essential to human intercourse. They were content to sit on a log, or spread themselves on the dry grass in company with friendly diggers, smoking composedly through a whole evening, without contributing more than an approving 'My word!' or 'My colonial!' to the night's debate. Mike was in full sympathy with their neighbours. Like him, they were deeply imbued with the spirit of revolt stirring in the land, and they were as eager to participate in the struggle that was to overthrow the rule of the nominees of Downing Street and strangle the hydra of official tyranny; but Done, although his sentiments were just as strongly on the side of the miners, was too profoundly concerned with the actions and interests of the moment to content himself with the society of the Peetrees and the discussion of possibilities. He liked them; they were amusing elements in the varied life around him, but he wanted to see and to hear. His blood ran too hotly for camp-fire argument. When the time for fighting came, well and good: none would be more eager than he; but meanwhile love and laughter, play and strife, invited a man, and Jim responded with the impetuosity of an impish boy just escaped from parental control.

The mates continued to do well at Jim Crow, and Jim Done found himself growing tolerably rich without any marked gratification. He could not see what more gold could confer upon him. He was now a nightly visitor at Mrs. Ben Kyley's tent, but gambled with rather more spirit of late, and, finding himself a much less easy victim to Mary's rum, drank more than formerly. A certain stage of intoxication--an intoxication of the blood rather than the senses--threw a roseate glamour over the gaieties of the shanty, and robbed him of that remaining reticence of manner and speech that would have