Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Boldrewood (epub read online books TXT) 📕

letters of his own name. Why should he do that? The men in the valley, then, knew his name, or what he told them it was. What was the sense of always hammering away at the same thing?

Suppose it meant something else? What else did D stand for? Dirt, draw, done, din, dip, dig. Dig! Yes, there was a meaning with some sense in. Of course he knew that if anyone dug in the hut the hearthstone would be the first one they’d root up. What then? We had dug and hadn’t found much.

Then what did the other letters mean? D again. Then W⁠⸺ W⁠⸺ which, what, wool, water, work, well, west. West! how would that work out?

Dig D west. That could be understood, partly, D west, D west? Why not due west? I jumped up and threw up my hat, with a kind of schoolboy pleasure in finding out a riddle. Then came the number⁠—68 y⁠⸺⁠e⁠—. That looked like the age of the dead man; he was always called as old when he died, father said; but I’d seen men no older than that that looked a hundred. Grief, hard living, and a rough life, will put ten years on any man’s life quick enough, you take my word for it.

“Well if it wasn’t years, what was it?”

“Dig due west⁠—68 years.” 68, 68, 68 yards. There it was clear as A.B.C., now it was found out.

Then dig due west 68 yards. Where was the distance to be measured from, and how was I to find due west? As I’d found out the meaning of the letters, perhaps I’d find that also. And what was there to bury?

I stepped sixty-eight yards, as near as I could measure, from the place where the iron box was, and made out due west from the sun, that was now getting low. This measurement led me pretty nigh to an old wild figtree which must have been transplanted out of one of the brushes nigh the mountain. It had grown into a big spreading tree, and there was the remains of an old wooden seat under it, where I daresay the old man used to sit and think and look at the shadows creeping over the mountain walls, at the end of the day. The ground had been well trod down all round, but of course had grown over since.

Well, I went poking all round this, under the branches of the tree, which spread out a great way, but I hadn’t made up my mind till just as the sun was going down; one of these last bits of sunshine struck right across and made a line from the chimney to the fig tree trunk and straight out for a few yards. I marked the line carefully along, and had only time to do it when the sun went down, the valley began to turn dark and grow full of shadows. It was too late to tackle it that night. I heard Jim come whistling in, and knew by that he had shot something, so I went to meet him and put off digging till next morning.

XXV

Jim, by all accounts, had a great afternoon’s shooting, and was as pleased and contented as if there was nothing ahead that we need trouble about in the world. A little pleasure went a long way with poor old Jim. He was like mother in that way, when I recollect her before she found out all about father’s cross work, and what might come of it.

In the regular old days of all she was always as happy as could be, working and singing away all day long, and thinking about nothing but her housework and her children, and hardly ever sitting down from morning to night. Even when father was away it seems she was that simple she never dropped down to his being at any kind of dishonest work that would bring him within the law. She knew he’d done it once in his life and suffered for it; but she believed all that was over and paid for. She never dreamt he’d taken to it again, worse than ever: and meant to stick to it to the end of his days.

I wasn’t very big when I knew she’d found it all out, and I was sharp enough to see then what a deal of difference it made in her ways. She’d often break off in the middle of her singing, and stop still and study and think till the tears would roll down her cheeks. Then she’d pick up Aileen, that was a little thing in those days, and kiss her and make much of her, as if she couldn’t leave off. Then she’d sit down and tell over her beads, and we’d hear her saying words we didn’t understand. I don’t hold with the Catholics myself, and I’m not likely to now; but if every man and woman followed up their religion like mother and Aileen did we shouldn’t want many police in this country, and they might let gaols out for lodging-houses.

If mother had any sins to answer for, and I never saw nor heard tell of any, she paid for them in sorrow and fear, and misery ten times over. If any people in the world could take the sin of others on their own souls, mother and Aileen did on theirs, and it ought to be put to their account when all these sort of things are settled up in another world, and everyone gets their cheque.

It seems Jim had shot two brace of black duck, a lowan, a wallaby (he brought home the tail), and half-a-dozen wonga-wonga pigeons. So he was pretty well loaded. We broiled a couple of pigeons for supper and picked a pair of ducks to last us tomorrow. The rest we could bring home. Starlight was awful fond of black duck and always had them cooked with every care. “You