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

his wife when I was a boy, and never been heard of since. I never thought I should hear anything about him again.”

The end of it all was that Starlight told us that he had learnt out of the letters and papers that Mr. Wharton and his wife, she being a clever, high-taught woman, had been very fond of the same kind of science work and all that as he was. More than that, she thought nothing a hardship, as other women would, as long as they were both together carrying out their learned ways and gathering in what they expected to make them both famous and run after when they got back to the old country.

Don’t you make any mistake, not for that, not for the blessed honour and glory rot, but to show that he was right⁠—right in marrying her to be a comfort and help to him⁠—right in going after learning and discovering things in a new country that was a hundred times better than trying to make money for himself⁠—right in everything he did⁠—and at long last proved to be one of the tiptop men of his day.

That was what she wanted⁠—for him, not no ways for herself. That was what they were both trying for with might and main when she was stung by the infernal black snake and died. What a murder it seems when you think of the number of useless wretches that tread over snakes every week of the summer, and no harm comes to them, nor wouldn’t if they was to eat out of the same dish with ’em. It’e one of the things I can’t make out, and never shall, I expect.

We were all a bit thrown back not to find more gold in the big box. More of that, and fewer specimens, stones, and plants in the collection, as he called it, we should have fancied. But after all, we were not to order how such a man as this should spend his life. He had done what God and his dead wife called on him to do, and had close up finished his work when his end came.

Here’s another bit of his journal: “I have now dried, numbered, and scientifically named the most important collection of plants ever made in this wonderful South Land. Besides this, I believe the gold specimens and metallic ores to be unique. Had I but been spared another year I should have accompanied them to Europe, and completed the life task which I promised my sainted darling Estelle almost in her death’s agony to perform. But I feel my end approaching. It is hard to die, amid these rude solitudes, peaceful as they are: but I bow to the fiat of the Great Creator. I have been averse to committing these priceless scientific treasures to the rude and careless hands of the present occupants of this retreat. I have, therefore, buried them at a spot indicated by the letters of my name and the years of my hapless life. Trusting that some day the clue may be followed by persons of intelligence, and their disposal according to my last solemn wishes may be carefully carried out.”

The direction given to a well-known scientific swell⁠—(Starlight said he was)⁠—in England was plain enough. The gold, the plants, and the specimens were to be sent there. The other letters and things were to go to his old family home, so they’d know at last what became of Dominick Wharton and his wife.

“Well,” says Starlight, after smoking for ever so long; “I think we’re bound to carry out this dead man’s wishes. The gold there isn’t worth bothering with. I wouldn’t have a dead man’s curse with double as much. We’re not likely to go short of a few hundreds the way things look now. As for the plants and specimens, no one wants to collar them. What do ye say, boys? Let’s put it to the vote. Shall we pack up the whole lot and send it straight off by the first ship to his own people, the way he said? We’ll put it to the vote.”

Father didn’t hold up his hand for a bit; but even he did, last of all. So it was carried. I think we slept better after it.

So after her death it seems that he gave himself up altogether to roaming about the bush and following on with the same sort of things as they had worked together at while she was alive. He still kept on collecting plants and specimens and so on. At times he seemed to be only half in his senses, so he said himself; but the only relief he got was in travelling about through the wildest parts of the bush, and whenever he found a fresh plant or discovered another mineral he could fancy her looking down upon him and smiling with pleasure as she used to do when she was alive.

In particular, they had both agreed, it seems, about this gold-racket, and there being for certain a lot of it to be found in Australia just as there was in America, and Russia, and other countries as he’d travelled in. So he wanted to be able to prove this, for her sake and his before he died.

It was hunting after this gold that made him drop down upon the Hollow one day. He was wandering along, it appears, somewhere about the tableland of Nulla Mountain when he saw a man with a gun, not a great way off, fire at a kangaroo. When he shot it, he took off the hind quarters and went away. Wharton kept him in sight; he wanted to ask him about the way the creeks ran. He never minded who he spoke to as long as they could tell him something, when all of a sudden the man dropped over the side of the mountain and disappeared. Mr. Wharton (so he wrote it down), rubbed his eyes and looked and began to