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

over had died, but it was mine, not his, and I was glad of it. It set him up rather; he was fond of his old horse, and it pleased him to see how well he was looking. I didn’t care much. I knew I could get as good a one out of the mob in the Hollow, though of course there’s something in being used to a horse, and him being used to you.

As for arms we all had revolvers, and mighty good ones, too. We had plenty of cartridges, and we used to amuse ourselves and have a little practice besides every evening to see if we’d kept up our shooting. Starlight was wonderful good. He could knock the middle pip out of the five of hearts at 20 yards, and do a lot of other fancy shooting. Jim came next, and then me and Warrigal. Father could beat us all with the shotgun, and at shooting flying. He seldom bothered himself with carrying a revolver. I made up my mind to take the little Ballard repeating rifle that old Arizona Bill gave me. It was not much heavier than a navy revolver, and I’d seen how straight she could carry. Starlight always had a Derringer in his waistcoat-pocket, besides his regular navy Colt. I never liked them. I was always in a funk they’d go off by mistake and shoot whoever carried ’em.

We were desperate fidgety and anxious till the day came. While we were getting ready two or three things went wrong, of course. Jim got a letter from Jeanie, all the way from Melbourne, where she’d gone. It seems she’d got her money from the bank⁠—Jim’s share of the gold⁠—all right. She was a saving, careful little woman, and she told him she’d enough to keep them both well for four or five years, anyhow. What she wanted him to do was to promise that he’d never be mixed up in any more dishonest work, and to come away down to her at once.

“It was the easiest thing in the world,” she said, “to get away from Melbourne to England or America. Ships were going every day, and glad to take any man that was strong and willing to work his passage for nothing; they’d pay him besides.”

She’d met one or two friends down there as would do anything to help her and him. If he would only get down to Melbourne all would yet be well; but she begged and prayed him, if he loved her, and for the sake of the life she hoped to live with him yet, to come away from his companions and take his own Jeanie’s advice, and try and do nothing wrong for the future.

If Jim had got his letter before we made up matters, just at the last he’d have chucked up the sponge and cleared out for good and all. He as good as said so; but he was one of them kind of men that once he’d made a start never turned back. There’d been some chaff, to make things worse, between Moran and Daly and some of the other fellows about being game and whatnot, specially after what father said at the hut, so he wouldn’t draw out of it now.

I could see it fretted him worse than anything since we came back, but he filled himself up with the idea that we’d be sure to get the gold all right, and clear out different ways to the coast, and then we’d have something worth while leaving off with. Another thing, we’d been all used to having what money we wanted lately, and we none of us fancied living like poor men again in America or anywhere else. We hadn’t had hardly a scrap from Aileen since we’d come back this last time. It wasn’t much odds. She was regular brokenhearted; you could see it in every line.

“She had been foolish enough to hope for better things,” she said; “now she expected nothing more in this world, and was contented to wear out her miserable life the best way she could. If it wasn’t that her religion told her it was wrong, and that mother depended on her, she’d drown herself in the creek before the door. She couldn’t think why some people were brought into this miserable world at all. Our family had been marked out to evil, and the same fate would follow us to the end. She was sorry for Jim, and believed if he had been let take his own road that he would have been happy and prosperous today. It was a pity he could not have got away safely to Melbourne with his wife before that wicked woman, who deserved to be burnt alive, ruined everything. Even now we might all escape, the country seemed in so much confusion with all the strangers and bad people” (bad people⁠—well, everyone thinks their own crow the blackest) “that the goldfields had brought into it, that it wouldn’t be hard to get away in a ship somehow. If nothing else bad turned up perhaps it might come to pass yet.”

This was the only writing we’d had from poor Aileen. It began all misery and bitterness, but got a little better at the end. If she and Gracey could have got hold of Kate Morrison there wouldn’t have been much left of her in a quarter of an hour, I could see that.

Inside was a little bit of paper with one line, “For my sake,” that was all. I knew the writing; there was no more. I could see what Gracey meant, and wished over and over again that I had the chance of going straight, as I’d wished a thousand times before, but it was too late, too late! When the coach is running down hill and the brake’s off, it’s no use trying to turn. We had all our plan laid out and settled to the smallest thing. We were