Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Boldrewood (epub read online books TXT) 📕
Description
Robbery Under Arms, subtitled A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia, was published in serial form in the Sydney Mail newspaper between July 1882 and August 1883. It was published under the name of Rolf Boldrewood, a pseudonym for Thomas Alexander Browne, a police magistrate and gold commissioner.
Robbery Under Arms is an entertaining adventure story told from the first person point of view of Richard “Dick” Marston. The story is in the form of a journal written from jail where he’s waiting to be hanged for his crimes. Marston and his brother Jim are led astray as young men by their father, who made money by cattle “duffing,” or stealing. They are introduced to their father’s associate, known only as Captain Starlight, a clever and charming fraudster. After a spell in jail, from which he escapes, Marston, his brother, and father are persuaded by Starlight to operate as bank robbers and bushrangers. They embark on a life continually on the run from the police. Despite this, Dick and Jim also manage to spend a considerable time prospecting for gold, and the gold rush and the fictitious gold town of Turon are described in detail.
The character of Captain Starlight is based largely on the real-life exploits of bushrangers Harry Redford and Thomas Smith, the latter known as “Captain Midnight.”
Regarded as a classic of Australian literature, Robbery Under Arms has never been out of print, and has been the basis of several adaptations in the form of films and television serials.
This Standard Ebooks edition is unabridged, and restores some 30,000 words from the original serialization which were cut out of the 1889 one-volume edition of the novel.
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- Author: Rolf Boldrewood
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After dinner, and when the champagne had gone round pretty reasonable, the Commissioner proposed they should all adjourn to the ball, when, if Mr. Lascelles cared about dancing, he ventured to think a partner or two could be found for him. So they all got up and went away down to the hall of the Mechanics’ Institute—a tremendous big room that had been built to use as a theatre, and to give lectures and concerts in. These sort of things are very popular at diggings. Miners like to be amused, and have plenty of money to spend when times are good. There was hardly a week passed without some kind of show being on when we went there.
I walked down quietly an hour or so before most of the people, so as to be in the way to see if Aileen came. We’d asked her to come on the chance of meeting us there, but we hadn’t got any word, and didn’t know whether she could manage it nor whether George would bring her. I had a sort of half-and-half notion that perhaps Gracey might come, but I didn’t like to think of it for fear of being disappointed, and tried to make believe I didn’t expect her.
I gave in my ticket and walked in about eight o’clock, and sat down pretty close to the door so that I could see the people as they came in. I didn’t feel much up to dancing myself, but I’d have ridden a thousand miles to have had the chance of seeing those two girls that night.
I waited and waited while one after another came in, till the big hall was pretty near filled, and at nine o’clock or so the music struck up, and the first dance began. That left the seats pretty bare, and between listening to the music and looking at the people, and thinking I was back again at the old claim and passing half-an-hour at a dance-house, I didn’t mind the door so much till I heard somebody give a sort of sigh not very far off, and I looked towards the door and saw two women sitting between me and it.
They were Aileen and Gracey sure enough. My head almost turned round, and I felt my heart beat—beat in a way it never did when the bullets were singing and whistling all about. It was the suddenness of it, I expect. I looked at them for a bit. They didn’t see me, and were just looking about them as I did. They were dressed very quiet, but Gracey had a little more ornament on her, and a necklace or something round her neck. Aileen was very pale, but her beautiful dark hair was dressed up a bit with one rosebud in it, and her eyes looked bigger and brighter than they used to do. She looked sad enough, but every now and then Gracey said something that made her smile a bit, and then I thought she was the handsomest girl in the room. Gracey had just the same steady, serious, kind face as ever; she’d hardly changed a bit, and seemed pleased, just like a child at the play, with all that was going on round about.
There was hardly anybody near the corner where they were, so I got up and went over. They both looked at me for a minute as if they’d never seen me before, and then Aileen turned as pale as death, and Gracey got altogether as red, and both held out their hands. I sat down by the side of Aileen, and we all began to talk. Not much at first, and very quiet, for fear notice might be taken, but I managed to let them know that the police had all been called off in another direction, and that we should be most likely safe till tomorrow or next day.
“Oh dear!” says Gracey, “wasn’t it awfully rash of you to come here and run all this risk just to come to Bella Barnes’s wedding? I believe I ought to be jealous of that girl.”
“All Starlight’s fault,” I said; “but anyhow, it’s through him we’ve had this meeting here. I was dead against coming all the time, and I never expected things to turn out so lucky as they have done.”
“Will he be here tonight?” Aileen says, very soft and timid like. “I almost wished I’d stayed away, but Gracey here would come. Young Cyrus Williams brought us. He wanted to show his wife the races, and take her to the ball. There they are, dancing together. George is away at the races.”
“You will see Starlight about ten or eleven o’clock, I expect,” I said. “He’s dining with the Commissioner and the camp officers. They’ll all come together, most likely.”
“Dining at the camp!” says Aileen, looking regularly perished. “You don’t mean to say they’ve taken him?”
“I mean what I say. He’s here with the Mr. Dawsons, of Wideview, and has been hand-and-glove with all the swells. I hardly think you’ll know him. It’s as much as I did.”
Poor Aileen gave another sigh.
“Do you think he’ll know me?” she says. “Oh! what a foolish girl I was to think for a moment that he could care about a girl like me. Oh! I wish I had never come.”
“Nonsense,” says Gracey, who looked a deal brighter
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