In the Roaring Fifties Part 6

'You will take this, won't you? I intend it as a little keepsake.'

She proffered a small gold locket somewhat shyly, and blushed deeply when he opened it and discovered a tiny miniature of herself. He was pleased to have it, and told her so in a graceless way.

'Do you mean to go ash.o.r.e at once?' she asked presently.

'Yes; just as soon as I can.'

'Mrs. Macdougal is ready, and I suppose we leave the s.h.i.+p immediately.'

He took her small hand in his. 'Good-bye,' he said. He longed to hold her in his arms again.

'Good-bye,' she whispered.

'I hope you'll find things easy for you out there, and that you will be happy.'

'I think I shall. I am going to try hard for happiness--to be as happy as I once was. Say you will try too.'

He looked at the wide sweep of blue sky, and the new land swathed in a golden atmosphere of glorious suns.h.i.+ne and more glorious hopes, and did not smile at her idea of happiness recoverable by distraint.

Mrs. Macdougal bustled up. She had brought dresses from Europe with the object of prostrating what little feminine society there was in the neighbourhood of b.o.o.byalla, and wore one of them now. If her colour was not all natural, it was a very excellent imitation. She looked charming.

'Sure you are quite ready, my dear?' she said. 'Macdougal will be waiting. Macdougal of b.o.o.byalla, you know.' This to Jim: 'And he's a most impatient wretch. Saying au revoir?' she queried archly, after a pause.

'I was bidding Mr. Done good-bye,' said Lucy.

'It is very sad, parting with old friends,' murmured Mrs. Macdougal, with veiled eyes.

'Sadder parting with new ones,' replied Jim, glancing towards Lucy.

'Oh yes, it is, is it not? But you will come and visit us some time at b.o.o.byalla. We are s.h.i.+pmates, and that's a sort of relations.h.i.+p in Australia.'

Done thanked her, but equivocated. He could not see himself as the guest of the great Donald Macdougal, J.P., of b.o.o.byalla. The lady experienced a glow of impatience. Only a hobbledehoy could prefer Lucy Woodrow's immature charms to the ripe perfections of a woman of her years.

VI

JIM was the first off the Francis Cadman on the Monday afternoon when she drew alongside the rough Yarra wharf just under Bateman's Hill, and when he set his foot on Australian soil he planted one tendril of his heart there. He let fall his bag, and looked about him. The arrival of the s.h.i.+p had occasioned no interest that he could discover. Perhaps the news was not yet common property. A dusty road along the banks of the river on his right led to the town; there were a few scattered houses of dark stone and primitive design on the hill before him, beside which the lawless gum-trees flourished. The day was intensely hot; a wind that might have breathed o'er the infernal regions whipped up clouds of dust, and spun them into fantastic shapes, filling eyes and lungs, but no discomfort could dull the joy he felt on coming into his kingdom. He had turned his back to the wind to wait the pa.s.sing of a sirocco of sand, when a double-seated American waggon, drawn by two steaming horses, flashed on him out of the storm, driving him headlong to the ground, and coming to a standstill within a few feet. The bag had served as a buffer, and the deeply-ploughed roadway made a soft bed, so that no bones were broken; but Done arose with all his fighting instincts aflame, and turned upon the driver.

'You murderous ruffian!' he cried. 'I've a mind to break--'

He stopped short, one foot upon the step, one hand grasping the ironwork of the seat, staring at the driver, suddenly disarmed. The man on the seat was a grizzled, malformed creature of about fifty, with a deeply-wrinkled small face, burnt a dark tan, and almost covered with a tangle of short, crisp, iron-gray whiskers. The suggestion of a rough-haired terrier was so strong that Done expected the brute to bark at him. The small eyes in the protecting shade of tufted brows, like miniature overhanging horns, were keen and shrewd This extraordinary head was supported by a small and shapeless body, the legs of which were much too long and extremely thin, as were the arms also; but the wrists and hands, strained to hold the restive horses, were hard, corded, and hairy, suggesting a gorilla-like vitality in the curious man. Done let himself down to the roadway again. One could not fight with so miserable a cripple.

'You drive like a madman, mister,' he said in a milder tone.

'Maybe yer off the s.h.i.+p just now?' said the ape like driver, quite ignoring Done's grievance and his words. 'So bein', you can tell we if there's a Mistress Macdougal aboard her.'

The man kept his eyes on his horses; his heels were firmly set on the footboard. It. needed all the strength of his iron wrists to restrain the beasts--tall, lean bays, with a certain piratical rakishness about them, long-maned and long-tailed, effective weapons against the voracious flies that swarmed over their rumps. Their powerful frames showed through clean, healthy hides, and their blood in the proud carriage of their heads and their hot impatience under restraint. A half-caste aboriginal boy, dressed apparently in his master's old clothes--and the master's own clothes were none too new--sprawled on the bottom of the vehicle, and grinned at Done in a friendly way over the tailboard. Jim resented the cripple's contempt for his wrongs, and ignored the question put to him.

He was taking up his belongings again, when Mrs. Macdougal herself fluttered by.

'Why, Mack!' she cried.

The driver's eyes left his horses' ears for a moment, and rested on the lady. They displayed no particular feeling.

'h.e.l.lo, missus!' he said casually, adding, after a pause: 'Best jump up.

Nags a bit fresh.'

Jim walked on. So this was Donald Macdougal, J.P., of b.o.o.byalla. The young man's annoyance fell from him. He thought of the devoted husband's greeting after their long parting, and laughed aloud. Macdougal of b.o.o.byalla was no demonstrative lover. A few minutes later the waggon dashed past Done; the bays were being driven at a gallop, and the vehicle fairly jumped on the broken road. The young man caught a glimpse of Lucy clinging desperately to her seat, and then waggon and horses were buried in a dust-cloud of their own making, which was whirled away at a terrific pace, and spun out of his view round a distant corner.

Done plodded along with his bag upon his shoulder. He had no definite plan of action. He thought now of looking about him for a day or two before leaving for the fields. No doubt it would be an easy matter to get accommodation at some hotel or lodging-house. After that he would move with the throng, and his future actions would depend upon such knowledge as he might be able to gather from the experienced people with whom he came in contact. He presently had ample proof that the driving of Macdougal of b.o.o.byalla was nothing extraordinary here. Three hors.e.m.e.n pa.s.sed him at a racing speed, and with much shouting and cracking of whips, and a wild, bewhiskered Bushman, driving two horses in a light, giglike vehicle, charged through the dust at a pace implying some business of life or death; but a little further on Jim came upon the steaming pair tethered to a post outside a rough structure labelled the 'Miner's Rest,' and at the bar stood the driver toying lazily with a n.o.bbler of brandy. He pa.s.sed groups of men lounging against the building and sitting in the street, all smoking, none showing particular concern about anything. Their lethargy surprised him. He had expected to find the town mad with excitement, to behold here the gold fever blazing without restraint; but wherever there was a post to lean against a man was leaning against it, exactly as if there were nothing doing, and the world had not just run demented over the richness of their Victorian fields. It remained for him to learn that this very excitement provoked a corresponding la.s.situde, and that when the Australian diggers were not indulging in the extreme of frenzied exertion or boisterous recreation their inertia surpa.s.sed that of their own koala, the native sloth.

Ere he reached the busier part of the town, Jim made the disconcerting discovery that he was a marked man, an object of public contumely. He had heard calls of derision at various points along the road, and was convinced now that for some reason or another he was exciting the laughter and badinage of the men. This was a painful shock to Done's happiness. The situation recalled Chisley, and something of the old Ishmael stirred within him. He set his teeth and hurried on.

'Pea-souper!' was the epithet most in favour amongst his tormentors. Why 'Pea-souper!' Jim could not understand. He could see no aptness in its application to him, and yet it was certainly a term of mockery.

'Pea-souper!' The taunt had an ignominious flavour. It hurt because it recalled so much of what he had travelled halfway round the world to escape.

He plunged into Elizabeth Street as if seeking cover. Here the crowd was thick, and one man might pa.s.s unheeded. Elizabeth Street was the busiest thoroughfare of Melbourne--a miserable, unformed street, the buildings of which were perched on either side of a gully. Pedestrians who were not sober ran serious risks of falling from the footpaths into the roadway below, a rather serious fall in places. Plunged is the right word; the road was churned into a dust-pit, on the footpath the dust lay ankle-deep, and people on foot had the appearance of wading through shallow water. Occasional gusts of the hot north wind seemed to lift the Street like a blanket, and shake its yellow, insinuating dust in the faces of the people.

Here Done found the characteristic la.s.situde of the unemployed digger and the surging life of a town suddenly thronged with the adventurous men of the earth blended in a strange medley. Men were lounging everywhere, talking and smoking, or merely sunk in a state of abstraction. The talk was all of digging. The miners were exchanging news, rumour and opinions, and lying about their past takings, or the fabulous patches they had just missed--lying patiently and pertinaciously. Many faces were marked and discoloured from recent debauches. Lowly inebriates slept peacefully in the dust, one with his head affectionately pillowed on a dog that snarled and snapped at anyone coming within three feet of its master.

There was little variety in the dress worn. Even the man who had not been two miles from Melbourne affected the manner of the digger, and donned his uniform. Cabbage-tree hats or billyc.o.c.ks were on every head, and for the rest a gray or blue jumper tucked into Clay-stained trousers and Wellington boots satisfied the majority. A few swells and 'flash' diggers exhibited a lively fancy in puggaries and silk sashes and velvet corduroys and natty patent-leather leggings, but anything more pretentious was received with unmistakable manifestations of popular disfavour. A large bullock-team hauling a waggon load of bales blundered slowly along the road, the weary cattle swinging from side to side under the lash of the bullocky, who yelled hoa.r.s.e profanity with the volubility of an auctioneer and the vocabulary of a Yankee skipper unchecked by authority. A little further on another team, drawn up before a hotel, lay sprawling, half buried, the patient bullocks twisted into painful angles by reason of their yokes, quietly chewing the cud. Riders and drivers conformed to no rule of the road, and maintained a headlong pace implying a great contempt for horseflesh, and no more respect for their own limbs than for the neck of the merest stranger. From the bars, which were frequent, came a babel of laughter and shouting. To the 'Pea-souper'

every thing was new and wonderful.

A squalid aboriginal swathed in an old tablecloth fresh from some breakfast started from a corner, pointing a long, dirty finger at Done, and grinning a wide grin.

'Yah! dam new chum!' he said. Then he laughed as only an Australian black can, with a glitter of seemingly endless white teeth, and a strident roar that might have been heard a mile off.

'New chum!' This appellation had been thrown at Done a dozen times.

'Pea-souper!' trumpeted a horseman through his hands. There were sarcastic references to 'limejuice,' and Jim was asked by several strangers, with a show of much concern, if his mother knew he was out.

'Does your mother know you're out?' was then a new and popular street gag, and the query implied a childlike incapability of taking care of himself on the part of the person addressed, and was generally accepted as a choice piece of humour. Jim heard so many references to the 'new chum's bundle' that he was presently satisfied he owed all these unpleasant little attentions to the burden he carried, and he determined to rid himself of it at the first opportunity. Turning into Bourke Street, he eventually found a hotel where there was comparative peace.

Entering, he called for a drink.

'New chum?' queried the barman, after serving him.

'I suppose I am,' replied Jim. 'Look here, would you mind telling me what in the devil's name a new chum is?'

'A new chum is a man fresh from home.'

'From England?'

'Scotland, Ireland, anywhere else, if he's green and inexperienced.

Miners from the Californian fields don't rank as new chums.'

'And how am I known as a new chum?'

The barman grinned. 'That'll tell on you all over the place,' he said, indicating the bag. 'That's a true new chum's bundle. No Australian would expatriate himself by carrying his goods in that fas.h.i.+on. He makes them up in a roll, straps them, and carries them in a sling on his back. His bundle is then a swag. The swag is the Australian's national badge.'

'Well, I'm hanged if that isn't a little thing to make a row about. Do you reckon it shameful to be a new chum, then?'

'Not exactly. No offence is intended; the men jeer out of mere harmless devilment. The new churn's got so much to learn here, he can't help looking a born fool as a general thing.'