The Tale of Timber Town Part 72

"There's four of 'em in quod, boss," replied the digger; "I guess that's the whole gang, s'far's Tresco's evidence goes to prove."

"Ah! there's the goldsmith himself," exclaimed the Pilot, pressing through the throng in the garden. "How d'you do, sir? I have to thank you, on behalf of my dar'ter and myself." He gripped the goldsmith's hand, and almost wrung it off.

"That's all right," said Tresco. "Yes, that's all right. I couldn't stand by and see an innocent man murdered. Certainly not." Here he got his hand free, and proffered it to Scarlett, who grasped it with a warmth which quite equalled the Pilot's.

"Tresco," said Jack, looking straight into the goldsmith's face, "you have acc.u.mulated against me a debt I can never pay."

"I don't know," replied the goldsmith, laughing; "I'm not so sure of that. Sometimes Justice miscarries. How about that _kaka_ nugget? When you've explained that, I shall feel I was justified in saving you from the hand of the Law."

Jack laughed too. "You dog! You know the facts as well as I do.

Moonlight took a fancy to the piece of gold and offered a good price, which the Jew took. I bought it from my mate. That point is perfectly clear. But I see you've got your swag on your back: your days in Timber Town are numbered."

"That's so," said Tresco.

"I can only say this," continued Jack: "if ever you are in a tight place, which G.o.d forbid, I hope I shall be near to help you out of it; if I am not, wire to me--though I am at the end of the earth I will come to your help."

Tresco smiled. "Yes," he said, "you're going to be married--you look on everything through coloured gla.s.ses: you are prepared to promise anything. You are going to the altar. And that's why we've come here."

He had taken the little velvet case from his pocket. "As you'll be wanting something in this line"--he opened the case and displayed the wedding-ring--"I have made this out of a piece of Bush-Robin gold, and on behalf of Bill and myself I present it to you with our best wishes for a long and happy life."

Jack took the gift, and drew a feigned sigh. He knew the meaning of such a present from such givers. He looked at the ring: he looked at the a.s.sembled diggers.

"After this, I guess, I shall _have_ to get married," he said. "I don't see any way out of it. Do you, Pilot?"

"I reckon he's hooked, gen'lemen," replied the old sailor. "There's many a smart man on the 'field'--I'm aware of that--but never a one so smart but a woman won't sooner or later take him in her net. I give my dar'ter credit for having landed the smartest of the whole crowd of you."

"Well," said Jack, as he turned the glittering ring between his fingers, "I've got to go through with it; but such tokens of sympathy as this ring"--he placed it on the first joint of his forefinger, and held it up that all might see--"will pull me through."

"And when is the happy day?" asked Tresco.

"The choice of that lies with the lady," replied Jack; "but as the Pilot has just received news of his brother's death, I expect my freedom will extend for a little while yet."

"My mate and me'll be far away by then," said the Prospector, and he looked at Benjamin as he spoke. "But you may bet we'll often think of you and your wife, and wish you health an' happiness."

"Hear, hear." The crowd was beginning to feel that the occasion was a.s.suming its proper aspect.

"We hope," continued Bill, "that your wife will prove a valuable find, as valuable a find as your claim at Robin Creek, an' that she'll pan out rich in virtue an' all womanly qualities. H'm." The Prospector turned for sympathy to his friends. "I think that's pretty fair, eh, mates?"

But they only grinned. So Bill addressed himself once more to the subject in hand, though his ideas had run out with his last rhetorical effort. "I don't think I can beat that," he said; "I think I'll leave it at that. I hope she'll pan out rich in virtue, an' prove a valuable claim. Me an' Tresco's got a long way to go before night. I hope you'll excuse us if we start to make a git." He held out his hand to Jack, and said, "Health an' prosperity to you an' the missis, mate. So-long." Then he hitched up his swag, and walked down the gravelled path regardless of Tresco or anyone else.

The goldsmith tarried a moment or two.

"It's hardly possible we shall meet again," he said. "If we don't, I wish you a long good-bye. It is said that men value most those to whom they have been of service; but whether that is so or not, I shall always like to think of the days we spent together on Bush Robin Creek."

"When this little bit of a breeze has blown over," said Jack, "I hope you'll come back."

"Not much." The reply was straight and unequivocal. "I may have retrieved my character in the eyes of the people of Timber Town, but in the eyes of the Law never, even if I satisfy its requirements in its prescribed manner. I shall go to some other country and there live, happy in the knowledge that I expiated my wrong-doing by saving my innocent friend from the danger of death, at the price of my own liberty. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

Jack's hand clasped the craftsman's, each man took a long, straight look at the other's kindly face, and then they parted.

The body-guard closed round the goldsmith and the Prospector, and escorted them through the Town to The Lucky Digger, where they saw their charges fed and refreshed for the journey. Then they conducted them out of the town to the top of the dividing range, and there bade them a long adieu.

EPILOGUE.

When the play is over, it is customary for the curtain to be raised for a few moments, that the audience may take a last look at the players; and though the action of our piece is ended and the story is told, the reader is asked to give a final glance at the stage, on which have been acted the varied scenes of the tale of Timber Town.

In the inner recess of Tresco's cave, where he had made his comfortless bed, the dim light of a candle is burning. As its small flame lights up the cold walls, stained black with the smoke of the goldsmith's dead fire, a weeping woman is seen crouching on the damp floor.

It is Gentle Annie.

Between the sobs which rack her, she is speaking.

"While he lived for weeks in this dripping hole, I lodged comfortably and entertained murderers! Vile woman, defiled by hands stained with blood! despised, loathed, shunned by every man, woman, or child that knows me. Yet _he_ did not despise me, though I shall despise myself for ever, and for ever, and for ever. And he is gone--the only one who could have raised me to my better self."

Rising from the ground, she takes the candle, and gropes her way out of the cave into the pure light of the Sun.

In a common Maori _whare_, built of _raupo_ leaves and rushes, sits a dusky maiden, filled with bitterness and grief. Outside the low doorway, stand Scarlett and his wife.

Forbidden to enter, they beg the surly occupant to come out to them. But the only answer is a sentence of Maori, growled from an angry mouth.

"But, Amiria, we have ridden all the way from Timber Town to see you,"

pleads the silvery voice of Rose Scarlett.

"Then you can ride back to Timber Town. I didn't ask you to come."

"Amiria," says Jack; his voice stern and hard, "if you insult my wife, you insult me. Have not you and she been friends since you were children?"

Amiria emerges from her hut. On her head is a man's hat, and round her body is wrapped a gaudy but dirty blanket.

"Listen to what I say." The same well-moulded, dusky face is there, the same upright bearing, the same musical voice, but the tone is hard, and the look forbidding. "I learnt all the _Pakeha_ ways; I went to their school; I can speak their tongue; I have learnt their _ritenga_: and I say these _Pakeha_ things are good for the _Pakeha_, but for the Maori they are bad. The white man is one, the Maori is one. Let the white man keep to his customs, and let the Maori keep to his. Let the white marry white, and let the brown marry brown. That is all. Take your wife with you, and think of me no more. I am a Maori _wahine_, I have become a woman of the tribe. My life is in the _pa_, yours is in the town. Now go. I want to see you no more." So saying she disappears inside the hut.

Scarlett draws himself to his full height, and stands, contemplating the sea. Then his eye catches a fleck of white at his side; and he turns, to see his wife drying the tears which cannot be restrained.

He takes her by the hand, and leads her through the little crowd of natives standing round.

"Come away, little woman," he says; "we can do no good here. It's time we got back to Timber Town."

So mounting their horses, they ride away.

It so happens that as they reach their journey's end, and pa.s.s the big "emporium" of Varnhagen and Co., they catch sight of the gay figure of a girl, dressed in fluttering muslin and bright ribbons, beside whom walks a smart young man.

"Wasn't that Miss Varnhagen?" asks Jack after they have pa.s.sed by at a trot.

"Yes," replies Rose.