Bloodmage

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Bloodmage

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 Bloodmage

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.
 ‘You never heard of Heatherstone before, then? No? Well―the
man you were trying to lure over a middle rail was formerly known,
that is, before he entered the Church from strong convictions, as
perhaps the boldest, the most reckless rider in Australia. He has
ridden more steeplechases than you have hairs on your heads, I was
going to say―but, to speak moderately, a larger number than most
men living. Since he became a clergyman, a most sincere and hard-
working one, he has given up sensational riding, and being
passionately fond of horses, mortifies the flesh by abstaining from all
that style of thing. You will excuse us all, I know, for being so rude;
but really, you must admit the joke was irresistible.’
‘I see―I admit―I confess,’ said Ernest, with an air of deepest
penitence. ‘If I could only do penance for my sins of superficial
judgment, it would be such a relief. Do you think the Rev. Egbert has
a trifle of spare sackcloth?’
‘You didn’t notice his seat on horseback?’ asked one of the young
ladies innocently. ‘Doesn’t he look like a horseman? He can’t hide
that, or help his hands being so perfect―though I think he tries.’
‘He rode a horse over a three-railed fence once, without saddle or
bridle,’ said the other sister, ‘for a bet; before he was ordained.’
‘He took Ingoldsby, the great steeplechaser, over a three-railed
fence at twelve o’clock at night, and pitch dark too; there was a
lantern on each post though,’ chimed in the sixteen-year-old hero-
worshipper of any reckless deed in saddle or harness.
‘The maddest thing of all that I ever heard of him,’ affirmed papa,
in conclusion, ‘was going across country one evening and taking
sixteen wire fences running. He won his bets, but he had two
hardish falls; one a collar-boner, into the bargain.’
‘I really begin to think,’ said Mr. Neuchamp despairingly, after
every one had transacted a good downright unrestrained chuckle,
‘that I shall never become fully acclimatised. This is the most
peculiar and utterly unintelligible country ever discovered; or, am I
devoid of understanding to an extent which disables me from ever
rating individuals at their proper value?’
He was eventually consoled, and persuaded into singing second in
a duet whereto the accompaniment was played with much taste and
expression by one of the daughters of the house. He was perfectly
at home in this department of criticism, and after receiving a few
compliments upon his extremely correct performances, he
commenced to forget the stupendous miscalculation into which he
had been led with respect to the Reverend Egbert Heatherstone and
his equitation. But it was not forgotten by the inmates of the house
and the inhabitants of the district, among whom it gradually spread.
It always took rank among those glorious jests which, intelligible to
every degree of capacity, float on with undiminished grandeur from
generation to generation; and a stranger who reached that peaceful
district, and was discovered by a delicate course of inquiry never to
have heard that joke, was regarded with affectionate interest, and
had it so carefully administered to him that not one drop of the elixir
jocosus should be wasted in the process.
Leaving the honoured abode of hospitality and domestic
happiness, with its fertile meadows and well-filled stackyards, Mr.
Neuchamp pursued his route quietly, intending to make his way to
the property of another friend, whose place was at no great distance
from the goldfield town near which was the station upon which his
cattle were still depasturing. This stage was rather far for one day.
He was considering whether he might expect to meet with a
reasonable inn, and humming a souvenir of his last night’s concert,
when a horseman, coming at a brisk pace in the opposite direction,
met him face to face.
In him he recognised a young squatter whom he had often
encountered in Sydney in various festive scenes, and who had more
than once pressed him to visit his station, if he should find himself in
their district. Ernest knew the station of Baldacre Brothers by
reputation to be large and rich. In fact the brand had a colonial
fame. His curiosity was somewhat aroused to behold the
establishment.
Mr. Hardy Baldacre expressed great concern that he should be just
leaving home for a journey when his friend Mr. Neuchamp was
coming into the district, and made many excuses for not turning
back―finally asking Ernest how far he thought of going that night.
He mentioned the house of the brother of Colonel Branksome.
‘Oh! that is too far,’ said Mr. Baldacre; ‘sixty miles, if it is a yard.’
‘I don’t think I will try to get quite so far,’ said Ernest. ‘Probably
there is some inn which will do as a half-way house.’
‘Oh! you’d better stay at our place,’ said his friend with an
expression of countenance not wholly intelligible to Ernest. ‘It’s
about twenty-five miles from here, straight on the road; you can’t
miss it. You’ll find my brother William at home. Good-bye!’
With this somewhat laconic invitation he put spurs to his horse
and rode forward at a hand gallop, leaving Ernest undecided as to
whether he should accept or decline an invitation not very graciously
extended.
By the time, however, that he had got to the end of the rather
long twenty-five miles over a worse road than he had hitherto
travelled, he discovered that there was no other stage available
without over-riding Osmund, so he commenced to look about for the
homestead of the Messrs. Baldacre Brothers of Baredoun.
It was nearly dark when he came to a hut by the side of the road,
situated in a small paddock, the upper rails of the fence of which
were ornamented with sheepskins to an extent which suggested that
a new material for enclosures was being tested. Resolved to make
inquiry as to this mysteriously invisible homestead, Mr. Neuchamp
holloaed to the occupant of the hut in a loud and peremptory
manner.
 A man in his shirt-sleeves came to the door, not otherwise over-
neat, and smoking a black pipe.
‘Can you tell me where Baredoun is?’ demanded Ernest: ‘it ought
to be somewhere about here, I should think.’
‘This is the place,’ said the shirt-sleeved one coolly.
‘And is this the home station of Baldacre Brothers?’ inquired
Ernest, vainly trying to disguise his astonishment.
‘It’s all that’s of it,’ said the smoker, with an attempt at jocularity.
‘I’m William Baldacre; won’t you come in and stay the night? It’s
rather late, and there is no place within fifteen miles.’
Ernest stared before him, around, and finally behind, before he
answered the hospitable question. He made a mental calculation as
to whether it was worth while to push Osmund on for fifteen miles
over an unknown road in the dark. Finally, he decided to sacrifice his
comfort for that night to the welfare of the gallant grey, and to
accept the ultra-primitive hospitality of Mr. Baldacre.
‘I met your brother, whom I had the pleasure of knowing,’ he said,
‘a few miles back. He was good enough to ask me to take up my
quarters here to-night. I shall be very glad to stay with you.’
‘All right,’ said the elder man, a plain and unpolished personage
when compared with his handsome, well-dressed younger brother,
who swelled about the metropolis, by no means as if he had
emerged from such a hovel. ‘Give me your horse; he’ll be safe in this
paddock. Ours is rather a rough shop, but you must make
allowances for the bush.’
Sadly and sorrowfully, after he had seen Osmund left free in the
small moderately-grassed paddock, did Mr. Neuchamp follow his host
into the hut. That building consisted of two small rooms. There was
an earthen floor, one or two stools, a small fixed table, far from
clean. A bed at the side of the room offered a more comfortable seat
than the stools, and upon this Ernest deposited his weary bones and
disappointed entity, wondering doubtfully whether sleep would be
uninterrupted or otherwise.
The usual meal of corned meat, damper, and milkless tea was
brought in by the hutkeeper of the period, whose moleskins were
strictly in keeping with the prevailing tone of the furniture and
apartment. Much Ernest wondered at the precise mental condition
which could suffer two free agents of legal age, the owners of a
proverbially rich and extensive run, of a well-known highly-bred
herd, free from debt and incumbrances, to live in a state of squalid
savagery. He did not exactly put his questionings into this shape, but
his manner had expressed a patent astonishment, which his host
seemed to consider himself called upon to answer.
‘We haven’t done much in the building way here,’ he remarked
apologetically, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. ‘I daresay we’ll
put up a cottage next year. But the old man never would spend a
penny on the run here. He was snug enough at the old farm down
the country, and somehow I’ve got used to the life, and it does me
as well as any other. Hardy isn’t often at home; he’s half his time in
Sydney. So he manages to hang it out here when he comes to help
muster and so on. I reckon he thinks it saves money, and as he
hasn’t to live here he don’t care.’
Ernest felt remorseful after this explanation, very simply delivered,
at his feelings of disgust and disapproval. ‘Suppose,’ he asked
himself, ‘I had been set down here, a raw schoolboy, transplanted
from half-learned tasks to the daily labour, the rude association, the
unbroken loneliness of a distant station, debarred by a penurious old
father from the smallest outlay not immediately connected with the
herd, without books, change, society, or recreation, would it have
been all-impossible that I should have grown into the mould in which
my host is enclosed, or settled down into the resigned, sad-visaged
man of five-and-thirty whom I see before me?’ It would have been
impossible in his case, he thought. Still he could enter sufficiently
into the probabilities of the situation to comprehend the injustice to
which the mental development of the elder brother had been
exposed.
‘Good heavens!’ he thought to himself, ‘what short-sighted idiots
are parents who shut up their sons’ lives in a moral dungeon like
this! The abiding in the wilderness is nothing; nay, it has positively
beneficial and ennobling tendencies. But this sordid imprisonment of
the mind! No books, no companions, no ideas; for how can there be
a circulation of ideas if reading, conversation, reflection be wanting?
―the whole mind bent and fettered to the level of the branding pen
and the cattle market―the smallest outlay affording a glimpse of the
heaven of Art and Literature churlishly denied, lest a few broad
pieces escape the all-gathering muck-rake. And when the game is
played out, the long harvest-day over, and the crop garnered, what
is the grand result for which a soul has been starved―a man’s all-
wondrous brain-marvel, miracle of miracles, enchantment before
which all magic palls―stunted, and shrivelled from lack of nutriment
and exercise, like a baby-farmed infant’s body? A few hundreds or
thousands, more or less; a sufficiency of clothes and food; a surety
against poverty; and the possibly fully-developed son of the
immortal, “a little lower than the angels,” remains hopeless,
contracted, with the mind of an untaught child plus an experience of
the more obvious forms of dissipation!’
The rude meal concluded, and the pannikins refilled, Ernest, as
usual, felt sufficiently refreshed in spirit to examine his immediate
materials. Mr. Baldacre smoked and talked unreservedly for a couple
of hours; explained the presence of the sheepskins―they had been
butchering for the diggers lately; described some of their pioneer
life, including an adventure with a bushranger, the famous Captain
Belville; and, finally, thought Ernest might like to ‘turn in.’
Mr. Neuchamp looked distrustfully at the rude wooden frame,
upon which sheepskins did duty for a mattress, and a pair of highly
uninteresting blankets represented all other description of
bedclothes. He protected himself against all nocturnal dangers by
retaining the larger proportion of his habiliments, and desperately
committed himself to the uncertainty. At earliest dawn he might have
been seen leading Osmund towards the hut, after which he saddled
up with unusual energy and care. He then betook himself to a grand
deep water-hole at no great distance in the creek, where he swam
and disported himself for half an hour at least, after which he
indulged temperately in the pleasures of the table, as represented by
a breakfast which was the facsimile of supper, and immediately
thereafter bade his host good-bye, thanking him for his
entertainment, and bidding farewell to the abode of Baldacre
Brothers for ever.
Mr. Neuchamp smiled to himself when fairly on his way, thinking of
the days of his inexperience, when he believed that all squatters,
and indeed all colonists, lived in precisely the same fashion, and
were characterised by identically the same habitudes and modes of
life.
He certainly had been ‘had,’ as Mr. Banks would have said, in the
matter of trusting himself to the primitive establishment of the
Baldacres, who were well known to every one in the district to live
‘like blackfellows,’ as the phrase ran. But neither he nor Osmund had
suffered anything more than slight temporary inconvenience. Mr.
Neuchamp was specially good at recovering, and in half an hour he
was whistling and humming along the road as blithely as ever.
On this particular day he expected to reach, at an early hour, the
abode of another club acquaintance, who had been unaffectedly
hearty in impressing upon him the desirability of making his place his
headquarters if he ever came to their district. At this house he
expected to meet the Indian Officer who had so kindly taken care of
his Arab steed for him and attended to his comforts on board the P.
and O. This distinguished militaire had seen a good deal of service,
but thirty-five years’ exposure to the sun of Hindostan had not
quenched his ardour for sport, spoiled his seat on horseback, or
cooled his devotion to the fair sex. He had been commissioned by
the Indian Government to make large purchases of horses in
Australia for remount service, particularly for artillery and heavy
cavalry. He was now on a tour of inspection through the chief
breeding districts, to the end that the couple of thousand troop
horses he was empowered to purchase and ship might do credit to
his judgment. Combining, as he did, a frank yet polished address
with the prestige of military rank, important services during the
Mutiny, consummate knowledge of horseflesh, with a potentiality of
unlimited purchase, Colonel Branksome was at that time, perhaps,
the most popular man in Australia.
It was on the right side of lunch-time when Mr. Neuchamp found
himself opening a neat white gate, at the end of a well-kept drive,
which further conducted him to the front door of a stately mansion,
with easy circumstances and good taste written in every yard of the
well-mown lawn, on every clump of the crowded shrubbery, on the
long range of stabling at no inconvenient distance, even in the neat
dress and respectful manner of the groom who came to take his
horse almost as soon as he had dismounted.
The hall door opened in a spontaneously hospitable manner, and
the host, accompanied by a middle-aged man very carefully attired
in unmistakable mufti, left no doubt on any one’s mind as to his
pleasure in receiving him.
‘Just in time for lunch, Neuchamp! Very glad you’ve found your
way to our district. The Colonel, here, has just been thrashing me at
billiards; let me introduce you: Colonel Branksome―Mr. Neuchamp.’
‘Happy to meet you,’ said the Colonel; ‘find the morning hot?
Deuced nice horse of yours; you haven’t a few like him for sale, have
you? I could take a hundred, and pay well too. But, of course, he’s a
favourite; all the good ones are hereabouts.’
‘I am almost sorry to say that he is,’ said Ernest, ‘since I should
have liked to have helped you to a few horses that would have done
credit to Australia. I believe I have to thank you for an important
service in procuring justice for my Arab on his voyage out.’
 ‘A mere matter of course,’ said the Colonel. ‘I knew Granby who
shipped him, and the old sheik who sold him; personal friend, and all
that; besides, I can’t see a handsome horse or a pretty woman
without taking the strongest interest in their welfare. Weakness of
mine all my life. Too old to mend now, I’m afraid.’
‘By George! I forgot the lunch,’ said the host, looking at his watch.
‘Come into my dressing-room, Neuchamp. Billy, you know your way.’
In a few minutes, after a temporary toilet, Ernest found himself in
a large cool room, the furniture and arrangements of which
betokened no hint of the considerable distance from the metropolis.
Two pretty girls, whose complexions told of a cooler climate than
that of the coast cities, and drew forth many a compliment from the
susceptible warrior, embellished the well-appointed lunch-table.
Here, with cool wine, delicate viands, and civilised society, Mr.
Neuchamp was enabled utterly to discharge from his mind the
unsavoury surroundings of his previous stage. Before they had
finished the repast the eldest son of the house came in, apologising
for his want of punctuality, but laying the blame upon a large body
of miners whom he had been supplying with rations, and who had
detained him until their wants were satisfied.
‘Really!’ said Mr. Branksome, ‘the consumption of meat is
becoming tremendous. Stock must rise directly. I feared that we
were all going to be ruined at first. Now, I see plainly that it will be
all the other way.’
‘So, then, I suppose I must have made a good bargain in
conjunction with Mr. Levison,’ affirmed Ernest tentatively.
‘Oh! you bought the “bar circle” cattle, then?’ said young
Branksome. ‘They told me they expected a gentleman to take
delivery directly. They are the best bred cattle in this district. You
were lucky to buy them.
‘Poor Drifter,’ said the old gentleman, ‘it was anything but lucky for
him that he was forced to sell them. I told him that he was hasty,
but he was full of visions of their being killed and driven away right
and left by the mining population, and would not hear reason.’
‘The miners are very decent fellows, what I have seen of them,’
said the son. ‘Of course there will be all sorts among them; but he
would have no greater risk of losing his cattle at their hands than
with many others.’
‘Not so bad as Sepoys, eh, Billy?’ said the host; ‘and yet I suppose
you trusted the villains to the last minute.’
‘Well, I did,’ said the Colonel, ‘and I’m not ashamed to say so; and
so would you if you had seen them fight and die by your side for
many a year as I had done. There were some splendid fellows
among them―“true to their salt” to the last. It was a great chance
that I wasn’t shot down by my own men, like Howard and Weston,
and many other commanding officers.’
‘How did you escape, uncle?’ said one of the young ladies, deeply
interested.
‘Well, I’d been out at daylight with a scratch pack of hounds
hunting jackals. Just as I was coming in, the old havildar (I had
saved his life once) came rushing out: “No go home, sahib,” he said,
“men all mad since chupatties come; shot Captain, sahib,
Lieutenant, sahib, Major, sahib, and his men, sahib, hide away. Ride
away, sahib.” And he hung on to my horse’s rein.
‘“Let me go, you old fool,” I said, “I must go back; the men will
hear me. It’s those rascally Brahmins.”
‘“You give life, sahib, you do no good,” he cried out, and, by Jove!
the tears did roll down his face. “I give my life for the Colonel, sahib,
if he please. All no use. Look there!” and he pointed to where a long
line of flame was rising up from my bungalow and stable.
‘“Where’s Lady Jane?” I roared; “you don’t mean to tell me they’ve
taken her? I won’t leave her if I die for it.”
 ‘“Lukehmeen syce, he very good man, he go away with Lady Jane
this morning; go away to Raneepore. She all safe.”
‘“By Jove,” I said, “that’s good news. If Lady Jane was there now,
I believe I should have gone in among the rascally Pandies with my
sword and revolver, and seen it out.”’
‘How brave of you, Uncle William,’ said one of the girls, her cheeks
glowing and her lips trembling with excitement, as she gazed
admiringly at the Colonel’s hawk nose and bright blue eyes, which
nearly matched his turquoise ring. ‘And did the poor lady escape
altogether?’
‘Lady?’ said the latter-day Paladin, in tones of astonishment. ‘Lady
Jane was a thoroughbred English mare that I’d just given three
hundred for, worse luck, for I never did see her again, or any of my
goods and chattels, from that day to this.’
‘And what did you do then, uncle?’ said the other sister, the
humane sympathiser with Lady Jane being too much astonished and
discomposed to continue the examination.
‘I was on my old Arab, Roostoom, luckily,’ said the Colonel, ‘a
horse known all over India. When I saw there was nothing for it, I
turned his head straight across country for Delhi, and after missing a
few shots, rode one hundred and thirty miles before I stopped. Next
morning I fell in with a troop of irregular horse of Jacob’s, and
stayed with them till we entered Delhi together at the Cashmere
gate. I say, we have squared accounts with the Pandies; and I
thought we were going to ride over to the diggings after lunch.’
Accordingly, about three o’clock, behold the whole party, including
the two young ladies and Mr. Neuchamp, mounted and cantering
along the extremely well-marked road which led to the mining
township of Turonia. The young ladies rode with grace and spirit
upon well-groomed, well-bred horses, drawing forth many
encomiums from the horse-loving and gallant Colonel, who said that
their steeds would fetch a thousand rupees in Calcutta, and the
young ladies receive half a dozen proposals of marriage the very first
day they appeared on the Maidan.
The young ladies, in return, declared that there was only one man
in the district to be compared to their uncle; and as he sat with easy
military seat upon a strikingly handsome thoroughbred bay, with a
star, the whole affair, from the well-brushed hat to lower spur-
leather, ‘exquisite as a piece of lace,’ he justified their appreciation.
As they neared the widely-extended collection of huts, shafts, heaps
of mullock, and imposing structures of weatherboard and iron,
thronged with a stalwart army, ten thousand strong, of bronzed and
bearded gold-miners, they were joined by a semi-military-looking
personage, dressed in uniform not all devoid of gold lace, and
followed by a highly efficient-looking, well-mounted trooper.
‘Ha! Stanley,’ said Mr. Branksome, ‘well met; how do you do? This
is my friend, Mr. Frank Stanley, the Commissioner of the goldfield.
Allow me to introduce you to him. Are your subjects peaceable
enough to venture among; and how does the escort get on?’
‘I will answer for my diggers,’ said Mr. Stanley, bowing to the
young ladies, ‘being the most genuinely polite people in the world,
especially to ladies; and the escort was a little over ten thousand
ounces last week.’
‘You don’t say so?’ said Mr. Branksome; ‘three thousand ounces
more than last week. Why, how much do you intend to get at by the
end of the year?’
‘Several, rich leads have been discovered lately,’ said the
Commissioner, with a slight air of importance. ‘If they find a deeper
deposit below the basalt, as many of the experienced miners think
likely, we shall eclipse California.’
‘How very interesting,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, much excited by
proximity to a novel and recent development of colonial industry; ‘I
suppose you find great difficulty in managing such an immense and
disorderly concourse.’
 ‘If they were disorderly we simply could not manage them,’ said
the representative of the Queen’s Government. ‘We have about an
average of one constable to a thousand men. Moral force, applied
with discretion and firmness, suffices for all purposes of rule and
coercion. Besides, the miners, as a rule, are well-educated men, and
such populations are always manageable.’
‘Why so?’ inquired Ernest. ‘I should have thought that they were
easily led away by designing persons.’
‘The contrary is the case,’ said the experienced proconsul. ‘Without
stating that there are always among the miners gentlemen and
graduates of the university, a considerable proportion consists of
well-educated, travelled, sagacious men. These leaven the mass;
and having strong convictions themselves upon all subjects, they are
amenable to argument―to logic―which comprehends justice. It is
an ignorant population which follows the demagogue like sheep; it is
the uncultivated mind which is at the mercy of every specious lie
which is offered to it.’
‘Then crime is rare,’ said Ernest, ‘and offences against life and
property uncommon?’
‘Taking the numbers, one may aver, with safety, that crime is
exceedingly infrequent. At the same time I cannot deny that the
police charges are tolerably numerous. But in case of serious
offences we have the main body of miners on the side of law and
order, and the criminal rarely eludes the arm of the law.’
By this time they had neared the outskirts of the town, and Ernest
was much pleased with the many neat cottages, surrounded by trim
gardens, which they passed. Among these stood an exceedingly
small but faultlessly neat dwelling, surrounded by a garden filled
with vegetables, the profuse growth of which was due to a small
stream of water which had been ingeniously led from the
neighbouring hills. The owner, whose attire, though suitable for
working, was marked by the exceptional neatness which pervaded
the establishment, leaned upon his spade and gazed calmly upon
the cortège as it passed along the winding forest track.
‘How pleasant a sight it is,’ said Ernest, ‘to see one man, at least,
superior to the mad thirst for gold which is common to this eager
population. How contentedly that gardener devotes himself to the
occupation in which he has probably passed his former life, and
which, without holding out any splendid prize, no doubt provides him
with a certain and ample subsistence.’
‘I should say,’ said Mr. Branksome, ‘that your recluse has probably
lost his all at a gold venture, and is from circumstances compelled to
rusticate, literally, until he makes a fresh start.’
The Goldfields Commissioner smiled, but made no remark, as he
rode close up to the palings of the garden and reined in his horse.
The gardener left his work and advanced to the fence, apparently
to hold converse with the important official―a man at that time
possessed of enormous power and irresponsible control.
‘Hallo, De Bracy!’ said the latter, ‘how are you getting on? Weather
too hot for the green peas? Asparagus pretty forward?’
‘Shocking weather, altogether,’ said the horticulturist, advancing to
the barrier and shaking hands with the Commissioner. ‘If it were not
for my irrigation I should be ruined and undone. Splendid thing,
water!’
The Colonel and Ernest, with the young ladies, had by this time
ridden close up, and were regarding the somewhat exceptional
‘grower,’ whose sunburnt hands exhibited much delicacy of shape
and careful treatment, while his extremely handsome face and figure
told unmistakably of long acquaintance with the haute volée of the
world’s best society.
‘Are you going to the bachelors’ ball to-morrow night?’ asked the
Commissioner. ‘Great muster, and no end of young ladies.’
 ‘Well, I may look in for an hour if I can get these cauliflowers
properly earthed up in time,’ said this anomalous member at once of
the gay and workaday world. ‘You know the season is so forward
that I dare not give them another hour.’
‘Great God!’ said the Colonel, ‘why, it’s De Bracy! Why, Brian, old
boy, what, in the name of all that is impossible, brings you here?’
Ernest turned at the exclamation, and saw that the Colonel’s bold
features had changed, and were working like those of a man who
sees some visitant from the silent land―is confronted by an unreal
presence that stirs his inmost soul and curdles the very life blood.
The young ladies stand, pale with surprise.
‘Oh, it’s you, Billy Branks,’ said the provider of esculents. ‘Come
down from India? Nearly as hot here, eh? Well, I lost all my money
in mining enterprises; the finest substitute for unlimited loo I ever
fell across. And having absolutely nothing, and being far from the
land of friends, bill discounters, and outfitters, why, I took to
gardening. Il faut vivre, you know; and I was always fond of
dabbling in amateur handicrafts.’
‘Splendid life, beautiful weather, not too cold; shouldn’t mind it a
bit; make heaps of money, I’m sure!’ said the Colonel incoherently.
‘But oh! Brian, old fellow, I never thought I should see you working
for your living.’
‘Why not, my dear boy?’ said the philosopher of the spade coolly.
‘What does the old Roman poet say―furcae amor honestus est et
liber―stick to your knife and fork, and all that. Horace has no doubt
on the subject. This is my Sabine farm, and there is the Fons
Bandusiae, for a time―glad to say―at any rate, for a time―the pre-
remittance stage. It’s safer than billiards, and more creditable than
whist―as a livelihood.’
‘True, by Jove!’ said the Colonel, ‘most honourable and all that.
But the fellows at the Rag would never believe it, if I go back and
tell them that I saw Brian de Bracy growing vegetables and living by
it, by gad.’
‘Tell ’em every word of it, Billy, old boy,’ said the wholly unabashed
and true descendant of Adam, squaring his shoulders and displaying
his symmetrical figure. ‘Tell some of them to come out and try their
luck here. It will do them a lot of good, make men of them, and
keep them away from the bones.’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ assented the Colonel, hopelessly confused.
‘Most likely they’ll all come. Charming climate, splendid salad, and so
on. Well, good-bye, old man. Sorry to see you looking so well. Oh
lord! why didn’t the French Count kill you instead of your winging
him, in that row about Ferraris, and stop this. Good gad!’
So saying, the warm-hearted warrior wrenched away his horse’s
head and departed along the homeward track, inconsolable for at
least a quarter of an hour, at the expiration of which time he
unburdened his soul to the nearest niece as follows:―
‘Awful thing! poor Brian, wasn’t it? By gad, when I first recognised
him, thought I should have fallen off my horse. Last time I saw him
he was coming out of the Travellers’, in London, with a duke on one
arm and the commander-in-chief on the other. Awful fuss always
made about him. No swell within miles of him―at Ascot, Goodwood,
and so on. Women reg’lar fought about him―handsomest man of his
day. Shoot, ride, fence, everything, better than the best of the
amateurs. And now, what’s he down to? By gad! it makes a baby of
me.’ And the honest, kindly veteran looked as if a cambric
handkerchief would have afforded him great comfort and relief
under the circumstances.
‘Never mind, uncle,’ said the sympathising maiden, ‘you’ll see him
at the ball to-morrow night, and I’ll dance with him―not that there’s
much charity in that. You know how nicely he looks at night. There
won’t be a man there to be compared with him.’
 ‘Of course I’ll go,’ said the Colonel, recovering himself as became a
soldier, ‘and you may look me out a nice girl or two for a waltz. I
don’t think I ever went to a ball at a diggings before.’
 CHAPTER XXII
A pleasant ride home in the cool of the evening, comprising some
æsthetic talk on the part of Ernest with the youngest daughter, and
a sensational bit of horsemanship by the Colonel, who rode his horse
over a stiff three-railer that Miss Branksome had denounced as
dangerous, prepared the party for a very merry dinner, after which
some dressing set in, and the whole party started for the ball in a
high mail phaeton.
The mining township of Turonia, while tolerably open to criticism
by day as to its architecture, with the kindly aid of shadow and
moonbeam looked sufficiently imposing by night, with its long line of
lighted street, its clanking engines and red-gleaming shift-fires.
The particular night chosen for the entertainment which the
bachelors temporarily dwelling in and around the golden city of
Turonia had provided, was of the clearest moonlight procurable.
Undimmed, awful, golden, pure, in the wondrous dark-blue dome,
glowed the thrones of the greater and the lesser kings of the night.
The trees upon the swart hillsides were visible in fullest delicate
tracery of leaf and branch, as at midday. Each trail in the red dusty
roadpaths showed with magic pencilling of outline. The dark-
mouthed cruel shafts, which lay as if watching for a prey on either
side of the narrow roadway, were plainly visible to the most careless
wayfarer. So it chanced that from cottage and villa, from farmhouse
and home station, and even from less pretentious habitations than
any of these, wended at the usual hour a concourse of joyous or
pleasure-enduring visitants, not specially distinguishable in air,
manner, or raiment from metropolitan devotees of similar tenets.
Pretty Mrs. Merryfield was there, whose husband, formerly in the
navy, held as many shares in the Haul and Belay Reef as would at
that time have enabled him to retire upon club life and whist for the
rest of his days. Managing Mrs. Campion, with her three daughters
(Janie Campion was not unlikely to be voted the belle of the
evening), sailed in, imposing with bouquets all the way from Sydney,
the fern sprigs, camellias, and moss rosebuds of which were marvels
of freshness. Little Campion and his partner, George Bowler, were
driving a roaring trade as auctioneers, and a cheque for fifty for the
girls’ dresses and fal-lals was, he was pleased to say, ‘neither here
nor there.’ The doctors, half a dozen, were chiefly married men, and
contributed their full share to the feminine contingent. So did the
four lawyers. Mining cases are perhaps the most interminable,
complicated, and technical known in the records of litigation. The
bankers were in great force and profusion. In mining towns they are
necessarily numerous and competitive, and there are few
departments of social accomplishments to which they may not lay
claim. Thus many were the celebrities contributed by them that
night―athletic champions, musical bankers, and bankers that
danced, bankers that billiarded and whisted, bankers that ‘went in
for beauty’ and preserved their complexions, and bankers that
combined divers of these claims to consideration. In a general way it
may be assumed that the jeunesse dorée of that inevitable
profession numbers as many ‘good all-round men’ as could be taken
at hazard from either of the services, military or naval―the
metropolitan young-lady vote notwithstanding. Our ball yet had
some distinctive features. Many of the irreproachably attired
persons, there and then present, had spent the day in avocations
which do not in a general way precede ball going. Jack Hardston had
worked his own eight hours’ ‘shift’ that day, from 8 a.m. to 4 o’clock
in the afternoon, in a ‘drive’ of considerable lateral penetration, at a
distance of 160 feet from ‘upper air.’ After a light repast, a smoke, a
swim in the Turonia, and a somewhat protracted and hazardous
toilet, he asserted himself to be wound up exactly to concert pitch.
Twice as fit indeed as when he carried the money of the men for the
grand military pedestrian handicap. Mild little Mrs. Wynne had
treated herself to the ball on the strength of Lloyd Watkyn having
come ‘on the gutter’ in his claim at Jumper’s Gully in the early part
of the week. So she finished up her baking and brewing, let us say,
and having handed over the three-year-old Watkyn Williams, with
many injunctions, to her neighbour Mrs. David Jones (also of the
Principality), proceeded with her husband, ‘dressed for once like old
times,’ as she said with a little sigh, to the hall of the great
enchanter―even music―who hath power over body and soul, life
and limb; who with a chord can call forth the tears of the past, the
joys of the present. And very nice they looked.
Horace Sherrington was there―suave, correct, rather worn-
looking, but incontestably ‘good form.’ He made a handsomer
income by the exercise of his talents than those somewhat varied
natural gifts had ever previously afforded him. Every evening he
came to the camp mess, where the Government officials kept
something like open house for all pleasant fellows who were ‘of ours’
in the former or the latter time. No one sang so good a song as
Sherrington, was so racy a raconteur, played a better hand at whist,
had a surer cue at pool. But no one knew precisely how he spent his
day, not that any one cared much. There were too many men of
mark who had tried every employment on that goldfield for luck and
honest bread, including the officials themselves, for them to affect
any snobbish discrimination of avocations. But Horace did not
volunteer the nature of his daily duties; he was not a miner, a
speculator, a reefer, nor an engine-driver, a clerk, or puddler. His
reticence piqued them. One day the police inspector’s horse shied at
a man in a loose blue shirt and very clay-stained general rig, having
also an immense sheaf of posters in his hand. ‘What the devil do you
mean, my man, by flourishing these things in my horse’s face?’
growled the somewhat shaken autocrat. ‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ quoth
the agent of intelligence, himself passing on. But it was too late. The
lynx-eye settled upon him with unerring aim, like a backwoodsman’s
rifle. Both men burst out laughing. The elegant and accomplished
Horace was a bill-sticker! The festive concourse partook, in one
respect at least, of classical and traditionary fitness. The sincere and
fervid worshippers of Terpsichore held sacred revel in a temple―the
Temple of Justice! For the large handsomely decorated hall, which
resounded with the inspiriting clangour of a very passable brass
band, was in good earnest the court-house of Turonia. By the simple
process of removing the dock and draping the witness-box as a lamp
stand, placing the musicians upon the magisterial bench, with, I
hardly need to mention, a profuse exhibition of international
bunting, a fairly ornamental and highly effective ballroom was
secured.
It was generally believed, and indeed asserted by the Turonia
Sentinel, that the Commissioner, who was known to be beau valseur,
had bribed the contractor, when completing that magnificent edifice,
to bestow extra finish upon the flooring, with ulterior views as to its
utilisation for society purposes. Be that as it may―and much gossip
was current about that high and mighty official of which he took no
heed―there was some truth in a subsequent legend that a prisoner
and the constable by whom he was being escorted to the dock on
the following morning slipped and fell as heavily and unexpectedly
upon the glassy floor as if they had been essaying the gliding graces
of the rink for the first time.
When the Branksome Hall party drove up, the entertainment had
commenced, and the two first dances having been got through, the
gêne of all beginnings and early arrivals was evaded. The ladies
having been first conducted for envelope-removing purposes into the
jury-room, and the men’s overcoats and wideawakes deposited in
the land office, the stewards with elaborate courtesy escorted them
to the hall of dazzling delight.
The Commissioner, in blue and gold (at that period of Australian
history these officials wore uniforms), looked most military and
distinguished, his heavy drab moustache and decided cast of
countenance suiting the costume extremely well. The second
steward was a broad-shouldered, blonde, blue-eyed personage,
whose singular talent for organisation caused his services to be in
great request at all public demonstrations―social, military, legal, or
ecclesiastical. He looked like a squatter or a naval man, but was in
reality a bank manager. The third steward was a tall handsome man,
very carefully attired, whose delicate features were partly concealed
by an immense fair beard. His manner, his mien, his every look and
gesture, told as plainly as words to any observer of his kind of
foreign travel, of ‘the service’ in early life of that occasional entire
dependence upon personal resources which has been roughly
translated as ‘living by his wits.’ On his brow was the imprint writ
large, in spite of the faultless toilet, finished courtesy, the perfect
aplomb, the half-unconscious fierté of his manner, the somewhat
doubtful affiche of adventurer.
Attended by these magnates, for whom way was made with ready
respect, the Hall party sailed into the well-lighted, well-filled room
with considerable prestige.
Ernest was considerably astonished at the general appearance of
matters, while the Colonel openly expressed his admiration and
satisfaction.
‘Gad, sir!’ he said to the Commissioner, ‘I had no idea that you
were able to get up your dances in this fashion. What a field of neat
well-bred-looking flyers―I mean deuced pretty girls, and
monstrously well dressed too. Puts me in mind of one of our
Hurryghur dances. We used to have such jolly spurts at the old
station before that cursed Mutiny spoiled everything.’
Mr. Neuchamp thought it was not so very much less imposing in
appearance than a ball in Sydney; room not so big; perhaps a trifling
flavour of the provinces.
But the Bombay galop having struck up, the Colonel possessed
himself of a partner of prepossessing appearance, through the good
offices of the Commissioner, and sailed off at a great pace. Ernest
lost no time in appropriating the eldest Miss Branksome, and
reflection was merged in sensation.
‘I suppose you hardly expected to have any ball-going in this
particular spot,’ said he to his partner, ‘a few years ago.’
 ‘We should just as soon have expected to go to the opera and
hear Tietjens,’ said Miss Branksome. ‘I have often ridden over this
very spot with papa, and seen the wild horses feeding on the hill
where the town now stands.’
‘And you like the change?’
‘I can’t say that we did at first. We fancied, I suppose, that the
great invading army of diggers would eat us up, and we resented
their intrusion. But they turned out very amiable wild beasts, and
one advantage we certainly did not calculate upon.’
‘What is that, may I ask?’
‘The number of nice people that would accompany the army. Our
society is ten times as large and pleasant as in old times. We are
hardly a night without quite a small party of visitors. You see there
are the commissioners, magistrates, bankers, and other officials, all
gentlemen and mostly pleasant. Besides, the gold attracts visitors,
like yourself, for instance.’
After a very satisfactory fast and unaffectedly performed galop,
the susceptible Colonel joined them at the refreshment table,
accompanied by a young lady with a wild-rose complexion and great
dark eyes, who had been evidently dancing at a pace which had
caused that mysterious portion of her chevelure known (I am
informed) as ‘back hair’ to fall in glossy abundance over her fair
shoulders.
‘Splendid floor, Bessy,’ he said to his niece. ‘Capital music―partner
beyond all praise!’ (Here the young lady looked up with smiling
reproach.) ‘Fact! haven’t had such a dance since the last ball at
Calcutta. There were two duels next day―about a young lady, of
course’ (here the small damsel looked much concerned)―‘and poor
O’Grady, who had heart complaint, but couldn’t control his feelings
at a ball, died within the week.’
 ‘Oh, how dreadful!’ said the little maiden, with a sincere accent of
distress. ‘But nobody dies after a ball here, or fights duels either,
that I ever heard of. Why should they in India, Colonel Branksome?’
‘Can’t say,’ said the Colonel. ‘Let me give you a little champagne;
heat of the climate, I suppose; too many soldiers, too few ladies.’
‘India must be a beautiful place, Colonel Branksome,’ observed the
grave little damsel, looking out of her big eyes with an air of
deliberate conviction.
‘Glorious, splendid; that is, most infernal hole―hot, dull,
miserable―full of niggers. Hope I may never stay another year in it.
Get my pension, I hope, when I get back and settle up with the
remount agent. After that, if they ever catch Billy Branksome out of
England again, they may make a Punkah-wallah of him.’
‘Good gracious, Colonel Branksome!’ said the matter-of-fact
danseuse, who now looked as cool as if she had been walking a
minuet. ‘I thought all soldiers were fond of India. Oh! there’s that
dear old Captain de Bracy.’
‘Gad! so it is,’ said the Colonel. ‘Look at him, Bessy, strolling in,
and bowing to every woman he knows, as if he was at a ball at the
Tuileries. Gad! I did see him there last. And what do you think he
was doing?―why, dancing in a set with two crowned heads and four
princesses of the blood. He and Charles Standish made up the set;
by gad!’
‘Oh, doesn’t he look like a nobleman?’ said the debutante
enthusiastically, opening her innocent eyes and feasting on De
Bracy’s middle-aged charms. ‘And oh, what lovely, wonderful studs!’
‘So you’re here, Master Billy, as usual?’ said the object of this
highly favourable criticism. ‘Couldn’t keep away from a ball if your
life depended upon it. Old enough to know better, ain’t he, Miss
Maybell? Happy to see you all here to-night. Not afraid of the stumps
and holes? I’m well enough, thanks, Miss Maybell; heard you were
coming, and though I seldom go out now―I am here.’
‘Oh, Captain de Bracy!’ said little Miss Maybell, perfectly
overwhelmed with the compliment to her unworthy small self (as
she erroneously held, underrating her fresh and innocent beauty),
and mentally comparing De Bracy’s appearance with that of a print
of the Chevalier Bayard which was among her treasures at home.
A great tidal wave of promenading couples overwhelmed and
dispersed the partie carrée for a while, so that they were compelled
to make arrangements for the next dance, which happened to be a
deux-temps waltz. Having relinquished Miss Branksome to De Bracy,
and seen pretty little Miss Maybell carried off by young Tom
Branksome, who recommended his uncle to try Mrs. Campion, as
being a fine woman and of a suitable age, Ernest found, rather to
his surprise, that he was a little late, as every possible partner for a
fast dance had been secured. The fact was, that the proportion of
the sexes was in the inverse ratio to what generally obtains at balls
in a more settled state of society. Therefore, more than average
alacrity and foresight was necessary to ensure a regular succession
of partners.
As Mr. Neuchamp, smiling to himself at his involuntary state of
injured feelings, sauntered towards the refreshment room, he met
the steward, who had been introduced to him by the Commissioner
as Mr. Lionel Greffham.
‘You don’t seem to be dancing,’ he said; ‘well, it is rather a bore,
after the first turn or two. Bright and I are having a glass of
champagne; will you join us?―it is “number two.”’
There was such an evident desire to be civil on Mr. Greffham’s part
that Ernest, who had not at first regarded him with perfect approval,
felt moved to respond to so friendly an accost. He found Mr. Bright
in the supper room, in conversation with a well-dressed, quiet, but