It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 133

"Such as it is it cost me thirty pounds," cried Jem. "Keep it. I shall find him. My spade shall never go into the earth again till I'm quits with this one."

"That is right," roared the men, "bring him to us, and the captain shall sit in judgment again;" and the men's countenances were gloomy, for this was a new roguery and struck at the very root of gold digging.

"I'll put it down, Mr. Levi," said Robinson, after the others had gone to their work; "here is a new dodge, Brummagem planted on us so far from home. I will pull it down with a tenpenny cord but I'll end it."

Cras.h.!.+ went ten thousand cradles; the mine had breakfasted. I wish I could give the European reader an idea of the magnitude of this sound whose cause was so humble. I must draw on nature for a comparison.

Did you ever stand upon a rocky sh.o.r.e at evening when a great storm has suddenly gone down, leaving the waves about as high as they were while it raged? Then there is no roaring wind to dull the clamor of the tremendous sea as it lashes the long re-bellowing sh.o.r.e. Such was the sound of ten thousand cradles; yet the sound of each one was insignificant. Hence an observation and a reflection--the latter I dedicate to the lovers of antiquity--that multiplying sound, magnifies it in a way science has not yet accounted for; and that, though men are all dwarfs, Napoleon included, man is a giant.

The works of man are so prodigious they contradict all we see of any individual's powers; and even so when you had seen and heard one man rock one cradle, it was all the harder to believe that a few thousand of them could rival thunder, avalanches, and the angry sea las.h.i.+ng the long reechoing sh.o.r.e at night. These miserable wooden cradles lost their real character when combined in one mighty human effort; it seemed as if giant labor had stretched forth an arm huge as an arm of the sea and rocked one enormous engine, whose sides where these great primeval rocks, and its mouth a thundering sea.

Cras.h.!.+ from meal to meal!

The more was Robinson surprised when, full an hour before dinner-time, this mighty noise all of a sudden became feebler and feebler, and presently human cries of a strange character made their way to his ear through the wooden thunder.

"What on earth is up now?" thought he--"an earthquake?"

Presently he saw at about half a mile off a vast crowd of miners making toward him in tremendous excitement. They came on, swelled every moment by fresh faces, and cries of vengeance and excitement were now heard, which the wild and savage aspect of the men rendered truly terrible. At last he saw and comprehended all at a glance.

There were Jem and two others dragging a man along whose white face and knocking knees betrayed his guilt and his terror. Robinson knew him directly; it was Walker, who had been the decoy-duck the night his tent was robbed.

"Here is the captain! Hurrah! I've got him, captain. This is the beggar that peppered the hole for me, and now we will pepper him!"

A fierce burst of exultation from the crowd. They thirsted for revenge.

Jem had caught the man at the other end of the camp, and his offense was known by this time to half the mine.

"Proceed regularly, Jem," said Robinson. "Don't condemn the man unheard."

"Oh, no! He shall be tried, and you shall be the judge."

"I consent," said Robinson, somewhat pompously.

Then arose a cry that made him reflect.

"Lynch! Lynch! a seat for Judge Lynch!" and in a moment a judgment-seat was built with cradles, and he was set on high, with six strange faces scowling round him for one of his own clique. He determined to back out of the whole thing.

"No, no!" cried he; "that is impossible. I cannot be a judge in such a serious matter."

"Why not?" roared several voices.

"Why not? Because I am not a regular beak; because I have not got authority from the Crown."

There was a howl of derision.

"We give you authority!"

"We order you to be judge!"

"We are King, Lords, and Commons!"

"Do what we bid you, or," added a stranger, "we will hang you and the prisoner with one rope!"

Grim a.s.sent of the surrounding faces; Robinson sat down on the judgment-seat not a little discomposed.

"Now then," remonstrated one; "what are you waiting for? Name the jury."

"Me!" "Me!" "Me!" "I!" "I!" "I!" and there was a rush for the office.

"Keep cool," replied another. "Lynch law goes quick, but it goes by rule. Judge, name the jury."

Robinson, a man whose wits seldom deserted him, at once determined to lead, since he could not resist. He said with dignity: "I shall choose one juryman from each of the different countries that are working in this mine, that no nation may seem to be slighted, for this gold belongs to all the world."

"Hurrah! Well done, judge. Three cheers for Judge Lynch!"

"When I call a country, give me a name, which I will inscribe on my report of the proceedings. I want a currency lad first."

"Here is one. William Parker."

"Pa.s.s over. France."

"Present. Pierre Chanot."

"Germany."

"Here. Hans Muller."

"Holland."

"Here. Jan Van der Stegen."

Spain and Italy were called, but no reply. Asleep, I take it.

"United States."

"Here. Nathan Tucker."

Here Robinson, casting his eyes round, spied McLaughlan, and, being minded to dilute the severity of his jury, he cried out, "Scotland.

McLaughlan, you shall represent her."

No answer.

"McLaughlan," cried several voices, "where are ye? Don't you hear Judge Lynch speak to you?"

"Come, McLaughlan, come over; you are a respectable man."

Mr. McLaughlan intimated briefly in his native dialect that he was, and intended to remain so; by way of comment on which he made a bolt from the judgment-hall, but was rudely seized and dragged before the judge.

"For Heaven's sake, don't be a fool, McLaughlan. No man must refuse to be a juryman in a trial by lynch. I saw a Quaker stoned to death for it in California."