In the Roaring Fifties Part 7

'And pea-souper and lime-juicer?'

'They've been hazing you properly, mate. Pea-soupers and lime-juicers are strangers off s.h.i.+pboard. They'd never have spotted you, though, without the bundle. There's no raw-meat tint about you; you're tanned like a native. Buy a blue jumper and get a cabbage-tree up in place of that cap, and you'd pa.s.s muster as a Sydney-sider born and bred.'

'A cabbage-tree?'

'Hat--straw. Get a second-hand one if you can: they're more appreciated.

Usually a man likes to colour his own hat as he colours his own pipe; but you're eager to meet the Australian prejudice against newness. Another bit of advice,' continued the bar-man, who was glad of the chance to turn his vast antipodean experience to some account. 'If you happen to be anybody in particular, as you love your peace of mind and your bodily comfort, don't speak of it.'

'Luckily, I'm n.o.body in particular.'

'That's all right. I was idiot enough to let it be known that I was afflicted with an aristocratic name, and I had to hold this job against banter enough to drive a cow daft. Now my name's Smith.'

'Are you a new chum, then?'

'Lord no! I've been out seven weeks.'

It was Jim's turn to laugh. 'Well,' he said, 'if a man can qualify as a representative Australian in seven weeks, I'm not going to complain.'

The barman provided much more valuable information. Bed and board could not be had at that establishment for love or money, and, furthermore, it was unlikely Jim would be able to find lodgings anywhere in Melbourne.

'I suppose you can take care of yourself--you look a likely man,' he said. 'Well, the nights are so warm no man needs a dwelling. When you're tired of knocking round to-night, take your traps down by the river, roll yourself in your blanket in the lee of a gum-tree, and sleep there. Did it myself for a week, and only had to put up one fight all the time.

Sleeping out's no hards.h.i.+p here. Meanwhile, in exchange for the latest news from down under, I'll dump your swag, and keep an eye on her till you call again.'

The young fellow's ready friends.h.i.+p was most grateful to Done, and he remained in the bar till a run of business rendered further conversation impossible, picking up useful knowledge by the way, and presently discovering the barman to be a gentleman with an expensive polish, whose most earnest desire was to hide his gentility and disguise the contingent gloss under a brave a.s.sumption of the manners and speech peculiar to the people of the rough young democracy.

Tea that evening was the most expensive meal Jim Done had ever eaten, and far from being the best; but his appet.i.te was equal to anything, and the fare on the Francis Cadman had not been so dainty as to give him any epicurean prejudices. It was night when Jim came from the primitive restaurant, darkness having come down with a suddenness surprising to a new chum accustomed to long twilights. Jim had taken tea in a tent near Paddy's Market. Here scores of tents of all sorts and sizes were huddled together. All cooking was done out of doors. Fires were everywhere, their glow, reflected brightly on the canvas of the 'flies,' giving a fantastic brilliance to the scene. Life stirred around him, jubilant, bounteous, pulsing life. The levity of the people was without limit. Their childishness astonished Done, but he lived to find this a characteristic of the diggers in all parts; even the roughest men in the roughest camps exhibited a schoolboy's love of horseplay and a great capacity for primitive happiness. It was as if the people, having thrown off the more galling restraints of civilization and order, felt their limbs and spirits free for the first time, and exercised both with the freedom and, the austere critic may say, the foolishness of mountain goats.

Jim's whole being was infected with the spirit of the place, his blood danced. He had discarded his cap for a well-seasoned cabbage-tree, and wore a blue jumper under his coat, and now pa.s.sed unheeded, excepting when a jovial digger, flown with brandy and success, roared a 'Good luck, mate!' or commanded him in to drink. Social restraints were gone; equality ruled the road; all men were brothers, and friends.h.i.+ps of ten minutes' standing were as sacred as the ties of kins.h.i.+p.

The night was young, but already turbulent. The hot wind had pa.s.sed, and the air was sweet and free from dust. As he moved along the street, Done's ear caught the squeak and the tw.a.n.g of fiddle and banjo coming through the confusion of voices. Step-dancing and singing were the most popular delights. The ability to sing a comic song badly was pa.s.sport enough in digger society. The streets were lit with kerosene. Here and there a slush lamp or a torch blazed before an establishment seeking notoriety, shedding a note of lurid colour upon the faces of the bearded men thronging the footpath. If there were laws controlling all these elements, Jim failed to discover a sign of them; neither did he see sign of the flagrant lawlessness he had been led to expect. The absence of arms surprised him most of all. He looked to find knives and revolvers in every belt, but saw no display of weapons, and noting the bluff, lumbering kindliness animating the crowd, he thought of his own small but carefully selected a.r.s.enal with some contempt.

Jim Done walked about the streets for two hours, interested in everything, disappointed with nothing. All this satisfied the craving that had driven him from home. Here he was one of the people, a man amongst men, accepted at his face and physical value by fellow-creatures who respected most the fearless eye and the strong arm. Moreover, there were no signs of those hated forces, respectability, piety, conventionality, all of which had seemed to range themselves automatically on the side of his enemies.

He came to a large wooden hall with a row of lamps blazing along its front and a foreign sign over the door. From within floated strains of music and the beating of many feet. Jim entered. The place was crowded with hairy diggers--mostly successful, he learned presently. The atmosphere was heavy with smoke. A wild dance was going on, and several sets held the floor. Half a dozen of the most fortunate of the men had female partners, the others danced 'bucks,' man and man, and the pounding of their heavy boots and the yells of laughter provoked by their clumsy movements quite drowned the music of the feeble orchestra, crowded away in the far corner of the room. Along one end ran an unplaned wooden counter, where two or three barmen were kept busy serving gin, brandy, and rum to the parched dancers. When the dance was ended there was a rush for the bar, and Jim found now that dancing did not go by favour, the hands of the fair being bestowed upon the highest bidders. One tall, lack-haired, laughing girl, with the figure and face of a Bacchante, sprang upon a chair, shaking aloft a yellow scarf, and was auctioned for the next dance amidst a storm of bidding and a hurricane of merriment.

She was borne down the room in the arms of the triumphant digger, who had paid thirty 'weights' for his bouncing partner--six pounds for ten minutes' dancing, and the proud purchaser couldn't dance a step!

Jim watched the women curiously; they were a new type to him--young, virile, red-lipped, flushed with wine, shameless in the face of the crowd, their faces kindled with laughter. They led the men in their wild revel--pagans absolute. One in particular attracted Done; she was tall, dark-eyed, and black-haired. This, in conjunction with the bold combination of red and black in her costume, gave him the belief that she was Spanish. There was about her some suggestion of character and strength that pleased him. She romped like a child; her merriment was clean and unforced. He saw nothing of the corruption that Vice is supposed to stamp upon the faces of her votaries. These women, despite the feeble kerosene lights, the tobacco-smoke, and the bare, ugly walls, might have been partic.i.p.ants in the revels of Dionysus.

Several times, pa.s.sing him in the dance, the eyes of the Spaniard flashed into his own, and she smiled. When the dance was ended she confronted him.

'Sure, you're goin' to dance wid me, ain't ye now?' she said in the most mellifluous brogue.

Done shook his head and laughed with diffidence.

'No, thanks,' he said. 'I'm not a rich digger. Only a poor new chum,' he added, hoping to carry conviction.

'Straight from the Ould Country, is it?' asked the girl eagerly. 'Have ye the word of ould Ireland, an' how does she stand? The dance is yours for the shmallest token.'

'I'm sorry I don't know Ireland,' said Jim.

'Then I'll give you the dance fer natural love an' affection.'

Done protested that he could not dance, but the laughing girl dragged him into the thick of it.

'Come along!' she cried, dropping the brogue. 'I'm a patriot, and I love you for the green in your eye.'

Jim danced. He was literally forced into it, and presently found himself getting along quite decently in a barbaric sort of polka. When the music ceased he followed the custom of the country, and shouted for his partner. She drank sherry. He left the hall a few minutes later, with the girl's kiss, lightly given, tingling on his lips, and walked away quickly, treading on air. Presently he began to question himself. Why this growing exuberance? Was it drink? Never before had he felt its influence. He pulled himself together. He was crowding his sensation: it was time to cry a halt.

The young man returned to the hotel where he had left his belongings. The long bar was crowded with men. The hotel was little more than a large tent with a pretentious wooden front. It was illumined by a single lamp suspended above the counter. This lamp lit up the faces of the men gathered under it, but beyond the countenances of the customers faded into a mist of tobacco-smoke, deepening into darkness in the corners.

Done leant against the bar, watching the scene, still curious, content to wait till the busy barman had leisure to attend to him. After a few moments he found himself an object of most marked interest to a tall, thin digger, perched on an up-ended barrel, drinking porter. The man was watching him narrowly, and at length, as if to leave no doubt of his attentions, he stepped down, and, standing squarely in front of Done, looked him closely in the face. Jim returned the stare, finding curiosity deepen into surprise, and surprise into conviction, in the countenance confronting him.

'Solo!' cried the man. 'Solo, by all that's holy!' As he spoke he sprang between Jim and the door way, as if to cut off escape. 'Bail up!' he said; 'we've got you tight this trip.'

'You're making a mistake, I think, mate,' said Jim. 'Anyhow, my name is not Solo.'

'That's a bluff! I know you too d.a.m.n well! Boys,' continued the miner, addressing the crowd, 'it's Solo. I'll wager my soul on it. Get at him!

There's five hundred cold guineas on his head!'

'I tell you you're wrong!' blurted Done.

The tall man waited for no further argument, but jumped at Done, and they closed. There was a short struggle, and Jim put his opponent down with an old Cousin-Jack trick that he had often tried on better men.

'The man's drunk!' said Jim, as the crowd narrowed in on him. He set his back against the counter, prepared to make a good fight.

A raw-boned, brown-faced native of about twenty-six grappled with him, but only as a pretence, as Done speedily found.

'Bolt, or you're a done man!' whispered the Australian at his ear. 'When I smash the lamp, over the counter and under the tent, and skedaddle for your life!'

This young fellow allowed himself to be thrown off, and backed into the crowd. The long man, who had recovered his wind, turned to address the men.

'It's Solo, mates,' he said, 'and there's five hundred waiting for us if we take him.'

The men moved forward in a body, but just then a pewter crashed into the lamp, and there was darkness. Acting on his new friend's advice, Done cleared the counter at a bound, and dived under the canvas. Picking himself up, he ran into the darkness. He heard footsteps following him, and increased his pace, stumbling on the strange ground. But a voice a.s.sured him.

'Keep to the right! Make for cover!' panted his pursuer.

VII

FINDING only one man following, Jim Done ceased running on reaching a clump of trees, and presently he was joined by the young Australian who had aided him.

'My colonial, you sprint like an emu!' gasped the latter. 'All the same, that was a mad sort o' thing to do.'

'What was?'

'Why, showin' yourself 'bout here with the cheek of a dashed commissioner, while there's five hundred on your head, hot or cold, live or dead, an' every trooper in the country whim' to give his long ears to pot you.'