Robbery Under Arms

R >> Rolf Boldrewood >> Robbery Under Arms

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44

We had a great spree that night in a quiet way, and got all the fun
as was to be had under the circumstances. Barnes came out
with some pretty good wine which Starlight shouted for all round.
The old woman cooked us a stunning good dinner, which we made
the girls sit down to and some cousins of theirs that lived close by.
We were merry enough before the evening was out. Bella Barnes
played the piano middling, and Maddie could sing first-rate,
and all of them could dance. The last thing I recollect
was Starlight showing Maddie what he called a minuet step,
and Jonathan and the old woman sitting on the sofa as grave as owls.

Anyhow, we all enjoyed ourselves. It was a grand change after being
so long alone. The girls romped and laughed and pretended to be offended
every now and then, but we had a regular good lark of it,
and didn't feel any the worse at daylight next morning.

Jim and I were away before sunrise, and after we'd once got on the road
that Jonathan showed us we got on well enough. We were dressed
just like common bushmen. There were plenty on the road just then
bringing cattle and horses to the diggings. It was well known
that high prices were going there and that everybody paid in cash.
No credit was given, of course.

We had on blue serge shirts, moleskin trousers, and roughish leather gaiters
that came up to the knee, with ponchos strapped on in front;
inside them was a spare shirt or two; we had oldish felt hats,
as if we'd come a good way. Our saddles and bridles were
rusty-looking and worn; the horses were the only things
that were a little too good, and might bring the police to suspect us.
We had to think of a yarn about them. We looked just the same
as a hundred other long-legged six-foot natives with our beards and hair
pretty wild -- neither better nor worse.

As soon as Starlight came on to the Turon he was to rig himself out
as a regular swell, and gammon he'd just come out from England
to look at the goldfields. He could do that part wonderfully well.
We would have backed him to take in the devil himself, if he saw him,
let alone goldfields police, if Sergeant Goring wasn't about.

The second day Jim and I were driving quietly and easy on the road,
the colts trotting along as steady as old stock horses,
and feeding a bit every now and then. We knew we were getting near the Turon,
so many tracks came in from all parts, and all went one way.
All of a sudden we heard a low rumbling, roaring noise,
something like the tide coming in on the seashore.

`I say, Jim, old man, we haven't made any mistake -- crossed over
the main range and got back to the coast, have we?'

`Not likely,' he said; `but what the deuce is that row? I can't reckon it up
for the life of me.'

I studied and studied. On it went grinding and rattling
like all the round pebbles in the world rolling on a beach
with a tidy surf on. I tumbled at last.

`Remember that thing with the two rockers we saw at the Hermit's Hut
in the Hollow?' I said to Jim. `We couldn't make out what it was.
I know now; it was a gold cradle, and there's hundreds and thousands
rocking there at the Turon. That's what's the matter.'

`We're going to see some life, it strikes me,' says he.
`We'll know it all directly. But the first thing we've got to do
is to shut these young 'uns up safe in the sale-yard.
Then we can knock round this town in comfort.'

We went outside of a rocky point, and sure enough here was
the first Australian gold-diggings in full blast. What a sight it was,
to be sure! Jim and I sat in our saddles while the horses went to work
on the green grass of the flat, and stared as if we'd seen
a bit of another world. So it was another world to us, straight away
from the sad-voiced solitudes of the bush.

Barring Sydney or Melbourne, we'd never seen so many men in a crowd before;
and how different they looked from the crawling people of a town!
A green-banked rapid river ran before us, through a deep narrow valley.
The bright green flats looked so strange with the yellow water
rippling and rushing between them. Upon that small flat, and by the bank,
and in the river itself, nearly 20,000 men were at work,
harder and more silently than any crowd we'd ever seen before.
Most of 'em were digging, winding up greenhide buckets filled with gravel
from shafts, which were sunk so thickly all over the place
that you could not pass between without jostling some one.
Others were driving carts heavily laden with the same stuff towards the river,
in which hundreds of men were standing up to their waists washing the gold
out of tin pans, iron buckets, and every kind of vessel or utensil.
By far the greater number of miners used things like child's cradles,
rocking them to and fro while a constant stream of yellow water
passed through. Very little talk went on; every man looked feverishly anxious
to get the greatest quantity of work done by sundown.

Foot police and mounted troopers passed through the crowd every now and then,
but there was apparently no use or no need for them; that time was to come.
Now and then some one would come walking up, carrying a knapsack, not a swag,
and showing by his round, rosy face that he hadn't seen a summer's sun
in Australia. We saw a trooper riding towards us, and knowing it was best
to take the bull by the horns, I pushed over to him, and asked if he
could direct us to where Mr. Stevenson's, the auctioneer's, yard was.

`Whose horses are these?' he said, looking at the brands. `B.M., isn't it?'

`Bernard Muldoon, Lower Macquarie,' I answered. `There's a friend of his,
a new chum, in charge; he'll be here to-morrow.'

`Go on down Main Street [the first street in a diggings is always
called Main Street] as you're going,' he said carelessly,
giving us all a parting look through, `and take the first lane to the right.
It takes you to the yard. It's sale-day to-morrow; you're in luck.'

It was rather sharp work getting the colts through men, women, and children,
carts, cradles, shafts, and tin dishes; but they were
a trifle tired and tender-footed, so in less than twenty minutes
they were all inside of a high yard, where they could scarcely see
over the cap, with a row of loose boxes and stalls behind.
We put 'em into Joe Stevenson's hands to sell -- that was what every one
called the auctioneer -- and walked down the long street.

My word, we were stunned, and no mistake about it. There was nothing to see
but a rocky river and a flat, deep down between hills like we'd seen
scores and scores of times all our lives and thought nothing of,
and here they were digging gold out of it in all directions,
just like potatoes, as Maddie Barnes said. Some of the lumps we saw
-- nuggets they called 'em -- was near as big as new potatoes,
without a word of a lie in it. I couldn't hardly believe it;
but I saw them passing the little washleather bags of gold dust
and lumps of dirty yellow gravel, but heavier, from one to the other
just as if they were nothing -- nearly 4 Pounds an ounce they said
it was all worth, or a trifle under. It licked me to think
it had been hid away all the time, and not even the blacks found it out.
I believe our blacks are the stupidest, laziest beggars in the whole world.
That old man who lived and died in the Hollow, though --
HE must have known about it; and the queer-looking thing with the rockers
we saw near his hut, that was the first cradle ever was made in Australia.

The big man of the goldfield seemed to be the Commissioner. We saw him
come riding down the street with a couple of troopers after his heels,
looking as if all the place, and the gold too, belonged to him.
He had to settle all the rows and disputes that came up over the gold,
and the boundaries of the claims, as they called the twenty-foot paddocks
they all washed in, and a nice time he must have had of it!
However, he was pretty smart and quick about it. The diggers used to
crowd round and kick up a bit of a row sometimes when two lots of men
were fighting for the same claim and gold coming up close by;
but what he said was law, and no mistake. When he gave it out
they had to take it and be content. Then he used to ride away
and not trouble his head any more about it; and after a bit of barneying
it all seemed to come right. Men liked to be talked to straight,
and no shilly-shally.

What I didn't like so much was the hunting about of the poor devils
that had not got what they called a licence -- a printed thing
giving 'em leave for to dig gold on the Crown lands. This used to cost
a pound or thirty shillings a month -- I forget rightly which --
and, of course, some of the chaps hadn't the money to get it with --
spent what they had, been unlucky, or run away from somewhere,
and come up as bare of everything to get it out of the ground.

You'd see the troopers asking everybody for their licences,
and those that hadn't them would be marched up to the police camp
and chained to a big log, sometimes for days and days. The Government
hadn't time to get up a lock-up, with cells and all the rest of it,
so they had to do the chain business. Some of these men had seen better days,
and felt it; the other diggers didn't like it either, and growled a good deal
among themselves. We could see it would make bad blood some day;
but there was such a lot of gold being got just then that people
didn't bother their heads about anything more than they could help --
plenty of gold, plenty of money, people bringing up more things every day
from the towns for the use of the diggers. You could get
pretty near anything you wanted by paying for it. Hard work
from daylight to dark, with every now and then a big find to sweeten it,
when a man could see as much money lying at his foot, or in his hand,
as a year's work -- no, nor five -- hadn't made for him before.
No wonder people were not in a hurry to call out for change
in a place like the Turon in the year 1850!

The first night put the stuns on us. Long rows of tents,
with big roaring log fires in front hot enough to roast you
if you went too near; mobs of men talking, singing, chaffing, dealing --
all as jolly as a lot of schoolboys. There was grog, too, going,
as there is everywhere. No publics were allowed at first, so, of course,
it was sold on the sly.

It's no use trying to make men do without grog, or the means of getting it;
it never works. I don't hold with every shanty being licensed and its being
under a man's nose all day long; but if he has the money to pay for it,
and wants to have an extra glass of grog or two with his friends,
or because he has other reasons, he ought to be able to get it
without hardships being put in his way.

The Government was afraid of there being tremendous fights and riots
at the diggings, because there was all sorts of people there,
English and French, Spaniards and Italians, natives and Americans,
Greeks and Germans, Swedes and negroes, every sort and kind of man
from every country in the world seemed to come after a bit.
But they needn't have been frightened at the diggers. As far as we saw
they were the sensiblest lot of working men we ever laid eyes on;
not at all inclined to make a row for nothing -- quite the other way.
But the shutting off of public-houses led to sly grog tents,
where they made the digger pay a pound a bottle for his grog,
and didn't keep it very good either.

When the police found a sly grog tent they made short work of it,
I will say. Jim and I were close by, and saw them at the fun.
Somebody had informed on the man, or they had some other reason;
so they rode down, about a dozen troopers, with the Commissioner
at their head. He went in and found two casks of brandy and one of rum,
besides a lot of bottled stuff. They didn't want that for their own use,
he believed.

First he had the heads knocked in of the hogsheads; then all
the bottled wine and spirits were unpacked and stowed in a cart,
while the straw was put back in the tent. Then the men and women
were ordered to come outside, and a trooper set fire to the straw.
In five minutes the tent and everything in it was a mass of flame.

There was a big crowd gathered round outside. They began to groan
when the trooper lit the straw, but they did nothing, and went quietly home
after a bit. We had the horses to see after next day. Just before
the sale began, at twelve o'clock, and a goodish crowd had turned up,
Starlight rides quietly up, the finest picture of a new chum you ever
set eyes on. Jim and I could hardly keep from bursting out laughing.

He had brought up a quiet cobby sort of stock horse from the Hollow,
plain enough, but a wonder to go, particularly over broken country.
Of course, it didn't do to bring Rainbow out for such work as this.
For a wonder, he had a short tail. Well, he'd squared this cob's tail
and hogged his mane so that he looked like another animal.
He was pretty fat, too.

He was dressed up to the nines himself, and if we didn't expect him
we wouldn't have known him from a crow. First of all,
he had a thick rough suit of tweed clothing on, all the same colour,
with a round felt hat. He had a bran new saddle and bridle, that hadn't got
the yellow rubbed off them yet. He had an English hunting whip in his hand,
and brown dogskin gloves. He had tan leather gaiters
that buttoned up to his knees. He'd shaved his beard
all but his moustache and a pair of short whiskers.

He had an eyeglass in his eye, which he let drop every now and then,
putting it up when he wanted to look at anybody.

When he rode up to the yard everybody stared at him,
and one or two of the diggers laughed and began to call out `Joe.'
Jim and I thought how sold some of them would have been
if he turned on them and they'd found out who it was.
However, he pushed up to the auctioneer, without looking out right or left,
and drawled --

`May I -- er -- ask if you are Mr. -- er -- Joseph Stevenson?'

`I'm Joe Stevenson,' says the auctioneer. `What can I do for you?'

`Oh! -- a -- here is a letter from my friend, Mr. Bernard Muldoon,
of the Lower Macquarie -- er -- requesting you to sell these horses faw him;
and -- er -- hand over the pwoceeds to -- er -- me --
Mr. Augustus Gwanby -- aw!'

Stevenson read the letter, nodded his head, said, `All right;
I'll attend to it,' and went on with the sale.

It didn't take long to sell our colts. There were some draught stock
to come afterwards, and Joe had a day's work before him. But ours sold well.
There had not been anything like this for size, quality, and condition.
The Commissioner sent down and bought one. The Inspector of Police was there,
and bought one recommended by Starlight. They fetched high prices,
from fifty to eighty-five guineas, and they came to a fairish figure the lot.

When the last horse was sold, Starlight says, `I feel personally
obliged to you, Mr. -- aw -- Stevenson -- faw the highly satisfactory manner
in which you have conducted the sale, and I shall inform my friend,
Mr. Muldoon, of the way you have sold his stock.'

`Much obliged, sir,' says Joe, touching his hat. `Come inside
and I'll give you the cheque.'

`Quite unnecessary now,' says Starlight; `but as I'm acting for a friend,
it may be as well.'

We saw him pocket the cheque, and ride slowly over to the bank,
which was half-tent, half-bark hut.

We didn't think it safe to stay on the Turon an hour longer
than we were forced to do. We had seen the diggings,
and got a good notion of what the whole thing was like;
sold the horses and got the money, that was the principal thing.
Nothing for it now but to get back to the Hollow. Something would
be sure to be said about the horses being sold, and when it came out
that they were not Muldoon's there would be a great flare-up.
Still they could not prove that the horses were stolen.
There wasn't a wrong brand or a faked one in the lot.
And no one could swear to a single head of them, though the whole lot
were come by on the cross, and father could have told who owned
every one among them. That was curious, wasn't it?

We put in a night at Jonathan Barnes's on our way back.
Maddie got the earrings, and Bella the making of a new riding habit,
which she had been wanting and talking about for a good while.
Starlight dressed up, and did the new chum young Englishman, eyeglass and all,
over again, and repeated the conversation he had with the Inspector of Police
about his friend Mr. Muldoon's illness, and the colts he recommended.
It was grand, and the girls laughed till they cried again.
Well, those were merry days; we DID have a bit of fun sometimes,
and if the devil was dogging us he kept a good way out of sight.
It's his way at the start when fellows take the downward track.

. . . . .

We got back safe enough, and father opened his eyes when he saw
the roll of notes Starlight counted over as the price of the colts.
`Horse-breeding's our best game,' says the old man, `if they're going to pay
such prices as this. I've half a mind to start and take a lot
over to Port Phillip.'

Chapter 25

Our next chance came through father. He was the intelligence man,
and had all the news sent to him -- roundabout it might be,
but it always came, and was generally true; and the old man
never troubled anybody twice that he couldn't believe in,
great things or small. Well, word was passed about a branch bank
at a place called Ballabri, where a goodish bit of gold was sent to wait
the monthly escort. There was only the manager and one clerk there now,
the other cove having gone away on sick leave. Towards the end of the month
the bank gold was heaviest and the most notes in the safe.
The smartest way would be to go into the bank just before shutting-up time
-- three o'clock, about -- and hand a cheque over the counter.
While the clerk was looking at it, out with a revolver and cover him.
The rest was easy enough. A couple more walked in after,
and while one jumped over the counter and bailed up the manager
the other shut the door. Nothing strange about that.
The door was always shut at three o'clock sharp. Nobody in town
would drop to what might be going on inside till the whole thing was over,
and the swag ready to be popped into a light trap and cleared off with.

That was the idea. We had plenty of time to think it over and settle it all,
bit by bit, beforehand.

So one morning we started early and took the job in hand. Every little thing
was looked through and talked over a week before. Father got
Mr. White's buggy-horses ready and took Warrigal with him to a place
where a man met him with a light four-wheeled Yankee trap and harness.
Dad was dressed up to look like a back-country squatter. Lots of 'em
were quite as rough-looking as he was, though they drive as good horses
as any gentleman in the land. Warrigal was togged out something like a groom,
with a bit of the station-hand about him. Their saddles and bridles
they kept with 'em in the trap; they didn't know when they might want them.
They had on their revolvers underneath their coats. We were to go round
by another road and meet at the township.

Well, everything turned out first-rate. When we got to Ballabri
there was father walking his horses up and down. They wanted cooling,
my word. They'd come pretty smart all the way, but they were middlin' soft,
being in great grass condition and not having done any work to speak of
for a goodish while, and being a bit above themselves in a manner of speaking.
We couldn't help laughing to see how solemn and respectable dad looked.

`My word,' said Jim, `if he ain't the dead image of old Mr. Carter,
of Brahway, where we shore three years back. Just such another hard-faced,
cranky-looking old chap, ain't he, Dick? I'm that proud of him
I'd do anything he asked me now, blest if I wouldn't!'

`Your father's a remarkable man,' says Starlight, quite serious;
`must have made his way in life if he hadn't shown such a dislike
to anything on the square. If he'd started a public-house and a pound
about the time he turned his mind to cattle-duffing as one of the fine arts,
he'd have had a bank account by this time that would have kept him as honest
as a judge. But it's the old story. I say, where are the police quarters?
It's only manners to give them a call.'

We rode over to the barracks. They weren't much. A four-roomed cottage,
a log lock-up with two cells, a four-stalled stable, and a horse-yard.
Ballabri was a small township with a few big stations,
a good many farms about it, and rather more public-houses
than any other sort of buildings in it. A writing chap said once,
`A large well-filled graveyard, a small church mostly locked up,
six public-houses, gave the principal features of Ballabri township.
The remaining ones appear to be sand, bones, and broken bottles,
with a sprinkling of inebriates and blackfellows.' With all that
there was a lot of business done there in a year by the stores and inns,
particularly since the diggings. Whatever becomes of the money
made in such places? Where does it all go to? Nobody troubles their heads
about that.

A goodish lot of the first people was huddled away in the graveyard under
the sand ridges. Many an old shepherd had hobbled into the Travellers' Rest
with a big cheque for a fortnight's spree, and had stopped behind
in the graveyard, too, for company. It was always a wonderful place
for steadying lushingtons, was Ballabri.

Anyhow we rode over to the barracks because we knew the senior constable
was away. We'd got up a sham horse-stealing case the day before,
through some chaps there that we knew. This drawed him off about fifty mile.
The constable left behind was a youngish chap, and we intended to have
a bit of fun with him. So we went up to the garden-gate and called out
for the officer in charge of police quite grand.

`Here I am,' says he, coming out, buttoning up his uniform coat.
`Is anything the matter?'

`Oh! not much,' says I; `but there's a man sick at the Sportsman's Arms.
He's down with the typhus fever or something. He's a mate of ours,
and we've come from Mr. Grant's station. He wants a doctor fetched.'

`Wait a minute till I get my revolver,' says he, buttoning up his waistcoat.
He was just fresh from the depot; plucky enough, but not up to
half the ways of the bush.

`You'll do very well as you are,' says Starlight, bringing out his
pretty sharp, and pointing it full at his head. `You stay there
till I give you leave.'

He stood there quite stunned, while Jim and I jumped off and muzzled him.
He hadn't a chance, of course, with one of us on each side,
and Starlight threatening to shoot him if he raised a finger.

`Let's put him in the logs,' says Jim. `My word! just for a lark;
turn for turn. Fair play, young fellow. You're being "run in" yourself now.
Don't make a row, and no one'll hurt you.'

The keys were hanging up inside, so we pushed him into the farthest cell
and locked both doors. There were no windows, and the lock-up,
like most bush ones, was built of heavy logs, just roughly squared,
with the ceiling the same sort, so there wasn't much chance
of his making himself heard. If any noise did come out the town people
would only think it was a drunken man, and take no notice.

We lost no time then, and Starlight rode up to the bank first.
It was about ten minutes to three o'clock. Jim and I popped our horses
into the police stables, and put on a couple of their waterproof capes.
The day was a little showery. Most of the people we heard afterwards
took us for troopers from some other station on the track of bush-rangers,
and not in regular uniform. It wasn't a bad joke, though,
and the police got well chaffed about it.

We dodged down very careless like to the bank, and went in a minute or two
after Starlight. He was waiting patiently with the cheque in his hand
till some old woman got her money. She counted it, shillings, pence, and all,
and then went out. The next moment Starlight pushed his cheque over.
The clerk looks at it for a moment, and quick-like says,
`How will you have it?'

`This way,' Starlight answered, pointing his revolver at his head,
`and don't you stir or I'll shoot you before you can raise your hand.'

The manager's room was a small den at one side. They don't allow much room
in country banks unless they make up their mind to go in for
a regular swell building. I jumped round and took charge of the young man.
Jim shut and locked the front door while Starlight knocked
at the manager's room. He came out in a hurry, expecting to see
one of the bank customers. When he saw Starlight's revolver,
his face changed quick enough, but he made a rush to his drawer
where he kept his revolver, and tried to make a fight of it,
only we were too quick for him. Starlight put the muzzle of his pistol
to his forehead and swore he'd blow out his brains there and then
if he didn't stop quiet. We had to use the same words over and over again.
Jim used to grin sometimes. They generally did the business, though,
so of course he was quite helpless. We hadn't to threaten him
to find the key of the safe, because it was unlocked and the key in it.
He was just locking up his gold and the day's cash as we came in.