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 tied him and the young fellow fast, legs and arms, and laid them down
on the floor while we went through the place. There was a good lot of gold
in the safe all weighed and labelled ready for the escort,
which called there once a month. Bundles of notes, too; bags of sovereigns,
silver, and copper. The last we didn't take. But all the rest
we bundled up or put into handy boxes and bags we found there.
Father had come up by this time as close as he could to the back-yard.
We carried everything out and put them into his express-waggon;
he shoved a rug over them and drove off, quite easy and comfortable.
We locked the back door of the bank and chucked away the key,
first telling the manager not to make a row for ten minutes
or we might have to come back again. He was a plucky fellow,
and we hadn't been rough with him. He had sense enough to see
that he was overmatched, and not to fight when it was no good.
I've known bankers to make a regular good fight of it,
and sometimes come off best when their places was stuck up;
but not when they were bested from the very start, like this one.
No man could have had a show, if he was two or three men in one,
at the Ballabri money-shop. We walked slap down to the hotel
-- then it was near the bank -- and called for drinks.
There weren't many people in the streets at that time in the afternoon,
and the few that did notice us didn't think we were any one in particular.
Since the diggings broke out all sorts of travellers
a little out of the common were wandering all about the country --
speculators in mines, strangers, new chums of all kinds;
even the cattle-drovers and stockmen, having their pockets full of money,
began to put on more side and dress in a flash way. The bush people
didn't take half the notice of strangers they would have done
a couple of years before.

So we had our drinks, and shouted for the landlord and the people in the bar;
walked up to the police station, took out our horses, and rode quickly off,
while father was nearly five miles away on a cross-road,
making Mr. White's trotters do their best time, and with
seven or eight thousand pounds' worth of gold and cash under the driving seat.
That, I often think, was about the smartest trick we ever did.
It makes me laugh when I remember how savage the senior constable was
when he came home, found his sub in a cell, the manager and his clerk
just untied, the bank robbed of nearly everything, and us gone hours ago,
with about as much chance of catching us as a mob of wild cattle
that got out of the yard the night before.

Just about dark father made the place where the man met him
with the trap before. Fresh horses was put in and the man drove slap away
another road. He and Warrigal mounted the two brown horses and took the stuff
in saddle-bags, which they'd brought with 'em. They were back at the Hollow
by daylight, and we got there about an hour afterwards. We only rode sharp
for the first twenty miles or so, and took it easier afterwards.

If sticking up the Goulburn mail made a noise in the country,
you may depend the Ballabri bank robbery made ten times as much.
Every little newspaper and all the big ones, from one end of the colony
to the other, were full of it. The robbery of a bank in broad daylight,
almost in the middle of the day, close to a police station,
and with people going up and down the streets, seemed too out-and-out cheeky
to be believed. What was the country coming to? `It was the fault
of the gold that unsettled young fellows' minds,' some said,
`and took them away from honest industry.' Our minds had been unsettled
long before the gold, worse luck. Some shouted for more police protection;
some for vigilance committees; all bush-rangers and horse-thieves
to be strung up to the next tree. The whole countryside was in an uproar,
except the people at the diggings, who had most of them been in other places,
and knew that, compared with them, Australia was one of the safest countries
any man could live or travel in. A good deal of fun was made
out of our locking up the constable in his own cell. I believe
he got blown up, too, and nearly dismissed by his inspector for not having
his revolver on him and ready for use. But young men that were any good
were hard to get for the police just then, and his fault was passed over.
It's a great wonder to me more banks were not robbed when you think of it.
A couple of young fellows are sent to a country place;
there's no decent buildings, or anything reasonable for them to live in,
and they're expected to take care of four or five thousand pounds
and a lot of gold, as if it was so many bags of potatoes.
If there's police, they're half their time away. The young fellows
can't be all their time in the house, and two or three determined men,
whether they're bush-rangers or not, that like to black their faces,
and walk in at any time that they're not expected, can sack the whole thing,
and no trouble to them. I call it putting temptation in people's way,
and some of the blame ought to go on the right shoulders. As I said before,
the little affair made a great stir, and all the police in the country
were round Ballabri for a bit, tracking and tracking till all hours,
night and day; but they couldn't find out what had become of the wheel-marks,
nor where our horse tracks led to. The man that owned the express waggon
drove it into a scrubby bit of country and left it there; he knew too much
to take it home. Then he brought away the wheels one by one on horseback,
and carted the body in a long time after with a load of wool,
just before a heavy rain set in and washed out every track
as clean as a whistle.

Nothing in that year could keep people's thoughts long away from the diggings,
which was just as well for us. Everything but the gold was forgotten
after a week. If the harbour had dried up or Sydney town been buried
by an earthquake, nobody would have bothered themselves about such trifles
so long as the gold kept turning up hand over hand the way it did.
There seemed no end to it. New diggings jumped up every day,
and now another big rush broke out in Port Phillip that sent every one
wilder than ever.

Starlight and us two often used to have a quiet talk about Melbourne.
We all liked that side of the country; there seemed an easier chance
of getting straight away from there than any part of New South Wales,
where so many people knew us and everybody was on the look-out.

All kinds of things passed through our minds, but the notion we liked best was
taking one of the gold ships bodily and sailing her away to a foreign port,
where her name could be changed, and she never heard of again,
if all went well. That would be a big touch and no mistake.
Starlight, who had been at sea, and was always ready for anything
out of the way and uncommon, the more dangerous the better,
thought it might be done without any great risk or bother.

`A ship in harbour,' he said, `is something like the Ballabri bank.
No one expects anything to happen in harbour, consequently there's
no watch kept or any look-out that's worth much. Any sudden dash
with a few good men and she'd be off and out to sea before any one
could say "knife".'

Father didn't like this kind of talk. He was quite satisfied where we were.
We were safe there, he said; and, as long as we kept our heads,
no one need ever be the wiser how it was we always seemed
to go through the ground and no one could follow us up.
What did we fret after? Hadn't we everything we wanted in the world --
plenty of good grub, the best of liquor, and the pick of the countryside
for horses, besides living among our own friends and in the country
we were born in, and that had the best right to keep us.
If we once got among strangers and in another colony we should be `given away'
by some one or other, and be sure to come to grief in the long run.

Well, we couldn't go and cut out this ship all at once, but Jim and I
didn't leave go of the notion, and we had many a yarn with Starlight about it
when we were by ourselves.

What made us more set upon clearing out of the country was that
we were getting a good bit of money together, and of course
we hadn't much chance of spending it. Every place where we'd been seen
was that well watched there was no getting nigh it, and every now and then
a strong mob of police, ordered down by telegraph, would muster at
some particular spot where they thought there was a chance of surrounding us.
However, that dodge wouldn't work. They couldn't surround the Hollow.
It was too big, and the gullies between the rocks too deep. You could see
across a place sometimes that you had to ride miles round to get over.
Besides, no one knew there was such a place, leastways that we were there,
any more than if we had been in New Zealand.

Chapter 26

After the Ballabri affair we had to keep close for weeks and weeks.
The whole place seemed to be alive with police. We heard of them
being on Nulla Mountain and close enough to the Hollow now and then.
But Warrigal and father had places among the rocks where they
could sit up and see everything for miles round. Dad had taken care
to get a good glass, too, and he could sweep the country round about
almost down to Rocky Flat. Warrigal's eyes were sharp enough without a glass,
and he often used to tell us he seen things -- men, cattle, and horses --
that we couldn't make out a bit in the world. We amused ourselves for a while
the best way we could by horse-breaking, shooting, and what not;
but we began to get awful tired of it, and ready for anything, no matter what,
that would make some sort of change.

One day father told us a bit of news that made a stir in the camp,
and nearly would have Jim and me clear out altogether
if we'd had any place to go to. For some time past, it seems,
dad had been grumbling about being left to himself so much,
and, except this last fakement, not having anything to do with the road work.
`It's all devilish fine for you and your brother and the Captain there
to go flashin' about the country and sporting your figure on horseback,
while I'm left alone to do the housekeepin' in the Hollow. I'm not going
to be wood-and-water Joey, I can tell ye, not for you nor no other men.
So I've made it right with a couple of chaps as I've know'd these years past,
and we can do a touch now and then, as well as you grand gentlemen,
on the "high toby", as they call it where I came from.'

`I didn't think you were such an old fool, Ben,' said Starlight;
`but keeping this place here a dead secret is our sheet-anchor.
Lose that, and we'll be run into in a week. If you let it out
to any fellow you come across, you will soon know all about it.'

`I've known Dan Moran and Pat Burke nigh as long as I've known you,
for the matter of that,' says father. `They're safe enough,
and they're not to come here or know where I hang out neither.
We've other places to meet, and what we do 'll be clean done, I'll go bail.'

`It doesn't matter two straws to me, as I've told you many a time,'
said Starlight, lighting a cigar (he always kept a good supply of them).
`But you see if Dick and Jim, now, don't suffer for it before long.'

`It was as I told you about the place, wasn't it?' growls father;
`don't you suppose I know how to put a man right? I look to have my turn
at steering this here ship, or else the crew better go ashore for good.'

Father had begun to drink harder now than he used; that was partly the reason.
And when he'd got his liquor aboard he was that savage and obstinate
there was no doing anything with him. We couldn't well part.
We couldn't afford to do without each other. So we had to patch it up
the best way we could, and let him have his own way. But we none of us liked
the new-fangled way, and made sure bad would come of it.

We all knew the two men, and didn't half like them. They were
the head men of a gang that mostly went in for horse-stealing,
and only did a bit of regular bush-ranging when they was sure
of getting clear off. They'd never shown out the fighting way yet,
though they were ready enough for it if it couldn't be helped.

Moran was a dark, thin, wiry-looking native chap, with a big beard,
and a nasty beady black eye like a snake's. He was a wonderful man
outside of a horse, and as active as a cat, besides being a deal stronger
than any one would have taken him to be. He had a drawling way of talking,
and was one of those fellows that liked a bit of cruelty
when he had the chance. I believe he'd rather shoot any one than not,
and when he was worked up he was more like a devil than a man.
Pat Burke was a broad-shouldered, fair-complexioned fellow, most like
an Englishman, though he was a native too. He'd had a small station once,
and might have done well (I was going to say) if he'd had sense enough
to go straight. What rot it all is! Couldn't we all have done well,
if the devils of idleness and easy-earned money and false pride
had let us alone?

Father said his bargain with these chaps was that he should send down to them
when anything was up that more men was wanted for, and they was always
to meet him at a certain place. He said they'd be satisfied with a share
of whatever the amount was, and that they'd never want to be shown the Hollow
or to come anigh it. They had homes and places of their own,
and didn't want to be known more than could be helped. Besides this,
if anything turned up that was real first chop, they could always find
two or three more young fellows that would stand a flutter,
and disappear when the job was done. This was worth thinking over, he said,
because there weren't quite enough of us for some things, and we could keep
these other chaps employed at outside work.

There was something in this, of course, and dad was generally near the mark,
there or thereabouts, so we let things drift. One thing was that these chaps
could often lay their hands upon a goodish lot of horses or cattle;
and if they delivered them to any two of us twenty miles from the Hollow,
they could be popped in there, and neither they or any one else the wiser.
You see father didn't mind taking a hand in the bush-ranging racket,
but his heart was with the cattle and horse-duffing that he'd been
used to so long, and he couldn't quite give it up. It's my belief
he'd have sooner made a ten-pound note by an unbranded colt
or a mob of fat cattle than five times as much in any other way.
Every man to his taste, they say.

Well, between this new fad of the old man's and our having a notion
that we had better keep quiet for a spell and let things settle down a bit,
we had a long steady talk, and the end of it was that we made up our minds
to go and put in a month or two at the diggings.

We took a horse apiece that weren't much account, so we could either
sell them or lose them, it did not make much odds which, and made a start
for Jonathan Barnes's place. We got word from him every now and then,
and knew that the police had never found out that we had been there,
going or coming. Jonathan was a blowing, blatherskiting fool;
but his very foolishness in that way made them think he knew nothing at all.
He had just sense enough not to talk about us, and they never thought about
asking him. So we thought we'd have a bit of fun there before we settled down
for work at the Turon. We took old saddles and bridles,
and had a middling-sized swag in front, just as if we'd come a long way.
We dressed pretty rough too; we had longish hair and beards,
and (except Starlight) might have been easy taken for down-the-river
stockmen or drovers.

When we got to Barnes's place he and the old woman seemed ever so glad
to see us. Bella and Maddie rushed out, making a great row,
and chattering both at a time.

`Why, we thought you were lost, or shot, or something,' Bella says.
`You might have sent us a letter, or a message, only I suppose
you didn't think it worth while.'

`What a bad state the country's getting in,' says Maddie.
`Think of them bush-rangers sticking up the bank at Ballabri,
and locking up the constable in his own cell. Ha! ha!
The police magistrate was here to-night. You should have heard Bella
talking so nice and proper to him about it.'

`Yes, and you said they'd all be caught and hanged,' said Bella;
`that it was settin' such a bad example to the young men of the colony.
My word! it was as good as a play. Mad was so full of her fun,
and when the P.M. said they'd be sure to be caught in the long run,
Maddie said they'd have to import some thoroughbred police to catch 'em,
for our Sydney-side ones didn't seem to have pace enough.
This made the old gentleman stare, and he looked at Maddie
as if she was out of her mind. Didn't he, Mad?'

`I do think it's disgraceful of Goring and his lot not to have
run them in before,' says Starlight, `but it wouldn't do for us to interfere.'

`Ah! but Sir Ferdinand Morringer's come up now,' says Maddie. `He'll begin
to knock saucepans out of all the boys between here and Weddin Mountain.
He was here, too, and asked us a lot of questions about people
who were "wanted" in these parts.'

`He fell in love with Maddie, too,' says Bella, `and gave her
one of the charms of his watch chain -- such a pretty one, too.
He's going to catch Starlight's mob, as he calls them. Maddie says
she'll send him word if ever she knows of their being about.'

`Well done, Maddie!' says Jim; `so you may, just an hour or two after
we're started. There won't be much likelihood of his overhauling us then.
He won't be the first man that's been fooled by a woman, will he?'

`Or the last, Jim,' says Bella. `What do you say, Captain? It seems to me
we're doing all the talking, and you're doing all the listening.
That isn't fair, you know. We like to hear ourselves talk,
but fair play is bonny play. Suppose you tell us what you've been about
all this time. I think tea's ready.'

We had our innings in the talking line; Jim and Maddie made noise enough
for half-a-dozen. Starlight let himself be talked to,
and didn't say much himself; but I could see even he,
that had seen a lot of high life in his time, was pleased enough
with the nonsense of a couple of good-looking girls like these
-- regular bush-bred fillies as they were -- after being shut up in the Hollow
for a month or two.

Before we'd done a couple of travellers rode up. Jonathan's place
was getting a deal more custom now -- it lay near about the straight line
for the Turon, and came to be known as a pretty comfortable shop.
Jonathan came in with them, and gave us a wink as much as to say,
`It's all right.'

`These gentlemen's just come up from Sydney,' he said, `not long from England,
and wants to see the diggings. I told 'em you might be going that way,
and could show 'em the road.'

`Very happy,' says Starlight. `I am from Port Phillip last myself,
and think of going back by Honolulu after I've made the round of the colonies.
My good friends and travelling companions are on their way for the Darling.
We can all travel together.'

`What a fortunate thing we came here, Clifford, eh?' says one young fellow,
putting up his eyeglass. `You wanted to push on. Now we shall have company,
and not lose our way in this beastly "bush", as they call it.'

`Well, it does look like luck,' says the other man. `I was beginning to think
the confounded place was getting farther off every day. Can you show us
our rooms, if you please? I suppose we couldn't have a bath?'

`Oh yes, you can,' said Maddie; `there's the creek at the bottom
of the garden, only there's snakes now and then at night.
I'll get you towels.'

`In that case I think I shall prefer to wait till the morning,'
says the tall man. `It will be something to look forward to.'

We were afraid the strangers would have spoiled our fun for the evening,
but they didn't; we made out afterwards that the tall one was a lord.
They were just like anybody else, and when we got the piano to work after tea
they made themselves pleasant enough, and Starlight sang a song or two
-- he could sing, and no mistake, when he liked -- and then
one of them played a waltz and the girls danced together,
and Starlight had some champagne in, said it was his birthday,
and he'd just thought of it, and they got quite friendly and jolly
before we turned in.

Next day we made a start, promising the girls a nugget each for a ring
out of the first gold we got, and they promised to write to us and tell us
if they heard any news. They knew what to say, and we shouldn't
be caught simple if they could help it. Jim took care, though,
to keep well off the road, and take all the short cuts he knew.
We weren't quite safe till we was in the thick of the mining crowd.
That's the best place for a man, or woman either, to hide
that wants to drop out of sight and never be seen again.
Many a time I've known a man, called Jack or Tom among the diggers,
and never thought of as anything else, working like them,
drinking and taking his pleasure and dressing like them,
till he made his pile or died, or something, and then it turned out
he was the Honourable Mr. So-and-So, Captain This, or Major That;
perhaps the Reverend Somebody -- though that didn't happen often.

We were all the more contented, though, when we heard the row of the cradles
and the clang and bang of the stampers in the quartz-crushing batteries again,
and saw the big crowd moving up and down like a hill of ants,
the same as when we'd left Turon last. As soon as we got into the main street
we parted. Jim and I touched our hats and said good-bye to Starlight
and the other two, who went away to the crack hotel. We went and made a camp
down by the creek, so that we might turn to and peg out a claim,
or buy out a couple of shares, first thing in the morning.

Except the Hollow it was the safest place in the whole country just now,
as we could hear that every week fresh people were pouring in
from all the other colonies, and every part of the world.
The police on the diggings had their own work pretty well cut out for them,
what with old hands from Van Diemen's Land, Californians --
and, you may bet, roughs and rascals from every place under the sun.
Besides, we wanted to see for ourselves how the thing was done,
and pick up a few wrinkles that might come in handy afterwards.
Our dodge was to take a few notes with us, and buy into a claim
-- one here, one there -- not to keep together for fear of consequences.
If we worked and kept steady at it, in a place where there were
thousands of strangers of all kinds, it would take the devil himself
to pick us out of such a queer, bubbling, noisy, mixed-up pot of hell-broth.

Things couldn't have dropped in more lucky for us than they did.
In this way. Starlight was asked by the two swells to join them,
because they wanted to do a bit of digging, just for the fun of it;
and he made out he'd just come from Melbourne, and hadn't been six months
longer in the country than they had. Of course he was sunburnt a bit.
He got that in India, he said. My word! they played just into his hand,
and he did the new-chum swell all to pieces, and so that natural
no one could have picked him out from them. He dressed like them,
talked like them, and never let slip a word except about shooting in England,
hunting in America and India, besides gammoning to be as green
about all Australian ways as if he'd never seen a gum tree before.
They took up a claim, and bought a tent. Then they got
a wages-man to help them, and all four used to work like niggers.
The crowd christened them `The Three Honourables', and used to have
great fun watching them working away in their jerseys,
and handling their picks and shovels like men. Starlight used to drawl
just like the other two, and asked questions about the colony;
and walk about with them on Sundays and holidays in fashionable cut clothes.
He'd brought money, too, and paid his share of the expenses,
and something over. It was a great sight to see at night,
and people said like nothing else in the world just then.
Every one turned out for an hour or two at night, and then was the time
to see the Turon in its glory. Big, sunburnt men, with beards,
and red silk sashes round their waists, with a sheath-knife and revolvers
mostly stuck in them, and broad-leaved felt hats on. There were Californians,
then foreigners of all sorts -- Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, Spaniards,
Greeks, Negroes, Indians, Chinamen. They were a droll, strange,
fierce-looking crowd. There weren't many women at first,
but they came pretty thick after a bit. A couple of theatres were open,
a circus, hotels with lots of plate-glass windows and splendid bars,
all lighted up, and the front of them, anyhow, as handsome at first sight
as Sydney or Melbourne. Drapers and grocers, ironmongers,
general stores, butchers and bakers, all kept open until midnight,
and every place was lighted up as clear as day. It was like
a fairy-story place, Jim said; he was as pleased as a child
with the glitter and show and strangeness of it all. Nobody was poor,
everybody was well dressed, and had money to spend, from the children upwards.
Liquor seemed running from morning to night, as if there were creeks of it;
all the same there was very little drunkenness and quarrelling.
The police kept good order, and the miners were their own police mostly,
and didn't seem to want keeping right. We always expected the miners
to be a disorderly, rough set of people -- it was quite the other way.
Only we had got into a world where everybody had everything they wanted,
or else had the money to pay for it. How different it seemed
from the hard, grinding, poverty-stricken life we had been brought up to,
and all the settlers we knew when we were young! People had to work hard
for every pound they made then, and, if they hadn't the ready cash,
obliged to do without, even if it was bread to eat. Many a time
we'd had no tea and sugar when we were little, because father hadn't the money
to pay for it. That was when he stayed at home and worked for what he got.
Well, it was honest money, at any rate -- pity he hadn't kept that way.