Robbery Under Arms

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If we were digging up gold like potatoes we weren't the only ones.
No, not by a lot. There never was a richer patch of alluvial, I believe,
in any of the fields, and the quantity that was sent down in one year
was a caution. Wasn't the cash scattered about then? Talk of money,
it was like the dirt under your feet -- in one way, certainly --
as the dirt was more often than not full of gold.

We could see things getting worse on the field after a bit.
We didn't set up to be any great shakes ourselves, Jim and I;
but we didn't want the field to be overrun by a set of scoundrels
that were the very scum of the earth, let alone the other colonies.
We were afraid they'd go in for some big foolish row, and we should get
dragged in for it. That was exactly what we didn't want.

With the overflowing of the gold, as it were, came such a town
and such a people to fill it, as no part of Australia had ever seen before.
When it got known by newspapers, and letters from the miners themselves
to their friends at home, what an enormous yield of gold
was being dug out of the ground in such a simple fashion, all the world
seemed to be moving over. At that time nobody could tell a lie hardly
about the tremendous quantity that was being got and sent away every week.
This was easy to know, because the escort returns were printed
in all the newspapers every week; so everybody could see for themselves
what pounds and hundredweights and tons -- yes, tons of gold --
were being got by men who very often, as like as not, hadn't to dig
above twenty or thirty feet for it, and had never handled a pick or a shovel
in their lives before they came to the Turon.

There were plenty of good men at the diggings. I will say this
for the regular miners, that a more manly, straightgoing lot of fellows
no man ever lived among. I wish we'd never known any worse.
We were not what might be called highly respectable people ourselves -- still,
men like us are only half-and-half bad, like a good many more in this world.
They're partly tempted into doing wrong by opportunity, and kept back
by circumstances from getting into the straight track afterwards.
But on every goldfield there's scores and scores of men
that always hurry off there like crows and eagles to a carcass to see
what they can rend and tear and fatten upon. They ain't very particular
whether it's the living or the dead, so as they can gorge their fill.
There was a good many of this lot at the Turon, and though the diggers
gave them a wide berth, and helped to run them down when they'd committed
any crime, they couldn't be kept out of sight and society altogether.

We used to go up sometimes to see the gold escort start.
It was one of the regular sights of the field, and the miners
that were off shift and people that hadn't much to do generally
turned up on escort day. The gold was taken down to Sydney once a week
in a strong express waggon -- something like a Yankee coach,
with leather springs and a high driving seat; so that four horses
could be harnessed. One of the police sergeants generally drove,
a trooper fully armed with rifle and revolver on the box beside him.
In the back seat sat two more troopers with their Sniders ready for action;
two rode a hundred yards ahead, and another couple about
the same distance behind.

We always noticed that a good many of the sort of men that never seemed
to do any digging and yet always had good clothes and money to spend
used to hang about when the escort was starting. People in the crowd
'most always knew whether it was a `big' escort or a `light' one.
It generally leaked out how many ounces had been sent by this bank
and how much by that; how much had come from the camp, for the diggers
who did not choose to sell to the banks were allowed to deposit their gold
with an officer at the camp, where it was carefully weighed, and a receipt
given to them stating the number of ounces, pennyweights, and grains.
Then it was forwarded by the escort, deducting a small percentage
for the carriage and safe keeping. Government did not take all the risk
upon itself. The miner must run his chance if he did not sell.
But the chance was thought good enough; the other thing was hardly worth
talking about. Who was to be game to stick up the Government escort,
with eight police troopers, all well armed and ready to make a fight
to the death before they gave up the treasure committed to their charge?
The police couldn't catch all the horse-stealers and bush-rangers
in a country that contained so many millions of acres of waste land;
but no one doubted that they would make a first-rate fight,
on their own ground as it were, and before they'd let anything
be taken away from them that had been counted out, box by box,
and given into their charge.

We had as little notion of trying anything of the sort ourselves
than as we had of breaking into the Treasury in Sydney by night.
But those who knew used to say that if the miners had known
the past history of some of the men that used to stand up and look on,
well dressed or in regular digger rig, as the gold boxes
were being brought out and counted into the escort drag,
they would have made a bodyguard to go with it themselves
when they had gold on board, or have worried the Government
into sending twenty troopers in charge instead of six or eight.

One day, as Jim and I happened to be at the camp just as the escort
was starting, the only time we'd been there for a month,
we saw Warrigal and Moran standing about. They didn't see us;
we were among a lot of other diggers, so we were able
to take them out of winding a bit.

They were there for no good, we agreed. Warrigal's sharp eyes
noted everything about the whole turn-out -- the sergeant's face that drove,
the way the gold boxes were counted out and put in a kind of fixed locker
underneath the middle of the coach. He saw where the troopers sat
before and behind, and I'll be bound came away with a wonderful good
general idea of how the escort travelled, and of a good many things more
about it that nobody guessed at. As for Moran, we could see him fix his eyes
upon the sergeant who was driving, and look at him as if he could look
right through him. He never took his eyes off him the whole time,
but glared at him like a maniac; if some of his people hadn't given him
a shove as they passed he would soon have attracted people's attention.
But the crowd was too busy looking at the well-conditioned prancing horses
and the neatly got up troopers of the escort drag to waste their thoughts
upon a common bushman, however he might stare. When he turned away to leave
he ground out a red-hot curse betwixt his teeth. It made us think
that Warrigal's coming about with him on this line counted for no good.

They slipped through the crowd again, and, though they were pretty close,
they never saw us. Warrigal would have known us however we might have
been altered, but somehow he never turned his head our way.
He was like a child, so taken up with all the things he saw
that his great-grandfather might have jumped up from the Fish River Caves,
or wherever he takes his rest, and Warrigal would never have wondered at him.

`That's a queer start!' says Jim, as we walked on our homeward path.
`I wonder what those two crawling, dingo-looking beggars were here for?
Never no good. I say, did you see that fellow Moran look at the sergeant
as if he'd eat him? What eyes he has, for all the world like a black snake!
Do you think he's got any particular down on him?'

`Not more than on all police. I suppose he'd rub them out,
every mother's son, if he could. He and Warrigal can't stick up the escort
by themselves.'

We managed to get a letter from home from time to time now we'd settled,
as it were, at the Turon. Of course they had to be sent
in the name of Henderson, but we called for them at the post-office,
and got them all right. It was a treat to read Aileen's letters now.
They were so jolly and hopeful-like besides what they used to be.
Now that we'd been so long, it seemed years, at the diggings,
and were working hard, doing well, and getting quite settled, as she said,
she believed that all would go right, and that we should be able
really to carry out our plans of getting clear away to some country
where we could live safe and quiet lives. Women are mostly like that.
They first of all believe all that they're afraid of will happen.
Then, as soon as they see things brighten up a bit, they're as sure as fate
everything's bound to go right. They don't seem to have
any kind of feeling between. They hate making up their minds,
most of 'em as I've known, and jump from being ready
to drown themselves one moment to being likely to go mad with joy another.
Anyhow you take 'em, they're better than men, though.
I'll never go back on that.

So Aileen used to send me and Jim long letters now, telling us
that things were better at home, and that she really thought mother
was cheerfuller and stronger in health than she'd been ever since
-- well, ever since -- that had happened. She thought her prayers
had been heard, and that we were going to be forgiven for our sins
and allowed, by God's mercy, to lead a new life. She quite believed
in our leaving the country, although her heart would be nearly broken
by the thought that she might never see us again, and a lot more
of the same sort.

Poor mother! she had a hard time of it if ever any one ever had in this world,
and none of it her own fault as I could ever see. Some people
gets punished in this world for the sins other people commit.
I can see that fast enough. Whether they get it made up to 'em afterwards,
of course I can't say. They ought to, anyhow, if it can be made up to 'em.
Some things that are suffered in this world can't be paid for,
I don't care how they fix it.

More than once, too, there was a line or two on a scrap of paper
slipped in Aileen's letters from Gracey Storefield. She wasn't half as good
with the pen as Aileen, but a few words from the woman you love
goes a long way, no matter what sort of a fist she writes.
Gracey made shift to tell me she was so proud to hear I was doing well;
that Aileen's eyes had been twice as bright lately; that mother looked better
than she'd seen her this years; and if I could get away to any other country
she'd meet me in Melbourne, and would be, as she'd always been,
`your own Gracey' -- that's the way it was signed.

When I read this I felt a different man. I stood up and took an oath
-- solemn, mind you, and I intended to keep it -- that if I got clear away
I'd pay her for her love and true heart with my life, what was left of it,
and I'd never do another crooked thing as long as I lived.
Then I began to count the days to Christmas.

I wasn't married like Jim, and it not being very lively in the tent at night,
Arizona Bill and I mostly used to stroll up to the Prospectors' Arms.
We'd got used to sitting at the little table, drinking our beer or what not,
smoking our pipes and listening to all the fun that was going on.
Not that we always sat in the big hall. There was a snug little parlour
beside the bar that we found more comfortable, and Kate used to run in herself
when business was slack enough to leave the barmaid; then she'd sit down
and have a good solid yarn with us.

She made a regular old friend of me, and, as she was a handsome woman,
always well dressed, with lots to say and plenty of admirers,
I wasn't above being singled out and made much of. It was partly policy,
of course. She knew our secret, and it wouldn't have done to have let her
let it out or be bad friends, so that we should be always going
in dread of it. So Jim and I were always mighty civil to her,
and I really thought she'd improved a lot lately and turned out
a much nicer woman than I thought she could be.

We used to talk away about old times, regular confidential,
and though she'd great spirits generally, she used to change
quite sudden sometimes and say she was a miserable woman,
and wished she hadn't been in such a hurry and married as she had.
Then she'd crack up Jeanie, and say how true and constant she'd been,
and how she was rewarded for it by marrying the only man she ever loved.
She used to blame her temper; she'd always had it, she said,
and couldn't get rid of it; but she really believed,
if things had turned out different, she'd have been a different woman,
and any man she really loved would never have had no call to complain.
Of course I knew what all this meant, but thought I could steer clear
of coming to grief over it.

That was where I made the mistake. But I didn't think so then,
or how much hung upon careless words and looks.

Well, somehow or other she wormed it out of me that we were off somewhere
at Christmas. Then she never rested till she'd found out that we were going
to Melbourne. After that she seemed as if she'd changed right away
into somebody else. She was that fair and soft-speaking and humble-minded
that Jeanie couldn't have been more gentle in her ways;
and she used to look at me from time to time as if her heart was breaking.
I didn't believe that, for I didn't think she'd any heart to break.

One night, after we'd left about twelve o'clock, just as the house shut up,
Arizona Bill says to me --

`Say, pard, have yer fixed it up to take that young woman along
when you pull up stakes?'

`No,' I said; `isn't she a married woman? and, besides,
I haven't such a fancy for her as all that comes to.'

`Ye heven't?' he said, speaking very low, as he always did,
and taking the cigar out of his mouth -- Bill always smoked cigars
when he could get them, and not very cheap ones either;
`well, then, I surmise you're lettin' her think quite contrairy,
and there's bound to be a muss if you don't hide your tracks
and strike a trail she can't foller on.'

`I begin to think I've been two ends of a dashed fool;
but what's a man to do?'

`See here, now,' he said; `you hev two cl'ar weeks afore ye.
You slack off and go slow; that'll let her see you didn't sorter cotton to her
more'n's in the regulations.'

`And have a row with her?'

`Sartin,' says Bill, `and hev the shootin' over right away.
It's a plaguey sight safer than letting her carry it in her mind,
and then laying for yer some day when ye heven't nary thought of Injuns
in your head. That's the very time a woman like her's bound to close on yer
and lift yer ha'r if she can.'

`Why, how do you know what she's likely to do?'

`I've been smokin', pard, while you hev bin talkin', sorter careless like.
I've had my eyes open and seen Injun sign mor'n once or twice either.
I've hunted with her tribe afore, I guess, and old Bill ain't forgot
all the totems and the war paint.'

After this Bill fresh lit his cigar, and wouldn't say any more.
But I could see what he was driving at, and I settled to try all I knew
to keep everything right and square till the time came for us
to make our dart.

I managed to have a quiet talk with Starlight. He thought
that by taking care, being very friendly, but not too much so,
we might get clean off, without Kate or any one else being much the wiser.

Next week everything seemed to go on wheels -- smooth and fast,
no hitches anywhere. Jim reckoned the best of our claim would be worked out
by the 20th of the month, and we'd as good as agreed to sell our shares
to Arizona Bill and his mate, who were ready, as Bill said,
`to plank down considerable dollars' for what remained of it.
If they got nothing worth while, it was the fortune of war,
which a digger never growls at, no matter how hard hit he may be.
If they did well, they were such up and down good fellows,
and such real friends to us, that we should have grudged them nothing.

As for Jeanie, she was almost out of her mind with eagerness
to get back to Melbourne and away from the diggings.
She was afraid of many of the people she saw, and didn't like others.
She was terrified all the time Jim was away from her,
but she would not hear of living at the Prospectors' Arms with her sister.

`I know where that sort of thing leads to,' she said; `let us have
our own home, however rough.'

Kate went out to Specimen Gully to see her sister pretty often,
and they sat and talked and laughed, just as they did in old times,
Jeanie said. She was a simple little thing, and her heart was as pure
as quartz crystal. I do really believe she was no match for Kate in any way.
So the days went on. I didn't dare stay away from the Prospectors' Arms,
for fear she'd think I wanted to break with her altogether,
and yet I was never altogether comfortable in her company.
It wasn't her fault, for she laid herself out to get round us all,
even old Arizona Bill, who used to sit solemnly smoking,
looking like an Indian chief or a graven image, until at last
his brick-coloured, grizzled old face would break up all of a sudden,
and he'd laugh like a youngster. As the days drew nigh Christmas
I could see a restless expression in her face that I never saw before.
Her eyes began to shine in a strange way, and sometimes
she'd break off short in her talk and run out of the room.
Then she'd pretend to wish we were gone, and that she'd never seen us again.
I could hardly tell what to make of her, and many a time I wished
we were on blue water and clear away from all chance of delay and drawback.

Chapter 30

We made up our minds to start by Saturday's coach. It left at night
and travelled nigh a hundred miles by the same hour next morning.
It's more convenient for getting away than the morning.
A chap has time for doing all kinds of things just as he would like;
besides, a quieter time to slope than just after breakfast.
The Turon daily mail was well horsed and well driven.
Nightwork though it was, and the roads dangerous in places,
the five big double-reflector lamps, one high up over the top of the coach
in the middle with two pair more at the side, made everything plain.
We Cornstalks never thought of more than the regular pair of lamps,
pretty low down, too, before the Yankee came and showed us
what cross-country coaching was. We never knew before. My word,
they taught us a trick or two. All about riding came natural,
but a heap of dodges about harness we never so much as heard of
till they came to the country with the gold rush.

We'd made all our bits of preparations, and thought nothing
stood in the way of a start next evening. This was Friday.
Jim hadn't sold his bits of traps, because he didn't want it to be known
he wasn't coming back. He left word with a friend he could trust, though,
to have 'em all auctioned and the goodwill of his cottage,
and to send the money after him. My share and his in the claim
went to Arizona Bill and his mate. We had no call to be ashamed of the money
that stood to our credit in the bank. That we intended to draw out,
and take with us in an order or a draft, or something, to Melbourne.
Jeanie had her boxes packed, and was so wild with looking forward
to seeing St. Kilda beach again that she could hardly sleep or eat
as the time drew near.

Friday night came; everything had been settled. It was the last night
we should either of us spend at the Turon for many a day -- perhaps never.
I walked up and down the streets, smoking, and thinking it all over.
The idea of bed was ridiculous. How wonderful it all seemed!
After what we had gone through and the state we were in less than a year ago,
to think that we were within so little of being clear away and safe for ever
in another country, with as much as would keep us comfortable for life.
I could see Gracey, Aileen, and Jeanie, all so peaceful and loving together,
with poor old mother, who had lost her old trick of listening and trembling
whenever she heard a strange step or the tread of a horse.
What a glorious state of things it would be! A deal of it was owing
to the gold. This wonderful gold! But for it we shouldn't have had
such a chance in a hundred years. I was that restless I couldn't settle,
when I thought, all of a sudden, as I walked up and down,
that I had promised to go and say good-bye to Kate Mullockson,
at the Prospectors' Arms, the night before we started.
I thought for a moment whether it would be safer to let it alone.
I had a strange, unwilling kind of feeling about going there again;
but at last, half not knowing what else to do, and half not caring to make
an enemy of Kate, if I could help it, I walked up.

It was latish. She was standing near the bar, talking to
half-a-dozen people at once, as usual; but I saw she noticed me at once.
She quickly drew off a bit from them all; said it was near shutting-up time,
and, after a while, passed through the bar into the little parlour
where I was sitting down. It was just midnight. The night was half over
before I thought of coming in. So when she came in and seated herself
near me on the sofa I heard the clock strike twelve, and most of the men
who were walking about the hall began to clear out.

Somehow, when you've been living at a place for a goodish while,
and done well there, and had friends as has stuck by you,
as we had at the Turon, you feel sorry to leave it. What you've done
you're sure of, no matter how it mayn't suit you in some ways,
nor how much better you expect to be off where you are going to.
You had that and had the good of it. What the coming time may bring
you can't reckon on. All kinds of cross luck and accidents may happen.
What's the use of money to a man if he smashes his hip and has to walk
with a crutch all his days? I've seen a miner with a thousand a month
coming in, but he'd been crushed pretty near to death with a fall of earth,
and about half of him was dead. What's a good dinner to a man
that his doctor only allows him one slice of meat, a bit of bread,
and some toast and water? I've seen chaps like them, and I'd sooner a deal
be the poorest splitter, slogging away with a heavy maul, and able, mind you,
to swing it like a man, than one of those broken-down screws.
We'd had a good time there, Jim and I. We always had a kind spot
in our hearts for Turon and the diggings afterwards. Hard work, high pay,
good friends that would stick to a man back and edge, and a safe country
to lie in plant in as ever was seen. We was both middlin' sorry,
in a manner of speaking, to clear out. Not as Jim said much about it
on account of Jeanie; but he thought it all the same.

Well, of course, Kate and I got talkin' and talkin', first about the diggings,
and then about other things, till we got to old times in Melbourne,
and she began to look miserable and miserabler whenever she spoke
about marrying the old man, and wished she'd drownded herself first.
She made me take a whisky -- a stiffish one that she mixed herself --
for a parting glass, and I felt it took a bit of effect upon me.
I'd been having my whack during the day. I wasn't no ways drunk;
but I must have been touched more or less, because I felt myself
to be so sober.

`You're going at last, Dick,' says she; `and I suppose we shan't meet again
in a hurry. It was something to have a look at you now and then.
It reminded me of the happy old times at St. Kilda.'

`Oh, come, Kate,' I said, `it isn't quite so bad as all that.
Besides, we'll be back again in February, as like as not.
We're not going for ever.'

`Are you telling me the truth, Richard Marston?' says she,
standing up and fixing her eyes full on me -- fine eyes they were, too,
in their way; `or are you trying another deceit, to throw me off the scent
and get rid of me? Why should you ever want to see my face after you leave?'

`A friendly face is always pleasant. Anyhow, Kate, yours is,
though you did play me a sharpish trick once, and didn't stick to me
like some women might have done.'

`Tell me this,' she said, leaning forward, and putting one hand
on my shoulder, while she seemed to look through the very soul of me --
her face grew deadly pale, and her lips trembled, as I'd seen them do
once before when she was regular beyond herself -- `will you take me with you
when you go for good and all? I'm ready to follow you round the world.
Don't be afraid of my temper. No woman that ever lived ever did more
for the man she loved than I'll do for you. If Jeanie's good to Jim
-- and you know she is -- I'll be twice the woman to you, or I'll die for it.
Don't speak!' she went on; `I know I threw you over once.
I was mad with rage and shame. You know I had cause, hadn't I, Dick?
You know I had. To spite you, I threw away my own life then;
now it's a misery and a torment to me every day I live. I can bear it
no longer, I tell you. It's killing me -- killing me day by day.
Only say the word, and I'll join you in Melbourne within the week --
to be yours, and yours only, as long as I live.'

I didn't think there was that much of the loving nature about her.
She used to vex me by being hard and uncertain when we were courting.
I knew then she cared about me, and I hadn't a thought about any other woman.
Now when I didn't ask her to bother herself about me,
and only to let me alone and go her own way, she must turn the tables on me,
and want to ruin the pair of us slap over again.