CHAPTER VI
After the escort left the bank the sensational find of gold was whispered into a few greedy ears; then it was retailed, with large margins, and soon found its way to the bars of public-houses, where it was hammered into the counters with clenched fists or pewter pots.
It was noised abroad that Bill had taken lunch at the "Shearer's Arms." A few of the astute townspeople, with their weather eye open, determined to shepherd him and dog his footsteps. The landlord hoped to "lamb" him down.
The Melbourne coach suddenly came out of a cloud of dust, and drew up at the door. Bill was expecting it. He quickly paid his bill, and arranged to send his horse to grass for three months. Then he went outside, and sauntered up and down with the air of a man who had come to stay and enjoy himself. The bystanders gazed their fill, and gloated over the hid treasure that was supposed to be stowed away in his pockets.
"All aboard!" shouted the coachman from the box seat.
"Wait a moment!" said Bill while he sprang up beside him. "All right, driver!"
The off-leader got the tip on the right ear from the whip, which wakened his front half and made it spring in the air. Away the four horses went, scattering a flock of geese which was picking up a living on unconsidered trifles. There was a roar of disappointment from the astute ones.
"Blast 'im! if 'e 'asn't give us the slip!" said one.
"D——!" said another.
Another swore at large; hissing, red-hot, as from a furnace.
Another hastily unfastened the bridle of a horse from a hitching-post—which horse belonged to a respectable farmer—jumped on the animal's back, and went clattering down the street in chase of the coach. He said to himself, "He won't throw me off his tracks, darn him! I'll see where he goes!"
This man followed the coach till it was beyond the auriferous country, and far into the night; then his horse, which had shown unmistakable signs of giving in, refused to go another step.
At twelve o'clock next day Bill arrived in Melbourne. He did not say a word to any one about the gold. He kept the secret locked. He had settled it in his own mind that he was holding the money as a sacred trust for Mary. He was only the custodian, and not the owner.
The whole affair was bordered and fringed with the miraculous.
His first concern was to find Mary. That was the platform. "Seek, and ye shall find." That was the first plank. How it would shape who could tell? He would try to fit all the pieces into their places in his rough stumbling fashion, and leave a higher Power to do the smoothing and joining. He was in love with Mary, and hoped to get "spliced" some day. "Marriages are made in heaven." He had unbounded faith that there would be one on earth soon.
He went to the Argus office, and wrote an advertisement, in which he described Mary and the old man as well as he could, and stated that she would receive a legacy on application to B. M.
Next day he got an armful of letters from Marys who had lost a father, and hoped they had found a legacy. He was astonished to find how many girls so exactly answered the description of the Mary he was in search of. Before night he had written and posted letters to all the applicants, requesting them to meet him at his hotel next day.
At the hour appointed for the interview, babies in arms, children, young women, middle-aged ones, toothless spinsters, and grandmothers, were sent in to him, one after another, and dismissed with scant courtesy. His Mary was not among them.
He haunted the streets by day, and the theatres by night, in the hope of seeing her. He would know her eyes anywhere. If he met her he would almost greet her as an old friend, so well did he seem to know her.
Weeks passed away. As he could find no tidings of her he was getting downhearted, and was almost giving up the search, when, as he was passing along Brunswick Street, an interesting, youthful girl came out of a shop, and walked on before him. Something about her attracted his attention, and he followed her. She was evidently a servant. Suddenly she stopped at the gate of a respectable house, and turned her face towards him. Her eyes flashed across his bows, revealing the object he was in search of, as a harbour light reveals the port. It was his Mary!
He was not quite so sure the next moment, for her face underwent a change. The temporary brightness had disappeared; the lights were out, and a hopeless sorrow seemed to rest upon it. There was no feature he could identify. He stood bewildered, and then she was gone. He was conscious of a closing door.
"I was a fool!" he said. "Why didn't I ask her if her name was Mary, and settle the matter off-hand, receipt the account, and think no more about it. At the first glance I could have sworn she was Mary; at the next she seemed to have retired behind a veil, and was not the same—only a pretty girl with a melancholy cast of countenance. My imagination is playing tricks."
His hands shook, and his knees trembled. He supported himself by the railings in front of the house. Looking up, he saw a policeman eyeing him with suspicion, so he walked away to avoid being made a gazing-stock.
When he got to the end of the block, he upbraided himself for not making inquiries at the house into which the girl entered. He went back, and stood at the railings, taking a mental inventory of the house from the sky line to the earth line. A notice in the window, that board and residence might be had within, gave him an idea. He had thought of changing his lodgings, so he would knock at the door and make inquiries.
He rapped, and a servant came. He had expected that the other girl would appear, and flash her eyes at him as before.
"I came to make inquiries about board and residence," he stammered.
"I'll call Mrs. Blenners; walk in, sir."
He walked in, and Mrs. Blenners walked in behind him. She had seen him from the window, and was ready, like a tug steamer, to take him in tow, and bring him to good anchorage, with room to swing between the front parlour and the best bedroom, where he might spend his days in comfort and his nights in peace.
He looked at the best bedroom, and inspected the front parlour. He liked them; then hummed and hesitated, and had a question on the tip of his tongue about the girl he had followed, but drew it back just in time, as he reflected that so prim and well-starched a lady as Mrs. Blenners would extinguish him as she would a candle, and leave him in the dark—then farewell to further inquiry in this quarter.
Seeing him hesitate, and thinking he might slip through her fingers, she went into action, and fired argument, persuasion, and flattery at him. Before he knew his whereabouts he was carried by storm, and surrendered, paying the first indemnity in the shape of a fortnight's board and lodging.
"I shall come to-morrow," he said.
He went to his hotel, but could not rest. The face he had seen visited him in the night, and he was sleepless. Sometimes he felt sure he had found Mary, and was glad; but doubts would march in again, and his hopes were elbowed out of the way.