In Bad Company, and other stories

by Rolf Boldrewood

A VISION OF GOLD

'I see a lone stream rolling down

Through valleys green, by ridges brown,

Of hills that bear no name;

The dawn's full blush in crimson flakes

Is traced on palest blue, as breaks

The morn in orient flame.

'I see—whence comes that eager gaze?

Why rein the steed in wild amaze?

The water's hue is gold;

Golden its wavelets foam and glide

Through tenderest green—to ocean-tide

The fairy streamlet rolled.

'Forward, Hope, forward! truest steed,

Of tireless hoof and desert speed,

Up the weird water bound,

Till echoing far and sounding deep,

I hear old Ocean's hoarse voice sweep

O'er this enchanted ground.

'The sea! Wild fancy! Many a mile

Of changeful Nature's frown and smile,

Ere stand we on the shore;

And yet that murmur, hoarse and deep,

None save the ocean surges keep—

It is the cradles' roar!

'Onward! I pass the grassy hill

Around whose base the waters still

Shimmer in golden foam,

Oh! wanderer of the voiceless wild,

Of this far southern land the child,

How changed thy quiet home!

'For, close as bees in countless hive,

Like emmet-hosts that tireless strive,

Swarmed, toiled, a vast strange crowd;

Haggard each face's features seem,

Bright, fever-bright, each eye's wild gleam;

Nor cry, nor accent loud.

'But each man delved, or rocked, or bore

As if salvation with the ore

Of the mine-monarch lay;

Gold strung each arm to giant might,

Gold flashed before the aching sight,

Gold turned the night to day.

'Where Eblis reigns o'er boundless gloom,

And in his halls of endless doom

Lost souls for ever roam,

They wander (says the Eastern tale),

Nor ever startles moan or wail

Despair's eternal home.

'Less silent scarce than that pale host,

They toiled as if each moment lost

Were the red life-drop spilt;

While heavy, rough, and darkly bright,

In every shape rolled to the light

Man's hope, and pride, and guilt.

'All ranks, all ages, every land

Had sent her conscripts forth to stand

In the gold-seekers' rank;

The bushman, bronzed, with sinewy limb,

The pale-faced son of trade, e'en him

Who knew the fetters' clank.

* * * * *

''Tis night; her jewelled mantle fills

The busy valley, the dun hills,

'Tis a battle-host's repose;

A thousand watch-fires redly gleam,

Where ceaseless fusillades would seem

To warn approaching foes.

'The night is older. On the sward

Stretched, I behold the heavens broad

When, a Shape rises dim;

Then clearer, fuller, I descry

By the swart brow, the star-bright eye,

The gnome king's presence grim.

'He stands upon a time-worn block;

His dark form shrouds the snowy rock,

As cypress marble tomb;

Nor fierce, yet wild and sad his mien,

His cloud-black tresses wave and stream,

His deep tones break the gloom.

'"Son of a tribe accurst, of those

Whose greed has broken our repose

Of the long ages dead;

Think not for naught our ancient race

Quit olden haunts, the sacred place

Of toils for ever fled.

'"List while I tell of days to come,

When men shall wish the hammers dumb

That ring so ceaseless now—

That every arm were palsy-tied,

Nor ever wet on grey hillside

Was the gold-seeker's brow.

'"I see the old world's human tide

Set southward on the Ocean wide,

I see a wood of masts;

While crime and want, disease and death,

By rolling wave and storm-wind's breath

Are on these fair shores cast.

'"I see the murderer's barrel gleam,

I hear the victim's hopeless scream

Ring through these sylvan wastes:

While each base son of elder lands,

Each witless dastard, in vast bands,

To the gold city hastes.

'"Disease shall claim her ready toll,

Flushed vice and brutal crime the dole

Of life shall ne'er deny;

Disease and death shall walk your streets,

While staggering idiocy greets

The horror-stricken eye!

'"All men shall roll in the gold mire,

The height, the depth, of man's desire,

Till come the famine years;

Then all the land shall curse the day

When first they rifled the dull clay,

With deep remorseful tears.

'"Fell want shall wake to fearful life

The fettered demons; civil strife

Rears high a gory hand;

I see a blood-splashed barricade,

While dimly lights the twilight glade

The soldier's flashing brand.

'"But thou, son of the forest free!

Thou art not, wert not foe to me,

Frank tamer of the wild!

Thou hast not sought the sunless home

Where darkly delves the toiling gnome,

The mid-earth's swarthy child.

'"Then be thou ever, as of yore,

A dweller in the woods and o'er

Fresh plains thy herds shall roam;

Join not the vain and reckless crowd,

Who swell the city's pageant proud,

But prize thy forest home."

'He said; and with an eldritch scream

The gnome king vanished, and my dream—

Day's waking hour returned.

Yet still the wild tones echoed clear,

Half chimed with truth in reason's ear,

And my heart inly burned!'

'Well done, Maxwell, old fellow; didn't think you could read so well! I haven't been asleep above two or three times. I enjoyed it awfully. Particular down on us. Your underground friend, though, prophesies war, famine, and mixed immigration! Cheerful cuss!'

'Mr. Aubrey, will ye oblige me by coming before the curtain. It's proud I am to know ye. I have seen worse, sir, let me tell ye, in the pages of the Dublin University Magazine, where the name of Moore O'Donnell is not entirely unknown. I would like to repate to ye a short ode of my own on——'

'Rush oh! at Cockfighter's Flat,' burst in a new man—Markham—impetuously. 'That's all the talk now, my boys! They say the gold's thicker than the wash, shallow sinking, and lots of water. Jackson just told me; he's off there to-morrow to buy gold and go to Melbourne with it. I'm away, then. Any of you chaps join me?'

'I don't mind taking a look,' said Maxwell. 'I've half a mind to turn gold-buyer myself. It's a paying game.'

'It's an awfully risky one,' said Freshland. 'A man takes his life in his hand once he's known to carry gold. I know a fellow who started from here for Melbourne a fortnight since, and has never turned up.'

'Perhaps he's bolted,' suggested a cynic.

'Perhaps so,' answered Freshland carelessly; 'but if so, his wife, from her looks, they tell me, is not in the secret. I'm afraid it's the old story,' continued he, gazing mournfully into space. 'I know well how it's done. I can see it all as I sit here. A fellow goes stepping along the road through the Black Forest, whistling cheerfully and thinking of the ounces he has in his belt, or of what has gone down by the escort, of a piano for his wife, of the children who will have grown so, of the pleasant Christmas they will spend together, when, just where the creek crosses the road, One-eyed Dick and Derwent Bill step suddenly out.'

'"Morning, mates," says he, "fine weather after the rain."

'"Thundering fine," growls the one-eyed ruffian. "This yere's a fine day for us, anyhow. Done well at the Point, young chap?" As they talk they attempt grim jocularity, but their eyes, cold, sinister, watchful, betray their intent as they close upon him.

'"For the love of God, for my wife and children's sake, spare my life!" gasps the poor fellow; "you shall have every shilling I have in the world."

'"We ain't a-going to hurt ye. Just come off the road a bit, will yer?" says the crafty brute. Pah! I can't bear to think of it. Next summer some bullock-driver finds a skeleton lashed to a tree, in the thickest part of the scrub.'

'I say, Freshland,' I pleaded, 'don't. I've got a couple of miles to walk in the dark to-night. I think I'd rather hear that kind of story by daylight. But I must be off now. We tradesmen, you know! Good-bye.'

I walked back through scattered tents and darksome trees, moaning in the midnight, as the breeze swept through them. I was unable to banish Freshland's horrible tale from my mind, and was decidedly relieved when the yard of our encampment loomed into view. The cattle were lying down, Ben was smoking his pipe on guard, all was safe. Murderers and burglars were exercising their talents elsewhere. I was soon in a land where the mystery of permitted evil troubled me not.

My career at Ballarat was, however, drawing to a close. While we were transacting our al fresco breakfast, a 'real butcher' made his appearance with proposals for the purchase of my remaining cattle, and the collateral advantages of stock-in-trade, plant, and goodwill. 'Why had I not come to him in the first instance?' he asked with good-humoured surprise. Some accident had prevented me hearing of him. Mr. Garth laughed, and said he was in a small way compared to the others, with whom I had disagreed. I may say here, that it would be hard to pass through the populous, wealthy, energetic city of Ballarat now, without hearing much about Mr. Garth, owner of farms, mills, hotels, mining companies, what not.

I was pleased with his frank, liberal way of dealing, and augured favourably of his future career. He was the ideal purchaser, at any rate. He adopted, without a word of dissent, my prices, terms, and conditions.

With the conclusion of breakfast the whole affair was arranged. The cattle-edifices, tools of trade, and journeyman butcher were delivered as per agreement; Charley was sent for the horses, Ben was ordered to pack, the route was given, and in an hour we had turned our backs upon Ballarat.

I sent Ben and Charley back to the station, presenting the former with a coveted brown filly, and the latter with a white cow, as good-conduct badges. They reached home safely, after a journey of a couple of hundred miles, a 'big drink' indulged in by Master Ben on the road notwithstanding.

For myself, I went to Melbourne, having business in that deserted village. I had much difficulty in getting my hair cut, by the only surviving barber. The site of my shanty and block now trembles under the traffic of a busy street. The 'lost camp' at Wendouree Lake is valuable suburban property. Steamers run there. Why did I not buy it? If I had taken that, and one or two other trifling long shots, I might have been living in London like Maxwell, or in Paris like Freshland, if a stray Prussian bullet has not interfered with his matchless digestion. However, why regret these or any seeming errors of the past? They are but a few more added to the roll of opportunities, gone with our heedless youth, and with the hours of that 'distant Paradise,' lost for evermore.