Handing each of them an order, he said, “You will present those to the gaoler when you desire to visit your friend. I may say that I very much admire the strong affection which you have shown towards one who is under such a serious charge as that made against the prisoner, John Scarlett. I wish you good morning.”
So saying, he rose from his chair, and, when they had gathered up their money, ushered them out of the room.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
In Durance Vile.
With a basket on her arm, Rose Summerhayes issued from the creeper-covered verandah of the many-gabled house, and stood in her garden of roses.
It was the time of the autumn blooms. With a pair of garden scissors she cut the choicest flowers, and placed them upon the snowy napkin which covered the contents of her basket. Then she tripped into the town.
She passed by Tresco’s shop, where Jake Ruggles, worried by the inquiries of the police, and overwhelmed with orders which he could not execute, strove to act the absent goldsmith’s part. At the door of The Lucky Digger, where stood a noisy throng of men from the gold-field, she heard the words, “It never was the work of one man. If he did it, he had accomplices. How could one man lug the four of ’em up that mountain-side,” and she hurried past, knowing too well to whom the talk referred.
As she passed the Kangaroo Bank, a florid man, wearing a white waistcoat, came out through the glass doors with a digger who had been selling gold.
“So you thought you’d bring your gold to town yourself?” said the florid man.