CHAPTER XIX
NEW BLOOD
"Jewson!" exclaimed Denis in cold astonishment. "What in the world do you want—with me?"
"You may well ask, sir," replied the steward, in an abject whine, "but on all the diggings there was no one else that I could turn to—little as I deserve at your hands, sir—little as I know I deserve! But you look at me, Mr. Dent, and you'll see the way I've been used!"
He turned his face into the level moonbeams; an eye was closed and discoloured; a lip was swollen and cut, and the coat was almost torn off the steward's back, hanging in ribbons from the shoulders only.
"Some one's been knocking you about," remarked Denis, dispassionately.
"Some one has," the steward agreed, grimly: "some one as ought to have known better—some one not half as old as me, and more than twice as strong! But it was my fault. I might have known! I seen it coming from the first; it was bound to come when the luck gave out. You'll have heard about the water on the Gravel Pits, likely? It's flooded us out altogether; and this is the way the Captain's used me, with his own hands, after two months' faithful service!"
"You've probably been getting drunk," said Denis; but there was no sign of drink about the man; and Denis accepted his denial with some regret for the suggestion, for he was already more sympathetic than he seemed, because readier than he knew to believe ill of Devenish.
The steward's story was that for some trifling omission he had been visited with a torrent of intolerable abuse, and on remonstrance, with the personal chastisement of which he bore marks which never struck Denis as other than genuine. The wretch was clever enough to make excuses for his late master, whose behaviour he attributed entirely to irritation caused by the ruin of his claim; but as Jewson said, that was not his fault, and he could not stay another hour with a gentleman who used him so. So he had turned to Denis in his distress—little right as he had—and he hoped the past at least would be forgiven and forgotten—if only for the sake of the season.
"Why, what is the season?" asked Denis; for in the incessant excitement of the last few days, and the unaccustomed surroundings of blue sky and blazing heat, he had quite forgotten that Christmas was upon them; but he remembered as he spoke, and could quite believe the steward's statement that it was already Christmas Eve.
"And to think you had forgotten!" added Jewson, who was fast recovering a careful kind of confidence. "Why, I expected to find you starting to keep it in the good old style—roast beef—turkeys—plum-pudding and mince pies! What's the good of being a lucky digger unless you keep a high old Christmas like the rest of 'em?"