‘For the present the Melbourne people seem to think it means loss, if not ruin, to them. The shepherds have nearly all run away, it seems, as also labourers of every description. The writer anticipates a great fall in the value of property. Indeed, houses and town allotments are considered to be hardly worth holding. I should have thought otherwise myself, but’ (here Ernest looked at his companion) ‘I begin to doubt the correctness of my own opinions.’
‘Well, that writer’s an ass, whoever he is; and you’re a deal nearer the mark than he is. He’s a donkey, that, because their ain’t a thistle right against his nose, thinks there ain’t no more thistles in the world—let alone corn. Now I’ve been thinkin’ and thinkin’ the whole matter over since a friend of mine in Port Phillip sent me this paper, and I cipher it out this way. They’ve sent down five thousand ounces this week from this place, Ballarat. Then they’ve struck it at Forest Creek, fifty miles off. Well, that tells me that there’s plenty of it, and more than years will see out, judging from California and Turonia, as we know of. Now what do you suppose all Europe—all the world—will do when they hear of this, that you can dig up gold like potatoes? Why, they won’t be able to find ships fast enough to bring ‘em here. When they do come they’ll want to be fed. The tea and sugar and tents and spades and shovels old Paul Frankston and the other merchants will find ’em somehow; the flour the farmers will find them, or if they can’t, old Paul and his friends will get it from Chili. But they can’t import beef and mutton. No; not if meat rose to a shilling a pound. Live stock is the worst freight in the world, and there’s nowhere within boating distance where it grows plentiful as it does here. So when my sum’s worked out it means this, that more gold means double and treble the population, and double and treble the price of everything that we have here and want to sell.’
As Mr. Levison paused,—not for breath, for he did not exceed his ordinary slow monotonal enunciation, as he propounded these original and startling ideas much as though he were reading from a book,—Mr. Neuchamp looked fixedly at his guest, as if to discover whether or no some subtle local influence peculiar to Rainbar had infected with speculative mania the shrewd, calm-judging stockholder.
But the genius loci, however seductive, would have fared ill in a mental encounter with the slow, sure inferences and iron logic of Abstinens Levison. He displayed no trace of more than ordinary interest. And from all that was apparent, the onward march of a revolution fated to flood the land with wealth and to change a handful of pioneer communities into a nation, was accepted by him with the same faint unnoted surprise as would have been the announcement of a glut in the cattle market or the ‘sticking up’ of the downriver mail coach.
‘That’s how it is in my mind,’ he slowly continued, as if pursuing his ordinary train of thoughts, ‘and before we meet again you’ll know all about it. I’m off to Melbourne as soon as I can get on to the mail line. I shall buy stock right and left, and pick up as many cottages and town allotments as I can find with good titles. They’ll be like these Freeman store cattle; cent per cent will be a trifle to what profits are to be had out of them. But all this yarning won’t buy the child a frock. Where’s that young man of yours? I want to leave my horse and saddle in his charge.’
‘Where are you going now?’ asked Ernest. ‘How can you get over to the mail station without a horse? It’s a hundred and eighty miles to Wargan, where the coach line comes in.’
‘It’s only thirty miles to Wood-duck Lagoon, where the horse mail passes,’ said his determined guest. ‘I left word for them down at Mingadee to send a led horse by the mailman for me to-morrow. Johnny Daly’s an old stockman of mine, and one of those chaps that when he says he’ll do a thing he always does it. I’m as sure of finding a horse there at ten o’clock to-morrow as if I saw him now.’
‘But suppose he loses him on the way, or don’t find your horse ready at Mingadee, what then? Hadn’t you better take a man and horse from here?’
‘Well, I don’t say Johnny would steal a horse, out and out, if he knew I expected one at a certain hour; he’s a good boy, though he does come from the Weddin Mountains. But he’d have one for me, some road or other, if there wasn’t one nearer than Bargo Brush. As for your horses, I’m obliged, and know I’m welcome, but it would knock up one going and one coming back, for they’re all as poor as crows, and that don’t pay, besides a man’s time for nothing. I’ve plenty of time, and the night’s the best travelling weather now. If you’ll call this native chap I’ll be off.’
Ernest, though extremely loath to let his friend and benefactor depart on foot—of which, as a mode of progression, he was beginning to acquire the Australian opinion, viz. that it wore a poverty-stricken appearance—could not decently oppose Mr. Levison’s fixed desire to take the road. He therefore called up Jack Windsor, to whose care Mr. Levison solemnly confided his emaciated quadruped, a much worn and sunburned saddle and bridle, together with a considerable portion of gray blanket, which, in many folds, did duty as saddle-cloth.