More than once too had he received a letter from Tessie, carefully written on the smallest possible scrap of paper, but with its few words of priceless value and comfort to the captive. In the last one a distinct plan of escape was devised.
At this time, among the various pursuits and avocations by means of which men of gentle nurture who had been unsuccessful at the goldfields procured a living while leading an independent life, that of wild-fowling ranked high. Game of all sorts was readily saleable at fabulous prices to the hotel and restaurant keepers of Melbourne. Every day scores of men, with pockets stuffed with bank notes, came to the metropolis eager to embark for England with what seemed a fortune to them, or to enjoy a season of revelry preparatory to returning to Ballarat or Bendigo. There was, as the miner's phrase then went, 'plenty more where that came from.' With such free-handed customers a recherché dinner, with fish, game, and fruit, preceding a theatre party, was indispensable. The cost was not counted. Bills were despised in those days when every river in favoured districts was a Pactolus. Hotel-keepers and tradesfolk were reproached for their meanness in not swelling their totals to a respectable sum. The free-handed miner, whose drafts, payable in the rich red gold Dame Nature was so proud to honour, mocked at expense, and exacted profusion at his quasi-luxurious banquets. Such being the state of affairs, with teal and widgeon at ten shillings a brace, and black duck at a sovereign the pair, a reduced gentleman, with a punt and duck gun, was enabled to lead a philosophical, remunerative, and far from laborious existence.
CHAPTER XVI
It came at last—the week—the day—the very night to which Lance had looked forward with such nervous anxiety. When compelled to pace the deck for the last morning, as he trusted, with his chained comrades, he barely concealed his exultation at the thought that on the morrow he might be a free man once more. He feared it would be visible in his countenance, in his very step, which in spite of himself was almost elastic, causing his chains to clank unusually. Indeed one of his fellows in adversity noticed it.
Keen to detect the slightest change from the stereotyped prison bearing, he growled out, 'What the —— are ye at, step-dancing with your bloomin' irons, ye —— fool? They'll clap the fourteen-pound clinks on ye if ye try the shakin' lay. Stoush it, ye ——'
The words were perhaps unfit for publication, but the intention was not all unkind. The trained forçat had quickly divined that something not in the programme—an 'extra,' so to speak—was likely to be played, and thus warned him against premature elation.
Lance felt his heart stop as the possibility occurred to him that the caprice of a warder might order him to wear irons weighing a quarter of a hundredweight in place of the comparatively light ones which at present confined his limbs. He at once 'dropped,' as the adviser would have phrased it, and falling into the chain-gang shuffle as if instinctively, said, 'All right, Scotty, this foggy day makes a fellow want to warm his feet.'
'Warm your feet!' scoffed the convict, 'you'll be lucky if you can raise a trot without hobbles these years to come. When your time's up they'll have ye for something else, like they did me. Once they've got a cove on these —— hell-boats they don't like to let him go again.'
'How long have you been lagged, Scotty?' inquired Lance, less indeed impelled by curiosity than desirous of turning the conversation from what he felt was a dangerous direction.