Mr. Blount couldn’t help smiling at certain sentences in this frank and characteristic epistle. But he looked grave enough at the concluding one. This was the light then in which his conduct would appear to the rural inhabitants of the township and district of Bunjil.
Simple and chiefly unlettered they might be, but shrewd and accurate to a wonderful degree in their discernment of character.
It was evident that the false cavalier who “loved, and who rode away,” would have small consideration shown him on the day when he might fall in with half a dozen Upper Sturt men at annual show or race meeting. There was a veiled threat in Sheila’s closing sentence, and though, in his or any other defaulter’s case, retributive justice might be stayed or wholly miscarry, yet it was not a pleasant thought that any act of his should bear the interpretation of bad faith; or that sentence of excommunication would, so to speak, be pronounced against him from one end of the river and the great Upper Sturt district to the other. By gentle and simple alike there would be unanimous agreement on that score. From the “mountain men” of the Bogongs and Talbingo, to the sun-burned plain-riders of the Darling, the vigorous English of the Waste would be searched for epithets of scorn and execration.
In the old Saxon days of the first Christian King, the epithet of “niddering” (worthless), which men committed suicide rather than endure, would have been decreed. Even the rude miners of the West would feel injured. From club to hotel, from the cool green, sunless forests of the Alpine chain, where the snow-fed rills tinkled and gurgled the long, bright summer through, to the burning, gold-strewn deserts of West Australia, he would be a marked man, pointed at as the coward who won a girl’s heart and “cleared out,” because he happened to “strike it rich” in another colony.
Luckily for his state of mind and the condition of his business prospects, Mr. Tregonwell happened to turn up a day earlier than he was expected, so that by sitting far into the night in council with that experienced though fervid operator, things were put into train; so that he and the resident directors would, with the help of a power of attorney, arrange all the advertising and scrip printing without further aid from Valentine Blount.
There was not much need for pushing ahead the concerns of the Great Tasmanian Comstock, by which name it was chiefly known and designated. The whole island seemed to be in a ferment. The public and the share market only needed restraining. It was, of course, only in the hurry and crush of applications for scrip, in resemblance to the South Sea—well, we’ll say, Excitement of old historic days. The blocks of silver ore, “native silver,” malachite, and other specimens exhibited behind a huge plate glass window in Davey Street, had driven the city wild. Crowds collected around it, and a couple of stalwart policemen were specially stationed there by the inspector to prevent unseemly crushing and riot. In addition well-armed night watchmen were provided at the expense of the Comstock Company for the nocturnal safety of the precious deposits. The Pateena was to leave for her customary conflict with the rough waves of Bass’s Straits at 12 a.m. So, after a hard night’s work, the “popular director” took a parting smoke and retired for what sleep was likely to visit him by 8 a.m., when the two partners were to breakfast together. Mr. Blount had not a tranquil experience of “tired nature’s sweet restorer.” “Little-River-Jack,” the Sergeant, and Sheila Maguire pursued one another through the Bunjil forest, accompanied by the doomed mail-boy and Mr. Bruce. Sergeant Dayrell had apparently come to life again, and was standing pistol in hand with the same devilish sneer on his lips, face to face with Kate Lawless and Ned. Then the melancholy cortège moved across the scene, with the police riding slowly, as they led the spare horses upon which was tied the dead inspector and the wounded trooper. All things seemed sad, funereal, and out of keeping with the enforced gaiety and cordial hospitality which he had lately enjoyed. It was a relief on awakening to find, all unrefreshed as he was, that he had ample time in which to recruit, by means of the shower bath and matutinal coffee, his hardly-taxed mental and physical energies. However, all was ready to respond to the breakfast bell, specially ordered and arranged for, and when Mr. Tregonwell, looking as if he had gone to bed early and was only anxious about the Hobart Courier, entered the breakfast room, all tokens of despondency vanished from Mr. Blount’s countenance.
Then only he realised that a creditably early start was feasible—was actually in process of operation.
“Look here!” exclaimed that notoriously early bird, producing two copies of the Courier, of which he handed his friend one, “Read this as a preliminary, and keep the paper in your pocket for board-ship literature.”
It was, indeed, something to look at, as the supplement displayed under gigantic headlines this portentous announcement—
“The Tasmanian Comstock and Associated