CHAPTER XXIII.
“I, the sport of Fortune.”—Duke Charles of Orleans.
Jack, “ragged and tanned,” half-starved, and a “footman” (as a person not in possession of a horse is termed in Australian provincial circles), was not for the moment regarded with special favour by the landlord of the Royal Pioneer.
However, the first few words led to immediate “class legislation.” The landlords of Australian inns, I may observe, are tolerably good judges of “who’s who,” and, to their honour, are more regardful of gentlemanlike bearing than of money and good clothes.
So Jack was inducted into the front parlour, and invited to repair the inroads upon his outward man in a bedroom of comparative grandeur. He first of all arranged for the purchase of an entirely new rig-out from the affiliated store, also in possession of the landlord, and a bath. After indulgence in the latter luxury, he made up the whole of his former wearing apparel in a package, and desired that they might be given to the poor, or otherwise disposed of. He then decided that he would transact the imposing ceremony of dinner, and afterwards draw up his tenders for twenty five-mile blocks on the River Marion, and be ready for a start to the metropolis next morning.
Entering the parlour in a suit of rough tweed, he felt much more like a shepherd king of the future than the death-doomed pioneer—half hunter, half savage—of the preceding few days. As he came in, a well-dressed, strongly-jewelled personage arose from the sofa on which he had been sitting, and greeted Jack with much cordiality.
“Mr. Redgrave, I believe, I have the honour of addressing. I’ve heard of your heroic feats, sir. I hope you will give me the pleasure of your company at dinner. Took the liberty of ordering it the moment I heard of your arrival. No denial, sir, if you please. You are Frank Forestall’s guest to-night, whatever happens.”
There was no resisting the dash and pertinacity of his entertainer, so Jack quietly subsided into the position, and permitted the strange gentleman to make himself happy in his own way. The dinner, after a rather unreasonable delay, arrived, by no means so indifferent as to cuisine as might have been imagined. Mr. Forestall insisted on “Piper, No. 2,” and pressed Jack to do him justice in huge glasses, which he seemed to have magical powers of emptying.
It must be remembered that Jack had been many months without the taste of spirits, much less of decent wine. His recent experiences, the total change of scene, the hope of a happy sequel, now near and tangible, to the volume of his life, all these things tended to produce a general feeling of exhilaration, tending, as the evening wore on, to entire loss of caution and self-control. Mr. Forestall described himself as an extensive mail-contractor, who visited the far interior from time to time with a view to comprehensive contracts, in which he intended, at no distant period, to rival, if not to overshadow, the foreign element, as represented by the potentate Cobb. He artfully led the conversation to explorations, privations, and the adventures of Jack and his hapless comrade, mingling sympathetic flattery with acute inquiries, until, after successive beakers of “hot stopping” and pipes of negrohead, Jack was in no humour to conceal any portion of his intentions and discoveries. How and when he had retired for the night John Redgrave was, next morning, unable to remember; but awaking, long after sunrise, with a splitting headache and a disordered system, he had a confused recollection of having imparted much information which he had never intended to reveal except in the sealed tenders of Redgrave and Waldron, passing in due course through the Department of Lands.
Dressing and shaking himself together with no inconsiderable effort, he found by inquiring of the landlord that the mail had come and gone, and that his genial host of the preceding evening had departed with it. Wroth with himself for the loss of even one day, he adhered sternly to the drawing out of the tenders in proper form.