The Goldsmith Comes to Town.

Timber Town was in a state of commotion. The news of the discovery of the new gold-field had spread far and wide, and every steamer which came into the port was crowded with clammering diggers. Every boarding-house was full to overflowing, every inn was choked with men in heavy boots and corduroy trousers; the roads on the outskirts of the town were lined with rows of tents; everybody talked of the El Dorado in the mountains; there was no thought but of gold; men were buying stores in every shop; pack-horses stood with their heavy loads, in every inn-yard; and towards the bush, threading their way through the tortuous gorge that led into the heart of the mountains, a continual string of diggers, laden with heavy “swags” or leading patient over-laden horses, filed into the depths of the forest.

Jake Ruggles had lived a troubled life since his legal head and overlord, the official sponsor of his promising young life, had dropped out of his existence, as a stone drops to the bottom of a well and is no more seen. Upon his immature shoulders rested all the worry of the goldsmith’s business. He was master of Tresco’s bench; the gravers and the rat-tail files, the stock-drills and the corn-tongs were under his hand for good or for evil. With blow-pipe and burnisher, with plush-wheel and stake-anvil he wrought patiently; almost bursting with responsibility, yet with anxiety gnawing at his heart. And the lies he told on behalf of his “boss”!—lies to men with unpaid accounts in their hands, lies to constables with bits of blue paper from the Clerk of the Court, lies to customers whose orders could not be executed except by the master-goldsmith. On all sides the world pressed heavily on Jake. His wizened face was quickly assuming the aspect of a little old man’s; his furtive eyes began to wear a scared look; sleep had ceased to visit his innocent couch with regularity; his appetite, which formerly had earned him a reputation with his peers, was now easily appeased with a piece of buttered bread and a cup of milkless tea; the “duff” and rice puddings, of the goldsmith’s making, had passed out of his life even as had the “boss” himself. Never was there a more badgered, woe-begone youth than Jake.

It was night time. The shutters of the shop were up, the door was bolted, the safe, with its store of gold-set gewgaws, was locked, and the key rested securely in the apprentice’s pocket, but by the light of a gas-jet, his head bent over the bench, Jake was hard at work on a half-finished ring. In one hand he held a tapering steel rod, on which was threaded a circle of metal which might have been mistaken for brass; in the other he held a light hammer with which he beat the yellow zone. Tap-tap. “Jerusalem, my ’appy ’ome, oh! how I long for thee!” Tap-tap-tap went the hammer. “If the ‘old man’ was on’y here to lend a hand, I’d give a week’s pay. The gold’s full o’ flaws—all along of the wrong alloy, in smeltin’—full o’ cracks and crevices.” He took the gold hoop off the steel rod, placed it on a piece of charred wood, pulled the gas-jet towards him, and with the blow-pipe impinged little jets of flame upon the yellow ring. “An’ the galloot that come in this afternoon said, ‘I always find the work turned out of this shop ah—excellent, ah—tip-top, as good as anything I ever bought in the Old Country, don’tcherknow.’ Yah! Gimme silver, that’s all. Gimme a butterfly buckle to make, or a monogram to saw out, an’ I wouldn’t call the Pope my uncle.” His eye lifted from his work and rested on a broken gold brooch, beautiful with plaited hair under a glass centre. “An’ that fussy old wood-hen’ll be in, first thing to-morrow, askin’ for ‘the memento of my poor dear ’usband, my child, the one with the ’air in it’—carrotty ’air. An’ those two bits of ’air-pins that want them silver bangles by ten o’clock, they’ll be here punctual. I’m just fair drove silly with badgerin’ wimmen. I’m goin’ ratty with worry. When the boss comes back from his spree, I’ll give ’im a bit o’ my mind. I’ll tell ’im, if he must go on a bend he should wait till the proper time—Christmas, Anniversary of the Settlement, Easter, or even a Gov’ment Holiday. But at a time like this, when the town’s fair drippin’ with dollars ... stupid ole buck-rabbit! An’ when he can’t be found, the mutton-headed bobbies suddenly become suspicious. It’s no good for me to tell ’em it’s his periodical spree—they say it’s robbery. Oh, well, I back my opinion, that’s all. But whether it’s the one, or the other, of all the chuckle-headed old idiots that ever was born”—Tap-tap. It was not the noise of Jake’s hammer, but a gentle knocking at the side-door of the workshop.

The apprentice rose quietly, and put his ear to the key-hole. Tap-tap-tap.

“Who’s there?”

“Open the door,” said a soft voice. “It’s me. I want to come in.”

“Very likely you do. There’s many more’d like to come in here.” “Is that you, Jake?”

“Never you mind. Who’re you?”

“You weasel-faced young imp, am I to burst open my own door?”

The mystery was at an end. In a moment, the bolt was withdrawn and Benjamin Tresco stood in his workshop.

But before he spoke, he bolted the door behind him. Then he said, “Well?”

“So you’ve come back?” said Jake, fiercely.

“Looks like it,” said the goldsmith. “How’s things?”

“Gone to the devil. How d’you expect me to keep business goin’ when you go on a howling spree, for weeks?”

“Spree? Me? My dear innocent youth, I have clean forgotten the very taste of beer. At this present moment, I stand before you a total abstainer of six weeks’ duration. And yet what I ask for is not beer, but bread—I’m as hungry as a wolf; I’ve hardly eaten anything for two days. What have you got in the house?”

“Nothin’.”

“What!”

“I don’t ’ave no time to cook. When I can find time, I go up to The Lucky Digger and get a good square feed. D’you expect me to do two men’s work and cook as well?”

Tresco undid the small “swag” which he carried, and before the astonished eyes of his apprentice he disclosed fully a hundred ounces of gold.

“Jee-rusalem! Blame me if you ain’t been diggin’!”

“That’s so, my son.”

“And the police are fair ratty because they thought you were hiding from the Law.”

“So I am, my son.”

“Garn!”

“Solemn fact—there’s a writ out against me.”

“Well?”

“I ain’t got a mind to be gaoled at such a glorious time in the history of Timber Town. I want to get more gold, stacks of it.”

“An’ where do I come in?”

“You come in as owner of this business by and by—if you’re a good boy.”

“Huh! I want to go diggin’ too.”

“All in good time, my energetic youth, all in good time. But for the present, give me some food.”

“Didn’t I tell you there isn’t any?” yelled Jake.

“Very good, very good, but don’t talk so loud. Take this half-crown, and go to The Lucky Digger. Tell the young lady in the bar that you have a friend who’s dying of hunger. Tell her to fill a jug with a quart of beer, and a basket with tucker of sorts. And hurry back; for, by my sacred aunt, if I don’t get something better presently, I shall turn cannibal and eat you!”

While the boy was gone, Tresco weighed the gold that lay on the bench. It came to 111 ounces, and this, valued at the current price of gold from Bush Robin Creek—the uninitiated are possibly unaware that as one star differeth from another star in glory, so the gold from one locality differs in price from that found in another—came to £430 2s. 6d.

Finding the safe locked, Tresco, whistling softly, turned down the gas, and sat at his bench in the gloom.

When Jake returned he was cautiously admitted, the door was re-bolted, and the gas was turned up sufficiently to show the goldsmith the way to his mouth.

“Where’s the key of the safe, Jake?”

“Where it ought to be.”

“You young imp, anty up.” Jake produced the key from his pocket. “D’you suppose I label it and put it in the winder?”

“Put this gold away—there’s 111 ounces. I’ll bring some more next time I come. Now.” He lifted the jug, and drank. When he set it down again, it was half empty. “That’s what I call a moment of bliss. No one who hasn’t spent a month in the bush knows what a thirst really is; he ain’t got no conception what beer means. Now, what’s in the basket?” He lifted the white napkin that covered his supper. “Ham!” A beautific smile illumined his face. “Ham, pink and white and succulent, cut in thin slices by fair hands. Delicious! And what’s this? Oyster patties, cold certainly, but altogether lovely. New bread, cheese, apple turn-over! Couldn’t be better. The order of the menu is; first, entrees—that means oysters—next, ham, followed by sweets, and topped off with a morsel of cheese. Stand by and watch me eat—a man that has suffered semi-starvation for nearly a month.”

Jake lit a cigarette, an indulgence with which in these days of worry and stress he propitiated his overwrought nerves. He drew in the smoke with all the relish of a connoisseur, and expelled it through his nostrils.

“Is this gold the result of six weeks’ work?” he asked.

“No, barely one week’s,” answered Tresco, his mouth full of ham and new bread.

“Crikey!” Jake inhaled more cigarette smoke. “’Seems to me our potty little trade ain’t in it. I move that we both go in for the loocrative profession of diggin’.”

“Mumf—mumf—muff—muff.” The ham had conquered Tresco’s speech.

“Jes’ so. That’s what I think, boss.”

Benjamin gave a gulp. “I won’t take you,” he said, as plainly as possible.

“Oh, you won’t?”

“I won’t.”

“Then, suppose I go on my own hook, eh?”

“You’ve got to stop and look after this shop. You’re apprenticed to me.”

“Oh, indeed!”

“If a man chooses to spend a little holiday in the bush, is his apprentice to suppose his agreement’s cancelled? Not a bit of it.”

“An’ suppose a man chooses to spend a little holiday in gaol, what then?”

“That’s outside the sphere of practical politics, my son.”

“I don’t know so much about that. I think different. I think we’ll cry quits. I think I’ll go along with you, or likely there’ll be trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“Yes, trouble.”

“What sort of trouble, jackanapes?”

“Why, crimson trouble.”

“Indeed.”

“I’ve got you tied hand and foot, boss. You can take that from me.”

“Is that so? What do you think you can do?”

“I intend to go along with you.”

“But I start to-night. If I can scrape together enough food to last a week or two. But I’ll take you along. You shall come. I’ll show you how I live. Now, then, what d’you say?” There was a twinkle in Tresco’s eye, and the corners of his mouth twitched with merriment.

“Think I don’t know when I’ve got a soft thing on?” Jake took off his apron, and hung it on a nail. “Shan’t want that, for a month or two anyway.” Then he faced the “boss” with, “Equal whacks, you old bandicoot. I’ll find the tucker, and we’ll share the gold.”

Tresco’s smile broke into a hearty laugh. He put his hands to his sides, threw back his head, and fairly chortled.

“I don’t see any joke.” Jake looked at his master from beneath his extravagant eyebrows.

“You’ll ... you’ll get the tucker ... see?”

“Why, yes—how’s a man to live?”

“An’ you’ll help swag it?”

“’Course.”

“You’ll implicitly obey your lawful lord and master, out on the wallaby?”

“’Spect I’ll ’ave to.”

“You won’t chiack or poke borak at his grey and honoured head when, by reason of his endowment of adipose tissue, his wind gives out?”

“Oh, talk sense. Adipose rabbits’ skins!”

“All these several and collective points being agreed upon, my youthful Adonis, I admit you into partnership.”

“Done,” said the apprentice, with emphasis. “It’s a bargain. Go and sleep, and I’ll fossick round town for tucker—I’m good for a sixty-pound swag, and you for eighty. So-long.”

He turned off the gas, took the key of the side door, which he locked after him, and disappeared, whilst Tresco groped his way to bed.

The surreptitious goldsmith had slept for two hours when the stealthy apprentice let himself quietly into the dark and cheerless house. He bore on his back a heavy bag of flour, and carried on his arm a big basket filled with minor packages gleaned from sleepy shopkeepers, who had been awakened by the lynx-eyed youth knocking at their backdoors.

In the cheerful and enlivening company of an alarum clock, Jake retired to his couch, which consisted of a flax-stuffed mattress resting on a wooden bedstead, and there he quickly buried himself in a weird tangle of dirty blankets, and went to sleep.

At the conclusion of three brief hours, which to the heavy sleeper appeared as so many minutes, the strident alarum woke the apprentice to the stress of life. By the light of a tallow candle he huddled on his clothes, and entered the goldsmith’s chamber.

“Now, then, boss, three o’clock! Up you git!”

Benjamin rubbed his eyes, sat up in bed, and yawned.

“‘’Tis the voice of the sluggard, I heard him complain:
You’ve waked me too soon—I must slumber again.’

What’s the time, Jake?”

“Ain’t I tellin’ you?—three o’clock. If we don’t want to be followed by every digger in the town, we must get out of it before dawn.”

“Wise young Solomon, youth of golden promise. Go and boil the kettle. We’ll have a snack before we go. Then for fresh fields and pastures new.”

The goldsmith bounded out of bed, with a buoyancy which resembled that of an india-rubber ball.

“Ah-ha!
‘Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweek bird’s throat,
Come hither.’
You see, Jakey, mine, we were eddicated when we was young.” Benjamin had jumped into his clothes as he talked. “A sup and a snack, and we flit by the light of the moon.”

“There ain’t no moon.”

“So much the better. We’ll guide our steps by the stars’ pale light and the beams of the Southern Cross.”

By back lanes and by-roads the goldsmith and his boy slunk out of the town. At the mouth of the gorge where diggers’ tents lined the road, they walked delicately, exchanging no word till they were deep in the solitude of the hills.

As the first streak of dawn pierced the gloom of the deep valley, they were wading, knee-deep, a ford of the river, whose banks they had skirted throughout their journey. On the further side the forest, dank, green, and dripping with dew, received them into its impenetrable shades, but still the goldsmith toiled on; his heavy burden on his back, and the panting, weary, energetic, enthusiastic apprentice following his steps.

Leaving the track, Tresco led the way up a steep gully, thickly choked with underscrub, and dark with the boughs of giant trees. Forcing their way through tangled supple-jacks and clinging “lawyer” creepers which sought to stay their progress, the wayfarers climbed till, as day dawned, they paused to rest their wearied limbs before a sheer cliff of rock.

“It’s not very far now,” said the goldsmith, as he wiped his dripping brow. “This is the sort of work to reduce the adipose tissue, my son. D’you think you could find your way here by yourself, indomitable Jakey?”

“Huh! ’Course,” replied the breathless youth, proud to be his master’s companion in such a romantic situation, and glorying in his “swag”. “Is this your bloomin’ camp?”

“No, sir.” Tresco glanced up the face of the great limestone rock which barred their path. “Not exactly. We’ve got to scale this cliff, and then we’re pretty well there.”

A few supple-jacks hung down the face of the rock. These Tresco took in his hand, and twisted them roughly into a cable. “’Look natural, don’t they?” he said. “’Look as if they growed t’other end, eh? Now, watch me.” With the help of his rope of lianas he climbed up the rugged cliff, and when at the summit, he called to Jake to tie the “swags” to separate creepers. These he hoisted to the top of the cliff, and shortly afterwards the eager face of the apprentice appeared over the brow.

“Here we are,” exclaimed Benjamin, “safe as a church. Pull up the supple-jacks, Jake.”

With an enthusiasm which plainly betokened a mind dwelling on bushrangers and hidden treasure, the apprentice did as he was told.

Out of breath through his exertions, he excitedly asked, “What’s the game, boss? Where’s the bloomin’ plant?”

“Plant?” replied the goldsmith.

“Yes, the gold, the dollars?”

“Dollars? Gold?”

“Yes, gold! ’Think I don’t know? Theseyer rocks are limestone. Who ever saw gold in limestone formation? Eh?”

“How do you know it’s limestone?”

“Yah! Ain’t I bin down to the lime-kiln, by Rubens’ wharf, and seen the lime brought over the bay? What’s the game? Tell us.”

“The thing that I’m most interested in, at this present moment,”—the goldsmith took up his heavy “swag”—“is tucker.”

Without further words, he led the way between perpendicular outcrops of rocks whose bare, grey sides were screened by fuchsia trees, birch saplings, lance-wood, and such scrub as could take root in the shallow soil. Turning sharply round a projecting rock, he passed beneath a tall black birch which grew close to an indentation in the face of the cliff. Beneath the great tree the heels of the goldsmith crushed the dry, brown leaves deposited during many seasons; then in an instant he disappeared from the sight of the lynx-eyed Jake, as a rabbit vanishes into its burrow.

“Hi! Here! Boss! Where the dooce has the ole red-shank got too?”

A muffled voice, coming as from the bowels of the earth, said, “Walk inside. Liberty Hall.... Free lodging and no taxes.”

Jake groped his way beneath the tree, surrounded on three sides by the limestone cliff. In one corner of the rock was a sharp depression, in which grew shrubs of various sorts. Dropping into this, the lad pushed his way through the tangled branches and stood before the entrance of a cave.

Inside Tresco held a lighted candle in his hand. In front of him stood Jake, spellbound.

Overhead, the ceiling was covered with white and glistening stalactites; underfoot, the floor was strewn with bits of carbonate and the broken bases of stalagmites, which had been shattered to make a path for the ruthless iconoclast who had made his home in this pearly-white temple, built without hands.

Tresco handed Jake another lighted candle.

“Allow me to introduce you, my admirable Jakey, to my country mansion, where I retire from the worry of business, and turn my mind to the contemplation of Nature. This is the entrance hall, the portico: observe the marble walls and the ceiling-decorations—Early English, perpendicular style.”

Jake stood, open-mouthed with astonishment.

“Now we come to the drawing-room, the grand salon, where I give my receptions.” Benjamin led the way through a low aperture, on either side of which stalactites and stalagmites had met, leaving a low doorway in the centre. Beyond this, the candles’ dim light struggled for supremacy in a great hall, whose walls shone like crystal. On one side the calcareous encrustations had taken the form of a huge organ, cut as if out of marble, with pipes and key-board complete.

“Holee Christopher!” exclaimed the apprentice.

“Nature’s handiwork,” said the goldsmith. “Beautiful.... Been making, this thousand years, for me—an’ you.”

“Then I reckon Nature forgot the chimbley—it’s as cold as the grave.”

“On the contrary, there is a chimney; but Nature doesn’t believe in a fireplace in each room. Proceed. I will now show you my private apartments. Mind the step.”

He led the way down a dark passage, strewn with huge pieces of limestone, over which master and apprentice scrambled, into an inner chamber, where the white walls were grimed with smoke and the black embers of an extinguished fire lay in the middle of the floor.

“My sanctum sanctorum,” said the goldsmith, as he fixed the butt of his candle to a piece of rock by means of drops of melted wax poured from the lighted end. “This is where I meditate; this is where I mature my plans for the betterment of the human species.”

“Rats! You’re darn well hidin’ from the police.”

“My son, you grieve me; your lack of the poetic shocks me.”

“Oh, garn! You robbed those mails, that’s about the size of it.”

“Robbed?—no, sir. Examined?—yes, sir. I was the humble instrument in the hands of a great rascal, a man of unprincipled life, a man who offered bribes, heavy bribes—an’ I took ’em. I had need of money.”

“First comes the bender and then the bribe. I know, boss. But where d’you get the gold?” Benjamin stooped over a mass of bedding, rolled up in a tent-fly, and brought to light a canvas bag.

“My private store,” he said, “mine and Bill’s. We go whacks. We’re doing well, but expediency demands that for a short while I should retire into private life. And, by the hokey, I can afford it.”

“Gold?” asked Jake, peering at the bag.

“Nuggets,” said the goldsmith.

Jake dropped his “swag” and felt the weight of the bag.

“It gits over me,” he said. “Either you stole it, or you dug it. I give it up. Any’ow, there it is.”

Benjamin smiled his broadest, and began to rake together the charred sticks scattered over the floor.

“This is my only trouble,” he said. “To yank my firewood in here is heart-breaking; that and swagging tucker from town.”

“Where’s the smoke go to?” Jake looked into the inky blackness above.

“Don’t know. Never asked. I guess it finds its way somewhere, for after I’ve hung my blanket over the doorway and lighted the fire, I sometimes notice that the bats which live overhead buzz round and then clear out somewhere. I imagine that there’s a passage which connects with the open air. Some day, perhaps, an over-earnest policeman will drop on our heads. Then there’ll be a picnic, eh?”

“What I want, just at present,” said Jake, “is a drink.”

“That’s another of my troubles,” replied the goldsmith. “I have to fetch my water from outside, but it’s lovely water when you’ve got it.”

He placed his bag of gold in a corner. “Don’t put all your eggs into one basket,” he said. “I believe in Jacob’s plan—divide your belongings. If I’m caught here, I have the plant in town. If I’m caught in town, I have the plant here. Anyhow, the police can’t get everything.”

“An’ where do I come in?” The eyes of the rabbit-faced youth peered into his master’s.

“I don’t precisely know. I don’t think you come in at all.”

“Then what about that gold in the safe, boss?”

“The key is here.” Benjamin slapped his pocket gently. “But, if you’re a good boy you shall have my business, and be the boss goldsmith of Timber Town.”

“Honest injin?”

“Perfectly honest. If I get away with my gold, all I leave behind is yours.”

“Shake hands on it.”

“Certainly,” said the goldsmith, and he held out his hand.

Jake took it in his.

“It’s a bargain,” he said.

“That’s right; a bargain.”

“I’ll help you to get away with your gold, and you’ll leave me your business, lock, stock, and barrel.”

“That’s exactly it,” said the goldsmith, taking up an empty “billy” from the ground. “Now we’ll go and get the water for our tea.”