'Then he has gone away--left this part of the country?' asked Estelle, with such anxiety depicted on her countenance that the quick-witted matron at once divined that the real truth was as yet unknown to her.
'And why do you say "poor fellow"? Has anything happened to him?'
'Oh no! Not at all, Miss--that is, not that I've heard of' ('and that's a banger, if ever there was one,' ejaculated the good woman inwardly); 'it's a manner of speaking, that's all--we were all fond of him, and sorry to lose him, you see. Is there any one else here you know, Miss?
Oh! Mr. Stirling of the Bank opposite will be here to dinner at one o'clock; has his meals here regular, though of course he sleeps at the Bank. He'll tell you all about Mr. Trevanion. Bless you, they was like brothers. As for Mr. Stirling, he's that quiet--why, whatever's up at the Bank? Not a fight, surely?'
This exclamatory query was apparently caused by a simultaneous rush of all the unoccupied portion of the population, with the exception of three men who stood up in a cart, across to the comparatively pretentious building with corrugated iron roof, legended on the front as the Joint-Stock Bank of Australia. Mrs. Delf's experienced eye had noted the formation of a ring, simultaneously with the sudden precipitation on his head of an able-bodied miner through the Bank's portal.
'It's that "Geordie" Billy, sure as I live; he's been cheekin' Mr.
Stirling about his gold and got chucked out. He's a rough chap when he's had a drop. There's bound to be a row now.'
A tall brown-bearded man, decidedly in undress uniform, but effectively attired for service, had by this time appeared at the door. He wore a coloured crimean shirt, to which, however, was attached a white linen collar. His coat was off, and his sleeves had been rolled up. He watched with a smile the burly miner recover himself, and standing upright glare around him with the silent fury of the bull-dog in his small black eye.
'Are ye game to come out of your box there and stand up to a _man_?' he growled out. 'I'll show ye what it is to put your hands on me!'
The banker's answer to the challenge was to walk calmly forward, while the spectators, with cheerful expectancy, closed around, in confident trust that one of the principal excitements of their monotonous existence would not fail them.
'I'd rather see you go home, Billy, and sleep off your sulk. It's the grog that always makes a fool of you; but if you must have a licking, come on.'
'Oh dear me!' cried Estelle, who, with the most liberal allowance for the free and lawless life which colonists are believed to lead, had scarcely expected this. 'Are they really going to fight? How dreadful!
That gentleman may be killed.'
'Not he, Miss. Mr. Stirling's a hard man to mark; not but what the "Geordie's" as strong as a bull, and can fight too. Come to this window, Miss; we can see it first-rate from here. They'll only have two or three rounds, and his mates'll take away Billy.'
'And is _that_ Mr. Stirling?' asked Estelle, with deepest amazement. 'I thought you said he was so quiet?'
'So he is, Miss, till he's put upon. I expect Geordie said he was weighing the gold wrong, and Mr. Stirling won't likely stand that from a digger, and put him out. That's about the size of it. Oh, do look, Miss; they're going at it.'
Estelle was much minded to turn her head away. In her own country she would doubtless have thought shame to have looked on at any such spectacle. But somehow the anxiety to see how the aristocrat fared in conflict with the man of the people overpowered her scruples, so she gazed eagerly at the conflict, as might her ancestress at a tournament where her badge was worn by a knightly aspirant.
'Geordie' Billy, belonging to a section of miners who hailed from 'canny Newcassel,' was a low-set, broad-chested, unusually powerful man. Long in the reach, and in the pink of condition from severe daily labour, his enormous strength and dogged courage, independently of science, made him a dangerous antagonist. Mr. Stirling was held to be the most finished performer with the gloves on the field. It was therefore a contest of champions, and as such awaited by the crowd with keen and pleasurable expectation; and a very ugly customer indeed did Mr. Billy Corve appear, as he came forward with an activity which the various 'nips' he had indulged in that morning had but slightly impaired. Had one of those sledgehammer blows which he delivered with fierce rapidity taken effect, Mr. Stirling would have had some difficulty in 'coming to time.' But stepping back from one, eluding another by what appeared to be the slightest side movement of his head, and stopping a third neatly, he caught his advancing foe such a left-handed facer as staggered him, leaving him a prey to the body blow that followed, and which, getting 'home' to some purpose, sent him very decidedly to grass.
'Oh dear, how dreadful!' said Estelle, pale with apprehension. 'Surely they won't let them kill one another? That poor man must be badly hurt.'
'Not a bit of it, Miss. You couldn't kill Billy with an axe. He'll be all the steadier for it next round. Oh! look out, Mr. Stirling.'
This friendly admonition, which in the ardour of her partisanship Mrs.
Delf screamed out at the top of her voice, was justified by the apparent success of the very ugly rush which Mr. Corve made, with the evident intention of getting to close quarters. He broke through Stirling's guard, and nearly succeeded in getting his head 'into chancery,' as that peculiar feat of the combat is designated. Once enfolded with that mighty arm, and the enormous fist left free to pound away at discretion, the classical outline of Charlie Stirling's features would have been sadly marred, perhaps permanently altered. But _dis aliter visum_.
Countering with lightning quickness through the 'half-arm rally,'
Stirling managed, by the exercise of desperate agility, to keep clear of the octopus-like hug, in which science would have been vain. Finally, springing backward, he evaded a final lunge, and darting in from the side administered a rattling hit on the 'point,' which for the moment completely discomfited his antagonist.
A ringing cheer went up from the discriminating crowd, while a friendly bystander, moved to apprehensive sympathy, earnestly exclaimed, 'Keep your head, Mr. Stirling; for God's sake, sir, keep your head.'
But Charlie Stirling had already seen the necessity for caution, for though his gray eyes glowed and his chest heaved as he regained his corner, he seemed to fall mechanically into the attitude of calm watchfulness with which he had commenced the encounter.
'Wasn't that grand, Miss?' exclaimed Mrs. Delf. 'Mr. Stirling's as quick on his pins as a wallaroo. I was most afeard the "Geordie" had him then.
This round will settle it. Don't go in, Miss. Maybe you'll never have a chance to see a right-out good mill so comfortable again. Two to one on Mr. Stirling.'
For her life Estelle could not have moved away then, though she had turned her head a minute before, deeming that for shame's sake she could no longer look on at such a sight. But the ancient fire which glowed in the breasts of the patrician dames of Rome's proudest day, though stifled and repressed for centuries, has never quite died out of the female heart. After all, no one would be killed, or perhaps mortally wounded. Mr. Stirling was Lance's friend, thus necessarily hers. She could not bear to leave the arena ignorant of the fate of their champion.
She had not long to wait. And now that her blood was slightly warmed by the excitement of a real battle, a combat not quite _a l'outrance_, but as near to it as is permitted in these degenerate days, she confessed to herself that there was something not wholly inglorious in this ordeal by combat.
The tall athletic form of Charlie Stirling showed to great advantage as he advanced, with head erect and elastic step, towards his truculent antagonist, whose countenance, with a splash of blood from brow to bare neck, wore a savagely stern expression. Furious at his late failure, he made a rush, with every intention of ending the fight then and there.
Forcing the fighting, and compelling Stirling to use his utmost skill in warding off or evading his terrific blows, each one of which was sufficient to disable an ordinary man, he appeared at one time to have mastered his adversary. But Charlie Stirling, the hero of a hundred glove-fights, was too clever, in the language of the _lanista_. Feinting suddenly, he drew the blow, of which he had thoroughly mastered an infallible guard, at the same time getting home with his right in a terrific body blow, the effect of which brought his man forward, to be shot backward by a lightning left-hander on the temple, which stretched the brawny gladiator senseless, putting the possibility of 'coming to time' entirely out of the question.
'Great work, Mr. Stirling! You gave him "London" that time,' shouted a man who hailed from Bow Bells; and amid congratulatory cheers, in which Estelle felt a sudden impulse to join, the discomfited champion, after recovering his valuable intellects, was led off--resisting manfully, to do him justice. But his crowd was decidedly against him, and by force of numbers, in despite of oaths and protestations, he was borne off to a rival hostelry, there to drown his mortification in beer, and finish the day in a manner worthy of its auspicious commencement.
As for Mr. Stirling, he 'retired into his kingdom' (like the king in Hans Andersen), 'and shut the door after him'--presumably for ablution, for he emerged in half an hour, at the sound of Mrs. Delf's dinner-bell, arrayed in conventional garments, and, save a slightly flushed countenance and a forehead bruise, unscathed from his recent encounter.
Meanwhile Estelle proceeded to Mrs. Delf's dining-room--not without natural misgivings as to the composition of the _table d'hote_. These, however, were set at rest by observing that only six guests were provided for. They proved to be Mr. Stirling and the manager of another bank, a commercial traveller, a gold-buyer, and a stranger unclassified, all of whom were scrupulously correct and deferential of manner. Later on she became aware that, according to the highly commendable custom of Australian hotels, even on the most recent goldfields and out-of-the-way country towns, there are two tables, corresponding to first and second class in railways. At the first those who may be considered gentle-folk are entertained, while to the second the rougher and less manageable guests are relegated.
'Miss Chaloner,' said Mr. Stirling, bowing deferentially upon entering, 'perhaps you will permit me to introduce myself, while expressing my deep regret that you should have been an involuntary spectator of such a disgraceful occurrence. We are not generally so badly behaved, though you are the only lady that has so far honoured Growlers' with a visit.
We have no police to keep order, so we are obliged to protect ourselves.'
Estelle faintly smiled as she replied, 'You seem to be able to do so pretty well, if I may judge from appearances. I hope no one is severely hurt. Ought I to congratulate you on your victory?'
'You don't know how relieved I feel at your forgiveness, Miss Chaloner,'
he replied. 'As for Geordie (who really is a deserving individual when sober, and a capitalist besides), he is wholly unhurt, and to-morrow you will probably see him on the most friendly terms with me and all mankind.'
Before returning to business, Stirling found means to intimate to Estelle that he was aware from Mrs. M'Alpine's letter that she wished to have some private conversation with him; that he would do himself the honour of calling upon her later in the afternoon, when he would be most happy to afford her whatever information he was possessed of about her cousin.
'Thank you very much,' she said. 'Oh, Mr. Stirling, if you knew how I have longed to find some one who could give me authentic news of his movements. And you knew him so well?'
'Yes; _very_ well. I must go now, but you shall hear all that I can tell you.'
Easier said than done, thought he, as once more in the small inner room of his unostentatious edifice he lit his pipe and abandoned himself to fullest contemplation. 'And what in the world shall I tell her? What a glorious girl she is. What an air of refinement, and yet with what courage and high resolve she has faced the difficulties of her position.
Proud, cultured, aristocratic to the finger-tips, she has volunteered to expose herself to rough journeyings, rude associates--even ruder in her imagining than the reality. And for what? For the sake of a heedless, self-indulgent scamp like Lance Trevanion, who never was good enough to black her boots. God knows, I pity him from the very bottom of my heart; but I cannot help believing that it was his own selfish obstinacy in a great measure that brought about his ruin. And now I have to tell this sweet and noble creature that her lover was till lately a convicted felon--actually at present an escaped prisoner, at the mercy of the first police trooper that falls across him. The bare idea is frightful.'
And then Mr. Charles Stirling filled his pipe again to the brim and smoked on for some considerable time, apparently in a most anxious, not to say despondent, frame of mind. The irruption of a party of diggers with a parcel of gold to be weighed and deposited here temporarily diverted his thoughts, but soon after four o'clock, having finished his day's work and impressed upon his junior to keep close to the bank premises in his absence, he betook himself to Mrs. Delf's hostelry. He found Estelle awaiting him in walking attire. He proposed that they should visit Number Six claim, where Jack Polwarth still lived and worked. It was barely a mile distant. On the way he would be able to give her all the information she desired.
'Nothing would please her more. She was fond of walking, and should like above all things to see a real claim at work.' So forth they fared through the crooked, straggling street, crowded on either side with the heterogeneous buildings of a goldfield town. Turning to the south, they trod a winding track through a labyrinth of shafts of all sizes and depths of sinking. Mounds of earth thrown up in every direction gave the scene a ghastly resemblance to the cemetery of a plague-stricken city.
As if unwilling to enter upon the subject so unavoidably painful, Stirling directed her attention to the various novel features of the scene. When, suddenly turning towards him, she said in a low but distinct tone of voice: 'And now, Mr. Stirling, please to tell me all you know of my unfortunate cousin. No one has said so in so many words, but I _feel_ it'--here she laid her hand upon her heart--'something dreadful has happened to him. Is it not so?'
'I wish I could deny it,' he answered, in a tone of the deepest feeling; 'but I cannot. Your heart has warned you truly. He is a most unfortunate man.'
'He has left the locality altogether then, and permanently?' she asked.
'Yes.'
'Tell me all,'--here she clasped her hands and looked so imploringly in his face that Charlie Stirling, seeing but the misery in her pleading face, felt minded to kneel down and kiss the hem of her garment. 'Oh that those eyes could so soften and glow for me,' he thought. 'And all this heavenly love and tenderness wasted. Alas!'
But he said only, 'My dear Miss Chaloner, my heart bleeds for you; you must prepare to hear the worst.'
'_Is he dead?_' said she hoarsely, in a changed voice.
'No, not _dead_. Better perhaps that he had been. Were he my brother, I should say the same.'
'Thank God for that,' she said. 'If he is alive I may look upon his face again. Tell me--tell me at once----' and here, oh marvellous and divine power of woman's love! her face lit up with a glow of gratitude and hope, which to her admiring companion's mind changed it into the presentment of a saint.
He motioned her to sit down upon one of the fallen forest trees which thickly, in places, encumbered the earth, and there told her as briefly as might be the whole miserable tale. He made but scant mention of the Lawless sisters, laying great stress upon the iniquitous nature of the trap into which Lance had fallen--the persistent hostility of Dayrell and his settled intention to secure a conviction.