The Ghost Camp; or, the Avengers. Rolf Boldrewood
The men and women that are reared among these hills are about the finest people the land turns out! The women are aye the best, it’s a pity the lads are not always sae weel guided. If there was a Hieland regiment here to draft some of thae lang-leggit lads into ilka year, it would be the making of the haill countryside.”
“Very likely there will be, some day, but do you think they would stand the discipline?”
“Deevil a doot on’t, they’re easy guided when they have gentlemen to deal with as offishers; as for scouting, and outpost duty, they’re born for it. Fighting’s just meat and drink to them, ance they get fair started.”
“English people don’t think so,” said the tourist. “They’ve always opposed the idea of having a naval reserve here, though everybody that’s lived in the country long enough to know will tell me that Sydney Harbour lads are born sailors, and if there are many of the mountain boys like my friend ‘Little-River-Jack,’ they should make the best light cavalry in the world.”
The Sergeant bent a searching eye on the speaker. “ ‘Little-River-Jack,’ ay, I ken the callant brawly. Ride, aye, that can he, and he’s a freend, ye say?”
“Well, I came here with him. He showed me the way, an I wouldn’t swear he didn’t save my life, coming over that Razor-back pinch, on the Divide, as he called it.”
“And so ye cam’ on the Divide wi’ him, ou, ay? And ye’re gangin’ awa’ wi’ him to see the country?”
“Yes! I hear he knows every inch of it from the head of the Sturt to the Lower Narran, besides the mountain gold diggings. I’m going to see one of them, with him, when he comes to-morrow. There’s nothing strange about that, is there?”
“I wadna say; he joost buys gold in a sma’ way, and bullocks, for the flesher-folk, aboot the heid o’ the river. There’s talk whiles that he’s ower sib with the O’Hara gang, but I dinna ken o’ my ain knowledge.”
“Not proven, I suppose—the Scottish verdict, eh! Sergeant?”
The dinner was a success. The soup was fair. The fish represented by a Murray cod, about five pound weight, truly excellent. The turkey poult, like most country-bred birds, incomparably plump and tender, was roasted to a turn. The other adjuncts in strict keeping with the pièce de résistance.
The guest declined to join his entertainer in a bottle of Reisling, preferring a glass of whisky and water. Towards the close of the entertainment the landlord was announced, who took neither wine nor whisky, excusing himself on the ground that he had already been compelled “for the good of the house” to drink with more than one customer.
“I shall have to take to a decanter of toast and water, coloured to look like sherry. This ‘What’ll you have, Boss?’ business, is getting too hot for me lately, and the men don’t like to see you afraid to taste your own liquor. But, as long as it’s something, they don’t seem to care what it is. I’ll take a cigar, though, sir, so as to be good company.”
One of the tourist’s extra quality Flor de Habanas being lighted the conversation grew more intimate, and bordering on the confidential. The Sergeant was prevailed upon to mix a tumbler of toddy, the night being cold, and the landlord, whose tongue had been previously loosened, among the choice spirits in the second dining-room, incited the Sergeant to give the company the benefit of his reminiscences.
“It’s cold enough, and a man that came in late,” said he, “could feel the frozen grass as stiff as wire. But the Sergeant’s been out many a night as bad, with nothing but his coat to sleep in, and afraid to make a fire for fear of giving away where his camp was.”
“Ay!” said the Sergeant, and his face settled into one of grim resolve, changing not suddenly, but, as it were, stage after stage.
“I mind one chase I had after an outlawed chiel that began wi’ horse-stealing, and cattle ‘duffing’ (they ca’ it in these parts), and ended in bloodshed maist foul and deleeberate. Ye’ve heard of Sub-Inspector Dayrell?”
“Should think I had,” said the landlord. “It was before I took this house; I was at Beechworth then, but every one heard of the case. He was the officer that ‘shopped’ Ned Lawless, and a young swell from the old country. There was a girl in it too. Eumeralla was where he arrested them, and everybody knew there was something ‘cronk’ about it.”
“The verra mon! He’s gane to his accoont, and Ned’s serving his sentence. I aye misdooted that the evidence against Lance Trevanion (that was his name, he cam’ of kenned folk in Devon,) was ‘cookit,’ and weel cookit too, for his destruction, puir laddie.”
“Then you think he was innocent?”
“As innocent as the lassie that brocht in the denner.”
“What sentence did he get?”
“Five years’ imprisonment—wi’ hard labour. But he didna sairve it. He flitted frae the hulk Success where they sent him after he nigh killed Warder Bracker. He was a dour man and a cruel; he’d made his boast that he’d ‘break’ Trevanion, as he called it, because he couldna get him to knuckle doon to him like ither convicts, puir craters! So he worked him harder and harder—complained o’ him for insolence—got him to the dark cell—once and again insulted him when there was nae ither body to hear—and one day gave him a kick, joost as he’d been a dog in his road.
“That was mair than enough. Clean mad and desperate, Trevanion rushed at him, had him doon, and him wi’ his hands in his throttle, before he could cry on the guard. His eyes were starting out of his head—he was black in the face and senseless, when a warder from outside the cell who heard the scuffle, pulled him off. Anither ten seconds, and Bracker would have been a dead man—as it was, he was that lang coming to, that the doctor gave him up.”
“What sentence did he get? They’d have hanged him long ago?” queried the host.
“He’d have got ‘life,’ or all the same twenty years’ gaol; but Bracker had been had up for cruelty to prisoners in another gaol before, and Mr. Melrose the Comptroller and the Visiting Justice were dead against a’ kinds o’ oppression, so they ordered a thorough inquiry. Some of the prisoners swore they’d seen Bracker knocking Trevanion about. He’d been ‘dark-celled’ for weeks on bread and water. When he came out he could hardly stand up. They’d heard him swear at Trevanion and call him a loafing impostor—and other names. The evidence went clear against him. Mr. McAlpine said Bracker ought to have had a year in gaol himself, and recommended his dismissal. So he left the service, and a good thing too. I’m no sayin’ that some of the convicts o’ the early fifties were not desperate deevils, as ever stretched halter. But they were paying for their ineequities—a high price too, when they’re lockit up night and day, working the whiles with airn chains on their limbs. And they that would make that lot harder and heavier, had hearts like the nether millstane.”
“What became of Trevanion, after all?”
“He was sent to the hulk Success. No great relief, ane would think. But it was better than stone walls. He had the sea and the sky around him day and night. It made a new man of him, they say. And before the year was oot (he had plenty money, ye see), he dropped into a boat through the port hole, one dark night, just before the awfullest storm ye ever saw. Horses were waitin’ on him next day, and ye’ll no hinder him frae winning to the New Rush at Tin Pot Flat Omeo, where he worked as a miner and prospector, for twa year and mair, under the name of ‘Ballarat Harry.’ ”
“Could not the police find him?” queried the tourist. “They were said to be awfully smart in the goldfields days.”
“Yes!” said the old Sergeant solemnly, “they did find him, but they could do naething till him.”
“You don’t say so! Well, this is a strange country. He was identified, I suppose?” said the stranger. “Why was that?”
“Because he was deid, puir laddie! We pulled him up from a shaft saxty feet deep, wi’