Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

I followed her to Rummles’ hut. I knew he had a mate, and he was by way of working hard, but I felt pretty sure he would have got rid of his mate that evening, and it turned out that he had.

He met Nan outside his hut, and he tried to make her go in, but she refused. She was very quiet and gentle, and she talked to him, as she might have done if she had been his sister.

He must have had a bad heart, indeed, not to be touched by the way she begged him, to be true to anything that was good in him, and to turn over a new leaf, and lead a worthy life. And then she promised him that she would always be his friend, and that she and Nick would do everything in their power to help him.

He listened to her for a bit, and then, when she begged him to give her the proofs he had promised her, he came closer to her, and broke out into a wild declaration of love; he told her he couldn’t live without her, abused Nick, and implored her to throw Nick over and run away with him.

I don’t know what idea he had in his mind about carrying her off.

Anyhow, he wasn’t given the chance of trying the experiment. Directly his arm went out to draw Nan to him, there was a dash and a scuffle, and before I could fling myself forward, as I had been about to do on Nan’s behalf, I saw that another man had darted from the shadow of the hut, on the opposite side to where I had hidden myself, and that it was Nick who was wrestling with his enemy, and who finally flung him to the ground.

The fellow lay half stunned; his head had struck against the post, which supported the bough-shade of the hut, and when I stooped over him, I saw that blood was streaming from his mouth and nose.

“I’ve knocked one of his teeth out,” said Nick savagely. “Oh, Nan, Nan, my darling, how could you make me so anxious and miserable?”

They were in each other’s arms, the two completely reconciled. And Nan begged Nick to forgive her, and then they saw me and there was an explanation, and a half hysterical laughing and crying on Nan’s part.

Nick gripped my hand. “God bless you, Curran,” he said. He told me how he, too, had been hanging round the Postmaster’s house trying to make up his mind to go in.

And at first, in the dusk, he had fancied I was Rummles, and when he had seen Nan come out and me follow her, he had followed us both with rage and jealousy tearing at his heart, till, when he had reached the hut, and Rummles appeared, he had found out his mistake.

Rummles groaned at his pain, and Nick told me to stay and look after him, and took Nan’s hand to lead her away.

Nan, however, clung to the idea of the proofs of Nick’s innocence, which Rummles had promised her, and would not leave till Nick showed her, that there could be no proof except Rummles’ own full confession, and that he had been fooling her all the time.

This episode brought things to a crisis between Nan and Nick. Nan was so remorseful for the suffering she had caused Nick that she was ready to agree to anything he wished. And the whole thing had shaken her nerves, and she longed to get away from Eungella.

As for Nick, he had an almost superstitious dread of Rummles, whom he looked upon as his evil genius, and was firmly convinced, that, if they all three remained at the Diggings, Rummles would in the end accomplish his evil purpose of separating him from Nan. And so, saying no word to anyone at first, he quietly made his arrangements for departure.

On Christmas Eve the downward steamer would touch at the seaport for Eungella—a half day’s coach journey from the Diggings. And on the morning of Christmas Eve Nick was married to Nan.

Nick had got a special licence, and the wedding took place very early in the morning, and had but few spectators.

“On the morning of Christmas Eve Nick was married to Nan.” (_Page
196_)
]

The day was tropical in its heat, but a faint breeze crept up the gully, and there were some misty clouds in the bright blue sky. The grapes were ripening in the Chinamen’s gardens on the gully slope, and we gathered some jasmine flowers for Nan to wear. Strange irony of fate—to use the old penny-a-liner phrase—it was I who gave Nan to her husband.

I went with them to the seaport, and waited with them till the steamer came in.

It was just such a night as this, and the Southern Cross was shining as brightly as it shines on me to-night. And in a garden by the wharf there was a tree of great ghostly strong-scented trumpet flowers.

As I stood on the wharf and watched the steamer going out to sea, taking Nan out of my life for ever, the clock struck, and I knew it was Christmas Day. And it seemed a mockery of my sorrow, when the voices of the children came down to me, from the road above, singing the old carol of frosty nights and ice-bound roads and clear glistening Northern constellations, singing here, under these tropical skies and strange stars, and in the murmurous night laden with rich sickly perfume—

“God bless you, merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was born this Christmas Day.”

And Nan was gone!

I went back to Eungella and duly chronicled the wedding and the departure of the bride and bridegroom in _The Star_. And I wrote a leader on Nick’s sudden gain of fortune, and on the finding of big nuggets in general, and I made Nick the text for a sermon on pluck and perseverance and fidelity.

But I didn’t write anything about my own aching heart.

I was in _The Star_ office reading over the slips of proof, one night not long after, when a digger I knew came in. He was one of the “Honourables,” and he and I were rather chums.

“There’s some ‘copy’ for you down at Ruffey’s,” he said.

Ruffey’s was the big public-house of the place.

“I couldn’t stand it. This devil’s hole has finished me. I am going to clear out of it to-morrow.”

“What’s the row?” I asked carelessly. Rows were common enough at Eungella, and knife scratches too.

“Oh, a regular ‘go-as-you-like-it’ fight,” he said. “A digger called Voucher—you know him, next claim to mine—and another fellow, a good-looking counter-jumper sort of fellow.

“They brought some tools in to sharpen, and they went drinking, and the end was a flourish of the tomahawk, Voucher was sharpening. Voucher hit the other chap on the head with the edge and rubbed it in with the flat.

“I made for the tomahawk and collared it after a scuffle, but not before the other chap had pulled out a knife. That was the signal for Voucher’s bowie knife, and the other fellow got a nasty wound. I came off for a doctor, and I’ve sent him along to Ruffey’s, and now I shall go and turn in.”

One used to get callous to that sort of thing at Eungella. But it was “copy” for me. I prepared for a move to the scene of the fight.

“Who is the man, who has been stabbed?” I asked.

“The chap that was after that girl you saw married the other day—Sister Nan. He is not a friend of yours, is he? If he is, I am sorry for you. But you needn’t be uneasy. He’ll get over his scratch right enough. They all do, worse luck.”

“No, he is not a friend of mine,” I answered. And I did not wait for another word. An idea had taken possession of me. It seemed to me a call of fate. I took up my hat and rushed to Ruffey’s.

The bar had a curiously quiet look. The men who were in it seemed awed, I thought.

There was a policeman hanging about, and policemen were not common at Eungella, and generally kept out of the way when there was a row.

I pushed my way into the inner parlour. A crowd of people were collected there, and I saw the doctor bending over a stretcher covered with a red blanket, on which lay the wounded man. The man was Rummles.

I asked the doctor what he thought of the case. “It’s a bad business,” he answered. “They have sent for the Police Magistrate. He says he wants to make a deposition, and he had better make haste.”

Rummles looked up and saw me. “You’ll do,” he said, in a broken, hoarse voice. “I’m done for, and I’d best make what amends I can. I’m doing it for her; not for justice, mind you, but for her—for Nan.”

The Police Magistrate and the clergyman came in just then. The doctor cleared a space round the dying man, and he made his last confession.

He confessed that it was he, who had stolen the watch and had placed it in Nick’s pocket, and allowed Nick to be punished for the theft.

The deposition was read out to him, and, with an effort, he signed his name. “She’s brought me bad luck,” were his last words. “I’ve never had any luck since I took that watch. I’ve never had any luck, since I fell in love with Nan. And just as I was beginning to get on, she came back, and here’s the worst luck of all. But I’d like her to know that I loved her, and that it’s done—for Nan.”

ALFRED CURRAN.

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EVE THE SIXTH.

REMARKS OF CHARLES TURRILL, ESQ., M. P., RELATIVE TO AN EPISODE IN THE
HOUSE.

_By JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY._

Charles Turrill, Esq., M. P.
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