第102章

We didn't smoke then, and we used to sit in the verandah, and Aileen would talk to us till it was time to go to bed.

Even when we went into Bargo, or some of the other country towns, they did not seem so much brighter.Sleepy-looking, steady-going places they all were, with people crawling about them like a lot of old working bullocks.

Just about as sensible, many of 'em.What a change all this was!

Main Street at the Turon! Just as bright as day at twelve o'clock at night.

Crowds walking up and down, bars lighted up, theatres going on, dance-houses in full swing, billiard-tables where you could hear the balls clicking away till daylight; miners walking down to their night shifts, others turning out after sleeping all the afternoon quite fresh and lively;half-a-dozen troopers clanking down the street, back from escort duty.

Everybody just as fresh at midnight as at breakfast time -- more so, perhaps.

It was a new world.

One thing's certain; Jim and I would never have had the chance of seeing as many different kinds of people in a hundred years if it hadn't been for the gold.No wonder some of the young fellows kicked over the traces for a change -- a change from sheep, cattle, and horses, ploughing and reaping, shearing and bullock-driving; the same old thing every day; the same chaps to talk to about the same things.

It does seem a dead-and-live kind of life after all we've seen and done since.

However, we'd a deal better have kept to the bulldog's motter, `Hang on', and stick to it, even if it was a shade slow and stupid.

We'd have come out right in the end, as all coves do that hold fast to the right thing and stick to the straight course, fair weather or foul.

I can see that now, and many things else.

But to see the big room at the Prospectors' Arms at night -- the hall, they called it -- was a sight worth talking about -- as Jim and Iwalked up and down, or sat at one of the small tables smoking our pipes, with good liquor before us.It was like a fairy-tale come true to chaps like us, though we had seen a little life in Sydney and Melbourne.

What made it so different from any other place we'd ever seen or thought of before was the strange mixture of every kind and sort of man and woman; to hear them all jabbering away together in different languages, or trying to speak English, used to knock us altogether.

The American diggers that we took up with had met a lot of foreigners in California and other places.They could speak a little Spanish and French, and got on with them.But Jim and I could only stare and stand open-mouthed when a Spanish-American chap would come up with his red sash and his big sheath-knife, while they'd yabber away quite comfortable.

It made us feel like children, and we began to think what a fine thing it would be to clear out by Honolulu, and so on to San Francisco, as Starlight was always talking about.It would make men of us, at any rate, and give us something to think about in the days to come.

If we could clear out what a heaven it would be! I could send over for Gracey to come to me.I knew she'd do that, if I was only once across the sea, ready and willing to lead a new life, and with something honest-earned and hard-worked-for to buy a farm with.Nobody need know.

Nobody would even inquire in the far West where we'd come from or what we'd done.We should live close handy to one another -- Jim and Jeanie, Gracey and I -- and when dad went under, mother and Aileen could come out to us; and there would still be a little happiness left us, for all that was come and gone.

Ah! if things would only work out that way.

Well, more unlikely things happen every day.And still the big room gets fuller.There's a band strikes up in the next room and the dancing begins.This is a ball night.Kate has started that game.

She's a great hand at dancing herself, and she manages to get a few girls to come up; wherever they come from nobody knows, for there's none to be seen in the daytime.But they turn out wonderfully well-dressed, and some of them mighty good-looking; and the young swells from the camp come down, and the diggers that have been lucky and begin to fancy themselves.

And there's no end of fun and flirting and nonsense, such as there always is when men and women get together in a place where they're not obliged to be over-particular.Not that there was any rowdiness or bad behaviour allowed.A goldfield is the wrong shop for that.

Any one that didn't behave himself would have pretty soon found himself on his head in the street, and lucky if he came out of it with whole bones.