The Ghost Camp

“Oh! how delightful,” cried Imogen, as, seated on a large stone she applied herself to the consumption of an enticing raspberry feast spread upon a leaf platter, woven deftly by the hands of her husband. “Look at the calm water – the fishing boats, the gulls, the small waves breaking on the beach! Was there ever such an ideal honeymoon lodge? And these lovely raspberries. We can get cream at the house. And what a leaf platter! Where did you learn to make one, sir? you must have had practice.”

“At Nuku-heva! I was stranded there for six months once. The girls taught me.”

“Girls, indeed! That sounds very general and comprehensive. No savage maiden in particular. Quite sure, now? No photograph?”

“If there was, I’ve forgotten all about her. I don’t keep photographs. There’s only one damsel that is imperishably engraved upon heart and soul – memory, aye, this mortal frame – by a totally new process. It has the effect of destroying all former negatives – the best specimens of photography are put to shame, and obliterated.

“And that is called – ?”

“The last love of the mature man – the answering fondness of the woman – the best love – the true love – the only love which survives the burden of care, the agony of grief, the chances and changes of life. The steady flame which burns even brighter in the dark depths of despair.”

“Oh! I daresay – fascinating creatures, I suppose – were they not?”

“I have forgotten all about them. There is one fascination for me, henceforth, and one only. It will last me until my life ends or hers. I pray that mine may be the first summons.”

“Men were deceivers, ever,” hummed Imogen. “But I must make the best of it, now I have got you. The Fates were against us at first, were they not? What a strange thing is a girl’s heart! How short a time it takes to cast itself at a man’s feet. How long – long – endless, wretched, unendurable are the days of doubt, grief, anguish unutterable, if he prove faithless, or the girl has over-rated his attachment. It nearly killed me, when I thought you had gone away without caring.”

“And suppose I had never returned? I began to believe you had decided not to answer my letters. That Edward had not relented. That you did not care – transient interest, and so on. It is so with many women.”

“Transient interest!” cried Imogen, jumping up and scattering the raspberries in her excitement. “Why, there was not one single hour from the time you left Marondah till I saw you again, that my heart was not full of thoughts of you. Why should I not think of you? You told me you loved me – though it was so short a time since we had met, and my every sense cried out that your love was returned – redoubled in fervour and volume.”

“How little we know of women and their deeper feelings,” mused Blount. “How often you hear of a pair of lovers, that he or she has ‘changed their mind.’ The ordinary platitudes are rehearsed to friends and acquaintances. When they separate – perhaps for ever – the outside world murmurs cynically, ‘better before marriage than after,’ and the incident is closed.”

“Closed, yes,” answered Imogen, “because one heart is bleeding to death.”

While rambling through the old house, which was handsomely furnished, though not in modern fashion, they came upon a morning room, which had evidently been regarded as a fitting apartment for treasures of art and literature, etchings, etc.

In it was a bookcase, containing old and choice editions. The dates, those of the last century, told a tale of the family fortunes, presumably at a higher level of position than in these later days. A “dower chest” of oak was rubbed over, and the inscription deciphered; a few rare etchings were noted and appreciated. Through these the lovers went carefully hand in hand, Blount, who was a connoisseur of experience, pointing out to Imogen any special value, or acknowledged excellence; when, suddenly letting go her hand, he rushed over to a dim corner of the room, where he stopped in front of an oil painting, evidently of greater age and value than the other pictures.

“Yes,” he said, first carefully removing the dust from the left hand corner of the canvas, under which, though faint and indistinct, the name of a once famous artist, with a date, could be distinguished.

“I thought so, it is a Romney. He was famed for his portraits. But what a marvellous coincidence! Perfectly miraculous! I was told that in Tasmania I should fall across curious survivals, as at one time the emigration of retired military and naval officers was officially stimulated by the English Government. The promise of cheap land and labour (that of assigned servants, as they were called) in a British colony with a mild climate and fertile soil, attracted to a quasi-idyllic life those heads of families, whose moderate fortunes forbade enterprise in Britain. Special districts, such as Westbury and New Norfolk, were indicated as peculiarly adapted for fruit and dairy farms.”

“I remember quite well,” said Imogen, “when I was here at school in Hobart, that many of the girls belonged to families such as you mention. Such nice people, with grand old names, but so very, very poor. The parents were not the sort to get on in a new country, though the sons, as they grew up, mostly altered that state of affairs. But they did not remain in Tasmania. No! they went to Queensland, New Zealand, or Victoria till they made money. Then they generally returned to marry an old sweetheart and settle down for life near Launceston or Hobart. They were very patriotic, and awfully fond of their dear little island. But what is all this coincidence? You seem quite excited about it.”

“Will you have the goodness to look at this picture, Mrs. Blount?”

“I am looking,” said she. “It must be a very life-like portrait of somebody. And how beautifully painted! Quite a gem, evidently. The more you look at it the more life-like it appears. What lovely blue eyes! A girl in the glory of her youthful graces; I mustn’t add airs, I suppose, for fear of being thought cynical. But the expression must have been caught with amazing fidelity. Stamped, as it were, for ever. I suppose it is very valuable?”

“If it is the portrait which I have reason to believe it is its value is great. The original was found in an old manor house belonging to the De Cliffords. The house – once a king’s – though not untenanted, was let to people unacquainted with art, and had been so neglected as to be almost in ruins. The owner of the estate, an eccentric recluse, was a very old man. He refused to have any of the furniture removed, or the paintings taken down from the walls. At his death, people were permitted to view the place, which was afterwards sold. The heir-at-law turned everything he could into money, and emigrated to Tasmania.”

“Quite the proper thing to do. We did something of the same sort, whereof the aforesaid Imogen (I was so described in my settlement) met with one Blount, and marrying him, became the happiest girl in Australia or out of it. Didn’t she?”

Blount responded appropriately; it would seem convincingly, for the dialogue was resumed as they again went out. She desired to know why, and wherefore, this particular portrait was so very precious. Other young women, doubtless, in that long dead time, had had their portraits painted.

“Because this is the very picture, I am almost certain, which inspired Robert Montgomery with those lovely lines of his: ‘To the Portrait of an Unknown Lady.’ Have you never read them?”

“No! I have heard some one speak of them, though.”

“Well, the picture disappeared before the sale. The family would never explain. There was evidently some mystery, painful or otherwise, connected with it. Montgomery’s lines had made it famous. And it was a disappointment to intending buyers, many of whom came long distances to bid for it.”

“Rather a long story, but wildly interesting. To think that we should have come across it on our wedding trip, and here of all places. Well, as a punishment for your taking so much interest in an unknown lady you shall repeat the lines. I daresay you know them by heart.”

“I think I do. At any rate I know the leading ones. If there are more we can read them together afterwards.

“‘Image of one who lived of yore,Hail to that lovely mien!Once quick and conscious, now no moreOn land or ocean seen;Were all life’s breathing forms to passBefore me in Agrippa’s glass,Many as fair as thou might be,But oh! not one, not one like thee!’”

Here the girl’s head sank on her lover’s shoulder, and as her slender form reclined with the unconscious abandon of a child against his breast, while his arm wound closely and yet more closely around her yielding waist, “Oh! go on, go on, my darling! let me hear it all,” she murmured:

“‘Thou art no child of fancy – thouThe very look dost wearThat gave enchantment to a brow,Wreathed with luxuriant hair —Lips of the morn, embalmed in dew,And eyes of evening’s starry blue,Of all that e’er enjoyed the sun,Thou art the image of but one!“‘And who was she in virgin primeAnd May of womanhood,Whose roses here, unplucked by time,In shadowy tints have stood?While many a winter’s withering blastHath o’er the dark cold chamber passed,In which her once resplendent formSlumbered to dust beneath the storm.“‘Of gentle blood, upon her birthConsenting planets smiled,And she had seen those days of mirthWhich frolic round the child:To bridal bloom her youth had sprung,Behold her beautiful and young;Lives there a record which hath toldThat she was wedded, widowed, old?“‘How long the date, ’twere vain to guess,The pencil’s cunning artCan but one single glance express,One motion of the heart,A smile, a blush, a transient graceOf air and attitude and face,One passion’s changing colour mix,One moment’s flight, for ages fix.“‘Where dwelt she? ask yon aged oakWhose boughs embower the lawn,Whether the bird’s wild minstrelsyAwoke her here at dawn?Whether beneath its youthful shadeAt noon, in infancy, she played?If from the oak no answer comeOf her, all oracles are dumb!’

“There are more verses; I will show you the poem so that you may enjoy the spirit of it. It was a favourite of mine, since boyhood. And now I see the crests of the waves towards the southern skyline, rearing higher. The sea breeze is often chill. Suppose we scramble up the path and go inside?”

“What a lovely view! and what delicious verses,” cried the girl. “Shall we always be as happy as we are now? I feel as if I did not deserve it.”

“And I am lost in wonder and admiration at the supernatural state of bliss in which I find myself,” answered Blount. “I ought to throw something of value into the deep, to avert the anger of Nemesis. Here goes,” and before Imogen could prevent him, he had unfastened a bangle which he wore on his wrist, and hurled it far into the advancing tide. “Let us hope that no fish will swallow it, and return it, through the agency of the cookmaid.”

“Now, I call that wasteful and superstitious,” quoth Imogen, pretending to be angry. “You will need all the silver in the South Pacific Comstock, if you throw about jewellery in that reckless fashion. And who gave you that bangle, may I ask? You never showed it to me.”

“I won it in a bet, long ago. The agreement was that whoever won was to wear the bangle till he or she was married. After that, they might dispose of it as they thought fit. I forgot all about it till to-day. So this seemed an auspicious hour, and I sacrificed it to the malign deities.”

“And this is man’s fidelity!” quoted Imogen. “For of course, it was a woman. Confess! Didn’t your heart give a little throb, as you pitched away the poor thing’s gift?”

“Hm! the poor thing, as you call her, is happily married ‘to a first-class Earl, that keeps his carriage.’ I daresay she’s forgotten my name, as I nearly did that of the possessor of the bangle.”

The allotted term of happiness passed at the Hermitage, for such had been the name given to it by the original owner, who lived there for the last remaining years of a long life, too quickly came to an end. For happiness, it surely was, of the too rare, exquisitely attempered quality, undisturbed by regrets for the past, or forebodings for the future. Such wounds and bruises of the heart, as he had encountered, though painful, even in a sense agonising, at the time, were of a nature to be cured by the subtle medicaments of the old established family physician, Time. They were not “his fault,” so to speak. Such sorrows and smarts are not of the nature of incurable complaints. The agony abates. The healthful appetite in youth for variety, for change of scene, the solace of bodily exercise, and the competition with new intelligences, extinguish morbid imaginings: thus leaving free the immortal Genius of Youth to range amid the unexplored kingdoms of Romance, where in defiance of giants and goblins, he is yet fated to discover and carry off the fairy princess.

“And I did discover her, darling, didn’t I?” said he, fondly pressing her hand which lay so lovingly surrendered to his own, as after a long stroll through the fern-shadowed glades of the still untouched primeval forest, they came in sight of the Hermitage, and halted to watch the breakers rolling on the beach below the verandah, where during their first delirium they had so often watched the moon rise over a summer sea.

“All very well, sir,” replied Imogen, with the bright smile which irradiated her countenance like that of a joyous child, “but the ‘carrying off’ ‘hung fire’ (to return to the prose of daily life), until the princess became apprehensive, lest she might not be carried off at all, and was minded to set out to reverse the process, and carry off the knight. How would that have sounded? What a deathblow to all the legends of chivalry! The page’s dress would be rather a difficulty, wouldn’t it? Fancy me appearing amongst all those nice girls and men at Hollywood Hall! Inquiring, too, for ‘a gentleman of the name of Blount!’ I hardly did know your name then, which would have been a drawback. I am tall enough for a page, though, and could have arranged the ‘clustering ringlets, rich and rare,’ like poor Constance de Beverley. How I wept for her, when I was a school-girl, little thinking that I should have to weep bitter tears for myself in days to come.”

“And did she weep, my heart’s treasure, in her true knight’s absence?”

“Weep?” cried she, while – in the midst of her mockery and simulated grief, the true tears filled her eyes at the remembrance, “‘wept enough to extinguish a beacon light’ – I took to reading dear Sir Walter Scott again in sheer desperation. Ivanhoe and Rob Roy saved my life, I really believe, when I was recovering from that – hm – ‘influenza.’ Oh, how wretched I was! As the Sturt, that dear old river, flowed before my window, more than once I thought what a release it would be from all but unendurable pangs. I don’t wonder that women drown or hang themselves in such a case. I knew of one – yes – two instances – poor things!”

“Any men?”

“Yes; two also. So the numbers are even. We don’t seem to be growing cheerful, though, do we? I feel just a little tired; afternoon tea must be nearly ready. There’s nothing left for us now (as Stevenson says), ‘not even suicide, only to be good,’ a fine resolve to finish up with.”

“Let us seal the contract, those who are in favour, etc. Carried unanimously!”

The day’s post brought a letter from Mr. Tregonwell, which, like a stone thrown into a pond, disturbed the smoothness of their idyllic life. An incursion of the emissaries of Fate was imminent.

“Mr. Blount’s presence was absolutely, urgently necessary at the mine. There was industrial trouble brewing. The ‘wages men’ – as those labourers at a mine are called, who are not shareholders – had increased necessarily to a large number; they wanted higher pay, the weather being bad and the discomforts considerable. The British shareholders were in a majority on the London Board and were beginning to make their power felt. No serious dispute, but better to arrange in time. Would have come himself to Hobart, but thought it imprudent at present to leave the mine. Very rich ore body just opened out. Prospects absolutely wonderful. Sorry to bother him, but business urgent.”

“What a terrible man!” moaned Imogen. “Wherever we are he will always be coming suddenly down upon us and destroying our peace of mind. I suppose, however, that he is a necessary evil.”

“He is a first-rate worker and very prudent withal, but to show the element of luck in these matters it is to my decision, not his, that we retained the share which is now likely to become a fortune.”

“Oh! but there must be some special quality among your bundle of qualities which you are so fond of decrying,” said Imogen, with wifely partiality; “some quick insight into the real value of things, which is in so many cases superior to mere industry and perseverance.”

“There must be,” said Blount thoughtfully, accepting the compliment, “or how should I have secured one priceless treasure to which all the mines of Golconda are but as pebbles and withered leaves.”

“What treasure? Oh, flatterer!” said the girl; “how you have capped my poor but honest belief in you. Well, time alone must tell how this particularly clever human investment is going to turn out. It won’t do for this lady to ‘protest too much.’ Now where shall I stay until my knight returns from the war?”

“In Hobart, I should say, most decidedly. It is a cheerful city at this season of year. The coolness of the summer, the charm of the scenery, the cheerfulness of the society – this being the play-place of six other colonies. Any chance of Mrs. Bruce coming over? Suggest the idea.”

“Perhaps she might.”

“Tell her I have taken a cottage between Sandy Bay and Brown’s River for her specially; one of the loveliest suburbs. If she’ll come over and take care of you, I shall be eternally indebted to her for the second time. You remember the first? How good she was. But for her – , etc.”

“She must come as our guest, and bring Black Paddy and Polly, and the babies, for offside groom and nurserymaid – (that’s good Australian, isn’t it? nearly equal to ‘Banjo’ Paterson).”

“Stuff and nonsense! Australians talk the purest English; rather better, in fact, than the home-grown article. But oh! how I should love to have her here and the dear chicks. Edward could come for her afterwards.”

So that was settled. Mrs. Bruce, replying, wrote that Edward had given her leave to come for a couple of months. It was really getting very hot and baby was pale. He, Edward, not the baby, was going to Sydney on business; thought of selling out of Queensland, so would cross over and spend the end of the visit with them.

These arrangements were carried out. Mrs. Bruce, with her servants and children, were safely bestowed at the pretty villa at Sandy Bay, where Black Paddy, as groom and coachman, and Polly, as under-nursemaid, excited as much attention as Mrs. Huntingdon’s ayah from Madras. Mr. Blount was free to depart for the South Pacific Comstock (Proprietary), which included a decided change from these Arcadian habitudes. Arrived at Strahan, he perceived various improvements, which he correctly attributed to Tregonwell’s boundless energy and aroused imagination.

Long stretches of corduroy, regularly repaired, rendered the transit business comparatively free from difficulty. Great gangs of men were employed in clearing the track for the projected railway. The work of piercing the forest was tremendous. The great size of the trees (a scientist had measured one eighty feet in circumference), the density and confused nature of the jungle, through which the way had almost to be tunnelled, if such an expression can be applied to operations above ground, retarded progress. The masses of fallen timber at the sides of the track, the whole laborious task carried on under ceaseless rain, was sufficient to over-task the energies of all but the stubborn, resistless Anglo-Saxon.

But on the mining fields of Australasia, if but the precious metal, gold, silver, or copper, be visible, or even believed to be within reach in sufficient quantities, no toil, no hardship is sufficient to daunt the resolute miner; neither heat, nor cold, the burning dust storms of Broken Hill, the icy blasts that sweep from the solitudes of Cape Nome over the frozen soil of Klondyke, have power to stay the conquering march of the men, ay, of the women of our race, or slake the thirst for adventure which is as the breath of their nostrils.

So, by the time Mr. Blount arrived on the scene, after a single day’s journey from the coast, the melodramatic action of a progressive mining town was “in full blast.”

The hotels and stores were comparatively palatial. Tall weatherboard buildings with balconies, enabled the inmates to gaze over the waving ocean of tree-tops and to mark where the jungle had been invaded by the pioneer’s axe, that primary weapon of civilisation. The streets, miry and deep-rutted, had yet side walks with wooden curbs, which provisionally, at any rate, preserved the foot passengers from the slough into which the ceaseless trampling of bullocks, horses and mules had worn the track. As in all such places in their earlier stages, money was plentiful. Wages were high, labour was scarce. The adventurers who came to inspect the “field” necessarily brought capital with them. Under the Mining Act and Regulations of the colony, allotments had been marked out in the principal streets to be acquired by purchase or lease. Legal occupation had succeeded the early scramble for possession. A Progress Committee had been formed, precursor of municipal action, of which Mr. Tregonwell, of course, was the elected President. Its members advised the Government of the day of urgently necessary reforms, or demanded such, with no lack of democratic earnestness. Behind all this life and movement there was the encouraging certainty of the still-increasing richness of the principal mine, the original shares in which rose to a height almost unprecedented.

Among other necessities of civilisation, a newspaper had, of course, been established. The Comstock Clarion subserved its purpose by clean type, smart local intelligence, and accurate reviews of all mining enterprises from Australia to the ends of the earth. Having been waited upon by the editor without loss of time, Mr. Blount found himself thus presented to an intelligent and enterprising public: —

“A Distinguished Visitor

“Yesterday morning we had the honour of welcoming to our thriving township a gentleman, to whose courage and enterprise the public of Comstock are indebted for the inception of a great national industry, the founding of a city fated to rival, if not surpass, in wealth and population both Hobart and Launceston. Mr. Blount courteously supplied, in answer to our request, the following interesting notes of his original connection with the great mine in which he owns a controlling interest.

“Visiting Tasmania en route for England a few years since, he was offered shares in a newly-prospected silver mine. Mr. Tregonwell was then associated with him in mining ventures. The partners were offered a half share in the claim newly taken up of four men’s ground, Messrs. Herbert and Clarke owning the remainder. Mr. Tregonwell, though experienced and sanguine – of which qualities we have ample proof before our eyes – advised the rejection of the ‘show.’ Mr. Blount, for a reason not stated, was firm in retaining it. He was in a position to find the cash for payment of lease application, rents, and working expenses until the discovery of the richest silver lode south of the line was an accomplished fact. ‘Si monumentum queris, circumspice.’”

The Latin quotation was inappropriate, inasmuch as it was not proposed to erect any kind of memorial structure in honour of Mr. Blount, but it looked well, and few of the readers of the Clarion were critical. However, the article had the effect of directing all eyes to the visitor, unobtrusively dressed as he was, whenever he appeared. He was, of course, fêted and invited to banquets given by leading citizens or mining celebrities. The financial condition of the mine was eminently satisfactory, even brilliant. It held a high place among British investors and foreign syndicates. Members even of the British Parliament did not disdain to take passages in the “P. and O.” or “Messageries’” boats for the special purpose of inspecting the wonderful mine. They returned laden with lumps of ore, being fragments of a silver mountain which they had seen with their eyes and driven a pick into when personally conducted by the American “mining Captain,” who received £5,000 a year salary, and was promised another £1,000 should things continue to go well.