The Ghost Camp

As the season had advanced the weather even in that austere and dreadful wilderness relaxed its icy grip. The forest trees, the giant eucalypts and towering pines, “had a tinge of softer green.” The moss looked bright “touched by the footsteps of spring,” haunting even that unlovely wild. Mr. Blount, though loyally impatient to return to his Imogen and the calm delights of Hobart, felt distinctly in better spirits. He even took a mild gratification in marking the heterogeneous element of the stranger hordes that arrived daily, gathered as they were from the ends of the earth, of all nations apparently, and several colours. “Gentle and simple,” forlorn workers and wayfarers from many a distant land, mingled with derelicts of the classes akin to “Mr. and Mrs. Winchester.” The men feverishly anxious to strike some lucky find or chance investment, the women poorly dressed, working at the humblest household tasks, all wearing the vague, yearning, half-despairing expression, which comes of the heart-sickness of “hope deferred.” Theirs was the harder lot. Still, with but few exceptions, they faced the rude living and unaccustomed toil with the courage women invariably show when hard fortune makes a call on their nobler attributes.

Nowhere is the ascent of the “up grade” of mining prosperity, when the tide of fortune is flowing, and the financial barometer is “set fair,” made easier than in Australasia. Rude as may be the earlier stages, the change from the mining camp, the collection of rude cabins, to the town, the city even, is magically rapid. To the gold or silver deposit, as the case may be, everything is attracted with resistless force as by the loadstone mountain of Sindbad. Time, distance, the rude approach by land travel, the stormy seas, all are defied. And though delays and dangers are so thickly strewn before the path of the adventurer, he and his like invariably arrive at their goal and would get there somehow, if behind every tree stood an armed robber, and were every trickling creek a turbulent river.

Mr. Tregonwell had proved himself capable of carrying out the rather extensive programme, financial and otherwise, which he had produced for the inspection of his partners on their first meeting at the mine. The manager of world-wide experience and unequalled reputation had been procured from America; had been paid the liberal salary; had proved himself more than worthy of his fame. The railway to Strahan was in process of completion. Contracts, let at many different points, were nearing one another with startling rapidity.

The price of provisions had fallen. Wages were high – yet the contractors were making as much money as the shareholders. With the exception of the very poor and the chronic cases of ill-luck from which no community is, ever has been, or ever will be free, the Great Silver Field was the modern exemplar of a place where every one had all that he wanted now, and was satisfied that such would be the case for the future.

The wages misunderstanding had been settled, an arrangement made with one of the most stable banks in Australia, by which the Directors agreed to cash Mr. Tregonwell’s drafts for all reasonable, and, indeed, unreasonable, amounts, as some over-cautious, narrow-minded people considered. The predominant partner began to revolve the question of an early departure. The juniors, Charlie Herbert and Jack Clarke, had earned golden opinions from Tregonwell as cheerful workers and high-couraged comrades. He willingly agreed to their holidays at Christmas time, now drawing nigh, if one would remain with him for company, and perhaps assistance in time of need, while the other enjoyed himself among his relatives and friends in one of the charming country houses of his native land. As for himself, he did not require change or recreation, his duty was to the shareholders, who had entrusted him with such uncontrolled powers of dictatorship.

Mr. Blount would be within easy reach of telegrams at Hobart, whence he could come up for a week when a difficult point or question of further outlay needed to be settled. Comstock was not such a very uncomfortable place now, and would be less so in the near future, and Frampton Tregonwell had lived and thriven amid worse surroundings.

So, as the short summer of the West Coast crept slowly on towards the “great Festival” which heralds “Peace on Earth, and good will towards men,” all things seemed moving in a tranquil orderly manner towards organised success and permanent prosperity. The big mill with the newest improvements, and a high-grade German scientist from Freiburg in command, had just been completed and was turning out unprecedented returns. Everything went smoothly, socially and otherwise. Although so near to what had once been an accumulation of the most desperate criminals the world could show, only kept under by the merciless uniformity of a severe administration – the present crime record was curiously low, and trifling in extent. Labour was well paid, well fed and lodged. All men had, moreover, the hope of even greater benefits, as results from their toil. Under these circumstances the list of offences is invariably light. The inducements to crime were so small, as almost to lead to an optimistic belief that incursions on the goods and persons of neighbours would at an early date cease and determine. The dream of the philanthropist would at last be fulfilled.

Perhaps, also, that other dream of a socialistic division of labour with equal partition of the fruits of the earth, and the partition of the fruits of labour (chiefly other men’s labour) for the benefit of the poor but honest worker would be an accomplished fact.

So, in the ordering of things mundane, it came to pass that Mr. Blount, to his great contentment and satisfaction, had everything arranged and “fixed up,” as Tregonwell expressed it (culling his phrases from all nations and many tongues), and departing via Strahan, bade farewell for the present to Macquarie Harbour, Hell’s Gates, and the other lonely and more or less historic localities. The passage, for a wonder, was smooth, the wind fair, and it was with joy and satisfaction, which he could hardly forbear expressing in a shout of exultation, that he found himself once more in Hobart, within arm’s length, so to speak, of Imogen and his “kingdom by the sea.”

That young woman had kept herself well informed as to the time when the Strahan steamer might be expected, and appeared at the wharf driving the mail phaeton. Black Paddy was beside her on the box; in front was the bay mare, “Matchless,” with her mate “Graceful,” in top condition, and ready to jump out of their skins, with rest and good keep. This valuable animal, formerly hard worked, with but little rest, and far from luxurious fare, had been contented to rattle up and down the hills between Hobart and Brown’s River and the Huon, without so much as a hint from the whip. Under present circumstances, she naturally took a little holding.

But Imogen and Mrs. Bruce had been accustomed to ride and drive almost as soon as they could walk. With great nerve and full experience, fine hands, an unequalled knowledge of the tempers and dispositions, management and control, of all sorts and conditions of horses, very few secrets of the noble animal, whether in saddle or harness, were hidden from them. So when Imogen drove up to the Tasmanian Club, where her husband had temporarily deposited himself, his specimens and belongings generally, he had no misgivings as to the competency of his charioteer, nor did he offer, as most men would have done, to take the reins himself.

“How well they look,” he remarked, after the first greeting, “‘Matchless’ has fallen on her legs in coming to this establishment. Does she give any trouble in her altered condition?”

“Hardly any, only she doesn’t like waiting, now there is no cab behind her. Burra burrai, Paddy! Mine thinkit mare plenty saucy direckaly.”

That swart retainer understood the position, and helping the club servant with the heaviest trunk on to the back seat, stepped up beside it with noiseless agility, while at the same moment “Matchless” and “Graceful” moved off with regulated speed, which soon landed them at “home” – a word which Mr. Blount pleased himself by repeating more than once.

“Hilda looks just as she did,” said he, “when I first saw her at Marondah. I admired her then. I admire her now – how little I thought that I should see her again, as a sister-in-law! or that a certain ‘vision of delight was to burst upon my sight’ so soon afterwards.”

“I remember how you stared,” said Imogen; “almost rudely, indeed. Didn’t you?”

“First of all, I didn’t know that Mrs. Bruce had a sister in the house. Secondly, when the girl aforesaid appeared, unexpectedly in all her fresh and smiling loveliness – pardon my partiality – I was completely knocked over, so to speak, and couldn’t help a sort of rapt gaze – as at a wood nymph, which you unkindly call staring. I fell in love – at first sight as men say – deep, deeper, miles deep next morning, and so will remain till my life’s end.”

“I am afraid it goes rather like that with me, if I must confess,” admitted Imogen, “though the heroine of a modern novel would never have behaved so badly, now would she?”

“All’s well that ends well,” said the returned voyager. “I’ll hold the horses while you run in, Paddy!”

The luggage having been taken in, Paddy ascended nimbly, and drove soberly round to the stable.

Christmas having actually arrived, it was the commencement of the “season” in Hobart and Tasmania generally. The dear little island, so true an epitome of the ancestral isle in the climatic conditions, in the stubborn independence of the population, in the incurious, unambitious lives of the rural inhabitants, was filled with strangers and pilgrims from every colony in Australasia.

Persons in search of health, haggard men from the Queensland “Never Never” country, the far “Bulloo,” and “The Gulf,” where hostile blacks and fever decimated the pioneers! Outworn prospectors from West Australia – a rainless, red-hot, dust-tormented region, where, incredible as it may appear, the water is charged for separately as well as the whisky.

Commercial, pastoral and legal magnates, whose over-taxed brain craved little save rest and coolness – contented to lie about inhaling the evening breeze – to read, to fish, to muse, to think maybe, of a heaven, where lawyers’ clerks, even with briefs, were not admitted. Sailors too, from the half dozen men of war from the South Pacific fleet, having a run ashore, and playing their part nobly, as is their wont on land, in all picnics, balls and cricket matches, even in drives to the Huon River nearly fifty miles out and back. This was rather an object lesson for British tourists, as to the capabilities of Australian horses, and Australian drivers, inasmuch as the leading drag with four horses, hired from a well-known livery stable proprietor, and driven by a native-born Tasmanian, negotiated the fifty-mile stage, allowing two hours for luncheon and boating on the river, between breakfast time and dusk, the whole being performed not only without distress to the well-bred team, but with “safety to the passenger, and satisfaction to the looker on.” The road was by no means of average description, far from level, indeed, having shuddering deeps, where it wound along hillsides, and sudden turns, and twisted at right angles, when the leaders ran across a dip in the gully, which crossed the road, and the wheelers had their heads turned at right angles to the leaders. Then the down grade towards the sea, on the return trip, when the heavily laden coach rolled, lurching at times near the edge of the precipice, and the “boldest held their breath for a time.” But through every change, and doubtful seeming adventure, in darksome forest, and ferny glade, where the light of heaven was obscured, the watchful eye and sure hand of the charioteer guided team and coach, with practised ease and assured safety.

Then the race meeting, to which you went by land or water, as taste inclined. The deep sea fishing in the harbour, or the streams so clear and cold in summer, where the trout lay under bridge or bank, and when skies were dull, took the fly much as in Britain.

The hunting with country packs, the shooting, the long walks over hill and dale – the halts, when a peep through the forest glades showed a distant view of the foam-crested ocean! What joyous days were those, when with Imogen by his side, who walked as well as she rode and drove, they started with a few picked friends for that exceptional piece of exercise, which includes the ascent of Mount Wellington. It is an Alpine feat, only to be attempted by the young and vigorous, in the springtime of life. “The way is long, the mountain steep,” and if limbs and lungs are not in good order, the pedestrian is sure to tire half way, to collapse ingloriously before the summit is reached. Rough in some places is the track – over the ploughed field’s (so called) painful march. A sprained ankle may easily result, from a slip, or worse even, a dislocated knee, most tedious and troublesome of the minor injuries, and which has lamed for life ere now the too confident pedestrian. Another danger to be feared, is the sudden envelopment by the mountain mist, under the confusing conditions of which more than one person has lost his way and his life, perishing in some unnamed retreat. No such dangers affrighted Imogen and her husband. They reached the summit, and standing there, hand in hand, beheld the unrivalled scene. High over forest and valley they gazed o’er the boundless ocean plain – so still and shining, three thousand feet below them. The forest, with apparently a level surface above its umbrageous eucalypts, looked like a toy shrubbery. The city nestled between the sea wall and the enormous mountain bulk, under whose shadow it lay.

The busy population looked small as the denizens of a populous anthill. “It is a still day, ‘Grâce à Dieu,’” said Blount; “there’s no tyrannous south wind from the ocean – coming apparently straight from the ice fields of the Pole, to chill us to the bone, and cause the poor forest trees to cry and groan aloud in their anguish. Wind has its good points, probably, but I confess to a prejudice against the Euroclydon variety. Especially when we are doing this Alpine business. By the way, there is Mr. Wendover’s delightful woodland châlet – only a mile away. Suppose we make a call there.”

“I scorn to acknowledge myself tired,” said Imogen; “but raspberries and cream – this is the season – would be an appropriate incident on this day of days. They recall the Hermitage, do they not? I can’t say more.”

“And Mrs. Wendover is so charmingly hospitable,” said a girl companion. “She has always the newest books, and music too, which, with the before-mentioned raspberries, takes one far in the pursuit of happiness.”

“While youth, and the good digestion which waits on appetite, last,” said a middle-aged person with a bright eye and generally alert expression. “Youth is the great secret. Heaven forbid that any of this good company should confess to a hint of middle age, but I have a haunting dread lest the world’s best joys should be stealing away from me.”

“Are there not compensations, Captain Warrender?” asked a lady, whose refined, intellectual cast of countenance suggested literature. “Think how delightful to hear of one’s last new book being rushed for new editions, and simply being devoured all over the world.”

“Success is pleasant in whatever state of life it comes to one, but were I allowed to choose between reading and writing, my vote would be distinctly in favour of the former. The delightful self-complacency with his task which the author of a successful book is supposed to feel is over-rated, I assure you. It becomes a task, like all other compulsory labour, and there are so many times and seasons when one would much rather do something else. The chief, almost the only valuable result to the producer (except the money, which, of course, is not despised) is, that the reputation of successful authorship brings with it a host of agreeable acquaintances, and even some true and lifelong friendships.”

“Have you found other authors free from envy, malice, and so forth?” asked Mrs. Allendale.

“I can truly say that I have, with the rarest exceptions. Now and then a man writing on party lines will administer a dose of unkind, perhaps unfair, criticism which he calls ‘slating’ your book. But there is little real ill-nature in the article, however much you may feel annoyed at the time. And the freemasonry which exists among literary people, great and small, makes on the whole for friendly relations. A man says: ‘Oh, you wrote Cocoanuts and Cannibals, didn’t you? Had rather a run when it came out. Queer place to live in, I should think.’ Then you foregather, and become, as it were, the honorary member of a club. Not that one volunteers this information, but it leaks out.”

“Oh, here is the châlet gate, and I see Mrs. Wendover’s pet Jersey cow, ‘Lily Langtry,’” said Miss Chetwynde. “How nice she looks among the red and white clover. Puts one in mind of dear old England, doesn’t it?”

“Where you never were,” laughed another maiden of the happy isle.

“I know that, but I’ve read so much about the grand old country that I can fancy everything. Dear Miss Mitford! what a lovely touch she has! I shall go there some day if I live. In the meantime here comes Mrs. Wendover, all smiles, welcome, and a picture hat, dear creature! I wonder what Miss Mitford would have thought of this forest, which comes up so close to the house, if she had seen it. I should be afraid of a fire some day.”

“Oh! our forests don’t burn so badly, even when they are on fire; this place is safe enough. Sunburn is our worst danger just now, and there’s the naval ball this evening. My cheeks are on fire, just feel them.”

“Oh, certainly, Miss Chetwynd!” said a small middy, who was of the party. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“I was not speaking to you, Mr. Harcourt. I was replying to Clara Mildmay, and I shall cancel that dance I promised you this evening if you’re not more respectful.”

“Oh, here you are!” cried Mrs. Wendover, in accents of genuine welcome. “This is the most lucky chance. You must all positively stay to lunch. I was getting tired of my own company for once in a way. John had sent a messenger to say that he would not come out till the evening. So you are evidently sent by Allah to cheer my loneliness.”

“We should all be charmed,” replied Imogen, taking her place as chief chaperon, “but it is simply impossible. Captain Warrender will tell you that we are all going to the naval ball this evening, and by the time we get to Hobart we sha’n’t have a minute to spare, to dress in time and get the sunburn off our faces.”

“Then you must come in and have raspberries and cream. It’s quite a charity to take them off our hands. Walter and Nora and I are going to the ball too, so I must insist.”

Cooled and refreshed, indeed invigorated by the raspberries and Jersey cream, with suitable accompaniments, the jocund crew bade adieu to their hostess, and trooped off to the Fairy Bower, that fern-shaded trysting place in the heart of the forest, dear to so many generations of holiday folk, where the four-in-hand drag awaited them by the fountain, and bore them safely to their several destinations. The naval ball was a pronounced success. Could it be otherwise “manned” by the officers of the half-dozen men-of-war then in harbour? The band, the waiters at the buffet, the assistants who held the dividing line in the ball-room, the attendants at the doors of the supper-room, were all in uniform, while the epaulettes and profusion of gold lace lit up the mass of civilian costumes. It was a contention seriously debated at the time, and never satisfactorily settled, as to whom the honour of being the belle of the ball should be awarded. But all agreed that the crown of the Queen of Beauty, if there had been a tournament, as in the days of chivalry, at which to present it, should have been awarded either to Mrs. Blount (née Imogen Carrisforth) or to Miss Leslie, a native-born Tasmanian, whose complexion was held to be unapproachable south of the Line, and whose pre-eminence in loveliness had never before been disputed.

Each had their partisans, sworn admirers and liegemen. Each was declared to be the prettiest girl, or the handsomest woman in Australasia – for the New Zealand competitor “took a lot of beating,” as an ardent youthful admirer phrased it. It remained, however, undecided, and will probably be revived, like other vexed questions from time to time, with similar lack of finality. As to one thing, however, the unanimity was pronounced and decisive – the success of the entertainment. When “God Save the Queen” was played, it was nearer three o’clock in the morning than two, and all but the most inveterate dancers had had enough of it. Some of the junior division indeed petitioned for just one more waltz and a galop; but discipline being the soul of the navy, as well as the army, the Admiral’s fiat had decided the matter irrevocably. Carriages were ordered, shawls and wraps were donned by the matrons and maids who had “seen it out,” as their partners expressed it, and the curtain fell upon one of the most successful comedies or melodramas, as the case may be, still popular, as in old historic days, on the mirthful, mournful, but ever mysterious stage of human life.

After this crowning joy came a succession of fêtes. Meetings of the Racing and Polo Clubs, with a gymkhana arranged by the latter society, also picnics and private parties, the Garden Party in the lovely grounds of Government House, where that befitting architectural ornament overlooks the broad winding reaches of the Derwent. All these had to be attended and availed of. The great events of the Polo Club, in “potato and bucket” race, when the competitors were compelled to dismount, pick up a potato from the ground and deposit the same in a bucket, placed for the purpose; as also the tandem race, when the aspirant riding one horse, had to drive another, with long reins, before him, also to negotiate a winding in and out course, before returning to the starting point, were both won by an active young squatter from the Upper Sturt, to the unconcealed joy of Mrs. Bruce and Imogen, the latter race, indeed, after a very close finish with a naval officer, who was the recognised champion at this and other gymkhana contests. But won it was, by the pastoral champion, though only by a nose. So after an inquiry meeting by the committee of the club, it was to him adjudged, and the trophy borne off in triumph. It is not to be supposed that the squirearchy of the land was unrepresented at these Isthmian Games, or that under such circumstances they left their wives and daughters, aunts and cousins behind; or, if such an unnatural piece of selfishness had been for a moment contemplated, that the women of the land would not have organised a revolt, declared a republic, elected a president, and marched down with banners flying to invest the capital, and make their own terms with the terrified Government of the day. No such Amazonian action was, happily, rendered necessary by sins of omission or commission on the part of their liege lords or legal protectors.

That they had sufficient courage and martial spirit for such an émeute, no one doubted. But with the exception of a quasi-warlike observation by a Tasmanian girl, on beholding the phalanx of alien beauty arrayed at the naval ball, that on the next occasion of the sort she intended to bring her gun and shoot a girl or two “from across the Straits” by way of warning, no specific action was taken.

So the old antagonism (veiled, of course, and conventional) that has existed between the home-grown and the imported feminine product, was conducted with discreet diplomacy, and the admirers of Helen or Briseis had to content themselves with displaying personal or conversational superiority in lieu of lethal weapons.

So on the ground in drags, mail phaetons, buggies and dogcarts of the period, the female contingent arrived, chiefly before the first gun of the engagement metaphorically aroused the echoes in the glens and forest glades around Mount Wellington. The Hollywood Hall family was fully represented, the Claremonts, the Bowyers. The magnate of Holmby, Mr. Dick Dereker, in all his glory, had deposited himself and his most intimate friend, John Hampden, a new arrival from England, at the club, and was daily to be viewed by the admiring population of Hobart in Davey or Macquarie Street in company with other stars of the social firmament. Mr. Blount noticed with interest the extraordinary popularity which encircled this favourite of fortune in the chief city of his native land. As he walked down the street it was a kind of royal progress. He was the people’s idol, the uncrowned king of the happy isle. Men of note and standing crossed over to greet and shake hands with him. Even the shady characters had a soft spot in their hardened hearts for “Dicky Dereker.” Why was this adulation? Other country gentlemen were handsome and chivalrous. All of them rode, drove, shot well; they, like him, had been born “in the island,” and as such had the claims of a patriot for the suffrages of their countrymen.