Rolf Boldrewood

“ 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 ”

“ Blount delayed his retirement, as he smoked before the still glowing “back log” and dwelt upon the adventures of the day.
“How that fellow must enjoy his slumbers!” thought he. “In the saddle before daylight, as he told me; up and down these rocky fastnesses—fifteen hours of slow, monotonous work, more wearying than any amount of fast going—and now, by his unlaboured breathing, sleeping like a tired child; his narrow world—its few cares—its honest, if sometimes exhausting labours, as completely shut out as if he was in another planet. Enviable mortal! ”

“ In the old Saxon days of the first Christian King, the epithet of “niddering” (worthless) , which men committed suicide rather than endure, would have been decreed. Even the rude miners of the West would feel injured. From club to hotel, from the cool green, sunless forests of the Alpine chain, where the snow-fed rills tinkled and gurgled the long, bright summer through, to the burning, gold-strewn deserts of West Australia, he would be a marked man, pointed at as the coward who won a girl’s heart and “cleared out,” because he happened to “strike it rich” in another colony. ”

“ Then pulled up with the stock-horses’ sudden halt, not brought up on their haunches, like those of the gaucho of Chile or the cowboy of the Western States, by the merciless wrenching curb, but with the half pull of the plain snaffle, the only bit the bushman knows, when with loose rein, and lowered head, the Australian camp horse drives his fore-feet into the ground, and stops dead as if nailed to the earth. ”

“ The meadow grasses had grown and burgeoned, the English trees always planted near the older settlements in Australia, many of them the growth of half a century, were nearly full leaved, putting to shame with their brilliant colouring, and opulent shade, the duller hues 144of the primeval forest. The water-fowl in flocks flew and dived and swam in the great lagoons, which marked the ancient course of the river. The cattle and horses browsing in the lanes and vacant spaces, were sleek of skin, and fair to behold. All nature spoke of abundance of pasture. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Really I feel quite cheered up, now I know you’re coming with us.”
“And what do I feel?” cried Sheila—“but I won’t describe it.” Her colour deepened, and her dark grey eyes glowed, as she stood up and looked at her benefactress with passionate emotion in every line of her expressive face. “Yes! I feel that I could die for you”—she clasped Imogen’s hand as she spoke, and kissing it again and again, rushed from the room.
“Her Irish blood came out there,” said Blount; “how handsome the girl has grown, and what a figure she has! She’ll rather astonish our untravelled friends in England. ”

“ On guard since the birth of time, rank upon rank they stood—silent, immovable, scornful—defying the puny trespassers on their immemorial demesne. “What a land! what a vast expanse!” thought the Englishman, “rugged, untamed, but not more so than ‘Caledonia stern and wild,’ more fertile and productive, and as to extent—boundless. I see before me,” he mused, “a country larger than Sweden, capable in time of carrying a dense population; and what a breed of men it should give birth to, athletic, hardy, brave! Horsemen too, in the words of Australia’s forest poet, whom I read but of late. ”

“ So, when the all-conquering hero, drawing on his neatly fitting doeskin gloves, lightly ascended to the box seat, the helpers at the leaders’ heads released those fiery steeds: as Mr. Dereker drew the reins through his fingers, and sat up in an attitude of which Whyte Melville would have approved, every feminine countenance in the party seemed irradiated with a fresh gleam of brilliancy, while the team moved smoothly off. The roads of Tasmania in that day—formed chiefly with the aid of convict labour, of which an unlimited supply was available for public works—were the best in Australasia. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Four flea-bitten greys, wonderfully matched, and sufficiently large and powerful to warrant their easy action in front of so heavy a drag, as the one in which they had been driven over. Their blood-like heads, and striking forehands, not less than their rounded back ribs, and powerful quarters, denoted the fortunate admixture of the two noblest equine families—the Arab and the English thoroughbred: of size and strength they had sufficient for all or any harness work, while their beauty and faultless matching would have graced any show-ground in England. ”

“ After expressing this imprudent desire, as indeed are often those of men, who, unacquainted with the conditions surrounding untried modes of life, believe that they could attain happiness by merely exchanging positions, Mr. Blount undressed before the fire, and bestowed himself upon the unoccupied couch, where he speedily fell asleep, just as he had imagined himself extracting large lumps of gold from a vein of virgin quartz, in a romantic fern-shaded ravine, discovered by himself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From these indeed, a solitary wayfarer might find it difficult, if not impossible, to return.
“What a track!” exclaimed Blount, toilsomely wading through waist-high bracken, and coming to a halt beside a fallen forest giant, eight feet in diameter, and more than two hundred feet to the first branch. “It ought to be a prize worth winning that tempts men to penetrate such a howling wilderness. Hardly that indeed, for there’s an awful silence: hardly a bird or beast, if you notice, seems to make known its presence in the ordinary way.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ In another mile they reached the pinnacle, where Blount realised the true nature and surroundings of this Alpine Pass. Such indeed it proved to be. A narrow pathway, looking down on either side, upon fathomless glens, with so abrupt a drop that it seemed as if the wind, now rising, might blow them off their exposed perch.
The trees which grew at the depths below, though in reality tall and massive eucalypts, appeared scarce larger than berry bushes.
The wedge-tailed eagles soared above and around. ”

“ As for the hackney division, when Miss Dalton and her companion overtook the coach just before they turned into the drive at Holmby, there was a general expression of admiration from the party, as the beautiful blood mare that she rode reined up, tossing her head impatiently, while her large, mild eye, full nostril, and high croup bore testimony to the Arab ancestry.
“Yes! Zuleika is a beauty!” said Miss Laura, looking with pardonable pride at the satin coat and delicate limbs of the high-caste animal, “and though she makes believe to be impatient, is as gentle as a lamb. ”

“ I’ll have breakfast at nine o’clock, please, bacon and eggs is my present fancy. I’ll stay in Bunjil a few days and loaf for a change.”
If there is anything in life more conducive to happiness than waking at dawn in the country, assured of comfort, free from anxiety and relieved from duty, few people have experienced it.
And nowhere can the rare luxury of the conditions be more fully savoured than in Australia. Mr. Blount was firmly of this opinion, as in virtue of his late habitudes, the birds’ wild melody awoke him, as the first dawnlight tinged the grey, reluctant East. ”

“ Men are all alike, gentle and simple. I believe I could give a guess, as we heard you went down the river.”
To this day Blount declares that he never enjoyed a better meal; he certainly never had a better appetite. And as the sun rising higher in the heavens irradiated the meadows, the hurrying water of the creek, the brilliant green of the opening buds of the great elms and poplars that fringed that streamlet, he admitted that the landscape was almost worthy of the memorable meal. ”

“ A municipality, with mayor, councillors, and aldermen had been formed after the British pattern. Thus the foundations of earliest English law had been laid, and as the erstwhile barren, hopeless lodge in the wilderness increased in wealth and population, so the State, “broad based upon the people’s will,” emerged ready made, only awaiting that gradual development which comes instinctively in Anglo-Saxon communities, to pass from the rude stage of the mining camp to the perfected organisation of the city. ”

“ Middleton opened the rough but effective gate, with a patent self-closing latch, without dismounting from his mare, who squeezed her shoulder against it, as if she thought she could open it herself. “Steady!” said her owner—“this gate’s not an uphill one—she’ll push up a gate hung to slam down hill as if she knew who made it. She does know a lot of things you wouldn’t expect of her.” Holding the gate open till Mr. Blount and the cob were safely through, he led the way to the cottage, from which issued a tall, upright, elderly man, with a distinctly military bearing. ”

“ Advance, Tasmania!”
Looking hastily through the pile of unopened letters, but keeping private-and-confidential-appearing correspondence strictly apart, and relegating those in Mr. Tregonwell’s bold, rapid handwriting, to a more convenient season, he started, and trembled, as his eye fell upon a letter in Mrs. Bruce’s handwriting which bore the Marondah postmark. His heart almost stopped beating, when an enclosed note fell out, still more likely to affect his inmost soul. Yes! it was in the handwriting, so closely scanned, so dearly treasured in the past, of Imogen Carrisforth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Bruce that I might just as well not advertise the O’Haras, and as Little-River-Jack certainly saved my life on Razor Back, how could I give him up to the law? Now, could I?”
“Not as a gentleman, sir, I should say. I suppose Mr. Bruce is pretty wild about it, after you being at his house and all that. He’s a fine man, Mr. Bruce; all he’s got he’s earned. His brother and he worked like niggers when first they came from home. Now they’re well off, and on the way to be richer still. But no man likes to be robbed, rich or poor. He’ll have Jack yet for this if he don’t mind, sharp as he is.” ”