An Innocent Masquerade. Paula Marshall

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and gold parrot to look after. When that wasn’t enough she sang them songs from back home in England, songs which Ma had used to sing.

      ‘That’s my good girl,’ Pa had told her quietly. ‘I knew that you’d not let me down.’

      When they had reached Melbourne they had found it full of people like themselves, all making for the diggings. There was nowhere to stay or to sleep except in and around the drays whilst they bought further provisions, tents and equipment. The little ones ran wild, dodging in and out among the many tramps who were lying in the street, dead drunk and clutching empty bottles: ruined before they had even reached the diggings.

      Two of them were lying where the Moore party was parked in front of The Criterion, Melbourne’s most expensive hotel. One was large with thick dark hair and a long beard and the other was red-headed and small. Both were ragged and smelled evil.

      Kirstie sniffed her disgust at the sight of them, while Pa and Bart talked busily with those who seemed to know what ought to be done at the diggings if a fortune were to be made.

      ‘Just the two of you won’t get anywhere,’ said one burly digger. They were all burly, rough and good-natured, as well as free with their violent language, blinding and bloodying in front of Kirstie as though she were not there. ‘You need to form a small syndicate. A big chap would be best.’

      The trouble with taking on a big chap, Sam thought, was that he might see the Moore family, tenderfeet all, as a suitable party for pillaging. Someone less powerful might be safer.

      On the morning that they were ready to leave they had still not discovered any extra mates.

      ‘We’ll try to find someone when we get there,’ said Pa hopefully—he was always full of hope.

      They were just hoisting their last load of provisions into Kirstie’s dray when a middle-sized Englishman, looking vaguely ill, came up to them. He was respectably dressed in clerk’s clothing and said diffidently, in a low cultured voice, ‘They told me at the store that you’re off to Ballarat and needed a chum to make up your team. My name is Farquhar, George Farquhar. They call me Geordie here.’

      Sam looked sharply at him. He scarcely seemed the sort of chum they needed, but then the stranger said, ‘I can not only drive the dray, I’m good with horses as well. I don’t drink or gamble and I’m stronger than I look. I also have a little spare cash to put in the pot if you’d care to take me on.’

      That did it. Bart asked shrewdly, ‘How much spare cash?’

      The man said, ‘Enough. I’ll not show you here, too public. If you want a reference, I’ve been working at an apothecary’s for the last three months. I’m steady,’ he added, ‘and they told me that you were steady, too.’

      Sam looked him bluntly up and down, and, as usual, made a sudden decision on the spur of the moment.

      ‘Well, Geordie Farquhar,’ he said, ‘I like the look of you and I’m inclined to take a chance with you. Money in the pot—and join us in the hard work. Just do what you can. Let’s shake on it,’ and he put out his work-calloused hand. Bart followed suit, and the three of them solemnly sealed their bargain.

      Geordie proved helpful almost immediately. He persuaded them to stay an extra day and sell one of the drays and buy a horse and wagon—‘It will be more useful than a bullock when we get to the diggings,’ he told them.

      ‘Except that we can’t eat it,’ Pa said practically.

      ‘Oh, horse isn’t bad,’ Geordie told them. ‘I’ve eaten horse rather than starve.’

      The next morning, when an adventurous young Davie fell out of a tree on one of their earliest stops and broke his arm, Geordie set it for him carefully and patiently.

      ‘I used to be a doctor,’ he said brusquely when Bart thanked him. ‘It might be helpful in the diggings.’

      Back at the farm neither Kirstie nor Sam had thought that when they finally left Melbourne for Ballarat they would be part of a vast exodus of folk walking and riding to the gold fields. With two bullock-drawn drays and the horse and wagon they were among the more affluent of the travellers—although, as Kirstie commented, that wasn’t saying much. They were mostly big, heavily whiskered men, many with pistols thrust into their belts. Some were already drunk, early in the morning though it was.

      Pat, indeed, always lively and curious, gave a loud squeal when they passed a scarecrow of a man driving a rackety cart pulled by a spavined horse.

      ‘Look, Big Sister, look, it’s the two tramps from outside The Criterion. Fancy seeing them here!’

      So they were. The little red-headed one was sitting up and looking around him while the big, dark one was lying on his back, eyes closed, a bottle in his hand, dead to the world already.

      Kirstie sniffed her disgust at them. ‘Hush, Pat. They might hear you.’

      ‘Oh, Corny and The Wreck won’t mind. They’re used to people noticing them. Corny says they get more money that way. He’s the little one.’

      ‘There’ll be more money for them in the diggings, perhaps,’ commented Pa. ‘And you’re not to talk to them, Pat.’

      ‘Oh, I don’t talk to them. Besides, only Corny talks. The Wreck never says anything. Just looks.’

      ‘And smells!’ sniffed Kirstie.

      ‘One thing, though,’ said Geordie later, ‘at least they weren’t trying to cadge a free ride.’

      He, Bart and Pa had been compelled to beat off with their whips great hairy ruffians trying to climb in beside them. One bold fellow, stinking of grog, jumped up and thrust his whiskered face at Pa, demanding that he sell him a ride. Pa threw him off, and left him behind in the dirt, hurling curses after them.

      Some people were pushing wheelbarrows, full of their possessions, and their little children, some not as old as Herbie, even, were walking behind them. Public houses, inns and sly grog shops, so called because they were not legally licensed, lined the road. One lean-to shed had a sign, ‘Last sly grog shop before the diggings,’ which was a lie since a few miles further along was another with an even bigger sign saying, ‘This really is the last sly grog shop before the diggings.’

      Geordie, who had a dry wit which kept them entertained, suggested that ten miles after the last one they came to they ought to set up their own grog shop and make a fortune—except that someone else would be sure to build another a few hundred yards further on! He didn’t drink, though, refusing a swig from the rotgut passed round after they had eaten their grub, and he never asked to stop at a grog shop.

      He soon grasped that Sam Moore and Big Sister were the driving forces of the expedition. Sam was quiet and determined and made the decisions. Big Sister did all the donkey work. She rounded up the children, kept watch over them. scolded them, and bandaged their cut knees, in between doing the many chores which came her way. It was Big Sister who washed the clothes, lit the fire, cooked the food, banged a spoon on a tin plate and shouted ‘Grub’s up’, a sound which began on the journey and which was to echo round the diggings in the months to come.

      And on the road she entertained them by singing, in her small true voice, the songs which Ma had taught her to sing—their last link with long-gone England.

      Kirstie СКАЧАТЬ