Sam's Sweetheart. New edition

Chapter I

Misogamy Camp was down on its luck, and had declined in reputation, since its most influential member, happening to remark one morning that it was a fine day for a walk, had sauntered towards the Bush, and somehow forgotten to return. Of course there was no woman in the case. The very name of the Camp sufficiently advertised its opinions, while it was composed almost entirely of men who had either flagrantly ill-used, or been themselves wronged by, the opposite sex (their hatred of it in both cases being identical), and with inflexible sternness had hitherto held itself free of encroachment from either the good or bad specimens of womanhood then in the neighbourhood. But early one morning, Yankee Bill, stepping briskly out into the open air, detected a something frivolous in the atmosphere that at once suggested the presence of the sex, and, on looking round, discovered it in her emblem — a battered steel crinoline — that, suspended by a pole above the shanty lately occupied by a missing member of the community, gave significant hint of the probable cause of his continued absence.

Yankee Bill stood for a few moments in contemplation of this insult to a body of men who were in the habit of solving most awkward or sarcastic riddles with their revolvers, then went for that crinoline, and never did the charms it might once have contained work direr havoc upon man, than did its steel ribs on the heads and bodies of the surrounding scoffers, to whom the joke was brought home with a practical spirit and humour worthy of the best traditions of the Camp. But that evening, Long Jim, in reference to the alluvial dirt that for the past ten days he had rocked alternately with profanity, patience, and despair, remarked, ' It's got its feelin's ; it's only obeying the natural law that the luck always ends where the woman begins — but who is the woman ?' he added, looking round. ' There ain't one,' said Portland Dick, sententiously. 'Black, white, or brown, there ain't a woman living 'ud keep Cucumber Jack pinned to her apron ten days.

He's got tired of the creek, and taken to bush-ranging, or he's dropped into a richer claim, or shot somebody where folks are scarce enough to be missed ; anyway, though the luck may come back, he won't.' An expostulatory ' hem ' proceeding from the outside of a barrel, graced by the partner of the missing man, was here taken to express dissent to this opinion ; but inquiry only elicited the fact that Sam's throat was dry, ' for want of use,' as Long Jim fiercely remarked. ' Say, you've never known him stay away as long as this before, Sam?' said Yankee Bill; 'you and he've been hitched up together long enough to sorter know each other's ways by now, I guess.' ' That's so,' said Sam, in his simple, slow way. ' Me and my partner has seen some rain and shine together, and if we haven't got each other's bearin's by now, why — ' he paused and looked beamingly round on the company — ' the sooner we goes in single harness again the better.' 'You're in it now,' said a man who had just entered; ' leastways it's a queer partnership when one's down Bendigo way and t' other's up here.' Sam changed colour, and his broad, ruddy face twitched perceptibly, as he removed his pipe and looked anxiously at the new-comer. ' Have you heard anything ?' he said ; ' and I'd a sort of feeling that he was coming home to-night ; he stopped away nigh upon as long as this once before.' ' There's a man down Bendigo way,' said the other, deliberately, ' who's either Cucumber Jack or his double — answers all troublesome questions with his revolver, carries the luck about with him in his pocket, and goes into the Bush every two or three days to see a bee-ootiful creature in colour, a light chocolate-brown.' ' That's him !' cried Sam, in visible excitement ; ' and so he've took her along with him.

And goin' off promiskis like, p'r'aps he forgot his partner ; but it won't take long for me to join him,' he added cheerfully. ' So it is a woman !' said Yankee Bill, in a tone of disgust ; ' and he the darnedst woman-hater of the lot. Seems like you're pretty well up in each other's secrets ; but before we lose sight for good of such a pair of turtle-doves, s'posin' you tell us what names we're to remember 'em by ?' Now here was the second infraction of the rules of the camp in one evening, for not a man in it answered to anything but a nickname, there being obvious reasons in almost every instance why he had left his surname behind 1—2 him ; and any attempt at inquiry upon this point was regarded as not only a breach of good taste but a possible cause of bloodshed. ' My name's Sweet,' said Sam, placidly — ' Sam Sweet ; but I never thought to ask my partner his — he'd always be Jack to me if he'd got fifty surnames.' ' Do you mind,' said Long Jim, thoughtfully, ' that new hand what came swaggering up to Jack at the bar one day and said, " I reckon you've changed some, stranger, since I saw you at Ascot three years ago in a grey coat and a white hat ; but then your name was " only here Jack's pistol happened to go off in the orkerdest way, and nobody ever heard the end of the tale, 'ceptin' the cherubims, to whom it couldn't be of no particular consequence.' ' Didn't I always tell you he was one of them cool, white handed darned aristocrats ?' said the Downy One, in an aggrieved tone. ' That's why he keeps everybody in such order — he's born to it.' ' I don't know nothing about his bein' a aristocrat,' said Sam, slowly, ' though, if so, that's his misfortin', not his fault ; but I know that them white hands of his '11 do the best day's work ever I see.

And there ain't none here ' — Sam's form seemed to swell as he looked round — ' as can say he ever give himself airs, or behaved different ('cepting being a little too spry with his revolver, p'r'aps) to a.ny other individual here present ; and if he's seemed to do the unhandsome thing by the camp and me, in going down Bendigo way without warning, just you suspend your judgment till you've heard his reason — p'r'aps ' and here Sam nodded towards the line of illimitable bush, visible through the open door, ' she found it lonesome-like over there.' ' What is she like ?' said Long Jim, drily. ' Didn't Yankee Bill say she was a light chocolate-brown ?' said Sam, looking aghast as one who has betrayed a con fidence. ' So that was his gal,' said Yankee Bill, with a fictitious air of innocence, 'who used to come dropping round the camp at one time — with a gashly sort of face, and a trifle above his own age, if looks don't tell lies ?' Sam smiled slowly, and his smile aggravated those who had thrown clown their cards and ceased gambling to listen to him, for the novelty of the subject, the very name of woman being as rigorously tabooed in the Camp as her presence, and the length of Jack's late absence, had excited their curiosity about him to an extraordinary degree. ' Folks get a bit off in their tastes when they rise forty,' said Long Jim, drily, ' and, to be sure, if you take females young, they don't afflict you so much as when you take 'em old.

But there's no fool like an old 'un, whether male or female.' Sam, who had no taste of his own in women, had been slowly swelling at this outrage on the taste of his partner, for to Sam's fifty-five years the thirty odd of his partner counted as nothing, and suddenly he burst out, ' Well, if I might presoom to name so special-like a matter in this selec' company, I'd say that if anything could be comfortable to the eye in the shape of a woman, she were that, and a bit on to it — with the fixinest eyes ever I see, and a pair of arms as made the finest necklace out of what cost nothin', as if you'd paid down a bag of gold-dust for it — and when it comes to that,' said Sam, mopping his face and looking round, ' where are you, and where, I ask, is your partner ? I ain't a small objic' in the landskip,' he added, meditatively, 'but I don't think I were missed when I slipped behind that blue gum, and took a view of things in general, as it were from the wings— but I'm forgetting that I haven't given you the bearin', so to speak, of the sitooashun.' ' Can't you get to the point, instead of using such darned mincing words ?' said Long Jim, fiercely. ' I know I'm a poor speaker,' said Sam, who only swore for the sake of appearances, and in moments of excitement not at all, ' and the subjick, too, bein' so out of my line.

It must be nigh on two year and a half ago that Jack and I was goin' through the Bush midway between Bathurst and Sydney together, and one evening, just as we were sittin' down to tea, somethin' came whirlin' through the trees and straight into Jack's arms, and points behind her, and with that she holds on to Jack as if she was a b'ar, and he a woman that she was sorter sorry to kill outright. Cucumber Jack, he let her run on, but, p'r'aps, 'twas his way of holding her; as if he'd been used to handling a good many, and them of the best, which is what a woman likes, though a vartuous arm,' added Sam, with a sigh, ' it ought to feel comfortabler round a woman's waist. But all of a sudden it seemed to come to her reckleckshun that he weren't a tree, and she jest turned her head and looked at him ; p'r'aps she'd never seen blue eyes, and that gold-coloured hair before, but she kept on lookin' and lookin' at him, and I kept on lookin' at her, till all of a sudden he tosses her on to his shoulder, and swings her into the nearest tree, and the next minnit there was about fifty savages with spears in their hands, dancing round, and asking what we'd done with the Maori gal.' ' A Maori !' said Long Jim, scornfully. ' Maories in New South Wales ?

Look for green peas growing on a blue gum, or lilies of the valley at the bottom of a claim ; but there's not a Maori would live among these dirty beastly aborigines !' ' P'r'aps they're used to dirt,' said Sam, in his usual slow as it were from the wings— but I'm forgetting that I haven't given you the bearin', so to speak, of the sitooashun.' ' Can't you get to the point, instead of using such darned mincing words V said Long Jim, fiercely. ' I know I'm a poor speaker,' said Sam, who only swore for the sake of appearances, and in moments of excitement not at all, ' and the subjick, too, bein' so out of my line. It must be nigh on two year and a half ago that Jack and I was goin' through the Bush midway between Bathurst and Sydney together, and one evening, just as we were sittin' down to tea, somethin' came whirlin' through the trees and straight into Jack's arms, and points behind her, and with that she holds on to Jack as if she was a b'ar, and he a woman that she was sorter sorry to kill outright.

Cucumber Jack, he let her run on, but, p'r'aps, 'twas his way of holding her; as if he'd been used to handling a good many, and them of the best, which is what a woman likes, though a vartuous arm,' added Sam, with a sigh, ' it ought to feel comfortabler round a woman's waist. But all of a sudden it seemed to come to her reckleckshun that he weren't a tree, and she jest turned her head and looked at him ; p'r'aps she'd never seen blue eyes, and that gold-coloured hair before, but she kept on lookin' and lookin' at him, and I kept on lookin' at her, till all of a sudden he tosses her on to his shoulder, and swings her into the nearest tree, and the next minnit there was about fifty savages with spears in their hands, dancing round, and asking what we'd done with the Maori gal.' ' A Maori !' said Long Jim, scornfully. ' Maories in New South Wales .

Look for green peas growing on a blue gum, or lilies of the valley at the bottom of a claim ; but there's not a Maori would live among these dirty beastly aborigines !' ' P'r'aps they're used to dirt,' said Sam, in his usual slow way ; ' but not so dirty inside as you think. I've seen a power of goodness among 'em, and human nature's mostly streaked, more or less ' ' Like good bacon,' said Portland Dick, with a sneer. ' Just so,' said Sam. Not being used to public speaking, he had long ago lost the thread of his discourse, and now got a clue. 'Talking of bacon, pigs have just been the saving of them Maories ; they never eat one another now that they can get pork, roast and b'iled.' ' Just you try a vegetable diet for a fortnight,' said a saturnine man in the background ; ' and if you don't long to take a slice off your juiciest relation in a week, I'm hanged.

I don't say a plump stranger ain't better, but a relation's not to be despised' ' Have you tried one ?' said Long Jim, impatiently ; then turned to the man who, lost in retrospections, was in the vein to be surprised of those confidences that Long Jim had always known it to be in his power to give ; while, meanwhile, a sly hand had filled his tumbler. ' You said there was fifty savages dancing round ; but how was it they didn't catch the gal V ' Well, my partner and me sat there — quite careless-like — he cleaning a revolver, with a flower in his mouth, while I was cooking a damper, so that there wasn't a trace of her to them as followed. He shook his head that innocent, they thought he couldn't know nothing, and they thought me beyond suspectin' ; but, Lord bless you, when they was all gone, he looked up quite accidental-like, but 'stead of the sky there was two great eyes shining through the leaves and flowers like stars, and I sloped off, but plumped up against something ' ' Every corner has its female,' said Portland Dick, bitterly; ' there's no dodging 'em.

But what sort of a one was that ?' ' Looks like as if you'd studied the sex,' said Long Jim, curiously, ' and found more good than bad 'uns ; but that ain't my experience, anyway.' 'P'r'aps you remember the bad 'uns longest,' said Sam, simply, ' most men do ; but there's a many good mothers and daughters in the world, and wives,' he added, after a moment's pause, iu which a struggling memory crossed his features. ' I think Jack's sweetheart's one of that sort ; and I'm as glad to hear he've took her with him down Bendigo way, as if he come in here this minnit and brought the luck with him.' ' He'd got rather keerless like of her up till the last three weeks,' said Portland Dick ; ' 'twasn't once in ten days he'd make tracks for the bush.' 'That was so,' said Jack's partner, sadly. 'That's why his staying away so long beat me.

But I'd got a notion ' ' That he was after another woman,' said Yankee Bill, laconically. ' No,' said Sam, ' but that she was dying. That's the only thing as'U bring back a man faithful and lover-like to a woman he's got tired of.

And all this fortnight he've been away, I seemed to see him chafing-like because she weren't quicker about it, for he's got the roving blood in him, and he'll be moving on to his dyin' day ; but if he takes her with him, it don't siggerfy much about his partner bein' a bit behind.' ' Don't believe he's gone down Bendigo way,' said the Downy One ; ' more likely he's got lost in the Bush, or the savages have come up with her at last and killed the pair of 'em.' ' Bet I go and find out,' said Sam, rising in great excite ment ; ' and I'll beat every yard of the Bush for ten miles round till I find him.' 'Bet you stay at home,' said a familiar voice behind him, and the camp started up as one man with a shout of wel come, that flashed the news of Cucumber Jack's return through the whole length and width of the settlement. ' So you were going to look for me, old man,' he said, with his hand on Sam's shoulder. ' And who said I'd gone down Bendigo way ?' he added, looking round. ' The Piny,' replied Portland Dick, who was not exactly the peacemaker of the camp, ' said you'd taken your coloured gal with you, and given your partner and us the go-by.' ' Time I came back, when the biggest liar in the camp is installed as its prophet,' said Cucumber Jack, coolly. ' And how's the luck ?' he added, turning to Sam, as a dozen hands were stretched to seize the revolver the Piny had snatched from his belt. ' Gone,' said Sam from behind the red bandana, that was his invariable refuge in all situations beyond his usual experience. ' It will come back,' said the new-comer, carelessly, as he sat down and lit his pipe, the light falling on the pale, hand some features that offered such a striking contrast to the other faces present. ' And so you thought I'd given you the slip,' he added, turning to Sam. 'I thought there might be reasons,' said Sam, in his usual simple way, 'why you might choose to make new tracks without tellin' your partner ; and I should have follerd you — if you didn't want me, 'twas easy enough to move on— and where there's a woman in the case,' he added, in a lower tone, 'why, where is your partner?

Nat'rally he takes a back seat, that none but a fool 'ud grumble at.' ' There's no woman in the case,' said Jack, in his usual distinct tones, and looking Sam straight in the face ; ' there isn't one living I'd walk across the camp to meet, or who has any claim on me. I've looked my last on her — and what devil's folly is this ?' he added, with a fierce glance at the surrounding men. Sam's broad face, a moment ago beaming with such honest satisfaction and pride, worked painfully. He leaned forward and said in an audible whisper, ' You haven't quar'led with her — poor soul ?' ' What the devil are you talking about ?' cried Jack ; ' can't a man take a few days' leave without a pack of fools talking V 'I knew it couldn't last,' said Portland Dick, with the easy audacity of a man born without instincts. ' It's in yer blood to be on the move.

Some folks can sow a ten-acre field sitting in their easy-chairs, but you ain't one of 'em ; and she'll settle down comfortably enough after a bit as a black man's gin.' ' D you !' cried Jack, suddenly, but without raising his voice ; ' she was my wife ! So you blabbed ?' he added, turning to Sam with a glance that ought to have reduced him to tinder. ' And was she, now ?' said Dick, quite unabashed ; ' and, to be sure, that makes it easy-like for you not to want to go back to her. And there's them as says a wife a'most as good as a sweetheart — it's only the cream turned a bit sour on the stomach ; and there's some that'll stand it, and not find much difference.' ' So you married her ?' said Sam, stretching out his great hand and seizing Jack's slight one. 'Thatwas an hon'abledeed of yours, partner — even if you was sorry for it afterwards.' ' Seems as if I'd dropped in on some blanked prayer meeting,' said Jack, looking round with a fierce sneer, adding, in the same moment, ' Hark !

Didn't you hear something ?' They all held their breath to listen, but there was nothing — nothing but the smothered rush of the distant river, or the still more distant cry of a wandering bird — while through the open doorway the brilliant stars looked their eternal silence, seeming to ask what question demanded by man could be worth the answer. 'There's nothing abroad,' said Long Jim, with an oath; but Sam still stood listening, his eyes fixed on the open door. ' Didn't you hear it ?' he said, anxiously, ' just Uke the sobbin' of a child, or a woman callin' ' ' P'r'aps she's calling you,' said Portland Dick, coarsely ; but Jack, who was himself again, looked up from his cards, and said, 'Too late, old man,' and smiled, possibly at the idea of Sam's figuring as a pilgrim of love. But Sam caught neither look nor smile.

His attention had been fixed by a curious little blue flower worn in his partner's coat, and the like of which he had seen but once before, and then in some bleak spot (that he could not just then remember) where its presence had struck him with surprise. It did not occur to him to remove his eyes while he puzzled out the question, and Jack, cursing himself for a sentimental fool in wearing the flower, nevertheless burst out laughing at the idea of Sam as a possible Nemesis, and dismissed the matter from his mind.

Chapter II

That Misogamy Camp was itself again, the entire settlement — trying in vain that night to sleep — had abundant proof, while a couple of shots, exchanged across the table at midnight by two gentlemen whose notions of playing euchre did not exactly coincide, only raised a little cheerful specu lation as to whose claims were likely to be vacant on the morrow. Sam sat through carouse, brawl, and gambling alike, without taking any more active part in the proceedings than at intervals to solemnly lift and carry out to their respective shanties such of the company as had been over matched by the bottle. He further made himself useful by interposing the vast bulk of his person between Yankee Bill and the Downy One at a critical moment, so that the shot intended for the skull of the latter made a hole in the barrel which Sam had just vacated, at which Jack laughed again, and said he had thought the barrel to be Sam himself.

Between whdes, the only sober man present sat and watched his partner, the machinery of his slow mind painfully revolving in a certain direction that made him shake his head sadly once or twice, and discover for the first time in Jack's handsome face something not quite according with his own heart and fancy. Towards morning, when the orgie of the night had narrowed down to a group of men who seemed to have caught something of their leader's reckless spirit, and to gamble with their very souls as they played, Sam leaned forward, and, putting his hand on his partner's arm, said, ' You're never going back ?' The other shook his touch off with a curse. Then, looking up and seeing whose it was, the wild excitement died out of the gambler's eyes, and a dangerous expression crossed his face. ' Drop it,' he said, curtly. ' Take my advice — if you want to be friends — drop it,' then plunged once more in the delirium of the game.

Sam, still watching, like a man who expects that something will by-and-by reward his patience, at length found it in the peculiar shape of the handkerchief that his partner carelessly drew out, and, having passed across his brows, as carelessly thrust back again, though not before Sam's slow eyes had noted its every point. A gold-digger's handkerchief that was made of fine white cambric, frilled at the edges, and with two little doll's sleeves hanging from it, was a curiosity in its way; but Sam distinctly remembered to have seen such a handkerchief before, though (like the blue flower) he could not remember where he had seen its fellow. He rose, and, groping his way out of that evil atmosphere to the pure one of the night beyond, closed the cabin door behind him, and stood for awhile without movement of any kind, and lost in thought.

Frills ! Sam's slow mind, travelling backward through deep and unaccustomed ruts towards a memory that for ever escaped him, demanded answer first of the austere silence of the brilliant skies, and then of the scattered shanties that lay between him and the dim green line behind which stretched, vast and treacherous, the Australian Bush. Was it fancy, or did one remote star seek to give restless reply as it quivered above a rocky point many miles distant, in the neighbourhood of which, as it suddenly flashed upon him, he had seen a flower similar to the one worn by his partner to-night ? Climbing one day into that upper region, where none save a stray shepherd or two ever came, Sam had remarked a cluster of blue flowers nestling in the crevice of a naked rock, as though Nature had sent a glance upwards where she could not herself follow, and where her glance lit, the flowers had sprung.

Sam drew a deep breath, as one who has achieved the half of a difficult journey, then again sent his mind in quest of those same ' frills ' that puzzled him so sorely. He had never seen a doll dressed in his life, but all at once it came back upon him that he had seen such a curious pocket handkerchief in his wife's hand on the day she died, and her child with her, telling him with her last breath how she had hated him, and loved his friend all her life. Sam tried to think of how that woman might have felt if she had loved him, and he'd ' looked his last on her,' wondered if what might have filled that curious hand kerchief would have contented her, shook his head sadly, and with a parting glance at that distant point of light, retired to the shanty that till within the last fortnight he had shared with his partner, and tried to sleep.

But his senses were fanciful to-night, changing the even flow of the river to the roaring of a mountain torrent, as it swept down a rocky gulch ; while the far-off cries of two distant birds sounded in his ears like the mingled weeping of a mother and her child. And once he started up with the sweat on his brow, for he could have sworn that some thing had touched his hand ; or did his memory play him a trick, and was he dreaming of certain tiny baby-fingers that by chance he had touched, when he stooped to kiss the dead lips of the woman who had betrayed him ? He threw his blanket aside, and went out. The lights in the sky were waning, and dawn was not far away ; but as yet the settlement slumbered, and the curse of gold lay still on it, or in the dreamers' hearts turned to a blessing, as home-ties rudely sundered were in spirit re-knit, and son met mother, and husband wife, with love in their hearts, and in their hands that which by its use found itself en nobled.

Sam had no stake in the game ; the handful of gold that he might squander each day on some rude camp luxury defrauded no creature at home to whom that handful might mean life itself. He was nothing to nobody ; just as over yonder, and his eyes again sought that distant star, was perhaps some one who ought to be something to somebody. Insensibly he found himself moving towards the pale beacon, and even hurrying his steps as it waned, so that if there had been any eyes strengthened by the dawn to pierce the Bush line, they might have seen how at the moment the star faded out of the sky, the lonely figure of a man appeared on the summit of that peak above which it had seemed to keep watch and ward.

Chapter III

Sam's absence at breakfast next morning created little remark, but when at smoking-time Sam's partner was himself found to be missing, consternation and disgust settled down upon Misogamy Camp, that felt itself in the position of a cock who has been misled by a flash of lightning to rise at midnight and proclaim day. ' Darned if I don't believe he's gone back to her !' cried Long Jim, with a vigorous slap of his thigh. ' And last night he seemed as glad to be back among us as a jay bird hopping round a tree, and swore he'd looked his last on her.' And so he had, as anyone might have found out, who had followed him along a certain rocky trail that led upwards by almost inaccessible paths to the summit upon which his partner had stood at daybreak, and, like him, looked back upon the way that he had j list traversed. ' The wanderer's kingdom,' he said aloud, in a tone of exultation, and drew in a deep breath of the pure Bush ali as though it were life and liberty itself, then thought of a certain estate in England, and smiled in sudden scorn that any should be founcl to covet it.