CHAPTER XXXIV
"Come in, come in," said Basil, clutching Old Corrie by the arm, as though he feared to lose him, and dragging him into the house; "this is indeed a meeting to be thanking for. It is I who am in luck."
He regarded it as an omen of good fortune. If Old Corrie were thus unexpectedly found, why not Newman Chaytor? And, besides, here was a trusty friend upon whom he could rely-here was a man whose evidence would go far to establish his identity, to restore his good name, to give the lie to his traducers. He looked upon this meeting as the opening of a brighter chapter in his strange career, and with this cheering thought in his mind he ascended the stairs to his one room at the top of the house, still keeping tight hold of Corrie, who, accompanied him, willingly enough, in a kind of amazed silence.
"I must find a candle," said Basil, pushing Old Corrie, into the room before him. "You won't run away, Corrie?"
"No fear, Master Basil," replied Corrie. "I am not in a run-away humour. Shouldn't wonder, supposing I get encouragement, if I develop the qualities of a leech."
"I promise you encouragement enough," said Basil, with a little laugh. His spirits were almost joyous; youth seemed to be returning to him.
"I wait for proof," observed Corrie sententiously. "Friends are none so plentiful in this hard world."
"True, true," assented Basil, groping about for a candle. "You could swear to me in the dark, eh?"
"If needful."
"That's more than some would do in the full light of the blessed sun. I could sing for joy."
"Hold your hand, Master Basil; let us exchange a few more words in darkness. I am speculating whether you are changed."
"What do you think, Corrie?"
"I think not, but what man can be sure? I have been sore beset since we last talked together."
"We have been rowing in the same boat, then."
"You have met with misfortunes, too! Have they soured you?"
"They have brought sorrow and doubt in their train, but, there is sweetness still in the world. This meeting is a proof."
"You live high up, and the house is the house of poor people. Birds of a feather flock together. Perhaps, after all, I had best go away."
"If you attempt it I shall assault you. Corrie, old friend, you have dropped upon me like a messenger from Heaven. Here is the candle at last. Now we can have a good look at each other."
They gazed in silence for a few moments, and Basil was grieved to see old Corrie in rags. Beneath the bluff honesty of his face there were undeniable marks of privation, but despite these signs there was a gleam of humour still in his eyes.
"Well, Master Basil?" said he presently.
"I am truly sorry, dear old friend," said Basil, holding out his hand. "You have had some hard knocks."
"You may say that. It has been a case of battledore and shuttlecock-the battledore a stone one and the shuttlecock a poor bit of ironbark, with such a mockery of feathers in it that the moment it was knocked up it fell down like a lump of lead. If I puzzle you, Master Basil, you puzzle me. There is something in you I can't exactly read. Your clothes are not what I should like to see you wear, though they are the clothes of a prince compared with mine. This room is the room of a man pretty low down in the world," and here Old Corrie added with a laugh, "the higher up you live the lower down you are-and yet you have the air of a man who is not hard up."
"Regarding me," said Basil, "as a bundle of contradictions, you are nearer the mark than you could suppose yourself to be. But surely I am forgetting my manners and my duties as a host." He opened a cupboard, and drew therefrom bread, butter, cheese, and a bottle of ale, which he uncorked. Plates, glasses, and knives were on the table in a trice. "Fall to, Corrie."
"You can spare it, Master Basil?"
"I can spare it, Corrie. You share with me from this time forth. Do you live near here?"
"Very near," replied Old Corrie, pointing to the window. "The sky is my roof."
"It has been mine. We'll house you better. I drink love and friendship to a dear old friend." They clinked glasses, and Corrie ate like a famished man. The meal being done he said: "I've been on my beam-ends in Australia, but starving in this country is a very different pair of shoes. It's a near thing here between want and death-so near that they touch often and join hands in grim partnership. I've seen it done, and a dead woman before me. Now, in Australia, unless it comes to being lost in a bush-where it's no man's fault but the explorer's-I never heard of a case. There's stone-breaking at all events to tide over the evil day. I've had more than one turn at it, and been thankful to get it to do, as every honest and willing man would be. Different in England, Master Basil, where they've brought civilization down to a fine point. Did you take notice how I ate my supper? More like a wild beast than a man-and now, with a full stomach, I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. Not that I am loth to accept your hospitality; it's the need of it that riles me. That's where the shoe really pinches."
"I can sympathise with you, Corrie. By the way, I am in your debt."
"How so, Master Basil?"
"Over the water yonder, I borrowed a mare of you, and managed to lose it. You remember. I wanted to get from Bidaud's plantation to Gum Flat Township-a gruesome journey it turned out to be-and you lent me your mare. When I returned and reported the matter to you my pockets were empty, and not a word of reproach did you fling at me. I couldn't pay the debt then-I can now."
"Hold hard a bit, Master Basil; let me turn the thing over in my mind." Basil humoured him, and there was a brief silence. Then Corrie said, "It is a simple justice that the mare should be paid for if you can afford it."
"I can afford it. Why, if I had my own this night I should be worth sixty thousand pounds."
"Some one has cheated you, Master Basil?"
"More than cheated me; has done me the foulest wrong. You shall hear all by-and-by. But I still have money I can call my own. The robber, unknown to himself, is making restitution by driblets. Here you are, Corrie." He had counted out thirty pounds, which he now pushed over to Corrie across the table. Corrie counted it, but did not take it up.
"If this is for the mare, Master Basil, it's too much."
"Too little, you mean."
"Too much by twenty pounds. The old mare might have fetched a ten pound note in a sale-yard, and more likely than not would have been knocked down for a fiver. So I'll take ten, if you don't mind, Master Basil, and we'll cry quits on that account. I wouldn't take that if my pockets weren't empty."
No persuasion on Basil's part could induce Old Corrie to accept more than the ten pounds, and the young man was fain to yield.
"You were quite in earnest," said Old Corrie, "when you offered to give me a shakedown for the night?"
"I've a mind to be angry with you," responded Basil, "for asking the question. Let us settle matters between us once and for all, Corrie. You had a good opinion of me once."
"I had, Master Basil, and would have done much to serve you."
"You did do much-more than I had any right to expect, more than any other man did."
"Not more than any other man would have done," said Old Corrie, eyeing Basil attentively, "if he had lived."
"You refer to Anthony Bidaud?"
"I do. I haven't forgotten him, nor little lady, nor that skunk of an uncle of hers.
"We have much to talk over, you and I," said Basil, restraining the impulse to speak immediately of Annette, "but what is between us must first be settled and clearly understood. You are right about Anthony Bidaud. He would have been the first, but he died before his intentions could be fulfilled. Next to him you stand, and surely you would not have been the friend you were to me if you had not esteemed and trusted me."
"That goes without saying."
"As I was then, Corrie," continued Basil, earnestly, "so I am now. I have passed through the fire, and suffering may still await me, but I am and hope to remain, unchanged. Let us take up the thread Of friendship where it was broken off, on the goldfields, when Newman Chaytor and I were working together and when you endeavoured to persuade me to come home with you. Ah, what might I have been spared had I accepted your generous offer! Corrie, if ever there was a time in my life when I most needed a true friend, it is now. There is vital work before me to do, and you, and you alone, can help me. By Heavens, if you desert me I doubt whether I should be able to prove that I am I! Come, old friend, say that you will believe in me as of old, and that you will stick by me as you would have done in the old Australian days."
"Say no more," said Old Corrie. "I'll worry you no longer; it's scarcely fair play, for, Master Basil, I never doubted you in reality; but poverty is proud and suspicious, and often behaves like an ill-trained watch-dog. And besides, there are times in some men's lives when kindness is so rare and unexpected that it throws them off their balance. I don't pretend to understand half you have said about yourself, but I'll wait till you explain, and then if I can help you in any way, here I am, ready. I am wondering whether something that happened to me would be of interest to you-but, no, it is a foolish thought. Doubtless you have seen her, and now I come to think of it, perhaps there lies part of your trouble."
"Seen whom?" asked Basil.
"Little lady."
"No," cried Basil, in great excitement, "I have not seen her, and I would give the best years of my life to find her. You know where she is; you can take me to her!"
"Steady, lad, steady. I haven't seen her, and can't take you to her, but there's a sign-post that may show the way. There's no certainty in it; it's just a chance. What do you say if I lead up to it? It's late in the night, but I've no inclination to close my eyes, knowing I shouldn't sleep a wink, I'm that stirred up."
"Neither could I sleep, Corrie. Let us sit and talk and smoke; here's a spare pipe and tobacco-and you shall tell me in your own way."
Corrie nodded, and filled his pipe, and lit it Basil did the same, and waited in anxious expectancy, while Corrie puffed and contemplated the ceiling meditatively.
"In my own way, Master Basil?"
"In your own way, Corrie."
"A roundabout way, but there's plenty of time before daybreak, and then a couple of hours sleep will make us both fit. Old bushmen like ourselves won't miss one night's rest."
CHAPTER XXXV
There was distinct tenderness in Old Corrie's face as he watched the curling wreaths of smoke.
"I don't lay claim to being a poet," he said; "I leave that to my betters; but they almost seem to me to belong to poetry, these rings of smoke that come and go. They bring back old times, and I could fancy we were in the bush, sitting by the camp fire before turning in for the night, spinning yarns, and as happy as blackbirds in spring. There's no life like it, Master Basil, say what they will of the pleasures of the city. Pleasures! Good Lord! To think of the lives some lead here and then to speak of pleasures! I'm not going to preach, however; the ship's been battered about, but it has reached port," – he touched Basil's hand gratefully-"and here sits the old bushman recalling old times. I shan't dwell upon them because I know it would be trying your patience. I'd like you to give me a little information about yourself before I go on."
"Ask whatever you wish, Corrie."
"I left you on the goldfields, mates with Newman Chaytor, of whom, as you know, I did not have a good opinion."
"However badly you thought of him, you were justified."
"You found him out at last."
"I found him out at last."
"Did it take you long?"
"Years."
"Sorry to hear it. Did you get a proper knowledge of him suddenly or gradually?"
"Suddenly."
"And all the time he was practising on you?"
"He was."
"Master Basil," said Old Corrie, gravely, "you were never fit to battle with human nature; you never understood the worst half of it."
"Perhaps not, Corrie, but I understand it now. Newman Chaytor is a black-hearted villain."
"I am not surprised to hear you say so; I had my suspicions of him from the first. Unreasonable, I grant you, no grounds to go upon; but there they were, and I am sorry, for your sake, that they proved true. Where's my gentleman now?"
"In Europe, somewhere. I am hunting for him; it will be a dark day for the traitor when I come face to face with him."
Old Corrie looked at Basil keenly from under his eyebrows. "Do you want my assistance here?" he asked.
"I do. You must be with me, by my side, when he and I are together. With your aid, I succeed; without it, I fail. Do you require an incentive? I will give you two."
"I require none; it is sufficient that you want me and that you believe I can be of assistance to you."
"Still, I will give you the two incentives. One is, that it is not alone Newman Chaytor I am fighting: linked with him, if I have not been misinformed, is an associate worthy of him-Gilbert Bidaud."
"Little lady's uncle. A precious pair, he and Chaytor. If I needed spurring, this would do it."
"The other is, that I am not only fighting to defeat these scoundrels, but to save your little lady Annette."
"Enough, enough," said Old Corrie; "I'll bide my time to learn. Meanwhile, I pledge myself to you. Why, Master Basil, to give those two men their deserts, and to serve you and little lady, I'd go through fire and water. I will unfold my budget first, and will make it as short as I can. When I left you on the goldfields, I did what many another foolish fellow has done, went to Sydney and spent a week or two there on the spree. What kind of pleasure is to be got out of that operation heaven only knows, but it is supposed to be the correct thing for a brainless, lucky gold-digger to do, and it leaves him probably with empty pockets, and certainly with a headache and heartache that ought to teach him to be wiser in future. There was no excuse for me: I wasn't a young man, and wasn't fond of drink, and when at the end of a fortnight I came to my sober senses, I said, 'Corrie, you're an old fool,' and I never said a truer thing. That fortnight cost me a hundred pounds, I reckon. I treated every man whose face I recognised, and a good many that were strange to me, and I think it was the face of a gentleman I met in Pitt Street, who looked at me in a kind of wonder, that pulled me up short. Somehow or other he reminded me of you, Master Basil, though he wasn't a bit like you; but he was a gentleman, and you are a gentleman, and the thought ran into my head like a flash of fire, 'What would Master Basil think of me it he saw me now?' It staggered me, and I felt as if I was behaving like a traitor to you to so forget myself. You had given me your friendship, and I was showing that I was unworthy of it. I made my way back to the hotel I was staying at, and plunged my head into a bucket of water, and kept it there until I had washed away the fumes of half the cursed liquor I had poured down my throat. Then I went to my bedroom, locked the door, threw myself on the bed, and slept myself sober. 'Never again, Corrie, old boy,' I said, 'never again.' And I never did again, although I did some foolish things afterwards that were quite as unwise though less disgraceful. I took ship home and landed at St. Katherine's Docks with four thousand pounds in my pocket. Yes, Master Basil, I had made that much and more on the goldfields, and it ought to have lasted me my life. You shall hear how long it did last me. As a matter of course I was regularly knocked over when I walked through the London streets. The crowds of people, the gay shops, the cabs and 'busses, and carriages, the hurly-burly, the great buildings, almost took my breath away. I looked back at my old life in the woods, swinging my axe, felling trees, and splitting slabs, with my laughing jackass on a branch near me, and the hum of nature all around me, and I hardly knew whether I was awake or dreaming. Was I happy in the London streets? I can't say; I was certainly bewildered, and that, mayhap, prevented me from thinking of things in a sensible way. I was looking in a shop window, speculating whether I oughtn't to buy some of the bright ties for sale there, when a voice at my elbow says 'Good day, mate.' 'Good day, mate,' said I, though the man was a stranger to me, at least I thought so at the moment, but he soon unsettled my thought. 'Where have I met you, mate?' said he. 'In what part of the world?' 'On the goldfields, perhaps,' said I, like an innocent pigeon. 'Most likely,' he said, on the goldfields. 'Your face strikes me as familiar, but I don't remember your name.' 'My name is Corrie,' said I; 'Old Corrie I used to be called.' 'No,' he said, shaking his head; 'I don't remember it. I've seen you on the goldfields, that's all, and it's only because I never forget a face that I took the liberty of speaking to you. I ask your pardon.' 'No offence, mate,' I said, and I shook the hand he held out before he left me. Now, Master Basil, if that man had said, when I told him my name, that we were old acquaintances, I should have been suspicious of him, but his honest admission (it seemed honest) that he only recognised my face because he'd seen it once or twice on the goldfields-which would have been the most natural thing in the world-made me look upon him with favour, and as he walked away, I gazed after him with a feeling of regret that he should leave me so quickly. He may have gone a dozen yards when he looked back over his shoulder, and seeing me staring after him, turned with a smile, and joined me again. 'It looks churlish scudding off so unceremoniously,' said he, 'when I might by chance be of service to you. When did you arrive?' 'I landed this morning,' I said, and I mentioned the name of the ship. 'Have you friends in London?' he asked. 'No,' said I, 'I am a stranger here.' 'Then you haven't taken lodgings yet,' said he. 'No,' I answered, 'and to tell you the truth I am puzzled where to go.' He offered to advise me, and I gladly availed myself of the offer. 'Come and have a chop with me first,' said he, and we went to an eating-house all gilt and glass-I found out afterwards that the street we were in was Cheapside-and had a chop and some beer. He threw half-a-sovereign to the waiter, but I objected to it saying I would pay. He insisted, saying he had invited me; but I insisted too, saying I had plenty of money, and would take it as a favour if he would let me have my way. The friendly wrangle ended in each of us paying his own score, and then as though we had known each other all our lives, we went out together to a quiet hotel, in a narrow street in the Strand, down by the river, where I engaged a bedroom. I'll cut a long story short, Master Basil, so far as my new friend goes, by telling you how it ended with me and him. He was so clever, and I was so simple, that he wormed himself completely into my confidence, and I thought myself lucky in having made such a friend. He told me all about himself, and I told him all about myself; it was a regular case of Siamese twins: we were never apart. One day he spoke of speculation, and of doubling one's money in a week, and doubling it again when the opportunity offered, which wasn't too often. 'Of your four thousand pounds, you make eight,' said he, 'of your eight thousand you make sixteen, and if you like to stop, why there you are, you know.' Yes, there I was, and no mistake. The opportunity that presented itself to my confidential friend was something in my way-a quartz reef on the Avoca, to be formed into a company. He showed me figures which I couldn't dispute, and didn't wish to dispute. The truth is, Master Basil, he had dazzled me. Sixteen thousand pounds was certainly better than four, and to be content with one when you had only to put your name on a piece of paper to secure the other was the act of a simpleton. The upshot of it was that I went into the company and signed away the whole of my money with the exception of a hundred pounds, and very soon found out that I had signed it away for ever and a day. Good-bye, my three thousand nine hundred pounds, and good-bye to my dear friend who had tickled me into his web and made mincemeat of me. I never saw anything of either money or friend again."
Old Corrie paused to load his pipe, which gave Basil time to remark:
"You said just now that I knew nothing of the worst side of human nature. How about yourself, Corrie?"
"It was my one mistake, Master Basil," replied Corrie composedly. "There's no excuse for me; I was an old fool. Let me have four thousand pounds again, and see if I'm bit a second time. Now, being stranded with about enough to keep a fellow but little more than a year, what was I to do? If I had been the wise man I'm trying to make myself out to be, I should have taken passage to Australia, and taken up my old life there. But more than one thing held me back, and kept me here. First, there was a foolish pride; to retreat was to confess myself beaten. Second, there was the chance of meeting with the friend who had diddled me; it was about as strong as one thread of a spider's web, but I dangled it before me. Third, I had never known what it was to be without a crust of bread, and therefore had no fears on that score. Another thing, perhaps, which only just now occurs to me, kept me in this country. When I was a youngster there was a fatalist among my acquaintances. He was the only thoroughly happy man I have ever known. Nothing worried or disturbed him; he was a poor man, and he never grumbled at being poor; he met with misfortunes, and he accepted them smilingly, and never struggled against them; if he had broken his leg, and it had to be amputated, he wouldn't have winced during the operation. He had what he called a philosophical theory, and he explained it to me. 'Nothing that anyone can do,' he said, 'will prevent anything occurring. Everything that is going to happen is set down beforehand, and an army ten million strong couldn't stop a straw from blowing a certain way if fate ordained that it was to blow that way. You can't prevent yourself from being imposed upon, from being poor, from being rich, from being sick, from being healthy, from living till you're a hundred, from dying when you're twenty, from having a wife and blooming family, from living alone in a garret. Therefore,' said he, 'it's of no use bothering about things. Do as I do-take 'em easy.' 'But how,' I said once to him, 'if I've got a different temper from yours, and worry myself to death about trifles?' 'Then you are much to be pitied,' said he, 'and I shall not trouble myself about you.' I pressed, him, though, a little. 'If a man is good?' I asked. 'He is fated to be good,' he answered. 'If he is a murderer?' I asked. 'He is fated to be a murderer,' he answered. 'If he is born to be hanged, hanged he will be, as sure as there's a sun above us.' Well, now, Master Basil, perhaps it was fated that I should remain in England in order to meet with a certain adventure which I will tell you of presently, and afterwards to meet you here in London to-night to assist you to a fated end."
"It is a hateful theory," said Basil. "Were it true, vice would be as meritorious as virtue, and monsters of iniquity would rank side by side with angels of goodness. Go on with your story, Corrie, and put fatalism aside."
"So be it. Anyway, there I was, as my friend said, with a hundred pounds in my pocket instead of sixteen thousand. I wasn't quite devoid of prudence; I knew that a hundred pounds wouldn't last very long, and that it would be as well if I could hit upon some plan to earn a livelihood. It was the hop-picking season. 'I'll do a little hopping,' said I, and off I set towards the heart of Kent for an autumn tour, seasoned with so many or so few shillings a day. On the second night of my tramp I missed my way. I was in a woody country, with the usual puzzling tracks and fences. The night was fine, but very dark. Camping out in England is a very different thing from camping out in Australia, and I didn't intend to camp out here if I could help it. But I was tired, and I squatted myself on the grass which grew on a hill side, and thought I'll rest an hour and then stumble onwards on the chance of reaching a village where I could get a night's lodging. I was very comfortable; my legs hung down, there was a rest for my back, and without any intention of doing so, I fell asleep. I was awakened by something alive and warm quite close to me; I could not see what it was, because when I opened my eyes I found that the night, from being dark, had got black. There was not a star visible-everything was black, above, below, around. But what was the object close to me? I put out my hand and felt flesh covered with hair. 'A dog,' thought I; but passing my hand along the body, I dismissed the dog idea in consequence of the size of the animal. It was not high enough nor smooth enough for a horse. A donkey, perhaps; but if a donkey, why was it muzzled? The creature uttered no sound while my hand was upon it, but when I took my hand away to get a match-the only means at my command to obtain a view of my strange companion-it put its head upon my arm, and then a foot, just as though it wanted to pull me along in some particular direction-and then I heard a growl. It made me start, though it was not a threatening growl, and I wondered what sort of animal this could be that had attached itself to me at such a time and in such a place. The next sound I heard was the clank of a chain. I should have taken to my heels if I had not been deterred by the thought that it might be safer to keep still, so I softly took out my matchbox and struck a light-and there, with only a few inches between our faces, was a great brown bear. I was startled, but I soon got over my fears. I struck half a dozen matches, one after the other, to get a good look at my new mate, and with the lighting of each fresh match I became more assured. I took its paw in my hand, and found that its claws had been pared down; it opened its mouth, and there was scarcely a tooth in it; I happened to hold up my arm, with the lighted match in my hand, and the bear immediately stood on its hind legs and pawed the air. I jumped immediately at the right conclusion. The creature was a harmless performing bear, and it had either escaped from its master, or the man was not far off, and it wished to lead me to him. I made an experiment. I rose, picked up the end of the chain and cried, 'March!' March the bear did, and I after it, for about a mile, and then it lay down by something on the road, and moaned. I declare, Master Basil, there was a human sound in that moan, and I knelt by its side and took a man's head on my knee. He was a foreigner, but could speak fairly good English, and he told me that he had met with an accident, having slipped on his ankle, and could not walk. 'Bruno went for assistance,' said Bruno's master. 'Good Bruno! Good Bruno!' The kind voice of the man attracted me: the affection between bear and master attracted me; and I asked what I could do, saying the country was strange to me, and I did not know my way. 'But I know,' said the man; 'there is a village two miles off. Help me to get on Bruno's back, and we will go there, if you will be so good as to keep with me.' I said I would keep with him, partly because I wanted a bed to sleep in myself, and partly because I should be glad to be of service to him. With some difficulty I got him on Bruno's back-the man was in pain, but he bore it well-and the three of us trudged through the dark roads to the village, the man with his head on my shoulder to keep his balance. It wasn't easy to get a lodging; every house was shut, and then there was the bear, that nobody cared to take in, not believing it was a harmless creature. However, we managed it at last; Bruno was fastened up in an empty stable, and I helped its master to a room where there were a couple of straw beds. His ankle was badly sprained, and the next morning it was very little better. He managed to limp out, and the pair of us, leading the bear, trudged to a common where a village fair was being held, and there Bruno's master began to put the bear through its performances. Pain compelled him to stop, and he asked me to take his place, instructing me what words and gestures to use to make the patient creature do this or that. I got along so well that I was quite proud of myself, and the comicality of my suddenly becoming a showman never struck me till the evening, when the day's work was done. You've come to something, Corrie,' said I, and I shook with laughter. After tea the man counted up the takings, which amounted to close on ten shillings, and divided them into three parts. 'One for Bruno,' said he, 'one for me, one for you.' He pointed to my share, and I took it and pocketed it as though I had been in the business all my life. Again, Master Basil, I'm going to cut a long story short. I could talk all night about my adventures with Bruno and its master, but I must come to the pith of my story. Take it, then, that the three of us travelled about for nearly twelve months, just managing to pick up a living, that my foreign mate fell sick and had to go into a hospital, that he died there, and that at his death I found myself with Bruno on my hands, established as a regular showman. I accepted the position; I could do nothing else; I couldn't run away from the bear because I felt I should in some way be held answerable to the law for desertion; we belonged to each other, and it wasn't at my option to dissolve the partnership. My little stock of money was diminished by this time in consequence of my mate's illness and the expenses of his funeral, and I knew that Bruno's antics would always earn me a few shillings a week. So there we were, Bruno and I, going about the country with never a word or growl of disagreement between us till we came to a fashionable sea-side place called Bournemouth. I had gone through the performances, and Bruno and I were walking from street to street looking for another pitch when I was struck almost dumb with amazement at a sound that reached my ears. It was the voice of a bird speaking some words in a loud key, and the words were-what do you think, Master Basil?"