Loe raamatut: «Basil and Annette», lehekülg 14
CHAPTER XXI
When a man evilly inclined turns from the path of evil, it is generally because he fears for his own safety. He does not choose the straight road or relinquish a bad purpose from the awakening of the moral principle, but from a conviction that the deviation will best serve his own interests. In the initial stages of a bad scheme the prime mover seldom counts the cost; it is only when he is deeply involved that the consequences of his evil-doing stare him in the face, and warn him to halt. True repentance is rare; but there have been instances where a man, suddenly appalled by the enormity of his career of crime, conscientiously resolves to turn before it is too late, and to expiate, as far as lies in his power, for his misdeeds. There is something of heroism in this, and the sinner may hope for forgiveness at the divine throne, if not from human hands. Of such heroism Newman Chaytor was not capable. If he wavered, it was purely from selfish reasons, and because he saw before him a path in which lay greater chances of safety for himself. That he did waver is true, and the more wholesome and more merciful course which suggested itself to him was due, not to conscientious motives, but to circumstances quite independent of his original design. On the day following his disturbing dream he and Basil struck a wonderfully rich patch in the claim they were working. The stuff which was raised to the surface was literally studded with gold, and by nightfall they had washed out fifty ounces. The excitements of a gold-digger's life when fortune smiles upon him are all-absorbing. Marvellous possibilities dazzle and distort his mind; delirious visions rise to his imagination. In the early days of the goldfields it was a belief with numbers of miners that, at some time or other, gold would be discovered in such quantities that it could be hewn out like coal. A favourite phrase was, "We shall be able to cut it out with a cold chisel." Of course every man hoped that this wonderful thing would happen to him. He held a chance in the lottery, and why should he not draw the grand prize which would astonish the world?
These possibilities flitted through Chaytor's mind as he and Basil sat at the door of their tent, smoking their pipes after their day's labour. The chairs they sat on were stumps of trees. Furniture they had none, inside their tent or out of it. For their beds they had gathered quantities of dry leaves, over which they spread a blanket, with another to roll themselves in. Rough living, but healthier than life in civilised cities. Early to bed and early to rise, plain food, moderate drinking, exercising their muscles for a dozen hours a day-all this was conducive to a healthy physical state. Their faces were embrowned, their limbs were hardened, their beards had grown long-they looked like men. This may be said of Chaytor as well as of Basil, for such play of expression as would have revealed the cunning of his nature was hidden by his abundant hair. A stranger, observing them, would have been astonished at the likeness of one to the other, and could have formed no other conclusion than that they were twin-born; but no stranger had seen them thus, for it was only during their late seclusion that Chaytor, had copied Basil so exactly. Basil took but little note of this resemblance, and if he referred to it at all it was in a manner so slight as to show that he attached no importance to it. But it was seldom absent from Chaytor's mind; he had brooded constantly upon it, and had studied it as a lesson which, perfectly answered, was to bring with it the rich reward for which he had schemed.
"A good day's work," said Basil, holding out his hand for the tin dish which Chaytor held.
This tin dish contained the gold which they had gathered since sunrise, and Chaytor was turning it over with his knife. The moisture had dried out of it, and the gold lay loose. Chaytor passed the dish to Basil, who, in his turn, played with the shining metal with somewhat more than usual interest.
"Nearly as much," said Chaytor, "as we've got these last five weeks. It is a rare good day's work-if only it will last."
"That's the question," said Basil; "I should like to weigh it."
They entered the tent, and weighed the gold in the gold scales, which form part of a miner's working implements. It turned the fifty ounces.
"Honestly paid for," said Basil, "it represents a couple of hundred pounds. A hundred pounds each."
Chaytor merely nodded, and made no comment upon the remark, but it dwelt in his mind. Not so very long ago Basil had expressed indifference regarding their possessions of gold, and had gone the length of saying that Chaytor might have his share, for all he cared for it. Now he expressed an interest in it, and reckoned their day's work at "a hundred pounds each." That indicated that he looked upon half as his fair share. What did this newly-awakened interest portend? With his instinctive cunning Chaytor felt that this was not a favourable time to open up the subject; far better to let it work quietly until it came to a natural head. Besides, he was feverishly engrossed in the question he had suggested, whether the rich patch they had struck would last. Time alone could answer that question. They retired to their beds of dry leaves a little earlier than usual, and were at work in the morning with the rising of the sun. Basil worked chiefly at the bottom of the shaft, Chaytor at the top, and the honest man of this ill-assorted pair sent up two buckets of stuff before breakfast, which was even richer than they had raised on the previous day. Basil climbed to earth's surface hand over hand.
"He uses the rope like a cat," thought Chaytor.
The two buckets of stuff were emptied into a tub.
"Let us wash it out before breakfast," said Basil.
They went down to the river, carrying the tub between them. On the top of the auriferous soil were two tin basins, and, after puddling the tub well and letting the worthless refuse flow over the brim, they set to work washing what remained in the basins, with that rotary motion in which gold-diggers are so skilful, and which enables them to get rid of the loosened earth, and keep the heavy precious metal at a safe angle in the bottom of the dish. It had hitherto been Basil's practice to leave this delicate operation to Chaytor, but on this morning he took part in it, using one dish, while Chaytor used the other. Chaytor took, note of every small circumstance; nothing escaped him.
"This is a new move of yours, Basil," he said.
"I am beginning to take a real interest in the work," admitted Basil. "In a manner of speaking, it is waking me up."
"Glad to hear it," said Chaytor. "These two buckets are worth something. There's not less than twenty ounces."
There was more; the stuff they had washed yielded twenty-three ounces, and the whole day's yield was worth four hundred pounds.
"Nothing to complain of now, Chaytor," observed Basil in the evening.
"Nothing." Basil was busy with paper and pencil. "What are you up to there? Figuring?"
"Yes," replied Basil. "I am reckoning how much four hundred pounds a day would bring us in at the end of the year. Here it is. Three hundred and twelve working days in the year, leaving Sundays free."
"Why should we do that?" asked Chaytor. "There's no one to see us. It would be a sheer waste of so much money."
Basil looked up in surprise; the remark was not agreeable to him, the tone in which it was spoken was still less so.
"I am old-fashioned perhaps," he said. "I do not choose to work on the Sabbath day."
"Growing particular."
"No; I have always held the same notion."
"We'll not argue. What is your reckoning?"
"Three hundred and twelve working days a year," continued Basil. "Twelve days for sickness, leaving three hundred. At four hundreds pound a day we get a total of a hundred and twenty thousand-in pounds. Sixty thousand pounds each. Truly, a great fortune."
"If it lasts," again said Chaytor.
"Of course, if it lasts. There's the chance of its getting better. How does it look to you-as if it will hold out?"
Chaytor had been down the claim for some hours during the day, and had pocketed between forty and fifty ounces, which he chose to regard as his own special treasure trove.
"There's no saying," he said. "The vein runs sideways into the rock. It may peg out at any moment."
"We shall not have done badly by the time it does. I have to thank you for bringing me here."
"Yes," said Chaytor, ungraciously; "it was my discovery. Don't forget that."
"I shall never forget it, Chaytor, nor any of the other good turns you have done me. I don't know whether it is a healthy or an unhealthy sign that this better luck should have aroused me from the apathy in which I have been so long plunged. It has softened me; the crust of indifference, of disbelief in human goodness, is melting away, I am glad to say. That this is due to the prospect of becoming rich is not very creditable; I would rather that the change in me had sprung from a less worldly cause; it would have made me better satisfied with myself. But we mortals are very much of the earth, earthy, and we take too readily the impressions of immediate circumstances and of our surroundings. They mould our characters, as it were, and change them for better or worse."
"You can do a lot of thinking in a little time, Basil."
"How so, Chaytor?"
"Because yesterday you were black, to-day you are white. Yesterday it was a bad world; to-day it is a good one. A rapid transformation, savouring somewhat of fickleness."
"A just reproof, but I cannot alter my nature. I have never given myself credit for much stability except in my affections, and there, I think, I am constant. As you say, a little reflection has effected a great change in me. We judge the world too much from our own stand-point. We are fortunate, we trust and are not deceived, we love and are loved in return, our daily labour is rewarded-it is a good world, a bright world. We are unfortunate, we trust and are deceived, we love and are not loved in return, we toil and reap dead leaves-it is a bad world, a black world. That is the way with us."
"All of which wise philosophy has sprung from our discovery of a rich patch of gold."
"I am afraid I can ascribe these better and juster feelings to no other cause."
"Basil," said Chaytor, toying with his pipe and tobacco, "say that your reckoning should be justified by results. Say that we work here undiscovered for a year-for there is the contingency of our being tracked to be thought of-"
"Of course."
"Say that we do not fall ill or meet with an accident which disables us, say that to-day is but a sample of all the other days to follow in the next twelve months, say that we make a hundred thousand pounds, what would you do with your share? For I suppose," said Chaytor, with a light laugh, "that the offer you once made of letting me keep the lot if we struck gold rich, is now withdrawn."
"I am properly reproved. Yes, Chaytor, I should expect my share." Basil said this in a rather shamefaced voice. "It proves in the first place that I am not a very dependable fellow, and in the second place it proves my philosophy, that we are moulded by immediate circumstances."
"Oh, it is natural enough; I never expected to meet with a man who would step out of the ordinary grooves. There are temptations which it is impossible to resist, and you and I are no different from the rest of mankind."
"I should place you above the majority, Chaytor."
"I am obliged to you, but I am as modest as yourself, and cannot accept the distinction. Well, Basil, say that everything happened as I have described, what would you do at the end of the year, with its wonderful result of overflowing purses?" Basil was silent and Chaytor continued: "You said once that you intended to live and die in the colonies. Do you stick to that?"
"No."
"What would you do?"
"I should return to England."
Chaytor shivered. This good fortune, then, which he had bestowed upon Basil, was to be the means of his own destruction. Basil in England, nothing could prevent his treachery being discovered. He had led to his own ruin. With assumed unconcern he asked:
"For any specific purpose, Basil?"
"It has dawned upon me, Chaytor, that in my thoughts I may have done injustice to one whom I loved and who loved me."
"The little girl, Annette?"
"The little girl, Annette."
"But, speaking of love as you do, one would suppose that she was a woman. Whereas she was a mere child when you last saw her."
"That is true, and I speak of her only as a child. Chaytor, there was something so sweet in Annette's nature that she grew in my heart as a beloved sister might have done. To that length I went; no farther. Have you ever felt the influence of a child's innocent love? It purifies you; it is a charm against evil thoughts and evil promptings. Annette's affection was like an amulet lying on my heart."
"Your object in returning to England would be to seek her out?"
"I should endeavour to find her. Her silence may have been enforced. She may be unhappy; I might be of service to her. There are other reasons. I seem in this far-off country to be cut off from sympathy, from humanizing influences. The life does not suit me. A man, after all, is not a stone; he has duties, obligations, which he should endeavour to fulfil. You have heard me speak of my uncle. He was kind to me for a great many years, up to the point of my offending him. He is old: consideration is due to him. I should go to him and say, 'I do not want your money; give it to whom you will, but let us be friends.'"
"A hundred to one that he would show you the door," said Chaytor, who found in these revelations more than sufficient food for thought.
"At all events I should have done my duty; but I think you are mistaken. He has a tender heart under a rough exterior, and was always fond of me, even, I believe, when he cast me off. I should not wonder if he has not sometimes thought, 'Why did Basil take me at my word? Why did he not make advances towards me?' He would be right in so thinking; I ought to have striven for a reconcilement. But I was as obstinate as he was himself, and perhaps prouder because I was poor. In a sort of way I defied him, and as good as said I could do without him. I was wrong; I should have acted differently.
"You seem to me, Basil," said Chaytor, slowly, "to fall somewhat into the same error in speaking of him as you do when you speak of Annette. You speak of the little girl as if she was a woman; you speak of your uncle as if he is living."
"If he is dead I should learn the truth."
"I suppose that you would not leave the colony unless you were rich?"
"I think not; I should be placing myself in a false position. We will not talk of it any more to-night, Chaytor. I am tired and shall go to bed."
"So shall I. The conversation has been a bit too sentimental for me. Besides, when you say that you are cut off from sympathy and human influences here, you are not paying me a very great compliment, after the sacrifices I have made for you. But it is the way of the world."
"Why, Chaytor," said Basil, with affectionate emphasis, "I never proposed that we should part. My hope was that we should go home together. You are as much out of place here as I am. With your capacities and with money in your pocket, you could carve a career in England which would make you renowned."
"It is worth thinking of; but I must have your renewed promise, Basil, that you will not throw up our partnership here till we have made our fortune."
"I give you the promise. It would be folly to land in the old country penniless."
"So that the upshot of it is, that it all depends upon money. In my opinion everything in life does."
"You do yourself an injustice, and are not speaking in your usual vein. I daresay I am to blame for it. Forgive me, friend."
"Oh, there's nothing to forgive; but it is strange, isn't it, that the first difference we have had should have sprung from the prospect of our making our pile? Good night, old fellow."
"Good night, Chaytor."
CHAPTER XXII
Chaytor lay awake that night, brooding. He found himself on the horns of a dilemma, and all the cunning of his nature was needed to meet the difficulty and overcome it successfully. The scheme he had laid, and very nearly matured, had been formed and carried out in the expectation that the run of ill-luck which had pursued him on the goldfields would continue. But now the prospect was suddenly altered. Gold floated before his eyes; he saw the stuff in the claim they were working more thickly studded than ever with the precious metal; extravagant as were the calculations which Basil had worked out they were not too extravagant for his imagination, and certainly not sufficiently extravagant for his cupidity. There was no reason in the world why these anticipations should not be more than fulfilled. Fabulous fortunes had been realised on the goldfields before to-day-why should not the greatest that had ever been made be theirs? He was compelled to take Basil into this calculation. He could not work alone in the claim; a mate was necessary, and where should he find one so docile as Basil? With all his heart he hated Basil, who seemed to hold in his hands the fate of the man who had schemed to destroy him. Luck had changed and the end he had in view must be postponed, must even, perhaps, be ultimately abandoned. To turn his back upon the fortune within his grasp for a problematical fortune in the old country was not to be dreamt of. The bird he had in hand was worth infinitely more than the two he had in the bush-these two being Annette and Basil's uncle. The result of his cogitations was that the scheme upon which he had been engaged should remain in abeyance until it was proved whether the gold they had struck in their claim was a flash in the pan, or would hold out till their fortunes were made. In the former case he would carry out his scheme to the bitter end: in the latter he would amass as much money as he could, and then fly to America, where life would be almost as enjoyable as in England. It was hardly likely, if Basil discovered his treachery, that he would follow him for the mere purpose of revenge. "He is not vindictive," thought the rogue; "he is a soft-hearted fool, and will let me alone." Thus resolved, Chaytor waited for events. It is an example of the tortuous reasoning by which villainy frequently seeks to justify itself that Chaytor threw from his soul the responsibility of a contemplated crime, by arguing that the result did not depend upon him but upon nature. If the claim proved to be as rich as they hoped, Basil would be spared; if the gold ran out, he must take the consequences. Having thus established that circumstance would be the criminal, the evil-hearted man disposed himself for sleep.
He had not long to wait to decide which road he was to tread. During the week they learned that their anticipations of wealth were not to be realised. Each bucket of earth that was sent up from the shaft became poorer and poorer, and from the last they obtained but a few grains of gold. The following day they met with no better fortune; the rich patch was exhausted; the pocket in which they had found the gold was empty.
"Down tumble our castles," said Basil, with a certain bitterness.
"We may strike another rich patch," said Chaytor, and thought, "I will not wait much longer. I am sick of fortune's freaks; I will take the helm again, and steer my ship into pleasure's bay."
He went to the township, openly for provisions and secretly to see if there was any news from England. There were letters at the Post Office awaiting Basil Whittingham, Esq. Chaytor put them in his pocket without opening them, purchased some provisions, and set forth to rejoin Basil. He was more careful in his movements than he had ever been. He had a premonition that the unopened letters contained news of more than ordinary importance, and if he were tracked and followed now his plans would be upset and all the trouble he had taken thrown away. Basil and he were hidden from the world; no one knew of their whereabouts, no person had any knowledge of their proceedings. Should Basil disappear, who would suspect? Not a soul. Basil had not a friend or acquaintance in all the colonies who was anxious for his safety or would be curious to know what had become of him.
Midway between the township at which he had obtained Basil's letters and the claim which had animated him with delusive hopes the schemer halted for rest. He listened and looked about warily to make sure that no one had followed him. Not a sound fell upon his ears, no living thing was within hail. There are parts of the Australian woods which are absolutely voiceless for twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours. This one hour, maybe, is rendered discordant by the crows, whose harsh cries grate ominously upon the ear. At the present moment, however, these pestilential birds were far away, and satisfied that there was no witness of his proceedings, Chaytor threw himself upon the earth and opened the letters. The first he read was from the lawyers, who had already written to Basil in reply to the letters his false friend had forged. It was to the following effect: -
"Dear Sir,
"We write at the request of your uncle, Mr. Bartholomew Whittingham, who, we regret to say, is seriously ill. He desires us to inform you that he has abandoned the intention as to the disposition of his property with which he made you acquainted before your departure from England. A will has been drawn out and duly signed, constituting you his sole heir. Ordinarily this would not have been made known to you until the occurrence of a certain event which appears imminent, but our client wished it otherwise, and as doctors happily are not invariably correct in their prognostications it may happen that you will yet be in time to see him if you use dispatch upon the receipt of this communication, and take ship for England without delay. To enable you to do this we enclose a sight draft upon the Union Bank of Australia for five hundred pounds, and should advise you to lose not a day in putting it to the use desired by our client. It is our duty at the same time to say that we hold out no hope that you will arrive in time. In the expectation of seeing you within a reasonable period, and receiving your instructions, we have the honour to remain,
"Your obedient servants,"Bulfinch & Bulfinch."
There was another letter from the lawyers:
""Dear Sir,
"Following our letter of yesterday's date we write to say that we have been directed by your uncle Mr. Bartholomew Whittingham, to forward to you the sealed enclosure which you will find herewith. We regret to inform you that our client is sinking fast, and that the doctors who are attending him fear that he cannot last through the week.
"We have the honour to remain,
"Your obedient servants,"Bulfinch & Bulfinch."
Before unfastening the "sealed enclosure," Chaytor rose in a state of great excitement, and allowed his thoughts to find audible expression:
"At last! Here is the certainty. No more Will-o'-the-wisps. Fortune is mine-do you hear? – mine. Truly, justly mine. Who has worked for it but I? Tell me that. Would the idiot Basil ever have humbled himself as I did; would he ever have worked his old uncle as I have done? What is the result? I softened the old fellow's heart, and the money he would have left to some charity has fallen to me. Every labourer is worthy of his hire, and I am worthy of mine. Basil would never have had one penny of the fortune, and therefore it is my righteous due. At last, at last! No more sweating and toiling. The world is before me, and I shall live the life of a gentleman. There is work still to be done, both here and at home, and I will do it. No blenching, Chaytor; no flinching now. What has to be done must and shall be done. There is less danger in making the winning move than in upsetting the board after the game I have played. Hurrah! Let me see what the precious 'enclosure' has to say for itself."
He broke the seal, and read:
"My Dear Nephew Basil,
"My sands of life are running out, and before it is too late I write to you, probably for the last time. You will be glad to hear from me direct, I know, for your nature is different from mine, and your heart has always been open to tender impressions. When I cast you from me I dare say you suffered, but after my first unjust feeling of resentment was over my sufferings have been far greater than yours could have been. It is the honest truth that in abandoning you I abandoned the only real pleasure which life had for me; but my obstinacy, dear lad, would not allow me to take steps towards a reconcilement. It may be that had you done so I should still have hardened my heart against you, and should have done you the injustice of thinking that you wished to propitiate me for selfish motives. In these, as I believe them to be, the last hours of my life, I have no wish to spare myself; I can see more clearly now than I have done for many a long year, and my pride deserves no excuse. This 'pride' has been the bane of my life; it has sapped the fountains of innocent enjoyment; it has enveloped me in a steel shroud which shut me out from love and sympathy. You, and you alone, since I was a young man, were able to penetrate this shroud, and even to you I showed only that worse side of myself by which the world must have judged me. I did not give myself the trouble of inquiring whether the counsel I was instilling into you was true or false; I see now that it was false, and it is some comfort to me to know that your nature was too simple and honourable, too loving and sympathetic, to be warped by it. Early in life I met with a disappointment which soured me. There is no need to inscribe that page in this letter-a loving letter, I beg you to believe. It was a disappointment in love, and from the day I experienced it I became soured and embittered. I was a poor man at the time, and I devoted myself to the task of making money; I made it, and much good has it done me. With wealth at my command I set up two dark starting points, which I allowed to influence me in every question under consideration-one, money, the other human selfishness. These, with a dogged and obstinate belief in the correctness of my own judgment on every matter which came before me, made me what I have been. I had no faith, I had no religion; my life was godless, and the attribute of selfishness which I ascribed to the actions of all other men guided and controlled me in mine. You never really saw me in my true character. That I regarded money as the greatest good I did not conceal from you, but other sides of me, even more objectionable than this, were not, I think, revealed to you. The mischief I would have done you glanced off harmlessly, as the action you took in ruining yourself to pay your father's debts proved. You were armed with an shield, my dear lad, a shield in which shone the religious principle, honourable conduct, and faith in human nature. Be thankful for that armour, Basil; it is not every man who is so blessed. And let me tell you this. It is often an inheritance, and if not that, it is often furnished by a mother's loving teaching and influence. You had the sweetest of mothers; mine was of harder grain. I lay no blame upon her, nor, I repeat, do I seek to excuse myself, but I would point out to you, as a small measure of extenuation, that some of us are more fortunate than others in the early training we receive, and in the possession of inherited virtues.
"Basil, my dear lad, you did right in paying your father's debts, despite the base view I expressed of your action. Angry that a step so important should have been taken without my consent being asked, angry, indeed, that it should have been taken at all, I said to myself, 'I will punish him for it; I will teach him a lesson.' So I wrote you a heartless letter, informing you that I had resolved to disinherit you, and suggesting that you should return the money I had freely given you and which was justly yours. There are few men in the world who would have treated that request as you did, and you could not have dealt me a harder blow than when you forwarded me a cheque for the amount, with interest added. Your independence, your manliness, hardened instead of softened me; 'He does it to defy me,' I thought, and I allowed you to leave England under the impression that the ties which had bound us together were irrevocably destroyed. But the blow I aimed at you recoiled upon myself; your reply to my mean and sordid request has been a bitter sting to me, and had you sought to revenge yourself upon me you could not have accomplished your purpose more effectually. I have always lived a lonely life, as you know; since I lost you my home has been still more cheerless and lonesome; but I would not call you back-no, my pride stopped me: I could not endure the thought that you or any man should triumph over me. You see, my boy, I am showing you the contemptible motives by which I was actuated; it is a punishment I inflict upon myself; and I deserve the harshest judgment you could pass upon me. If my time were to come over again, would I act differently? I cannot say. A man's matured character is not easily twisted out of its usual grooves. I am as I have been made, or, to speak more correctly, as I chose to make myself, and I have been justly punished.
"But, Basil, if the harvest I have gathered has been worthless to me and to others, some good may result from it in the future. Not at my hands, at yours. You are my sole heir, and you will worthily use the money I leave you. I look forward to the years to come, and I see you in a happy home, with wife and children around you, and it may be then that you will give me a kind thought and that you will place a flower on my grave.
"I am greatly relieved by this confession. Good-bye, my lad, and God bless you.
