and came towards him, pushing their shadows before them on the milk-white ground.
"'D evenin', doc," said the shorter of the two, a nuggetty little man who carried his arms curved out from his sides, gorilla-fashion.
"Oh, good evening, Mr. Ocock," said Mahony, recognising a neighbour.— "Why, Tom, that you? Back already, my boy?"—this to a loutish, loose-limbed lad who followed behind.—"You don't of course come from the meeting?"
"Not me, indeed!" gave back his visitor with gall, and turned his head to spit the juice from a plug. "I've got suthin' better to do as to listen to a pack o' jabberin' furriners settin' one another by th'ears."
"Nor you, Tom?" Mahony asked the lad, who stood sheepishly shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
"Nay, nor 'im eether," jumped in his father, before he could speak. "I'll 'ave none o' my boys playin' the fool up there. And that reminds me, doc, young Smith'll git 'imself inter the devil of a mess one o' these days, if you don't look after 'im a bit better'n you do. I 'eard 'im spoutin' away as I come past—usin' language about the Gover'ment fit to turn you sick."
Mahony coughed. "He's but young yet," he said drily. "After all, youth's youth, sir, and comes but once in a lifetime. And you can't make lads into wiseacres between sundown and sunrise."
"No, by Gawd, you can't!" affirmed his companion. "But I think youth's just a fine name for a sort o' piggish mess What's the good, one 'ud like to know, of gettin' old, and learnin' wisdom, and knowin' the good from the bad, when ev'ry lousy young fathead that's born inter the world starts out again to muddle through it for 'imself, in 'is own way. And that things 'as got to go on like this, just the same, for ever and ever—why, it makes me fair tired to think of it. My father didn't 'old with youth: 'e knocked it out of us by thrashin', just like lyin' and thievin'. And it's the best way, too.— Wot's that you say?" he flounced round on the unoffending Tom. "Nothin'? You was only snifflin', was you? You keep your fly-trap shut, my fine fellow, and make no mousy sounds to me, or it'll be the worse for you, I can tell you!"
"Come, Mr. Ocock, don't be too hard on the boy."
"Not be 'ard on 'im? When I've got the nasty galoon on me 'ands again like this?—Chucks up the good post I git 'im in Kilmore, without with your leave or by your leave. Too lonely for 'is lordship it was. Missed the sound o' wimmin's petticoats, 'e did." He turned fiercely on his son. "'Ere, don't you stand starin' there! You get 'ome, and fix up for the night. Now then, wot are you dawdlin' for, pig-'ead?"
The boy slunk away. When he had disappeared, his father again took up the challenge of Mahony's silent disapproval. "I can't 'ardly bear the sight of 'im, doc.—disgracin' me as 'e 'as done. 'Im a father, and not eighteen till June! A son o' mine, who can't see a wench with 'er bodice open, but wot 'e must be arter 'er. … No, sir, no son o' mine! I'm a respectable man, I am!"
"Of course, of course."
"Oh! but they're a sore trial to me, these boys, doc. 'Enry's the only one … if it weren't for 'Enry—Johnny, 'e can't pass the drink, and now 'ere's this young swine started to nose arter the wimmin."
"There's good stuff in the lads, I'm sure of it. They're just sowing their wild oats."
"They'll sow no h'oats with me."
"I tell you what it is, Mr. Ocock, you need a woman about your place, to make it a bit more homelike," said Mahony, calling to mind the pigstye in which Ocock and his sons housed.
"Course I do!" agreed Ocock. "And Melia, she'll come out to 'er daddy soon as ever th'ol' woman kicks the bucket.— Drat 'er! It's 'er I've got to thank for all the mischief."
"Well, well!" said Mahony, and rising knocked out his pipe on the log. Did his old neighbour once get launched on the subject of his wife's failings, there was no stopping him. "We all have our crosses."
"That I 'ave. And I'm keepin' you outer your bed, doc., with me blather. —By gum! and that reminds me I come 'ere special to see you to-night. Bin gettin' a bit moonstruck, I reckon,"—and he clapped on his hat.
Drawing a sheaf of papers from an inner pocket, he selected one and offered it to Mahony. Mahony led the way indoors, and lighting a kerosene-lamp stooped to decipher the letter.
For some weeks now he had been awaiting the delivery of a load of goods, the invoice for which had long since reached him. From this communication, carried by hand, he learnt that the drayman, having got bogged just beyond Bacchus's marsh, had decamped to the Ovens, taking with him all he could cram into a spring-cart, and disposing of the remainder for what he could get. The agent in Melbourne refused to be held responsible for the loss, and threatened to prosecute, if payment for the goods were not immediately forthcoming. Mahony, who here heard the first of the affair, was highly indignant at the tone of the letter; and before he had read to the end resolved to let everything else slide, and to leave for Melbourne early next morning.
Ocock backed him up in this decision, and with the aid of a great quill pen stiffly traced the address of his eldest son, who practised as a solicitor in the capital.
"Go you straight to 'Enry, doc. 'Enry'll see you through."
Brushing aside his dreams of a peaceful Sabbath Mahony made preparations for his journey. Waking his assistant, he gave the man—a stupid clodhopper, but honest and attached—instructions how to manage during his absence, then sent him to the township to order horses. Himself, he put on his hat and went out to look for Purdy.
His search led him through all the drunken revelry of a Saturday night. And it was close on twelve before, having followed the trace from bowling-alley to Chinese cook-shop, from the "Adelphi" to Mother Flannigan's and haunts still less reputable, he finally succeeded in catching his bird.
Chapter IV
The two young men took to the road betimes: it still wanted some minutes to six on the new clock in the tower of Bath's Hotel, when they threw their legs over their saddles and rode down the steep slope by the Camp Reserve. The hoofs of the horses pounded the plank bridge that spanned the Yarrowee, and striking loose stones, and smacking and sucking in the mud, made a rude clatter in the Sunday quiet.
Having followed for a few hundred yards the wide, rut-riddled thoroughfare of Main Street, the riders branched off to cross rising ground. They proceeded in single file and at a footpace, for the highway had been honeycombed and rendered unsafe; it also ascended steadily. Just before they entered the bush, which was alive with the rich, strong whistling of magpies, Purdy halted to look back and wave his hat in farewell. Mahony also half-turned in the saddle. There it lay—the scattered, yet congested, unlovely wood and canvas settlement that was Ballarat. At this distance, and from this height, it resembled nothing so much as a collection of child's bricks, tossed out at random over the ground, the low, square huts and cabins that composed it being all of a shape and size. Some threads of smoke began to mount towards the immense pale dome of the sky. The sun was catching here the panes of a window, there the tin that encased a primitive chimney.
They rode on, leaving the warmth of the early sun-rays for the cold blue shadows of the bush. Neither broke the silence. Mahony's day had not come to an end with the finding of Purdy. Barely stretched on his palliasse he had been routed out to attend to Long Jim, who had missed his footing and pitched into a shaft. The poor old tipsy idiot hauled up—luckily
