The Ghost Camp

The merry, brawling river, now rushing over “bars” gleaming with quartz pebbles, the boom of the “water-gun,” the deep, reed-fringed reaches, in which the water-fowl dived and fluttered, alike engaged the traveller’s alert interest. The little river took wilful, fantastic curves, as it seemed to him through the broad green meadows. Sometimes close-clinging to a basaltic bluff, over which the coach appeared to hang perilously, while on the other side was the mile-wide, level greensward, thickly covered with grazing kine and horses. The driver, a wiry native from the Shoalhaven gullies, was cheerful and communicative.

He was in a position to know and enlarge upon the names and characters of the different proprietors of the estates through which they passed. The divisions were indicated by gates in the fences crossing the roads at right angles, at which period Mr. Joshua Cable requested his passenger to drive through while he jumped down and opened the gates and shut them after the operation was concluded. As this business was only necessary at distances varying from five to ten miles apart, the stoppages were not serious; though in one instance, where the enclosure was small and the number of gates unreasonably large, his temper was ruffled.

“D – n these gates,” he said; “they’re enough to ruin a chap’s temper. They put up a new cross fence here – wire, too – since I was here last. This is a bother, but when a man is driving by himself at night it’s worse. And they can summons you, and fine you two pounds and costs for leaving a gate open, worse luck!”

“How do you manage then?” asked the passenger, all unused to seeing a coach and four without groom or guard.

“Well, it’s rather a ticklish bit of work, even with a pair, if they’re at all touchy, as I’ve had ’em, many a time. You drive round before you come to the gate and tie your leaders to the fence as close as you can get ’em. I carry halters, and that’s the best and safest way; but if you haven’t ’em with you, you must do the best you can with the lead reins. You’re close enough to jump to their heads and muzzle ’em if they’re making a move. No chance to stop four horses after they’re off. When you’ve opened the gate and driven through, you have to turn your team back and let ’em stand with the leaders’ heads over the fence till you’ve shut the gate. If it’s a gate that’ll swing back to the post, and you’ve only a pair, you may manage to give it a shove just as it clears the hind wheels, but it’s a chance. It’s a nuisance, especially at night time and in rainy weather, but there’s nothing else for it, and it’s best always to keep sweet with the owners of the property the road runs through. Now we’ve five miles without a gate,” said Josh Cable as he led his horses out and proceeded to make up time, with three horses at a hand gallop, and the off-wheeler, a very fast horse, trotting about fourteen miles an hour; “the road’s level, too. We’ll pull up in another hour at the Horse and Jockey for dinner.” It may be explained that in Australian road-travel, whatever may be the difference of climate, which ranges indeed from sunshine to snow, the “dinner” so called, is the meal taken at or about mid-day – an hour or two, one way or another, not being regarded of importance. The evening meal at sundown, allowing for circumstances, is invariably “tea,” though by no means differing in essentials from the one at mid-day. It is at the option of the traveller to order and pay extra for the orthodox “dinner,” with wine, if procurable, as an adjunct.

The Horse and Jockey Hotel was duly reached, the half-hour dinner despatched, and, at sunrise, the railway station at Warongah reached, into which, after a hurried meal, Mr. Blount was enabled to hurl himself and luggage, the train not being crowded. Long before this hour he had ample time to admire the skill used in driving on a road never free from stumps and sidelings, creeks, and other pitfalls. Certainly the seven lamps, which he had never seen before on a coach, assisted the pilot’s course, with the light afforded by the great burners, three on high above the roof of the composite vehicle, a sort of roofed “cariole” defended as to the sides by waterproof curtains; while four other lamps gave the driver confidence, as they enabled him to see around and for some distance ahead as clearly as in the day.

In sixteen hours from the terminus Mr. Blount was safely landed per cab at the Imperial Club, Melbourne, in which institution he enjoyed the privileges of an honorary member, and was enabled to learn that the Pateena would leave the Queen’s Wharf at four o’clock p.m. next day for Launceston. Here he half expected to have one or more letters in answer to his appeal to the mercy of the Court as represented by Mrs. Bruce and Miss Imogen, or its justice, in the shape of Edward Hamilton Bruce of Marondah, a magistrate of the Territory. But none came. Other epistles of no importance, comparatively; also a fiery telegram from Hobart, “Don’t lose time. Your presence urgently needed.” So making arrangements for his correspondence to follow him to the Tasmanian Club, Hobart, he betook himself to the inter-colonial steamship, and at bed-time was sensible that a “capful” of wind was vexing the oft-turbulent Straits of Bass.

Hobart – the peaceful, the picturesque, the peerless among Australian summer climates, whether late or early. Hither come no scorching blasts, no tropical rains. Nestling beneath the shadow of Mount Wellington, semi-circled by the broad and winding Derwent, proving by old-fashioned – in many instances picturesquely ruinous – edifices, it claims to be one of Britain’s earliest outposts. Mr. Blount, from the moment of his landing, found himself in an atmosphere about as peacefully secluded as at Bunjil.

From this Elysian state of repose, he was routed immediately after breakfast by the tempestuous entrance of Mr. Frampton Tregonwell, Mining Expert and Consulting Engineer, as was fully set forth on his card, sent in by the waiter.

“Bless my soul!” called out this volcanic personage, as soon as he entered the door which he shut carefully behind him. “You are a most extraordinary chap! One would think you had been born in Tasmania, instead of the Duchy of Cornwall, whence all the Captains of the great mining industry have come from since the days of the Phœnicians and even earlier. Lucky you picked up a partner who is as sharp, excuse me, as you are – ahem – Blount!”

“When I’m told what all this tirade is about, ending with an atrocious pun, perhaps I may be able to reply,” answered the object of the attack, complacently finishing his second cup of tea.

“Did you get my telegram? Answer me that, Valentine Blount.”

“I did, and have come over to this tight little island at great personal inconvenience, as you may have observed, Mr. Tregonwell!”

“Have you any recollection of our buying a half share in a prospecting silver claim, of four men’s ground, in the West Coast?”

“I do seem to recall some such transaction, just before I left for Australia. All the fellows I met in the Hobart Club told me it was a swindle, and advised me not to put a pound in it.”

“That was the reason that you did invest in it, if I know you.”

“Precisely, I’ve rarely taken advice against my own judgment that I haven’t regretted it. Did it turn out well?”

“Well! Well? It’s the richest silver lode in the island, in all Australasia – ” almost shouted Tregonwell – “fifty feet wide; gets richer, and richer as it goes down. I’ve been offered twenty thousand pounds, cash down, for my half; you could get the same if you care to take it.”

“I’ve a great mind to take it,” said Blount languidly “ – mines are so uncertain. Here to-day, gone to-morrow.”

“Take it?” said his partner, with frenzied air, and trembling with excitement, “take it! Well!” – suddenly changing his tone – “I’ll give you a drive this afternoon, capital cabs they have here, and the best horses I’ve seen out of England. The way they rattle down these hills on the metal is marvellous! We can’t start for the mine till to-morrow morning; I suppose you’d like to see it? But if you’re determined to sell, I’d like you to see a friend of mine first. He has a magnificent place a few miles out. He’d be charmed to meet you, I’m sure.”

“Certainly, by all means. What’s your friend’s name? Is he a squatter or a fruit-grower? They seem to be the leading industries over here.”

“Neither; he’s a medical man in large practice. His name is Macandrew. Medical superintendent of the new Norfolk lunatic asylum.”

“Well, really, Tregonwell, this is too bad,” answered the other partner, roused from his habitual coolness. “Has it escaped your memory that you wished to sell out before I left for Australia, that I stuck to the claim, and have been paying my share of expenses ever since?”

“Quite true, old fellow; it was your confounded obstinacy and luck combined, a sheer fluke, which has landed us where we are, not a particle of judgment on either side; and now, then, let’s get through business detail before lunch. I have it all here.”

Mr. Tregonwell was a thoroughbred Cornishman, short, square set, and immensely powerful. His coal-black, close-curled hair, with dark, deep-set eyes, short, upright forehead, and square jaw proclaimed him a “Cousin Jack” to all who had ever rambled through the picturesque Duchy, or heard the surges boom on castle-crowned Tintagil. In one way or other he had been interested in mines since his boyhood; had, indeed, delved below sea level in those stupendous shafts in his native place of Truro.

An off-shoot of a good old Cornish family, he had worked up to his present position from a penniless childhood and a youth not disdaining hard manual labour as a miner, when none better was to be had. This gave him a more thorough knowledge of the underground world and its inhabitants than he could otherwise have obtained. As a mining “Captain” therefore, his reputation had preceded him from the silver mines of Rio Tinto in Mexico and the great goldfields of California. A noted man in his way, a type worthy of observation by a student of human nature, like Valentine Blount, who, having added him to his collection, had drifted into friendship, and a speculative partnership which was destined to colour his after life.

As there remained a couple of hours open to such a task before lunch, the partners settled down to a “square business deal,” as Mr. Tregonwell (who had possessed himself of trans-Atlantic and other idioms) phrased it; in the course of which the following facts were elicited. That the stone, in the first place accidentally discovered as an out-drop in one of the wildest, most desolate, regions of the West Coast of Tasmania, was the richest ever discovered in any reefing district “South of the Line,” as Mr. Tregonwell magniloquently expressed it. On sinking, even richer ore came to light, “as much silver as stone” in some of the specimens. He, Tregonwell, had taken care to comply with the labour conditions, and the necessary rules and regulations, according to the Tasmanian Mining Act, in such case made and provided. He had satisfied the Warden of their bona fides, and this gentleman had supported him in all disputes with the “rush crowd” which, as usual under such circumstances, had swarmed around the sensational find, as soon as it was declared. Everything, so far, had been plain sailing, but there was sure to be litigation, and a testing of their title on some of the technical points of law which are invariably raised when the claim is rich enough to pay the expenses of litigation. The great thing now was to float the discovery into a company, exhibit the specimens in the larger cities and in England, and offer half the property in shares to the public. This was agreed to. Tregonwell, with practised ease, drew out the prospectus, explaining the wondrous assays which had already been made, the increasing body of the lode, its speculative value and unrivalled richness as it descended to the hundred and fifty feet level. The prospectors had invited tenders for a fifty head stamp battery to be placed on the ground. Abundance of running water was within easy reach; timber also, of the finest quality, unlimited in quantity. Carriage, of course, in a rough, mountainous country, must be an expensive item. The directors were anxious not to minimise the cost in any way, and all statements might be regarded as absolutely truthful. The stone, if it kept up quality and output, would pay for any rate of carriage and the most up-to-date machinery. When a narrow-gauge railway had been completed to the Port, where the Company had secured wharf accommodation, the transit question would be comparatively trifling.

Mr. Blount retired for lunch to the hotel in which Tregonwell had engaged rooms – a quiet, old-fashioned house of highly conservative character, selected by his partner as specially adapted for privacy. The family had inherited the business and the house from the grandfather, who had made the business, and built the house in the early days when the island was still known as Van Diemen’s Land. Mr. Polglase, whose portrait in oils still ornamented the dining-room, in company with that of Admiral Rodney, in whose flagship he had been a quartermaster, had reached Tasmania in a whaler from New Zealand.

The Clarkstone having made a successful voyage, and Mr. Polglase’s “lay” as first mate amounting to a respectable sum, he decided to quit the sea, and adopt the more or less lucrative occupation of hotel-keeping. In those days when the convict population outnumbered the free, in the proportion of fifty to one, when the aboriginal tribes and far more savage convict outlaws terrorised the settlers at a comparatively short distance from Hobart, it was not altogether a peaceful avocation. But Mark Polglase, a man of exceptional strength and courage, who had enforced discipline and quelled mutiny among the turbulent whaling crews hailing from Sydney Cove, was not the man to be daunted by rioters free or bond. The small, but orderly, well-managed inn soon came to be favourably known both to the general public and the authorities, as a house where comfortable lodging was to be procured, and, moreover, where a strict system of orderliness was enforced. When the coaching system came to be developed, for many years the best in Australasia, after admirable roads had been formed by convict labour, the Lord Rodney was the headquarters of the principal firm. From the long range of stabling issued daily in the after-time the well-bred, high-conditioned four-horse teams, which did the journey between Hobart and Launceston (a hundred and twenty miles) in a day. To be sure the metalled road was perfect, the pace, the coaches, the method of driving, the milestones even, strictly after the old English pattern. So that the occasional tourist, or military traveller, was fain to confess that he had not seen such a turn-out or done such stages since the days of the Cottons and the Brackenburys.

The pace was equal to that of the fastest “Defiance” or “Regulator” that ever kept good time on an English turnpike road. Here the erstwhile Cornish sailor settled himself for life. To that end he wrote to a young woman to whom he had become engaged before he left Truro on his last voyage, and sent her the wherewithal to pay her passage and other expenses. She was wise enough to make no objection to a home on “the other side of the world,” as Jean Ingelow puts it, and had no reason to regret her decision. Here they reared a family of stalwart sons, and blooming lasses – the latter with complexions rivalling those of Devonshire. They married and spread themselves over the wide wastes of the adjoining colonies, with satisfactory results, but never forgetting to return from time to time to their Tasmanian home, where they could smell the apple blossoms in the orchards and hear the bee humming on the green, clover-scented pastures.

The parents in the fulness of time had passed away, and lay in the churchyard, near the Wesleyan meeting house, which the old man had regularly attended and generously supported. But his eldest son, lamed through an accident on a goldfield, reigned in his stead. He too had a capable wife – it seemed to run in the family. So the name and fame of the Lord Rodney remained good as of old.

The prospectus and plan of operations being now regarded as “shipshape” by Mr. Tregonwell, he proceeded to sketch the locality. “It’s an awfully rough country – nothing you’ve ever seen before is a patch on it. We shall have to walk the last stage. A goat could hardly find footing, over not on, mind you, the worst part of the track. How Charlie Herbert, who discovered the show, got along, I can’t think. He was more than half starved, ‘did a regular perish,’ as West Australians say – more than once. However it was a feat to brag about when he did come upon it, as you’ll see when we get there.”

“Herbert’s in charge now, I suppose?”

“Yes! he and his mate. You won’t find him far off, unless I’m handy. It doesn’t do to leave such a jeweller’s window to look after itself. There are two wages men, Charlie takes one and Jack Clarke the other, when they work. They get lumps and lumps of ‘native silver’ worth £50 and £60 apiece.”

“Is it as rich as all that?”

“Rich! bless your heart, nothing’s been seen like it since Golden Point at Ballarat, and that was alluvial. This is likely to be as rich at 200 feet as on top – and ten years afterwards – as it is now.”

“We may call it a fortune, then, for us and the other shareholders.”

“A fortune!” said Tregonwell, “it’s a dozen fortunes. You can go home and buy half a county, besides marrying a duke’s daughter, if your taste lies in the direction of the aristocracy.”

“H – m – ha! I’m not sure that one need go out of Australia for the heroine of this little romance.”

“What! already captured! – that’s rapid work,” said his partner, throwing himself into a mock heroic attitude. “You’re not a laggard in love, whatever you may be in practical matters. However, it’s the common lot, even I – Frampton Tregonwell – have not escaped unwounded.” Here he heaved a sigh, so comically theatrical, that Blount, though in no humour to jest on the subject, could not forbear laughing.

“Whatever you may surmise,” he replied, “we have something more serious to think about at the present time. After I have handled this wonderful stone of yours, and knocked a few specimens out of the ‘face’ – you see I have gained some practical knowledge since we parted – then we can discuss the plan of the future. In the meantime, I am with you to the scaling of the ‘Frenchman’s Cap,’ if that forms any part of the programme.”

The journeying by land or sea to Hobart had been comparatively plain sailing. From Hobart to the west coast of Tasmania inaugurated a striking change. The tiny steamer, Seagull, to which they committed themselves for a thirty hours’ trip, was dirty, and evil smelling. The shallow bar at Macquarie Harbour forbade a larger boat. Crowded also, her accommodation was necessarily restricted. The twelve male passengers had one cabin allotted to them. The women shared another, where berths like those at a shearer’s hut were arranged at the sides. On a coast, by no means well lighted, where no shelter from the fierce gales is found nearer than the South Pole, the passage, performed at night, is invariably a rough one. All honour is due to the hardy seamen commanding the small coast fleet. They lose no time on the trip – overladen with freight, more also to follow – full passenger lists for a month in advance. That there are not more accidents seems a miracle to the passenger, as they thread their course in and out, among the numberless islands and frequent reefs, with marvellous accuracy. Tregonwell, who was half a sailor, by reason of his manifold voyages, was loud in admiration.

“The skipper must chance it, now and then,” he remarked, “but he doesn’t show it, and certainly will not confide in the ordinary passenger.” They bumped on the bar at Macquarie Harbour, and also had a narrow escape at “Hell’s Gates,” formed by the rocky point which runs abruptly northward. They touched bottom in the double whirlpool formed by the island in the very jaws of the current, where the heavy seas breaking over the tiny Seagull would not have taken long to turn her into matchwood. Here the skipper showed himself resourceful in such trifling matters. Rough though the water, and dark the night, a man would dash along a spar, laying out a sail to keep her head straight, or bring her round, if broadside on and steering way was lost. Then “full speed astern” perhaps, when not being jammed in too tightly, she glided back into smooth water, ready for another attempt. In an hour, however, the tide rose until the requisite depth of water, in the harbour bar, enabled them after the grim, ghostly night, to glide up the smooth surface of Macquarie Harbour.

It was early morning. They looked out on a sea of mist, walled in by basaltic cliffs, wherein Mounts Heemskirk and Zeehan kept watch over that dreary, wreck-lined coast.

Declining breakfast on board, Messrs. Blount and Tregonwell made for the chief “hotel” of the Macquarie Harbour township, where on a clean white beach, a friendly host, with comely daughters, made them welcome to an excellent meal.

What a change from the days when a few fishermen or prospectors constituted the entire population!

Strahan was now crowded with eager, anxious men, all of whom had money to spend. Vessels were arriving all day long – sailing craft, as well as steamers, loaded with supplies of all kinds, for the “silver field” of Zeehan, so named after one of the vessels of Abel Tasman.

It was a scene of hopeless confusion, as far as the freighting was concerned. Mining machinery, groceries, drapery, blankets, axes, picks and shovels were all dumped upon the sand, with scant ceremony and no regularity.

Day after day they had been passing historic landmarks, were actually on the scene of Marcus Clarke’s great novel, His Natural Life. They could afford to wait: “Hell’s Gates” lay behind them.

In the distance rose “The Isle of the Dead,” to which they promised themselves a visit some day, with a ramble among the ruined prison-houses, where so many tortured souls had languished.

One pictured the wretched officers in charge. How dull and aimless their lives! Small wonder if they grew savage, and vented the humours, bred of ennui and isolation, upon the wretched convicts.

The walls of the little stone church are standing still. Tregonwell had camped there for a few days once, with some fishermen, shooting ducks at night, and fishing in the long, still, silent days. What a lonely place for men to be stationed at! The interminable forest walled it in on all sides, to the very shore. They pulled for miles up the Gordon River, a grand and picturesque stream, but the land on either bank was absolutely barren of herbage. Nothing grew for miles but the unfriendly jungle of undergrowth, above which waved the mournful pines and eucalypts of the dark impenetrable forest. The distracted owners toiled and wrangled to separate their goods from the ill-assorted mountain of heterogeneous property.

After that, came the more important question of carriage to the rich, but ill-ordered mining camp of Zeehan, where, of course, showy wooden edifices, of calico, or hessian architecture were being erected. The land transit was wholly dependent upon pack horses and a few mules. Drays and waggons were then unknown on that coast. The roads were bad for pedestrians, utterly impassable for wheel traffic. The busiest men were the Customs officers, stationed to watch the goods shipped from other colonies, and to collect the duties exacted thereon. Forwarding agents also had a careworn look. In the midst of the turmoil, a pretentious two-storied hotel was being run up. Stores and warehouses rose like mushrooms from the rain-soaked, humid earth, while town allotments were sold, and resold, at South Sea Bubble prices.

By dint of Mr. Blount’s persuasive powers, now fully exerted, and Tregonwell’s abnormal energy, conjoined with reckless payments, they saw their personal luggage strapped on to a horse’s back, and confided to a packer, who started with them, and contracted to deliver it when they arrived on the following day.

They thus commenced the fifteen mile walk to Trial Bay. This was the nearest port. It lacked, however, any description of harbour, shelter, or roadway. Small craft could deliver freight in fine weather.