Part 20 (2/2)

'I've seen the--the devil!' gasped Jim. 'I'm--I'm done with this here ghoul business.'

The parties got on speaking terms again. Dave was very warm, but Jim's language was worse. Pinter scratched his chin-feathers reflectively till the other party cooled. There was no appealing to the Commissioner for goldfields; they were outside all law, whether of the goldfields or otherwise--so they did the only thing possible and sensible, they joined forces and became 'Poynton, Regan, & Party'. They agreed to work the ground from the separate shafts, and decided to go ahead, irrespective of appearances, and get as much dirt out and cradled as possible before the inevitable exposure came along. They found plenty of 'payable dirt', and soon the drive ended in a cl.u.s.ter of roomy chambers. They timbered up many coffins of various ages, burnt tarred canvas and brown paper, and kept the fan going. Outside they paid the storekeeper with difficulty and talked of hard times.

But one fine sunny morning, after about a week of partners.h.i.+p, they got a bad scare. Jim and Kullers were below, getting out dirt for all they were worth, and Pinter and Dave at their windla.s.ses, when who should march down from the cemetery gate but Mother Middleton herself. She was a hard woman to look at. She still wore the old-fas.h.i.+oned crinoline and her hair in a greasy net; and on this as on most other sober occasions, she wore the expression of a rough Irish navvy who has just enough drink to make him nasty and is looking out for an excuse for a row. She had a stride like a grenadier. A digger had once measured her step by her footprints in the mud where she had stepped across a gutter: it measured three feet from toe to heel.

She marched to the grave of Jimmy Middleton, laid a dingy bunch of flowers thereon, with the gesture of an angry man banging his fist down on the table, turned on her heel, and marched out. The diggers were dirt beneath her feet. Presently they heard her drive on in her spring-cart on her way into town, and they drew breaths of relief.

It was afternoon. Dave and Pinter were feeling tired, and were just deciding to knock off work for that day when they heard a scuffling in the direction of the different shafts, and both Jim and Kullers dropped down and bundled in in a great hurry. Jim chuckled in a silly way, as if there was something funny, and Kullers guffawed in sympathy.

'What's up now?' demanded Dave apprehensively.

'Mother Middleton,' said Jim; 'she's blind mad drunk, and she's got a bottle in one hand and a new pitchfork in the other, that she's bringing out for some one.'

'How the h.e.l.l did she drop to it?' exclaimed Pinter.

'Dunno,' said Jim. 'Anyway she's coming for us. Listen to her!'

They didn't have to listen hard. The language which came down the shaft--they weren't sure which one--and along the drives was enough to scare up the dead and make them take to the Bush.

'Why didn't you fools make off into the Bush and give us a chance, instead of giving her a lead here?' asked Dave.

Jim and Kullers began to wish they had done so.

Mrs Middleton began to throw stones down the shaft--it was Pinter's--and they, even the oldest and most anxious, began to grin in spite of themselves, for they knew she couldn't hurt them from the surface, and that, though she had been a working digger herself, she couldn't fill both shafts before the fumes of liquor overtook her.

'I wonder which shaf' she'll come down,' asked Kullers in a tone befitting the place and occasion.

'You'd better go and watch your shaft, Pinter,' said Dave, 'and Jim and I'll watch mine.'

'I--I won't,' said Pinter hurriedly. 'I'm--I'm a modest man.'

Then they heard a clang in the direction of Pinter's shaft.

'She's thrown her bottle down,' said Dave.

Jim crawled along the drive a piece, urged by curiosity, and returned hurriedly.

'She's broke the pitchfork off short, to use in the drive, and I believe she's coming down.'

'Her crinoline'll handicap her,' said Pinter vacantly, 'that's a comfort.'

'She's took it off!' said Dave excitedly; and peering along Pinter's drive, they saw first an elastic-sided boot, then a red-striped stocking, then a section of scarlet petticoat.

'Lemme out!' roared Pinter, lurching forward and making a swimming motion with his hands in the direction of Dave's drive. Kullers was already gone, and Jim well on the way. Dave, lanky and awkward, scrambled up the shaft last. Mrs Middleton made good time, considering she had the darkness to face and didn't know the workings, and when Dave reached the top he had a tear in the leg of his moleskins, and the blood ran from a nasty scratch. But he didn't wait to argue over the price of a new pair of trousers. He made off through the Bush in the direction of an encouraging whistle thrown back by Jim.

'She's too drunk to get her story listened to to-night,' said Dave. 'But to-morrow she'll bring the neighbourhood down on us.'

'And she's enough, without the neighbourhood,' reflected Pinter.

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