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The Story of Wild Will Enderby

Chapter IX. The Co. is Dissolved

page 235

Chapter IX. The Co. is Dissolved.

It was early morning—cold and chill, notwithstanding the advanced season. The stores and groggeries were fast closed, and the only human beings visible were a few crapulous wretches, staunch votaries of Bacchus, unwashed, unkempt, untidy, hairy and haggard, with blotched faces, and bleared eyes, red of the nose, and ragged of costume. Some of them wandered purposelessly up and down the long straggling street; some leaned against the buildings like male caryatides of an inferior order, others lay helpless on the earth. A stray dog that had lost, or had been lost by its huma appropriator, roamed discontentedly about, snuffing suspiciously, like a sagacious canine connoisseur, at the miserable bipeds, who might have learned a lesson of sobriety from the poor dumb creature, had they not been too brutalised to comprehend the teaching.

An asthmatical clock in the bar of the Dunstan Hotel wheezily proclaimed the hour of Four, and simultaneously therewith, the coach of the ubiquitous Cobb came forth. Then the intending passengers began to assemble.

In one group appeared an invalid, supported by a page 236goodly young man, and around the pair hovered a bright-eyed lassie, plainly dressed, but as plainly a lady, despite her coarse wrappings. With them were a bronzed and stalwart man, and a brisk gentleman whose coat of heather-brown and rough felt hat failed to disguise a certain professional air and manner. Need I name these people? If so, I have written in vain.

The driver cracked his whip. "Now then; all aboard!" The parting could not be delayed.

"Good-bye! old friend." It was the invalid who spoke. "I never shall—I never can forget how much I owe to you."

"Don't name it, Sir," said the American, "I'm only kind of worried that we can't travel together no longer. Guess it's better as it is though. There ain't nothing in these here diggings equal to the claim you're alongside of now. You'll excuse me, Miss; but you see I've taken such a notion to Harry—meaning Mr. Enderby—that I'm downright jealous of you."

"Oh, Mr. Pratt!" cried Mabel, with a blush that became her well, "I'm so much obliged to you for being so good to my cousin,"—with a strong emphasis on the word—"How shall I thank you enough?"

"Well, Miss, if a man of any grit don't feel enough thanked by a smile from them eyes of yours, he must be an ondeniable glutton; that's a fact."

"Time!" cried the booking clerk. The driver sent the lash of his mighty whip curling around the flanks of the leaders—"Hi! Git up!" The last adieux were briefly spoken, and the coach, with Will and his cousins, disappeared in a cloud of dust.

"Cousin, eh?" quoth Mr George W. Pratt. "Did page 237you ever have a she-cousin, Doc.? We've all got sisters, as the song says; 'but a cousin's a different thing.' Rayther!"

"Splendid girl, Pratt!" cried the medico. "Good figure, though small; fine bust, head well set on, pretty hands, and stunning feet and ancles, by Jove! Try a nip, Pratt. I prescribe gin cocktails."

"If I knock under through it, will you physic me gratis?"

"Pooh! yes. Drench you for a month, with pleasure."

"Jest so. Then this child don't liquor up. There ain't no inducement."

The medico laughed heartily. "That's immense," he said. "Well, old fellow, you have lost your mate. How do you feel?"

"I don't feel good, that's a fact. Seems like as if I was a solitary snipe in the wilderness. Darn the boy! I never cottoned so to a stranger before."

"That was because he gave you such an awful lot of trouble. We always love our plagues best."

"Guess you're on the right track there, Doc. I'm dubious that smart young filly will have some trouble with him, for he ain't half broke in yet."

"What's the next move?" asked the medico.

"Well, Sir, I shall slide over to Fox's. (N.B.—The location of the new diggings was now no longer a secret.) I han't got quite enough of the yellow dross to satisfy me yet. More than that, I ain't a-going to cave in because I didn't get there no sooner. No, Sirree!—and if on no other account, I should go now jest to carry out my first idea. So I'll wish you farewell, page 238Doc.; and say—next time you overhaul a stiff one, don't you go to make too sure you can name the owner."

And so they parted. The medico sauntered off to resume his ordinary avocations; the American squared up his shoulders, and went on his way, serenely confident that Fortune would again shine on his exertions.

"It's all for Ruth," he soliloquized. "Bless her dear face. Another year, and then if things shape righteously I'll claim the old Squire's promise."

And so with a stout heart he set forth on his lonely journey.

And the dead man who had been mistaken for Harry? His identity was never ascertained—the mystery of his death was never solved. It may be that in some far-distant chamber tears are yet being shed for the loved and lost one,—that some mother—sister—wife—still mourns for him who went forth and never came back; still hopes, with a love-begotten faith, that even yet he may return. But the weary years stretch out and still he comes not. Never again shall his presence gladden the mourner's vision. The once familiar voice is mute; the loving eyes are sightless. In an unknown grave, on a foreign shore, is all that remains of the wanderer from home.