Alfred Grace - The Tale of Timber Town

“The fat bloke fudged a card. I was pickin’ up a quid from the floor – he fudged a card. Le’go o’ me, an’ I’ll fight you fair.”

“Stand quiet, I tell you, or you’ll be handed over to the police.”

The digger turned his hairy visage round, and glanced angrily into Jack’s eyes.

“You’ll call in the traps? – you long-legged swine!” With a mighty back-kick, the Prospector lodged the heel of his heavy boot fairly on Scarlett’s shin. In a moment he had struggled free, and faced round.

“Put up your fists!” he cried. “I fight fair, I fight fair.”

There was a whirlwind of blows, and then a figure fell to the floor with a thud like that of a felled tree. It was the lucky digger, and he lay still and quiet amid the wreckage of the fight.

“Here,” said Cathro, handing Mr. Crewe ten pounds. “Take your money – our friend the digger lost the game.”

“This is most unfortunate, Cathro.” But as he spoke, the Father of Timber Town pocketed the gold. “Did I not see Scarlett knock that man down? This is extremely unfortunate. I have just refused the offer of a man who avers – who avers, mind you – that he can put us on this new gold-field in a week, but I trusted to Scarlett’s diplomacy with the digger: I come back, and what do I see? I see my friend Scarlett knock the man down! There he lies as insensible as a log.”

“It looks,” said Cathro, “as if our little plan had fallen through.”

“Fallen through? We have made the unhappy error of interfering in a game of cards. We should have stood off, sir, and when a quarrel arose – I know these diggers; I have been one of them myself, and I understand them, Cathro – when a quarrel arose we should have interposed on behalf of the digger, and he would have been our friend for ever. Now all the gold in the country wouldn’t bribe him to have dealings with us.”

The noise of the fight had brought upon the scene all the occupants of the bar. They stood in a group, silent and expectant, just inside the room. The landlord, who was with them, came forward, and bent over the inanimate form of the Prospector. “I think this is likely to be a case for the police,” said he, as he rose, and stood erect. “The man may be alive, or he may be dead – I’m not a doctor: I can’t tell – but there’s likely to be trouble in store for the gentlemen in the room at the time of the fight.”

Suddenly an energetic figure pushed its way through the group of spectators, and Benjamin Tresco, wearing an air of supreme wisdom, and with a manner which would not have disgraced a medico celebrated for his “good bedside manner,” commenced to examine the prostrate man. First, he unbuttoned the insensible digger’s waistcoat, and placed his hand over his heart; next, he felt his pulse. “This man,” he said deliberately, like an oracle, “has been grossly manhandled; he is seriously injured, but with care we shall pull him round. My dear” – to Gentle Annie, who stood at his elbow, in her silks and jewels, the personification of Folly at a funeral – “a drop of your very best brandy – real cognac, mind you, and be as quick as you possibly can.”

With the help of Scarlett, Tresco placed the digger upon the couch. In the midst of this operation the big card-player and his attenuated accomplice, whose unconsciousness had been more feigned than actual, were about to slip from the room, when Mr. Crewe’s voice was heard loudly above the chatter, “Stop! stop those men, there!” The old gentleman’s stick was pointed dramatically towards the retreating figures. “They know more about this affair than is good for them.”

Four or five men immediately seized Garsett and Lichfield, led them back to the centre of the room, and stood guard over them.

At this moment, Gentle Annie re-entered with the eau de vie ; and Tresco, who was bustling importantly about his patient, administrated the restorative dexterously to the unconscious digger, and then awaited results. He stood, with one hand on the man’s forehead and the other he held free to gesticulate with, in emphasis of his speech: —

“This gentleman is going to recover – with proper care, and in skilled hands. He has received a severe contusion on the cranium, but apart from that he is not much the worse for his ‘scrap.’ See, he opens his eyes. Ah! they are closed again. There! – they open again. He is coming round. In a few minutes he will be his old, breathing, pulsating self. The least that can be expected in the circumstances, is that the gentlemen implicated, who have thus been saved most disagreeable consequences by the timely interference of skilled hands, the least they can do is to shout drinks for the crowd.”

He paused, and a seraphic smile lighted his broad face.

“Hear, hear!” cried a voice from behind the spectators by the door.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” said another.

“There’s enough money on the floor,” remarked a third, “for the whole lot of us to swim in champagne.”

“My eye’s on it,” said Tresco. “It’s what gave me my inspiration. The lady will pick it up while you name your drinks to the landlord. Mine’s this liqueur brandy, neat. Let the lady pick up those notes there: a lady has a soul above suspicion – let her collect the money, and we’ll hold a court of enquiry when this gentleman here is able to give his evidence.”

The digger was now gazing in a befogged manner at the faces around him; and Gentle Annie, having collected all the money of the gamblers in a tray, placed it on the small table which stood against the wall.

“Now, doctor,” said a tall man with a tawny beard, “take your fee; it’s you restored the gent. Take your fee: is it two guineas, or do you make it five?”

“‘Doctor,’ did you say? No, Moonlight, my respected friend, I scorn the title. Doctors are a brood that batten on the ills of others. First day: ‘A pain internally, madam? Very serious. I will send you some medicine. Two guineas. Yes, the sum of two guineas.’ Next day: ‘Ah, the pain is no better, madam? Go on taking the medicine. Fee? Two guineas, if you please.’ And so on till the pain cures itself. If not, the patient grows worse, dies, is buried, and the doctor’s fees accrue proportionately. But we will suppose that the patient has some incurable tumour. The doctor comes, examines, looks wise, shakes his head, says the only chance is to operate; but it will be touch and go, just a toss up. He gets his knives, opens up the patient, and by good luck touches no vital part. Then the patient is saved, and it’s ‘My work, gentlemen, entirely my work. That’s what skill will do. My fee is forty-five guineas.’ That’s how he makes up for the folks that don’t pay. Doctor, me ? No, Moonlight, my friend, I am a practitioner who treats for love. No fee; no fee at all. But, Annie, my dear, I’ll trouble you for that glass of brandy.”

The digger was contemplating Tresco’s face with a look of bewildered astonishment. “An’ who the blanky blank are you ?” he exclaimed, with all his native uncouthness. “What the blank do you want to take my clo’es off of me for? Who the blue infernal – ” All eyes were fixed on his contused countenance and the enormous bump on his temple. “Ah! there’s the gent that shook me of five quid. I’ll remember you, old party. An’ as for you two spielers – you thought to fleece me. I’ll give you what for! An’ there’s the other toff, ’im that biffed me. Fancy bein’ flattened out by a toney remittance man! Wonderful. I call it British pluck, real bull-dog courage – three to one, an’ me the littlest of the lot, bar one. Oh, it’s grand. It pays a man to keep his mouth shut, when he comes to Timber Town with money in his pocket.”