The Tale of Timber Town

When they had disappeared, Tresco came from his hiding-place. He looked up and down the track. “Just so,” he soliloquised, “half-a-mile this way, a mile that. Good cover… Commanding position. What’s their little game? It seems to me that there are bigger rascals than Benjamin in Timber Town.” And with this salve applied to his conscience, the goldsmith pursued his way towards his dismal cavern.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The Goldsmith Comes to Town the Second Time

Tresco stood in the yellow light of the paraffin lamp, and gazed in wonderment at Gentle Annie. He was a tattered and mournful object; his boots worn out, his trousers a marvel of patchwork, his coat a thing discoloured and torn, his hair and beard unshorn, himself a being unrecognisable by his former friends.

Gentle Annie’s attitude betokened the greatest surprise. With her hands on her bosom, her lips parted, her cheeks pale, her eyes frightened, she stood, and timidly returned the gaze of the strange man before her.

“What do you want?” she asked, so soon as she could find her voice. “Why do you come here?”

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Benjamin reassuringly. “First, let me tell you that I’m your friend and protector. Do you forget Tresco the goldsmith?”

Gentle Annie gave vent to a little cry of astonishment.

“I am an outlaw,” – he spoke as if he were defending himself before his peers – “an outcast, a hunted dog. My own house is unsafe, so I came here for protection and a little comfort.” He dropped suddenly into quite a sentimental tone of voice. “I haven’t spoken to a soul, save my lad, for over six weeks. I’m a bit lonesome and miserable; and I badly need a well-cooked meal.”

“But if you stop here” – Gentle Annie’s ample bust rose and fell with agitation – “the police will catch you.”

“They’d think of looking for me in the moon before they came here, my dear; besides I have no intention of stopping. I only want rest and food.”

“I’ll do what I can for you, but you must go almost directly.”

“Why, certainly.” Tresco sat down, and drew a deep breath. “It’s good to look at a wholesome woman again – it seems years since I saw one.”

A smile passed over Gentle Annie’s face, and her eyes twinkled with merriment. “I see you’re not cured of your old weakness,” she said.

“No, my dear; and I hope I never shall be.” Benjamin had rallied from his depression. “On the contrary, it increases.”

They were a strange couple – the wild-looking man on one side of the table, and the fine figure of a woman who emitted a faint odour of patchouli, on the other.

“I suppose you know I’m my own mistress now.”

“It looks like it. I understood something of the kind from Jake.”

“I objected to be pulled about indiscriminately, so I left The Lucky Digger. A rough brute cut my arm with a broken glass.” She rolled up her sleeve, and showed the scar of the newly-healed wound.

Benjamin took the soft, white arm in his hand, and gave it just the suspicion of a squeeze.

“I wish I’d bin there, my dear: I’d ha’ chucked him through the window.”

“Mr. Scarlett – who has been so lucky on the diggings – kicked him out of the house on to the pavement.”

“Ah! but did he do the thing properly, scientifically?”

“I think so. And when he found the boss blaming me for the row, he turned on him like a tiger. But afterwards old Townson gave me the office, so I’ve retired into private life. Do you like my rooms?”

“A trifle small, don’t you think?” said Benjamin.

“Cozy.”

“My dear, where you are it can’t help being cozy.”

“After that I’ll get you something to eat. What do you say to grilled steak and onions?”

“Delicious! Couldn’t be better.”

Gentle Annie bustled out to the safe, at the back of the house, and returned with a dish of red and juicy meat.

“And to follow, you shall have stewed plums and cream.”

“Better than ever,” said Benjamin; his mouth watering behind his ragged beard.

“I believe I understand mankind,” said Gentle Annie, going to a cupboard, whence she took a big bottle, which she placed on the table.

“If all the women in the world understood men as you do, my dear, we should have Arcadia here, instead of Gehennum.”

“Instead of what?”

“Gehennum, my dear; a place where they drive men into the wilderness and cut them off from supplies, and they rot in damp caves, destitute of bread, beer, and even tobacco.”

“No; I really can’t supply that last. If I let you smoke, some old cat would come sniffing round to-morrow morning, and say, ‘Phew! a man has been here.’ Good food and drink you shall have, but no tobacco.”

“But you’ll let me wash?”

“Certainly. Cleanliness is next to godliness. If you can’t have the one, I wouldn’t bar you from the other.” She led him to the door of her bedroom, and said, “Walk in.”

The room was a dainty affair of muslin blinds and bed-hangings. To Benjamin it was a holy of holies dedicated to the sweet, the lovely, the inscrutable. All the feminine gear lying around, the little pots of powder and ointment, the strange medicaments for the hair, the mirrors, the row of little shoes, the bits of jewellery lying on fat pincushions, the skirts and wrappers and feminine finery hanging behind the door, these and fifty other things appealed to the softest spot in his susceptible nature. He took up the ewer, and poured water into the basin; but he was ashamed to place his dirty coat on a thing so clean as was the solitary dimity-covered chair, so he put the ragged garment on the floor. Then he took up a pink cake of soap, and commenced his ablutions.

A strong and agreeable odour tickled his olfactory nerves – the cooking had begun. Though his ears were full of lather, he could hear the meat frying in the pan, and the spluttering of the fat.

“What punishment do they give to people who harbour malefactors?” Gentle Annie called from over her cooking.

“Who’s a malefactor?” called Tresco from the middle of a towel with which he was drying his roseate face.

“What are you then?”

“I’m a gentleman at large, my dear. No one has charged me with anything yet, let alone convicted me.”

“But there’s a warrant out against you, old gentleman.”

“Maybe. I haven’t seen it.”

“But what’s my position?”

“You’re accessory after the fact, if there is a fact.”

“What am I liable for?”