Читать книгу The Last Chance: A Tale of the Golden West онлайн

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‘Oh, I can get a friend to buy them in, and we must live on bread and cheese, till times improve, if the shot misses. But you come in, and see Waters and his quartz before you form an opinion. Then we’ll talk it out.’

It was a quarter to ten o’clock when they entered the yard of the inn, where the horses and trap were put up. Throwing the reins to the groom, and telling him to give the horses no water for half an hour, Mr.Banneret and his wife entered the hotel—in the parlour of which, reading the Western Watchman, that morning issued, sat Jack Waters with a serene and satisfied air. Refreshed by sleep it was wonderful what rest and refreshment had done for him. Though painfully emaciated, his eye was brighter, his colour improved—his very voice altered, as he respectfully saluted Mrs.Banneret.

‘I’m afraid you’ve had a hard time of it, Jack, since you left last year?’ she said; ‘you’re terribly fallen away, I can see.’

‘It was “a close call,” as the Yankee diggers say, ma’am! I thought I was goin’ under, many a mile from here—but I never gave in, and what ssss1 with the water getting better, and the weather cooler, I pulled through. Yes, Mrs.Banneret! and it was a good day for you and the children, and the Commissioner here, as I did. If poor old Jack had dropped, in that fifty-mile dry stage—I won’t say where—it mightn’t have mattered much to him. It was all in the day’s work—one more fool of a digger rubbed out. But to you, ma’am, that has always had a kind word and a bit of help for every one, and your boys and girls that’s been brought up to do the same—it will matter to the last day of your lives. You believe me, it’s God’s truth, as I’m a living man this day.’