The Romance of Lively Creek
"Green Bushes"
The township of Lively Creek is not the sort of place in which one would
expect a romance to happen; and yet, in the year, 18--, when I accepted
the secretaryship to the Mechanics' Institute, occurred a series of
circumstances which had in them all the elements of the wildest French
fiction.
The unwonted impetus given to social relations, which was affected by the
"opening up" of the Great Daylight Reef, brought together those
incongruous particles of adventurous humanity which are to be found
floating about the gold-mining centres of Australian population, and in
six months the quiet village--up to that time notorious for its extreme
simplicity--had become a long street, surrounded by mounds, shafts, and
engine-houses, and boasting a Court House, a Mechanics' Institute, half a
dozen places of (variously conducted) religious worship, and some twenty
public-houses.
The thirst for knowledge which attends upon worldly success soon made my
office a laborious one, for, in addition to my duties as Librarian, I was
expected to act as Master of the Ceremonies, Conductor of Conversaziones, Curator of a Museum of Curiosities, and Theatrical Manager. The Committee of Management were desirous that no attraction which might increase the funds of the institution should be passed over, and when Mademoiselle Pauline Christoval (of the Theatres Royal, Honolulu, Manilla, Singapore, and Popocatapetl) offered a handsome rent to be permitted to play for six nights in the great hall, I was instructed to afford every facility to that distinguished actress.
Mademoiselle Pauline was a woman of an uncertain age--that is to say, she
might have been two-and-twenty and was not improbably three-and-thirty. Tall, elegant, self-possessed and intelligent, she made her business arrangements with considerable acuteness, and, having duly checked all items of "gas" and "etceteras," announced that she would play the Green Bushes, as an initiatory performance. "I always act as my own agent," said she, "and my Company is entirely under my own direction."
Upon inquiry at the Three Star Brand--where the Company were lodged--I
found this statement to be thoroughly correct. Miss Fortescue (the wife
of Mr. Effingham Bellingham, the "leading man") had already confided to
Mrs. Butt, the landlady, several items of intelligence concerning the
tyranny exercised by the lady manager. Mr. Capricorn, the "juvenile man" (husband of Miss Sally Lunn, the charming danseuse), had hinted vaguely, with much uplifting of his juvenile brows, that Mademoiselle was not to be trifled with, while I found that old Joe Banks, the low comedian (the original "Stunning Joseph" in the popular farce of My Wife's Aunt), had shaken his venerable head many times in humorous denunciation of "the artfulness of Christoval."
There was much excitement in the bar-parlour of the "Main Reef Hotel" at
the dinner hour. So many reefers took me mysteriously behind the door, and begged me to bring them casually behind the scenes during the performance, that it was evident that, for the first night of the six, at all events, the improvised theatre would be crowded. The only man who manifested no interest was Sporboy--Sporboy, the newly-arrived; Sporboy, the adventurer; Sporboy, the oracle of tap-rooms; Sporboy, the donor of curiosities to our Museum; Sporboy, the shareholder in the Great Daylight; Sporboy, the traveller, the narrator, the hot shisky swiller:--Honest Jack Sporboy, the richest man, the hugest drunkard, and the biggest liar in all Lively Creek.
"I've seen enough of them sort o' gals," said he. "I'm getting old. My
hair's grey. Pauline Christoval, of the Theatres Royal, Manilla, and
Popocatapetl, eh? Bosh! Hot whisky."
"But, Captain Sporboy, your influence----"
"Oh yes! All right. I've been in Manilla. I've eaten brain soup and Basi
in Hocos, my boy. Human brains. Devilish good, too. Ha, ha! Another lump
of sugar."
"Human brains, you old cannibal!" cried Jack Barnstaple. "What do you
mean?"
"Just what I say, dear boy," returned the old reprobate, wagging his
Silenus head. "When I was in Pampalo we made a trip to Pangasinan, and
assisted at a native feast. The Palanese had just achieved a victory over
the Quinanès, and seventy-five heads were served up in my honour. Gad, gentlemen, the fellows cracked 'em like cocoa-nuts, and whipped out the brains in less time than you would take to disembowel a crayfish!"