Read The Pride of the Peacock for Free Online Page B

mining-finding something the Earth has to offer. It gets in your blood. You’ve got to Know what’s under that hard crust of earth. It’s not only for the money. When men talked of money out there they thought of gold. Gold! It’s another name for money, you might say. But there’s other things besides gold, as I wastoifind.”
    “Opalsl’ I said.
    Tes, opals. At first it was just a bit of fossicking. There I was with a nice little bit in the Melbourne bank and I thought I’d go on a trek into New South Wales . just to take a look at the country, you
    might say. I was in the Bush camping, at nights . when I fell in with a party who were looking for opal. Oh, not like proper gougers, oh no. Just a bit of fun.
    Weekend fossickers, you’d call them, just going out to see what beginner’s luck would bring them.
    “What you looking for, mates?” I asked and they answered “Opal.”
    “Opal,” I said, and I thought: Not for me! I was always a man to look for my market whether it was saveloys and pigs’ trotters or gold and sapphires. Well, to cut a long story short, as they say, I went along with them for a bit of fossicking.
    All I had was a couple of picks-one was a driving pick, the other a sinking pick. Then I had my shovel and a rope and what we call a spider, which is a sort of candlestick-for you may have to work in the dark. You want a snip too . that’s a sort of pincers for snipping off the useless potch. Oh, I can see I’m getting a bit too technical for you, but with a name like yours you’ll want to know. “
    “And you found opals?”
    “Nothing to speak of … fossicking. That just gave me the taste for it. But I knew I had to go on, and within a month I was a proper gouger. Then I started to get my first real finds. I just knew as soon as I held it in my hands and it winked and twinkled at me that it was opals I was going after. Funny, you know. They say there’s a story in each stone … Nature’s pictures. I could show you something”
    He looked at me and laughed.
    “I’m going to show you. You’re going to come and see my collection. We’re not going to go on meeting out here, are we ?”
    “It seems the best way,” I said, visualizing what would happen if I introduced him to my parents or Miriam and Xavier.
    He winked.
    “We’ll find a way. Leave it to me.” He was laughing again.
    “I do talk, don’t I? And all about myself. What do you think of me, eh ?”
    “I think you’re the most exciting person I ever met.8 ” Here! ” he cried.
    “It’s time I went in. Next time you come to the house, eh? I’ll show you some of my most predous opals. You’d like that, wouldn’t you ?”
    Tes, I would, but if they knew. “
    “Who’s to know?”
    Servants talk. “
    Tou can be sure they do. Well, let ‘em, I say. “
    “I should be forbidden.”
    He winked again.
    “What do people like us care for a bit of forbidding, eh? We’re not going to let them stop us, are we?”
    They could forbid me to see you. “
    p. p. 33 b
     
    “Leave it to me,” he said.
    “When shall I see you again?”
    Tomorrow I have visitors so it won’t be then. Business, you see-and they’ll be with me for a while. Say next Wednesday. You come and walk boldly up the drive to the front porch. They’ll be expecting you, and they’ll bring you straight to me and I’ll entertain you in a fashion worthy of one of the Claverings. “
    I was so excited I could scarcely thank him.
    Later I thought it would be the end, for we couldn’t possibly keep my visits a secret. But I had a whole week to anticipate it.
     
    2.
     

OAKLAND HALL
    That week seemed a long time in passing for I was eager to hear more of Ben Henniker, who had shown me in our two meetings a different kind of world and made my own life seem colourless in comparison. I was not sure whether it was what he had to tell me or his manner of telling which made it so vivid to me, but I could picture myself in a calico tent fighting off the