The Black Opal - Katharine Susannah Prichard (open ebook .TXT) 📗

“Who d’y’ think’s come be motor today, Michael?” he gasped.

Michael’s movement and the shade of apprehension which crossed his face were a question.

“Old man Armitage!” Watty said. “And he’s come all the way from New York to see the big opal, he says.”

There was a rumble of cart wheels, an exclamation and the reverberation of a broad, slow voice out-of-doors. Watty looked through Michael’s window.

“Here he is, Michael,” he said. “George and Peter are helping him out of Newton’s dogcart. And Archie Cross and Bill Grant are coming along the road a bit behind.”

Michael pushed back his seat and pulled the fastenings from his front door. The front door was more of a decoration and matter of form in the face of the hut than intended to serve any useful purpose, and the fastening had never been moved before.

Potch cleared away the litter of the meal while Michael went out to meet the old man. He was walking with the help of a stick, his heavy, colourless face screwed with pain.

“Grr-rr!” he grunted. “What a fool I was to come to this Goddamn place of yours, George! What? No fool like an old one? Don’t know so much about that.⁠ ⁠… What else was I to do? Brrr! Oh, there you are, Michael! Came to see you. Came right away because, from what the boys tell me, you weren’t likely to slip down and call on me.”

“I’d ’ve come all right if I’d known you wanted to see me, Mr. Armitage,” Michael said.

The old man went into the hut and, creaking and groaning as though all his springs needed oiling, seated himself on the sofa, whipped out a silk handkerchief and wiped his face and head with it.

“Oh, well,” he said, “here I am at last⁠—and mighty glad to get here. The journey from New York City, where I reside, to this spot on the globe, don’t get any nearer as I grow older. No, sir! Who’s that young man?”

Mr. Armitage had fixed his eyes on Potch from the moment he came into the hut. Potch stood to his gaze.

“That’s Potch,” Michael said.

“Potch?”

The small, round eyes, brown with black rims and centres, beginning to dull with age, winked over Potch, and in that moment Dawe Armitage was trying to discover what his chances of getting possession of the stone he had come to see, were with the man who had found it.

“Con⁠—gratulate you, young man,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ve come, Lord knows how many miles, to have a look at that stone of yours.”

Potch shook hands with him.

“They tell me it’s the finest piece of opal ever come out of Ridge earth,” the old man continued. “Well, I couldn’t rest out there at home without havin’ a look at it. To think there was an opal like that about, and I couldn’t get me fingers on it! And when I thought how it was I’d never even see it, perhaps, I danged ’em to Hades⁠—doctors, family and all⁠—took me passage out here. Ran away! That’s what I did.” He chuckled with reminiscent glee. “And here I am.”

“Cleared out, did y’, Mr. Armitage?” Watty asked.

“That’s it, Watty,” old Armitage answered, still chuckling. “Cleared out.⁠ ⁠… Family’ll be scarrifyin’ the States for me. Sent ’em a cable when I got here to say I’d arrived.”

Michael and George laughed with Watty, and the old man looked as pleased with himself as a schoolboy who has brought off some soul-satisfying piece of mischief.

“Tell you, boys,” he said, “I felt I couldn’t die easy knowing there was a stone like that about and I’d never clap eyes on it.⁠ ⁠… Know you chaps’d pretty well turned me down⁠—me and mine⁠—and I wouldn’t get more than a squint at the stone for my pains. You’re such damned independent beggars! Eh, Michael? That’s the old argument, isn’t it? How did y’ like those papers I sent you⁠—and that book⁠ ⁠… by the foreign devil⁠—what’s his name? Clever, but mad. Y’r all mad, you socialists, syndicalists, or whatever y’r call y’rselves nowadays.⁠ ⁠… But, for God’s sake, let me have a look at the stone now, there’s a good fellow.”

Michael looked at Potch.

“You get her, Potch,” he said.

Potch put his hand to the top of the shelf where, in an old tin, the great opal lay wrapped in wadding, with a few soft cloths about it. He put the tin on the table. Michael pushed the table toward the sofa on which Mr. Armitage was sitting. The old man leaned forward, his lips twitching, his eyes watering with eagerness. Potch’s clumsy fingers fumbled with the wrappings; he spread the wadding on the table. The opal flashed black and shining between the rags and wadding as Potch put it on the table. Michael had lighted a candle and brought it alongside.

Dawe Armitage gaped at the stone with wide, dazed eyes.

“My!” he breathed; and again: “My!” Then: “She was worth it, Michael,” fell from him in an awed exclamation.

He looked up, and the men saw tears of reverence and emotion in his eyes. He brushed them away and put out his hand to take the stone. He lifted the stone, gently and lovingly, as if it were alive and might be afraid at the approach of his wrinkled old hand. But it was not afraid, Potch’s opal; it fluttered with delight in the hand of this old man, who was a devout lover, and rayed itself like a bird of paradise. Even to the men who had seen the stone before, it had a new and uncanny brilliance. It seemed to coquet with Dawe Armitage; to pour out its infinitesimal stars⁠—red, blue, green, gold, and amethyst⁠—blazing, splintering, and coruscating to dazzle and bewilder him.

The men exclaimed as Mr. Armitage moved the opal. Then he put the stone down and mopped his forehead.

“Well,” he said, “I reckon she’s the Goddamnedest piece of opal I’ve ever seen.”

“She is that,” Watty declared.

“What have you got on her, Michael?” Dawe Armitage queried.

A faint smile touched Michael’s