“M’Ginnis says he’s heard a lot of ‘the freedom to starve on the Ridge’—it’s more than I have, it’s a sure thing if he wants to starve, nobody’d stop him. …”
A wave of laughter passed over the hall.
“But most of us here haven’t any fancy for starving, and what’s more, nobody has ever starved on the Ridge. I don’t say that we haven’t had hard times, that we haven’t gone on short commons—we have; but we haven’t starved, and we’re not going to. …
“This talk of buying up the mines comes at the only time it would have been listened to in the last half-dozen years. It hits us when we’re down, in a way; but the slump’ll pass. There’ve been slumps before, and they’ve passed. … Mr. Armitage thinks so, or he wouldn’t be so keen on getting hold of the mines.
“And as to production of stone and development of the mines, it seems to me we can do more ourselves than any Proprietary Company, Ltd., or syndicate ever made could. Didn’t old Mr. Armitage, himself, say once that he didn’t know a better conducted or more industrious mining community than this one. ‘Why d’y’ think that is?’ I asked him. He said he didn’t know. I said, ‘You don’t think the way the men feel about their work’s got anything to do with it?’ ‘Damn it, Michael,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to think so.’
“And I happen to know”—Michael smiled slightly towards John Armitage, who was gazing at him with tense features and hands tightly folded and crossed under his chin—“that the old man is opposed even now to this scheme because he thinks he won’t get as much black opal out of us as he does under our own way of doing things. He remembers the Cliffs, and what taking over of the mines did for opal—and the men—there. This scheme is Mr. John Armitage’s idea. …
“He’s put it to you. You’ve heard what it is. All I’ve got to say now is, don’t touch it. Don’t have anything to do with it. … It’ll break us … the spirit of the men here … and it’ll break what we’ve been working on all these years. If it means throwing that up, don’t let us see which side our bread’s buttered on, as Mr. M’Ginnis says. Let us say like we always have—like we’ve been proud to say: ‘We’ll eat bread and fat, but we’ll be our own masters!’ ”
“We’ll eat bread and fat, but we’ll be our own masters!” the men who were with Michael roared.
He sat down amid cheers. George and Watty turned in their seats to beam at him, filled with rejoicing.
Armitage rose from his chair and shifted his papers as though he had not quite decided what he intended to say.
“I’m not going to ask this meeting for a decision,” he began.
“You can have it!” Bully Bryant yelled.
“There’s a bit of a rush at Blue Pigeon Creek, and I’m going on up there,” John Armitage continued. “I’m due in Sydney at the end of the month—that is, a month from this date—and I’ll run up then for your answer to the proposition which has been laid before you. I have said all there is to say about it, except that, notwithstanding anything which may have been asserted to the contrary, I hope you will give your gravest consideration to an enterprise, I am convinced, would be in the best interests of this town and of the people of Fallen Star Ridge. I think, however, you ought to know—”
“That Michael Brady’s a liar and a thief!” Charley cried, springing from his corner as if loosed from some invisible leash. “If you believe him, you’re believing a liar and a thief. Mr. Armitage knows … I know … and Paul knows—”
“Throw him out.”
“He’s mad!”
The cries rose in a tumult of angry voices. When they were at their height M’Ginnis was seen on his feet and waving his arms.
“Let him say what he’s got to!” he shouted. “You chaps know as well as I do what’s been going the rounds, and we might as well have it out now. If it’s not true, Michael’d rather have the strength of it, and give you his answer … and if there is anything in it, we’ve got a right to know.”
“That’s right!” some of the men near him chorused.
Newton looked towards George, and George towards Michael.
“Might as well have it,” Michael said.
Charley, who had been hustled against the wall by Potch and Bully Bryant, was loosed. He moved a few steps forward so that everyone could see him, and breathlessly, shivering, in a frenzy of triumphant malice, told his story. Rouminof, carried away by excitement, edged alongside him, chiming into what he was saying with exclamations and chippings of corroboration.
When Charley had finished talking and had fallen back exhausted, Armitage left his chair as if to continue what he had been going to say when Charley took the floor. Instead, he hesitated, and, feeling his way through the silence of consternation and dismay which had stricken everybody, said uncertainly:
“Much as I regret having to do so, I consider it my duty to state that Charley Heathfield’s story, as far as I know it, is substantially correct. Some time ago I was sold a stone in New York. As soon as he saw it, my father said, ‘Why, that’s Michael’s mascot.’ I asked him if he were sure, and he declared that he could not be mistaken about the stone. …
“I told him the story I had got with it. Charley has already told you. That stone came from a parcel Charley supposed contained Rouminof’s opals—the one Paul got when Jun Johnson and he had a run of luck together. The parcel did not contain Rouminof’s opals, and had been exchanged for the parcel which did, either while Rouminof and Charley were going home together or after he had taken them from Rouminof. My father refused to believe
