Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (749 page)

His presence was hardly noticed at first, so insignificant was the man.
 
His manner was quiet and unobtrusive, his face pale, and his figure fragile.
 
On better acquaintance, however, there was a squareness and firmness about his clean-shaven lower jaw, and an intelligence in his widely-opened blue eyes, which marked him as a man of character.
 
He erected a small hut for himself, and started a claim close to that occupied by the two strangers who had preceded him.
 
This claim was chosen with a ludicrous disregard for all practical laws of mining, and at once stamped the newcomer as being a green hand at his work.
 
It was piteous to observe him every morning as we passed to our work, digging and delving with the greatest industry, but, as we knew well, without the smallest possibility of any result.
 
He would pause for a moment as we went by, wipe his pale face with his bandanna handkerchief, and shout out to us a cordial morning greeting, and then fall to again with redoubled energy.
 
By degrees we got into the way of making a half-pitying, half-contemptuous inquiry as to how he got on.
 
“I hain’t struck it yet, boys,” he would answer cheerily, leaning on his spade, “but the bedrock lies deep just hereabouts, and I reckon we’ll get among the pay gravel to-day.”
 
Day after day he returned the same reply with unvarying confidence and cheerfulness.

It was not long before he began to show us the stuff that was in him.
 
One night the proceedings were unusually violent at the drinking saloon.
 
A rich pocket had been struck during the day, and the striker was standing treat in a lavish and promiscuous fashion which had reduced three parts of the settlement to a state of wild intoxication.
 
A crowd of drunken idlers stood or lay about the bar, cursing, swearing, shouting, dancing, and here and there firing their pistols into the air out of pure wantonness.
 
From the interior of the shanty behind there came a similar chorus.
 
Maule, Phillips, and the roughs who followed them were in the ascendant, and all order and decency was swept away.

Suddenly, amid this tumult of oaths and drunken cries, men became conscious of a quiet monotone which underlay all other sounds and obtruded itself at every pause in the uproar.
 
Gradually first one man and then another paused to listen, until there was a general cessation of the hubbub, and every eye was turned in the direction whence this quiet stream of words flowed.
 
There, mounted upon a barrel, was Elias B. Hopkins, the newest of the inhabitants of Jackman’s Gulch, with a good-humoured smile upon his resolute face.

He held an open Bible in his hand, and was reading aloud a passage taken at random — an extract from the Apocalypse, if I remember right.
 
The words were entirely irrelevant and without the smallest bearing upon the scene before him, but he plodded on with great unction, waving his left hand slowly to the cadence of his words.

There was a general shout of laughter and applause at this apparition, and Jackman’s Gulch gathered round the barrel approvingly, under the impression that this was some ornate joke, and that they were about to be treated to some mock sermon or parody of the chapter read.
 
When, however, the reader, having finished the chapter, placidly commenced another, and having finished that rippled on into another one, the revellers came to the conclusion that the joke was somewhat too long-winded.
 
The commencement of yet another chapter confirmed this opinion, and an angry chorus of shouts and cries, with suggestions as to gagging the reader or knocking him off the barrel, rose from every side. In spite of roars and hoots, however, Elias B. Hopkins plodded away at the Apocalypse with the same serene countenance, looking as ineffably contented as though the babel around him were the most gratifying applause.
 
Before long an occasional boot pattered against the barrel or whistled past our parson’s head; but here some of the more orderly of the inhabitants interfered in favour of peace and order, aided curiously enough by the afore-mentioned Maule and Phillips, who warmly espoused the cause of the little Scripture reader.
 
“The little cus has got grit in him,” the latter explained, rearing his bulky red-shirted form between the crowd and the object of its anger.
 
“His ways ain’t our ways, and we’re all welcome to our opinions, and to sling them round from barrels or otherwise if so minded.
 
What I says and Bill says is, that when it comes to slingin’ boots instead o’ words it’s too steep by half, an’ if this man’s wronged we’ll chip in an’ see him righted.”
 
This oratorical effort had the effect of checking the more active signs of disapproval, and the party of disorder attempted to settle down once more to their carouse, and to ignore the shower of Scripture which was poured upon them.
 
The attempt was hopeless.
 
The drunken portion fell asleep under the drowsy refrain, and the others, with many a sullen glance at the imperturbable reader, slouched off to their huts, leaving him still perched upon the barrel.
 
Finding himself alone with the more orderly of the spectators, the little man rose, closed his book, after methodically marking with a lead pencil the exact spot at which he stopped, and descended from his perch.
 
“To-morrow night, boys,” he remarked in his quiet voice, “the reading will commence at the 9th verse of the 15th chapter of the Apocalypse,” with which piece of information, disregarding our congratulations, he walked away with the air of a man who has performed an obvious duty.

We found that his parting words were no empty threat.
 
Hardly had the crowd begun to assemble next night before he appeared once more upon the barrel and began to read with the same monotonous vigour, tripping over words! muddling up sentences, but still boring along through chapter after chapter.
 
Laughter, threats, chaff — every weapon short of actual violence — was used to deter him, but all with the same want of success.
 
Soon it was found that there was a method in his proceedings.
 
When silence reigned, or when the conversation was of an innocent nature, the reading ceased.
 
A single word of blasphemy, however, set it going again, and it would ramble on for a quarter of an hour or so, when it stopped, only to be renewed upon similar provocation.
 
The reading was pretty continuous during that second night, for the language of the opposition was still considerably free.
 
At least it was an improvement upon the night before.

For more than a month Elias B. Hopkins carried on this campaign. There he would sit, night after night, with the open book upon his knee, and at the slightest provocation off he would go, like a musical box when the spring is touched.
 
The monotonous drawl became unendurable, but it could only be avoided by conforming to the parson’s code.
 
A chronic swearer came to be looked upon with disfavour by the community, since the punishment of his transgression fell upon all.
 
At the end of a fortnight the reader was silent more than half the time, and at the end of the month his position was a sinecure.

Never was a moral revolution brought about more rapidly and more completely.
 
Our parson carried his principle into private life. I have seen him, on hearing an unguarded word from some worker in the gulches, rush across, Bible in hand, and perching himself upon the heap of red clay which surmounted the offender’s claim, drawl through the genealogical tree at the commencement of the New Testament in a most earnest and impressive manner, as though it were especially appropriate to the occasion.
 
In time, an oath became a rare thing amongst us.
 
Drunkenness was on the wane too. Casual travellers passing through the Gulch used to marvel at our state of grace, and rumours of it went as far as Ballarat, and excited much comment therein.

There were points about our evangelist which made him especially fitted for the work which he had undertaken.
 
A man entirely without redeeming vices would have had no common basis on which to work, and no means of gaining the sympathy of his flock.
 
As we came to know Elias B. Hopkins better, we discovered that in spite of his piety there was a leaven of old Adam in him, and that he had certainly known unregenerate days.
 
He was no teetotaler.
 
On the contrary, he could choose his liquor with discrimination, and lower it in an able manner.
 
He played a masterly hand at poker, and there were few who could touch him at “cut-throat euchre.”
 
He and the two ex-ruffians, Phillips and Maule, used to play for hours in perfect harmony, except when the fall of the cards elicited an oath from one of his companions.
 
At the first of these offences the parson would put on a pained smile, and gaze reproachfully at the culprit.
 
At the second he would reach for his Bible, and the game was over for the evening.
 
He showed us he was a good revolver shot too, for when we were practising at an empty brandy bottle outside Adams’ bar, he took up a friend’s pistol and hit it plumb in the centre at twenty-four paces.
 
There were few things he took up that he could not make a show at apparently, except gold-digging, and at that he was the veriest duffer alive.
 
It was pitiful to see the little canvas bag, with his name printed across it, lying placid and empty upon the shelf at Woburn’s store, while all the other bags were increasing daily, and some had assumed quite a portly rotundity of form, for the weeks were slipping by, and it was almost time for the gold-train to start off for Ballarat.
 
We reckoned that the amount which we had stored at the time represented the greatest sum which had ever been taken by a single convoy out of Jackman’s Gulch.

Although Elias B. Hopkins appeared to derive a certain quiet satisfaction from the wonderful change which he had effected in the camp, his joy was not yet rounded and complete.
 
There was one thing for which he still yearned.
 
He opened his heart to us about it one evening.

“We’d have a blessing on the camp, boys,” he said, “if we only had a service o’ some sort on the Lord’s day.
 
It’s a temptin’ o’ Providence to go on in this way without takin’ any notice of it, except that maybe there’s more whisky drunk and more card playin’ than on any other day.”

“We hain’t got no parson,” objected one of the crowd.

 
“Ye fool!” growled another, “hain’t we got a man as is worth any three parsons, and can splash texts around like clay out o’ a cradle.
 
What more d’ye want?”

“We hain’t got no church!” urged the same dissentient.

“Have it in the open air,” one suggested.

“Or in Woburn’s store,” said another.

“Or in Adams’ saloon.”

The last proposal was received with a buzz of approval, which showed that it was considered the most appropriate locality.

Adams’ saloon was a substantial wooden building in the rear of the bar, which was used partly for storing liquor and partly for a gambling saloon.
 
It was strongly built of rough-hewn logs, the proprietor rightly judging, in the unregenerate days of Jackman’s Gulch, that hogsheads of brandy and rum were commodities which had best be secured under lock and key.
 
A strong door opened into each end of the saloon, and the interior was spacious enough, when the table and lumber were cleared away, to accommodate the whole population.
 
The spirit barrels were heaped together at one end by their owner, so as to make a very fair imitation of a pulpit.

At first the Gulch took but a mild interest in the proceedings, but when it became known that Elias B. Hopkins intended, after reading the service, to address the audience, the settlement began to warm up to the occasion.
 
A real sermon was a novelty to all of them, and one coming from their own parson was additionally so. Rumour announced that it would be interspersed with local hits, and that the moral would be pointed by pungent personalities.
 
Men began to fear that they would be unable to gain seats, and many applications were made to the brothers Adams.
 
It was only when conclusively shown that the saloon could contain them all with a margin that the camp settled down into calm expectancy.

It was as well that the building was of such a size, for the assembly upon the Sunday morning was the largest which had ever occurred in the annals of Jackman’s Gulch.
 
At first it was thought that the whole population was present, but a little reflection showed that this was not so.
 
Maule and Phillips had gone on a prospecting journey among the hills, and had not returned as yet, and Woburn, the gold-keeper, was unable to leave his store.
 
Having a very large quantity of the precious metal under his charge, he stuck to his post, feeling that the responsibility was too great to trifle with.
 
With these three exceptions the whole of the Gulch, with clean red shirts, and such other additions to their toilet as the occasion demanded, sauntered in a straggling line along the clayey pathway which led up to the saloon.