TOWN.

CHAPTER I.

The Master-Goldsmith.

Jake Ruggles leant over the goldsmith's bench, put the end of his
blow-pipe into the gas-flame, and impinged a little oxygenized jet
upon the silver buckle he was soldering. He was a thin, undersized,
rabbit-faced youth, whose head was thatched with a shock of coarse black
hair. He possessed a pair of spreading black eyebrows upon a forehead
which was white when well washed, for Nature had done honestly by the
top of his head, but had realised, when his chin was reached, the
fatuity of spending more time upon the moulding and adornment of the
person of Jake Ruggles.

The master-goldsmith was a rubicund man, with a face which Jake, in a
rage, had once described as that of "a pig with the measles." But this
was, without doubt, a gross perversion of the truth. Benjamin Tresco's
countenance was as benign as that of Bacchus, and as open as the day.
Its chief peculiarity was that the brow and lashes of one eye were
white, while piebald patches adorned his otherwise red head.

In his own eyes, the most important person in Timber Town was Benjamin
Tresco. But it was natural for him to think so, for he was the only man
of his trade in a town of six thousand people. He was a portly person
who took a broad view of life, and it was his habit to remark, when folk
commented on his rotundity, "I _am_ big. I don't deny it. But I can't
help myself--God A'mighty made me big, big in body, big in brain, big
in appetite, big in desire to break every established law and accepted
custom; but I am prevented from giving rein to my impulses by the
expansiveness of my soul. That I developed myself. I could go up
the street and rob the Kangaroo Bank; I could go to Mr. Crewe, the
millionaire, and compel him at the pistol's mouth to transfer me the
hoards of his life-time; I could get blazing drunk three nights a week;
I could kidnap Varnhagen's pretty daughter, and carry her off to the
mountains; but my soul prevents me--I am the battle-ground of contending
passions. One half of me says, 'Benjamin, do these things'; the
other half says, 'Tresco, abstain. Be magnanimous: spare them!' My
appetites--and they are enormous--say, 'Benjamin Tresco, have a real
good time while you can; sail in, an' catch a-holt of pleasure with
both hands.' But my better part says, 'Take your pleasure in mutual
enjoyments, Benjamin; fix your mind on book-learning and the elevating
Arts of peace.' I am a bone of contention b