By this time "Porepunkahs" had
passed their previous limit, and even paid a bonus: it was now an open
secret that a drive undertaken in an opposite direction to the first had
proved successful; the lead was scored and seamed with gold. Ocock spoke
of the stone, specimens of which he had held in his hand--declared he
had never seen its equal.
But when the shares stood at fifty-three pounds each, Mahony could
restrain himself no longer; and, in spite of Ocock's belief that another
ten days would see a COUP, he parted with forty-five of the half hundred
he held. Leaving the odd money with the lawyer for re-investment, he
walked out of the office the possessor of two thousand pounds.
It was only a very ordinary late spring day; the season brought its like
by the score: a pale azure sky, against which the distant hills looked
purple; above these a narrow belt of cloud, touched, in its curves, to
the same hue. But to Mahony it seemed as if such a perfect day had never
dawned since he first set foot in Australia. His back was eased of its
burden; and, like Christian on having passed the wall known as
Salvation, he could have wept tears of joy. After all these years of
pinching and sparing he was out of poverty's grip. The suddenness of the
thing was what staggered him. He might have drudged till his hair was
grey; it was unlikely he would ever, at one stroke, have come into
possession of a sum like this.--And that whole day he went about
feeling a little more than human, and seeing people, places, things,
through a kind of beatific mist.
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