4. Mrs Finnegan’s Scones; and The Lazarus Tree
Shortly before the beginning of the school year my parents and I drove up the valley to Gower Abbey College, the idea being to meet Father O’Long and to have a look over the establishment there. At the presbytery we were greeted by a robust, motherly-looking middle-aged woman who invited us inside. She was a warm friendly-looking person with an engaging manner and was genuinely pleased to see us.
“We’ve been expecting you,” she said as she ushered us into the dining-room. “I’m Mrs Finnegan, Father O’Long’s housekeeper.” We introduced ourselves and were invited to sit down and join in the afternoon tea she was preparing.
Father wouldn’t be long, Mrs Finnegan explained. He’d be back as soon as he and Brother SanSistez had finished digging out the tractor from where it was bogged in the new paddock. She then excused herself and hurried off to the kitchen.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” asked Mum, who followed Mrs Finnegan rather than sitting at the table. From that direction came the pleasant odour of a wood fire and things baking.
They soon returned, arms laden with trays of crockery and refreshments which were arranged about the table. Quickly the air became saturated with the derangingly tantalising aroma of Mrs Finnegan’s freshly baked scones.
I subsequently learned that for just one of these every boy in the school was prepared to squander his immortal soul. None could have been enslaved more surely and more willingly, however, than I.
“Don’t stare like that, Kevin!” hissed my Mother sharply, as she tried to snap me out of my trance. “And close your mouth!”
Her admonition didn’t register at any conscious level, though. I just sat there at the table salivating like Pavlov’s Dog.
Mrs Finnegan sized up the situation in an instant. “Let’s not wait for the others,” she said magnanimously, sliding three large scones onto my plate. She then put the jam and cream within easy reach – more quickly even than I could have done myself (with any decorum, that is).
Just then came the sound of voices from the outside laundry, the thud of gum-boots being discarded and water splashing. It was the tractor-retrieval party cleaning up before coming inside.
There were three as it happened, all in ragged shirts and shorts. Except for their hands and faces and where their boots had been they were well splattered with mud. Even so, their condition was not enough to conceal which of them was the priest.
He was the tallest of the trio and the grubbiest by far; a well built man with rugged features, dark hair and eyes and a natural air of authority. What caught me by surprise, though, was the force of his persona. Almost tangible it was, a presence in the air about him which hinted at strength of character and purpose, warm-hearted humour and the gentlest whiff of larrikinism. And so real was this aura that it could not only penetrate the insensitive hide of a thirteen and a half year old boy, but it could do so whilst that boy was completely focused on dispatching the offerings of Paradise in anticipation of another helping.
“We have prevailed, Mrs Finnegan!” he exclaimed from the rear as they entered the room. “Once more have the forces of darkness and mud been smited by the spades of the righteous! ...Yea! And the unshakeable spirit of Mr Cross’ four wheel drive Blitz-truck.
“I’m Father O’Long,” he continued, only slightly less loudly (as if there had been some doubt), “…and these two gentlemen are Brother SanSistez … and Mr Angus Cross, our friend and neighbour. You must be the Cassidys. Welcome to Gower Abbey.”
Dad shook hands with the men; Mum and I stood up as he introduced us.
“Do please sit down, Mrs Cassidy. I’m delighted to meet you. And please forgive us any similarity we have to ditch-diggers but that is precisely what we’ve been doing.”
He turned to me. “So you’re young Kevin,” he boomed, shaking my hand firmly as he sized me up. At the same time Mrs Finnegan took the opportunity to slide some more scones onto my plate. “Well, Master Kevin,” he continued warmly, “I’m sure you’re going to like it here and I’m certain we’ll get along.”
Suddenly he became grim and confidential. “But there is something you’d best appreciate from the outset, my boy,” he added, leaning closer to my ear. “Mrs - Finnegan’s - scones - are mine by Divine Right, and if you try charming one more from her before I’ve had my rightful share, then I shall see to it that no scone of hers will ever pass your lips again.”
“You leave him alone!” scolded Mrs Finnegan. “I made them especially for master Kevin. —You have as many as you like, young man.”
But it was no contest really. By the time I’d finished the second three the remainder had vanished under the combined assault of Father O’Long, his helpers and my Mum and Dad.
Gower Abbey College was established, Father explained, following a bequest of property by one Ebenezer Josia Gower in the late nineteen-thirties – a reclusive and eccentric sort of fellow by all accounts and semi-illiterate.
Apparently, in his barely decipherable “Last Willing Testerment”, he’d observed that, being largely uneducated save for the great School of Life, he’d realised the need for an appropriate sort of high school in the valley, so that parents of the area whose sons had completed primary school would have the option of continuing their education locally.
And so, as a good Protestant and with no living relatives to contest his intentions, Gower bequeathed his estate to the minions of the Pope, they being the only ones interested in starting a small agricultural college in the (then) undeveloped upper end of the Sherbert Valley.
An intimation was also made in the Will that there was “plenty more”, but that he was sure the bequest as found would build even an abbey, should they so wish. In the event his “plenty more” comment was found somewhat curious, and this, over time, became the basis of an enduring riddle.
A renovations and construction project was commenced on the property, with the local wags quickly dubbing the new chapel building “Gower’s Abbey”. Over time this became widely accepted and with it came some de-facto respectability. The founding Fathers were hesitant about the idea at first but, as the official opening drew nigh, they accepted it as a fait accompli, but insisted instead that “Gower Abbey” – without the possessive – was the best way to acknowledge old Ben’s fine bequest.
Interestingly, much of the legacy’s value came in the form of washed gold concentrate, something which surprised greatly the learned legal and reverend gentlemen who opened the stout little wooden boxes to which they’d been directed – and all else who came to learn of it.
For a start they were marked “Geo. Worthington’s Finest Quality Lead Shot”, the least likely looking of a number of similar but more true-to-label containers found at the bottom of a rough wooden chest adjacent to Gower’s gun cabinet.
Among those fortunate enough to view the boxes’ contents that day were a couple of Sherbert Valley old-timers. Each recognised something special in the gold’s nature, a largely forgotten attribute which identified any that came from the Sherbert Valley.
It was this: gold from the Sherbert Valley was paler than most, courtesy of its high silver content – an attribute distinguishing it clearly from the bullion of other mines. But no gold had come from the Sherbert Valley after the last mine closed in eighteen ninety-eight. And yet this – plainly – was Sherbert Valley gold.
Of far more import, however, was something else the two had noticed, something of far greater consequence, something loaded with implication. And each kept this nugget of knowledge to himself, for it had the potential to lend its holder great advantage.
What the two had seen was this: Gower’s gold was exclusively reef gold. Yet the Sherbert field had never produced any reef gold. It had all been alluvial, won from the placer deposits under the Sherbert River’s old flood plain.
As for the Sherbert River itself… Well, these days it flows at a lower level and keeps mostly to the southern side of the valley, often kilometres from where
the gold was deposited. And because of this the early prospectors only ever saw an occasional speck or wispy tail in their gold pans.
Unbeknown to them the traces were originating more than a kilometre from the river. A minor contributing stream had cut deep into the old flood plain and the gold was issuing from a thin layer of gravel near the bottom of its steep sided gully. But the gravel bed was being eroded very slowly, and the tiny amounts of gold being fed into the Sherbert’s mighty channel were being diluted there almost to oblivion.
Efforts to follow these unreliable traces proved difficult and the Sherbert Valley was soon assumed to be of little potential. Yet eventually even those faint on-again off-again colours proved adequate, though it took a special type of person to achieve it.
Or persons.
Brothers they were, named Foster – rainforest prospectors, both of them totally gold-obsessed and almost hermit-like in their habits. And the channel where they found the gold became known as “Foster’s Gully”.
Year on year they’d returned when the river was low, sometimes disappearing into the rainforests for months at a time. Often they’d work with half empty bellies, preferring to live off the land and the river as their provisions dwindled, rather than leave to resupply.
On finding the gold they returned to civilization and registered their claim, following which they took on provisions then returned to the gully and went to work.
News of their discovery quickly spread and a gold rush typical of the day took place. The Fosters’ claim was quickly surrounded and, as more and more hopefuls arrived, claims were pegged farther and farther from where the brothers were mining. Most were genuine prospectors but a few opportunists and speculators were there, hoping to make a quick killing.
For the Fosters the going was easy; all they had to do was dig into the bank, but those up in the rainforest first had to sink a shaft twelve metres or so to the base of the old gravel beds. Only then could they try their luck – by mining blindly across the old river’s line of flow in the hope of finding gold before reaching the limit of their claim.
Most failed, of course, but, interestingly, many a failed venture’s shafts and tunnels became valuable assets, and much wheeling and dealing concerning them took place. Far easier to form a partnership with a disappointed neighbour than have to start digging from scratch. Sometimes this was done singly but these mostly became syndicates. Later, in a few places, the prospecting tunnels became linked and formed multi-shaft networks, something which helped with the ever-present problem of ventilation. Even so, the majority of prospectors still failed to find any gold.
Meanwhile, the Foster Brothers quickly established their deposit’s lie, and claims along its projected strike line increased in value and activity. Despite this only a couple of low value finds were made anywhere near the strike trend.
Then a really good find was made a kilometre or so beyond the gully’s claims and this area too became blanketed with tenements. And the same happened with subsequent discoveries; a sudden rush would take place as others hoped to benefit from the fresh information.
A few diehards stuck to their early projects, on both sides of the gully, though nothing worth mining was ever found on its downstream side. Later it was recognised that only one line of the ancient channel was carrying any gold. Over time the river had changed course, first silting-over the gold rich beds then eventually backfilling their waterway until it became part of the floodplain. Millennia of rainforest growth then obliterated all evidence of it, leaving no trace of where the gold might lie.
The beds were not continuous, however, and neither was the gold distributed evenly along them. Instead the best deposits occurred in bends or where boulders or a rock bar had disturbed the flow. But finding one of these was down to chance as there was nothing to guide a prospector bar previous discoveries.
And some of those were really exciting, with a dozen or so larger finds being made over the years, three of which were absolute bonanzas. A great many smaller deposits were found as well, and many a two-man operation flourished on the field. Overall, though, the Sherbert Valley goldfield proved typical, in that most laboured there in hope rather than high grade.
Once discovered a new find would be completely mined out, the bigger ones via large underground galleries. And, on departing, the miners of those larger deposits would remove the roof-support pillars as they retreated, so as to leave behind as little gold as possible. This created many large caverns, most of which had subsequently collapsed.
As time passed the main prospecting effort progressed slowly up the valley and good discoveries became fewer. At the same time the established mines were becoming exhausted – and ultimately abandoned. Some of the miners tried their luck again; others headed off to goldfields heard to have better prospects. Eventually the number of operating mines in the valley began to dwindle and production from the Sherbert Valley field petered out.
(Interestingly, despite much effort over the Sherbert field’s lifetime, the primary source of its gold was never located – given that it still existed – and neither were any other gold-bearing formations found.)
Predictably, word of Gower’s gold being reef-gold eventually leaked out. This caused a great flurry of activity as any number of would-be gold-barons set out to discover where Gower had acquired it. All over the station property they crawled in their search, and into the adjacent hills. And the wiser among them looked not for the gold itself but for evidence of Gower’s movements – vehicle tracks or a trail or anything else that might lead them to the deposit.
They moved into the mountains flanking the valley and battled up the gorges and gullies of the river’s headwaters, yet in the end they had to give up. No trace whatever of Gower’s activities was found – or of any other recent disturbance for that matter.
And it was all to so little point: the early miners had done it all before ... and several times over.
As for Ebenezer Gower… Well, he’d followed fortune far and wide in his younger days. He could have come by the gold years before (it was reasoned), from anywhere between Boulder and Bendigo, The Tanami and Charters Towers.
Yet this argument was flawed; the silver assay of Gower’s gold matched perfectly the previous assays of Sherbert Valley gold and no other, so explaining its identical pale colour. As a result it became generally accepted that if old Ben Gower had been onto something new he’d covered his tracks very, very, carefully.
Meanwhile, over time, the business of Gower’s gold became the basis of a local riddle that was never quite forgotten.