The Devil's Making Read Online Free Page A

someone called Amor de Cosmos is battling with a status quo party which, according to the Colonist, claims to maintain British interests but in fact harbours the secret agenda of annexation to the United States. Yet there are only 3,000 voters in the election. In their hands the fate of a land half as large as Europe!
    The rest of the local factional conflicts are of the parish pump variety. The Governor used the prison chain gang to set out a croquet lawn at his residence, Carey Castle. The Anglican Bishop, a dandy known as Beau Brummel, is threatened by schism from his evangelistic Dean.
    Ringo gave me directions to the only man I knew who might be in Victoria, Frederick Blundell, a friend of friends at Oxford, at Brasenose College. I had heard before leaving home that he was ‘in trade’ here, which I assumed meant banking or something such. But Ringo said, ‘You’ll find Fred at the ironmonger’s on Store Street.’
    The clouds had dissolved, and I stepped out into a surprisingly warm sun. The sky is a paler and brighter blue than in England. The wooden buildings were steaming as the rain dried. I made my way downhill to Wharf Street, now bustling with wagons and with men unloading a ship for the Hudson’s Bay Company, then across a rickety bridge over a ravine whose sides were strewn with rubbish, offal, and pieces of broken wood, to Store Street. The ironmonger’s had a brick front but wooden sides. Inside, tubs, kettles, buckets and watering cans were hanging from the ceiling on wires. I had to duck around them. Counters on each side were laden with boxes of nails and coils of wire. The walls were hung with shovels, picks, and more bunches of kettles and buckets. A small boy behind one counter was dealing with the shop’s only customers, two men arguing quietly about nails. Behind the opposite counter Frederick was lounging on a high stool, reading a book. He looked at me blankly for a moment then broke into a smile and leapt up. ‘Chad Hobbes! Old chap, it’s you, isn’t it?’ As if long lost brothers!
    Another life story. Poor Frederick, with a poor degree and always a bit dim, seems to have sunk rather than swum out here. Spent his money in the Cariboo, looking for gold. Now saving his meagre earnings in the hope of starting a private school some time in the future. From what he said of the recent fall in the local economy, this seems as unlikely a dream as finding gold. Like my own hopes of working in the law! As Frederick put it, rattling on, ‘No go, old chap, I should think. Even if you’d become a barrister before leaving England there wouldn’t be much work here. When people are caught red-handed in crimes they don’t bother with a legal defense. There are five or six barristers who flourished on all the litigation during the Gold Rush, when everyone was suing everyone else over land frauds and money, but they seem poor as church mice now. There are a number of solicitors too, but there isn’t the legal work, in conveyancing and so on, since there are so few sales. You might try Carey Castle but they’re an awful crowd – sycophants and hangers-on, minor gentry from home, puffed up with importance and snobbery. And you should try the Legislature. Perhaps they need a clerk or something. Sorry, old chap, but that’s the sort of possible level. Go over there and, yes, see old Matthew Begbie, the terror of the Cariboo, the dear old Indian-lover. He’s an absolute gentleman, although born in South Africa or somewhere. He doesn’t hear cases in Victoria. In fact there’s a feud on about that. The judge here is a rather foolish chap called Needham, and although Begbie is Chief Justice he is stuck over on the mainland at New Westminster. But he comes over every couple of weeks on the steamer and sits in legislative councils. Can I sell you a pair of Wellington boots, old chap? Not strictly speaking iron, but we do “carry