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Fabayne was a university man and an accomplished scholar, but he had gone the pace at an unusually rapid rate. When I knew him he was a hopeless drunkard. Whenever Fabayne drew a 50 installment he would place 45 in the hands of the keeper of a certain bar, and 5 with a butcher whose shop was in the vicinity. He would then get drunk and remain so as long as the 45 lasted.
A complete inventory of the belongings of this strange being would have included a pick, a shovel, a pan, and an old sluice-box, none of which he ever used, also a blanket, a big knife, a billy, and a Greek Testament. The cave, although draughty, was comfortable and fairly dry. Now and then I shared it with Fabayne; generally on those occasions when I sold my tent.
A very curious character at Pilgrim's Rest was a man named Fabayne, whose dwelling-place was a cave under a cliff about half-way up the creek on the northern side. Fabayne was well-connected, his father was a Church dignitary, a dean, I fancy and was evidently well off; for he allowed the scapegrace son 200 per annum, paid quarterly.
I used to pelt him with fairly heavy stones, and although I must sometimes have hurt him rather severely, he took no notice. Fabayne admitted that he was deliberately drinking himself to death; trying to argue him out of this intention proved to be of not the slightest avail. I recall a wedding which had a sequel very characteristic of its environment.
William Bogis" Fabayne, the cave-dweller A bellicose bridegroom Knox and his revolver practice A senseless toast and its sequel A terrible accident Alick Dempster and the Police News. In 1874 a certain corporation, I think it was called "The Gold Fields Exploration Company," had an office at Pilgrim's Rest. Edward Simpson, formerly of Port Elizabeth, was the manager.
He used to fetch a sheep's pluck every day and make soup of it in a billy. The butcher used his own discretion in the matter of clothes, but when Fabayne grew more than ordinarily ragged I fancy the bar-keeper contributed towards his outfit, a thing he could, under the circumstances, well afford to do.
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