Part 7 (2/2)

”Yes, Alice is dead.”

”And Jenny is dead.”

”Yes, and Jenny. They are at the bottom of the sea.”

In that way she counted a long list of the dead, which she closed by saying:

”They are all gone but Joe.”

She had been a widow more than twenty-five years. She was a young woman, tall and strong, before Bonaparte, Wellington, the United States, or Australia, had ever been heard of in Lancas.h.i.+re, and from the top of a stile she had counted every windmill and chimney in Preston before it was covered with the black pall of smoke from the cotton-mills.

AMONG THE DIGGERS IN 1853.

I.

I lost a summer in 1853, and had two winters instead, one in England, the other in Australia.

It was cold in the month of May as we neared Bendigo. We were a mixed party of English, Irish, and Scotch, twelve in number, and accompanied by three horse-teams, carrying tubs, tents, and provisions. We also had plenty of arms wherewith to fight the bush-rangers, but I did not carry any myself; I left the fighting department to my mate, Philip, and to the others who were fond of war. Philip was by nature and training as gentle and amiable as a lamb, but he was a Young Irelander, and therefore a fighter on principle. O'Connell had tried moral suasion on the English Government long enough, and to no purpose, so Philip and his fiery young friends were prepared to have recourse to arms. The arms he was now carrying consisted of a gleaming bowie knife, and two pistols stuck in his belt. The pistols were good ones; Philip had tried them on a friend in the Phoenix Park the morning after a ball at the Rotunda, and had pinked his man--shot him in the arm. It is needless to say that there was a young lady in the case; I don't know what became of her, but during the rest of her life she could boast of having been the fair demoiselle on whose account the very last duel was fought in Ireland. Then the age of chivalry went out. The bowie knife was the British article bought in Liverpool. It would neither kill a man nor cut a beef-steak, as was proved by experience.

We met parties of men from Bendigo--unlucky diggers, who offered to sell their thirty-s.h.i.+lling licenses. By this time my cash was low; my twenty-dollar gold pieces were all consumed. While voyaging to the new Ophir, where gold was growing underfoot, I could not see any sound sense in being n.i.g.g.ardly. But when I saw a regular stream of disappointed men with empty pockets offering their monthly licenses for five s.h.i.+llings each within sight of the goldfield, I had misgivings, and I bought a license that had three weeks to run from William Matthews. Ten other men bought licenses, but William Patterson, a canny Scotchman, said he would chance it.

It was about midday when we halted near Bendigo Creek, opposite a refreshment tent. Standing in front of it was a man who had pa.s.sed us on the road, and lit his pipe at our fire. When he stooped to pick up a firestick I saw the barrel of a revolver under his coat.

He was accompanied by a lady on horseback, wearing a black riding habit. Our teamsters called him Captain Sullivan. He was even then a man well known to the convicts and the police, and was supposed to be doing a thriving business as keeper of a sly grog shop, but in course of time it was discovered that his main source of profit was murder and robbery. He was afterwards known as ”The New Zealand Murderer,” who turned Queen's evidence, sent his mates to the gallows, but himself died unhanged.

While we stood in the track, gazing hopelessly over the endless heaps of clay and gravel covering the flat, a little man came up and spoke to Philip, in whom he recognised a fellow countryman. He said:

”You want a place to camp on, don't you?”

”Yes,” replied Philip, ”we have only just come up from Melbourne.”

”Well, come along with me,” said the stranger.

He was a civil fellow, and said his name was Jack Moore. We went with him in the direction of the first White Hill, but before reaching it we turned to the left up a low bluff, and halted in a gully where many men were at work puddling clay in tubs.

After we had put up our tent, Philip went down the gully to study the art of gold digging. He watched the men at work; some were digging holes, some were dissolving clay in tubs of water by stirring it rapidly with spades, and a few were stooping at the edge of water-holes, was.h.i.+ng off the sand mixed with the gold in milk pans.

Philip tried to enter into conversation with the diggers. He stopped near one man, and said:

”Good day, mate. How are you getting along?”

The man gazed at him steadily, and replied ”Go you to h.e.l.l,” so Philip moved on. The next man he addressed sent him in the same direction, adding a few blessings; the third man was panning off, and there was a little gold visible in his pan. He was gray, grim, and hairy. Philip said:

”Not very lucky to-day, mate?”

The hairy man stood up, straightened his back, and looked at Philip from head to foot.

”Lucky be blowed. I wish I'd never seen this blasted place. Here have I been sinking holes and puddling for five months, and hav'n't made enough to pay my tucker and the Government license, thirty bob a month. I am a mason, and I threw up twenty-eight bob a day to come to this miserable hole. Wherever you come from, young man, I advise you to go back there again. There's twenty thousand men on Bendigo, and I don't believe nineteen thousand of 'em are earning their grub.”

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