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THE DIGGINGS, THE BUSH, AND MELBOURNE;

OR,

REMINISCENCES OF THREE YEARS' WANDERINGS IN VICTORIA.

GLASGOW: G. D. MACKELLAR, 18 Renfield Street. PRICE NINEPENCE.

PREFACE

The following short narrative was written specially for a small circle of intimate acquaintances, who varied the dulness of village life by meeting once a week to read manuscript essays and selections from favourite authors. The time allowed for reading being limited, and the audience being partly composed of young people, I confined myself mainly to personal experience. As many of the company had previously heard me relate in an off-hand way, the leading incidents, detection would have been sure to follow any attempt at spicing my story with fiction.

The incidents are selections merely from three years' recollections of the Colony. Some who have never been further from home than in their annual visit to a watering place, have been pleased to call them adventures. The term may appear too strong to those who like the writer have reclined by a bush fire, listening to the stories of old hands, but as there may be much serious living without broken bones, I submit this brief history to those who think so.

James Armour.

THREE YEARS IN VICTORIA.

MARCH TO BENDIGO.

Early in the month of September, 1852, I landed at Cole's Wharf in Melbourne, one of four hundred passengers newly arrived from Liverpool by the "Lady Head" sailing ship. While yet at sea I had agreed to join a party of young men who intended starting for the diggings without delay. We found the lodging-houses overcrowded, with table-tops, chests, and chairs in use for bedsteads, and we were made acquainted with a considerable portion of the town before we found accommodation. Our capital being small we grudged the price asked, but were disposed to be thankful on witnessing next morning the shifts that numbers of our shipmates had been put to in getting shelter for the night. Some were lying among the barrels and bales of goods that lay lumbering the wharf. Some two dozen had made free with some piles of planks and built off-hand houses for themselves, but the night had been rainy, the roofs had leaked, and they looked anything but refreshed. Among these latter I observed a mother with a family of young children. A shawl hung across the opening that faced the road, but it was too scanty to screen her as she sat with a looking-glass before her setting her hair in order. The husband was absent, and the children sat with comfortless wonder in their young eyes, gazing at the rude throng that was beginning the bustle of the day.

I heard my name called, and turning to look, I recognised a late mess-mate perched on the top of an old waggon-shaped boiler, that stood, as it were, stabled, amidst the piles of wood. At first I thought he was but taking a birds-eye view of the situation, until another well-known figure struggled up from within, through the man-hole by his side, then a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and a seventh, and all so brown with rust from the hair to the boots that it was evident they were not far from where they had been sleeping. Awakened by the rumbling din they make in clambering out, an eighth figure is added to the group, but he comes from beneath, and is in a more singular condition than the others, for the lowness of the fire arch not allowing him to lie otherwise than on his back, his face has got sooted, and the handkerchief with which he wipes it spreads the marks all over, in various shades of black. They tried to console themselves with the thought that all this was but right and proper training for the diggings, but he who had lain in the chill fire-hole seemed to have some doubt upon the matter by the haste he made to a hot-coffee-stand that stood close by. One who had lain within proposed that they should further inure themselves to roughing it, by retaining possession of the boiler for the few days they would be in town, but the suggestion fell to the ground for want of support. The ground about was littered with the wet chests and the softer baggage of the houseless, and before we returned to town the first of the new day's arrivals from the Bay, by lighter and by steamer, had begun to add to the confusion and the mud, to the evident distress of the wives and others who had been left in charge meantime.

Our preparations for the road were soon made. Dressed in blouses blue and red, with the creases of the shop folds bearing witness to the newness of our purchase, and in bright new leather leggings, and each carrying a couple of blankets and a change of clothes, with a quantity of bread and other necessaries in a pack slung across his shoulder, and each provided with a tomahawk stuck in his belt, and a tin pot, we joined company with a large party about to start from Flag-Staff Hill in the afternoon, having been advised to do so on account of the unsafeness of the roads. We were about forty in number at starting, but the packs, or as we were taught to call them, "swags," began to sit heavy on many of our unaccustomed shoulders, obliging us to halt so often for re-adjustment, that I found myself at sundown one of six far in the rear.

On reaching Keilor plains, about ten miles from Melbourne, it began to rain, and as it was now useless to think of overtaking the main party we looked about for some place to camp in for the night. Much previous rain had drenched the ground, but we found a spot, with a dwarfish tree standing in the middle, and with perhaps a little less water than elsewhere standing about the grass roots. With difficulty we got a fire lit. We took no thought of those who would be coming after us, but carried and dragged from far and near the old mouldering wood that lay thinly scattered in our neighbourhood, and piled log upon log, until we raised a blaze that reddened the clouds overhead. We were drenched to the skin, our blankets were wet, and our bread and tea in a miserable condition. Fixing our loaves on long forked sticks, we would have toasted them, but the rain kept pouring down, and only made them softer, until the crust could be distinguished only by its colour. The steam from our fire-heated clothes enveloped us like smoke; we began to feel drowsy, and yet unwilling to lie down, for where were we to lie? Our feet had swollen in our rain-soaked boots, but for fear we might not be able to get them on again if taken off, the boots were allowed to go with us to bed. Breaking some branches from the tree above us, we made a rain shed of them, and spreading a few upon the floor, crept underneath the dripping bower, leaving one on guard to see to the fire and our general security while we slumbered. One of the company, when the fire had begun to throw out heat, had called the situation "jolly," and in the exuberance of his delight, had commenced to sing,

"In the days when we went gipsying,"

and sacrificing both poetry and music to his desire to bring the thing home to our hearts, he improvised, and made the diggings and bags of gold the burden of his lay; but finding he was having the singing all to do himself, he soon gave over, and now here he was lying next to me, close huddled up, and shivering I thought even worse than myself.

In the middle of the night, those lying down had almost succeeded in falling asleep, when splashing footsteps were heard approaching. The watch called out, and we scrambled to our feet, our wits all flying loose in vain attempt to gather what the calling was about, or even where we were; and before we were thoroughly aware, a man with his face streaked with blood, and his clothes muddy and torn, ran in amongst us. Gazing on us for a moment, with eyes swollen and red, he inquired whereabouts the nearest police station lay. Truly we were sorry we did not know, for the question made us suddenly apprehensive that the knowledge might be useful to ourselves before morning; and not knowing but that this apparent distress of his was merely a device to throw us off our guard, while he spied our quality and means of defence, we felt glad when the owner of the only gun in our possession came forward with it in his hand. Willing however to propitiate the powers of evil, we spoke him softly, in our ignorance of how many confederates he might have close by to come up at his signal. Making known to him that we were strangers, he looked round on us, and in a tone that was anything but complimentary, and that sounded strangely from one seeking help, he answered. "Ha, I might ha' seen't afore.--A lot o' new chums, d? 'em." An awkward pause followed, in which we were beginning to regard him with increased suspicion, and to connect him with numberless shadows that we had not noticed till now outlying in the gloom, and to which the unsteady flame of our fire gave the appearance of motion. After sitting a few moments with his head between his knees, he abruptly rose, and started off in the direction of a light that appeared away on the border of the plain, and we saw him no more, though we thought we did several times, which led us, when the fire burnt low, to be content with a seat closer to it rather than venture out for more fuel.

At daybreak we tried to dry our blankets and spare clothes, but growing impatient to reach the bush, we rolled them up as they were, and started. The sun rose, and by mid-day we were making good progress. Finding the dray track wound much about, we decided upon guiding ourselves with the aid of a pocket compass, and the occasional sights we got of Mount Macedon, close by the foot of which the road to the Bendigo diggings lay, and setting out, we made what we thought were short cuts through the bush, but as we frequently lost ourselves, these were often the occasion of warm discussion and a change of leaders. The creeks were swollen by many days' rain, and we had several times to strip in fording them. The scenery improved as we advanced. In the morning we might be crossing lightly wooded ranges, and at mid-day winding our way through what seemed ancient forest, in which at intervals stood groups of huge blackened trunks, the relics of bush-fires long before the white man had appeared upon the scene, the ground around being strewn with the old charred limbs, half-buried by the mould of byegone vegetation, and the rank luxuriance of the present. On the evening of the same day we have come upon wide-spreading grazing ground, and at times on scenes where nature, simple and unhelped, surpassed in beauty the finest parks we had ever seen in the old country, the indented margin of the forest that surrounded them, being as positively marked as if the hand of man had been there to clear away, and strike the lines with fence and ditch; while fancifully shaped clumps, with rich green underwood, relieved the lawn-like surface with so much appearance of art and method in the general arrangement, that our eyes have involuntarily looked about for signs of human habitation. Again, our way lay sometimes alongside of what at this season of the year were full watered creeks--great trees overshadowing the pools, and the banks on either hand spreading away with easy undulation, and looking so pleasant, with the sun shining on their soft carpeting of grass, waved gently by a fresh-smelling summer breeze, as to beguile completely the weariness of the way. One of our small company, becoming thoughtful as he looked abroad one morning on such a scene, said that if he had not been going to get gold he might have been tempted to remain and try what he could do at kitchen gardening; but recollecting that we had seen neither man nor habitation in the last twenty miles we had come, save one solitary shepherd, and his small bark hut in the distance, our friend's thoughtfulness took a turn, and brought him the first to his feet to resume the march.

Towards sundown of the seventh day of our journey, wearied in feet and shoulders, we found ourselves limping along in melancholy scattered train the songs of the morning exchanged for sighs and useless, because unheard, murmurings against the two stronger men of the party, who would keep going on and on though passing places that seemed in every way suited to our wants for the night. The wearied ones being the majority would have halted and obliged the two to come back to seek them, but as darkness might have prevented reunion in this way, and as the two were carrying the beef can, there seemed no help for it but to continue following. At last, when the head and tail of the company were about a mile apart, a halt was made in front among some grey moss-grown rocks by the side of a small running stream. Oh what relief to throw our swags off, and to bathe our distressed feet in the cool clear water. Bendigo, where all the gold lay, was distant now only some ten miles; we hoped to be there by mid-day on the morrow. The stragglers as they came toiling in singly and in pairs with sullen moodiness louring in their faces, were made quickly to forget they had an explanation to demand, and soon all were merry as a wedding party, some gathering fire logs, one out with the gun, and the others preparing supper. One of the latter beckons from the water side that there is something to be seen there. We go to him, get down upon our knees, and can hardly think it real, but the sandy bottom is glittering with small gold-like atoms. We try to lift some with our fingers, but--it may be from our clumsiness--we are unable to raise anything but pinches of pure sand. We have learnt how the diggers wash their bottom stuff, and hurry up for some of our tin dishes, and are busy with them, when the man with the gun returns, and learning from us what we are hoping to be true, urges the advisability of getting under cover with our operations, in case we may be seen from the road by passing travellers, who might claim a share; we see the wisdom of the advice, scramble behind a bushy knoll, and speedily forget everything but our new discovery. We wash and try again, but we seem awkward hands at it, for we never can retain in the dishes anything the least like metal. Darkness is fast coming on, and we begin to fear we shall have to give over for the night, when a bigger bit than we have yet noticed is seen in the failing light, faintly glistening in the bottom of a shallow pool: three pair of legs on the instant wade in for it, and there might be more, but a certain pearly lustre, too like the moon, for the first time brings misgivings as to the nature of the chase. We have seen gold grains exposed in shop windows in Melbourne, and are anxious to attribute the difference in colour, as it now appears, to the presence of the water, but, a finger and thumb bring the truth sadly to our notice--we have been fishing powdered mica. We now find that we have been incredulous from the first as to its being anything but something of the mica kind, and the man with the gun claims credit for having saved us from making fools of ourselves openly, by getting us to go where we were not likely to be seen before wisdom came. We had lost time by the occurrence, and had to do without our usual brushwood shelter from the cold night wind; but making a large fire, we lay down to windward, with our feet to it, and slept soundly, with our heads covered by the blankets. One however allowed, his crown to escape from under its mantle: hoar-frost had whitened the ground like snow, and had glued the blankets to his uncovered locks. We found him first hard to waken, and then slow to rise, but beyond that he seemed but little the worse.

We now kept upon the dray track; it was sadly cut up by the winter traffic, and the numerous carcases of bullocks and of horses, that lay in some places at short intervals where they had fallen in their yokes, told a tale of road hardship and adventure, that made us better satisfied with our simpler though toilsome mode of travelling. Half an hour before coming on the diggings, we passed a bullock dray that had started from Melbourne, a hundred miles distant, the day before we sailed from the Mersey. The men looked sullen and toil-worn, and the cattle seemed scarce able to pull their feet out of the mud in which they sank half way to the knees at every step.

We reached the diggings about an hour before sundown, and were rather disconcerted at the appearance of a company of diggers, whom we met, and who called out that there was "still some left for us to get:" they were wet to the knees, had evidently been sitting among water, and their shoulders looked as though they had been dragged through a clay bed. Our mica business had but little prepared us for this sort of work, and--hum--a newly open clay field in wet weather, before the bricks have begun to be made, is clean and comfortable walking compared to this that now comes in view, as we near the creek that lies between us and the tents; and what water! yea, what a place to look for gold in.

Not wishing to be out of the fashion in the mode of living as practised by those who were now to be our neighbours, we without delay set about making for ourselves a house, but where was the stuff to make it of? One said that he had "some needles and three pirns o' thread," got for casualties among the buttons; but that seemed small help until another who had brought some fine bed linen with his blankets, pulled it from his swag, and remarking that it would be "nane the waur o' the bleachin'," offered it to make the roof; a third gave a tartan plaid, and a fourth a blanket; a fifth, in the enthusiasm of the moment, tore a striped shirt open, and throwing it with two towels among the other offerings, said these would make a gable. While some were fixing forked sticks in the ground to bear the ridge pole and attending to the fire and supper, the rest were busy, without thimbles, at the needlework. "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." We were happy and contented, nay more, we were thankful when at last, by the aid of firelight, we got all finished, the floor strewn thick with rosin-smelling leaves, and our blankets disposed in order. Though not so grand looking as many of the neighbouring edifices it was our own, and the occupiers of those others might not be able to say more.

THE DIGGINGS.

In the morning, having provided ourselves with tools, we made a beginning in a small gulley near our camping place. There did not seem to be much business doing in it, but it was nice and dry and quiet, and we had been informed that great hits were occasionally made in very unlikely spots. We had agreed to work in pairs, my lot falling in company with a decent man, a hand-loom weaver to trade, from the North of Scotland. We took spell about at the digging, short spells being in favour, as my mate argued that "the chance o' goold bein' below, was'na like to be ony greater, for oor hurtin' oorsels, ye ken." We agreed very well, but a large stone that we came on about four feet from the surface, sorely troubled us. When sitting on the top looking ruefully down upon it, and inclined to shift to some other place, a stranger with pick and shovel on his shoulder came sauntering up, joined us in looking down, asked what we intended doing, and remarked that we ought at least to see what was beneath, that many a digger would give gold to have such a boulder in his ground, they were found to have been such grand catchers of the nuggets when they came "scouring down in the flood." As he seemed to have been longer acquainted with the diggings than we, we thought it might be true what he was saying, and that we might at least try till dinner time. The weaver dropping down, commenced afresh to pick away the clay at one side, but our friend said "No, the stone will drop on you if you go below it: you must break it up, and bring it to the surface." "Break it up, break it up," I heard him in the hole say, "man ye're shurely thinkin' its a muckle cheese ye're speakin' aboot," on which the man left us to engineer as we had a mind.

Evening came, but we had not made the progress we expected, for as my esteemed mate said, "the hannels o' the picks were aye in our road, there was sae little room to work in." The holes were only about eight or ten feet deep, bottoming on the usual pipe clay, imbedded in the surface of which, and in the gravelly stuff immediately overlying it, the gold was found. Sometimes it was got in gutter-like depressions, in which numerous pockets occurred, full of grain gold and nuggets; sometimes it lay in patches, and often lay like seed grain in a new-sown field. In the case of gutters, only the holes that struck upon the line were profitable, but the line was generally so uncertain and took such unexpected turns, that those who in the morning might despond at being so far to a side, might in the evening be harassed with fear of the encroachments of their neighbours.

The common crowd confined its operations to the ground already opened, but kept itself ever ready for a rush to new discoveries. Numerous small parties, possessed of more than average enterprise, were ever on the move amongst the outlying ranges, sinking shafts on speculation. Did they light on gold, they passed the word quietly to their friends to occupy the ground immediately adjoining them, that the common harpies, who went spying about, too indolent to seek for themselves, might be outsided. Not long could the matter remain hidden; a rumour would get upon the wind, a few would be seen to leave their old claims hastily, with their tools upon their shoulders, and steal off through the scrub; friendly signals would be passed about, men would be seen tumbling up out of their holes, and in little more time than it takes to tell it, the bulk of the multitude were away upon the run to overtake those who were before, leaving the place that before had swarmed with life, with only a mere gleaning, which often seemed in doubt whither it was doing the best thing for itself by remaining. In one such rush we joined, but arrived too late for anything better than an uphill claim, which we bottomed at about one third of the depth that gold might be expected at. A few yards below us, two men had come up panting among the first of the runners, and on the instant marked off twelve feet by twenty four for their united claim, but thinking the ground too much on the slope, they shifted just twelve feet lower down. Another party immediately took possession of the vacated ground, and within four hours, the sinking being shallow, broke through into a bed of nuggets, worth, as was afterwards affirmed, four thousand pounds. The original claimants bottomed theirs on a few pennyweights only. There was feverish excitement in all this, and the fortunate, when wise, kept their own counsel, at least until their findings had been placed safe under the charge of the Commissioner, for conveyance down to town.

With various small fortune, my mate and I continued our labours, with bankruptcy at length ominously near. We tried surface washing, but got only sore backs by it, and returned to the sinking, there patiently to await the approaching crisis in our circumstances. One day, a little before sundown, we took our way homeward, rather downcast, and with some misgivings about supper. Happily our friends had been more fortunate than we, and the sight of half a sheep hanging from the tent pole, and of a well-known face bending over a frying pan, quickened our dull weary gait, while my companion, evidently touched with thankfulness for the visible mercies, said half to himself, "I kent the puir ravens would be fed," adding for my encouragement,--"We're no jist at the wab en' yet, my man."

The night was cloudy and dark, but calm. We had drawn a large log to the fire for want of chairs. We were in no lack of topics for conversation, and there, spread out before us was a singular panorama of tents illuminated from within, log fires among the trees in height and hollow, and groups of big-bearded men, squatted around them. The Government being at that time weak for want of policemen, all went armed, and for the protection of the tents and what was in them during the absence of the owners, dogs abounded. The firearms, partly with a view to intimidate the ill-disposed, and partly because of damp, were fired off nightly, which occasioned a protracted fusilade far and near before bed time, the dogs not being idle the while, and the uproar being increased in interest, by the uncertainty about the bullets. Putting fresh logs on the fire we go to bed, six of us in a row, with no room to spare upon the floor when we are down. In the middle of the night we are awakened by the rushing of the wind among the trees, a few drops come pattering on the roof, and we feel thankful it is cloth that covers us, but we soon hear a sound that is different from the noise of the wind as it sways the branches; nearer and louder it comes, and we hold our breath in fear; our fire outside roars in the blast, and the lighter brands are whirled down the slope. We see it all, for there is no door to our dwelling. With a fury, the like of which we never before knew, the storm breaks on us, in a moment all is confusion and dismay, and an unbroken deluge of rain drowns our voices by its drumming on our roof, which reels as if it would forsake us. The sewing gives way, and the water comes spouting through the openings; we try to stop the leaks with our caps and stockings, but we only make the breaches bigger; what matter this however, when a torrent begins to dam up behind our uphill wall, ultimately breaks through, and washes across the floor. Helpless and beaten now, we gather our blankets hastily together, roll them into balls, and sit on them. We have no help but to continue sitting till daybreak, for our fire has been washed out, and cannot be renewed till morning; with its last simmering sob expires our hope of coffee or even a light to our much desired pipes. The storm in its great violence soon spent itself, but the morning showed a wreck around of limbs of trees torn from their living trunks, while the face of the hill was furrowed deep with torrent beds. A clump of bushes to windward had alone saved our habitation from being blown away.

On reaching our hole early in the forenoon, we found it filled to the brim with water. Some of our neighbours, in like predicament, had already begun with pails to bale theirs out. Want of a pail, and the urgency of our necessities, caused us to betake ourselves to some of the deserted workings, in the hope of gleaning something there. The ground was shallow, and so much honey-combed that our search was accompanied with some little risk, when we had to use our picks upon the thin partitions. But half a sheep among six men was not likely to last long, so, providing ourselves with candles, we descended each into a separate hole, making this agreement before disappearing from each other's sight, that any change made by either of us must be reported to the other in case of accident. Late in the afternoon I heard my name called from above, and crawled to the daylight at the bottom to answer and learn progress. In reply to his inquiries about how I was, I cried up merrily, "Pretty weel, I thank ye, in ma health, but I hae got nae goold." "Ah weel," he says, "never mind that, my man, we'll speak about goold the morn, come yer wa's up ti the tap, and bring yer tools wi' ye, there's been awfu' wark gan on here I'm thinkin'." A fight or something equally interesting immediately occurred to my mind as the occasion of his seriousness, and I lost no time in getting to the surface. I could see no crowd, and turned to him for explanation. He had come upon some yellow specks in a corner of the roof he was examining, and had used his pick in following up the clue: the hollow sound made by his blows startled him a little, and he moderated his first zeal. He began soon to be more and more sensibly aware of a smell of a particularly disagreeable nature, and which increased so much as he made the opening bigger that he was seized with nausea, in which his mind became troubled with strange apprehension unaccountable to him. He could hear no sound but what he made himself, his tallow candle but feebly lighted up the face of the wall before him, and left the pillared chamber with its crumbling drifts behind in solemn darkness. Making an attempt to shake off his depression of spirits, he made his pick fall vigorously into the hollow he had already made, and wrenched away a clod that left a cavity beyond. Seizing the candle, he held it to the breach, and to his dismay, there lay "glowerin' oot at him, the wasted face o' a deed man." We made known the circumstance to a party of men whom we met on our way back to the tent; but they seemed not sufficiently interested to go out of their way to see the place. We made it known to some of our neighbours on the hill, and learnt that wood for coffins being scarce, and church-yards scarcer, it had been found convenient in the earlier days of the diggings simply to pass the bodies down a deserted hole, and fill it up with top stuff.

About a week after, we found ourselves reduced to dependence on the others of the company for the bread we ate; they were willing that it should be so, while they continued able, but I prepared to go in search of daily work, washed my spare shirt, baked a small loaf to take with me, and bade them all good bye. My mate having some prospect of joining another party, whose finances were in a better state than ours, remained in hope, but accompanied me on my way for about a mile. Having no particular occupation in view, all roads were alike to me. At starting, however, we set our faces in a direction somewhere between south and west, but when we stopped to part, we discovered we had gradually turned, and were going somewhere between north and east, judging by the sun. This specimen of our art in bush travelling caused my friend evident concern about how I would get on when left to myself, and he wished me to return and make a new effort to better our circumstances, but as my doing so would have prevented his acceptance of the offer that had been made to him, I declined, but felt my heart moved strangely when my hand loosened from his parting grasp. All day I travelled, but towards evening, when looking out for water by which to camp for the night, I came upon an old square hole, that seemed familiar to me. My mind at first was inclined to disown acquaintance with it, but the surrounding evidence was too strong, and I sat down for some minutes, overpowered by thoughts on the circumstance. I must have been travelling in a circle, for this hole lay scarce half a mile from the tent I had left in the morning, in fact, now that my attention was awakened, I could hear the barking of the dogs belonging to my late neighbours. Was it providence that was thus overruling my movements? I thought of Whittington. Or was it merely a case of inattention to the course of the sun? My whole heart went in favour of the Whittington interpretation, but there was one from whom I feared the remark, that "A bad shilling was ill to get quit of," were I to appear among my late companions again; so I rose and walked about two miles further off, and camped in a bushy hollow. I made my bed close in among the matted undergrowth of a clump of thick growing bushes, but was awakened in the middle of the night by certain rustlings underneath and round about me, that made me a wiser man before daylight came. In all my subsequent wanderings I chose open level ground, with a shelter of my own making. Distrust of the creeping things I had heard, and thought I felt, caused me to sit up the last few hours of darkness, but one end of a decayed log I sat on being near the fire, its tinder-like substance became heated and began to smoulder. With my head resting on my hand, I was in a musing way watching the thin wreaths of smoke spueing from the cracks, a few of which extended to near my seat, when I was rather startled by the sight of a large beetle running wildly about among the crevices, but I rose quickly to my feet when a centipede about as long and as broad as my fore-finger, came crawling from the under side within a few inches of my hand. There seemed nothing left me now but to stand, until it suddenly occurred to me that mistaking my motionless legs for stumps, the creatures might be crawling up for concealment under my loose bark-like trousers, but I had not well begun to walk about to deprive them of the chance, when a new fear took hold of me, that of possibly treading on their tails. This was the first sincere misery I had met with in the country; it was the first, but not the last by many of my lonely nights in the bush. I had made an ill choice of my resting place, a small green spot surrounded close at hand by piles of mouldering wood, in which small animal life was swarming, and set astir by the heat of the huge fire I had made before lying down. Next night I camped by the side of a small marsh in an open forest scene, being very tired and retaining unimpaired the serious impressions of last night's lesson. I looked upon a certain dampness of the ground as an assurance that I would not be similarly disturbed, but in the morning as I sat at breakfast, from time to time taking a perplexed look at my swollen hands, and passing them over my evidently ill-treated face, I began to fear that I had no longer personal appearance to rely upon in finding an employer. The musquitos had hived about me from the going down of the sun till the chilly hour before daybreak: in vain I had wrapped my head in a blanket, the knobs disfiguring my nose and brow told that the pests had found their way to me. Wearied and sore with the two days' travelling, I had hoped to get a little sleep when I found their numbers thinning as the morning advanced, but a damp white fog hung low above the ground, and the cold from the wet turf beneath had reached me through the few twigs I had made my bed on. I became cramped in all my limbs, and was glad to rise with the first flush of the rapid dawn.

BULLOCK CREEK.

After walking about a mile, I came upon a sheep station at Bullock creek, and got engaged to assist in sheep shearing. The station being only about ten miles from Bendigo where I had been digging, it was plain I had not come as the crow flies, nor by the beaten road. A portion of the building was in use as a tavern called "The Albert," appropriately fronting which, at a distance of two or three hundred yards, was a small police station, where the few who would not suffer the many to get drunk quietly were taken care of--a great convenience to the landlord. The few shearers who had been collected meeting with old friends in one another, and in certain of the general company, seemed fast making themselves eligible for the lock-up, when I first made their acquaintance. Till they sobered, I was employed in a generally useful way in the garden and the horse paddock. The first of my service, however, was with a wheelbarrow, in the removal of broken bottles from the open space in front of the tap room door, thrown there by the frequenters of the place, in brick-bat practice at the trees, the skill thus learnt to be exercised when occasion came upon the constables. Before I left, a mounted trooper in attempting to lay hold of a suspected horse-stealer, had his head cut open by a heavy champaign bottle thrown by the thief, who was enabled thereby to remount the stolen animal and get away. The circumstance for a time put me off the notion of becoming a policeman, having an impression, the result of certain small casualties, that my skull was rather delicate, and hardly round enough for maximum resistance to flying bodies.

The shearers being quartered in a hut by the side of the creek, about a stone throw from the main buildings, I took up my abode there with them. The hut was roomy; the walls were formed of hard-wood slabs, split like huge laths from logs, and having been framed together when yet green, they had shrunk so much that the hand might have been passed edge-ways between any two of them. The roof was composed of great sheets of bark, and happily was rain-proof; there was no need of a window, and no shutting of the door could keep the draught out. Along the walls was a sparred bench of rude construction, on which the first comers had made their beds, the later arrivals having to be content with sheep skins on the floor. The fire-place was big enough to accommodate a sitter on each side within when the fire was low. There was a man to cook, and to attend to the house wants of the company.

Being among strange people, whose manner of living I had yet to get acquainted with, I sat up later than was agreeable to me waiting and wearying for my fellow-lodgers to come home, that I might see how they did about the sleeping. About midnight they came--a noisy multitude, full of brandy and "Old Tom." Their coming freed me from a tedious and apparently endless recital of rheumatic and other ailments, under which the old cook--toothless, and bald, and bowed, was suffering: the poor man's eyes watery and dim with age, seemed to brighten at the sympathy that notwithstanding a certain dulness in the subject, I could not help feeling for him. He had no home, and had wandered here like a thing driven by the wind, to die some day, and be reproached for the trouble he would give to those in whose hands he left his wasted body. About an hour or so after their arrival, the men prepared their beds, and I did mine on a bare place near the door, but was kept long awake on account of a few who restlessly kept staggering out and in, their heavy-booted limbs not always careful about where my legs were. I was too tired however to keep awake until the danger was quite past, and awakened in the morning with a great beef bone lying across my neck, thrown there by him who had been last gnawing it. These were the grosser inconveniences, there was another that I did not quite understand at the time I was first feeling it; however, on spreading my blankets in the morning on the fence, I got to know the secret--fleas. There was no use trying to catch them, even had I been inclined, so I contented myself with quietly looking on as they scoured away through the woolly fibres on being exposed to the light and the cool air, and I wondered whether instinct would guide them back to their kindred inside among the sheepskins and the dust.

On the morning of the third day the sheep shearing commenced, and the packing of the wool in bales became my work. The press consisted of a large box set on end, and without either top or bottom; the sides were detachable, and were merely clamped together when the pressing was being done. A strong coarse canvas bag, exactly fitting the inside of the box, was placed in it; the flaps that were to enclose the top end of the bale were turned over the sides and secured there, so that the bottom barely rested on the ground within. Throwing a few fleeces in and armed with a spade, I kept stuffing the wool that lay along the sides down between the bagging and the mass I stood on, until I made it somewhat solid, then more fleeces, and more stuffing, till I reached the top, which, on the flaps being sewn together, was packed by means of a short staff. I did feel proud when I managed to turn out a bale that had no soft spots in it, but my specimens on this first day were few, the shearers were out of condition, their wrists grew feeble, and their backs grew sore, and they adjourned to the tap-room for "a stiffener," and I saw them no more till late at night, when they came down in a body to the hut bringing disorder and two strangers with them, also some liquor, which however, lasting but a short time, and their fierce humour inclining them to make "a night of it," a select few were despatched to procure, if at all possible, no matter by what means, a five gallon keg of rum, as they could no longer satisfy themselves with drops in bottles; but the proprietor having an eye to his flocks, which before the public-house was started, had been his main stay, gave them instead a certain warning of police proceedings were the shearing any longer delayed on their account. Shearers were scarce, and consequently were disposed to stand upon their dignity, but these having been made debtors for "slop" goods, and for liquor supplied to them at the rate of twenty shillings a bottle, felt themselves on the wrong side of the law for showing airs, having no money to pay off the score, besides present thirst making them like very Esaus, they gladly for the sake of two bottles more agreed to the terms he now imposed on them. These bottles were soon drained dry as the others, on which the yet unsatisfied began to quarrel among themselves. One sang while the dispute was going on, and another, too drunk to stand, sat on the floor reciting doggrel verse, which he appeared to make as he went on, every now and again stopping to say that he was Fraser of Kilbarchan, and that everybody knew him.

I sat for about an hour by the side of the singer, his hands clasping mine, and his drunken breath blowing full in my face. I was delivered from him ultimately by a commotion taking place in the far end of the hut. During my distress, I had observed one of the shearers paying much attention to the elder of the two strangers, who were both becoming stupid with the liquor that had been given them, and had noticed him lead the man into a little place partitioned off from the main room, and containing bed benches. In a few minutes the shearer came gliding out, and passed through the open doorway into the outer darkness. The other followed with only his shirt on, and loudly muttering to himself, but in a few minutes returned, and, apparently more sober than before, commenced to gather his boots and clothes together. While so engaged he said something that appeared to touch the honour of the company, and raised a clamour of indignation at himself, an Edinburgh man called Jack, being so much overcome by it that he staggered out, and made his way to the police to complain of unjust accusation. I had gone outside, and stood leaning against the fence gratefully enjoying the cool night air, and the solemn quiet of the forest scene, when I heard a rustling of feet among the dry grass of the enclosure, and saw two figures stealthily approaching. I moved away, they came on then at a run, and leaped the fence, and were up with me before I reached the door--two constables. Shoving me roughly to one side, they entered with pistols cocked and ready in their hands, and asked for the man who had the complaint to make. The wrangling din was on the instant hushed to a dead stillness; the man was sitting by the fire with his face hidden in his hands. Some one pointed to him on the question being repeated, but as all he could be got to say, was simply "he knew," the constables angrily turned him out of doors and left us. I then gathered from the hints that were dropped that his pocket had been picked of ?40. The ill-looking rascal who had shown him so much attention, and who went by the name of "Brummie," had returned during my absence at the fence, and was now standing with his back to the fire, but with his outer blue shirt off, no doubt with a view to prevent his victim recognising him. From the talk that followed I learnt that nearly all the company had been "Government men," as convicts style themselves, and that the stranger in declining to inform the police of his loss, had but shown himself to be a good man and true, according to the notions of trueness held in common by his class--to regard the police as the common enemy, and to settle all private differences to the unwritten law of the fraternity. Jack was blamed for having brought the enemy upon them, but Brummie afforded him an opportunity of redeeming his character in this respect some few weeks after, by eloping with ?5 belonging to him. He was very angry, called Brummie a mean sneak, declared he would never speak to him again, and then let the matter rest. Jack being a fellow countryman of mine, I made free to speak to him about what I had observed of Brummie, but got for reply a discreet hint to see as little as I could of what happened, and to keep my own counsel when I did see, as being a "square head," that is one outside of their community, I would readily be suspected were tales told out of school.

During one of their drinking days I had found one of them, a Yorkshire man, asleep on the banks of the creek, close to the water's edge, and had gathered him up, and taken him home to bed, and in the act of doing so I seemed to have roused him sufficiently to recognise me, and know what I was doing with him. After that, to the end of my stay among them, he never got warm with liquor but he retold the story to his mates, and hugged me in his arms, with vows that he would make a man of me after shearing was done, by taking me with him to the diggings; but "Philip drunk and Philip sober" appearing each to forget what the other had been doing, I formed my own plans for the future, and left him out. Philip drunk said that his wife Nancy--an old "government lady" I had every reason to believe--would be as good as a mother to me. I felt quite safe in agreeing to become her son, for I knew that Philip sober would put the matter right for me again next morning.

When I had been about three weeks at the shed, the men learnt from some passing travellers that shearers were in great demand at neighbouring stations--stations that had no public house attached to them--and that the rates of pay offered were far beyond what they were now receiving. Making application and being refused a rise on present rates, they left off working and adjourned to the tap-room, there to enjoy themselves and await the consequences. They were paid at so much the hundred fleeces, whereas my pay was fixed, thirty shillings a week with rations, much work or little. I did not think myself directly interested in the strike till Jack on coming down in the evening to the hut, rather unsteady on his legs, began to question me about what I meant to do. Recollecting I was a square head, I replied "Nothing." He rose, called me a cur and nob, and said it was me and the like of me who were ruining the country, by playing into the hands of the masters; then seizing an empty bottle by the neck, he raised it and advanced a step to strike. A pang of fear shot through me, my heart beat quick, for I had seen the effects of a blow made with such a weapon, and I had just nerve enough and no more to retain my hands behind me, my back being to the fire, and fix my eye steadily on his. For a few moments we stood thus balanced. I could not have borne the suspense long, but held to it when I observed his arm relax a little. He could not hit me thus, the arm dropped by his side, and throwing the bottle from him with a muttered curse he staggered out of doors, and I heard no more of it. It was the only instance of personal violence offered to me, during the whole of my mixed wanderings in the colony, and the sorry impressions left upon my mind, became lost in gratitude some few months later, when seeking shelter from a storm, at an out station where the same man happened to be cook and hutkeeper.

Changes were frequently occurring in the working party. The high wages earned by the better classes induced many who had never shorn a sheep to offer their services, hoping that their unskilfulness would be winked at in the dearth of high-class hands. A hundred and twenty fleeces a day was reckoned good work for one pair of shears. We had several who shore sixty, a few eighty, and one or two a hundred, but the latter were often brought to task for "tomahawking," or leaving ridge-and-furrow shear-marks. The learners--old government men like the others--seldom reached higher in the count than from fifteen to twenty, and let the poor animals go spotted sometimes from neck to tail with shear wounds. The superintendent was a humane man, but the flocks were sorely afflicted with the scab, and humanity had to choose between allowing the animals to linger with disease, or letting them smart for a short time with tarred holes in their pelts. The accidents of unskilfulness were overlooked, but when the bad workers, vexed with their own unhandiness, and the jeers of their abler comrades, began to let loose their passion on the wretched, restless animals by furtively digging the shear-points into their sides, and knocking their horns loose, it was thought high time to part with them. Thus dismissed, they might go no farther than the next station, get a little more practice there, and perhaps have learnt sufficiently before the season ended to make a fair start in the next. The talk in the shed and hut ran much in boasting about what each had been able to do in shearing before the diggings put their hands out of practice. It was good to see their pride honestly interested in this direction, but I fear there were many great lies told. After the shearing had been fairly commenced, I was much attracted by the appearance of two new-comers, who, during the rudely animated discussion in the hut, sat quietly smoking their pipes, seldom joining in with more than a chance comment, or a brief reply when asked to verify any assertion, more than usually extraordinary. The undisguised and avowed rascality of many of the others required but little study to understand, but those silent ones--hard-featured, sullen, with eyes ever stealing searching glances at the speakers--seemed undefinable. In the others, a kindly trait would now and again flash out in their outspoken lawlessness, but in these there seemed ever a dark spirit of evil brooding, all the more terrible because unknown.

Of the tales of old-hand doings that they told, I may briefly mention two. One was related as a piece of confidence from an absent comrade, the circumstance happening on "the Sydney side." He had been for a year serving as shepherd at an out-station in the interior, and as such, was held responsible for the full number of sheep committed to his care. When the pay-day at the year's end came, his employer deducted the value of two or three sheep he could give no account of except that they must have been killed and eaten by wild dogs. Muttering vengeance, he took his leave and stole by night to a fold in a distant station, where the sheep were under treatment for catarrh, killed one, cut its head off, and, under cover of darkness, returned to his late master's, and threw it into the midst of the flock he had recently been tending. The sheep, after their first alarm was over, gathered about it with down-stretched necks to sniff and feel it with their noses. The disease was contagious, and the savage design took full effect, but before the discovery was made, the miscreant had taken himself out of reach. I could not detect any particular impression the story made upon the hearers, except in the case of one who appeared to have some old grudge festering in his heart, and who jerked out that "it would serve them bloody right if a lot more could have sheep's heads thrown at them." The other story, however, was the occasion of much laughter, being given by one of the actors in it. He was travelling with a comrade from Bendigo to Tarrangower. They were beginning to be foot-sore, when they overtook a "new chum" with a cart laden with stores for Bendigo. He had missed his way, and was going in the wrong direction. O'Brien, for so the man who told the tale was named, seeing his advantage at once on the youth making inquiries about the road, informed him that he also was bound for Bendigo, and would guide him there to the very spot he wanted, if he would give himself and comrade a lift for a few miles inside the cart. The offer was readily accepted. O'Brien had a bottle of strong brandy with him, and the young man was plied with it so well that when three hams that formed part of the lading were pitched out one by one down a bushy bank he neither saw nor heard. The two got out when about a mile from Tarrangower, pointed to some tents at a distance as his destination, then struck off through the bush, and towards dark, with the hams wrapped in the blankets at their backs, arrived among their comrades at the other end of the diggings from that the cart would reach. The story was well and circumstantially told. The youth's simplicity, and the art used in ensnaring his attention when the hams were being thrown out, were declared by the company to be "as good as a play." The transaction was looked upon not as a robbery, but as a first-rate practical joke, marred only by the two jokers having to absent themselves from the locality for a few weeks, on account of "the noise" the victim had made about it to the police.

AVOCA.

Having earned a few pounds, I left Bullock creek, and returned to Bendigo, but found my old comrades gone. Meeting however with an acquaintance whose mate was about to leave for town, we agreed to go together, and hearing Tarrangower well spoken of, we proceeded thither. We met with varying success, that barely covered our expenditure. My companion became anxious, his wife, left behind in Melbourne, being in great measure dependent on what he might send from time to time. One day, in speaking grudgingly of the cost of a quarter of mutton, it suddenly occurs to him that selling mutton is more profitable than buying it; he puts it to me, and I cannot see but that he is right, and make no opposition to his proposal to try the selling business. The arrangements necessary were of the simplest nature. We purchased a small frame tent, a dead bargain, from a butcher leaving for other diggings. Being already furnished with window board, table, block, and hooks, the place required only a few yards of chintz to make it in our eyes quite a trap for customers. A red and yellow pocket handkerchief nailed to the top of a light pole, would enable folks to find their way to us. We purchase half-a-dozen sheep from a passing dealer, and for want of another place pen them in a corner of the shop, and nervously prepare for our first job with them. He does the knife work while I hold the feet; but never having examined the neck of a sheep unboiled, he misses his way, and only ultimately gets the vital spark to take its leave. We hang the body to the branch of the tree, and he proceeds to flay it, my attention being wholly taken up with the leakage of the animal's late dinner from its neck. Much water is needed, and when we hang the carcase up inside, we confess it has rather a washed appearance, and fear we may have the eating of it to do ourselves. We were busy with the second when a digger on his way home drew near and stopped to look. We thought we were doing rather better than last time; not quite so much water needed. Hopes of a customer made us wink at his presence till he asked leave to try. The victim's groans lay heavy on my conscience, and I humbly hinted to my mate that there was murder enough upon our hands for one day, we had better give him the doing of the third, but for my answer I got a foot to hold straight out, and after the man's departure, his services having been civilly declined, I was brought to task for compromising the business by my unbutcherlike compliance with his offer. I was not sure but that my frequent application of the wet clout was a confession of weakness to the stranger quite as much as my acknowledged willingness to be instructed, but as logic failed somehow to acquit me, I ceased to argue and hardened my heart for the third demonstration of our doubted skill. Before we turned into bed, we had transacted business to the extent of sixpence, for a paunch, which a lean dog that accompanied the purchaser by the eager interest he exhibited informed us was for him.

Early rising profited us nothing. Dull sales all day begat in us a doubt whether mutton was so much an article of food as formerly. To induce trade we patronised a home-brewed beer business that was carried on close by and got the woman to promise us her custom. My partner happened to be absent on the first visit that she made. The legs and head and tail of a sheep I knew, but whereabouts the piece she asked for lay I could not think, but making an attempt at sharpening a knife, I smilingly asked her to point out precisely where she would like the cuts made, and as this shift to save myself had occurred like a new idea, I thought it well to acquaint my partner with it, that the one idea might serve us both. Custom continuing shy, and fly blows appearing on the increase, we hold much private consultation, and reflecting on the weary sameness of mutton, roast and boiled, we resolve to try the effect of mincing it, and purchasing mint and spices, set to work within the hour--for we find there is no time to be lost. A new-killed sheep supplies us with skins, which we wash and dress to the best of our ability, and with a tin bottle filler to assist us, we have soon some ten or twelve yards of sausages, all nicely coiled in a large tin dish that has recently been washing bottom stuff. Certain inequalities in the filling detract from their appearance--corpulent bits, and spindly bits, with occasionally a windy looking vacancy--but we think the people will not be too fastidious about appearances, so far from town, and as they seem slow to come to us, we think it well to go in search of them, taking the sausages along with us. But here a difficulty arises, as to which of us should undertake the mission. I talk him over, and prevail on him to go, he being the elder, and the better able of the two to give an account of himself if asked. In less than an hour he returns in great glee with empty dish, having sold all the stock. Great hopes now arise; mincing with the knife too slow a process, and filling with the bottle funnel sore upon the thumbs after the first few yards have been rammed. Wish we had a machine. We sit up till far in the morning preparing a supply for customers' breakfast. Wonder if we could not add pies to our stock in trade; think they would sell well, with nice crimped edges, and a paste button or something neatly clipped out of dough upon the top; think people would not grudge sixpence for them. Put lots of seasoning into the sausage meat, lest any change should happen to it while we slept. In the morning, after an absence of less than an half an hour, he returned perspiring and excited, without his cap, and with the dish full as when he left with it. He never told the tale of what had happened to him, but having heard a great clamour among the dogs in the direction he had come from, and seeing him put his nose to the dish as if in the act of smelling, I for the present forbore to question him, and made haste to cook a supply for our own use before it would be too late. We gave up business and separated after disposing of our effects for a mere trifle. He returned to Melbourne, and I, lonely and with only a shilling in my pocket, set out again in search of work upon some sheep station. Late in the afternoon of the third day I got from a drayman the direction to a station, known as M'Gregor's.

Feeling far from well, and looking forward rather anxiously to the expected shelter, I reached the neighbourhood just as the sun was setting. The buildings were in sight for some time before I reached them, and I wondered at the broken condition of the fences, and the silence: not a living thing was to be seen. Twilight was deeping into darkness in the surrounding wood when I drew near, and found the place deserted and in ruins, the doors and windows hanging loose, and rank weeds in masses overgrowing what had been the public yard. My heart sank at the sight, I shivered as if struck with sudden chill, and felt for the moment as if the blankets across my shoulders were bearing me to the ground. Sitting down on a heap of moss-grown stones, I tried to think, but there came to me only thoughts of home, of changes there, of deaths, of the young ones whom I had left crying on the door steps when I came away, and of all the expressions of affection that had been sent after me in the few letters that had reached my hand. For the first time for many a day I found myself crying, for it seemed as if I had been sent here to die, and that no word would ever reach home of the when and where. A white mist began to gather along the marshy flat, making me very cold, yet my head was burning hot. I rose and with weary effort, regained the road near where some grass grown water troughs were, and, seeing some draymen encamped, went forward and asked leave to sit down by them. Their tea billy was simmering by the fire, and they were busy kneading damper for their supper. I felt like one drunk and may have so appeared to them for they answered me that there was room enough in the bush for those who wished. I was not wanting in resignation, and moved away a few hundred yards, and managed to get a fire kindled, but had not strength to gather wood to keep it burning. Drawing a few withered branches together to save me from contact with the ground, I lay down upon them with my blankets.

The morning dawned, but I could not rise, and could hardly turn my head to look at the draymen as they yoked and slowly drove away. My lowly bed was at too great a distance from the road to be seen by passers by. Twice I heard the jolt of passing carts, but the sounds fell on a listless ear, for there was no hope of any one caring to be burdened with a sick man. As the sun got higher however, I began to take better heart. Having eaten but little since leaving Tarrangower, three days before, there was therefore but little grossness for the fever to work on, and it was sensibly abating. I rose to my feet, giddy and tottering, gathered my things together anyhow they would come, and after walking doggedly for a while broke out into a sweat, which made me feel quite clever on my legs, but more supple than strong. In about an hour I came upon a man reclining wearily on the limb of a fallen tree, weary looking and rather meditative. Hailing me to come to him, he handed me a bottle of brandy from his pocket, saying as his eye wandered over me "have a glass old fellow, you look as if you would be none the worse of it." Feeling rather in want of a tonic, I was not slow in accepting, but gaped somewhat after the draught like a fish brought to the air, and for a reason somewhat similar, want of water, but recovered sufficiently bye and bye to recollect something about half a loaf which ought by rights to be somewhere among my blankets--my stomach had resumed its work again. My friend had that morning left the "Burn Bank" public house, where in a week he had squandered fifty pounds, his earnings for the previous six months at rail splitting. The bottle that he carried had been presented to him by the landlady on leaving, and was all that he had left to show for the money which he had sacrificed to a thirst for popularity amongst the idlers about the place, who on getting wind of him, had crowded to his levees, till on his resources failing, he had unfortunately gone a borrowing among them. Though I had inadvertently lain on the loaf all night, and it looked as if something of the kind had happened, he gladly accepted half of it, and went his way.

At sundown I camped about four miles from the Avoca diggings, and in the morning entered on them with the intention of passing through for the bush on the other side, should no friendly face meet me on the way. I had barely reached the inner circle of tents, when I observed a little man apparently eyeing me with rather more than ordinary interest. My breakfast had been anything but stimulating, and my gait in consequence was perhaps a little pensive, but I quickly mended that on drawing near him. His face somehow did not invite me to seek close acquaintance with him, yet I was glad when he asked if I wanted work, and soon engaged myself to serve him with stones and mortar in the building of an oven, for fourteen shillings a day and my rations. Taking me to his tent, he introduced me to his wife and child. The place looked clean and tidy, and wore an air of comfort I had long been a stranger to. My employer told me his name was Watty Scott, and that I would find him a good man and true if dealt fairly with. After much talk about the perfidy of former mates, he said that on the completion of the oven, he would take me for a partner and go digging; that meantime he thought he had read me sufficiently well to know me; I might consider the partnership already entered into, and might look upon all he possessed as half my own, all except--here he drew his wife tenderly to his side, and looked prayerfully in my face. I knew not what to say to this, and was perplexed about what might be coming next, so rapidly had events developed within two hours, but as he sat between me and the door I could only ask how he could think it of me, and look reproaches at him. Meanwhile the wife never spoke, but disengaging herself from him, went outside. He laughed, and, laying his hand upon my shoulder, said, "its all right, Jamie"--he had already familiarised my name--"I was only trying you, come let's take a walk." He does not care about beginning work that day, but next, meantime I can take a look about me.

Evening comes, and Watty is not sober. I try to guess his age, but fail to satisfy myself; he has no whiskers, seems never to have needed shaving, and has a crop of jet black curly hair. He seems to be between thirty and forty-five. His wife seldom speaks, seldom looks at either of us, and appears very sad. Watty regrets that I have no tent with me, but thinks an arrangement can be made for my accommodation. The night being too chilly and damp for camping outside under a bush cover, I was only too glad at the offer of a strip of bark upon the floor of their tent to make my bed on. The wife made up a pillow for me, spread a spare quilt upon the bare hollow of the bark, and then my own blankets over all, in so quiet and kindly a manner, that I felt moved with respectful gratitude, while somewhat ashamed of my intrusion on her privacy. On making some remarks to that effect, Watty poohed and bade me never mention it. I was to consider myself one of the family now. When bed time came, he and I discreetly went outside to the fire. A drunk man's talk is none of the most edifying, and I had become weary of his during the long evening, but had borne with it so patiently, and so followed up his humours as at least to delay his very evident desire to quarrel with his wife. To this fact I in part attributed her motherly interest in the comfort of my bed. The little while we remained outside, he talked more rationally, but as the topic was mainly of the weather, with which the passions have but small concern, little positive conclusion could be drawn from the circumstance regarding the man.

On re-entering, we found as we expected the wife and child in bed. They lay upon a rude bench raised some eighteen inches from the ground, and which occupied at least one-half of the tent floor, which measured only about ten feet by eight; a narrow space of some twelve inches wide separated my humbler couch from theirs. I could not get to sleep for Watty's talking to or rather at his wife, who maintained a singular silence, save once or twice when she ventured on a brief meekly-spoken answer; somehow this meekness did not suit him, but only excited him the more, until about three o'clock in the morning, his delirious abuse became outrageous. Sense and reason, judgment and humanity forsook him in the paroxysm he had wrought himself into, and I could only hear the ravings of a madman. I tremble for the wife and child--by the sounds he seems to be gathering himself together, and while I am still holding my breath in doubt about what he means to do, they are pushed bodily out of bed and fall heavily on me. The case was beyond my help, so I lay still; the cries of the child made it a hard task to do so. The madman's delirium seemed to calm considerably on getting the whole bed to himself, and it might be towards four o'clock he muttered himself to sleep; the wife then taking courage rose from the floor, and ventured in again beside him. On awaking at break of day, I found him up and dressed; hearing me move he bade me good morning more heartily than I could answer him just then. A habit he had of raising his eyebrows, and which seemed to say "look within who may, there is nothing to conceal," lent a certain air of candour to his face, that at first shook my faith in what had passed being more than a troubled dream. He got the fire lit, and the kettle boiled, and addressed his wife Eliza in accents so subdued, that I was almost inclined to doubt the evidence against him.

We commenced the building of the oven. I was not a weak man, but he proved so good a workman, that my back was never off the bend keeping him supplied. In an hour or so however, greatly to my relief, he became thirsty, crossed the road to a grog tent for a drink, and came back no more till dinner time. After dinner he said that this being now a broken day, he would wait till next day, and then begin work in earnest. I fetched water and firewood from a distance for the wife and began to talk with her, and keep the infant in amusement, and when Watty came home in the evening, continued to keep him in at least peaceable humour. His prodigious self-esteem made this comparatively easy so long as I continued feeding it, but I found it at times disposed to froth up into arrogance, and, at intervals, my ready consent to all he said and did, seemed likely to take a wrong direction. Taking my hand in his, and falling away into a whining mood, he said he had been an unfortunate and ill-used man all his days, that he ought to have been, and would have been an independent gentleman long before now, had he not been deceived, and robbed, and kept down among the dust by--here his eye glanced over to his wife, as she bent her head over some piece of sewing for the baby, and I felt uneasy at the glare of malice that reddened in his face. At haphazard I broke in upon him with as lively a sally as I could muster at the sudden call; for a moment he hung in the balance, I prepared myself for some extremity, but happily the fell grimness of his look relaxed, his overweening pride was recovering its seat. I had touched him rightly, and to my intense relief he broke out into a laugh, and for the present contented himself with merely blowing out the candle she was working by. I felt it dreary work, but for the woman's sake I persevered, and so passed our second night together. I thought the drink that he had taken would surely overpower him when he went to bed, but the warmth seemed only to make him worse, and the frightful words that poured from him made it like a night in a cell of hell. He appeared to have lost all recollection of my presence, so that what I suffered I feared was but a little of what the poor wife would call her daily life with him. It had been taking place before I came to them; it could not go on so for ever, but the end I never knew.

The oven was not progressing, and on the fourth day I found him in the company of two slouching fellows in a beer shop. He introduced me with due form, for he liked to do things respectably, then taking me to one side, begged the loan of half-a-crown, but I could only promise him the loan of one when I received the wages due to me, and took the opportunity of calling his attention to the condition of my boots, the soles of which had quite loosened from the uppers, requiring some little management when walking to keep my toes within. My appeal was ill-timed, and he seemed for the moment ashamed of my dilapidated appearance, the eyes of his friends being at the time directed towards us. Having respect for my feelings, however, he said no more there, but led me out to the road, and reminded me of our partnership agreement, and that talking about wages was as good as mistrusting him. The oven he said would be soon finished, and then boots and whatever else was needed I would receive to my heart's content.

Late in the afternoon I returned to the tent, and found the wife sitting pale and trembling, her eyes fixed with evidently unobservant gaze, and her lips twitching nervously apart. As I stood for a moment in the doorway, looking in at her, there fled once and for ever from my mind all doubt of the reality of broken hearts. For such distress I had no consolation adequate, but mute though I was at first and disconcerted, it seemed as if my coming had broken the rigour of her grief. I was sad with very pity for her, and my manner may have revealed that much as I quietly seated myself inside the door. I made an attempt to speak about something I had seen on my way back, but was stopped short by an indescribable working of her features, and while I was yet looking--my half-told story fast dropping out of mind--the tears started to her eyes, and for a few minutes I heard nothing but sobs, the like of which I had never before known. When her grief had somewhat spent itself, she told me I had better leave, or I would be getting into trouble, as Watty was after no good with the men I had seen him with, one of them she knew to be a common thief. After a fresh outburst of crying over her poor infant, she told me further with many an outbreak of shame and sorrow between, that he had brought this man to the tent for her specially to entertain, and had menaced her with his eye, because she would not, and that she looked for nothing short of death on his return. Her arms encircled her young child, and her eyes were at times bent sadly on its small upturned face as it lay innocently asleep upon her breast.

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