There was feasting and revelry that night at Single Corner. Hungry men were sharpening their sheath-knives with steel, and cutting up a side of beef. A large fire was burning, and on the glowing coals, and in every frying-pan rich steaks were fizzing and hissing. It was like a feast of heroes, and lasted long through the night. They sang responsively, like gentle shepherds—shepherds of the ocean fields whose flocks were mighty whales:

"Mother, the butcher's brought the meat, What shall I do with it? Fry the flesh, and broil the bones, And make a pudding of the su-et."

Next morning the Hentys looked for the missing beef up the flagstaff, and along the shore of the ever-sounding ocean, but their search was vain. They suspected that the men of Kelly's party were the thieves, but these all looked as stupid, ignorant, and innocent as the adverse circumstances would permit. There was no evidence against them to be found; the beef was eaten and the bones were burned and buried. Mills' men were the beef lifters, and some of Kelly's men helped them to eat it.

The whales killed at the Portland fishery were of two kinds, the right or black whale, and the sperm whale. The right whale has an immense tongue, and lives by suction, the food being a kind of small shrimp. When in a flurry—that is, when she has received her death-stroke with the lance—she goes round in a circle, working with her head and flukes. The sperm whales feed on squid, which they bite, and when in a flurry they work with the head and flukes, and with the mouth open, and often crush the boats.

After the crew of the 'Thistle' had spent their money, they were taken back to Port Fairy for the purpose of stripping bark, a large quantity of wattle trees having been found in the neighbouring country. Sheep were also taken there in charge of Mr. J. Murphy, who intended to form a station. John Griffiths also sent over his father, Jonathan, who had been a carpenter on board the first man-of-war that had arrived at Port Jackson, three old men who had been prisoners, four bullocks, a plough, and some seed potatoes. A cargo of the previous season's bark was put into the 'Thistle', and on her return to Launceston, was transferred to the 'Rhoda' brig, Captain Rolls, bound for London. More sheep and provisions were then taken in the 'Thistle', and after they were landed at Port Fairy, another cargo of bark was put on board. For three days there was no wind, and a tremendous sea setting in from the south-east, the schooner could not leave the bay. On the night of December 24th a gale of wind came on from the south-east; one chain parted, and after riding until three o'clock in the morning of Christmas Day, the other chain also parted. The vessel drew eight feet, and was lying in between three and four fathoms of water. As soon as the second chain broke, Davy went up on the fore-yard and cut the gaskets of the foresail. The schooner grounded in the trough of sea, but when she rose the foresail was down, and she paid off before the wind. The shore was about a mile, or a mile and a half distant, and she took the beach right abreast of a sheep yard, where her wreck now lies. The men got ashore in safety, but all the cargo was lost.

A tent was pitched on shore near the wreck, but as there was no vessel in the bay by which they could return to Launceston, the four men, Captain Mills, D. Fermaner, Charles Ferris, and Richard Jennings, on December 31st, 1837, set sail in a whaleboat for Port Philip. Davy had stolen Jennings from the 'Rhoda' brig at Launceston, when seamen were scarce. He was afterwards a pilot at Port Philip, and was buried at Williamstown.

The whaleboat reached Port Philip on January 3rd, 1838, having got through the Rip on the night of the 2nd. Ferris was the only man of the crew who had been in before, he having gone in with Batman, in the 'Rebecca' cutter, Captain Baldwin. Baldwin was afterwards before the mast in the 'Elizabeth' schooner; he was a clever man, but fond of drink.

The whaleboat anchored off Portsea, but the men did not land for fear of the blacks.

At daylight Davy landed to look for water, but could not find any; and there were only three pints in the water-bag. The wind being from the north, the boat was pulled over to Mud Island, and the men went ashore to make tea with the three pints of water. Davy walked about the island, and found a rookery of small mackerel-gulls and a great quantity of their eggs in the sand. He broke a number of them, and found that the light-coloured eggs were good, and that the dark ones had birds in them. He took off his shirt, tied the sleeves together, bagged a lot of the eggs, and carried them back to the camp. Mills broke the best of them into the great pot, and the eggs and water mixed together and boiled made about a quart for each man.

After breakfast the wind shifted to the southward, and the 'Henry' brig, from Launceston, Captain Whiting, ran in, bound to Point Henry with sheep; but before Mills and his men could get away from Mud Island the brig had passed. They pulled and sailed after her, but did not overtake her until she arrived off the point where Batman first settled, now called Port Arlington; at that time they called the place Indented Heads.

When the whaleboat came near the brig to ask for water, two or three muskets were levelled at the men over the bulwarks, and they were told to keep off, or they would be shot. At that time a boat's crew of prisoners had escaped from Melbourne in a whale boat, and the ship-wrecked men were suspected as the runaways. But one of the crew of the 'Henry', named Jack Macdonald, looked over the side, and seeing Davy in the boat, asked him what they had done with the schooner 'Thistle', and they told him they had lost her at Port Fairy.

Captain Whiting asked Macdonald if he knew them, and on being informed that they were the captain and crew of the schooner 'Thistle', he invited them on board and supplied them with a good dinner. They went on to Point Henry in the brig, and assisted in landing the sheep.

Batman was at that time in Melbourne. Davy had seen him before in Launceston. After discharging the sheep the brig proceeded to Gellibrand's Point, and as Captain Whiting wanted to go up to Melbourne, the men pulled him up the Yarra in their whaleboat. Fawkner's Hotel at that time was above the site of the present customs House, and was built with broad paling. Mills and Whiting stayed there that night, Davy and the other two men being invited to a small public-house kept by a man named Burke, a little way down Little Flinders Street, where they were made very comfortable.

Next day they went back to the brig 'Henry', and started for Launceston.

In May, 1838, Davy was made master of the schooner 'Elizabeth', and took in her a cargo of sheep, and landed them at Port Fairy. The three old convicts whom Griffiths had sent there along with his father Jonathan, had planted four or five acres of potatoes at a place called Goose Lagoon, about two miles behind the township. The crop was a very large one, from fifteen to twenty tons to the acre, and Davy had received orders to take in fifty tons of the potatoes, and to sell them in South Australia. He did so, and after four days' passage went ashore at the port, offered the potatoes for sale, and sold twenty tons at 22 pounds 10 shillings per ton. On going ashore again next morning, he was offered 20 pounds per ton for the remainder, and he sold them at that price.

On the same day the 'Nelson' brig, from Hobarton, arrived with one hundred tons of potatoes, but she could not sell them, as Davy had fully stocked the market. He was paid for the potatoes in gold by the two men who bought them.

He went up to the new city of Adelaide. All the buildings were of the earliest style of architecture, and were made of tea-tree and sods, or of reeds dabbed together with mud. The hotels had no signboards, but it was easy to find them by the heaps of bottles outside. Kangaroo flesh was 1s. 6d. a pound, but grog was cheap. Davy was looking for a shipmate named Richard Ralph, who was then the principal architect and builder in the city. He found him erecting homes for the immigrants out of reeds and mud. He was paid 10 pounds or 12 pounds for each building. He was also hunting kangaroo and selling meat. He was married to a lady immigrant, and on the whole appeared to be very comfortable and prosperous. Davy gave the lady a five-shilling piece to go and fetch a bottle of gin, and was surprised when she came back bringing two bottles of gin and 3s. change. In the settlement the necessaries of life were dear, but the luxuries were cheap. If a man could not afford to buy kangaroo beef and potatoes, he could live sumptuously on gin. Davy walked back to the port the same evening, and next day took in ballast, which was mud dug out among the mangroves.

He arrived at Launceston in four days, and then went as coasting pilot of the barque 'Belinda', bound to Port Fairy to take in oil for London. The barque took in 100 head of cattle, the first that were landed at Port Fairy. He then went to Port Philip, and was employed in lightering cargo up the Yarra, and in ferrying between Williamstown and the beach now called Port Melbourne. He took out the first boatman's licence issued, and has the brass badge, No. 1, still. Vessels at that time had to be warped up the Yarra from below Humbug Reach, as no wind could get at the topsails, on account of the high tea-tree on the banks.



OUT WEST IN 1849.

I did not travel as a capitalist, far from it. I went up the Mississippi as a deck passenger, sleeping at night sometimes on planks, at other times on bags of oats piled on the deck about six feet high. The mate of a Mississippi boat is always a bully and every now and then he came along with a deck-hand carrying a lamp, and requested us to come down. He said it was "agen the rules of the boat to sleep on oats"; but we kept on breaking the rules as much as possible.

Above the mouth of the Ohio the river bank on the Missouri side is high, rocky, and picturesque. I longed to be the owner of a farm up there, and of a modest cottage overlooking the Father of Waters. I said, "If there's peace and plenty to be had in this world, the heart that is humble might hope for it here," and then the very first village visible was called "Vide Poche." It is now a suburb of St. Louis.

I took a passage on another boat up the Illinois river. There was a very lordly man on the lower deck who was frequently "trailing his coat." He had, in fact, no coat at all, only a grey flannel shirt and nankeen trousers, but he was remarkably in want of a fight, and anxious to find a man willing to be licked. He was a desperado of the great river. We had heard and read of such men, of their reckless daring and deadly fights; but we were peaceful people; we had come out west to make a living, and therefore did not want to be killed. When the desperado came near we looked the other way.

There was a party of five immigrant Englishmen sitting on their luggage. One of them was very strongly built, a likely match for the bully, and a deck-hand pointing to him said:

"Jack, do you know what that Englishman says about you?"

"No, what does he say?"

"He says he don't think you are of much account with all your brag. Reckons he could lick you in a couple of minutes."

Uttering imprecations, Jack approached the Englishman, and dancing about the deck, cleared the ring for the coming combat.

"Come on, you green-horn, and take your gruel. Here's the best man on the river for you. You'll find him real grit."

The stranger sat still, said he was not a fighting man, and did not want to quarrel with anybody.

Jack grew more ferocious than ever, and aimed a blow at the peaceful man to persuade him to come on. He came on suddenly. The two men were soon writhing together on the guard deck, and I was pleased to observe the desperado was undermost. The Englishman was full of fear, and was fighting for his life. He was doing it with great earnestness. He was grasping the throat of his enemy tightly with both hands, and pressing his thumbs on the wind-pipe. We could see he was going to win in his own simple way, without any recourse to science, and he would have done so very soon had he not been interrupted. But as Jack was growing black in the face, the other Englishmen began to pull at their mate, and tried to unlock his grip on Jack's throat. It was not easy to do so. He held on to his man to the very last, crying out: "Leave me alone till I do for him. Man alive, don't you know the villain wants to murder me?"

The desperado lay for a while gulping and gasping on his bed of glory, unable to rise. I observed patches of bloody skin hanging loose on both sides of his neck when he staggered along the deck towards the starboard sponson.

There was peace for a quarter of an hour. Then Jack's voice was heard again. He had lost prestige, and was coming to recover it with a bowie knife. He said:

"Where's that Britisher? I am going to cut his liver out."

The Englishman heard the threat, and said to him mates:

"I told you so! He means to murder me. Why didn't you leave me alone when I had the fine holt of him?"

He then hurried away and ran upstairs to the saloon.

Jack followed to the foot of the ladder, and one wild-eyed young lady said:

"Look at the Englishman [he was sitting on a chair a few feet distance]. Ain't he pale? Oh! the coward!"

She wanted to witness a real lively fight, and was disappointed. The smell of blood seems grateful to the nostrils of both ladies and gentlemen in the States. A butcher from St. Louis explained it thus:

"It's in the liver. Nine out of ten of the beasts I kill have liver complaint. I am morally sartin I'd find the human livers just the same if I examined them in any considerable quantity."

The captain came to the head of the stairs and descended to the deck. He was tall and lanky and mild of speech. He said:

"Now, Jack, what are you going to do with that knife?"

"I am waiting to cut the liver out of that Englishman. Send him down, Captain, till I finish the job."

"Yes, I see. He has been peeling your neck pretty bad, ain't he? Powerful claws, I reckon. Jack, you'll be getting into trouble some day with your weepons." He took a small knife out of his pocket. "Look here, Jack. I've been going up and down the river more'n twenty years, and never carried a weepon bigg'n that, and never had a muss with nobody. A man who draws his bowie sometimes gets shot. Let's look at your knife."

He examined it closely, deciphered the brand, drew his thumb over the edge, and observed:

"Why, blame me, if it ain't one of them British bowies—a Free-trade Brummagen. I reckon you can't carve anyone with a thing like this." He made a dig at the hand-rail with the point, and it actually curled up like the ring in a hog's snout. "You see, Jack, a knife like that is mean, unbecoming a gentleman, and a disgrace to a respectable boat." He pitched the British article into the river and went up into the saloon.

As Jack had not yet recovered his prestige, he went away, and returned with a dinner knife in one hand and a shingling hammer in the other. He waited for his adversary until the sun was low and the deck passengers were preparing their evening meal. Two of the Englishmen came along towards the stairs and ascended to the saloon. Presently they began to descend with their mate in the middle. Jack looked at them, and for some reason or other he did not want any more prestige. He sauntered away along the guard deck, and remained in retirement during the rest of the voyage. He was not, after all, a very desperate desperado.

During the next night our boat was racing with a rival craft, and one of her engines was damaged. She had then to hop on one leg, as it were, as far as Peoria. The Illinois river had here spread out into a broad lake; the bank was low, there were no buildings of any kind near the water; some of the passengers landed, and nobody came to offer them welcome.

I stood near an English immigrant who had just brought his luggage ashore, and was sitting on it with his wife and three children. They looked around at the low land and wide water, and became full of misery. The wife said:

"What are we boun' to do now, Samiul? Wheer are me and the childer to go in this miserable lookin' place?"

Samiul: "I'm sure, Betsy, I don't know. I've nobbut hafe a dollar left of o' my money. They said Peoria was a good place for us to stop at, but I don't see any signs o' farmin' about here, and if I go away to look for a job, where am I to put thee and the childer, and the luggage and the bedding?"

"Oh!" said Betsy, beginning to cry; "I'm sorry we ever left owd England. But thou would come, Samiul, thou knows, and this is the end on it. Here we are in this wild country without house or home, and wi' nothin' to eat. I allus thowt tha wor a fool, Samiul, and now I'm sure and sartin on it."

Samiul could not deny it. His spirit was completely broken; he hung down his head, and tears began to trickle down his eyes. The three children—two sturdy little boys and a fair-haired little girl— seeing their dad and ma shedding tears, thought the whole world must be coming to an end, and they began howling out aloud without any reserve. It was the best thing they could have done, as it called public attention to their misery, and drew a crowd around them. A tall stranger came near looked at the group, and said:

"My good man, what in thunder are you crying for?"

"I was told Peoria was a good place for farmin'," Samuel said, "and now I don't know where to go, and I have got no money."

"Well, you are a soft 'un," replied the stranger. "Just dry up and wait here till I come back."

He walked away with long strides. Peoria was then a dreary-looking city, of which we could see nothing but the end of a broad road, a few frame buildings, two or three waggons, and some horses hitched to the posts of the piazzas.

The stranger soon returned with a farmer in a waggon drawn by two fine upstanding horses, fit for a royal carriage. The farmer at once hired the immigrant at ten dollars a month with board for himself and family. He put the luggage into his waggon, patted the boys on the head and told them to be men; kissed the little girl as he lifted her into the waggon, and said:

"Now, Sissy, you are a nice little lady, and you are to come along with me, and we'll be good friends."

Never was sorrow so quickly turned into joy. The man, his wife, and children, actually began smiling before the tears on their cheeks were dry.

Men on every western prairie were preparing their waggons for the great rush to California; new hands were wanted on the lands, and the immigrants who were then arriving in thousands, took the place of the other thousands who went westward across the plains. There was employment for everybody, and during my three years' residence on the prairies I only saw one beggar. He was an Italian patriot, who said he had fought for Italy; he was now begging for it in English, badly-broken, so I said:

"You are a strong, healthy man; why don't you go to work? You could earn eight or ten dollars a month, with board, anywhere in these parts."

But the Italian patriot was a high-class beggar; he was collecting funds, and had no idea of wasting his time in hard work. He gave me to understand that I had insulted him.

Besides this patriot, there were a few horse-thieves and hog duffers on the prairies, but these, when identified, were either stretched under a tree or sent to Texas.

In those days the prairie farmers were all gentlemen, high-minded, truthful, honourable, and hospitable. There were no poor houses, no asylums. All orphans were adopted and treated as members of some family in the neighbourhood.

I am informed that things are quite different now. The march of empire has been rapid; many men have grown rich, to use a novel expression, beyond the dreams of avarice, and ten times as many have grown poor and discontented.

The great question for statesmen now is, "What is to be done for the relief of the masses?" and the answer to it is as difficult to find as ever.

But I have to proceed up the Illinois river.

The steamboat stopped at Lasalle, the head of navigation, and we had then to travel on the Illinois and Michigan canal. We went on board a narrow passenger boat towed by two horses, and followed by two freight barges. We did not go at a breakneck pace, and had plenty of time for conversation, and to look at the scenery, which consisted of prairies, sloughs, woods, and rivers. The picture lacked background, as there is nothing in Illinois deserving the name of hill. But we passed an ancient monument, a tall pillar, rising out of the bed of the Illinois river. It is called "Starved Rock." Once a number of Indian warriors, pursued by white men, climbed up the almost perpendicular sides of the pillar. They had no food, and though the stream was flowing beneath them, they could not obtain a drink of water without danger of death from rifle bullets. The white men instituted a blockade of the pillar, and the red men all perished of starvation on the top of it.

The conversation was conducted by the captain of the canal boat, as he walked on the deck to and fro. He was full of information. He said he was a native of Kentucky; had come down the Ohio river from Louisville; was taking freight to Chicago; reckoned he was bound to rake in the dollars on the canal; was no dog-gonned Abolitionist; niggers were made to work for white folks; they had no souls any more than a horse; he'd like to see the man who would argue the point.

Mrs. Beecher Stowe was then writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin," at too great a distance to hear the challenge, but a greenhorn ventured to argue the point.

"What about the mulatto? Half black, half white. His father being a white man had a whole soul; his mother being black had no soul. Has the mulatto a whole soul, half a soul, or no soul at all?"

The captain paused in his walk, with both hands in his pockets, gazed at the argumentative greenhorn, turned his quid, spat across the canal, went away whistling "Old Dan Tucker," and left the question of the mulatto's soul unsolved.

When I arrived at Joliet there was a land boom at Chicago. The canal company had cut up their alternate sections, and were offering them at the usual alarming sacrifice. A land boom is a dream of celestial bliss. While it lasts, the wisest men and the greatest fools walk with ecstatic steps through the golden streets of a New Jerusalem. I have been there three times. It is dreadful to wake up and to find that all the gold in the street is nothing but moonshine.

I proceeded to the Lake City to lay the foundation of my fortune by buying town lots. I laid the foundation on a five-acre block in West Joliet, but had to borrow seven dollars from my nearest friend to pay the first deposit. Chicago was then a small but busy wooden town, with slushy streets, plank sidewalks, verandahs full of rats, and bedrooms humming with mosquitoes. I left it penniless but proud, an owner of real estate.

While returning to Joliet on the canal boat my nearest friend, from whom I had borrowed the seven dollars, kindly gave me his views on the subject of "greenhorns." (The Australian equivalent of "greenhorn" is "new chum." I had the advantage of serving my time in both capacities). "No greenhorn," he observed, "ever begins to get along in the States until he has parted with his bottom dollar. That puts a keen edge on his mind, and he grows smart in business. A smart man don't strain his back with hard work for any considerable time. He takes out a patent for something—a mowing machine, or one for sowing corn and pumpkins, a new churn or wash-tub, pills for the shakes, or, best of all, a new religion—anything, in fact, that will catch on and fetch the public."

I had parted with my bottom dollar, was also in debt, and therefore in the best position for getting along; but I could not all at once think of anything to patent, and had to earn my daily bread some way or other. I began to do it by hammering sheets of iron into the proper curves for an undershot water-wheel. After I had worked two days my boss suggested that I should seek other employment—in a school, for instance; a new teacher was wanted in the common school of West Joliet.

I said I should prefer something higher; a teacher was of no more earthly account than a tailor.

The boss said: "That might be so in benighted Britain, but in the Great United States our prominent citizens begin life as teachers in the common schools, and gradually rise to the highest positions in the Republic."

I concluded to rise, but a certificate of competency was required, and I presented myself for examination to the proper official, the editor and proprietor of 'The True Democrat' whose office was across the bridge, nearly opposite Matheson's woollen factory. I found the editor and his compositor labouring over the next edition of the paper.

The editor began the examination with the alphabet. I said in England we used twenty-six letters, and I named all of them correctly except the last. I called it "zed," but the editor said it was "zee," and I did not argue the point.

He then asked me to pick out the vowels, the consonants, the flats, the sharps, the aspirates, the labials, the palatals, the dentals, and the mutes. I was struck dumb; I could feel the very foundation of all learning sinking beneath me, and had to confess that I did not know my letters.

Then he went on to spelling and writing. My writing was barely passable, and my spelling was quite out of date. I used superfluous letters which had been very properly abolished by Webster's dictionary.

At last the editor remarked, with becoming modesty, that he was himself of no account at figures, but Mr. Sims would put me through the arithmetic. Mr. Sims was the compositor, and an Englishman; he put me through tenderly.

When the examination was finished, I felt like a convicted impostor, and was prepared to resume work on the undershot water-wheel, but the two professors took pity on me, and certified in writing that I was qualified to keep school.

Then the editor remarked that the retiring teacher, Mr. Randal, had advertised in the 'True Democrat' his ability to teach the Latin language; but, unfortunately, Father Ingoldsby had offered himself as a first pupil; Mr. Randal never got another, and all his Latin oozed out. On this timely hint I advertised my ability to teach the citizens of Joliet not only Latin, but Greek, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. My advertisement will be found among the files of the 'True Democrat' of the year 1849 by anyone taking the trouble to look for it. I had carelessly omitted to mention the English language, but we sometimes get what we don't ask for, and no less than sixteen Germans came to night school to study our tongue. They were all masons and quarrymen engaged in exporting steps and window sills to the rising city of Chicago.

When Goldsmith tried to earn his bread by teaching English in Holland, he overlooked the fact that it was first necessary for him to learn Low Dutch. I overlooked the same fact, but it gave me no trouble whatever. There was no united Germany then, and my pupils disagreed continually about the pronunciation of their own language, which seemed, like that of Babel, intelligible to nobody. I composed their quarrels by confining their minds to English solely, and harmony was restored each night by song.

The school-house was a one-storey frame building on the second plateau in West Joliet, and was attended by about one hundred scholars. In the rear was a shallow lagoon, fenced on one side by a wall of loose rocks, infested with snakes. The track to the cemetery was near, and it soon began to be in very frequent use. One day during recess the boys had a snake hunt, and they tied their game in one bunch by the heads with string, and suspended them by the wayside. I counted them, and there were twenty-seven snakes in the bunch.

The year '49 was the 'annus mirabilis' of the great rush for gold across the plains, and it was also an 'annus miserabilis' on account of the cholera. In three weeks fourteen hundred waggons bound for California crossed one of the bridges over the canal. I was desirous of joining the rush, but was, as usual, short of cash, and I had to stay at Joliet to earn my salary. I met the editor of the 'True Democrat' nearly every day carrying home a bucket of water from the Aux Plaines river. He did his own chores. He sent two young men who wished to become teachers to my school to graduate. One was named O'Reilly, lately from Ireland; I gave him his degree in a few weeks, and he kept school somewhere out on the prairie. The other did not graduate before the cholera came. He was a native of Vermont, and he played the clarionet in our church choir. The instrumental music came from the clarionet, from a violin, and a flute. The choir came from France and Germany, Old England and New England, Ireland, Alsace, and Belgium. It was divided into two hostile camps, and the party which first took possession of the gallery took precedence in the music for that day only. There was a want of harmony. One morning when the priest was chanting the first words of the Gloria, the head of a little French bugler appeared at the top of the gallery stairs, and at once started a plaint chant, Gloria, we had never rehearsed or heard before. He sang his solo to the end. He was thirsting for glory, and he took a full draught.

I don't think there was ever a choir like ours but one, and that was conducted by a butcher from Dolphinholm in the Anglican Church at Garstang. One Sunday he started a hymn with a new tune. Three times his men broke down, and three times they were heard by the whole congregation whispering ferociously at one another. At length the parson tried to proceed with the service, and said: "Let us pray." But the bold butcher retorted: "Pray be hanged. Let us try again, lads; I know we can do it." He then started the hymn for the fourth time, and they did it. After the service the parson demanded satisfaction of the butcher, and got it in a neighbouring pasture.

The cholera came, and we soon grew very serious. The young man from Vermont walked with me after school hours, and we tried to be cheerful, but it was of no use. Our talk always reverted to the plague, and the best way to cure it or to avoid it. The doctors disagreed. Every theory was soon contradicted by facts; all kinds of people were attacked and died; the young and the old, the weak and the strong, the drunken and the sober. Every man adopted a special diet or a favourite liquor—brandy, whiskey, bitters, cherry-bounce, sarsaparilla. My own particular preventive was hot tea, sweetened with molasses and seasoned with cayenne pepper. I survived, but that does not prove anything in particular.

The two papers, the 'Joliet Signal' and the 'True Democrat', scarcely ever mentioned the cholera. It would have been bad policy, tending to scare away the citizens and to injure trade.

Many men suddenly found that they had urgent business to look after elsewhere, and sneaked away, leaving their wives and families behind them.

On Sunday Father Ingoldsby advised his people to prepare their souls for the visit of the Angel of Death, who was every night knocking at their doors. There were many, he said, whose faces he had never seen at the rails since he came to Joliet; and what answer would they give to the summons which called them to appear without delay before the judgment seat of God? What doom could they expect but that of damnation and eternal death?

The sermon needed no translation for the men of many nations who were present. Irishmen and Englishmen, Highlanders and Belgians, French and Germans, Mexicans and Canadians, could interpret the meaning of the flashing eye which roamed to every corner of the church, singling out each miserable sinner; the fierce frown, the threatening gesture, the finger first pointing to the heaven above, and then down to the depths of hell.

Some stayed to pray and to confess their sins; others hardened their hearts and went home unrepentant. Michael Mangan went to Belz's grocery near the canal. He said he felt pains in his interior, and drank a jigger of whisky. Then he bought half-a-gallon of the same remedy to take home with him. It was a cheap prescription, costing only twelve and a half cents, but it proved very effective. Old Belz put the stuff into an earthenware bottle, which he corked with a corncob. Michael started for home by the zigzag path which led up the steep limestone bluff, but his steps were slow and unsteady; he sat down on a rock, and took another dose out of his bottle. He never went any further of his own motion, and we buried him next day. We were of different opinions about the cause of his death; some thought it was the cholera, others the pangs of conscience, some the whisky, and others a mixture of all three; at any rate, he died without speaking to the priest.

Next day another neighbour died, Mr. Harrigan. He had lost one arm, but with the other he wrote a good hand, and registered deeds in the County Court. I called to see him. He was in bed lying on his back, his one arm outside the coverlet, his heaving chest was bare, and his face was ghastly pale. There were six men in the room, one of whom said:

"Do you know me, Mr. Harrigan?"

"Sure, divil a dog in Lockport but knows you, Barney," said the dying man.

Barney lived in Lockport, and in an audible whisper said to us: "Ain't he getting on finely? He'll be all right again to-morrow, please God."

"And didn't the doctor say I'd be dead before twelve this day?" asked Harrigan.

I looked at the clock on the mantelshelf. It was past ten. He died an hour later.

One day the young man from Vermont rose from his seat and looked at me across the schoolroom. I thought he was going to say something. He took down his hat, went to the door, turned and looked at me again, but he did not speak or make any sign. Next morning his place was vacant, and I asked one of the boys if he had seen the young man. The boy said:

"He ain't a-coming to school no more, I calkilate. He was buried this morning before school hours."

That year, '49 was a dismal year in Joliet.

Mr. Rogers, one of the school managers, came and sat on a bench near the door. He was a New Englander, a carpenter, round-shouldered, tall and bony. He said:

"I called in to tell you that I can't vote for appinting you to this school next term. Fact is the ladies are dead against you; don't see you at meeting on the Sabbath; say you go to the Catholic Church with the Irish and Dutch. I a'n't a word to say agen you myself. This is a free country; every man can go, for aught I care, whichever way he darn chooses—to heaven, or hell, or any other place. But I want to be peaceable, and I can't get no peace about voting for you next term, so I thought I'd let you know, that you mightn't be disappointed."

In that way Mr. Rogers washed his hands of me. I said I was sorry I did not please the ladies, but I liked to hear a man who spoke his mind freely.

Soon afterwards the Germans brought me word that the Yankees were calling a meeting about me. I was aware by this time that when a special gathering of citizens takes place to discuss the demerits of any individual, it is advisable for that individual to be absent if possible; but curiosity was strong within me; hitherto I had never been honoured with any public notice whatever, and I attended the meeting uninvited.

The Yankees are excellent orators; they are born without bashfulness; they are taught to speak pieces in school from their childhood; they pronounce each word distinctly; they use correctly the rising inflection and the falling inflection. Moreover, they are always in deadly earnest; there is another miserable world awaiting their arrival. Their humorists are the most unhappy of men. You may smile when you read their jokes, but when you see the jokers you are more inclined to weep. With pain and sorrow they grind, like Samson, at the jokers' mill all the days of their lives.

The meeting was held in the new two-storey school-house.

Deacon Beaumont took the chair—my chair—and Mr Curtis was appointed secretary. I began to hate Deacon Beaumont, as also Mr. Curtis, who was the only other teacher present; it was evident they were going to put him in my place.

Each speaker on rising put his left hand in the side pocket of his pants. I was not mentioned by name, but nevertheless I was given clearly to understand that I had been reared in a land whose people are under the dominion of a tyrannical monarch and a bloated aristocracy; that therefore I had never breathed the pure air of freedom, and was unfitted to teach the children of the Great Republic.

Mr. Tucker, an influential citizen, moved finally that the school managers be instructed to engage a Mr. Sellars, of Dresden, as teacher at the West Joliet School. He said Mr. Sellars was a young man from New England who had been teaching for a term at Dresden, and had given great satisfaction. He had the best testimony to the character and ability of the young man from his own daughter, Miss Priscilla Tucker, who had been school marm in the same school, and was now home on a visit. She could give, from her own personal knowledge, any information the managers might require.

Mr. Tucker's motion was seconded. There was no amendment proposed, and all in favour of the motion were requested by Deacon Beaumont to stand up. The Yankees all rose to their feet, the others sat still, all but old Gorges, a Prussian, who, with his two sons, had come to vote for me. But the old man did not understand English. His son John pulled him down, but Deacon Beaumont had counted his vote, and the motion was carried by a majority of one. So I was, in fact, put out of the school by my best friend, old Gorges.

I went away in a dudgeon and marked off a cellar on my real estate, 30 feet by 18 feet, on the top of the bluff, near the edge of the western prairie. The ground was a mixture of stiff clay and limestone rock, and I dug at it all through the month of September. Curious people came along and made various remarks; some said nothing, but went away whistling. One day Mr. Jackson and Paul Duffendorff were passing by, and I wanted them to pass, but they stopped like the rest. Mr. Jackson was reckoned one of the smartest men in Will county. He had a large farm, well stocked, but he was never known to do any work except with his brains. He was one of those men who increased the income of the State of Illinois by ability. Duffendorf was a huge Dutchman, nearly seven feet in height. He was a great friend of mine, great every way, but very stupid; he had no sense of refinement. He said:

"Ve gates, schoolmeister? Py golly! Here, Mr. Shackson, is our schoolmeister a vurkin mit spade and bick. How vas you like dat kind of vurk, Mr. Shackson?"

"Never could be such a darned fool; sooner steal," answered Jackson.

Duffendorf laughed until he nearly fell into the cellar. Now this talk was very offensive. I knew Mr. Jackson was defendant in a case then pending. He had been charged with conspiring to defraud; with having stolen three horses; with illegally detaining seventy-five dollars; and on other counts which I cannot remember just now. The thing was originally very simple, even Duffendorff could understand it.

Mr. Jackson was in want of some ready money, so he directed his hired man to steal three of his horses in the dead of night, take them to Chicago, sell them to the highest bidder, find out where the highest bidder lived, and then return with the cash to Joliet. The hired man did his part of the business faithfully, returned and reported to his employer. Then Mr. Jackson set out in search of his stolen horses, found them, and brought them home. The man expected to receive half the profits of the enterprise. The boss demurred, and only offered one-third, and said if that was not satisfactory he would bring a charge of horse-stealing. The case went into court, and under the treatment of learned counsel grew very complicated. It was remarkable as being the only one on record in Will county in which a man had made money by stealing his own horses. It is, I fancy, still 'sub judice'.

Both the old school and the new school remained closed even after the cholera ceased to thin out the citizens, but I felt no further interest in the education of youth. When winter came I tramped three miles into the forest, and began to fell trees and split rails in order to fence in my suburban estate. For some time I carried a rifle, and besides various small game I shot two deer, but neither of them would wait for me to come up with them even after I had shot them; they took my two bullets away with them, and left me only a few drops of blood on the snow; then I left the rifle at home. For about four months the ground was covered with snow, and the cold was intense, but I continued splitting until the snakes came out to bask in the sun and warm themselves. I saw near a dead log eight coiled together, and I killed them all. The juice of the sugar maples began to run. I cut notches in the bark in the shape of a broad arrow, bored a hole at the point, inserted a short spout of bark, and on sunny mornings the juice flowed in a regular stream, clear and sparkling; on cloudy days it only dropped.

One evening as I was plodding my weary way homeward, I looked up and saw in the distance a man inspecting my cellar. I said, "Here's another disgusting fool who ain't seen it before." It certainly was a peculiar cellar, but not worth looking at so much. I hated the sight of it. It had no building over it, never was roofed in, and was sometimes full of snow.

The other fool proved to be Mr. Curtis, the teacher who had written the resolution of the meeting which voted me out of the school. He held out his hand, and I took it, but reluctantly, and under secret protest. I thought to myself, "This mine enemy has an axe to grind, or he would not be here. I'll be on my guard."

"I have been waiting for you some time," said Mr. Curtis. "I was told you were splitting rails in the forest, and would be home about sundown. I wanted to see you about opening school again. Mr. Rogers won't have anything to say to it, but the other two managers, Mr. Strong and Mr. Demmond, want to engage you and me, one to teach in the upper storey of the school, the other down below, and I came up to ask you to see them about it."

"How does it happen that Mr. Sellars has not come over from Dresden?" I said.

"Joliet is about the last place on this earth that Mr. Sellars will come to. Didn't you hear about him and Priscilla?" asked Mr. Curtis.

"No, I heard nothing since that meeting; only saw the school doors were closed every time I passed that way."

"Well, I am surprised. I thought everybody knew by this time, though we did not like to say much about it."

I began to feel interested. Mr. Curtis had something pleasant to tell me about the misfortunes of my enemies, so I listened attentively.

It was a tale of western love, and its course was no smoother in Illinois than in any less enlightened country of old Europe. Miss Priscilla reckoned she could hoe her own row. She and Mr. Sellars conducted the Common School at Dresden with great success and harmony. All went merry as a marriage bell, and the marriage was to come off by-and-by—so hoped Miss Priscilla. During the recess she took the teacher's arm, and they walked to and fro lovingly. All Dresden said it was to be a match, but at the end of the term Miss Priscilla returned to Joliet—the match was not yet made.

It was at this time that the dissatisfaction with the new British teacher became extreme; Miss Priscilla fanned the flame of discontent. She did not "let concealment like a worm i' th' bud feed on her damask cheek," but boldly proposed that Mr. Sellars—a true-born native of New England, a good young man, always seen at meetings on the Sabbath—should be requested to take charge of the West Joliet school. So the meeting was held: I was voted out, Mr. Sellars was voted in, and the daughters of the Puritans triumphed.

Miss Priscilla wrote to Dresden, announcing to her beloved the success of her diplomacy, requesting him to come to Joliet without delay, and assume direction of the new school. This letter fell into the hands of another lady who had just arrived at Dresden from New England in search of her husband, who happened to be Mr. Sellars. The letter which that other lady wrote to Miss Priscilla I did not see, but it was said to be a masterpiece of composition, and it emptied two schools. Mr. Tucker went over to Dresden and looked around for Mr. Sellars, but that gentleman had gone out west, and was never heard of again. The west was a very wide unfenced space, without railways.

"The fact is," said Mr. Curtis, "we were all kinder shamed the way things turned out, and we just let 'em rip. But people are now stirring about the school being closed so long, so Mr. Strong and Mr. Demmond have concluded to engage you and me to conduct the school."

We were engaged that night, and I went rail-splitting no more. But I fenced my estate; and while running the line on the western boundary I found the grave of Highland Mary. It was in the middle of a grove of oak and hickory saplings, and was nearly hidden by hazel bushes. The tombstone was a slab about two feet high, roughly hewn. Her epitaph was, "Mary Campbell, aged 7. 1827." That was all. Poor little Mary.

The Common Schools of Illinois were maintained principally from the revenue derived from grants of land. When the country was first surveyed, one section of 640 acres in each township of six miles square was reserved for school purposes. There was a State law on education, but the management was entirely local, and was in the hands of a treasurer and three directors, elected biennally by the citizens of each school district. The revenue derived from the school section was sometimes not sufficient to defray the salary of the teacher, and then the deficiency was supplied by the parents of the children who had attended at the school; those citizens whose children did not attend were not taxed by the State for the Common Schools; they did not pay for that which they did not receive. In some instances only one school was maintained by the revenue of two school sections. When the attendance in the school was numerous, a young lady, called the "school-marm," assisted in the teaching. Sometimes, as in the case of Miss Priscilla, she fell into trouble.

The books were provided by the enterprise of private citizens, and an occasional change of "Readers" was agreeable both to teachers and scholars. The best of old stories grow tiresome when repeated too often. One day a traveller from Cincinnati brought me samples of a new series of "Readers," offering on my approval, to substitute next day a new volume for every old one produced. I approved, and he presented each scholar with copies of the new series for nothing.

The teaching was secular, but certain virtues were inculcated either directly or indirectly. Truth and patriotism were recommended by the example of George Washington, who never told a lie, and who won with his sword the freedom of his country. There were lessons on history, in which the tyranny of the English Government was denounced; Kings, Lords and Bishops, especially Bishop Laud, were held up to eternal abhorrence; as was also England's greed of gain, her intolerance, bigotry, taxation; her penal and navigation laws. The glorious War of Independence was related at length. The children of the Puritans, of the Irish and the Germans, did not in those days imbibe much prejudice in favour of England or her institutions, and the English teacher desirous of arriving at the truth, had the advantage of having heard both sides of many historical questions; of listening, as it were, to the scream of the American eagle, as well as to the roar of the British lion.

Mr. Curtis was a good teacher, systematic, patient, persevering, and ingenious. I ceased to hate him; Miss Priscilla's downfall cemented our friendship. We kept order in the school by moral suasion, but the task was sometimes difficult. My private feelings were in favour of the occasional use of the hickory stick, the American substitute for the rod of Solomon, and the birch of England.

The geography we taught was principally that of the United States and her territories, spacious maps of which were suspended round the school, continually reminding the scholars of their glorious inheritance. It was then full of vacant lots, over which roamed the Indian and the buffalo, species of animals now nearly extinct. We did not pay much attention to the rest of the world.

Elocution was inculcated assiduously, and at regular intervals each boy and girl had to come forth and "speak a piece" in the presence of the scholars, teachers, and visitors.

Mental arithmetic and the use of fractions were taught daily. The use of the decimal in the American coinage is of great advantage; it is easier and more intelligible to children than the clumsy old system of pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings. It is a system which would no doubt have been long ago adopted by England, if it had not been humiliating to our national pride to take even a good thing from rebellious Yankees, and inferior Latin races. We cling fondly to absurdities because they are our own. In Australia wild rabbits are vermin, in England they are private property; and if one of the three millions of her miserable paupers is found with a rabbit in each of his coat pockets, he is fined 10s. or sent to gaol. Pope Gregory XIII. demonstrated the error of the calendar then in use, and all Catholic nations adopted his correction. But when the adoption of the calendar was proposed in Parliament, John Bull put his big foot down at once; he would receive no truth, not even a mathematical one, from the Pope of Rome, and it was only after the lapse of nearly 200 years, when the memory of Gregory and his calendar had almost faded away from the sensitive mind of Protestantism, that an Act was passed, "equalising the style in Great Britain and Ireland with that used in other countries of Europe."

A fugitive slave with his wife and daughter came to Joliet. One day he was seized by three slave-hunters, who took him towards the canal. A number of abolitionists assembled to rescue the slave, but the three men drew their revolvers, and no abolitionist had the courage to fire the first shot. The slave was put in a canal boat and went south; his wife remained in Joliet and earned her bread by weaving drugget; the daughter came to my school; she was of pure negro blood, but was taught with the white girls.

The abolitionists were increasing in number, and during the war with the South the slaves were freed. They are now like Israel in Egypt, they increase too rapidly. If father Abraham had sent them back to Africa when they were only four millions, he would have earned the gratitude of his country. Now they number more than eight millions; the Sunny South agrees with their constitution; they work as little and steal as much as possible. In the days of their bondage they were addicted to petty larceny; now they have votes, and when they achieve place and power they are addicted to grand larceny, and they loot the public treasury as unblushingly as the white politicians.

The nigger question has doubled in magnitude during the last thirty years, and there will have to be another abolition campaign of some kind. The blacks are incapable of ruling the whites; no time was given to educate them for their new duties, if teaching them was possible; the Declaration of Independence was in their case a mockery from the beginning. When all the old abolitionists and slave-holders are dead, another generation of men grown wiser by the failure of the policy of their forefathers may solve the black problem.

Complaint is made that the American education of to-day is in a chaotic condition, due to the want of any definite idea of what education is aiming at. There is evidence that the ancients of New England used to birch their boys, but after independence had been fought for and won, higher aims prevailed. The Puritan then believed that his children were born to a destiny far grander than that of any other children on the face of the earth; the treatment accorded to them was therefore to be different. The fundamental idea of American life was to be "Freedom," and the definition of "Freedom" by a learned American is, "The power which necessarily belongs to the self-conscious being of determining his actions in view of the highest, the universal good, and thereby of gradually realising in himself the eternal divine perfection." The definition seems a little hazy, but the workings of great minds are often unintelligible to common people. "The American citizen must be morally autonomous, regarding all institutions as servants, not as masters. So far man has been for the most part a thrall. The true American must worship the inner God recognised as his own deepest and eternal self, not an outer God regarded as something different from himself."

Lucifer is said to have entertained a similar idea. He would not be a thrall, and the result as described by the republican Milton was truly disastrous:

"Him the Almighty Power Hurl'd headlong down to bottomless perdition Region of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell."

The manner in which the American citizen is to be made "morally autonomous, and placed beyond the control of current opinion," will require much money; his parents must therefore be rich; they must already have inherited wealth, or have obtained it by ability or labour. The course of training to be given to youth includes travelling for six years in foreign countries under private tutors, studying human history, ethnic, social, political, industrial, aesthetic, religious; gems of poetry; the elements of geometry; mechanics; art, plastic, and graphic; reading Confucius, Sakya-muni, Themistocles, Socrates, Julius Caesar, Paul, Mahommed, Charlemagne, Alfred, Gregory VII., St. Bernard, St. Francis, Savonarola, Luther, Queen Elizabeth, Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Tennyson, and Lowell.

The boys on the prairies had to earn their bread; they could not spend six years travelling around and studying all the writers above mentioned, making themselves morally autonomous, and worshipping their own deepest and eternal selves. The best men America has produced were reared at home, and did chores out of school hours.

When I was expelled from school by the Yankees, Mr. McEvoy, the leading Irish politician, called me aside and said: "Whisper, you just hang round until next election, and we'll turn out the Yankee managers, and put you in the school again." The Germans were slow in acquiring political knowledge as well as in learning the English language; but language, politics, and law itself are the birthright of the Irish. By force of circumstances, and through the otherwise deplorable failure of Miss Priscilla, I resumed work in the school before the election, but Mr. McEvoy, true to his promise, organised the opposition—it is always the opposition—and ejected the Yankee managers, but in the fall of 1850 I resigned, and went a long way south.

When I returned, Joliet was a city, and Mr. Rendel, one of my German night scholars, was city marshal. I met him walking the streets, and carrying his staff of office with great dignity. I took up my abode in an upper apartment of the gaol, then in charge of Sheriff Cunningham, who had a farm in West Joliet, near a plank road, leading on to the prairie. I had known the Sheriff two years before, but did not see much of him at this time, though I was in daily communication with his son, Silas, the Deputy Sheriff. It was under these favourable circumstancesthat I was enabled to witness a General Gaol Delivery of all the prisoners in Joliet. One, charged with killing his third man, was out on bail. I saw him in Matheson's boarding-house making love to one of the hired girls, and she seemed quite pleased with his polite attentions. Matheson was elected Governor of the State of Illinois, and became a millionaire by dealing in railways. He was a native of Missouri, and a man of ability; In '49 I saw him at work in a machine shop.

The prisoners did not regain their freedom all at once, but in the space of three weeks they trickled out one by one. The Deputy Sheriff, Silas, had been one of my pupils; he was now about seventeen years of age, and a model son of the prairies. His features were exceedingly thin, his eyes keen, his speech and movements slow, his mind cool and calculating. He never injured his constitution by any violent exertion; in fact, he seemed to have taken leave of active life and all its worries, and to have settled down to an existence of ease and contemplation. If he had any anxiety about the safe custody of his prisoners he never showed it. He had finished his education, so I did not attempt to control him by moral suasion, or by anything else, but by degrees I succeeded in eliciting from him all the particulars he could impart about the criminals under his care. There was no fence around the gaol, and Silas kept two of them always locked in. He "calkilated they wer kinder unsafe." They belonged to a society of horse thieves whose members were distributed at regular intervals along the prairies, and who forwarded their stolen animals by night to Chicago. The two gentlemen in gaol were of an untrustworthy character, and would be likely to slip away. About a week after my arrival I met Silas coming out of the gaol, and he said:

"They're gone, be gosh." Silas never wasted words.

"Who is gone?" I inquired.

"Why, them two horse thieves. Just look here."

We went round to the east side of the gaol, and there was a hole about two feet deep, and just wide enough to let a man through. The ground underneath the wall was rocky, but the two prisoners had been industrious, had picked a hole under the wall and had gone through.

"Where's the Sheriff?" I asked. "Won't Mr. Cunningham go after the men?"

"He's away at Bourbonnais' Grove, about suthin' or other, among the Bluenoses; can't say when he'll be back; it don't matter anyhow. He might just as well try to go to hell backwards as catch them two horse thieves now."

Silas had still two other prisoners under his care, and he let them go outside as usual to enjoy the fresh air. They had both been committed for murder, but their crime was reckoned a respectable one compared to the mean one of horse stealing, so Silas gave them honourable treatment.

One of the prisoners was a widow lady who had killed another lady with an axe, at a hut near the canal on the road to Lockport. She seemed crazy, and when outside the gaol walked here and there in a helpless kind of way, muttering to herself; but sometimes an idea seemed to strike her that she had something to do Lockport way, and she started in that direction, forgetting very likely that she had done it already; but whenever Silas called her back, she returned without giving any trouble. One day, however, when Silas was asleep she went clean out of sight, and I did not see her any more. The Sheriff was still absent among the Bluenoses.

The fourth prisoner was an Englishman named Wilkins who owned a farm on the prairie, in the direction of Bourbonnais' Grove. A few weeks before, returning home from Joliet with his waggon and team of horses, he halted for a short time at a distillery, situated at the foot of the low bluff which bounded the bottom, through which ran the Aux Plaines River. It was a place at which the farmers often called to discuss politics, the prices of produce, and other matters, and also, if so disposed, to take in a supply of liquor. The corn whisky of Illinois was an article of commerce which found its way to many markets. Although it was sold at a low price at home, it became much more valuable after it had been exported to England or France, and had undergone scientific treatment by men of ability. The corn used in its manufacture was exceedingly cheap, as may be imagined when corn-fed pork was, in the winter of '49, offered for sale in Joliet at one cent per pound. After the poison of the prairies had been exported to Europe, a new flavour was imparted to it, and it became Cognac, or the best Irish or Scotch whisky.

Wilkins halted his team and went into the whisky-mill, where the owner, Robinson, was throwing charcoal into the furnace under his boiler with a long-handled shovel. He was an enterprising Englishman who was wooing the smiles of fortune with better prospects of success than the slow, hard-working farmer. I had seen him first in West Joliet in '49, when he was travelling around buying corn for his distillery. He was a handsome man, about thirty years of age, five feet ten inches in height, had been well educated, was quite able to hold his own among the men of the West, and accommodated himself to their manners and habits.

There were three other farmers present, and their talk drifted from one thing to another until it at last settled on the question of the relative advantages of life in England and the States. Robinson took the part of England, Wilkins stuck to the States; he said:

"A poor man has no chance at home; he is kept down by landlords, and can never get a farm of his own. In Illinois I am a free man, and have no one to lord it over me. If I had lived and slaved in England for a hundred years I should never have been any better off, and now I have a farm as good as any in Will County, and am just as good a man as e'er another in it."

Now Wilkins was only a small man, shorter by four inches than Robinson, who towered above him, and at once resented the claim to equality. He said:

"You as good as any other man, are you? Why there ain't a more miserable little skunk within twenty miles round Joliet."

Robinson was forgetting the etiquette of the West. No man—except, perhaps, in speaking to a nigger—ever assumed a tone of insolent superiority to any other man; if he did so, it was at the risk of sudden death; even a hired man was habitually treated with civility. The titles of colonel, judge, major, captain, and squire were in constant use both in public and private; there was plenty of humorous "chaff," but not insult. Colonels, judges, majors, captains, and squires were civil, both to each other and to the rest of the citizens. Robinson, in speaking to his fellow countryman, forgot for a moment that he was not in dear old England, where he could settle a little difference with his fists. But little Wilkins did not forget, and he was not the kind of man to be pounded with impunity. He had in his pocket a hunting knife, with which he could kill a hog—or a man. When Robinson called him a skunk he felt in his pocket for the knife, and put his thumb on the spring at the back of the buckhorn handle, playing with it gently. It was not a British Brummagem article, made for the foreign or colonial market, but a genuine weapon that could be relied on at a pinch.

"Oh, I dare say you were a great man at home, weren't you?" he said. "A lord maybe, or a landlord. But we don't have sich great men here, and I am as good a man as you any day, skunk though I be."

Robinson had just thrown another shovelful of charcoal into the furnace under his boiler, and he held up his shovel as if ready to strike Williams, but it was never known whether he really intended to strike or not.

The three other men standing near were quite amused with the dispute of the two Englishmen, and were smiling pleasantly at their foolishness. But little Wilkins did not smile, nor did he wait for the shovel to come down on his head; he darted under it with his open knife in the same manner as the Roman soldier went underneath the dense spears of the Pyrrhic phalanx, and set to work. Robinson tried to parry the blows with the handle of the shovel, but he made only a poor fight; the knife was driven to the hilt into his body seven times, then he threw down his shovel, and tried to save himself behind the boiler, but it was too late; the dispute about England and the States was settled.

Wilkins took his team home, then returned to Joliet and gave himself into the custody of the squire, Hoosier Smith. At the inquest he was committed to take his trial for murder, and did not get bail. His wife left the farm, and with her two little boys lived in an old log hut near the gaol. She brought with her two cows, which Wilkins milked each morning as soon as Silas let him out of prison. I could see him every day from the window of my room, and I often passed by the hut when he was doing chores, chopping wood, or fetching water, but I never spoke to him. He did not look happy or sociable, and I could not think of anything pleasant to say by way of making his acquaintance. After much observation and thought I came to the conclusion that Sheriff Cunningham wanted his prisoner to go away; he would not like to hang the man; the citizens would not take Wilkins off his hands; if two fools chose to get up a little difficulty and one was killed, it was their own look-out; and anyway they were only foreigners. The fact was Wilkins was waiting for someone to purchase his farm.

The court-house for Will County was within view of the gaol, at the other side of the street, and one day I went over to look at it. The judge was hearing a civil case, and I sat down to listen to the proceedings. A learned counsel was addressing the jury. He talked at great length in a nasal tone, slowly and deliberately; he had one foot on a form, one hand in a pocket of his pants, and the other hand rested gracefully on a volume of the statutes of the State of Illinois. He had much to say about various horses running on the prairie, and particularly about one animal which he called the "Skemelhorne horse." I tried to follow his argument, but the "Skemelhorne horse" was so mixed up with the other horses that I could not spot him.

Semicircular seats of unpainted pine for the accommodation of the public rose tier above tier, but most of them were empty. There were present several gentlemen of the legal profession, but they kept silence, and never interrupted the counsel's address. Nor did the judge utter a word; he sat at his desk sideways, with his boots resting on a chair. He wore neither wig nor gown, and had not even put on his Sunday go-to-meeting clothes. Neither had the lawyers. If there was a court crier or constable present he was indistinguishable from the rest of the audience.

Near the judge's desk there was a bucket of water and three tumblers on a small table. It was a hot day. The counsel paused in his speech, went to the table, and took a drink; a juryman left the box and drank. The judge also came down from his seat, dipped a tumbler in the bucket and quenched his thirst; one spectator after another went to the bucket. There was equality and fraternity in the court of law; the speech about the Skemelhorne horse went on with the utmost gravity and decorum, until the nasal drawl of the learned counsel put me to sleep.

On awakening, I went into another hall, in which dealings in real estate were registered. Shelves fixed against the walls held huge volumes lettered on the back. One of these volumes was on a table in the centre of the hall, and in it the registrar was copying a deed. Before him lay a pile of deeds with a lead weight on the top. A farmer came in with a paper, on which the registrar endorsed a number and placed at the bottom of the pile. There was no parchment used; each document was a half-sheet foolscap size, party printed and partly written. Another farmer came in, took up the pile and examined the numbers to see how soon his deed was likely to be copied, and if it was in its proper place according to the number endorsed. The registrar was not fenced off from the public by a wide counter; he was the servant of the citizens, and had to satisfy those who paid him for his labours. His pay was a fixed number of cents per folio, not dollars, nor pounds.

When I went back to gaol I found it deserted. Wilkins had sold his farm and disappeared. His wife remained in the hut. Sheriff Cunningham was still away among the Bluenoses, and Silas was 'functus officio', having accomplished a general gaol delivery. He did not pine away on account of the loss of his prisoners, nor grow any thinner—that was impossible. I remained four days longer, expecting something would happen; but nothing did happen, then I left the gaol.

I wrote out two notices informing the public that I was willing to sell my real estate; one of these I pasted up at the Post Office, the other on the bridge over the Aux Plaines River. Next day a German from Chicago agreed to pay the price asked, and we called on Colonel Smith, the Squire. The Colonel filled in a brief form of transfer, witnessed the payment of the money—which was in twenty-dollar gold pieces, and he charged one dollar as his fee. The German would have to pay about 35 cents for its registration. If the deed was lost or stolen, he would insert in a local journal a notice of his intention to apply for a copy, which would make the original of as little value to anybody as a Provincial and Suburban bank note.

In Illinois, transfers of land were registered in each county town. To buy or sell a farm was as easy as horse-stealing, and safer. Usually, no legal help was necessary for either transaction.

By this time California had a rival; gold had been found in Australia. I was fond of gold; I jingled the twenty dollar gold pieces in my pocket, and resolved to look for more at the fountainhead, by way of my native land. A railway from Chicago had just reached Joliet, and had been opened three days before. It was an invitation to start, and I accepted it.

Nobody ever loved his native land better than I do when I am away from it. I can call to mind its innumerable beauties, and in fancy saunter once more through the summer woods, among the bracken, the bluebells, and the foxglove. I can wander by the banks of the Brock, where the sullen trout hide in the clear depths of the pools. I can walk along the path—the path to Paradise—still lined with the blue-eyed speedwell and red campion; I know where the copse is carpeted with the bluebell and ragged robin, where grow the alders, and the hazels rich with brown nuts, the beeches and the oaks; where the flower of the yellow broom blazes like gold in the noontide sun; where the stockdove coos overhead in the ivy; where the kingfisher darts past like a shaft of sapphire, and the water ouzel flies up stream; where the pheasant glides out from his home in the wood to feed on the headland of the wheat field; where the partridge broods in the dust with her young; where the green lane is bordered by the guelder-rose or wayfaring tree, the raspberry, strawberry, and cherry, the wild garlic of starlike flowers, the woodruff, fragrant as new-mown hay; the yellow pimpernel on the hedge side. I see in the fields and meadows the bird's foot trefoil, the oxeye daisy, the lady smocks, sweet hemlock, butterbur, the stitchwort, and the orchis, the "long purpled" of Shakespeare. By the margin of the pond the yellow iris hangs out its golden banners over which the dragon fly skims. The hedgerows are gay with the full-blown dog-roses, the bells of the bilberries droop down along the wood-side, and the red-hipped bumble bees hum over them. Out of the woodland and up Snaperake Lane I rise to the moorland, and then the sea coast comes in sight, and the longing to know what lies beyond it.

I have been twice to see what lies beyond it, and when I return once more my own land does not know me. There is another sea coast in sight now, and when I sail away from it I hope to land on some one of the Isles of the Blest.

I called on my oldest living love; she looked, I thought, even younger than when we last parted. She was sitting before the fire alone, pale and calm, but she gave me no greeting; she had forgotten me. I took a chair, sat down beside her, and waited. A strange lass with a fair face and strong bare arms came in and stared at me steadily for a minute or two, but went away without saying a word. I looked around the old house room that I knew so well, with its floor of flags from Buckley Delph, scoured white with sandstone. There stood, large and solid, the mealark of black oak, with the date, 1644, carved just below the heavy lid, more than 200 years old, and as sound as ever. The sloping mirror over the chest of drawers was still supported by the four seasons, one at each corner. Above it was Queen Caroline, with the crown on her head, and the sceptre in her hand, seated in a magnificent Roman chariot, drawn by the lion and the unicorn. That team had tortured my young soul for years. I could never understand why that savage lion had not long ago devoured both the Queen and the unicorn.

My old love was looking at me, and at last she put one hand on my knee, and said:

"It's George."

"Yes," I said, "it's George."

She gazed a while into the fire and said:

"Alice is dead."

"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 Lancashire, 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-shilling 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 niggardly. But when I saw a regular stream of disappointed men with empty pockets offering their monthly licenses for five shillings 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 passed 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, washing 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 hell," 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."

"I can't well go back fifteen thousand miles, even if I had money to take me back," answered Philip.

"Well, you might walk as far as Melbourne," said the hairy man, "and then you could get fourteen bob a day as a hodman; or you might take a job at stone breaking; the Government are giving 7s. 6d. a yard for road metal. Ain't you got any trade to work at?"

"No, I never learned a trade, I am only a gentleman." He felt mean enough to cry.

"Well, that's bad. If you are a scholar, you might keep school, but I don't believe there's half-a-dozen kids on the diggin's. They'd be of no mortal use except to tumble down shafts. Fact is, if you are really hard up, you can be a peeler. Up at the camp they'll take on any useless loafer wot's able to carry a carbine, and they'll give you tucker, and you can keep your shirt clean. But, mind, if you do join the Joeys, I hope you'll be shot. I'd shoot the hull blessed lot of 'em if I had my way. They are nothin' but a pack of robbers." The hairy man knew something of current history and statistics, but he had not a pleasant way of imparting his knowledge.

Picaninny Gully ended in a flat, thinly timbered, where there were only a few diggers. Turning to the left, Philip found two men near a waterhole hard at work puddling. When he bade them good-day, they did not swear at him, which was some comfort. They were brothers, and were willing to talk, but they did not stop work for a minute. They had a large pile of dirt, and were making hay while the sun shone—that is, washing their dirt as fast as they could while the water lasted. During the preceding summer they had carted their wash-dirt from the gully until rain came and filled the waterhole. They said they had not found any rich ground, but they could now make at least a pound a day each by constant work. Philip thought they were making more, as they seemed inclined to sing small; in those days to brag of your good luck might be the death of you.

While Philip was away interviewing the diggers, Jack showed me where he had worked his first claim, and had made 400 pounds in a few days. "You might mark off a claim here and try it," he said. "I think I took out the best gold, but there may be a little left still hereabout." I pegged off two claims, one for Philip, and one for myself, and stuck a pick in the centre of each. Then we sat down on a log. Six men came up the gully carrying their swags, one of them was unusually tall. Jack said: "Do you see that big fellow there? His name is McKean. He comes from my part of Ireland. He is a lawyer; the last time I saw him he was in a court defending a prisoner, and now the whole six feet seven of him is nothing but a dirty digger."

"What made you leave Ireland, Jack?" I asked.

"I left it, I guess, same as you did, because I couldn't live in it. My father was a fisherman, and he was drowned. Mother was left with eight children, and we were as poor as church mice. I was the oldest, so I went to Belfast and got a billet on board ship as cabin boy. I made three voyages from Liverpool to America, and was boxed about pretty badly, but I learned to handle the ropes. My last port there was Boston, and I ran away and lived with a Yankee farmer named Small. He was a nigger driver, he was, working the soul out of him early and late. He had a boat, and I used to take farm produce in it across the bay to Boston, where the old man's eldest son kept a boarding-house. There was a daughter at home, a regular high-flier. She used to talk to me as if I was a nigger. One day when we were having dinner, she was asking me questions about Ireland, and about my mother, sisters, and brothers. Then I got mad, thinking how poor they were, and I could not help them. 'Miss Small,' I said, 'my mother is forty years old, and she has eight children, and she looks younger than you do, and has not lost a tooth.'

"Miss Small, although quite young, was nearly toothless, so she was mad enough to kill me; but her brother Jonathan was at table, and he took my part, saying, 'Sarves you right, Sue;' why can't you leave Jack alone?'

"But Sue made things most unpleasant, and I told Jonathan I couldn't stay on the farm, and would rather go to sea again. Jonathan said he, too, was tired of farming, and he would go with me. He could manage a boat across Boston Harbour, but he had never been to sea. Next time there was farm stuff to go to Boston he went with me; we left the boat with his brother, and shipped in a whaler bound for the South Seas. I used to show him how to handle the ropes, to knot and splice, and he soon became a pretty good hand, though he was not smart aloft when reefing. His name was Small, but he was not a small man; he was six feet two, and the strongest man on board, and he didn't allow any man to thrash me, because I was little. After eighteen months' whaling he persuaded me to run away from the ship at Hobarton; he said he was tired of the greasy old tub; so one night we bundled up our swags, dropped into a boat, and took the road to Launceston, where we expected to find a vessel going to Melbourne. When we were half-way across the island, we called just before sundown at a farmhouse to see if we could get something to eat, and lodging for the night. We found two women cooking supper in the kitchen, and Jonathan said to the younger one, 'Is the old man at home?' She replied quite pertly:

"'Captain Massey is at home, if that's what you mean by 'old man.'

"'Well, my dear,' said Jonathan, 'will you just tell him that we are two seamen on our way to Launceston, and we'd like to have a word with him.'

"'I am not your dear,' she replied, tossing her head, and went out. After a while she returned, and said: 'Captain Massey wanted to speak to the little man first.' That was me.

"I went into the house, and was shown into the parlour, where the captain was standing behind a table. There was a gun close to his hand in a corner, two horse pistols on a shelf, and a sword hanging over them. He said: 'Who are you, where from, and whither bound?' to which I replied:

"'My name is John Moore; me and my mate have left our ship, a whaler, at Hobarton, and we are bound for Launceston.'

"'Oh, you are a runaway foremast hand are you? Then you know something about work on board ship.' He then put questions to me about the work of a seaman, making sail, and reefing, about masts, yards, and rigging, and finished by telling me to box a compass. I passed my examination pretty well, and he told me to send in the other fellow. He put Jonathan through his sea-catechism in the same way, and then said we could have supper and a shake-down for the night.

"After supper the young lady sat near the kitchen fire sewing, and Jonathan took a chair near her and began a conversation. He said:

"I must beg pardon for having ventured to address you as 'my dear,' on so short an acquaintance, but I hope you will forgive my boldness. Fact is, I felt quite attached to you at first sight.' And so on. If there was one thing that Jonathan could do better than another it was talking. The lady was at first very prim and reserved; but she soon began to listen, smiled, and even tittered. A little boy about two years old came in and stood near the fire. Having nothing else to do, I took him on my knee, and set him prattling until we were very good friends. Then an idea came into my head. I said:

"'I guess, Jonathan, this little kid is about the same age as your youngest boy in Boston, ain't he?'

"Of course, Jonathan had no boy and was not married, but the sudden change that came over that young lady was remarkable. She gave Jonathan a look of fury, jumped up from her seat, snatched up her sewing, and bounced out of the kitchen. The old man came in, and told us to come along, and he would show us our bunks. We thought he was a little queer, but he seemed uncommonly kind and anxious to make us comfortable for the night. He took us to a hut very strongly built with heavy slabs, left us a lighted candle, and bade us good-night. After he closed the door we heard him put a padlock on it; he was a kindly old chap, and did not want anybody to disturb us during the night, and we soon fell fast asleep. Next morning he came early and called us to breakfast. He stayed with us all the time, and when we had eaten, said:

"'Well, have you had a good breakfast?'

"Jonathan spoke:

"'Yes, old man, we have. You are a gentleman; you have done yourself proud, and we are thankful, ain't we, Jack? You are the best and kindest old man we've met since we sailed from Boston. And now I think it's time we made tracks for Launceston. By-bye, Captain. Come along, Jack.'

"'No you won't, my fine coves,' replied the captain. 'You'll go back to Hobarton, and join your ship if you have one, which I don't believe. You can't humbug an old salt like me. You are a pair of runaway convicts, and I'll give you in charge as sich. Here, constables, put the darbies on 'em, and take 'em back to Hobarton.'

"Two men who had been awaiting orders outside the door now entered, armed with carbines, produced each a pair of handcuffs, and came towards us. But Jonathan drew back a step or two, clenched his big fists, and said:

"'No, you don't. If this is your little game, captain, all I have to say is, you are the darndest double-faced old cuss on this side of perdition. You can shoot me if you like, but neither you nor the four best men in Van Diemen's Land can put them irons on me. I am a free citizen of the Great United States, and a free man I'll be or die. I'll walk back to Hobarton, if you like, with these men, for I guess that greasy old whaler has gone to sea again by this time, and we'll get another ship there as well as at Launceston.'

"Captain Massey did not like to venture on shooting us off-hand, so at last he told the constables to put up their handcuffs and start with us for Hobarton.

"After we had travelled awhile Jonathan cooled down and began to talk to the constables. He asked them how they liked the island, how long they had been in it, if it was a good country for farming, how they were getting along, and what pay they got for being constables. One of them said: 'The island is pretty good in parts, but it's too mountaynyus; we ain't getting along at all, and we won't have much chance to do any good until our time is out.'

"'What on airth do you mean by saying "until you time is out?" Ain't your time your own?' asked Jonathan.

"'No, indeed. I see you don't understand. We are Government men, and we ain't done our time. We were sent out from England.'

"'Oh! you were sent out, were you? Now, I see, that means you are penitentiary men, and ought to be in gaol. Jack, look here. This kind of thing will never do. You and me are two honest citizens of the United States, and here we are, piloted through Van Diemen's Land by two convicts, and Britishers at that. This team has got to be changed right away.'

"He seized both carbines and handed them to me; then he handcuffed the constables, who were so taken aback they never said a word. Then Jonathan said, 'This is training day. Now, march.'

"The constables walked in front, me and Jonathan behind, shouldering the guns. In this way we marched until we sighted Hobarton, but the two convicts were terribly afraid to enter the city as prisoners; they said they were sure to be punished, would most likely be sent into a chain gang, and would soon be strangled in the barracks at night for having been policemen. We could see they were really afraid, so we took off the handcuffs and gave them back the carbines.

"Before entering the city we found that the whaler had left the harbour, and felt sure we would not be detained long, as nothing could be proved against us. When we were brought before the beak Jonathan told our story, and showed several letters he had received from Boston, so he was discharged. But I had nothing to show; they knew I was an Irishman, and the police asked for a remand to prove that I was a runaway convict. I was kept three weeks in gaol, and every time I was brought to court Jonathan was there. He said he would not go away without me. The police could find out nothing against me, so, at last, they let me go. We went aboard the first vessel bound for Melbourne, and, when sail was made, I went up to the cross-trees and cursed Van Diemen's Land as long as I could see it. Jonathan took ship for the States, but I went shepherding, and grew so lazy that if my stick dropped to the ground I wouldn't bend my back to pick it up. But when I heard of the diggings, I woke up, humped my swag, and ran away—I was always man enough for that— and I don't intend to shepherd again."

When Philip returned from his excursion down the gully, he gave me a detailed report of the results and said, "Gold mining is remarkable for two things, one certain, the other uncertain. The certain thing is labour, the uncertain thing is gold." This information staggered me, so I replied, "Those two things will have to wait till morning. Let us boil the billy." Our spirits were not very high when we began work next day.

We slept under our small calico tent, and our cooking had to be done outside. Sometimes it rained, and then we had to kindle a fire with stringy bark under an umbrella The umbrella was mine—the only one I ever saw on the diggings. Some men who thought they were witty made observations about it, but I stuck to it all the same. No man could ever laugh me out of a valuable property.

We lived principally on beef steak, tea, and damper. Philip cut his bread and beef with his bowie knife as long as it lasted. Every man passing by could see that we were formidable, and ready to defend our gold to the death—when we got it. But the bowie was soon useless; it got a kink in the middle, and a curl at the point, and had no edge anywhere. It was good for nothing but trade.

A number of our shipmates had put up tents in the neighbourhood, and at night we all gathered round the camp fire to talk and smoke away our misery. One, whose name I forget, was a journalist, correspondent for the 'Nonconformist'. Scott was an artist, Harrison a mechanical engineer. Doran a commercial traveller, Moran an ex-policeman, Beswick a tailor, Bernie a clogger. The first lucky digger we saw, after Picaninny Jack, came among us one dark night; he came suddenly, head foremost, into our fire, and plunged his hands into the embers. We pulled him out, and then two other men came up. They apologised for the abrupt entry of their mate. They said he was a lucky digger, and they were his friends and fellow-countrymen. A lucky digger could find friends anywhere, from any country, without looking for them, especially if he was drunk, as was this stranger. They said he had travelled from Melbourne with a pack horse, and, near Mount Alexander, he saw a woman picking up something or other on the side of a hill. She might be gathering flowers, but he could not see any. He stopped and watched her for a while and then went nearer. She did not take any notice of him, so he thought the poor thing had been lost in the bush, and had gone cranky. He pitied her, and said:

"My good woman, have you lost anything? Could I help you to look for it?"

"I am not your good woman, and I have not lost anything; so I don't want anybody to help me to look for it."

He was now quite sure she was cranky. She stooped and picked up something, but he could not see what it was. He began to look on the ground, and presently he found a bright little nugget of gold. Then he knew what kind of flowers the woman was gathering. Without a word he took his horse to the foot of the hill, hobbled it, and took off his swag. He went up the hill again, filled his pan with earth, and washed it off at the nearest waterhole. He had struck it rich; the hill-side was sprinkled with gold, either on the surface or just below it. For two weeks there were only two parties at work on that hill, parties of one, but they did not form a partnership. The woman came every day, picking and scratching like an old hen, and went away at sundown.

When the man went away he took with him more than a hundredweight of gold. He was worth looking at, so we put more wood on the fire, and made a good blaze. Yes, he was a lucky digger, and he was enjoying his luck. He was blazing drunk, was in evening dress, wore a black bell-topper, and kid gloves. The gloves had saved his hands from being burned when he thrust them into the fire. There could be no doubt that he was enjoying himself. He came suddenly out of the black night, and staggered away into it again with his two friends.