On my claim worked three others, a Scotch fellow named Burns, and “Smith” and “Birth Mark.” Smith and Burns were quiet plodding men, who breathed heavily with hope as they shovelled away. “Birth Mark” (which was only a nickname) was a kind of Don Quixote and swashbuckler mixture, and as he turned the windlass over our heads and drew the buckets of earth up as we toiled in the shaft below, he would talk to us for hours without stopping, telling us of his grand pedigree, how he was of Norman blood and the soul of honour; so honourable was he that he was only a poor man through scorning to be a party to a dishonourable action. It was wonderful to hear of the great opportunities that had come his way and how he had let them all go by through his conscience dwelling upon some tiny point bearing on the question as to whether it would be right and proper for him to take the fortune offered, or to toil as a poor man. He would blow his chest out and gaze upon us as though we were much beneath him. I put up with his vulgarity because he had lent me the ten shillings for my “Claim” licence and taken my violin as security.
He would sit by the camp fire by night and tell us all the details of his home life in England. He had left his wife in the old country and seemed terribly spiteful about it. “Middy,” he would say to me, “she was a real bitch, my wife was. What would you have done with a wife that wanted all the say and never got up till twelve o’clock in the day, and when you complained over the late breakfast struck you over the head with her boots?” I pitied him and told him so, and so did all the miners as he gabbled on, though we all envied that English woman comfortably tucked up in bed till midday in old cold England. A lot of the fellows looked shocked at such laziness and it would have done your hearts good to have seen the tremendous indignation on the faces of those miners when he told us that he crept home rather suddenly one day and caught the young lodger on the top attic examining the blue birth-mark under his wife’s knee. He told us of his rage and of his wife’s indignation over his rage, till the whole camp roared with laughter and from that night he was known as “Birth Mark” and was so thick-skinned and thick-headed that he answered to the rude sallies and that nickname with pride, firmly believing that they all sympathised with him over that story. I got to like him somewhat, for his mighty swagger was intensely amusing and harmless enough. He camped with me for a long time, helped us in digging the shafts, and also in the dry blowing, as we prospected for surface gold in the bush for miles around.
Many men struck rich on the Great Boulder, but no luck came our way. Day after day we toiled and I think we must have dug hundreds of shafts. I often fancied myself sailing home to England as a saloon passenger a millionaire!—and thrilled at the thought of my family’s delight as I pensioned each one off for life; but I soon had not boots to my feet and we sold the claims that we valued the week before at two thousand pounds for one pound each to new chums greener than ourselves, and in the end had to live on tick, and then Birth Mark suddenly one night disappeared taking with him my razor and all that he could lay his hands on, which included the little gold we had given him to mind. We never saw him again; he would have suffered from ill health for a long time if we had come across him, but he was of Norman blood and had too much respect for his aristocratic skin to expose it to our plebeian wrath.
I do not think we should have had such bad luck if we had worked completely on our own and not listened to the advice of men who knew everything and kept pegging out claims according to the rules of theory and found nothing, while often the new chum came on the “fields” and struck gold almost the first day. We got excited and went farther up country prospecting, camped out and endured all the hardships that follow the life of the unsuccessful gold seeker whose capital consists of his enthusiasm, his greenness and the one suit of shabby clothes that he lives and sleeps in.
Often out on those lonely tracks my comrades and I passed deserted shafts and heaps of empty meat tins with the weeds already covering up the remains of recent mushroom civilisation and the blasted hopes of mining men. We too drifted into the hopeless stage, built a tent by the deserted camps and rested before we started off back to the towns again. One of the men, an old sailor, who had left a ship at Perth and had come up country, thinking to make his fortune and surprise his Polly Beck of London Town by arriving home a wealthy man, had a gun with him, was an excellent shot, and early in the morning he would shoot the green parrots that fluttered and stirred the grass on the hills by thousands. On these birds some of them lived. My friend Smith and I gave up gold seeking utterly and sat down and slept in the sun by day and strolled over the bush to break the monotony. The country struck me as very desolate-looking, but it was considerably relieved by the beautiful everlasting bush flowers that grew on the hills, with all the colours of the rainbow sparkling in them. In those parts also grew the lovely green Kurrajong trees, and the sombre blue and white gums. At night, we heard the melancholy note of the mopoke in the bush and wailing things that I never caught sight of.
I well remember the tramp back to Kalgoorlie with my friend Smith by my side. He too was despondent, for we had both dreamed of making vast fortunes, and smacked each other on the back as we chuckled over our prodigal return to England as wealthy men. I was delighted before nightfall of that day as we tramped back to leave the gold fields for ever, for I found a pair of old boots by a deserted shaft, and they fitted me just a treat, and the comfort to my bleeding, blistered feet that had been prodded with nails that stuck through my old ones made me feel quite happy.
XXIX
Playing the Violin to the Gold Miners—My Friend the Late Missionary—The Great Concert in Coolgardie, under the Direction of “Carl Rosa De Bonne”—Farewell
I still had my violin when we arrived back in Kalgoorlie, and after a deal of trouble I got some strings and started playing to the miners, for Smith and I were desperate for money and decent clothes. In an old shanty place on the skirts of the town I played the violin and a sailor played the banjo as Smith took his hat round collecting and in two hours we had more money in our pockets than we could have earned on the gold fields in twelve months. My accompanist, the sailor, was a splendid vamper, and I played all those melodies which I knew would touch the hearts of those miners; old English songs, sea songs, and finished up with the “Ah che La Morte” from Il Trovatore. They were delighted as we finished each selection. Smith’s face beamed with satisfaction and so did mine, as he repeatedly came up to me, while I played on, and emptied the coins into my pocket; the sailor played away as though he was going mad with delight, nudged me in the ribs and kept whispering into my ear “Shares, mate, mind you shares.”