Grif: A Story of Australian Life

by B. L. Farjeon

"Half-an-ounce to a tin dish," grumbled Richard, "and we got two grains to a tub!"

"Come, come, Dick," said the Welshman, "it can't be helped. Let us go back to the claim. We may find a bit of gold in it yet."

They returned to their ground, and Richard worked at the windlass, while his mate burrowed at the bottom of the hole. But though Tom drove in his pick here, and drove it in there, and although he worked until the perspiration soaked his shirt through and through, Dame Fortune did not smile upon his efforts.

"We will abandon the claim, Dick," he said in the evening, as he stood, hot and tired, at his mate's side, by the windlass. "I don't think we should get a pennyweight of gold out of it if we worked for a month. We will start in the morning for Deadman's Flat. They are getting plenty of gold there, and we may hit upon a good piece of ground. It is only five miles off."

Richard gave a sullen assent, and commenced to dig np the slabs which supported their windlass. Early the next morning they started off for the new locality.

At the very commencement of the gold-rush a hole had been sunk in Deadman's Flat, and soon afterwards deserted. Most of the adventurers who came on to the field saw this deserted hole, and inferring that the ground had been tested for gold-digging purposes and found worthless, passed on to other spots. But one day, two mates who had been everywhere unfortunate, descended this hole in search of gold, and found the body of a dead man. In the side of the hole was a rusted pick, and as they pulled the pick out of the earth, which was composed of blue clay and cement, they pulled out also some pieces of the conglomerate, which to their infinite delight they discovered to be richly studded with gold. Examining the pick they found upon its point human hair and stains of blood, and they knew that a murder had been committed. A. struggle had evidently taken place at the bottom of the hole, and the man had been murdered with the pick. Then the pick had been driven into the side of the hole, and the murderer had climbed to earth's surface and fled. All this was inference, but it was clear as truth, which spoke at the bottom of the pit, where lay the murdered man. The two hitherto unfortunate mates were made rich by a murder! they dug their wealth out of a grave, for the hole had an amazing quantity of gold in it, which was theirs by right of conquest. The murderer was never discovered, and in honour to his victim the gold-miners christened the place Deadman's Flat.

Richard and his mate chanced to light upon a vacant piece of ground, of which they entertained great anticipations. All around them the diggers were getting gold--not a mere hand-to-mouth living, but gold to spend, to squander. They had to sink nearly forty feet to get to the gold strata, and part of the sinking was through a toughish kind of rock. The day following that on which they commenced to work, the men in the claim next but one to theirs found a nugget of gold weighing ninety ounces, and hey, presto! no sooner was a nugget found in one claim than nuggets began to be found in many of the others. Not large ones certainly, but nice pieces of gold to handle and look at. The miners on Deadman's Flat were jubilant, not to say uproarious. In the very next claim to theirs the men one day obtained more than a hundred ounces of gold. "All right, this time, Dick!" said the Welshman with a knowing wink; and Dick at once began to reckon up how many thousands of pounds they would make out of the claim. It was jolly working the sinking of that hole, and they indulged in fond anticipations of the nuggets of gold waiting for them at the bottom. They ate their meals with a relish. Better than all, the heavy gold seemed to be trending in their direction. "We shall find some big bits in the wash-dirt," said Tom. "The gold gets heavier and heavier as it comes down to us; it is more water-worn too. What if we should drop down upon a big nugget!" Ah, what indeed! A big nugget! The dream of a gold-digger's life. When the Welshman indulged in the speculation, he half smiled. Yet why should it not occur to them? It had occurred to scores of other men.

Then Richard began to build all his hopes upon the finding of a nugget larger than any that had been found before, and asked sly questions of his mate as to the biggest nuggets he had ever seen or heard of. He led up to the engrossing subject as if he were putting questions out of a book of catechisms. As thus:--

"Where was gold first discovered, Tom?"

"In New South Wales." (It will be observed that they both ignored ancient history, and that to them the story of Solomon's Temple was a fable.)