The fatal fascination which gold has for all sorts and conditions of men, draws, as by a lodestar, the wild and rackety younger son, the insolvent tradesman, the out-at-elbows baronet, the ruined gamester, the unsuccessful farmer, and the loafer of all and no profession.
At Three Star they worked hard, drank hard, gamed hard, and fought hard. Sometimes they were flush, and proceeded to paint their own, and neighboring camps, a brilliant red; at others, luck was bad and times were hard; but, whether the luck was good or bad, they were always cheerful, always ready for a drink or a fight, and ever prompt to help a friend or shoot a foe.
In a word, they were like a lot of healthy, reckless, and utterly irresponsible school-boys, holding life as a jest and as something never exceedingly precious.
Amidst this crew of good-natured desperadoes Esmeralda grew up. If she had been a princess instead of a waif and stray of a diggers’ camp, she could not have been more tenderly cared for than she was by Mother Melinda, who lavished upon the child the maternal affection which had been pent up for years; and, as for the diggers, they simply worshiped the child, their pride and delight in her knowing no bounds. It was true that Varley Howard had won her, and was by right of acquisition her adoptive father: but the whole camp also adopted her, and evinced their pride in her by votive offerings of the most extravagant kind.
One of them, a Welshman called Taffy, the roughest dare-devil of the lot, found gold a few days after Esmeralda’s arrival, and he at once sent to Ballarat for the most expensive cradle that could be bought.
“What we want,” he said to the man who was sent after it, “is the first-rate article. None of your blank wicker things, but a splendacious set-out that swings under a kind of tent, you know. And it’s got to have plenty of satin and lace about it, mind you; real satin and real lace. Never you mind the blank expense. The Orphan of Three Star is going to have the spankest cradle the earth can produce, or Three Star will know the reason why.”
The man returned with a cradle of so elaborate and costly a kind, that even Three Star was satisfied. It was brought into the Eldorado saloon, and Esmeralda placed in the nest of costly satin and lace, and the men, gathering round, raised a triumphant cheer, which they repeated as they carried the cradle and the child back to Mother Melinda’s hut.
In the same fashion, Varley Howard sent for rich and costly infantile clothing; nothing was too good for her; and if the diggers could have constructed a set of robes from beaten gold, they would have been only too delighted to have done so.
They bragged about her at neighboring camps; and if any outsider ventured to receive with incredulity the assertion of a Three Star man that “our Esmeralda” was the finest and prettiest child in the whole world, the incredulous one was promptly knocked down or shot.
When Esmeralda went through the troublous period of teething the whole camp was subdued by anxiety; and when, later on, she was attacked by measles, the diggers went about with gloomy and desponding countenances, and the doctor at once rose to the position of the most important man in the camp. They hovered about the hut in twos and threes, walking on tiptoe, and making their inquiries in hushed voices; no one was allowed to fire a revolver or sing or shout within hearing of the child during her illness, and when she recovered, the joy and relief of the camp were demonstrated by a gala night at the Eldorado, of which men speak with solemn enthusiasm to this day.