"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.
One forenoon, about ten o'clock, while we were busy, peacefully digging and puddling, we heard a sound like the rumbling of distant thunder from the direction of Bendigo flat. The thunder grew louder until it became like the bellowing of ten thousand bulls. It was the welcome accorded by the diggers to our "trusty and well-beloved" Government when it came forth on a digger hunt. It was swelled by the roars, and cooeys, and curses of every man above ground and below, in the shafts and drives on the flats, and in the tunnels of the White Hills, from Golden Gully and Sheep's Head, to Job's Gully and Eaglehawk, until the warning that "Joey's out" had reached to the utmost bounds of the goldfield. [(go to illustration)]