"For God's sake speak low," whispered Barton. "I came in here to hide. There are three men outside who want to kill me."
"Three men who want to kill you, eh? Do you expect me to believe that anybody among the crowd there would murder you in broad daylight? My impression is, my friend, that you are a sneaking thief, and that you came here to look for gold. I'll send a man to the police to come and fetch you, and if you stir a step I'll shoot you."
"For goodness' sake, mate, keep quiet. I am not a burglar, not now at any rate. I'll tell you the truth. I was a Government flagellator, a flogger, you know, on the Sydney side, and I flogged those three men. Couldn't help it, it was my business to do it. I know they are looking for me, and they will follow me and take the first chance to murder me. They are most desperate characters. One of them was insubordinate when he was assigned servant to a squatter, and the squatter, who was on horseback, gave him a cut with his stockwhip. Then this man jumped at his master, pulled him off his horse, dragged him to the wood-heap, held his head on the block, seized the axe, and was just going to chop his master's head off, when another man stopped him. That is what I had to flog him for, and then he was sent back to Sydney. So you can just think what a man like that would do. When my time was up I went as a trooper to the Nyalong district under Captain Foster, the Commissioner, and after a while I settled down and married an immigrant woman from Tipperary, a Catholic. That's the way I happened to be here at Mass with my mates, who are Catholics; but I'll never do it again; it's as much as my life is worth. I daresay there are lots of men about Bendigo whom I flogged while I was in the business, and every single man-jack of them would kill me if he got the chance. And so for goodness' sake let me stay here till dark. I suppose you are an honest man; you look like it anyway, and you would not want to see me murdered, now, would you?"
Barton was, in fact, as great a liar and rogue as you would meet with anywhere, but in extreme cases he would tell the truth, and the present case was an extreme one. Philip was merciful; he allowed Barton to remain in his tent all day, and gave him his dinner. When darkness came he escorted him to the tent of the men from Nyalong, and was introduced to them by his new friend. Their names were Gleeson, Poynton, Lyons, and two brothers McCarthy. One of these men was brother-in-law to Barton, and had been a fellow-trooper with him under Captain Foster. Barton had entered into family relations as an honest man; he could give himself any character he chose until he was found out. He was too frightened to stay another night on Bendigo, and he began at once to bundle up his swag. Gleeson and Poynton accompanied him for some distance beyond the pillar of white quartz on Specimen Hill, and then he left the track and struck into the bush. Fear winged his feet' he arrived safely at Nyalong, and never went to another rush. The other five then stayed on Bendigo for several weeks longer, and when they returned home their gold was sufficient for a dividend of 700 pounds for each man. Four of them bought farms, one kept a store, and Barton rented some land. Philip met them again when he was promoted to the school at Nyalong, and they were his firm friends as long as he lived there.
I went to various rushes to improve my circumstances. Once I was nearly shot. A bullet whizzed past my head, and lodged in the trunk of a stringy bark a little further on. That was the only time in my life I was under fire, and I got from under it as quickly as possible. Once I went to a rush of Maoris, near Job's Gully, and Scott came along with his portfolio, a small pick, pan, and shovel. He did not dig any, but got the ugliest Maori he could find to sit on a pile of dirt while he took his portrait and sketched the tattoos. That spoiled the rush; every man, black and white, crowded around Scott while he was at work with his pencil, and then every single savage shook hands with him, and made signs to have his tattoos taken, they were so proud of their ugliness. They were all naked to the waist.
Near the head of Sheep's Head Gully, Jack Moore and I found the cap of a quartz reef with visible gold in it. We broke up some of it, but could not make it pay, having no quartz-crushing machinery. Golden Gully was already nearly worked out, but I got a little gold in it which was flaky, and sticking on edge in the pipeclay bottom. I found some gold also in Sheep's Head, and then we heard of a rush on the Goulburn River. Next day we offered our spare mining plant for sale on the roadside opposite Specimen Hill, placing the tubs, cradles, picks and spades all in a row. Bez was the auctioneer. He called out aloud, and soon gathered a crowd, which he fascinated by his eloquence. The bidding was spirited, and every article was sold, even Bez's own two-man pick, which would break the heart of a Samson to wield it.
When we left Bendigo, Bez, Birnie, Dan, Scott, and Moses were of the party, and a one-horse cart carried our baggage. When we came to a swamp we carried the baggage over it on our backs, and then helped the horse to draw the empty cart along. Our party increased in number by the way, especially after we met with a dray carrying kegs of rum.
Before reaching the new rush, afterwards known as Waranga, we prospected some country about twenty miles from the Goulburn river. Here Scott left us. Before starting he called me aside, and told me he was going to the Melbourne Hospital to undergo an operation. He had a tumour on one leg above the knee, for which he had been treated in Dublin, and had been advised to come to Australia, in the hope that a change of climate and occupation might be of benefit, but he had already walked once from Bendigo to Melbourne, and now he was obliged to go again. He did not like to start without letting someone know his reason for leaving us. I felt full of pity for Scott, for I thought he was going to his death alone in the bush, and I asked him if he felt sure that he could find his way. He showed me his pocket compass and a map, and said he could make a straight course for Melbourne. He had always lived and worked alone, but whenever we moved he accompanied us not wishing to be quite lost amongst strangers. He arrived at the hospital, but he never came out of it alive.
Dan gave me his money to take care of while he and Bez were living on rum from the dray, and I gave out as little cash as possible in order to promote peace and sobriety. One night Dan set fire to my tent in order to rouse his banker. I dragged Bez outside the tent and extinguished the fire. There was bloodshed afterwards--from Dan's nose--and his account was closed. After a while some policemen in plain clothes came along and examined the dray. They found fourteen kegs of rum in it, which they seized, together with four horses and the dray.
I worked for seven months in various parts of the Ovens district until I had acquired the value in gold of my vanished twenty-dollar pieces; that was all my luck. During this time some of us paid the £2 license fee for three months. We were not hunted by the military. Four or five troopers and officials rode slowly about the diggings and the cry of "Joey" was never raised, while a single unarmed constable on foot went amongst the claims to inspect licenses. He stayed with us awhile, talking about digging matters. He said the police were not allowed to carry carbines now, because a digger had been accidentally shot. He was a very civil fellow, and his price, if I remember rightly was half-a-crown. Yet the digger hunting was continued at Ballarat until it ended in the massacre of December 3rd 1854.