“Then, by-and-bye, there came a parson to our camp, and my master would walk miles to hear the preaching, and I always went with him. When there were many dogs about master used to lead me with a string, but he never chained me up in his house, as some miners did with their big cats. It is cruel to chain a dog even, but much more cruel to chain a cat.
“Well, master was what they call a rolling stone; one of the sort that don’t gather moss, you know. So he often changed camp. It took us two days and nights sometimes to get to the new camp, and I travelled all the way in an old gin case.
“Poor master!”
“Did he die?” said I.
“Well, it was like this. Often and often on lovely moonlit nights, Shireen, master and I would sit in the door of the hut where he lived out among the bush and scrub, and he would speak to me of his far-off home in England, and of his young wife and children that he was trying to dig gold for.
“‘It is that,’ he told me once, ‘which makes me so restless, Tom. I want to get money. I want to get home to them, pussy, and I’ll take you with me and we’ll be so happy.’
“And he would smooth my head and sing to me of the happy time that was coming when we should get home with wealth and riches.
“‘When the wild wintry wind
Idly raves round our dwelling,
And the roar of the linn
On the night breeze is swelling;
So merrily we’ll sing,
As the storm rattles o’er us,
Till the dear shieling (a cottage) ring
With the light lilting chorus.’”
“But, ah! Shireen, that happy time never came, for one sad night, at the stores, a quarrel arose about something, and next moment the noise of pistol-shooting rang out high above the din of voices.
“There was a moment or two of intense stillness, and my master fell back into the arms of a friend.