“I confess that I did forget that at the moment,” answered Maxton, while the blood mounted to his forehead. “It is the foulest blot upon my country’s honour; but I at least am guiltless of upholding the accursed institution, as, also, are thousands of my countrymen. I feel assured, however, that the time is coming when that blot shall be wiped away.”
“I am glad, my friend,” said Ned, heartily, “to hear you speak thus; to be frank with you, I could not have prevailed upon myself to have held out to you the hand of intimate friendship had you proved to be a defender of slavery.”
“Then you’ll form few friendships in this country,” said Tom Collins, “for many of the Yankees here have been slave-holders in their day, and almost all defend the custom.”
The conversation was interrupted at this point by Larry O’Neil uttering a peculiarly Hibernian exclamation, (which no combination of letters will convey,) and pointing in an excited manner to an object a few hundred yards in advance of them.
“What d’ye see, lad!” inquired Bill Jones, shading his eyes with his hand.
The whole party came to a halt, and gazed earnestly before them for a few minutes in silence.
“Och!” said O’Neil, slowly, and with trembling earnestness, “av me two eyes are spakin’ truth, it’s—it’s a goold digger!—the first o’ the goold-diggers!”—and Larry followed up the discovery with a mingled cheer and war-whoop of delight that rang far and wide over the valley.
At such an unwonted, we might almost say, appalling, sound, the “first o’ the goold-diggers,”—who was up to his waist in a hole, quietly and methodically excavating the earth on the river’s bank with a pick-axe—raised his head, and, leaning on the haft of his pick, scrutinised the new arrivals narrowly.
“Hooray, my hearty!” shouted Larry, as he advanced at a gallop, followed by his laughing comrades. “The top o’ the mornin’ to ye—it’s good luck I’m wishin’ ye, avic. How are ye gittin’ on in the goold way, honey?”
The rough-looking, dusty, and bearded miner, smiled good-humouredly, as he replied, in a gentle tone of voice that belied his looks—“Pretty well, friend; though not quite so well as some of my neighbours. I presume that you and your friends have just arrived at the mines?”