Was born this Christmas Day.”
And Nan was gone!
I went back to Eungella and duly chronicled the wedding and the departure of the bride and bridegroom in The Star. And I wrote a leader on Nick’s sudden gain of fortune, and on the finding of big nuggets in general, and I made Nick the text for a sermon on pluck and perseverance and fidelity.
But I didn’t write anything about my own aching heart.
I was in The Star office reading over the slips of proof, one night not long after, when a digger I knew came in. He was one of the “Honourables,” and he and I were rather chums.
“There’s some ‘copy’ for you down at Ruffey’s,” he said.
Ruffey’s was the big public-house of the place.
“I couldn’t stand it. This devil’s hole has finished me. I am going to clear out of it to-morrow.”
“What’s the row?” I asked carelessly. Rows were common enough at Eungella, and knife scratches too.
“Oh, a regular ‘go-as-you-like-it’ fight,” he said. “A digger called Voucher—you know him, next claim to mine—and another fellow, a good-looking counter-jumper sort of fellow.