About three weeks afterwards I was at work with the pick and shovel, making a road down to the boat-house, for there were pleasure boats on the Lake. The constable came down to me, and said: "Ah! my boy, I've got you and ——, now; it was you two who robbed the store, and now you will have to pay for it. You were seen at the head of the tree where the bag of sugar was found." I told him that I had no hand in robbing the store, but I was marched up to the house before the boss, who said: "So you are one of the scoundrels who broke into the store and stole all that you could get your hands on, and I'll make it a bad job for you and that other scoundrel. I will teach you a lesson this time, you thieving dogs!"

Who should I see there, however, but the man that should have been at work with me, and another fellow. They had just gone up to the house and informed that I was a culprit. One of these two was to get his freedom a few days later, and he evidently thought that £5 reward would be very nice to have a spree on, no matter what an innocent man might suffer. The other man and I were taken to Port Macquarie in a cart, and brought before the Bench. The informer was as deaf as a post, but the magistrate said that although the man could not hear him, he could tell what he said by the quiver of the magistrate's lips. And so we got six months added to our former sentence.

On Sundays church was held at the Lake, and Mrs. —— used to preach. I was sent for one morning to go to church, so I blackened myself and went up without a shirt. The boss met me on the way up, and asked, "Where are you going to?" "Well," I said, "I'm going to chapel." "Do you think you are going to chapel without a shirt?" he continued. "My shirt is out on the fence drying," I answered. "Then go on back again, and don't come up in that plight any more." This was all I wanted; the church did not trouble me.

During my term here my eyesight became bad again—it never had been very good from the time that I had sandy blight some years before—and it got that way at last that it was almost impossible for me to see. The life there was not improving it, either, so I informed the boss, and after a little conversation he gave me two letters—one to the Police Magistrate in the town, and the other to the doctor. I started off with the letters, not knowing what was in them, for my sight was too bad to read; but on the way in I met someone who could, and soon got over the difficulty. The letter to the P.M. came first, and ran thus: "Dear ——, Inflict some severe punishment on this man and return him to me at once, for I cannot get him to work." The other one to the doctor was just asking him to have a look at my eyes, and do what he could to them. Now it was not very likely that I was going to take a note to the Magistrate to perhaps get "50" over it, so without hesitation I tore it up, and went down to the doctor, whom I did not fear, and knew to be a good man. He read the letter, looked at my eyes, and then said: "Well, if you want to see you can; and if you don't want to see you can go about with the blind mob." So I decided to give the "blind mob" a trial.

In the spring of 1847, Governor and Lady Fitzroy visited Port Macquarie, and were the guests of Major Innes at the Lake. When the steamer by which they travelled arrived at the wharf, there were two rows of soldiers drawn up on each side of the road leading from it, and waiting a little distance away was the carriage of the "Major," with six horses in it—two bays, two grays, and two chestnuts—and the distinguished visitors were driven straight away to the Lake. There was high life at this place now for about a month—balls, parties, pic-nics, &c.—when they returned to Sydney again. But it was the Governor's misfortune to lose his good lady soon afterwards, for she was killed through a carriage accident in Parramatta Park in December of the same year.

[CHAPTER VII.]
The Blind Mob.

"He that is stricken blind, cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost."

—Shakespeare.