The Book of the Bush

d two winters instead, one in E

he was a Young Irelander, and therefore a fighter on principle. O'Connell had tried moral suasion on the English Government long enough, and to no purpose, so Philip and his fiery young friends were prepared to have recourse to arms. The arms he was now carrying consisted of a gleaming bowie knife, and two pistols stuck in his belt. The pistols were good ones; Philip had tried them on a friend in the Phoenix Park the morning after a ball at the Rotunda,

where gold was growing underfoot, I could not see any sound sense in being niggardly. But when I saw a regular stream of disappointed men with empty pockets offering their monthly licenses for five shillings each wit

his coat. He was accompanied by a lady on horseback, wearing a black riding habit. Our teamsters called him Captain Sullivan. He was even then a man well known to the convicts and the police, and was supposed to be doing a thriving business as keeper of

ps of clay and gravel covering the flat, a little man came up and s

lace to camp

"we have only just co

ng with me," sa

rection of the first White Hill, but before reaching it we turned to the left up a

at work; some were digging holes, some were dissolving clay in tubs of water by stirring it rapidly with spa

versation with the diggers. He

e. How are you

he addressed sent him in the same direction, adding a few blessings; the third man was panning

lucky to-d

ightened his back, and looke

ker and the Government license, thirty bob a month. I am a mason, and I threw up twenty-eight bob a day to come to this miserable hole. Wherever you come from

usand miles, even if I had money

et fourteen bob a day as a hodman; or you might take a job at stone breaking; the Gov

e, I am only a gentleman."

ou can be a peeler. Up at the camp they'll take on any useless loafer wot's able to carry a carbine, and they'll give you tucker, and you can keep your shirt clean. But, mind, if you do join the Joeys, I hope you'll be sh

to talk, but they did not stop work for a minute. They had a large pile of dirt, and were making hay while the sun shone--that is, washing their dirt as fast as they could while the water lasted. During the preceding summer they had carted their wash-dirt from the gully until rain cam

a little left still hereabout." I pegged off two claims, one for Philip, and one for myself, and stuck a pick in the centre of each. Then we sat down on a log. Six men came up the gully carrying their swags, one of them was unusually tall. Jack

leave Ireland,

ndle the ropes. My last port there was Boston, and I ran away and lived with a Yankee farmer named Small. He was a nigger driver, he was, working the soul out of him early and late. He had a boat, and I used to take farm produce in it across the bay to Boston, where the old man's eldest son kept a boarding-house. There was a daughter at home, a regular high-flier. She use

enough to kill me; but her brother Jonathan was at table, and he took my

im how to handle the ropes, to knot and splice, and he soon became a pretty good hand, though he was not smart aloft when reefing. His name was Small, but he was not a small man; he was six feet two, and the strongest man on board, and he didn't allow any man to thrash me, because I was little. After eighteen months' whaling he persuaded me to run away from the ship at Hobarton; he said he was tired of the greasy old tub; so one

home, if that's what

tell him that we are two seamen on our way to La

went out. After a while she returned, and said: 'Captain M

table. There was a gun close to his hand in a corner, two horse pistols on a shelf, and a swor

e have left our ship, a whaler, at Hob

making sail, and reefing, about masts, yards, and rigging, and finished by telling me to box a compass. I passed my examination pretty well, and he told m

tchen fire sewing, and Jonathan took a chair

on. If there was one thing that Jonathan could do better than another it was talking. The lady was at first very prim and reserved; but she soon began to listen, smiled, and even tittered. A little

kid is about the same age as your

me along, and he would show us our bunks. We thought he was a little queer, but he seemed uncommonly kind and anxious to make us comfortable for the night. He took us to a hut very strongly built with heavy slabs, left us a lighted candle, and bade us good-night. After he cl

you had a goo

than

ul, ain't we, Jack? You are the best and kindest old man we've met since we sailed from Bosto

have one, which I don't believe. You can't humbug an old salt like me. You are a pair of runaway convicts, a

d with carbines, produced each a pair of handcuffs, and came towards us.

but neither you nor the four best men in Van Diemen's Land can put them irons on me. I am a free citizen of the Great United States, and a free man I'll be or die. I'll walk b

us off-hand, so at last he told the constables to pu

en in it, if it was a good country for farming, how they were getting along, and what pay they got for being constables. One of them said: 'The island

ng "until you time is out?" Ain't y

We are Government men, and we ain't done

ok here. This kind of thing will never do. You and me are two honest citizens of the United States, and here we are,

ffed the constables, who were so taken aback they never said a

erribly afraid to enter the city as prisoners; they said they were sure to be punished, would most likely be sent into a chain gang, and would soon be stran

ce asked for a remand to prove that I was a runaway convict. I was kept three weeks in gaol, and every time I was brought to court Jonathan was there. He said he would not go away without me. The police could find out nothing against me, so, at last, they let me go. We went aboard the first vessel bound for Melbourne, and, when sail was made, I went up to the cro

two things, one certain, the other uncertain. The certain thing is labour, the uncertain thing is gold." This information staggered me, so I

fire with stringy bark under an umbrella The umbrella was mine--the only one I ever saw on the diggings. Some men who thought t

ry man passing by could see that we were formidable, and ready to defend our gold to the death--when we got it. But the bowie was

came among us one dark night; he came suddenly, head foremost, into our fire, and plunged his hands into the embers. We pulled him out, and then two other men came up. They apologised for the abrupt entry of their mate. They said he was a lucky digger, and they were his friends and fellow-countrymen. A lucky digger could find friends anywhere, from any country, without looking for them, especially if he was drunk, as was

lost anything? Could I

e not lost anything; so I don't want

g. Without a word he took his horse to the foot of the hill, hobbled it, and took off his swag. He went up the hill again, filled his pan with earth, and washed it off at the nearest waterhole. He had struck it rich; the hill-side was sprinkled with go

igger, and he was enjoying his luck. He was blazing drunk, was in evening dress, wore a black bell-topper, and kid gloves. The gloves had saved his hands from being burned when

n thousand bulls. It was the welcome accorded by the diggers to our "trusty and well-beloved" Government when it came forth on a digger hunt. It was swelled by the roars, and cooeys, and curses of every man above ground and below, in the sh

f the Government to double the amount. As a matter of fact, by far the larger number of claims yielded no gold at all, or not enough to pay the fee. The hatred of the hunted diggers made

f trees, especially on the eastern side. They thus managed to hem us in like prisoners of war, and they also overtook some stragglers hurrying away to right and left. Some of these had licenses in their pockets, and refused to stop or show them until they were actually arrested. It was a ruse of war. They ran away as far as possible among the h

the opening, a chimney built up with ironstone boulders and clay. But the police had seen him; he was followed, found hiding in the corner of his chimney, arrested, and placed among the prisoners who were then halted near my tub. Immediately behind Patterson, and carrying a carbine on his shoulder, stood a well-known shipmate named Joynt, whom poverty had compelled to join the enemy. He would willingly have allowed hi

ers addressed the diggers from a wagon. Some advocated armed resistance. It was well known that many men, French, German, and even English, were on the diggings who had taken part in the revolutionary outbreak of '48, and that they were eager to have recourse to arms o

and men. If an attempt was made to take us all to gaol, digger-hunting would have to be suspended, the revenue would dwindle to nothing, and Government would be s

ng the next month only about three hundred licenses were taken out, instead of the fourteen or fifteen thousand previously issued, the