Missing Friends Part 7

Then the doctor suggested to call in a colleague that they might consult, and when the next doctor arrived they agreed to give me chloroform, but after great preparations had been made and a sponge held to my nose for a minute or two without having any effect on me, they again decided that I was too weak for chloroform, but as I, half crying, beckoned to them to do in my case what had to be done, one of them, with his knee on my chest, put an instrument between my teeth while the other held my head back and somebody else sat behind my chair and held my arms. My mouth came open. I will not unnecessarily prolong the agony, only to state that I felt relieved shortly after and that somebody with the utmost tenderness was bathing my head. I had now nothing to do but to allow people to wait on me. I stayed in the hotel for two days, when the doctor's own buggy came for me and I was driven to the hospital. So that the reader may not be under the impression that I wear false teeth, I would like to say that not a tooth was pulled or any other surgical operation performed. I now got better rapidly. It seemed impossible to feel sick in that hospital. I had a large private room and broad verandahs outside. From my bed I could lie and watch the ocean all day and try to count the islands. My friend, the doctor, came also every day, and any extra comfort I wanted was quickly procured. As I grew better I would sit and bask in the sun down among the rocks by the sh.o.r.e in that half-unconscious but blissful condition which I believe is common to all convalescents, or a couple of hours before meal-time I would lie on my bed watching the sun and its shadows on the floor so that I might be prepared and lose no time the moment the man came with the dinner. Oh, for the ravenous hunger with which I could eat! Although I had double the ordinary allowance, yet after a month's stay in the hospital, I had to leave it for very hunger's sake. I then settled my bill with the doctor, who charged me very moderately, and went to live in a hotel in town. When I was perfectly cured and myself again I could easily have obtained work in town at my trade for four pounds per week, but I had a sort of dislike to the place, which decided me to go up to the gold-diggings and try my luck there. The nearest diggings were at Ravenswood, some hundred and thirty miles inland. Other diggings were scattered behind that place, but to reach them I understood I had to go to Ravenswood first, and that it was as good a place as any. I bought two horses, with all necessary appendages, such as saddle, pack-saddle, bridles, &c. They cost me about thirty pounds. I put thirty pounds more into the bank as a sort of reserve fund in case of accident, and after paying my way so far, and buying a few necessary clothes, I had only some nine or ten pounds left. So one morning I packed the one horse with my swag, containing clothes and blanket, in the large saddle-bags. I had small bags containing flour, tea, sugar, and other necessary things for a journey through the bush, because, although the road I had now to travel was a beaten track, yet it is a Queensland custom on all occasions to be as independent as possible.

Besides, when one sets out for a ramble, there is no saying where one is going to pull up, and it seems so pleasant to know that one is all-sufficient in his own resources, without requiring any aid from wayside inns. So at least did I think as I rode out of the town; and as this was my first experience of what we in Queensland call going on the "wallaby track," I enjoyed it immensely.

The way a man acts when travelling like this, is just to please himself.

When a fair day's journey is done, one begins to look out for a likely spot for gra.s.s and water, and having found that, you get off the horses and hobble them out--that is, having freed them of their load, their forefeet are tied together with a pair of strong leather straps in such a way that they can only totter slowly about. Having done that a fire is made, the billy is slung on for tea, and when supper is over, a smoke, a yarn--if there is a mate--and then a roll in the blanket with a saddle for a pillow.

There is often a lot of argument about what is a fair day's journey on horseback. Of course it is a matter which never can be decided, because so much depends upon the horses, the road, what the horses get to eat, &c., but I do not believe many careful travellers will take their horses more than twenty miles a day for a long journey, and then rest them occasionally, but to hear some people talk one would think their horses could go a hundred miles every day. In Queensland travellers have sometimes to ride forty or fifty miles between watering-places. Most horses can do it, if taken care of, but not every day. When travellers meet on a Queensland road their first question after greeting is, "How far is it to water?" and the distance between watering-places is practically what decides a day's journey. In times of drought these water-holes get scarce or dry up completely; rivers stop running; then it behoves the traveller to look out where he goes. If misfortune happens, or he has not calculated rightly the endurance of his horse, or the water-hole on which he depends should be dried up when he arrives there, then he is likely to peris.h.!.+ As for myself, I have on more than one occasion arrived in a parched condition at a water-hole, only to find a lot of dead cattle bogged in the soft mud, and still have been compelled to drink the pint or two of putrefied water that might be left. The reader will therefore see that travelling in the Queensland bush is not exactly a perpetual picnic.

Nothing of importance happened to me on this road, unless I were to mention that when I was about half-way I met a swag's-man, that is, one who carries his swag on his own back and has no horses. This fellow asked to let him put his burden on my horse, which I let him do. I then, by talking to him as we went along, found out that he had neither money nor rations, and as we were only a few miles from Hugton Hotel I promised to pay for dinner at that place for us both. Arrived at the hotel, I ordered a first-cla.s.s dinner for two; it was five s.h.i.+llings.

The table was laid for us with a big roast of beef and a plum-pudding.

After we both had eaten what we wanted, my fellow-traveller put nearly all the remaining food into his bags and decamped, in spite of my protestations. I remember well how scandalized I felt! Otherwise the road was not lonely; every day I pa.s.sed waggons hauled by sixteen or eighteen bullocks each and filled with merchandise for the diggings.

There were also other travellers, both on foot and on horseback, but I did not go myself in company with any, and so at last, one forenoon, I saw the towns.h.i.+p of Ravenswood lying before me. I stopped the horses to have a good look.

At last I was on a gold-field. What a magic spell there seemed to me in the words. All the old fallacious ideas connected with the word crowded into my mind. Runaway nuns dressed in men's clothes, princes working like labourers, and labourers living like princes--"looking for gold!"

Had I not better begin at once?

As I came nearer I saw what seemed to me wells on all sides and tents near the wells. Then as I looked at the ground again I became fearfully excited. Big nuggets of s.h.i.+ning gold were lying all around on the road.

Was it possible? Surely I knew gold when I saw it. I got off the horse and picked it up. Not pure gold, though. But surely half of it was gold.

It glittered all over. I picked pieces up as I went along and fairly howled with joy as I filled my bags. Think of those fools coming behind with their flour-bags and of all the empty waggons I had met going down, while I was finding a fortune before I reached the diggings! At the place where I had now come, they could have loaded all the waggons quickly. I could not carry more as I went further, ruminating over the matter. Now the whole ground right and left was glittering all the way into town. I threw the stuff all away again. It could not be gold! Then, with a voice shaking between hope and fear, I asked a man who came by, what that was. He told me at once it was "rubbish." "Did you think it was gold?" asked he.

"No; but I thought there might be gold in it."

"Yes," said he, "so there was, but it did not pay to extract it."

In this way somewhat sobered, I rode further and arrived in town, where the next day I pitched a tent I had bought somewhere handy to the other tents, put the horses in a paddock and looked about me.

I will not attempt a long description of this the first gold-field I was ever on. There was an ordinary street composed of hotels, boarding-houses, and stores, on both sides of the road. Behind the street were tents in which the diggers princ.i.p.ally lived. Everywhere were earth-mounds where some one was or had been busy rooting the ground about. The reefs were each surmounted by an ordinary windla.s.s, where a man would stand hauling up the quartz all day long. Such was the picture presented at a superficial glance at Ravenswood, and I think the description answers for all other Queensland gold-diggings. Nearly all the people boarded in two boarding-houses kept by Chinamen, one on each side of the street. I think there must have been two or three hundred boarders in each. They were both alike, two large bark-houses, no floor, only two immense tables with forms on each side. On these tables were at meal-times every conceivable delicacy in season, and up and down between the tables an army of Chinamen would run round waiting on their guests.

During my various fortunes in Queensland, I have often paid two or three pounds per week for board in hotels, and I have paid half-a-guinea for a ticket to a public feast, but it has always been my impression that nowhere was such good or luxurious food served out as in these boarding-houses. It would simply be impossible to compete with them. The charge was one pound per week, payment beforehand, and those of their customers who wanted sleeping accommodation might, without extra charge, fix themselves up as they liked in some sheds behind. There were also many hotels in town, but, as far as I could see from the outside, their "takings" were more across the bar than otherwise, as the Chinamen seemed to monopolize the boarding-house trade. All over Australia, but especially in Queensland, there is a bitter feeling against Chinamen.

People say that they ought to be forbidden to come to the country, because they work too hard and too cheaply, and eat too little at the same time; consequently we shall all go to the dogs. How is this? Surely "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark." A white man is always praised if he is hard-working and frugal. It seems a contradiction to abuse one for what is commended in another! This is an awful world. Some people say we are poor because we work too much, and run ourselves out of work. Others say we do not work half enough, and that that is the reason. Some say that Protection is a panacea for poverty, others swear by Free Trade. In Australia they want to turn out the Chinamen because they work too much; in China they want to turn out the whites, I suppose for the same reason. Of all countries, I believe, Australia certainly included the greatest majority of the people living in different degrees of poverty, and work is getting to be as scarce here where the population does not count one to the square mile, as it is in Denmark where there are four hundred inhabitants to the square mile. Of late years one more theory has sprung up, and its disciples aver that all our poverty, despite our hard work and frugal fare, is due to the fact that the earth on which we live is sold in large or small parcels in the open market like tea and sugar, and that the owners of the earth can in the shape of rent extract the greatest part of our earnings. I ask the reader's pardon for this little digression, but it seems to me to be an interesting question, and it would at least be desirable if we all could agree whether it is Chinamen, Free Trade, or Protection, or what not, whom we really want, because there _is_ "something rotten in the state of Denmark."

I took my board, like everybody else, with the Chinamen and lived in my tent not far away. I occupied myself in prospecting, or learning how to prospect, but what little gold-dust I could find was not worth coming all the way for. I soon got tired of that, and one day I went and asked for a job of carpenter's work in a large Government building I saw going up.

Before I proceed further I must explain that a certain fixed scale of wages existed here for most occupations, and this scale was very jealously guarded by the people. It was three pounds per week for miners in dry claims, three pounds ten s.h.i.+llings in wet claims, bricklayers sixteen s.h.i.+llings per day for eight hours, carpenters fifteen s.h.i.+llings, &c. I had heard this but I had not believed it. I took it that those figures represented what men would like to get rather than what they actually got, and while I worked for a master I always preferred to put my pride in earning what I got, rather than, perhaps, getting what I did not earn. I understand the importance now of keeping up wages, but at that time I did not, and when the carpenter said he would give me twelve s.h.i.+llings a day and find tools not only did I think myself well paid, but I had no idea or care whether others got more or less.

Beside myself there was an American negro employed as carpenter. He seemed a very morose sort of individual, but I took no notice of him and was hopping about all day, giving as I thought as much satisfaction to others as to myself. I often heard the "boss" grumble at the negro, and occasionally I would be set to put him right about what he was working at. This happened one afternoon as the "boss" went away shortly before five o'clock, and I was consequently explaining to him out of my wisdom, when he suddenly asked what wages I was getting. I told him with great pride I was getting _twelve_ s.h.i.+llings a day.

Squash came a stick down over my head, then he flew at my throat and kicked and belaboured me in a terrible way. At last he flung me with awful violence out on the verandah, got hold of me again and threw me outside. He was two or three times as big a man as I, and I could not at all defend myself against him, nor had I any idea why he had thus maltreated me; but as there was no one to appeal to, I, in a terrible rage, ran home to my tent for the gun. It stood there loaded, and I took it up and started back again along the main street. The blood was running down my face, and I howled to myself with rage as I ran. I meant to shoot him as dead as a herring.

"Halloa!" cried the people, "there is a fellow running amuck," and soon there was a whole crowd behind me, intent on watching the sport.

But I must now go back in time a little. There was at that period in Ravenswood a Danish digger, whom I had met and who had been very friendly to me, and both because he plays an important part in the next few pages I have to write, and because I have ent.i.tled this book "Missing Friends," I think he deserves mention, as he indeed had been, and is no doubt yet, "a missing friend." He had been a farmer in Denmark, what we in Danish call a yardsman, who owned his own freehold.

When the war with Germany in 1864 broke out, he was called on to serve in the artillery. He was married then, had two children, and was, like all Danish farmers, in extremely good circ.u.mstances. During the war he was taken prisoner by the Germans, but was by some mistake reported dead by the Danish authorities. He told me that he wrote home as soon as he could, but the letter never reached his wife. Shortly after he tried to escape from the Germans, and, being caught, defended himself desperately. For this offence he was condemned to three years' hard labour on the fortifications of some place in the south of Germany. For one reason and another he did not write from there. Partly he was not much of a writer, partly he objected to the enemy reading his efforts, and as he knew his wife had plenty to live on, and that his neighbours at home would help her to run the farm, he neglected writing, and as the time went on pictured to himself in rosy colours the happy surprise he would give his wife and them all at home when he _did_ return. At last the time arrived when he was set free, and started for home. Meanwhile his wife had bemoaned him as dead, and what little hope his friends might have had for him died when he did not return at the end of the war. It did not take long before one suitor after the other presented themselves, and a couple of years later the wife got married again, with the full consent and approval of all concerned.

One day, when sitting at dinner on the farm, the wife saw her first husband coming in at the door. With a scream of joy and excitement, she rushed towards him. (Tableau.) Husband No. 2 was as honourable a man as husband No. 1. There was a second family. What was to be done? They made a sad but friendly compact. My friend took the eldest child with him, and went to Australia, after having got back a fair amount of his own cash. This man now came from his work, and as I rushed down the street, we met. I did not see him, but he saw me. "Hulloa, countryman, what is the matter? Stop! where are you going?"

I tried to escape him, but he had hold of the gun. We struggled for possession and the stock broke. When the gun broke my hope of revenge fled as well, and in the relaxation which followed I sat down on some steps and actually cried. I admit that it is sometimes as hard for me to write about my weakness as about my folly, but I will ask the reader to remember what I already have written here. The truth must be told. There was now a large and sympathetic crowd around us, to whom I related how the negro had maltreated me without any provocation, and while I spoke I could see that the chances were that I would yet have revenge, because all sorts of remarks would fly about, such as: "The poor fellow had pluck, by Jove;" "Would you have shot him?" or, "Such a rascally negro should not be allowed to strike and half kill a white man;" "I think I can flog him;" "So can I, and I will;" "No Bill! you cannot!" "Let me, you are not heavy enough!" "No," cried the Dane, and struck a crus.h.i.+ng blow in the wall of the house by which we stood; "he is my countryman, and any one who strikes him, him I will strike. Where is that negro?

Only let me see him."

I went with a sort of pious joy in front of the whole crowd up to the negro's tent. When he saw us all coming, he thought they were going to mob him, and only asked for fair play. He would fight them all, man for man, and as for me, he had only struck me in open fight because I was running down wages, working for twelve s.h.i.+llings a day. I was surprised how much sympathy this statement created, but my countryman cut it short by saying he would fight first and argue after. "All right, I'm your man," cried the negro; "only pull off your s.h.i.+rt. I am dying to commence."

They both pulled off their s.h.i.+rts, and some willing a.s.sistants from the crowd got behind each combatant to watch his interest in the coming struggle. It was easily seen now that my countryman was a very strong man. His arms, his shoulders, and his deeply curved back were swelling with muscles. In his face sat a determination which boded his opponent no good. Still, my heart sank as I looked at the negro, who was prancing about as in irresistible joy over what he deemed his easy victory. He seemed little short of a giant. They were just beginning to spar, when a seedy-looking individual came forward and cried, "Hold on, gentlemen, hold on, just one minute. It seems that we are going to see a splendid piece of sport, and I think we ought to improve the occasion a little. I will lay two to one on our coloured friend--two to one on Mr. Jones!"

n.o.body took him up, when the negro said, "I don't mind if I lay a pound or two on myself; any one on?" I looked at my countryman. He said, "Have you got any money on you?" "Yes," said I, "I have got over ten pounds!"

"Lay it all," said he. "Oh, but if we should lose?" "Death and destruction, we don't lose; lay it all." "Right you are! I lay ten pounds to twenty against the n.i.g.g.e.r--ten to twenty--ten to twenty--who will take me up?"

At last the amount was gathered, but the question arose in my mind whether the first promoter of the "sweepstakes" might be trusted with the stakes. I asked my friend in Danish, before I handed the money over; he said, "Just give it to him; it is all right. If we lose, we have nothing more to do with the money, but if he won't give up the stakes to us after I have flogged the n.i.g.g.e.r, I will flog him too!"

Now began the terrible fight. The negro had both strength and science, and for a long time it seemed as if my countryman was utterly done for.

It began to get dark and still they fought, but the longer it lasted the more equal seemed the battle. At last it began to turn; at every round my countryman would charge the negro with a loud hurrah; in another quarter of an hour it was simply a matter of knocking him down as fast as he got up; at last the negro was lying on the ground with his nose downward, and could not get up again, while the Dane, stronger than ever, was jumping all over the ring calling on him to get up. As he did not get up, the Dane ran up to a man who held a riding-whip in his hand, wrenched it from him, and belaboured the negro's head and back with it until he quite lost consciousness. I admit if I had dared I would have tried to prevent that part of the performance, but neither I nor anybody else stirred. Of course I was not sorry when my friend and I went home together, our ten pounds having swelled to thirty. Another advantage I had over this matter was that I had to promise not to work under current wages again, and when I came to work the next morning the "boss," who had heard of the fight, at once agreed to pay me fifteen s.h.i.+llings a day. As for the negro, he did not turn up and I have never seen him since.

CHAPTER VIII.

SHANTY-KEEPING, PROSPECTING, THORKILL'S DEATH.

Some time after this my friend and countryman came to me one evening about nine o'clock with a very important air, and told me he had heard of a new find of gold some thirty miles distant, and that there would be sure to be a terrible rush as soon as it became generally known. As for him, he would like to go if I would go with him and be his mate, because, as he put it, he was sure I was lucky. He could not well have made a greater mistake, but anyhow I was flattered and agreed to go.

Then I found he wanted to go at once. I had a few days' wages coming to me, but I went to my employer's house at once and got my cheque. That we changed in a public-house and went to our tents, saying nothing to anybody about our intentions. Having got our swags ready, we, more like thieves than anything else, knocked the one tent over and were off. My friend's tent remained, and my horses were in a paddock with saddles and belongings; there was no time to get them, and suspicion would have been created had we tried.

We rather ran than walked, but we were scarcely a mile out of town before we overtook some six or seven others bent on the same journey.

The first twenty miles ran on a good road; that would be as far as we could go that night, because the next ten miles were only a blazed track right through the bush made by the prospectors, and could only be safely traversed in the daylight. On the whole journey we were both overtaken ourselves, and overtook other people, until, when we arrived at the camp, we numbered a score or more. Here we found another score of diggers sleeping or smoking, waiting for daylight. It was a moonlight night, and I could see that we had arrived at a place where a few humpies stood in seeming disorder round about. There was also a public-house, and it was in the street in front of that, that the whole army halted. I was both hot and tired, and as my mate suggested that we had better get an hour or two of sleep, I laid myself down and slept. I woke up again as my mate was shaking me. It was just break of day; still we seemed late, for everybody was up and stirring. There was no time for a billy of tea, or for ever so slight a stretch: it was up and away. Oh, how tired I was, and stiff, and footsore! I would not have minded if I might have started quietly, but this seemed like a race. Although I lost no time, yet I was the very last through the little street with the heavy swag on my back. My mate was beckoning to me as he, also late, ran a few hundred feet in front, and then disappeared amongst the trees. I felt irritable, as I often do before I have had my breakfast. I came by a baker's shop, over the door of which was written, "Cold refres.h.i.+ng summer drinks sold here." The baker and his wife, and a young girl also, were peeping out through the half-opened door, and seemed to enjoy the spectacle of the crowd racing down the street. I said to myself, "Bother running like a fool here, I am going for a bottle of beer."

The baker asked me if I was going to look for gold out there, or was I looking for a job? "Because," said he, "if you think of finding gold in that place you will be mistaken."

He then told me he had been on the spot the previous day, and that it was a "duffer," but still there would be a rush, and he would much like to get somebody to ride out with bread every day and sell it at the place. I told him I could not leave my mate like that, but the baker just invited me in to breakfast, and offered me the loan of a horse, and said also that he himself would take bread out as soon as we could be off. "Perhaps," said he, "if my mate did not like the place, as he was sure he would not, I might take a job from him."

I therefore rode out with the baker after breakfast and found my mate, who, as the baker predicted, was in no way enthusiastic about finding anything as good as he had left, and before evening he was satisfied to return to Ravenswood before any one could jump his claim there. As I did not like going back, but wanted the change to ride up and down with bread, I engaged with the baker for one pound ten s.h.i.+llings per week and board. My duty now was to load a pack-horse every day with bread, and, having another to ride, to take the bread to the "rush" and sell it. The butcher at the "Twenty Mile" also engaged a man to ride up with beef, and we generally rode in company. But it soon proved that it did not pay our employers to keep us on, and after about three weeks' time we both got notice to leave. That brought me to think that as there were many men on the "rush," it might pay me to get my two horses up from Ravenswood, and, buying myself both bread and meat together, sell it on my own account. To that all parties were willing, and as one thing brings another with it, I went to the Chinamen's shop with a view to seeing what profit he would give me on groceries. As "Johnny" strongly advised me to sell a little grog for him, I bethought myself that I had while with the baker learned to make hop-beer and ginger-beer, and found that I could make it for a penny a big gla.s.sful and charge a s.h.i.+lling. I resolved, therefore, to take up that industry too. There was n.o.body at all who had anything for sale at the "rush," and I determined to go out and build a hut and start a general store and shanty. I now went out to the "rush" again, and got two men to help me in the building. The hut I put up was very primitive. Just one room about fourteen by twelve feet, made of saplings, packing-cases, bark, or anything I could get at all suitable. The roof was bark; the counter was bark also, and at night had to serve for my bed. The door was an artistic piece of rubbish, if I might use that term, but somehow it all hung together and could be locked up. Outside I made a sunshade with tables and chairs under. That was managed by four forked saplings put into the ground, and other straight saplings resting as wall-plates in the forks. Again a row of lighter sticks lay across them and leafy bushes on the top, and the chairs were a lot of logs cross-cut at a height of eighteen inches. The job was completed in three or four days; then I went up to Ravenswood for my horses, and on my return got out a cask to make hop-beer in, some buckets, and a few groceries. I was now my own "boss," and wonderfully proud and happy I was in my little shanty. Besides my own two horses, the butcher and baker each lent me a horse to carry the bread and meat on, and I had quite enough to do--indeed my energy knew no bounds.

Just about the time I started, the Palmer diggings came to the front, and a great rush set in to that place from the south. But as no one seemed to know properly where the Palmer was, and as conflicting and disparaging statements soon arrived from the Palmer, and the wet season was coming on, the north was everywhere swarming with men who were ready to camp and prospect anywhere, just to abide time. As soon, therefore, as I started for myself, numbers of men would arrive every day, and I had so much to do that I did not know sometimes how to fling myself about quick enough. Long before daylight I was up and got my four horses together. I had a little yard for them. Then, in a racing gallop, I had to tear into the butcher's, baker's, and grocer's, at the "Twenty Mile."

My goods would stand ready for me when I came. I would just fling the stuff on the horses, leave my orders for the next day, and be back again in time to sell bread and meat for breakfast! When that was over I had to carry water from the creek to brew a cask of hop-beer, clean up shop, serve people with grog, and feed the horses, make breakfast for myself, chuck out a loafer or two, and other matters, all at the same time. Thus it went on all day. In the afternoon I had sometimes to send a man off with the horses for more rations, and from five o'clock to ten, eleven, twelve, and sometimes all night, there would be a lot of fellows drinking outside the shanty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BAKER'S CART.]

The reader may understand that I quickly gathered in money. Five pounds a day was nothing. But what a life it was! I was never out of my clothes, and I was very seldom dry. Sometimes for weeks together I would be like one hauled out of the sea. That required stimulants, and they were near and handy, nor was it practically possible to be a Good Templar in my position. But all my better instincts were revolted. Still another gla.s.s of grog would make me see things in a different light, and somehow it never seemed to have any other effect on me than sharpening my wits; indeed, although I know myself to be a temperate man by nature, and but seldom touch spirits, I believe that if I had not then freely indulged in the cup that cheers, I could never have stood the strain on my const.i.tution which this life necessitated. My troubles were many. One was that fellows would get drunk and grow quarrelsome every day; if they were not very big I did not much mind, but if they were too big then I tried all devices to make them laugh and be in good-humour, or I would sometimes even have to keep two retainers in free grog to a.s.sist me in the "chucking out" business. I was often knocked about myself. Another trouble or fight with my conscience, which I successfully overcame, was the falsifying the spirits. The storekeeper where I bought it, as well as one good friend after the other, would show me how I could save two-thirds of the rum and still keep it over-proof by mixing it with water and tobacco. So with brandy, all sorts of vile poison and most disgusting stuff was offered me to mix it with. I did not do that, although my advisers thought me very foolish. I mixed my spirit with water of a necessity, but I saw enough to convince me that few shanties or public-houses ever sell pure spirits. But my greatest trouble was what to do with my fast-acc.u.mulating money. I did not trust anybody about me. There was no bank nearer than Ravenswood.

There was no police, and nowhere to put it. At last I hit on a plan.

Under the big cask in which I made beer I formed a hole in the ground, and at night, when all at last was still, and the cask was empty enough to move on edge, I, having first carefully ascertained that no one was about, would thrust in all I had, and put things around it again so as to prevent suspicion. This mode of banking did not altogether satisfy me; indeed, I was always very anxious about it, but I could think of nothing better. And so the time went on. The bucket which stood under the cask came at last to be nearly full of money, and while on the one hand it was my great consolation, it also caused me more anxiety than all the rest of my work.

One day somebody came and told me that a countryman of mine was in his tent, and was apparently hard up, as he had asked for something to do whereby to earn a bit of rations. The man was, I understood, camped somewhere about. I asked them to show him to me, that I might give him what he wanted and have a talk with him. What was my surprise and joy to find that the stranger proved to be no one less than my long-lost friend and s.h.i.+pmate, the Icelander Thorkill. He seemed to be as glad to meet me as I was to see him, and we exchanged our colonial experiences as far as they had gone. It appeared that Thorkill had not stayed long on the sugar plantation in Mackay, where he had first been engaged. That did not surprise me. His employer, he said, had offered no opposition to his agreement being cancelled, and with the money he had earned he had bought a ticket for Sydney in one of the steamers. He had thought to get something to do in Sydney more suitable to his ability, but for a long time he failed, and was, through want of money, driven to all sorts of extremities, even to sleeping out at night. Then he at last got a job to drive a milk-cart into Sydney for fifteen s.h.i.+llings a week. He had also tried other things, such as pick and shovel work; had been a.s.sistant in a slaughter-yard, and more besides.

"But I do not like it," said he, "people seem so rude."

At last he had sc.r.a.ped enough together to come back to Queensland; he had walked all the way from Townsville, and here he was. "And you are going to look for gold now?" asked I. He scarcely knew; he was so glad and surprised to see me again that he could think of nothing else.

"Well, Thorkill," said I, "do you remember you said once that you and I would never part? Let us now renew that agreement. Last time it was, perhaps, my fault we parted, but this time it shall be yours; and to show you I am in earnest I will ask you, without further formality, to consider yourself a part proprietor of this hotel and all there is in it."

"Oh! what do you mean?" cried he. "You must be making a great deal of money here and I have none; nor do I understand your work."

"Never mind," said I, "we are partners if you like; you do not know how badly I am off for some one I can trust. Think of my being all alone here; I cannot do it much longer."

But say what I would Thorkill would never hear of it, and so I in a sort of way engaged him to do what he could for me. He carried water and swept the floor, but the only time he tried to drive the horses to the "Twenty Mile" he lost them both! He had his tent not far from the shanty, but we had seldom time to speak. His heart was not in my work, and I often, nay always, when I saw him, felt an uneasy sort of conscience.