the church tent soon became a kind of trysting place on Sundays, at
which men could meet with old acquaintances and shipmates, and
convicts could find old pals. Amongst the crowd one Sunday were five
men belonging to a party of six from Nyalong; the sixth man was at
home guarding the tent. Four of the six were Irish Catholics, and
they came regularly to Mass every Sunday; the other two were
Englishmen, both convicts, of no particular religion, but they had
married Catholic immigrants, and sometimes went to church, but more
out of pastime than piety. One of these men, known as John Barton--
he had another name in the indents--stood under the gum tree, but
not praying; I don't think he ever thought of praying except the need
of it was extreme. He was of medium height, had a broad face, snub
nose, stood erect like a soldier, and was strongly built. His small
ferrety eyes were glancing quickly among the faces around him until
they were arrested by another pair of eyes at a short distance. The
owner of the second pair of eyes nudged two other men standing by,
and then three pairs of eyes were fixed on Barton. He was not a
coward, but something in the expression of the three men cowed him
completely. He turned his head and lowered it, and began to push his
way among the crowd to hide himself. After Mass, Philip found him in
his tent, and suspecting that he was a thief put his hand on a
medium-sized Colt's revolver, which he had exchanged for his duelling
pistols, and said:
"Well, my friend, and what are you doing here?"
"For God's sake speak low," whispered Barton. "I came in here to
hide. There are three men outside who want to kill me."
"Three men who want to kill you, eh? Do you expect me to believe
that anybody among the crowd there would murder you in broad
daylight? My impression is, my friend, that you are a sneaking
thief, and that you came here to look for gold. I'll send a man to
the police to come and fetch you, and if you stir a step I'll shoot
you."
"For goodness' sake, mate, keep quiet. I am not a burglar, not now at
any rate. I'll tell you the truth. I was a Government flagellator,
a flogger, you know, on the Sydney side, and I flogged those three
men. Couldn't help it, it was my business to do it. I know they are
looking for me, and they will follow me and take the first chance to
murder me. They are most desperate characters. One of them was
insubordinate when he was assigned servant to a squatter, and the
squatter, who was on horseback, gave him a cut with his stockwhip.
Then this man jumped at his master, pulled him off his horse, dragged
him to the wood-heap, held his head on the block, seized the axe, and
was just going to chop his master's head off, when another man
stopped him. That is what I had to flog him for, and then he was
sent back to Sydney. So you can just think what a man like that
would do. When my time was up I went as a trooper to the Nyalong
district under Captain Foster, the Commissioner, and after a while I
settled down and married an immigrant woman from Tipperary, a
Catholic. That's the way I happened to be here at Mass with my
mates, who are Catholics; but I'll never do it again; it's as much as
my life is worth. I daresay there are lots of men about Bendigo whom
I flogged while I was in the business, and every single man-jack of
them would kill me if he got the chance. And so for goodness' sake
let me stay here till dark. I suppose you are an honest man; you
look like it anyway, and you would not want to see me murdered, now,
would you?"
Barton was, in fact, as great a liar and rogue as you would meet with
anywhere, but in extreme cases he would tell the truth, and the
present case was an extreme one. Philip was merciful; he allowed
Barton to remain in his tent all day, and gave him his dinner. When
darkness came he escorted him to the tent of the men from Nyalong,
and was introduced to them by his new friend. Their names were
Gleeson, Poynton, Lyons, and two brothers McCarthy. One of these men
was brother-in-law to Barton, and had been a fellow-trooper with him
under Captain Foster. Barton had entered into family relations as an
honest man; he could give himself any character he chose until he was
found out. He was too frightened to stay another night on Bendigo,
and he began at once to bundle up his swag. Gleeson and Poynton
accompanied him for some distance beyond the pillar of white quartz
on Specimen Hill, and then he left the track and struck into the
bush. Fear winged his feet' he arrived safely at Nyalong, and never
went to another rush. The other five then stayed on Bendigo for
several weeks longer, and when they returned home their gold was
sufficient for a dividend of 700 pounds for each man. Four of them
bought farms, one kept a store, and Barton rented some land. Philip
met them again when he was promoted to the school at Nyalong, and
they were his firm friends as long as he lived there.
I went to various rushes to improve my circumstances. Once I was
nearly shot. A bullet whizzed past my head, and lodged in the trunk
of a stringy bark a little further on. That was the only time in my
life I was under fire, and I got from under it as quickly as
possible. Once I went to a rush of Maoris, near Job's Gully, and
Scott came along with his portfolio, a small pick, pan, and shovel.
He did not dig any, but got the ugliest Maori he could find to sit on
a pile of dirt while he took his portrait and sketched the tattoos.
That spoiled the rush; every man, black and white, crowded around
Scott while he was at work with his pencil, and then every single
savage shook hands with him, and made signs to have his tattoos
taken, they were so proud of their ugliness. They were all naked to
the waist.
Near the head of Sheep's Head Gully, Jack Moore and I found the cap
of a quartz reef with visible gold in it. We broke up some of it,
but could not make it pay, having no quartz-crushing machinery.
Golden Gully was already nearly worked out, but I got a little gold
in it which was flaky, and sticking on edge in the pipeclay bottom.
I found some gold also in Sheep's Head, and then we heard of a rush
on the Goulburn River. Next day we offered our spare mining plant
for sale on the roadside opposite Specimen Hill, placing the tubs,
cradles, picks and spades all in a row. Bez was the auctioneer. He
called out aloud, and soon gathered a crowd, which he fascinated by
his eloquence. The bidding was spirited, and every article was sold,
even Bez's own two-man pick, which would break the heart of a Samson
to wield it.
When we left Bendigo, Bez, Birnie, Dan, Scott, and Moses were of the
party, and a one-horse cart carried our baggage. When we came to a
swamp we carried the baggage over it on our backs, and then helped
the horse to draw the empty cart along. Our party increased in
number by the way, especially after we met with a dray carrying kegs
of rum.
Before reaching the new rush, afterwards known as Waranga, we
prospected some country about twenty miles from the Goulburn river.
Here Scott left us. Before starting he called me aside, and told me
he was going to the Melbourne Hospital to undergo an operation. He
had a tumour on one leg above the knee, for which he had been treated
in Dublin, and had been advised to come to Australia, in the hope
that a change of climate and occupation might be of benefit, but he
had already walked once from Bendigo to Melbourne, and now he was
obliged to go again. He did not like to start without letting
someone know his reason for leaving us. I felt full of pity for
Scott, for I thought he was going to his death alone in the bush, and
I asked him if he felt sure that he could find his way. He showed me
his pocket compass and a map, and said he could make a straight
course for Melbourne. He had always lived and worked alone, but
whenever we moved he accompanied us not wishing to be quite lost
amongst strangers. He arrived at the hospital, but he never came out
of it alive.
Dan gave me his money to take care of while he and Bez were living on
rum from the dray, and I gave out as little cash as possible in order
to promote peace and sobriety. One night Dan set fire to my tent in
order to rouse his banker. I dragged Bez outside the tent and
extinguished the fire. There was bloodshed afterwards--from Dan's
nose--and his account was closed. After a while some policemen in
plain clothes came along and examined the dray. They found fourteen
kegs of rum in it, which they seized, together with four horses and
the dray.
I worked for seven months in various parts of the Ovens district
until I had acquired the value in gold of my vanished twenty-dollar
pieces; that was all my luck. During this time some of us paid the
£2 license fee for three months. We were not hunted by the military.
Four or five troopers and officials rode slowly about the diggings
and the cry of "Joey" was never raised, while a single unarmed
constable on foot went amongst the claims to inspect licenses. He
stayed with us awhile, talking about digging matters. He said the
police were not allowed to carry carbines now, because a digger had
been accidentally shot. He was a very civil fellow, and his price,
if I remember rightly was half-a-crown. Yet the digger hunting was
continued at Ballarat until it ended in the massacre of December 3rd
1854.
At that time I was at Colac, and while Dr. Ignatius was absent, I had
the charge of his household, which consisted of one old convict known
as "Specs," who acted in the capacity of generally useless, received
orders most respectfully, but forgot them as much as possible. He
was a man of education who had gone astray in London, and had fallen
on evil days in Queensland and Sydney. When alone in the kitchen he
consoled himself with curses. I could hear his voice from the other
side of the slabs. He cursed me, he cursed the Doctor, he cursed the
horses, the cat, the dog, and the whole world and everything in it.
It was impossible to feel anything but pity for the man, for his life
was ruined, and he had ruined it himself. I had also under my care a
vegetable garden, a paddock of Cape barley, two horses, some guinea
fowls, and a potato patch. One night the potatoes had been
bandicooted. To all the early settlers in the bush the bandicoot is
well known. It is a marsupial quadruped which lives on bulbs, and
ravages potato patches. It is about eighteen inches in length from
the origin of its tail to the point of its nose. It has the habits
of a pickpocket. It inserts its delicate fore paws under the stalks
of the potato, and pulls out the tubers. That morning I had
endeavoured to dig some potatoes; the stalks were there, but the
potatoes were gone. I stopped to think, and examined the ground. I
soon discovered tracks of the bandicoot, but they had taken the shape
of a small human foot. We had no small human feet about our
premises, but at the other side of the fence there was a bark hut
full of them. I turned toward the hut suspiciously, and saw the
bandicoot sitting on a top-rail, watching me, and dangling her feet
to and fro. She wore towzled red hair, a short print frock, and a
look of defiance. I went nearer to inspect her bandicoot feet. Then
she openly defied me, and said:
"You need not look so fierce, mister. I have as much right to sit on
this rail as you have."
"Lilias," I replied, "you won't sit there long. You bandicooted my
potatoes last night, and you've left the marks of your dirty feet on
the ground. The police are coming to measure your feet, and then
they will take you to the lock-up."
I gazed across the barley paddock for the police, and Lilias looked
as well. There was a strange man approaching rapidly, and the
bandicoot's courage collapsed. She slid from the fence, took to
flight, and disappeared among the tussocks near the creek.
The stranger did not go to the garden gate, but stood looking over
the fence. He said: "Is Dr. Ignatius at home?"
"No, he is away somewhere about Fiery Creek, and I don't think he'll
return until Saturday."
The stranger hung down his head and was silent. He was a young man
of small frame, well dressed for those days, but he had o luggage.
He looked so miserable that I pitied him. He was like a hunted
animal. I said:
"Are you a friend of Dr. Ignatius?"
"Yes, he knows me well. My name is Carr; I have come from Ballarat."
"I knew various men had left Ballarat. One had arrived in Geelong on
December 4th, and had consulted Dr. Walshe about a bullet between his
knuckles, another was hiding in a house at Chilwell.* He had lost
one arm, and the Government were offering 400 pounds for him, so he
took outdoor exercise only by night, disguised in an Inverness cape.
"There was a chance for me to hear exciting news from the lips of a
warrior fresh from the field of battle, so I said:
"If you would like to stay here until the doctor returns you will
be welcome."
*[Footnote] Peter Lalor.
He was my guest for four days. He said that he went out with the
military on the morning of December 3rd, and was the first surgeon
who entered the Eureka Stockade after the fight was over. He found
twelve men dead in it, and twelve more mortally wounded. This was
about all the information he vouchsafed to give me. I was anxious
for particulars. I wanted to know what arms he carried to the fray,
whether he touched up his sword on the grind-stone before sallying
forth, how many men or women he had called upon to stand in the name
of her gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, how many skulls he had
cloven, how many diggers he had "slewed," and how many peaceful
prisoners he had brought back to the Government camp. On all these
points he was silent, and during his stay with me he spoke as little
as possible, neither reading, writing, nor walking about. But there
was something to be learned from the papers. He had been a witness
at the inquest on Scobie, killed by Bentley and two others, and
principally on his evidence Bentley was discharged, but was
afterwards re-arrested and condemned to three years' imprisonment.
Dr. Carr was regarded as a "colluding associate" with Bentley and
Dewes, the magistrate, and the official condemnation of Dewes
confirmed the popular denunciation of them. At a dinner given to Mr.
Tarleton, the American Consul, Dr. Otway, the Chairman said:
"While I and my fellow-colonists are thoroughly loyal to our
Sovereign Lady, the Queen, we do not, and will not, respect her men
servants, her maid servants, her oxen, or her asses."
A Commission was coming to Ballarat to report on wrong doings there,
and they were looking for witnesses. On Friday, December 8th, the
camp surgeon and Dr. Carr had a narrow escape from being shot. While
the former gentleman was entering the hospital he was fired at by one
of the sentries. The ball passed close to the shoulder of Dr. Carr,
who was reading inside, went through the lid of the open medicine
chest, and some splinters struck him on the side. There were in the
hospital at that time seven diggers seriously wounded and six
soldiers, including the drummer boy. Troubles were coming in crowds,
and the bullet, the splinters, and the Commission put the little
doctor to flight. He left the seven diggers, the five soldiers, and
the drummer boy in the hospital, and made straight for Colac. Fear
dogged his footsteps wherever he went, and the mere sight of him had
sent the impudent thief Lilias to hide behind the tussocks.
I always hate a man who won't talk to me and tell me things, and the
doctor was so silent and unsociable, that, by way of revenge, I left
him to the care and curses of old "Specs."
After four days he departed, and he appeared again at Ballarat on
January 15th, giving evidence at an inquest on one Hardy, killed by a
gunshot wound. In the meantime a total change had taken place among
the occupants of the Government camp. Commissioner Rede had retired,
Dr. Williams, the coroner, and the district surgeons had received
notice to quit in twenty-four hours, and they left behind them
twenty-four patients in and around the camp hospital.
Dr. Carr left the colony, and the next report about him was from
Manchester, where he made a wild and incoherent speech to the crowd
at the Exchange. His last public appearance was in a police-court on
a charge of lunacy. He was taken away by his friends, and what
became of him afterwards is not recorded.
Doctors, when there is a dearth of patients, sometimes take to war,
and thus succeed in creating a "practice." Occasionally they meet
with disaster, of which we can easily call to mind instances, both
ancient and modern.
III.
Diggers do not often turn their eyes heavenwards; their treasure does
not lie in that direction. But one night I saw Bez star-gazing.
"Do you know the names of any of the stars in this part of the roof?"
I asked.
"I can't make out many of the Manchester stars," he replied. "I knew
a few when I was a boy, but there was a good deal of fog and smoke,
and latterly I have not looked up that way much; but I can spot a few
of them yet, I think."
Bez was a rather prosy poet, and his eye was not in a fine frenzy rolling.
"Let me see," he said; "that's the north; Charles' Wain and the North
Pole ought to be there, but they have gone down somewhere. There are
the Seven Stars--I never could make 'em seven; if there ever were
that number one of 'em has dropped out. And there's Orion; he has
somehow slipped up to the north, and is standing on his head, heels
uppermost. There are the two stars in his heels, two on his
shoulders, three in his belt, and three in his sword. There is the
Southern Cross; we could never see that in our part of England, nor
those two silvery clouds, nor the two black holes. They look
curious, don't they? I suppose the two clouds are the Gates of
Heaven, and the two black spots the Gates of Hell, the doors of
eternity. Which way shall we go? That's the question."
The old adage is still quite true--'coelum non animum mutant qui
trans mare currunt'. When a young gentleman in England takes to
idleness and grog, and disgraces his family, he is provided with a
passage to Australia, in order that he may become a reformed
prodigal; but the change of climate does not effect a reform; it
requires something else.
Dan in Glasgow and Bez in Manchester had both been given to drink too
much. They came to Victoria to acquire the virtue of temperance, and
they were sober enough when they had no money.
Dan told me that when he awoke after his first week at sea, he sat
every day on the topgallant forecastle thinking over his past
wickedness, watching the foam go by, and continually tempted to
plunge into it.
After the rum, the dray, and the four horses were seized by the
police. Dan and Bez grew sober, and went to Reid's Creek, passing me
at work on Spring Creek. They came back as separate items. Dan
called at my tent, and I gave him a meal of damper, tea, and jam. He
ate the whole of the jam, which cost me 2s. 6d. per pound. He then
humped his swag and started for Melbourne. On his way through the
township, since named Beechworth, he took a drink of liquor which
disabled him, and he lay down by the roadside using an ant-hill for a
pillow. He awoke at daylight covered with ants, which were stinging
and eating him alive.
Some days later Bez came along, passed my tent for a mile, and then
came back. He said he was ashamed of himself. I gave him also a
feed of damper, tea, and jam limited. Dan had made me cautious in
the matter of lavish hospitality. The Earl of Lonsdale lately spent
fifty thousand pounds in entertaining the Emperor of Germany, but it
was money thrown away. The next time the Kaiser comes to
Westmoreland he will have to pay for his board and buy his preserves.
Bez made a start for Melbourne, met an old convict, and with him took
a job at foot-rotting sheep on a station owned by a widow lady. Here
he passed as an engraver in reduced circumstances. He told lies so
well, that the convict was filled with admiration, and said, "I'm
sure, mate, you're a flash covey wot's done his time in the island."
The two chums foot-rotted until they had earned thirty shillings
each, then they went away and got drunk at a roadside shanty; at
least, Bez did, and when the convict picked his pockets, he kindly
put back three shillings and sixpence, saying, "That will give him
another start on the wallaby track."
Bez at last arrived at Flagstaff Hill, which was then bare, with a
sand-hole on one side of it. He had had nothing to eat for
twenty-four hours, and had only one shilling and sixpence in his
pocket, which he was loath to spend for fear of arriving in Melbourne
a complete beggar. He lay down famishing and weary on the top of the
hill near Flagstaff, and surveyed the city, the bay, and the
shipping. He had hoped by this time to have been ready to take a
passage in one of those ships to Liverpool, and to return home a
lucky digger. But he had only eighteen pence, so he said, "I am
afraid, Bez, you will never see Manchester again."
There was at that time a small frame building at the west end of
Flinders Street, with a hill behind it, on which goats were browsing;
the railway viaduct runs now over the exact spot. Many parties of
hopeful diggers from England and California had slept there on the
floor the night before they started for Ballarat, Mount Alexander, or
Bendigo. We called it a house of refuge, and Bez now looked for
refuge in it. There he met Dan and Moran, who had both found
employment in the city, and they fed the hungry Bez. Dan was
labouring at his trade in the building business, and he set Bez to
work roofing houses with corrugated iron. They soon earned more
money than they had ever earned by digging for gold, but on Saturday
nights and Sundays they took their pleasure in the old style, and so
they went to the dogs. I don't know how Dan's life ended (his real
name was Donald Fraser), but Bez died suddenly in the bar of a
public-house, and he was honoured with an inquest and a short
paragraph in the papers.
Moran had saved a hundred pounds by digging in Picaninny Gully, and
he was soon afterwards admitted to serve Her Majesty again in the
police department. On the Sunday after Price was murdered by the
convicts at Williamstown I met Moran after Mass in the middle of
Lonsdale Street. I reproached him for his baseness in deserting to
the enemy--Her Majesty, no less--and in self-defence he nearly
argued my head off. At last I threatened to denounce him as a "Joey"
--he was in plain clothes--and have him killed by the crowd in the
street. Nothing but death could silence Moran. The rest of his
history is engraved on a monument in the Melbourne Cemetery; he, his
wife, and all his children died many years ago.--R.I.P. He was
really a good man, with only one defect--most of us have many--he
was always trying to divide a hair 'twixt West and South-West side.
I met Santley after thirty years, sitting on a bench in front of the
"Travellers' Rest" at Alberton, in Gippsland. He had a wrinkled old
face, and did not recognise my beautiful countenance until he heard
my name. He had half-a-dozen little boys and girls around him--his
grandchildren, I believe--and was as happy as a king teaching them
to sing hymns. I don't think Santley had grown rich, but he always
carried a fortune about with him wherever he went, viz., a kind heart
and a cheerful disposition. Nobody could ever think of quarrelling
with Santlay any more than with George Coppin, or with that
benevolent bandmaster, Herr Plock. He told me that he was now
related to the highest family in the world, his daughter having
married the Chinese giant, whose brothers and sisters were all of the
race of Anak.
My mate, Philip, was so successful with his little school in the tent
that he was promoted to another at the Rocky Waterholes, and then he
went to the township at Lake Nyalong. Philip had never travelled as
far as Lake Nyalong, but Picaninny Jack told him that he had once
been there, and that it was a beautiful country. He tried to find it
at another time, but got bushed on the wrong side of the lake; now he
believed there was a regular track that way if Philip could only find
it. The settlers and other inhabitants ought to be well off; if not,
it was their own fault, for they had the best land in the whole of
Australia.
Philip felt sure that he would find at least one friend at Nyalong--
viz., Mr. Barton, whom he had harboured in his tent at Bendigo, and
had sheltered from the pursuit of the three bloodthirsty convicts.
Some people might be too proud to look forward to the friendship of a
flagellator, but in those days we could not pick and choose our
chums; Barton might not be clubable, but he might be useful, and the
social ladder requires a first step.
Thanks to such men as Dan and Bez, in Melbourne, and to other
enterprising builders in various places, habitable dwellings of wood,
brick, and bluestone began to be used, instead of the handy but
uncomfortable tent, and, at the Rocky Waterholes, Philip had for some
time been lodging in a weatherboard house with the respectable Mrs.
Martin. Before going to look for Nyalong he introduced his successor
to her, and also to the scholars. Her name was Miss Edgeworth.