SABBATH AT THE DIGGINGS--LARRY O'NEIL TAKES TO WANDERING, AND MEETS WITH
ADVENTURES--AN IRISH YANKEE DISCOVERED--TERRIBLE CALAMITIES BEFALL
TRAVELLERS ON THE OVERLAND ROUTE.
There is no country in our fallen world, however debased and morally
barren, in which there does not exist a few green spots where human
tenderness and sympathy are found to grow. The atmosphere of the
gold-regions of California was, indeed, clouded to a fearful extent with
the soul-destroying vapours of worldliness, selfishness, and
ungodliness, which the terrors of Lynch law alone restrained from
breaking forth in all their devastating strength.
And this is not to be wondered at, for Europe and America naturally
poured the flood of their worst inhabitants over the land, in eager
search for that gold, the _love of which_, we are told in Sacred Writ,
"is the root of all evil." True, there were many hundreds of estimable
men who, failing, from adverse circumstances, to make a livelihood in
their native lands, sought to better their fortunes in the far west;
but, in too many cases, the gold-fever which raged there soon smote them
down; and men who once regarded gold as the means to an end, came at
last to esteem gold to be the end, and used every means, fair and foul,
to obtain it. Others there were, whose constitutions were proof against
the national disease; whose hearts deemed _love_ to be the highest bliss
of man, and doing good his greatest happiness.
But stilling and destructive though the air of the gold-mines was, there
were a few hardy plants of moral goodness which defied it--and some of
these bloomed in the colony of Little Creek.
The Sabbath morning dawned on Ned Sinton and his friends--the first
Sabbath since they had begun to dig for gold. On that day the miners
rested from their work. Shovel and pick lay quiet in the innumerable
pits that had been dug throughout the valley; no cradle was rocked, no
pan of golden earth was washed. Even reckless men had come to know from
experience, that the Almighty in His goodness had created the Sabbath
for the special benefit of man's _body_ as well as his soul, and that
they wrought better during the six days of the week when they rested on
the seventh.
Unfortunately they believed only what _experience_ taught them; they
kept the Sabbath according to the letter, not according to the spirit;
and although they did not work, they did not refrain from "thinking
their own thoughts and finding their own pleasure," on God's holy day.
Early in the morning they began to wander idly about from hut to hut,
visited frequently the grog-shops, and devoted themselves to gambling,
which occupation materially marred even the physical rest they might
otherwise have enjoyed.
"Comrades," said Ned Sinton, as the party sat inside their tent, round
the napkin on which breakfast was spread, "it is long since we have made
any difference between Saturday and Sunday, and I think it would be good
for us all if we were to begin now. Since quitting San Francisco, the
necessity of pushing forward on our journey has prevented our doing so
hitherto. How far we were right in regarding rapid travelling as being
_necessary_, I won't stop to inquire; but I think it would be well if we
should do a little more than merely rest from work on the Sabbath. I
propose that, besides doing this, we should read a chapter of the Bible
together as a family, morning and evening on Sundays. What say you?"
There was a pause. It was evident that conflicting feelings were at
work among the party.
"Perhaps you're right," said Maxton; "I confess that I have troubled
myself very little about religion since I came out here, but my
conscience has often reproached me for it."
"Don't you think, messmates," said Captain Bunting, lighting his pipe,
"that if it gets wind the whole colony will be laughin' at us?"
"Sure they may laugh," said Larry O'Neil, "an' after that they may cry,
av it'll do them good. Wot's the differ to us?"
"I don't agree with you, Ned," said Tom Collins, somewhat testily; "for
my part I like to see men straightforward, all fair and above-board, as
the captain would say. Hypocrisy is an abominable vice, whether it is
well meaning or ill meaning, and I don't see the use of pretending to be
religious when we are not."
"Tom," replied Ned, in an earnest voice, "don't talk lightly of serious
things. I don't _pretend_ to be religious, but I do _desire_ to be so:
and I think it would be good for all of us to read a portion of God's
Word on His own day, both for the purpose of obeying and honouring Him,
and of getting our minds filled, for a short time at least, with other
thoughts than those of gold-hunting. In doing this there is no
hypocrisy."
"Well, well," rejoined Tom, "I'll not object if the rest are agreed."
"Agreed," was the unanimous reply. So Ned rose, and, opening his
portmanteau, drew forth the little Bible that had been presented to him
by old Mr Shirley on the day of his departure from home.
From that day forward, every Sabbath morning and evening, Ned Sinton
read a portion of the Word of God to his companions, as long as they
were together; and each of the party afterwards, at different times,
confessed that, from the time the reading of the Bible was begun, he
felt happier than he did before.
After breakfast they broke up, and went out to stroll for an hour or two
upon the wooded slopes of the mountains. Ned and Tom Collins went off
by themselves, the others, with the exception of Larry, walked out
together.
That morning Larry O'Neil felt less sociable than was his wont, so he
sallied forth alone. For some time he sauntered about with his hands in
his pockets, his black pipe in his mouth, a thick oak cudgel, of his own
making, under his arm, and his hat set jauntily on one side of his head.
He went along with an easy swagger, and looked particularly reckless,
but no man ever belied his looks more thoroughly. The swagger was
unintentional, and the recklessness did not exist. On the contrary, the
reading of the Bible had brought back to his mind a flood of home
memories, which forced more than one tear from his susceptible heart
into his light-blue eye, as he wandered in memory over the green hills
of Erin.
But the scenes that passed before him as he roamed about among the huts
and tents of the miners soon drew his thoughts to subjects less
agreeable to contemplate. On week-days the village, if we may thus
designate the scattered groups of huts and tents, was comparatively
quiet, but on Sundays it became a scene of riot and confusion. Not only
was it filled with its own idle population of diggers, but miners from
all the country round, within a circuit of eight or ten miles, flocked
into it for the purpose of buying provisions for the week, as well as
for the purpose of gambling and drinking, this being the only day in all
the week, in which they indulged in what they termed "a spree."
Consequently the gamblers and store-keepers did more business on Sunday
than on any other day. The place was crowded with men in their rough,
though picturesque, bandit-like costumes, rambling about from store to
store, drinking and inviting friends to drink, or losing in the
gaming-saloons all the earnings of a week of hard, steady toil--toil
more severe than is that of navvies or coal-heavers. There seemed to be
an irresistible attraction in these gambling-houses. Some men seemed
unable to withstand the temptation, and they seldom escaped being
fleeced. Yet they returned, week after week, to waste in these dens of
iniquity the golden treasure gathered with so much labour during their
six working days.
Larry O'Neil looked through the doorway of one of the gambling-houses as
he passed, and saw men standing and sitting round the tables, watching
with eager faces the progress of the play, while ever and anon one of
them would reel out, more than half-drunk with excitement and brandy.
Passing on through the crowded part of the village, which looked as if a
fair were being held there, he entered the narrow footpath that led
towards the deeper recesses at the head of the valley. O'Neil had not
yet, since his arrival, found time to wander far from his own tent. It
was therefore with a feeling of great delight that he left the scene of
riot behind him, and, turning into a bypath that led up one of the
narrow ravines, opening into the larger valley, strolled several miles
into deep solitudes that were in harmony with his feelings.
The sun streamed through the entrance to this ravine, bathing with a
flood of light crags and caves and bush-encompassed hollows, that at
other times were shrouded in gloom. As the Irishman stood gazing in awe
and admiration at the wild, beautiful scene, beyond which were seen the
snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada, he observed a small solitary tent
pitched on a level patch of earth at the brow of a low cliff. Curiosity
prompted him to advance and ascertain what unsociable creature dwelt in
it. A few minutes sufficed to bring him close upon it, and he was about
to step forward, when the sound of a female voice arrested him. It was
soft and low, and the accents fell upon his ear with the power of an old
familiar song. Being at the back of the tent, he could not see who
spoke, but, from the monotonous regularity of the tone, he knew that the
woman was reading. He passed noiselessly round to the front, and
peeping over the tops of bushes, obtained a view of the interior.
The reader was a young woman, whose face, which was partially concealed
by a mass of light-brown hair as she bent over her book, seemed
emaciated and pale. Looking up just as Larry's eye fell upon her, she
turned towards a man whose gaunt, attenuated form lay motionless on a
pile of brushwood beside her, and said, tenderly:
"Are ye tired, Patrick, dear, or would you like me to go on?"
Larry's heart gave his ribs such a thump at that moment that he felt
surprised the girl did not hear it. But he could not approach; he was
rooted to the earth as firmly, though not as permanently, as the bush
behind which he stood. An Irish voice, and an Irish girl, heard and
seen so unexpectedly, quite took away his breath.
The sick man made some reply which was not audible, and the girl,
shutting the book, looked up for a few moments, as if in silent prayer,
then she clasped her hands upon her knees, and laying her head upon
them, remained for some time motionless. The hands were painfully thin,
as was her whole frame. The face was what might have been pretty at one
time, although it was haggard enough now, but the expression was
peculiarly sorrowful.
In a few minutes she looked up again, and spread the ragged blanket more
carefully over the shoulders of the sick man, and Larry, feeling that he
was at that time in the questionable position of an eavesdropper, left
his place of concealment, and stood before the tent.
The sick man saw him instantly, and, raising himself slightly,
exclaimed, "Who goes there? Sure I can't git lave to die in pace!"
The familiar tones of a countryman's voice fell pleasantly on Larry's
ear as he sprang into the tent, and, seizing the sick man's hand, cried,
"A blissin' on the mouth that said that same. O Pat, darlint! I'm glad
to mate with ye. What's the matter with ye? Tell me now, an' don't be
lookin' as if ye'd seen a ghost."
"Kape back," said the girl, pushing Larry aside, with a half-pleased,
half-angry expression. "Don't ye see that ye've a'most made him faint?
He's too wake intirely to be--"
"Ah! then, cushla, forgive me; I wint and forgot meself. Blissin's on
yer pale face! sure yer Irish too."
Before the girl could reply to this speech, which was uttered in a tone
of the deepest sympathy, the sick man recovered sufficiently to say--
"Sit down, friend. How comed ye to larn me name? I guess I never saw
ye before."
"Sure, didn't I hear yer wife say it as I come for'ard to the tint,"
answered Larry, somewhat staggered at the un-Irish word "guess."
"He is my brother," remarked the girl.
"Troth, ye've got a dash o' the Yankee brogue," said Larry, with a
puzzled look; "did ye not come from the owld country?"