# In Bad Company, and other Stories/How I became a Butcher

HOW I BECAME A BUTCHER
I was wending my way to Melbourne with a draft of fat cattle in the spring of 1851, when the public-house talk took the unwonted flavour of gold. Gold had 'broken out,' as it was expressed, at a creek a few miles from Buninyong. Gold in lumps! Gold in bushels! All the world was there, except those who were on the road or packing up. A couple of hundred head of fat cattle were not, perhaps, the exact sort of impedimenta to go exploring with on a goldfield, but it was hard to stem the tidal wave, now rolling in unbroken line towards Ballarat. Men agreed that this was the strange new name of the strange new treasure-hold. I incontinently pined for Ballarat. I sold one-half of my drove by the way, purchased a few articles suitable for certain contingencies, and joined the procession; for it was a procession, a caravan, almost a crusade.
The weather had been wet. The roads were deep. Heavy showers, fierce gales, driving sleet made the spring days gloomy, and multiplied delays and disasters. None of these obstacles stayed the ardent pilgrims, whose faith in their golden goal was daily confirmed, stimulated ever by wild reports of luck. The variety of the wayfarers who thronged that highway, broad as the path to destruction, was striking. Sun-tanned bushmen, inured to toil, practised in emergencies, alternated with groups of townspeople, whose fresh complexions and awkward dealings with their new experience stamped them as recruits. Passengers, who had left shipboard but a week since, armed to the teeth, expectant of evil. Mercantile Jack, whose rolling gait and careless energy displayed his calling as clearly as if the name of his ship had been tattooed ​on his forehead. Other persons whose erect appearance and regular step hinted at pipe-clay. Carts with horses, ponies, mules, donkeys, even men and women, in their shafts. Bullock drays, heavily laden, in which the long teams at fullest stretch of strength were fairly cursed through the slough, to which the army column ahead and around had reduced the road. Bells! bells! bells! everywhere and of every note and inflexion, dog-trucks, wheel-barrows, horsemen, footmen, lent their aid to the extraordinary mélange of sights and sounds, mobilised en route for Ballarat.
Slowly, 'with painful patience,' as became experienced drovers, we skirted or traversed the pilgrim host. We drove far into the night, until we reached a sequestered camp. A few days of uneventful travelling brought us to the Buninyong Inn. This modest hostelry, amply sufficient for the ordinary traffic of the road, was now filled and overflowed by the roaring flood of wayfarers. The hostess, in daily receipt of profits which a month had not formerly accumulated, was civil but indifferent. 'I might get supper,' she dared say, 'but could not guarantee that meal. Her servants were worked off their legs. She wished indeed that there was another inn; she was tired to death of having to provide for such a mob.'
When I heard a licensed victualler giving vent to this unnatural wish, as I could not but regard it, I recognised the case as desperate, and capitulated. I managed to procure a meal in due time, and mingled with the crowd in hope of gaming the information of which I stood in need. My assistants were a white man and a black boy. The former was a small, wiry Englishman, formerly connected with a training stable. He called himself Ben Brace, after a famous steeplechaser which he had trained or strapped. Hard-bitten, hard-reared, mostly on straw and ashplant, as goes the nature of English stable-lads, to Ben early hours or late, foul weather or fair, fasting or feasting were much alike. Of course he drank, but he had enough of the results of the old stable discipline left to restrain himself until after the race was run. I had therefore no feeling of apprehension about his fidelity.
For the time was an exciting one, and had not been without its effects upon all hired labour, though things had not ​developed in that respect as fully as when a year's success had made gold as common as shells on the seashore. Then, indeed, by no rate of wages could you ensure the effective discharge of the indispensable duties of the road. When every passing traveller who spoke to your stock-riders, or requested a light for a pipe, had nuggets of gold in his pocket, 'or knowed a party as bottomed last week to the tune of £1200 a man,' it was small wonder that, valuable as their services were conceded to be, they should themselves deem them to be invaluable. Independent, insolent, and ridiculously sensitive as drovers became, it became an undertaking perilous and uncertain in the extreme to drive stock to market.
I have seen the only man (beside the proprietor) in charge of three hundred head of fat cattle confronting that sorely-tried squatter, with vinous gravity and sarcastic defiance, as thus—'You s'pose I'm a-goin' to stay out and watch these —— cattle while you're a-sittin' in the public-house eatin' your arrowroot? No. I ain't the cattle dorg. I'm a man! as good as ever you was, and you can go and drive your bloomin' cattle yerself.'
This fellow was in receipt of one pound per diem; his allegations were totally unfounded, as his master had done nearly all the work, and would have done the remainder had the instincts of a large drove of wild cattle permitted. I saw my friend's grey eyes glitter dangerously for a moment as he looked the provoking ruffian full in the face, and advanced a step; then the helplessness of his position smote him, and he made a degradingly civil answer.
I was fortunate in not being likely to be reduced to such destitution. Besides Ben, the black boy Charley Bamber was at exactly the right age to be useful. Of him I felt secure. He was a small imp whom I had once brought away from his tribe in a distant part of the country and essayed to educate and civilise. The education had progressed as far as tolerable reading and writing, a perfect mastery of that 'vulgar tongue' so extensively heard in the waste places of the earth, joined with a ready acquaintance with the Bible and the Church Catechism. He would have taken honours in any Sunday School in Britain. The civilisation, I am bound to admit, was imperfect and problematical.
​But the son of the forest was quick of eye, a sure tracker, and the possessor of a kind of mariner's compass instinct which enabled him to find his way through any country, known or unknown, with ease and precision. He was a first-rate hand with all manner of cattle and horses, when freed from that unexorcised demon, his temper. It was simply fiendish. Bread and butter, shoes and stockings, the language of England and the language of kindness, had left that inheritance untouched. In his paroxysms he would throw himself upon the earth and saw away at his throat with his knife. This instrument being generally blunt, he never succeeded in severing the carotid artery. But he often looked with glaring eyes and distorted features, as if he would have liked in this manner to have settled the vexed question of his creation. Strange as it may appear, the incongruity of his knowledge with his tendencies was to him a matter of wrathful regret. Being reproached one day for bad conduct by the lady to whose untiring lessons he owed his knowledge, he exclaimed, 'I wish you'd never taught me at all. Once, I didn't know I was wicked; now I do, and I'm miserable.' The pony which he always rode, a clever, self-willed scamp like himself, once took him under the branches of a low-growing tree, scratching his face in the process. Lifting the tomahawk which he generally carried, he drove it into the withers of the poor animal. On reaching home he confessed frankly enough, as was his custom, and appeared grieved and penitent. He was sorry enough afterwards, for the fistula which supervened necessitated a tedious washing every morning with soap and water for twelve months. This attention fell to his lot with strict retributive justice, and before a cure was effected he had ample leisure to deplore his rashness. With all his faults he could be most useful when he liked. He was so clever that I could not help feeling a deep interest in him, and during the expedition which I describe he was unusually well-behaved.
Having put the cattle into a secure yard, and seen my retainers comfortably fed and housed, I betook myself to the coffee-room. This apartment was crowded with persons just about to visit, or on their return from visiting, the Wonder of the Age. The conversation was general and unreserved. I was amused at the usual conflict of opinion ​with regard to the duration, demerits, and destiny of the Australian goldfields.
The elderly and conservative colonists took a depressing view of this new-born irruption of bullion. 'It tended to the confusion of social ranks, to the termination of existing relations between shepherds and squatters, to democracy, demoralisation, and decay. Had other nations, the Spaniards notably, not found the possession of gold-mines in their American colonies a curse rather than a blessing? Would not the standard value of gold coin be reduced? Would not landed property be depreciated, agriculture perish, labour become a tradition, and this fair land be left a prey to ruffianly gold-seekers and unprincipled adventurers? The opposition, composed of the younger men, the 'party of progress,' with a few democrats enragés, scoffed at the words of wary commerce or timid capital. 'This was an Anglo-Saxon community. Capacity for self-government had ever been the proud heritage of the race. We had that sober reasoning power, energy, and innate reverence for law which enabled us to successfully administer republics, goldfields, and other complications fatal to weaker families of men. With such a people abundance of gold was not more undesirable than abundance of wheat. Glut of gold! Well, there were many ways of disposing of it. Civilisation developed the need for coin nearly as fast as it was supplied. A sovereign would be a sovereign most likely for our time. Land! The land of course would be sold, cut up into farms for industrious yeomen, and high time too.'
The destiny of our infant nation was not finally settled when I slipped out. I had mastered two facts, however, which were to me at that time more immediately interesting than the rise of nations and the fall of gold. These were the increasing yields at Ballarat, and that, as yet, the diggers were living wholly on mutton, of which they were excessively tired.
Long before daylight we were feeding our horses and taking a meal, so precautionary in its nature that (more especially in Charley's case) the question of dinner might safely be entrusted to the future. With just light enough to distinguish the white-stemmed gums which stood ghostly in the chill dawn, we left the sleeping herd of prospectors and politicians and prepared for a day of doubt and adventure.
​Silent and cold, we stumbled and jogged along, something after the fashion of Lord Scamperdale going to meet the hounds in the next county, for an hour or two. Then the sun began to cheer the sodden landscape, the birds chirped, the cattle put their heads down, life's mercury rose.
We had reached the historic Yuille's Creek, upon the bank of which the great gold city now stands. Then it was like any other 'wash-up creek'—a mimic river in winter, a chain of muddy water-holes in summer. As I looked at the eager waters, yellow with the clay in solution, as if the great metal had lent the wave its own hue, I felt like Sinbad approaching the valley of diamonds, and almost expected to break my shins against lumps of gold and silver. I determined to advance and reconnoitre; so, leaving Ben and Charley to feed and cherish the cattle until my return, I put spurs to old Hope, and headed up the water at a more cheerful pace than we had known since daylight. I turned the spur of a ridge which came low upon the meadows of the streamlet. I heard a confused murmuring sound, the subdued 'voice of a vast congregation,' combined with a noise as of a multitude of steam mills. I rounded the cape, and, pulling up my horse, stared in wonder and excitement upon the strange scene which burst in suddenness upon me.
On a small meadow, and upon the slopes which rose gently from it, were massed nearly twenty thousand men. They were, with few exceptions, working more earnestly, more absorbingly, more silently than any body of labourers I had ever seen. They were delving, carrying heavy loads, filling and emptying buckets, washing the ore in thousands of cradles, which occupied every yard and foot of the creek, in which men stood waist-deep. Long streets and alleys of tents and shanties constituted a kind of township, where flaunting flags of all colours denoted stores and shops, and St. George's banner, hanging proudly unfurled, told that the majesty of the law, order, and the government was administered by Commissioners and supported by policemen.
I rode among the toilers, amid whom I soon found friends and acquaintances. On every side was evidence of the magical richness of the deposit. Nuggets were handed about with a careless confidence which denoted the easy circumstances of ​the owners. The famous 'Jeweller's Point' was just yielding its 'untold gold,' and one sanguine individual did not overstate the case when he assured me they were 'turning it up like potatoes.' I ascertained that, with the exception of an occasional quarter from an adjoining station, the grand army was ignorant of the taste of beef, that mutton was beginning to be accounted monotonous fare, and that he who reintroduced the diggers to steaks and sirloins would be hailed as a benefactor and paid like a governor-general.
Having ascertained that this society, in which no trade was unrepresented, contained several butchers, I presented myself to these distributors, my natural enemies. I found that the abnormal conditions among which we moved had by no means lessened our antagonism. We did battle as of old. They decried the quality of my cattle, and affected to ignore the popular necessity for beef. Thinking that I was compelled to accept their ruling, they declined to buy except at a low price. I retired full of wrath and resolve.
Had I come these many leagues to be a prey to shallow greed and cunning? Not so, by St. Hubert! Sooner than take so miserable a price for my weary days and watchful nights, I would turn butcher myself. Ha! happy thought! Why not? There was no moral declension in becoming a butcher, at least temporarily; all one's morale here was bouleversé. 'Tis done. 'I will turn the flank of these knaves. Henceforth I also am a butcher. Chops and steaks! No! steaks only! Families supplied. Ha! ha!'
I returned to the cattle, which I found much refreshed by the creek side. We drove them to the bank of the great Wendouree Lake, then a shallow, reedy marsh, made a brush yard, established ourselves in the lee of a huge fallen gum, and passed cheerfully enough our first night at Ballarat.
Next morning I commenced the campaign of competition with decision. I gave Charley a lecture of considerable length upon his general deportment, and the particular duties which had now devolved upon him. He was to look after or 'tail' the cattle daily by the side of the lake; to abstain from opossum hunts and other snares of the evil one; to look out that wicked men, of whom this place was choke-full, did not steal the cattle; to rest his pony, Jackdaw, whenever he could safely; and always to bring his cattle home at sundown. ​If he did all these things, and was generally a good boy, I would give him a cow, from the profit of whose progeny he would very likely become a rich man, when we got back to Squattlesea Mere. He promised to abandon all his sins on the spot. As the cattle stood patiently expectant by the rails, I sent a bullet into the 'curl' of the forehead of a big rough bullock. The rest of the drove moved out with small excitement, and the first act was over.
We flayed and quartered our bullock 'upon the hide,' a 'gallows' being a luxury to which, like uncivilised nations, we had not attained.
I chose a location for a shop in a central position among the tented streets, being chiefly attracted thereto by a large stump, which was a—ahem—butcher's block ready made, divided our animal into more available portions, and with modest confidence awaited 'a share of the public patronage.'
At first trade was slack—the sun became powerful—the flies arrived in myriads—a slight reactionary despondency set in when lo! a customer, a bronzed and bearded digger. I think I see his jolly face now. 'Hullo, mate! got some beef? Blowed if I didn't think all the cattle was dead! We're that tired of mutton—well, I ain't got much time to stand yarnin'. Give us a bit now, though. Thirty pound—that'll do. Here's a sov'ring. Good-bye.'
Myself.—'Tell the other fellows, will you?'
'All right. Won't want much tellin',' shouted my friend, far on his way.
My soul was comforted. It was the turn of the tide. Another and another came who lusted for the muscle-forming food. Towards evening the news was general that there was 'beef in Ballarat.' The tide flowed and rose until the last ounce of the brindled bullock had vanished, and I was left the owner of a bag of coin weighty and imposing as the purse of a Cadi.
'My word, sir, we'll have to kill two to-morrow,' quoth Ben, 'if this goes on; and however shall we manage to cut 'em up and sell too?'
'Well, we'll see,' said I confidently; 'something will turn up.'
As we returned to our depôt by Wendouree, we met by the wayside a middle-aged man sitting on a log in a despondent mood. He was the only man I had yet seen at Ballarat who ​was not full of hope and energy. I was curious enough to disturb his reverie.
'What's the matter?' said I. 'Have you lost your horse, or your wife, or has the bottom of your claim tumbled out, that you look so down on your luck?'
'Well, master, it ain't quite so bad as all that, but it isn't so easy to get on here without money or work, and I was just a-thinkin' about going back to Geelong.'
'I should have thought every one could have got work here, by the look of things.'
'Well, a many do, but I am not much with pick and shovel. I'm gettin' old now, and I can't a-bear cookin'. Now, I was as comfortable as could be in Geelong, a-workin' steady at my trade. I was just a-thinkin' what a fool I was to come away, surelye!'
'What is your trade?'
'Well, master, I'm a butcher!'
There must be good angels. One doubts sometimes. But how otherwise could this man, an unimaginative Englishman, lately arrived, not easy of adaptation to strange surroundings, have been conveyed to this precise spot, planté là, that I might stumble against him in my need? I could have clasped him in my arms.
But I said, with assumed indifference, 'Well, I want a man for a week or two to do slaughtering. You can have five shillings a day, and come home with us now, if you like.'
'Thank ye, master, that I'll do, and main thankful I be.'
When we reached the fallen tree, which, like a South Sea cocoa-palm, supplied nearly all our wants (being fuel, fire-place, house, furniture, and one side of our stock -yard), the cattle were in, the camp kettle was boiling, and Charley, standing proudly by the fire, received my congratulations. Our professional comforted himself internally. We regarded the past with satisfaction and the future with hope, and were soon restoring our taxed energies with unbroken slumber.
Next day we slew two kine, ably assisted by our new man, who, however, looked rather blank at the absence of so many trade accessories. Our bough-constructed 'shop' on the flat became a place of fashionable resort, and the conversion of cows into coin became easy and methodical. Having real work to do, I donned suitable garments, and as I stood forth ​in blue serge and jack-boots, wielding my blood-stained axe or gory knife, few of the busy diggers doubted my having been bred to the craft. One or two jokes sprang from this slight misapprehension.
'Ah! if you was at 'ome now, and 'ad yer big cleaver, yer'd knock it off smarter, wouldn't yer now?' This was a criticism upon my repeated attempts to sever an obstinate bone with a gapped American axe.
On the first day of my butcherhood I had bethought me of the cuisine of my old friend the Commissioner, which I essayed to improve by the gift of a sirloin. Placing the exotic in a gunny-bag, I rode up to the camp, and said to the blue-coated warder, 'Take this joint of beef to Mr. Sturt with my compliments.' I had no sooner completed the sentence than I saw an expression upon the face of the man-at-arms which reminded me of my condition in life. Gazing at me with supercilious surprise,, he called languidly to a brother gendarme, 'Jones, take this here to the Commissioner with the butcher's compliments!' For one moment I looked 'cells and contempt of court' at the obtuse myrmidon who failed to recognise the disguised magistrate; but the humour of the incident presenting itself, I burst into a fit of laughter which further mystified him, and departed.
I was now settled in business. I diverted a large share of the trade previously monopolised by my rivals, who now bitterly regretted not having disposed of me by purchase. Every night I went up to the Government camp with my bag of coin, which I delivered over for safe keeping. As many friends were located there, with them I generally spent my evenings, which were of a joyous and sociable character. The conditions were favourable. Most of us were young; we were all making money tolerably fast, with the agreeable probability, for some time to come, of making it even faster.
The exodus from Melbourne was exhaustive. There, daily to be seen in red shirt and thick but very neat boots, stood the handsome doctor of 'our street' by the cradle, for which he had abandoned patients and practice. Next to him, with constant care lowering the ever-recurring shaft-bucket, was a rising barrister. Hotel servants, tradespeople, farmers, market-gardeners, civilians, cab-drivers, barbers, even ​the tragic and the comic muse, had enrolled themselves among the players at this theatre, where the popular drama of 'Golden Hazard' was having a run till further notice. The ranks of the 50th Regiment were thinned by desertions in spite of the utmost vigilance; while the ships in the bay were likely to be reduced to the condition of the world's fleet in Campbell's Last Man.
Pitiable the while was the position of the squatters, especially of those who held sheep. On a cattle station the proprietor or manager, with the assistance of a boy or two, can do much. It is not so with sheep. Particularly was it not so in those pre-fencing days. In vain the sheep-owner doubles his men's wages and removes apparent discontent. He tries to think that matters will go on pretty well till shearing. One night comes a traveller, a wretch with a bag of gold. Next morning a shepherd is missing, and so on.
We gave a little festa one evening in honour of a friend who had sold his share in the claim and wisely gone back to follow his profession in town. The conversation had a philosophical turn, and it was debated whether or no the country would come well out of the ordeal to which, particularly on account of its uneducated classes, it was being subjected. Some one expressed an opinion adverse to the result upon national morality and progress.
'I hold a directly opposite conviction,' said Jack Freshland. 'So do all the men who, like me, have seen order produced from chaos in California. "Scum of the universe" was a complimentary description of her population. "Hell upon earth" was a weak metaphor explanatory of her social state. Look at her now—self-regenerate, orderly, honestly progressive in every phase of industry. I don't say that you run no chance of being shot; accidents will happen when fellows' belts and coat pockets are full of loaded revolvers, whisky being cheap. But you run far less chance of being robbed than in London or Paris. When I came away you might leave your valuables scattered about your tent for days. No one dared to touch them. I don't know whether we shall come to ear-marking pilferers and hanging horse-stealers, but this is an Anglo-Saxon population, and in some way, I will stake my existence, order will be preserved.'
'Talking of horse-stealers, I found Fred Charbett's "Grey ​Surrey" the other day,' said Moore O'Donnell, 'in rather queer company.'
'That's the horse he won the Ladies' Bag at the Port Western Races with,' I cried out eagerly, 'a tremendous mile horse, but no stayer. Had he a large D brand?'
'He had then; and a large S—if that stands for sore back—that ye could see a mile off.'
'He is a flat-ribbed horse,' I explained, 'and any one with a bad saddle might give him a back in a day that a week couldn't cure. How glad old Fred will be to see him again! Who is the ruffian that has him now?'
'One Moore O'Donnell. Maybe ye wouldn't mind putting your interrogation in another form, Mr. Boldrewood, if it's agreeable to ye?'
'A thousand pardons, really—but I didn't understand that you had taken possession of him.'
We all laughed at this, and Jack Freshland said, 'Come, Moore, you old humbug, tell us how you stole the poor fellow's horse. It's all very well for Boldrewood to back you up with his alphabetical evidence. I don't believe half of it. You'll be up before the beak if you don't mind.'
'Give me the laste drop of that whisky,' said O'Donnell, stretching his long legs, 'and I'll tell you all how I compounded a felony, for there is the laste flavour of that about the transaction. I was mooning about looking for old "Paleface," when, after a great walk, I came upon the villain in company with a strange grey, also in hobbles. You know what a hot brute mine is: the stranger was about the same. Neither would dream of allowing me to catch him. So, after a long chase, I arrived at home, exhausted and demoralised, with just sufficient strength left to pat them into the bullock yard. I refreshed myself from the whisky-jar, and after lunch and a smoke, feeling better, I strolled out to look at the grey. I thought we had been introduced. Of course, there he was, the great Surrey, no less. The last time we met, I had seen a sheet pulled off with pride by a neat groom, just before Fred took him down to the races. Here he was, dog-poor, rough-coated, and with a back fit to make one sick; D on the shoulder, 2B under the mane. Identification complete. "Such is life," thought I. "Just as one's in fine hard condition, with all the world before you, and lots of money and ​friends, you get stolen, or come to grief, grass-feeding, and an incurable sore back!"
'Rather a mixed metaphor, if I may be allowed a friendly criticism,' said a dark-haired, quiet youngster named Weston, who had been reading for the bar 'before the gold,' as people distinguished the former and the latter days. 'I don't quite follow who lost the money, or did you or the horse suffer from the sore back?'
'Go to blazes with your special pleading,' shouted O'Donnell. Can't a man make the smallest moral reflection among ye, a lot of profligate divils, but he must be fixed to logical exactness, as if he was up for his "little go"? Ye've no poetry in ye, Weston, divil a bit. It's a fatal defect at the bar. Take my advice in time, or I wash my hands of your future prospects. And now hear me out, or I'll stop, and the secret will be buried with me.'
'Go on, Moore; you won't be the last of your line, will you?'
'How do you know, sir? None of your Saxon sneers. The O'Donnell! Ha! ye villain, I'm up to you this time. Next day, as big a ruffian as ever ye seen came up to the tent and asked me "what I meant by stealin' a poor man's 'oss." "See here now," says I, "the stealing's all the other way, it strikes me. He belongs to a friend of mine, who would never have sold him. He may have strayed and got into pound, and you may have bought him out, or you may—pardon me—have stolen him yourself."
'"I bought him off Jem Baggs, as got him out of Burnbank Pound," replied he doggedly.
'"That may be true. I think not, myself. This is what I am going to do. The horse is in my possession, and there he will remain. You can either take him, if you are man enough (and I pointed this remark with the butt of my revolver), or you can summon me before the Bench, or take this £5 note for your claim. Which will you do?" He held out his dirty paw for the fiver with a grin, as he said, "All right, you can 'ave 'im for the fiver. He ain't much in a cart, anyhow."'
'Hurrah!' sung out half-a-dozen voices together. 'How glad old Fred will be to see him again. What did you do with him? Hasn't Bill Sikes re-stolen him yet?'
​'I sent him back by a stock-rider next day. He is safe at "The Gums" by this time. I'm dry, though. You wouldn't think it, now! Pass the whisky.'
'I say,' said Maxwell, 'there's a feller which is a poet in this company. Wasn't that a ballad, Aubrey, that you pulled out of your pocket just now, among all those tailors' bills, or licences, or whatever they were? Let's have it.'
This was addressed to a fair-haired youngster who was arguing with great interest and eagerness the relative fattening merits of shorthorns and Herefords.
'Well, it's something in the scribbling line. If you want it, you must read it though; I'll be hanged if I will. Writing it has been quite bother enough.'
'Well,' said Maxwell, 'it's not every fellow who can read, or spell either, for the matter of that. I'll read it myself, sir; perhaps you may find the effect heightened. Now listen, you fellows; a little sentiment won't do none of us any harm. What's it called? H—m!
A VISION OF GOLD
'I see a lone stream rolling down
Through valleys green, by ridges brown,
Of hills that bear no name;
The dawn's full blush in crimson flakes
Is traced on palest blue, as breaks
The morn in orient flame.
'I see—whence comes that eager gaze?
Why rein the steed in wild amaze?
The water's hue is gold;
Golden its wavelets foam and glide
Through tenderest green—to ocean-tide
The fairy streamlet rolled.
'Forward, Hope, forward! truest steed,
Of tireless hoof and desert speed,
Up the weird water bound,
Till echoing far and sounding deep,
I hear old Ocean's hoarse voice sweep
O'er this enchanted ground.
'The sea! Wild fancy! Many a mile
Of changeful Nature's frown and smile,
Ere stand we on the shore;
And yet that murmur, hoarse and deep,
None save the ocean surges keep—
It is the cradles' roar!
'Onward! I pass the grassy hill
Around whose base the waters still
Shimmer in golden foam,
Oh! wanderer of the voiceless wild,
Of this far southern land the child,
How changed thy quiet home!
'For, close as bees in countless hive,
Like emmet-hosts that tireless strive,
Swarmed, toiled, a vast strange crowd;
Haggard each face's features seem,
Bright, fever-bright, each eye's wild gleam;
Nor cry, nor accent loud.
'But each man delved, or rocked, or bore
As if salvation with the ore
Of the mine-monarch lay;
Gold strung each arm to giant might,
Gold flashed before the aching sight,
Gold turned the night to day.
'Where Eblis reigns o'er boundless gloom,
And in his halls of endless doom
Lost souls for ever roam,
They wander (says the Eastern tale),
Nor ever startles moan or wail
Despair's eternal home.
'Less silent scarce than that pale host,
They toiled as if each moment lost
Were the red life-drop spilt;
While heavy, rough, and darkly bright,
In every shape rolled to the light
Man's hope, and pride, and guilt.
'All ranks, all ages, every land
Had sent her conscripts forth to stand
In the gold-seekers' rank;
The bushman, bronzed, with sinewy limb,
The pale-faced son of trade, e'en him
Who knew the fetters' clank.
' 'Tis night; her jewelled mantle fills
The busy valley, the dun hills,
'Tis a battle-host's repose;
A thousand watch-fires redly gleam,
Where ceaseless fusillades would seem
To warn approaching foes.
'The night is older. On the sward
Stretched, I behold the heavens broad
When, a Shape rises dim;
Then clearer, fuller, I descry
By the swart brow, the star-bright eye,
The gnome king's presence grim.
'He stands upon a time-worn block;
His dark form shrouds the snowy rock,
As cypress marble tomb;
Nor fierce, yet wild and sad his mien,
His cloud-black tresses wave and stream,
His deep tones break the gloom.
' "Son of a tribe accurst, of those
Whose greed has broken our repose
Of the long ages dead;
Think not for naught our ancient race
Quit olden haunts, the sacred place
Of toils for ever fled.
' "List while I tell of days to come,
When men shall wish the hammers dumb
That ring so ceaseless now—
That every arm were palsy-tied,
Nor ever wet on grey hillside
Was the gold-seeker's brow.
' "I see the old world's human tide
Set southward on the Ocean wide,
I see a wood of masts;
While crime and want, disease and death,
By rolling wave and storm-wind's breath
Are on these fair shores cast.
' "I see the murderer's barrel gleam,
I hear the victim's hopeless scream
Ring through these sylvan wastes:
While each base son of elder lands,
Each witless dastard, in vast bands,
To the gold city hastes.
' "Disease shall claim her ready toll,
Flushed vice and brutal crime the dole
Of life shall ne'er deny;
Disease and death shall walk your streets,
While staggering idiocy greets
The horror-stricken eye!
' "All men shall roll in the gold mire,
The height, the depth, of man's desire,
Till come the famine years;
Then all the land shall curse the day
When first they rifled the dull clay,
With deep remorseful tears.
' "Fell want shall wake to fearful life
The fettered demons; civil strife
Rears high a gory hand;
I see a blood-splashed barricade,
While dimly lights the twilight glade
The soldier's flashing brand.
' "But thou, son of the forest free!
Thou art not, wert not foe to me,
Frank tamer of the wild!
Thou hast not sought the sunless home
Where darkly delves the toiling gnome,
The mid-earth's swarthy child.
' "Then be thou ever, as of yore,
A dweller in the woods and o'er
Fresh plains thy herds shall roam;
Join not the vain and reckless crowd,
Who swell the city's pageant proud,
But prize thy forest home."
'He said; and with an eldritch scream
The gnome king vanished, and my dream—
Day's waking hour returned.
Yet still the wild tones echoed clear,
Half chimed with truth in reason's ear,
And my heart inly burned!'
'Well done, Maxwell, old fellow; didn't think you could read so well! I haven't been asleep above two or three times. I enjoyed it awfully. Particular down on us. Your underground friend, though, prophesies war, famine, and mixed immigration! Cheerful cuss!'
'Mr. Aubrey, will ye oblige me by coming before the curtain. It's proud I am to know ye. I have seen worse, sir, let me tell ye, in the pages of the Dublin University Magazine, where the name of Moore O'Donnell is not entirely unknown. I would like to repate to ye a short ode of my own on——'
'Rush oh! at Cockfighter's Flat,' burst in a new man—Markham—impetuously. 'That's all the talk now, my boys! They say the gold's thicker than the wash, shallow sinking, and lots of water. Jackson just told me; he's off there to-morrow to buy gold and go to Melbourne with it. I'm away, then. Any of you chaps join me?'
'I don't mind taking a look,' said Maxwell. 'I've half a mind to turn gold-buyer myself. It's a paying game.'
'It's an awfully risky one,' said Freshland. 'A man takes his life in his hand once he's known to carry gold. I know a fellow who started from here for Melbourne a fortnight since, and has never turned up.'
'Perhaps he's bolted,' suggested a cynic.
'Perhaps so,' answered Freshland carelessly; 'but if so, ​his wife, from her looks, they tell me, is not in the secret. I'm afraid it's the old story,' continued he, gazing mournfully into space. 'I know well how it's done. I can see it all as I sit here. A fellow goes stepping along the road through the Black Forest, whistling cheerfully and thinking of the ounces he has in his belt, or of what has gone down by the escort, of a piano for his wife, of the children who will have grown so, of the pleasant Christmas they will spend together, when, just where the creek crosses the road, One-eyed Dick and Derwent Bill step suddenly out.'
'" Morning, mates," says he, "fine weather after the rain."
'"Thundering fine," growls the one-eyed ruffian. "This yere's a fine day for us, anyhow. Done well at the Point, young chap?" As they talk they attempt grim jocularity, but their eyes, cold, sinister, watchful, betray their intent as they close upon him.
'"For the love of God, for my wife and children's sake, spare my life!" gasps the poor fellow; "you shall have every shilling I have in the world."
'"We ain't a-going to hurt ye. Just come off the road a bit, will yer?" says the crafty brute. Pah! I can't bear to think of it. Next summer some bullock-driver finds a skeleton lashed to a tree, in the thickest part of the scrub.'
'I say, Freshland,' I pleaded, 'don't. I've got a couple of miles to walk in the dark to-night. I think I'd rather hear that kind of story by daylight. But I must be off now. We tradesmen, you know! Good-bye.'
I walked back through scattered tents and darksome trees, moaning in the midnight, as the breeze swept through them. I was unable to banish Freshland's horrible tale from my mind, and was decidedly relieved when the yard of our encampment loomed into view. The cattle were lying down, Ben was smoking his pipe on guard, all was safe. Murderers and burglars were exercising their talents elsewhere. I was soon in a land where the mystery of permitted evil troubled me not.
My career at Ballarat was, however, drawing to a close. While we were transacting our al fresco breakfast, a 'real butcher' made his appearance with proposals for the purchase of my remaining cattle, and the collateral advantages of stock-in-trade, plant, and goodwill. 'Why had I not come to him ​in the first instance?' he asked with good-humoured surprise. Some accident had prevented me hearing of him. Mr. Garth laughed, and said he was in a small way compared to the others, with whom I had disagreed. I may say here, that it would be hard to pass through the populous, wealthy, energetic city of Ballarat now, without hearing much about Mr. Garth, owner of farms, mills, hotels, mining companies, what not.
I was pleased with his frank, liberal way of dealing, and augured favourably of his future career. He was the ideal purchaser, at any rate. He adopted, without a word of dissent, my prices, terms, and conditions.
With the conclusion of breakfast the whole affair was arranged. The cattle-edifices, tools of trade, and journeyman butcher were delivered as per agreement; Charley was sent for the horses, Ben was ordered to pack, the route was given, and in an hour we had turned our backs upon Ballarat.
I sent Ben and Charley back to the station, presenting the former with a coveted brown filly, and the latter with a white cow, as good-conduct badges. They reached home safely, after a journey of a couple of hundred miles, a 'big drink' indulged in by Master Ben on the road notwithstanding.
For myself, I went to Melbourne, having business in that deserted village. I had much difficulty in getting my hair cut, by the only surviving barber. The site of my shanty and block now trembles under the traffic of a busy street. The 'lost camp' at Wendouree Lake is valuable suburban property. Steamers run there. Why did I not buy it? If I had taken that, and one or two other trifling long shots, I might have been living in London like Maxwell, or in Paris like Freshland, if a stray Prussian bullet has not interfered with his matchless digestion. However, why regret these or any seeming errors of the past? They are but a few more added to the roll of opportunities, gone with our heedless youth, and with the hours of that 'distant Paradise,' lost for evermore.