The Golden Graveyard.
Mother Middleton was an awful woman, an 'old hand' (transported convict)some said. The prefix 'mother' in Australia mostly means 'old hag',and is applied in that sense. In early boyhood we understood, fromold diggers, that Mother Middleton--in common with most other 'oldhands'--had been sent out for 'knocking a donkey off a hen-roost.' Wehad never seen a donkey. She drank like a fish and swore like a trooperwhen the spirit moved her; she went on periodical sprees, and swore onmost occasions. There was a fearsome yarn, which impressed us greatlyas boys, to the effect that once, in her best (or worst) days, she hadpulled a mounted policeman off his horse, and half-killed him with aheavy pick-handle, which she used for poking down clothes in her boiler.She said that he had insulted her.
She could still knock down a tree and cut a load of firewood with anyBushman; she was square and muscular, with arms like a navvy's; she hadoften worked shifts, below and on top, with her husband, when he'd beputting down a prospecting shaft without a mate, as he often had todo--because of her mainly. Old diggers said that it was lovely to seehow she'd spin up a heavy green-hide bucket full of clay and 'tailings',and land and empty it with a twist of her wrist. Most men were afraid ofher, and few diggers' wives were strong-minded enough to seek a secondrow with Mother Middleton. Her voice could be heard right across GoldenGully and Specimen Flat, whether raised in argument or in friendlygreeting. She came to the old Pipeclay diggings with the 'rough crowd'(mostly Irish), and when the old and new Pipeclays were worked out, shewent with the rush to Gulgong (about the last of the great alluvial or'poor-man's' goldfields) and came back to Pipeclay when the Log Paddockgoldfield 'broke out', adjacent to the old fields, and so helped provethe truth of the old digger's saying, that no matter how thoroughlyground has been worked, there is always room for a new Ballarat.
Jimmy Middleton died at Log Paddock, and was buried, about the last,in the little old cemetery--appertaining to the old farming town on theriver, about four miles away--which adjoined the district racecourse, inthe Bush, on the far edge of Specimen Flat. She conducted the funeral.Some said she made the coffin, and there were alleged jokes to theeffect that her tongue had provided the corpse; but this, I think, wasunfair and cruel, for she loved Jimmy Middleton in her awful way, andwas, for all I ever heard to the contrary, a good wife to him. She thenlived in a hut in Log Paddock, on a little money in the bank, and didsewing and washing for single diggers.
I remember hearing her one morning in neighbourly conversation, carriedon across the gully, with a selector, Peter Olsen, who was hopelesslyslaving to farm a dusty patch in the scrub.
'Why don't you chuck up that dust-hole and go up country and settle ongood land, Peter Olsen? You're only slaving your stomach out here.' (Shedidn't say stomach.)
*Peter Olsen* (mild-whiskered little man, afraid of his wife). 'But thenyou know my wife is so delicate, Mrs Middleton. I wouldn't like to takeher out in the Bush.'
*Mrs Middleton*. 'Delicate, be damned! she's only shamming!' (at herloudest.) 'Why don't you kick her off the bed and the book out of herhand, and make her go to work? She's as delicate as I am. Are you a man,Peter Olsen, or a----?'
This for the edification of the wife and of all within half a mile.
Long Paddock was 'petering'. There were a few claims still being workeddown at the lowest end, where big, red-and-white waste-heaps of clay andgravel, rising above the blue-grey gum-bushes, advertised deep sinking;and little, yellow, clay-stained streams, running towards the creek overthe drought-parched surface, told of trouble with the water below--timelost in baling and extra expense in timbering. And diggers came up withtheir flannels and moleskins yellow and heavy, and dripping with wet'mullock'.
Most of the diggers had gone to other fields, but there were a fewprospecting, in parties and singly, out on the flats and amongst theridges round Pipeclay. Sinking holes in search of a new Ballarat.
Dave Regan--lanky, easy-going Bush native; Jim Bently--a bit of a 'FlashJack'; and Andy Page--a character like what 'Kit' (in the 'Old CuriosityShop') might have been after a voyage to Australia and some Colonialexperience. These three were mates from habit and not necessity, forit was all shallow sinking where they worked. They were poking downpot-holes in the scrub in the vicinity of the racecourse, where thesinking was from ten to fifteen feet.
Dave had theories--'ideers' or 'notions' he called them; Jim Bently laidclaim to none--he ran by sight, not scent, like a kangaroo-dog. AndyPage--by the way, great admirer and faithful retainer of Dave Regan--wassimple and trusting, but, on critical occasions, he was apt to beobstinately, uncomfortably, exasperatingly truthful, honest, and he hadreverence for higher things.
Dave thought hard all one quiet drowsy Sunday afternoon, and nextmorning he, as head of the party, started to sink a hole as close to thecemetery fence as he dared. It was a nice quiet spot in the thick scrub,about three panels along the fence from the farthest corner postfrom the road. They bottomed here at nine feet, and found encouragingindications. They 'drove' (tunnelled) inwards at right angles to thefence, and at a point immediately beneath it they were 'making tucker';a few feet farther and they were making wages. The old alluvial bottomsloped gently that way. The bottom here, by the way, was shelving,brownish, rotten rock.
Just inside the cemetery fence, and at right angles to Dave's drive,lay the shell containing all that was left of the late fiercely lamentedJames Middleton, with older graves close at each end. A gravewas supposed to be six feet deep, and local gravediggers had beenconscientious. The old alluvial bottom sloped from nine to fifteen feethere.
Dave worked the ground all round from the bottom of his shaft,timbering--i.e., putting in a sapling prop--here and there where heworked wide; but the 'payable dirt' ran in under the cemetery, and in noother direction.
Dave, Jim, and Andy held a consultation in camp over their pipesafter tea, as a result of which Andy next morning rolled up his swag,sorrowfully but firmly shook hands with Dave and Jim, and started totramp Out-Back to look for work on a sheep-station.
This was Dave's theory--drawn from a little experience and many longyarns with old diggers:--
He had bottomed on a slope to an old original water-course, covered withclay and gravel from the hills by centuries of rains to the depth offrom nine or ten to twenty feet; he had bottomed on a gutter runninginto the bed of the old buried creek, and carrying patches and streaksof 'wash' or gold-bearing dirt. If he went on he might strike it richat any stroke of his pick; he might strike the rich 'lead' which wassupposed to exist round there. (There was always supposed to be a richlead round there somewhere. 'There's gold in them ridges yet--if a mancan only git at it,' says the toothless old relic of the Roaring Days.)
Dave might strike a ledge, 'pocket', or 'pot-hole' holding wash richwith gold. He had prospected on the opposite side of the cemetery, foundno gold, and the bottom sloping upwards towards the graveyard. He hadprospected at the back of the cemetery, found a few 'colours', and thebottom sloping downwards towards the point under the cemetery towardswhich all indications were now leading him. He had sunk shafts acrossthe road opposite the cemetery frontage and found the sinking twentyfeet and not a colour of gold. Probably the whole of the ground underthe cemetery was rich--maybe the richest in the district. The oldgravediggers had not been gold-diggers--besides, the graves, being sixfeet, would, none of them, have touched the alluvial bottom. Therewas nothing strange in the fact that none of the crowd of experienceddiggers who rushed the district had thought of the cemetery andracecourse. Old brick chimneys and houses, the clay for the bricks ofwhich had been taken from sites of subsequent goldfields, had been putthrough the crushing-mill in subsequent years and had yielded 'payablegold'. Fossicking Chinamen were said to have been the first to detect acase of this kind.
Dave reckoned to strike the 'lead', or a shelf or ledge with a goodstreak of wash lying along it, at a point about forty feet within thecemetery. But a theory in alluvial gold-mining was much like a theoryin gambling, in some re
spects. The theory might be right enough, but oldvolcanic disturbances--'the shrinkage of the earth's surface,' and thatsort of old thing--upset everything. You might follow good gold alonga ledge, just under the grass, till it suddenly broke off and thecontinuation might be a hundred feet or so under your nose.
Had the 'ground' in the cemetery been 'open' Dave would have gone to thepoint under which he expected the gold to lie, sunk a shaft there, andworked the ground. It would have been the quickest and easiest way--itwould have saved the labour and the time lost in dragging heavy bucketsof dirt along a low lengthy drive to the shaft outside the fence. Butit was very doubtful if the Government could have been moved to openthe cemetery even on the strongest evidence of the existence of a richgoldfield under it, and backed by the influence of a number of diggersand their backers--which last was what Dave wished for least of all. Hewanted, above all things, to keep the thing shady. Then, again, the oldclannish local spirit of the old farming town, rooted in years way backof the goldfields, would have been too strong for the Government, oreven a rush of wild diggers.
'We'll work this thing on the strict Q.T.,' said Dave.
He and Jim had a consultation by the camp fire outside their tent. Jimgrumbled, in conclusion,--
'Well, then, best go under Jimmy Middleton. It's the shortest andstraightest, and Jimmy's the freshest, anyway.'
Then there was another trouble. How were they to account for the size ofthe waste-heap of clay on the surface which would be the result of suchan extraordinary length of drive or tunnel for shallow sinkings? Davehad an idea of carrying some of the dirt away by night and putting itdown a deserted shaft close by; but that would double the labour, andmight lead to detection sooner than anything else. There were boys'possum-hunting on those flats every night. Then Dave got an idea.
There was supposed to exist--and it has since been proved--another, asecond gold-bearing alluvial bottom on that field, and several had triedfor it. One, the town watchmaker, had sunk all his money in 'duffers',trying for the second bottom. It was supposed to exist at a depthof from eighty to a hundred feet--on solid rock, I suppose. Thiswatchmaker, an Italian, would put men on to sink, and superintend inperson, and whenever he came to a little 'colour'-showing shelf, orfalse bottom, thirty or forty feet down--he'd go rooting round and spoilthe shaft, and then start to sink another. It was extraordinary thathe hadn't the sense to sink straight down, thoroughly test the secondbottom, and if he found no gold there, to fill the shaft up to the otherbottoms, or build platforms at the proper level and then explore them.He was living in a lunatic asylum the last time I heard of him. And thelast time I heard from that field, they were boring the ground like asieve, with the latest machinery, to find the best place to put down adeep shaft, and finding gold from the second bottom on the bore. But I'mright off the line again.
'Old Pinter', Ballarat digger--his theory on second and other bottomsran as follows:--
'Ye see, THIS here grass surface--this here surface with trees an' grasson it, that we're livin' on, has got nothin' to do with us. This herebottom in the shaller sinkin's that we're workin' on is the slope to thebed of the NEW crick that was on the surface about the time that men wasmissin' links. The false bottoms, thirty or forty feet down, kin be saidto have been on the surface about the time that men was monkeys. TheSECON' bottom--eighty or a hundred feet down--was on the surface aboutthe time when men was frogs. Now----'
But it's with the missing-link surface we have to do, and had thefriends of the local departed known what Dave and Jim were up to theywould have regarded them as something lower than missing-links.
'We'll give out we're tryin' for the second bottom,' said Dave Regan.'We'll have to rig a fan for air, anyhow, and you don't want air inshallow sinkings.'
'And some one will come poking round, and look down the hole and see thebottom,' said Jim Bently.
'We must keep 'em away,' said Dave. 'Tar the bottom, or cover it withtarred canvas, to make it black. Then they won't see it. There's notmany diggers left, and the rest are going; they're chucking up theclaims in Log Paddock. Besides, I could get drunk and pick rows with therest and they wouldn't come near me. The farmers ain't in love withus diggers, so they won't bother us. No man has a right to come pokinground another man's claim: it ain't ettykit--I'll root up that oldettykit and stand to it--it's rather worn out now, but that's no matter.We'll shift the tent down near the claim and see that no one comesnosing round on Sunday. They'll think we're only some more second-bottomlunatics, like Francea [the mining watchmaker]. We're going to get ourfortune out from under that old graveyard, Jim. You leave it all to metill you're born again with brains.'
Dave's schemes were always elaborate, and that was why they so oftencame to the ground. He logged up his windlass platform a little higher,bent about eighty feet of rope to the bole of the windlass, which was anew one, and thereafter, whenever a suspicious-looking party (that isto say, a digger) hove in sight, Dave would let down about forty feet ofrope and then wind, with simulated exertion, until the slack was takenup and the rope lifted the bucket from the shallow bottom.
'It would look better to have a whip-pole and a horse, but we can'tafford them just yet,' said Dave.
But I'm a little behind. They drove straight in under the cemetery,finding good wash all the way. The edge of Jimmy Middleton's boxappeared in the top corner of the 'face' (the working end) of the drive.They went under the butt-end of the grave. They shoved up the end of theshell with a prop, to prevent the possibility of an accident which mightdisturb the mound above; they puddled--i.e., rammed--stiff clay up roundthe edges to keep the loose earth from dribbling down; and having giventhe bottom of the coffin a good coat of tar, they got over, or ratherunder, an unpleasant matter.
Jim Bently smoked and burnt paper during his shift below, and grumbled agood deal. 'Blowed if I ever thought I'd be rooting for gold down amongthe blanky dead men,' he said. But the dirt panned out better everydish they washed, and Dave worked the 'wash' out right and left as theydrove.
But, one fine morning, who should come along but the very last manwhom Dave wished to see round there--'Old Pinter' (James Poynton),Californian and Victorian digger of the old school. He'd beenprospecting down the creek, carried his pick over his shoulder--threadedthrough the eye in the heft of his big-bladed, short-handled shovel thathung behind--and his gold-dish under his arm.
I mightn't get a chance again to explain what a gold-dish and whatgold-washing is. A gold washing-dish is a flat dish--nearer the shapeof a bedroom bath-tub than anything else I have seen in England, or thedish we used for setting milk--I don't know whether the same is usedhere: the gold-dish measures, say, eighteen inches across the top. Youget it full of wash dirt, squat down at a convenient place at the edgeof the water-hole, where there is a rest for the dish in the water justbelow its own depth. You sink the dish and let the clay and gravel soaka while, then you work and rub it up with your hands, and as the claydissolves, dish it off as muddy water or mullock. You are careful towash the pebbles in case there is any gold sticking to them. And so tillall the muddy or clayey matter is gone, and there is nothing but cleangravel in the bottom of the dish. You work this off carefully, turningthe dish about this way and that and swishing the water round in it. Itrequires some practice. The gold keeps to the bottom of the dish, byits own weight. At last there is only a little half-moon of sand or finegravel in the bottom lower edge of the dish--you work the dish slantingfrom you. Presently the gold, if there was any in the dirt, appears in'colours', grains, or little nuggets along the base of the half-moon ofsand. The more gold there is in the dirt, or the coarser the gold is,the sooner it appears. A practised digger can work off the last speck ofgravel, without losing a 'colour', by just working the water round andoff in the dish. Also a careful digger could throw a handful of goldin a tub of dirt, and, washing it off in dishfuls, recover practicallyevery colour.
The gold-washing 'cradle' is a box, shaped something like a boot, andthe size of a travelling trunk, with
rockers on, like a baby's cradle,and a stick up behind for a handle; on top, where you'll put your footinto the boot, is a tray with a perforated iron bottom; the clay andgravel is thrown on the tray, water thrown on it, and the cradle rockedsmartly. The finer gravel and the mullock goes through and down over asloping board covered with blanket, and with ledges on it to catch thegold. The dish was mostly used for prospecting; large quantities of washdirt was put through the horse-power 'puddling-machine', which thereisn't room to describe here.
''Ello, Dave!' said Pinter, after looking with mild surprise at the sizeof Dave's waste-heap. 'Tryin' for the second bottom?'
'Yes,' said Dave, guttural.
Pinter dropped his tools with a clatter at the foot of the waste-heapand scratched under his ear like an old cockatoo, which bird heresembled. Then he went to the windlass, and resting his hands on hisknees, he peered down, while Dave stood by helpless and hopeless.
Pinter straightened himself, blinking like an owl, and looked carelesslyover the graveyard.
'Tryin' for a secon' bottom,' he reflected absently. 'Eh, Dave?'
Dave only stood and looked black.
Pinter tilted back his head and scratched the roots of hischin-feathers, which stuck out all round like a dirty, ragged fan heldhorizontally.
'Kullers is safe,' reflected Pinter.
'All right?' snapped Dave. 'I suppose we must let him into it.'
'Kullers' was a big American buck nigger, and had been Pinter's mate forsome time--Pinter was a man of odd mates; and what Pinter meant was thatKullers was safe to hold his tongue.
Next morning Pinter and his coloured mate appeared on the ground early,Pinter with some tools and the nigger with a windlass-bole on hisshoulders. Pinter chose a spot about three panels or thirty feet alongthe other fence, the back fence of the cemetery, and started his hole.He lost no time for the sake of appearances, he sunk his shaft andstarted to drive straight for the point under the cemetery for whichDave was making; he gave out that he had bottomed on good 'indications'running in the other direction, and would work the ground outside thefence. Meanwhile Dave rigged a fan--partly for the sake of appearances,but mainly because his and Jim's lively imaginations made the air in thedrive worse than it really was. A 'fan' is a thing like a paddle-wheelrigged in a box, about the size of a cradle, and something the shape ofa shoe, but rounded over the top. There is a small grooved wheel on theaxle of the fan outside, and an endless line, like a clothes-line, iscarried over this wheel and a groove in the edge of a high light woodendriving-wheel rigged between two uprights in the rear and with a handleto turn. That's how the thing is driven. A wind-chute, like an endlesspillow-slip, made of calico, with the mouth tacked over the open toe ofthe fan-box, and the end taken down the shaft and along the drive--thiscarries the fresh air into the workings.
Dave was working the ground on each side as he went, when one morninga thought struck him that should have struck him the day Pinter went towork. He felt mad that it hadn't struck him sooner.
Pinter and Kullers had also shifted their tent down into a nice quietplace in the Bush close handy; so, early next Sunday morning, whilePinter and Kullers were asleep, Dave posted Jim Bently to watch theirtent, and whistle an alarm if they stirred, and then dropped down intoPinter's hole and saw at a glance what he was up to.
After that Dave lost no time: he drove straight on, encouraged by thethuds of Pinter's and Kullers' picks drawing nearer. They would strikehis tunnel at right angles. Both parties worked long hours, onlyknocking off to fry a bit of steak in the pan, boil the billy, and throwthemselves dressed on their bunks to get a few hours' sleep. Pinter hadpractical experience and a line clear of graves, and he made good time.The two parties now found it more comfortable to be not on speakingterms. Individually they grew furtive, and began to feel criminallike--at least Dave and Jim did. They'd start if a horse stumbledthrough the Bush, and expected to see a mounted policeman ride up atany moment and hear him ask questions. They had driven about thirty-fivefeet when, one Saturday afternoon, the strain became too great, and Daveand Jim got drunk. The spree lasted over Sunday, and on Monday morningthey felt too shaky to come to work and had more drink. On Mondayafternoon, Kullers, whose shift it was below, stuck his pick through theface of his drive into the wall of Dave's, about four feet from the endof it: the clay flaked away, leaving a hole as big as a wash-hand basin.They knocked off for the day and decided to let the other party take theoffensive.
Tuesday morning Dave and Jim came to work, still feeling shaky. Jimwent below, crawled along the drive, lit his candle, and stuck it in thespiked iron socket and the spike in the wall of the drive, quite closeto the hole, without noticing either the hole or the increased freshnessin the air. He started picking away at the 'face' and scraping the clayback from under his feet, and didn't hear Kullers come to work. Kullerscame in softly and decided to try a bit of cheerful bluff. He stuck hisgreat round black face through the hole, the whites of his eyes rollinghorribly in the candle-light, and said, with a deep guffaw--
''Ullo! you dar'?'
No bandicoot ever went into his hole with the dogs after him quickerthan Jim came out of his. He scrambled up the shaft by the foot-holes,and sat on the edge of the waste-heap, looking very pale.
'What's the matter?' asked Dave. 'Have you seen a ghost?'
'I've seen the--the devil!' gasped Jim. 'I'm--I'm done with this hereghoul business.'
The parties got on speaking terms again. Dave was very warm, but Jim'slanguage was worse. Pinter scratched his chin-feathers reflectively tillthe other party cooled. There was no appealing to the Commissioner forgoldfields; they were outside all law, whether of the goldfields orotherwise--so they did the only thing possible and sensible, they joinedforces and became 'Poynton, Regan, & Party'. They agreed to work theground from the separate shafts, and decided to go ahead, irrespectiveof appearances, and get as much dirt out and cradled as possible beforethe inevitable exposure came along. They found plenty of 'payable dirt',and soon the drive ended in a cluster of roomy chambers. They timberedup many coffins of various ages, burnt tarred canvas and brownpaper, and kept the fan going. Outside they paid the storekeeper withdifficulty and talked of hard times.
But one fine sunny morning, after about a week of partnership, they gota bad scare. Jim and Kullers were below, getting out dirt for all theywere worth, and Pinter and Dave at their windlasses, when who shouldmarch down from the cemetery gate but Mother Middleton herself. She wasa hard woman to look at. She still wore the old-fashioned crinoline andher hair in a greasy net; and on this as on most other sober occasions,she wore the expression of a rough Irish navvy who has just enough drinkto make him nasty and is looking out for an excuse for a row. She hada stride like a grenadier. A digger had once measured her step by herfootprints in the mud where she had stepped across a gutter: it measuredthree feet from toe to heel.
She marched to the grave of Jimmy Middleton, laid a dingy bunch offlowers thereon, with the gesture of an angry man banging his fist downon the table, turned on her heel, and marched out. The diggers were dirtbeneath her feet. Presently they heard her drive on in her spring-carton her way into town, and they drew breaths of relief.
It was afternoon. Dave and Pinter were feeling tired, and were justdeciding to knock off work for that day when they heard a scuffling inthe direction of the different shafts, and both Jim and Kullers droppeddown and bundled in in a great hurry. Jim chuckled in a silly way, as ifthere was something funny, and Kullers guffawed in sympathy.
'What's up now?' demanded Dave apprehensively.
'Mother Middleton,' said Jim; 'she's blind mad drunk, and she's got abottle in one hand and a new pitchfork in the other, that she's bringingout for some one.'
'How the hell did she drop to it?' exclaimed Pinter.
'Dunno,' said Jim. 'Anyway she's coming for us. Listen to her!'
They didn't have to listen hard. The language which came down theshaft--they weren't sure which one--and along the drives was enough toscare up th
e dead and make them take to the Bush.
'Why didn't you fools make off into the Bush and give us a chance,instead of giving her a lead here?' asked Dave.
Jim and Kullers began to wish they had done so.
Mrs Middleton began to throw stones down the shaft--it was Pinter's--andthey, even the oldest and most anxious, began to grin in spite ofthemselves, for they knew she couldn't hurt them from the surface, andthat, though she had been a working digger herself, she couldn't fillboth shafts before the fumes of liquor overtook her.
'I wonder which shaf' she'll come down,' asked Kullers in a tonebefitting the place and occasion.
'You'd better go and watch your shaft, Pinter,' said Dave, 'and Jim andI'll watch mine.'
'I--I won't,' said Pinter hurriedly. 'I'm--I'm a modest man.'
Then they heard a clang in the direction of Pinter's shaft.
'She's thrown her bottle down,' said Dave.
Jim crawled along the drive a piece, urged by curiosity, and returnedhurriedly.
'She's broke the pitchfork off short, to use in the drive, and I believeshe's coming down.'
'Her crinoline'll handicap her,' said Pinter vacantly, 'that's acomfort.'
'She's took it off!' said Dave excitedly; and peering along Pinter'sdrive, they saw first an elastic-sided boot, then a red-stripedstocking, then a section of scarlet petticoat.
'Lemme out!' roared Pinter, lurching forward and making a swimmingmotion with his hands in the direction of Dave's drive. Kullerswas already gone, and Jim well on the way. Dave, lanky and awkward,scrambled up the shaft last. Mrs Middleton made good time, consideringshe had the darkness to face and didn't know the workings, and when Davereached the top he had a tear in the leg of his moleskins, and the bloodran from a nasty scratch. But he didn't wait to argue over the price ofa new pair of trousers. He made off through the Bush in the direction ofan encouraging whistle thrown back by Jim.
'She's too drunk to get her story listened to to-night,' said Dave. 'Butto-morrow she'll bring the neighbourhood down on us.'
'And she's enough, without the neighbourhood,' reflected Pinter.
Some time after dark they returned cautiously, reconnoitred their camp,and after hiding in a hollow log such things as they couldn't carry,they rolled up their tents like the Arabs, and silently stole away.