Why, there ‘re tears in your eyes, child! Don’t cry; I am old now and some of the bitterness has gone. One doesn’t understand why the good Lord should let life be so bitter for some of us, but I suppose it is for some good reason, only--only, you see it was another man’s wickedness spoiled my life. Yes, yes, I know there was foul play. Dick Stanton rushed his horse down on Boatman like that, just to spoil his chance of the race, and many there were who thought as I did; but who could prove it? No, I don’t think even now he meant to kill him.
But there--there is my story, Hope. It is many a long day since I told it. You wanted to know why I am an old maid; you understand now, don’t you, dear. I couldn’t have married anybody else, how could I? But don’t be an old maid, Hope, it is a dreary life--a lonely, hopeless life, and--
Yes, I thought so. Willie Maclean coming up the path. What, blushing, child, or is it my old eyes deceive me? Run away then and bring him in here. I knew his father in the old days, before the Yanyilla Steeplechase was lost and won.
It was on the Tinpot Gully diggings, now known to fame by a far more euphonious title, that early in the fifties I spent my first Christmas in Australia. There were all sorts and conditions of men there, men from every nation and every class. Englishmen and Italians, Russians and Portuguese, Persians, Chinamen, and negroes, sons of peers and London pickpockets, all rubbed shoulders on the Tinpot Gully diggings. But they came naturally enough to me in those days. At one and twenty nothing astonishes one, and I took things as I found them, and questioned not, and barely wondered at the mixed company in which I found myself. Very peaceful looked the scene as I stood at my tent door, or rather curtain, and surveyed it thus early in the morning. All the camp was sleeping. Most of the diggers had made a night of it the night before in anticipation of the holiday, and now were sleeping off the effects, so that I had it all to myself, and spite of the havoc wrought by the diggers, the gully was pretty still. We were all camped on the flat that bordered the banks of the creek, and away beyond on all sides stretched the hills, standing out clearly now in the brilliant morning sunlight, range upon range, in a series of blue ridges, till they faded away in the bluer distance. The Union Jack--emblem of authority-floated from the staff in front of the Commissioner’s tent, and from my outlook I could see the sunlight gleaming on the carbines of the troopers who stood sentry over the gold tent, and digger as I was, and sworn foe to all troopers, the sunbeams on those carbine barrels gave me a comfortable sense of security, for (for the first time in our diggings’ experience) my mate and I had lodged a little chamois leather bag full of gold dust and small nuggets--part of the fortune which we trusted in days to come was to take us back to the old land--with the Commissioner, and I was glad to feel in those wild times that he was fully alive to the nature of his trust. Having satisfied myself as to the safety of my property, I re-entered the tent and roused out my mate.