Original Sale.

Otago Witness, Issue 586, 21 February 1863, Page 6

Original Sale.

THE LIFE AN T D ADVENTURES OF

CHAPTER XL.

ClililSTOrilElt CONGLETON.

I-ILLY TKOTT'o TTOr.Y.

'•In ih o parly day 3a? gold-di.-ginor" commenced Lilly 'Trott (whose hngua-c, I may heru remark, I hi\e somewhat corrected in this narrative), -'I nvan in tlie first few months, when men scarcely knew if tln-y stood mi theii- Ik .ids or their heels, and when the whole colony was mad enough to he cribbed and gagged, there were many q-ieer things done which will never come to light. Men stir ted for the diggings and were never heard of again. They were scarcely missed Friends and family they had none ; their very Harms were often fictitious ; and indeed there was no time to hunt them up, or to discover if thy were dead or alive. Two mates would go on a prospecting tour; months would elapse, and one of them would be found working in some of the gullies in Bendigo or Ballarat ; of the other nothing more was ever seen on earth. It is not at all an uncommon thing for diggers • o find human bones at the bottom of dtserted claims; claims that have not been touched fora twelvemonth perhaps, and bones whose identity it is impossible to trace. Sometimes they find a rusty pick in the claim with human hair and blood sticking to it, the weapon with which a foul murder has been committed.

"I remember " continued Lilly Trott, nursing his knees and looking as much like a hedgehog as possible, " the first time I heard of the cold-diggings. We were camping near the Porcupine, Sandy Jim, German Alf, and me. The country was ragged enough at that time I can tell you. No mutton or tea to be bought for love or money. We had neither love or money, so we had been compelled to help ourselves from a sta'iou hard by, and after tying up the overseer and one or two women, slaughtered a sheep, made up a little assortment of flour, tea and sugir, and then made tracks as fast ns we could with our boots'. German Alf wanted to ill-use the women, and I had to thrcifen to shoot him before he would desist. Sandy Jim, too, swore he would rip him in two if he wasn't quiet, and the pair of us got him off without any mischief being done. lie was a tarnation th'ef svas German Alf," mused Liliy, " as black hearted a vilhin as ever breathed. But the devil's got tight bold of him. that's one consolation." With which consoling remark Lilly re-liaied his pipe and proceeded. '• We were tucking into our mutton and damper when a horseman rushed through the bush, and almost sent us flung. We weie up directly, and the next in«tant my friend was on the g ound roaring for mercy. We only did this in self-defence, you know, and in self-defence we thought it necessary to search him, for fear lie should have any loaled weapons upon him. Sure enough, we did find a neat little revolver, a bowie knife, and a small bag full of yellow metal, which looked like lirajw.

'"Hullo, mate!' exclaims Sandy Jim. 'wlvit the devil do you carry brass about you for ?'

'• Bras* !' streams out tin simpleton ; 'it's as much hm-s os you are. It's sold : that's

what it i? ; v's gold !'

'•I have always thought flic fellow wai mid. ami Ido b Wc\ ebe wns. But, imd or not, he would have been a dead man m a very short time if it had not been lor me ; for German Alt had thrown him,df on the p')or fell >w at the firsf mention of gold, and was pre-sing the life out of him. He was a de 'il was Germ in Alf. You were never sufe with him. lie would conic Ix-hi .d you, and throttle you without a word of warning, nnl smoke his pipe afterward-, as cool as you like. I hud to huif him pretty closely before I could get hin off, and when he did It-t go he wa-5 almost back in the face. You see, I ain't over particular myself, but the fellow h-ui never done me a=iy harm, and beside [ wanted to get out of him where he found the gold. Upon our promising that we would not hurt him, he told us that he (jot it in Rendigo, that there were about a hundred people there digging up as much as they could carry, and that we could get a ton of it if we liked.

" Yon may guess how excited we were. We determined to start off at once, and made our new mate accompany us. He refused to do so at first, but when we threatened to murder him, and, indeed, had a rope round his neck, he changed his mind and led the way. "We went a little off the track to steal sone tools from a station, nnd succeeded in getting two shovels and a pick. Well, we got up there all right, and although we could not get a ton of gold, we managed to do very well. The place we were working in was called Murdering Flat, and some of the claims were very" rich. There were lots of gullies and flats about being worked, and there being at first but few diggers, there wa=s not much squabbling about the ground. There wan Jackass Flat, Deid Man's Gully, Starvation Point, and any number of queer named j pkces. We washed out a hundred and twenty ounces from one bucket of dirt, and if I had not been a mad headed ibol I might have made my fortune. But we got drinking and knocking our money about, and laying foolish wages. We all of us thought the gold would never run out, and all sorts of (ales would be told about some places in the interior of the country where it would he found in lir^e lumps. For my part I did not pay much heed to these stories. I had led a hard life of it in the bush for a good many years, and had made up my mind to go to Melbourne for a spree. We used of a night to a-semble at a shanty called the " Go-a-head Restaurant," and drink ourselves blind, very often winding up with a fight, in which knives would be used, and some u^ly wounds given. Lucky diggers would play poker and cribbige and eucre for ounces of gold, and hundrifd^ and th >usands of pounds would often ba lost and won. One night we wrre sitting down drinkinsr, and some one was telling a story of having t.tlkel with an aboriginal, who had pointed to the interior of the country, an 1 stated in outbndish lingo that " white mm wnuli find plenty yellow stuff there.' Instantly there started forth a dozen loquacious tongues, relating the mo«t marvellous stories of big lumps of gold King in | gullies hundreds of miles away. Nobody j asked how the knowledge was gnine 1, but everyone believed that they were to be had tor the picking up by any adventurous individuals who would b-ave the dangers of the bush. Sandy Jim and German Alt were tremendously excited, and as we walked to our tent that night, German Alf tried to persuade me all he could to start on a prospecting tour to find thuse wonderful diggings. I wns determined, however, to go to Melbourne for a spree, and proposed that tho threa of as should nuke tra :ks for that city, s; end a fortnight there, and then start off to the interior. No ; they would not think of it. German Alf was determined not to stay another day. Sandy Jim was of his opinion. Po we divided our gold and dissolved the firm. We had nearly three hundred ounces each. The next morniiu I was off to Melbourne, with my gold in a belt round my waist, and German Alf aud Sandy Jim started for miggctfy gilly in the dead of night, for fear they should be followed. I was not sorry to part from German Alf; he was too treacherous for me. But 1 did regret parting irom Old Sandy Jim. We had shared many dangers together, and he had always stood to me like a man. We were once pretty well starved, too, the pair of us; I believe another hour would have cooked us. That sort of thing- binds fellows to each other, you know, We did not whimper when we parted, but leave him an old match box I had had for a dozen years, and he gave me a knife-— a firs! rate JOoyqy— mi >y§ bade, e^h o&w

good bye, as if we were to meet the next morning. I never saw him again, alive."

Here Lilly Trott stopped for a few seconds and meditate-).

" Lor.) !"' he presently resumed " Melbourne u-a.t a mad place in tho's^ time*. Such drinking ! rfueh fquandering of money! such lying, such swearing, su<-h thieving, such villainy, were never before seen congregated in so small a compass. Dociors say that everybody's mad, more or less; and everybody was as mad as po-8 ; ble in those days in Melbourne I had lots of money ; so I put up at the biggest hotel there, aui drank champagne for breakfast and dinner, as mad ns the rest of the <boX And as it was the fashion then, and lots of diggers that I knew did it, I got married."

1 lere Lilly Trott made another pause, and gave me one of his queer looks. " You was never married. Tom, was you?" he asked.

"Xo, ma' ey," replied Long Tom, laconically, «tretchin » his long limbs. "Take my advice, then," said Lilly, and never do. 'Specially never mairry a girl you don't know. She was a stunner,"though, was Rattling Bet. She would'nt get married in anything but white satin, and she insisted on being drore through Melbourne in a carriage and four. She got blind drunk on the wedding day, but as I got blind drunk too, I hadn't much to grumble at." There was such a spice of humor in Lilly's voice that I laughed aloud.

" Ah, that's right governor," said he briskly. "I oiten laugh at it myself when I think of it. Good Lord ! Ido believe that girl was married twenty times. Of course I didn't know it at the time. I only knew she was a stunning big girl, with eyes as black as cherries, and hair down to her waist. If she had been born in a tin-top family she'd have been a beauty, she would. She pretended to be in love with my whistling, but all she wanted was my nuggets. And she got 'em too. We had been married three days— l wouldn't swear it wasn't three weeks, for I was drinking day and night, and wasn't sober a minute— when I was brought to my senses by being told that Hattling Bet had rattlfd off with another lucky digger, and had considerately taken wi h her the best part of my nuggets. The remainder of them I spent in endeavoring to track her, without success, though ; for s-he had sloped off to the Sydney side, and I hal my own particular reasons for not showing myself that side of the water. I soon gave up the hunt, and went hack to Murdering Flat, but the best of the cold was gone. I could just make tuike--, and that was all. I went to Jacka«s Flat, Dead Man's Gully, Starvation Point, the Crooked Billet Ranges, and lots of other places ; but, although I got «i bit of a patch now then, I only managed to rub along. I had never heard anything of German Alf or Sandy Jim, and had almost forgotten them, when, about fifteen months afterwards, I conies plump upon German Alf at a new rush about thirty miles from Bendigo. " ' Halio, Alf !' exclaims I, glad to see an old imte, although f did not like him. ' How is it shaping, mite ?' "' MeinGot! Leely! 1 says the d— d scoundrel, miking as though he could jump out of his ekin with delijiht, although I knew he would hive poisoned me if he could. " With thatie takes my arm. and off we gn to h ive a nobbier. When I iiskecl him abaut Sindy Jim, he told me in a sharp, hurried manner, that thfy hal not been able to a-rree, and had parted. I was not surptiscd to hear this, but I wag surprised to hear that Sandy Jim had gone homo. He had often told me that he moint to die in this country, and that he would not go home if he had a thousand a year. German Alf, it appears, lnd been doing very well, had got a good claim on the new rush, and confid-d to me his intention of returning to Vaterland when his claim waa worked out. With that we pulled out our pipes for the purpose of having a smoke."

"Do you know," resunud Lilly Trott, philosophically, after a short pause. " that a very great deal often comes out of a very little. Jf German Alf hadn't pulled out out his pipe I shouldn't have pulled out my pipe, and it I hadn't pulled out my pipe, I should never have been able to tell you this story. For if you want to smoke a pipe you must light it, and to light it a match is necessary when you haven't a fire, and matches are kt % pt in a matchbox, ayd the matchbox German Alf pulled out wftw we were going to light our pipes was the very matchbox I had given to Sandy Jim fifteen months before. " Now, the sight of that matchbox gave me a shock. lam t a nervous man, and I ain't accustomed to shocks, but the sight of that little matchbox didgiveme a mo<t awful turn. For, snys I tq myself, I know Sandy Jim wouldn't part with that box willingly. I knew it by my own teelings. I wouldt?t have lost I the knife he gave me for a hundred pounds. And then, says I to myself again, if he didn't part with it willingly, he parted with it un- | willingly. All this ran through my mind while I was a-lighting my pipe, and I determined, come what would, to find out, if my old mate, Sandy Jim, really had gone home or not. When I asked German Alf how they had got on when they went out prospecting for the big nuggets, he told me a rum sort of a story about then* travelling a hundred miles through the bush, and that then they had quarrelled and parted. When I asked him how he knew that Sandy Jim had gone home, he said he heard it from a friend in Melbourne, who saw him on board when the ship was Failing. I never said a word about the matchbox, but when I asked him if he could give me ashakedown that night, he told me he only had an eight by ten tent, and three of them slept in it already. 0, ho ! thinks I, you've got something there you don't want me to see. And with that I wished him good-bye, and went away. But I didn't lose sight of German Alf. Not L I tracked him to his tent that ni^ht. It wasn't an eight by ton — the lying thief; it was double that size. But what do you think wa« chained to the side of that tent?' asked L l!y Trott, rather excitedly, and not allowing time for a reply. " Sandy Jim's dog— mv old mate's dog, that he wouldn't have parted'froni for his life ; and directly I cast eyes upon that do;', says J to myself; * Lilly Trott, there's been foul play with your old mate, and you must find out wiiat has become of him.' '\

And here Lilly Trott, having worked up his story dramatically to an anti-climax, pimed for a while. The ni'^ht by this time was somewhat advanced, and the distant rolling of thunder betokened a nearer approach of the storm I could only occasionally see my companions' faces when lighied up 'by "a sudden ylare from 'he blazing tree, and then they looked strange and weird-like. The Halfway Inn was entirely wrapt in the gloom beyoir 1 , und its presence was only betokened by the occasional flicker of a li^ht from tne windows. Not a «ound but the cracking of the wood and the harbingers of the coming storm was to be heard. But so strange and drear was the entire scene that I peopled . the entire space around me with thick, nervous fancies.

{To be continued.)

Death by DROWNiNo.~It ia with great fesrret we have to , report the death, by dsowaiug, of Mr M'Kenna, for some ; time iv . the employ of M>s?rs M'Leod and Gibson. ' It appears that this young man left for the purpose of b ithinc in a small lagoon near tho Wanaka Lak«. Not retuniinsr, seatch was made for bira, nml his body at len«tli discovered in the ißgoon, life being quite extinct. From the tact of his clothes being found near the lake, there uno doubt whatever but thathe lost his life while bathmar. l'hia accident is peculiarly di«m*uig, as only a few dajs ag ft this unfortunate gentleman succeeded, at the risk of his own life, iv rescuing another man in the sameembloy f.om a watery grave, We are indebted to M<- MLeod for for the foregoing particulars. Mr Keddell, coroner ror the district, left here yesterday for thepurpoae Pi hoiohj^ aji vujflffk oft t6« rwaiaa,