MR. PICK, THE GOLD-MINER.

Colonist, Volume X, Issue 744, 16 July 1867, Page 4

MR. PICK, THE GOLD-MINER.

(From the Sydney Mail, June 22.) ANOTHEH 0? MR. PICK'S MATES. Thette was one of my mates that worked with me in Tipperary Gully, that was a queer fish altogether. In making up our party of four we tonk this chap, Ned Crossley, that was his name, in with us. There wasn't nothing particular about him, and yet, somehow, I didn't cotton to him as I generally do to my mates. He was a very quiet chap, hardly ever spoke except when he was spoke to, and then only answered in very few words. There was nothing about his face except, that he looked very uneasy in hia mind, but more as if he'd had some misfortune than as if he'd done something wrong. There was three great wringles along his forehead, and his eyebrows were always down over his eyes as if there was some weight somewhere in his brain that weighed 'em clown, and he couldn't help it. The men usel to say he'd been unlucky —so very unlucky that nobody wouldn't have nothing to do with him until we took him up. You see,' I ain't superstitious, and I don't bftlieve in ill-luck sticking to one particular man so hard as to affect all them that goes with him. Poor devil, I pitied him, and yet, somehow or other, I didn't like him. Anyhow, like or not like, he was a first-rate mate, and worked better than any man I ever came across.

We were amongst the first at Tipperary, and didn't, stop humbugging on the ground, but the moment we got our claim marked out we began putting down our shaft. We bottomed on gold, but not such as we expected to see, as we only got a prospect of rather less than half a pennyweight to the dish. We sat down and held a council over it, whether we should go on or whether we should try another claim. Ned was very anxious not to move. " Don't go," says he, "for my luck's changed, I think I've been five years working at different diggings, and this is the first time as ever I struck on gold," and as he said this he looked out with

a rum kind of look, as if he was seeing something through me and through the tent, and th»n he turned white, and give a bit of a shiver, and down goes the eyebrows over his head, and the three lines on his forehead came out as strong as the ridges on an ironbark.

"I'll tell you what we'll do, mate," says I, "We'll just put in a drive towards the fall of the gul]y, and if we don't hit something better, we'll up pegs." Well this was agreed to, and after we'd had our smoke, we turned in. Now I don't know what it was as woke me that night, for I sleep like a top after a hard day's work, and most times you might lift me up in my blanket and carry me a mile without waking me. But this night. I wakes up with a start, and finds myself all over in a cold sweat. I woke up, too, regular wide awake, no doziness or half sleepiness, but as wide as if it had been the middle of the day, and I never in bed at all. I sits up and looks round. There was my mates round me snoring as comfortable and as innocent as young sucking pigs, and there was the moon a shining out as bright as day, only being at the hack of the hut, I couldn't see it, but only the light of it. It was so bright that as we only had a tent with a fly over it, I could see as well in the tent as I could out of it. I looked round, and there right opposite to me,- sitting up the same as ! w ss, and looking straight at me, only ti.rough me iv that quepr way as I spoke of Ufore, ihere was Ned Crossley. "Again, eh ?" aay« le, but in such n yoioe that it made me fee! qui.§ c^trer. Just that kiad <tf thi«§ that Q-, Y. Uropke used to tp

a low deep whisper like that you could hear ' as clear as if it was hallooed out, V Will you never leave me?" " Never's a long day, Ned!" says I, quite innocent, for I didu't know what he was talking about. " You told me that before!" says he, with a kind of groan, " Why, why, will you make me suffer Hell before my tiuib!" That waa a staggerer, and as I didn't know what to answer, I puts, my hand up and begins'scratching my head. " Oh !" says he, groaning worse than before, " I know it—l know it. Why will you act that fearful tragedy again and again. Jj' ye think 1 forget it day or night—nono. it's always before my eyes. The green trees overhead—the smouldering fire—the white Yent —the gorey pick--the glittering gold—and the white face streaked with blood, with the fixed and stony eyes ever— ever—bent on me." "Hullo! Ned!" says I. "Why what jolly game d'ye call this? Is it nightmare, or what is it?" and I jumps out of bed to go and give him a shake, for he gave me the ! horrors to have him looking at me in that way and talking in that style iv the middle of the night.

Now I'm very particular ; I always make myself a bed, whenever I can, so as to save sleeping on the ground. So I'd rigged myself a stretcher, by driving four posts into the ground, fastening saplings, on to make a frame, and then nailing a couple of bags to the saplings. When I jumped out, I forgot that my mates were lying ou the ground, so when I come out of bed, I treads right a-top of Tom Marsden. He .was lying on his side, and my weight gave him a Ganfc over, and the cant over threw me off my feet, and down I come full stretch on to Tom Marsden and Bill Willcox, sharing my weight, I must say, very fairly between 'em. My word! there was a shine! Tom jumps up, lays hold of me, and begins a pitching into me right and left, calling me all the dirty mean tent sneaks he could lay his tongue to, and it was a good bit before I could make him understand how it was. The only way I did it at last was by going in at him right and left, and then muzzling him when I had him down. Bill aud Ned they jumps up too and want's to know what's, the matter, and a good many men from the other huts hearing the row, come up with revolvers and life-preservers and sticks, and if it had been a tent sneak, it would have been a caution to him, I can tell you.

Now when Ned asked me what was the matter, and looked at me so quietly, with those dreamy melancholy eyes of his, just for all the world as if he knew nothing about it, I wasn't puzzled only, but I was fairly scotty. " Do you- really mean to say that you don't know what's the matter?" says I. " Me!" says he, and he opens his eyes wider than ever I see him open 'em before. " How should I ?■' He looked so precious innocent that I felt regularly done, and so I says, " Well, I suppose I was dreaming.". And there it ended for that time, though my mates they were precious riled a- my dreaming in that style, and waking 'em all up in a fright. Next day we drove in towards the centre of the gully, but found things getting worse the farther we went. Ned he worked away harder than ever, never talking or chaffing, or saying a word ; but I'd catch him every now and again looking at me in that queer way of his. That evening, after we knocked off work we took a stroll to the Flat, just to have a look round, and we dropped in at one or two of the publics to have a drink with one and another that we knowed. In one of the publics I seea fellow, a .stout nugget of a chap, with sandy hair. He wasn't a digger, but looked more like a journeyman carpenter out of work ; and there he was, with his eves fixed on me, and following me about wherever I went. At last he comes up to me, and says he, " Your name ain't Dickworth ?"

" No," says I, "it ain't. It's Peter Pick, well known on the rush by hundreds." " I knew it wasn't Dickworth," says the chap. " Then what made you ax me," says I. " Because you've got the look of him, sometimes," says the chap. " Not always, only sometimes. But lor, Diekworth's dead. He was murdered at the M'lvor four year ago, very near," aud with that he turns away. Just then, my mates, who'd been yarning with some other chaps, comes up to me, and says Tom Marsden, " What did that jolly D. want with yon ?" " D.! What D. ?" says I. " Why, don't you know him ?" says Tom. " That's Brown, the detective—D.'a we call 'em on the other side." As he spoke, I saw Ned start, and he looks round sharp to have a stare at the detective. Just at the same time the detective, who was talking to some oue else, turns round to have a look at me, and he meets Ned's face turned right bang ou him. That Brown was a man in a thousand. He started when he saw Ned; though ifl was asked to say how he started, I couldn't tell you. He never moved a muscle no wav, and yet looking into his eyes as I was doing, I could sco the start of recognition there. Ned saw it too, I think, for when he turned his face round it was paler than ever, and he lays hold of me by the arm, and drags me up to the counter and says, " Let's have another drink afore we go!" So ho shoves right into the thickest of a mob, calls for drinks round, and puts half-a-crown on the counter; then he looks round to where B>>n\vn had been, but the detective was gone. " Hold on a bit for me," says Ned, " I shan't be five minutes—don't go away!" and with th. t he dodges round the bar, right through ihe back;- and I thought, o.f course, he won dn't be long. Well, we stooped and topi ed, over b.alf-an-hour; but Nfed didn't come b^p;, and so we wouldn't stop any onger. " It's a mean trick to serve us,rV says Bill W.ilcox, "and I'm blowed, ifl ftny Jongey, Pm for #W: flow l l'

onger

And so off. we all started. When we got outside, there was four or five constables outside the door, aud (hey jostled like in amongst us, as wo turned up. (he street. I came right against Detective Brown. " Hallo! ' Mr. Pick," says he, "getting home ? You're the fellow for a diggings. Early to bed, early to rise, that's the way to strike the nuggets, you know!" and he give me a tap on the shoulder that he meaut for fun, but which, coming from him; was'nt at all pleasant.

I wished him good night, and went on, but me and my t'vjyq mates had not passed him longer than you could count ten before he was up with us again. "Where's your other mate?"' says he, quite savage. " What, Ned Crossly ?" says I. "Ned the Devil!" says he; "No, Alec Wilson." " Don't know him," says I. " Him that was with you," says he. "That was Ned," says I. "He give us the slip, and we've lost the run of him." '• Hell and Tommy !" says he, "and he's give me the slip too!" With that he goes back to the traps as were with him, speaks to 'em for about half a minute, and off they go, scudding away as if for dear life. Well, Aye couldn't make'it out, though we argued the matter over as we walked quietly home; but that Ned was wanted for something was certain. When we got to Tipperary and were near our tent, we noticed all the chaps out and hanging about, and some few seemed to be looking shy at us. " Hullo, Mickey," says I to one of 'em that I was pretty friendly with, " What's' up? What's the shine ?" "Fail, it's yerself should be able to tell us, Mr. Pick," says he. " The divil I know, I know, why-the peelers was in yeer tent, searching and rummaging about." , "In my tent!" says I, with a shout, and my mates did the same, and we ran off aud soon got home. There we found a constable waiting for us, and he told us that they had come up too late to catch Ned, who had got back to the tent, taken his blankets and some bits of grub, and cleared out some few miuutes before the police got up. " I was ordered to stop here and tell you, Mr. Pick," says the constable, very civil, "and to look after the place till you come back, because the sergeant thought that after our rummage some of your neighbors might have fancied to follow our example, Good night, sir!"

It was considerate of the .sergeant, but still it takes a man down a peg amongst the men about to have his place overhauled in that way. How.somever, I knew it was no fault of the trap that was there, so I thanked him ; and him and me were always good friends afterwards, and many a time I met him, and once he did me a rare good turn, that perhaps I'll tell you of some time. That night I talks the matter over with my mates, tells 'em al! I'd seen and heard, and we agived to pull up our pegs and stick into another claim, for no luck would ever go with tho one we had with, unlucky Ned, That claim wo took up the next idopw^ was the best that I've had for many along day, and at the end of three months wekd £800 a man, clear money. About Ned. It waa quite a fortnight before I went into the Flat again, ancl then I met Mr. Brown, the detective. He gave me a gritv and a wink, and would have, gone on without a word, ouly I spoke to him. "Did you get Ned ?" I wag going to ask him. "No, I didn't!" says he, quite snappish, "if it's Alec Wilson }''ou mean—that's three times he's slipped through my fingers. But the next time I catches sight of him, he won't get away !" And he didn't neither. It was some six months after this, that a couple of chaps were fossicking about some of the old sha'ts on the head of Spring Creek, and they come across the skeleton of a mau, lying in the bottom of ono of ' 'em. They gave information to the police, aud it turned out to be my old mate, iNed Crossley, or Alec Wilson, as the detective called him. He'd thrown the police off hia track by doubling right round the digging!", and by making for the opposite side from Tipperary, instead of clearing out straight ahead, as they thought he'd do. He must have fallen into the shaft and been uuabla to get out, for one of the leg bones was broken, and there Le died miserably, of pain and starvation.

Information has been received at Dunedin, that pleuro-pneumonia has made its appearanca ia tbe Wakatip and Dunstan districts, (Otago), and inspectors have been sent up in haste to ascertain the fact" Ah Long, a Chinese miner, charged with the murderous assault upon Benjamau Harbord, at Gabrie'i Gully, (Otago), has been committed for trial at tt« Supreme Court. ' New Members or the Hottse op RemiseM'', tives.—Tbe seat for Lyttelton, vacated by Mr. Hargreaves, will be filled by Mr. Georgo Macfarlane, and Kaiapoi has sent Mr. John Studhoim, as the guardian of its interests. Gold ExroßTS.—During the quarter ending on the 31-»t M'iroh last, the quantity of gold exported from New Zealand was 14-9,232 ounces, valued «' £577,637, and the total quantity exported from tb* Colony between the Ist April, 1867, and the 31st Ma-ch, 1867, was 3,208,683 ounces, valued a' £12,4.17,935.

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