HOW We Made our Life.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 151, 19 January 1872, Page 6

HOW We Made our Life.

A CHRISTMAS DIGGING STORY.

My mate Rube and I sat staring at the great fire outside the tent door, on that evening neither of us in very good spirits, and neither much inclined to talk. At last, taking a nobbier from the fire and relighting my pipe, I broke silence—- " I suppose it must come some day, if we only stick to it; but as each chance of a pile comes slowly up like a shadow, until almost within my very reach, so does it as surely fade away until I see myself raggeder than before, and and more unable to rise the needful capital to start

some fresh ' spec.' " Rube looked steadily before him, and puii'ed the smoke out in volumes, and at last opened his mouth sufficiently wide to speak, for Rube was not a man of many words or frequent speeches. "Well, Fred," said he, "I have had three good rises now, and each time I have wasted it; but, by thunder, the next time I get a rise I'll stick to it. I had not what you have to keep me square; for you know I understand all your anxiety for a pile before your loved one's eyes are calmed by weary waiting, and your own spirit quieted by the inroads of trouble and rheumatism."

" Rube," I said, " you have known what this hope deferred is, and have experienced before now the disappointment of working night and day for six months to find only a duffer. But I made sure we had made a hit this time, and should, if not in possession of actual wealth this Christmas, be in a fair way of getting it, and have sufficient to carry me down to at least see her for a while."

Rube, two others, and myself" had been mates together now in this claim for more than six months, during which time we had worked more than twelve hours a day underground, never letting the work cease during the twenty-four hours —buoying our hopes up with the prospect of immediate wealth—and now, after all this bitter work, we had been forced to the conclusion that the lead had broken where our tunnel had been driven in, and we were duffered out. On each side of us were parties making fifty pounds a week a man, yet could we not touch a grain of gold. Such things are known on all diggings, and men have been known to pay fabulous sums for shares in claims that, starting between the richest claims on the lead,-have turned out worthless.

Two years ago I had met —110 matter in what part of l*ew Zealand—a girl whom X .loved with my whole soul, and there was nothing wanting but money to unite us. Her father had frankly told me that, until I was in a position to keep a wife above the fear of poverty, I should never have his consent, and bound me down by a promise never to marry his daughter until I could show him evidence of my power to provide for her. In return, he allowed me to see hor, to make his house my home while I stayed in the neighborhood, and to receive and write as many liters as I wished. He told me he would trust my honor, and I promised him I would act truly to him. As the only way to a rapid rise in fortune, 1 determined to try my luck digging, and wis just bemoaning my hard luck to £ube when the conversation before related took place. The time was the beginning of December, and the thought of being compelled to confess myself at the end of the year again unsuccessful, had made me particularly miserable. Rube fell asleep on his side of the tent, and I sat gazing into the fire until the embers began to appear less and less dis-

tanfc, and a peculiar feeling of fixity began to creep over me. A grip on my shoulder like an iron vice startled me, and turning round I saw a square-looking face containing two very bright eyes and surmounting what appeared to be a human form. The grip tightened, but never a word spoke the head. I felt myself raised erect as by some power pulling me from above, and a feeling in my heart that I must" follow, and. I followed that queer figure through the wet bush along the muddy track leading from our tent to the tunnel, over the logs in the path, until at last I found myself in our own claim with a piece ot lighted candle in one hand and a pick in the other. I could notice as I went along the places in the roof of the tunnel where we had pricked up in hopes of meeting tike lead, and where we had put in the side drives' and curves. Twelve hundred feet in one line we had eaten our way into the hill, and taken out nothing more precious than gravel. Five hundred feet we had eaten in at different points with the same result, and the judgment of experienced miners was that the lead had broken there and our ground was worthless. Now I stood facing a triangular block that had been left, and saw that queer figure bent in the act of picking at the floor of the tunnel as if to sink a shaft. I sprang to work, and it seemed that the gravel and stones came almost up of their own accord; truck after truck we filled and sent flying down the little tramway in the drive, fresh trucks always being there to be filled. An awful glee seized hold of me—the drops of perspiration were roll* ing off. The strange man was above shovelling the stuff . I threw up into the trucks. The echo of the pick was reverberating through the hollowed out hill, and the hole was rapidly deepening. At last, standing upright in the shaft the floor of the long drive was on a level with my head. The candle was burnt, down to within a quarter of an inch of the piece of wood that served as a candlestick, and lifting in my hands some of" the cement-like g 'avel, I looked at it by the aid of the glimmering light. God! there it was, glittering like a swarm of fireflies, not in a silver braid, but half buried in the gross earthly mould. The candle dropped from my hand, the light expired, and I was in that pit with none but perhaps an emissary from the nether world. My. voice choked ; I felt I must cry out or die, and I yelled a horrified yell of terror. " Hallo, mate! what's up now ?" said a voice I knew as Rube's. " I think it's time you turned in. I guess it's breaking day. v

" Rube," said I, rubbing my eyes, " I sleep no more this night or day. We have still a chance left, though whether it comes from the Dark Fiend or not I cannot tell and I told him my dream. It's mighty queer, said he, and its worth proving, though I should think more seriously of it, if it was not that I remembered little Bill was telling us about a rum dip in a lead that had happened iu California, which would make you fancy ours dipped like that, and though I aint what you call a metaphysician, I think that may 'have something to do with yoiir dream, The little old man, and putting up business, I put down to your romantic turn of mind the awful heaviness of that last damper you baked, and the fact of your being in love, which last state I thjnk accountable for many actions that might well send a man to the lunatic asylum. The grey dawn was just breaking as Rube and I, after a hearty but refreshing dip of our heads in a bucket of waters to keep us cool as Rube the hill,'on the road to our claim. We had a stock of candles, a lump of bread and meat, and a newly sharpened pick. We soon found the place, and X confess

to'looking curiously round to see if we could decern any signs of the little square faced man, or of the ground being disturbed ; but there were none, and we set to work. Seven hours we toiled, and then the floor level of the drive was just above my head. I stooped and took up the gravel just as it seemed I had done in my dream, and there it was sure enough—twenty pennyweights to the dish! A fortune ! My head swam. The want of rest, the excitement and work had been t6o much, and I fainted in the simfc.

For three weeks wo toiled, stripping t!ib ! floor of the drive sixfeet deep, and tuime.jling again, and in that time we Had efcaeed £ISOO a-man. ,Oa Christmas t-ye I made my appearance at the station rather unexpectedly. I astonished them with the news of my good fortune, though liliqught it was wise to suppress that, part of t«v dream relating to the peculiar stranger, s and I had a promise that, in three months' time I should claim her for my wife. In that time we took £3OOO a man out of the claim, for Rube and I had hit the very richest patch, and then I sold out for a good round sum. I have taken to cattle grazing now, and with a good farm round me, a good house over me, a good wife beside me, and a couple of sturdy boys somewhere, I am, at the instigation of my wife penning this rough account of how I obtained all these good things. In conclusion, let me say that no thought of these blessings having come through the Evil One disturbs us. If anything here was of the supernatural about it, we attribute it to that G-od in whom we place our trust, and to whom we daily return our thanks.