The Miner's Right

I AM in Australia at last--actually in Botany Bay, as we called the
colony of New South Wales when Joe Bulder and I first thought of
leaving that dear quiet old Dibblestowe Leys in Mid-Kent. More than
that, I am a real gold digger--very real, indeed--and the holder of a
Miner's Right, a wonderful document, printed and written on parchment,
precisely as follows. I ought to know it by heart, good reason have I
therefor, I and mine. Here it is, life size, in full. Shall I ever
take it out and look at it by stealth in happy days to come, I wonder?

Yes, I am here now, at Yatala, safe enough; as I said before, with
my mates--Cyrus Yorke, Joe Bulder, and the Major. But I certainly
thought I should never get away from England. One would have imagined
that a younger son of a decayed family had never quitted Britain
before to find fortune or be otherwise provided for. Also, that
Australia was Central Africa, whence ingenuous youth had little more
chance of returning than dear old Livingstone.

As for me, Hereward Pole, as I had but little occupation and less
money, I was surely the precise kind of emigrant which the old land
can so gracefully spare to the new. Gently nurtured, well intentioned,
utterly useless, not but what I was fitting myself according to my
lights for a colonial career--save the mark!--for I had been nearly a
year on a farm in Mid-Kent, for which high privilege I paid, or rather
my uncle did, £100 sterling.

So, I had learned to plough indifferently, and could be trusted to
harrow, a few side strokes not mattering in that feat of agriculture.
I could pronounce confidently on the various samples of seed wheat
submitted to me, and I had completely learned the art of colouring a
meerschaum by smoking daily and hourly what I then took to be the
strongest tobacco manufactured.

It wasn't bad fun. Jane Mangold, the old farmer's daughter, who was
coaching me, was a pretty girl, with rosy cheeks, a saucy nose, and no
end of soft, fluffy, fair hair. We were capital friends, and she stood
by me when I got into disgrace by over-driving the steam-engine one
day, and nearly blowing up the flower of the village population of
Dibblestowe Leys. Now and then I had a little shooting, and a by-day
with the Tickham hounds. Life passed on so peacefully and pleasantly
that I was half inclined to think of taking a farm near the Leys at
the end of my term, and asking Jane to help with the dairy, poultry,
cider, and housekeeping department. Then a little incident happened
which changed the current of ideas generally, and my life in
particular.