{"product_id":"2940013775329","title":"The Golden Shanty","description":"About ten years ago, not a day's tramp from Ballarat, set well back from\u003cbr\u003ea dusty track that started nowhere in particular and had no destination\u003cbr\u003eworth mentioning, stood the Shamrock Hotel. It was a low, rambling,\u003cbr\u003edisjointed structure, and bore strong evidence of having been designed by\u003cbr\u003ean amateur artist in a moment of vinous frenzy. It reached out in several\u003cbr\u003ewell-defined angles, and had a lean-to building stuck on here and there;\u003cbr\u003enumerous outhouses were dropped down about it promiscuously; its walls\u003cbr\u003ewere propped up in places with logs, and its moss-covered shingle roof,\u003cbr\u003ebowed down with the weight of years and a great accumulation of stones,\u003cbr\u003ehoop-iron, jam-tins, broken glassware, and dried 'possum skins, bulged\u003cbr\u003ethreateningly, on the verge of utter collapse. The Shamrock was built of\u003cbr\u003esun-dried bricks, of an unhealthy, bilious tint. Its dirty, shattered\u003cbr\u003ewindows were plugged in places with old hats and discarded female\u003cbr\u003eapparel, and draped with green blinds, many of which had broken their\u003cbr\u003emoorings, and hung despondently by one corner. Groups of ungainly fowls\u003cbr\u003ecoursed the succulent grasshopper before the bar door; a moody,\u003cbr\u003edistempered goat rubbed her ribs against a shattered trough roughly hewn\u003cbr\u003efrom the butt of a tree, and a matronly old sow of spare proportions\u003cbr\u003ewallowed complacently in the dust of the road, surrounded by her\u003cbr\u003esquealing brood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA battered sign hung out over the door of the Shamrock, informing people\u003cbr\u003ethat Michael Doyle was licensed to sell fermented and spirituous liquors,\u003cbr\u003eand that good accommodation could be afforded to both man and beast at\u003cbr\u003ethe lowest current rates. But that sign was most unreliable; the man who\u003cbr\u003eapplied to be accommodated with anything beyond ardent beverages--liquors\u003cbr\u003eso fiery that they \"bit all the way down\"--evoked the astonishment of the\u003cbr\u003eproprietor. Bed and board were quite out of the province of the Shamrock.\u003cbr\u003eThere was, in fact, only one couch professedly at the disposal of the\u003cbr\u003eweary wayfarer, and this, according to the statement of the few persons\u003cbr\u003ewho had ever ventured to try it, seemed stuffed with old boots and\u003cbr\u003estubble; it was located immediately beneath a hen-roost, which was the\u003cbr\u003eresting-place of a maternal fowl, addicted on occasion to nursing her\u003cbr\u003echickens upon the tired sleeper's chest. The \"turnover\" at the Shamrock\u003cbr\u003ewas not at all extensive, for, saving an occasional agricultural labourer\u003cbr\u003ewho came from \"beyant\"--which was the versatile host's way of designating\u003cbr\u003eany part within a radius of five miles--to revel in an occasional\u003cbr\u003e\"spree,\" the trade was confined to the passing \"cockatoo\" farmer, who\u003cbr\u003einvariably arrived on a bony, drooping prad, took a drink, and shuffled\u003cbr\u003eaway amid clouds of dust.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe only other dwellings within sight of the Shamrock were a cluster of\u003cbr\u003efrail, ramshackle huts, compiled of slabs, scraps of matting, zinc, and\u003cbr\u003egunny-bag. These were the habitations of a colony of squalid, gibbering\u003cbr\u003eChinese fossickers, who herded together like hogs in a crowded pen, as if\u003cbr\u003ethey had been restricted to that spot on pain of death, or its\u003cbr\u003eequivalent, a washing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAbout a quarter of a mile behind the Shamrock ran, or rather crawled, the\u003cbr\u003esluggish waters of the Yellow Creek. Once upon a time, when the Shamrock\u003cbr\u003ewas first built, the creek was a beautiful limpid rivulet, running\u003cbr\u003ebetween verdant banks; but an enterprising prospector wandering that way,\u003cbr\u003eand liking the indications, put down a shaft, and bottomed on \"the wash\"\u003cbr\u003eat twenty feet, getting half an ounce to the dish. A rush set in, and\u003cbr\u003ewithin twelve months the banks of the creek, for a distance of two miles,\u003cbr\u003ewere denuded of their timber, torn up, and covered with unsightly heaps.\u003cbr\u003eThe creek had been diverted from its natural course half a dozen times,\u003cbr\u003eand hundreds of diggers, like busy ants, delved into the earth and\u003cbr\u003ecovered its surface with red, white, and yellow tips. Then the miners\u003cbr\u003eleft almost as suddenly as they had come; the Shamrock, which had\u003cbr\u003eresounded with wild revelry, became as silent as a morgue, and desolation\u003cbr\u003ebrooded on the face of the country. When Mr. Michael Doyle, whose\u003cbr\u003egreatest ambition in life had been to become lord of a \"pub.,\" invested\u003cbr\u003ein that lucrative country property, saplings were growing between the\u003cbr\u003edeserted holes of the diggings, and agriculture had superseded the mining\u003cbr\u003eindustry in those parts.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47168927826160,"sku":"2940013775329","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013775329_p0.jpg?v=1763590070","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013775329","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}