第37章 Part II.(1)

The Golden Graveyard.

Mother Middleton was an awful woman,an `old hand'(transported convict)some said.The prefix `mother'in Australia mostly means `old hag',and is applied in that sense.In early boyhood we understood,from old diggers,that Mother Middleton --in common with most other `old hands'--had been sent out for `knocking a donkey off a hen-roost.'

We had never seen a donkey.She drank like a fish and swore like a trooper when the spirit moved her;she went on periodical sprees,and swore on most occasions.There was a fearsome yarn,which impressed us greatly as boys,to the effect that once,in her best (or worst)days,she had pulled a mounted policeman off his horse,and half-killed him with a heavy pick-handle,which she used for poking down clothes in her boiler.She said that he had insulted her.

She could still knock down a tree and cut a load of firewood with any Bushman;she was square and muscular,with arms like a navvy's;she had often worked shifts,below and on top,with her husband,when he'd be putting down a prospecting shaft without a mate,as he often had to do --because of her mainly.Old diggers said that it was lovely to see how she'd spin up a heavy green-hide bucket full of clay and `tailings',and land and empty it with a twist of her wrist.

Most men were afraid of her,and few diggers'wives were strong-minded enough to seek a second row with Mother Middleton.Her voice could be heard right across Golden Gully and Specimen Flat,whether raised in argument or in friendly greeting.She came to the old Pipeclay diggings with the `rough crowd'(mostly Irish),and when the old and new Pipeclays were worked out,she went with the rush to Gulgong (about the last of the great alluvial or `poor-man's'goldfields)and came back to Pipeclay when the Log Paddock goldfield `broke out',adjacent to the old fields,and so helped prove the truth of the old digger's saying,that no matter how thoroughly ground has been worked,there is always room for a new Ballarat.

Jimmy Middleton died at Log Paddock,and was buried,about the last,in the little old cemetery --appertaining to the old farming town on the river,about four miles away --which adjoined the district racecourse,in the Bush,on the far edge of Specimen Flat.She conducted the funeral.

Some said she made the coffin,and there were alleged jokes to the effect that her tongue had provided the corpse;but this,I think,was unfair and cruel,for she loved Jimmy Middleton in her awful way,and was,for all I ever heard to the contrary,a good wife to him.

She then lived in a hut in Log Paddock,on a little money in the bank,and did sewing and washing for single diggers.

I remember hearing her one morning in neighbourly conversation,carried on across the gully,with a selector,Peter Olsen,who was hopelessly slaving to farm a dusty patch in the scrub.

`Why don't you chuck up that dust-hole and go up country and settle on good land,Peter Olsen?You're only slaving your stomach out here.'

(She didn't say stomach.)

Peter Olsen(mild-whiskered little man,afraid of his wife).`But then you know my wife is so delicate,Mrs Middleton.I wouldn't like to take her out in the Bush.'

Mrs Middleton.`Delicate,be damned!she's only shamming!'

(at her loudest.)`Why don't you kick her off the bed and the book out of her hand,and make her go to work?She's as delicate as I am.

Are you a man,Peter Olsen,or a --?'

This for the edification of the wife and of all within half a mile.

Long Paddock was `petering'.There were a few claims still being worked down at the lowest end,where big,red-and-white waste-heaps of clay and gravel,rising above the blue-grey gum-bushes,advertised deep sinking;and little,yellow,clay-stained streams,running towards the creek over the drought-parched surface,told of trouble with the water below --time lost in baling and extra expense in timbering.

And diggers came up with their flannels and moleskins yellow and heavy,and dripping with wet `mullock'.

Most of the diggers had gone to other fields,but there were a few prospecting,in parties and singly,out on the flats and amongst the ridges round Pipeclay.Sinking holes in search of a new Ballarat.

Dave Regan --lanky,easy-going Bush native;Jim Bently --a bit of a `Flash Jack';and Andy Page --a character like what `Kit'(in the `Old Curiosity Shop')might have been after a voyage to Australia and some Colonial experience.

These three were mates from habit and not necessity,for it was all shallow sinking where they worked.They were poking down pot-holes in the scrub in the vicinity of the racecourse,where the sinking was from ten to fifteen feet.

Dave had theories --`ideers'or `notions'he called them;Jim Bently laid claim to none --he ran by sight,not scent,like a kangaroo-dog.

Andy Page --by the way,great admirer and faithful retainer of Dave Regan --was simple and trusting,but,on critical occasions,he was apt to be obstinately,uncomfortably,exasperatingly truthful,honest,and he had reverence for higher things.

Dave thought hard all one quiet drowsy Sunday afternoon,and next morning he,as head of the party,started to sink a hole as close to the cemetery fence as he dared.It was a nice quiet spot in the thick scrub,about three panels along the fence from the farthest corner post from the road.They bottomed here at nine feet,and found encouraging indications.They `drove'(tunnelled)inwards at right angles to the fence,and at a point immediately beneath it they were `making tucker';a few feet farther and they were making wages.

The old alluvial bottom sloped gently that way.The bottom here,by the way,was shelving,brownish,rotten rock.

Just inside the cemetery fence,and at right angles to Dave's drive,lay the shell containing all that was left of the late fiercely lamented James Middleton,with older graves close at each end.A grave was supposed to be six feet deep,and local gravediggers had been conscientious.