Stranger in Dixie

by James Fearn

  ‘Anna,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Do you think you could put up with the hardships of life on the diggings?’

  Suddenly, Anna’s face lit up. At last, she could see a ray of hope which changed her disposition completely. ‘Oh yes, John. I’d love it! I’d love it!’ she enthused. ‘We’d live in a canvass tent, I’d cook in a Dixy, and even wash our clothes in a creek,’ she said excitedly. The thought of a life in the open air did not seem to deter this fair-complexioned Irish lass. Indeed, it fanned her joy and love for her husband. To Anna, this seemed like the adventure of a lifetime as if she had not experienced sufficient adventure already in her short life.

  Chapter 5

  The peace and quiet of the early spring morning was shattered by the cracks of the driver’s whip. The bullock team strained forward in the harness and the heavy dray loaded with passengers and their possessions groaned slowly into motion. Another dray-load of motley diggers was on its hopeful way to fame and to fortune.

  Anna sat up beside John who held a long whip in his right hand. ‘G’id up there!’ he shouted as he flicked the whip expertly above the heads of the plodding bullocks. Anna’s face beamed under her broad-brimmed hat with obvious delight as she waved enthusiastically to the rectors’ wife and headed off on the great adventure.

  John and Anna’s possessions were packed into a single metal trunk, which George had bought with him from England. A canvass tent lay under the trunk on the floor of the dray. A variety of tin buckets, dishes, pannikins, spoons, and ladles was tied to the undercarriage, jangling and tinkling as they swung from side to side with the lurch of the dray.

  The would-be diggers clung to the sides of the vehicle as it bumped its way along the rough track leading through the tent-dotted western plains of Melbourne town. The dray jolted violently as the great wheels trundled over the partly hidden rocks and stones and squelched down into the muddy puddles. The plodding bullocks heaved and hauled their load with brute force.

  The first stop for the travellers was at an inn about two miles down the track to the west just over the river at Flemington. John urged all of the passengers to drink tea or lemonade only. He explained that there had been talk that the bushranger, Black Douglas, was in the vicinity and everyone needed to be as alert as possible. Grog was not advisable in these circumstances.

  They were in the midst of their drinks when John noticed a movement through the window. His experience on the drays had taught him that petty thieving was rife as marauding bands of vagabonds waited in the bush for tired and dusty travellers to enter the inn, leaving their possessions unguarded. Like a flash John dashed to the door, picked up his whip and set upon three young fellows making off with one of the trunks. Years of experience with the long bullock whip came in handy as, with a precisely directed crack of the whip he cut a neat strip of cloth from the trousers of one of the retreating robbers. With blood streaming from his wounded buttock, he dropped the loot and all three vanished into the dense bush as fast as they had appeared.

  ‘You see what I mean?’ said John, turning to acknowledge the applause of his passengers who had observed the spectacle from the veranda of the inn. ‘Keep your eye open all the time,’ he said. ‘In future, we’ll post a guard while we rest and eat.’

  By nightfall, the bullock team had hauled the dray as far as the place aptly named ‘Diggers’ Rest’.

  This place was certainly well named. Wherever one looked one could see canvass and calico tents with campfires dotted here and there. The travellers were boiling billies, frying chops, and cooking dampers. The less affluent ‘new chums’ made their beds of bush leaves and drew their blue blankets tightly around themselves to keep warm. The night was cold and still, and the unfamiliar sounds of the bush creatures kept the would-be sleepers awake long into the night.

  John was awakened early next morning by the sound of a movement outside their tent. ‘Anyone home?’ came a voice from outside. John put his head out of the tent to find a tall brown-bearded man holding the reins of his horse. ‘Good day, are you going to the diggings?’ he asked in a cultured English voice.

  ‘Yes,’ responded John. ‘Where are you headed?’

  ‘I’m going back to Melbourne town,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for someone to ride with.’

  It seemed the stranger had travelled this far from Forest Creek in company with the armed escort through the most dangerous part of the bush. John guessed that he was probably carrying a considerable amount of gold by the look of his bulging saddle bags.

  ‘Come in and have some breakfast,’ said John. The horseman accepted with alacrity, and John and Anna plied him with questions about the goldfields.

  ‘Mount Alexander’s the place’, he said with a tone of satisfaction. ‘The gold’s everywhere—on the surface and between the tree roots. It’s unbelievable. They’re making their fortunes up there. I’ll be going back just as soon as I’ve done some business in Melbourne town,’ he said.

  Anna listened excitedly as they ate. She was particularly interested to learn all she could about the basics of living at the diggings like cooking and ablutions.

  ‘Well’, said the handsome stranger, ‘when I first went to Ballarat, I thought it was no place for a lady. The living was tough, and the language was rough. It was a dirty and a dangerous place. But the women there proved me wrong. Some of them made the best pioneers of all, I reckon. They had a good influence on the place. You’ll be all right, ma’am.’

  ‘Are there any children up there?’ queried Anna.

  ‘Indeed, there are,’ came the reply. ‘But they’re an unruly lot, running here and there, playing their games. Sometimes, trying to steal your things. I caught a lad recently making off with my tin of biscuits. I boxed his ears and sent him on his way.’

  Thanking the stranger for his information, John rallied his party, and they set off on the day’s journey. For the next three hours, the heavens opened and turned the track into a quagmire. But the bullocks plodded on through the mud seemingly unperturbed.

  The track deteriorated significantly as they entered the Black Forest. Frequently, the travellers were forced to climb down into the mud to push the bogged dray. This made some of them short-tempered, and they grumbled a lot at the inconvenience they were suffering. Their mood of frustration was exacerbated by the sight of some other would-be diggers making better progress on foot as they carried their swags past the dray. This district took a heavy toll on both the conveyances and the beasts, and here and there broken-down wagons and the bodies of dead bullocks were to be found, a cruel reminder of the harshness of the country. One small consolation was the fact that they could, if they so desired, stop for refreshments at the coffee tents, which were set up every twenty miles or so.

  The Black Forest was a sinister place. The trees grew closely together, and in some places, they were so thickly entwined overhead that one could not see more than thirty yards ahead of the dray, so dark was it. John pointed out some of the ambuscades of the notorious bushranger, Black Douglas, and described in horrifyingly embellished details some of his most foul murders. There was an obvious sense of relief and achievement amongst the travellers as the dray rolled slowly out of the forest just before sunset. Here they made camp for the night. It was not until the following afternoon that John announced that they were approaching the outlying diggings of their destination, Forest Creek.

  ‘Oh, look, John, what a sight!’ exclaimed Anna. ‘Look, there’s not a tree anywhere. It looks like a big gravel pit.’

  Indeed, the ground was piled up everywhere. Wherever one looked men’s heads were bobbing up and down like so many puppets in the excavated ditches. The rattle of the cradles as they swayed to and fro and the sounds of thousands of picks and shovels joined with the distant babble of many human voices. The innumerable tents, the stores with large flags hoisted above them, flags of every colour, shape, and nationality from the Lion and the Unicorn of Englan
d to the Russian Eagle, and the colourful costumes of the diggers themselves all contributed to render the scene novel in the extreme.

  John set his passengers down at the creek itself and bade them farewell and good luck. Two hundred yards further down the track, he delivered the bullock team to the company headquarters and collected his fee of £3 for the trip.

  ‘Where would you suggest we should set up our camp?’ asked John. ‘They say they’re doing quite well at Pennyweight Flat,’ replied the company manager. ‘You and your wife can set up camp on the slope above the creek, and you can peg your claim on the flat. You may have to go upstream a bit, but that could be to your advantage.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Anna. ‘Oh, you’ll find out when you get there,’ said the manager with a chuckle.

  John and Anna trudged back to the creek and began to walk upstream, looking for a suitable place to pitch their tent. It was necessary to walk over a mile into the bush to find a suitable location. As they walked, Anna was struck by the lack of water in the creek. What was there was little more than a few smelly waterholes, unfit for one’s ablutions, and certainly dangerous to drink. The company manager’s words took on a sinister meaning. It was not until they had become familiar with the area that they discovered the reason for this state of affairs.

  Sly grog was the bane of the diggings. Some stores evaded the law cleverly in such a manner that spirits were never sold. The miner paid a bit more for a fig of tobacco or his wife an extra sixpence for her suet. They would smile knowingly at the storekeeper who would produce several glasses and a bottle of spirits, which were consumed on the spot. The more blatant sly grog operators sold it from their tents.

  Everyone in the town knew they could get grog if they wanted it from old Bessie. Her tent was located amongst the upper diggings. While her husband was at work down in the gully, she kept a sort of sly grog shop and passed the day selling and drinking spirits, swearing, and smoking a short pipe at the door of her tent. A dirty floral dress hung unbuttoned about her shoulders, and coarse greying hair, unbrushed and unwashed dangled about a face over which her reprobate habits had fashioned a benign bacchanalian glow. In a loud masculine voice, Bessie uttered the most foul profanities that ever disgraced the lips of a woman.

  But night was the most horrible time for her neighbours. If her husband had been unlucky or if she had made little profit on her grog, it was appalling to be within earshot. Charlie, the Scot, who did business with her on frequent occasions observed, ‘Her tongue was sich as wad drive any puir beastie wild.’

  Having selected a site and erected their little canvass tent, John and Anna began the task of setting up their first home. John who by now was quite skilled with the axe, fashioned a rough table and several stools from the knotty wood of the abundant Stringybarks. A small outdoor stove was constructed from rocks and clay filling, and Anna strung a rope between two trees on which to hand her washing. To Anna this was no hardship. She had learnt to cope as a girl with primitive living conditions in her home country.

  John who had been reared in a carpeted drawing room and was used to dining at a beautifully polished table of the finest English quality, was glad that his experience on the convict ship and in Van Diemen’s Land had shown him how it was possible to exist in the poorest of conditions. With Anna by his side, what need was there of those long-forgotten comforts. John had made his bed and was determined to lie in it.

  But change, nevertheless, is always uncomfortable. New beginnings for most people are occasions of uncertainty and insecurity. The equilibrium of past years is suddenly upset. The sure and stable rock of yesterday becomes the shifting sand of today. So it was with the young adventurers on the Victorian goldfields. Their confident eager hopes seemed to dissolve into a tentative search for security in their new and strange surroundings.

  John and Anna spent some time looking around the diggings at Forest Creek, anxious to find a suitable site on which to stake a claim. What a mishmash of humanity inhabited the place! There was Boris the White Russian, a huge bear of a man who knew little English and kept largely to himself. There was Daffyd the Welshman. He had come to the diggings more than a year ago and had toiled night and day earning little more than what he needed to keep body and soul together. But Daffyd did not complain. He liked this warm brown country with its beautiful scented gum leaves and its laughing jackasses. And at the end of the day there is always the hope that tomorrow will bring those long-expected riches.

  ‘Go upstream a bit and find Richard Cutler. He’s been here longer than any of us. He’ll show you where to go,’ said Daffyd. ‘He’s a good mate too. If ever you need any help, Richard and his Mrs will be there.’

  Following Daffyd’s instructions, John and Anna made their way up the course of the stream, asking as they went for Mr and Mrs Cutler. They had gone some distance when Anna stopped dead in her tracks. ‘Look, John!’ she shouted unbelievingly. She was pointing to the base of a tall tree where, gleaming in the bright sunlight, lay a small nugget of the much sought-after noble metal. ‘Is that gold?’ she asked with a gasp. Quickly, John ran to the spot and with bare fingers began to unearth it. His eyes were wide with excitement as he placed the trophy in the palm of Anna’s hand. ‘Keep it, my dear. You found it, it’s yours.’ Anna was overjoyed that good fortune was theirs so quickly.

  ‘John’, she said. ‘Perhaps this is a good time to give you my news.’

  ‘What news?’ queried John with a puzzled look on his face.

  ‘You are going to be a father,’ she announced shyly.

  John stared at her with his mouth wide open. After what seemed like an interminable pause, he rushed to her and hugged her tightly. Taking her hand, John skipped and danced with joy at the overwhelming events of the morning. After all of their hardships and difficulties, here was welcome news indeed.

  ‘What’s all the noise about?’ called a voice in a familiar Yorkshire accent. ‘We’re having a baby!’ blurted out John without taking the trouble to introduce himself to the owner of the voice. The stranger was a tall well-built man in his fifties with the powerful hands of a farmer sitting on a fallen log outside his tent. A kindly faced woman dressed in blue calico and with a scarf tied around her hair looked out of the tent to find whom her husband was talking to.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry’, said John. ‘My name is John Francis and this is my wife, Anna. She’s just told me I’m going to be a father.’

  ‘How wonderful!’ said the lady. ‘When is the babe to be born, my dear?’ she asked supportively as if it was her own grandchild that was expected.

  ‘About December’ answered Anna.

  ‘Well, I never! A baby on the diggings! You’d better call it Pennyweight.’ They all laughed at the suggestion. ‘How do you do? I’m Richard Cutler,’ said the man, rising to his feet to shake John’s hand.

  ‘Oh, that’s a coincidence!’ exclaimed Anna. ‘We were looking for you.’

  ‘And I’m Richard’s wife, Beatrice,’ said the lady in blue. ‘You must be newcomers to Forest Creek. When you get used to the place, you’ll like it. We wouldn’t go back to Yorkshire for anything would we, Richard? Do come in and have a cup of tea.’

  Thus began a friendship that was to prove most significant for both John and Anna, but for entirely different and unexpected reasons.

  Their conversation continued for the best part of an hour. Despite the age difference John and Anna felt an immediate rapport with the older couple.

  ‘We couldn’t help noticing how dry the creek was downstream. There’s hardly any flowing water at all. It’s the wrong time of the year for droughts, isn’t it?’ said John.

  ‘You’ve got to understand that it’s not the amount of water that comes down the creek that’s important. It’s how it’s used that matters. You see in the very early days, the first prospectors used the pan alone to separate the gold from the washdirt. But when the Californians cam
e they introduced their improved methods, and these quickly became popular,’ explained Richard.

  ‘I’ve read about the tom and the sluice,’ said John. ‘How do they work?’

  Richard continued, ‘In both types, the gold is separated from the soil and pebbles because it is denser than either of them,’ explained Richard. ‘The tom is used with a small head of water and is, therefore, more suitable at a time of water shortage when the water can be baled.’

  John could immediately see the difference. ‘So the sluice needs more water than the tom, but is much more effective?’.

  ‘There was a good deal of feeling against the Americans among the diggers when the sluice first appeared because of this,’ said Richard.

  ‘But isn’t there some control over prospecting methods?’ queried John. ‘No, there’s not, but there jolly well ought to be,’ answered Richard.

  ‘That makes it very difficult for washing your clothing, I should think,’ ventured Anna. ‘It certainly does for those living downstream. They have to cart water for drinking in the summer too,’ responded Beatrice.

  The Cutler’s humble home consisted of a large canvass tent with a calico annexe. The earthenware urn labelled Water stood in one corner of the tent, which was in perpetual shade. A meat safe hung from a rope strung between the tent poles, and one section of the tent was partitioned off as a bedroom with mosquito netting to protect the sleepers. A kerosene lamp was tied to one of the tent poles. Anna’s observant eyes took in the scene rapidly, and she immediately empathised with the prospector’s wife and her simple way of living. She understood how love for a man can lead a woman to endure great hardship so that she might share her life, however basic with him. The essence of genuine human relationship does not depend upon physical comfort.