Stranger in Dixie

by James Fearn

  Anna was reflecting on these things when Beatrice brought her up with a start by saying ‘when your time comes, Anna, I hope you will call on me to help. I often dream of my grandchildren in faraway Yorkshire. I shall probably never see them again as children,’ she said with a touch of sadness in her voice.

  Anna was keen to learn all she could about childbirth, especially in these bush conditions. ‘The key to it is to make sure you have a good midwife,’ said Beatrice. ‘And you must not exert yourself too much during the last four or five months of your confinement. No prospecting and no wood chopping, mind you!’ she cautioned. ‘I remember one poor lass whose husband wouldn’t let her rest. She was out with him on a day, lifting a sluice cradle when she began to bleed, and she lost the baby. You take my advice, and let your husband do the heavy work. You’ll need all the energy you can get when young Pennyweight decides to make an appearance,’ she said with a chuckle. Anna felt that she could trust Beatrice and she thanked God that she had found such a capable and reliable friend.

  Meanwhile, John had been deep in conversation with Richard. Both men had such earnest looks on their faces that Anna began to wonder what they were talking about. She had known John long enough to be aware that it was likely to be a matter of politics or social inequality that was being discussed.

  ‘I was talking to the baker down in Forest Creek this morning, and he told me that many of the diggers are angry about the rises in the licence fees,’ said John.

  The licence was the only tax the government levied on the exploitation of gold in Australia. It was a trade licence costing thirty shillings a month, and it stipulated the rights and duties of the miners. The digger was allowed to carry out excavations on all fields in the colony and to mine an area of twelve square feet for his digging. It also gave him the right to seek the commissioner’s intervention in all disputes and claims.

  ‘You’re quite right. There is a growing anger against the government at the moment,’ responded Richard. ‘I know it will cause trouble before long.’

  John’s interest was immediately kindled. From his perspective, nothing had come from his involvement in the struggle against the English Corn Laws. There was a nagging feeling in his mind that he had deserted a worthy cause when he was transported to Van Diemen’s Land. He had begun already to feel a strong empathy with the struggling diggers.

  ‘The government is raising the license fee to £50 a year,’ said Richard. ‘That’s quite preposterous and unfair for most diggers. It’s repeatedly causing violent clashes with the police and ill-will towards the Government. The law-enforcers are on a continuous hunt to detect unlicensed prospectors. It pays to be suspicious of anyone whom you don’t know around here, and corruption,’ continued Richard. ‘The whole system lends itself to bribery. I heard of two diggers who were challenged by a member of the constabulary to produce their licenses. One took a £1 note from his pocket and slipped it to the constable with a wink. I’m sure that sort of thing’s happening all the time.’

  ‘I haven’t seen too many police around here,’ said John.

  ‘That’s the trouble. The job’s far too big for the local force,’ Richard replied. ‘But while that’s bad enough, I think the other cause of unrest is much more serious for this colony. The mining community hasn’t any political rights or recognised status. In fact, we are an entirely unprivileged community. None of us has public rank, political representation, or any self-elected local authority. When you come to think about it, we are all contributing to the wealth and development of the colony without having a voice whatever in how we’re governed.’

  John listened with a sense of déjà vu. Wasn’t this the very reason for the formation of the Chartist Party in Britain a few years ago? Perhaps this colony was ready for a similar democratic movement.

  ‘Have you heard of the Red Ribbon League, John?’ asked Richard. ‘No, who are they?’ John responded.

  ‘That’s a group that is having a growing political influence in Ballarat and Bendigo,’ said Richard. ‘They flatly refused to pay the gold licence fee, and they advertise the fact. They take their name from the red ribbons they wear on their hats. Some of them are pretty aggressive too. I’ve heard that they’ve threatened diggers with physical violence if they pay their licence fees. A few diggers have even been driven out of their communities for obeying the law in this matter. One shopkeeper who refused to fly the red ribbon from his veranda had his shop torched.’

  ‘I can sympathise with their goals, but I certainly wouldn’t support their methods,’ said John with feeling.

  Suddenly, they heard voices shouting in the distance. Hurrying out of the tent, they were confronted by the sight of a crowd of angry diggers in hot pursuit of a fellow clutching a leather bag and running towards them. ‘Stop, thief!’ came a cry from the menacing mob. Instinctively, John threw himself into a rugby tackle and brought the alleged miscreant down into the dust. When the furious pursuers reached them, one sat on the offender’s chest and another on his legs. They would have lynched him on the spot, but John and Richard calmed them down and persuaded then to escort him to the lock-up and to let the law take its due course.

  ‘This kind of thing’s happening all over the diggings. If the truth’s known, the poor fellow’s down on his luck, and he’s desperate,’ commented Richard.

  ‘I feel sorry for him,’ said Anna.

  ‘At least there’s one good thing to come out of this,’ said Richard. ‘You’ll become known and respected by all the miners around here, John. We’ve not seen such a well-executed flying tackle since we left Britain.’

  Richard was right. John’s capture of the gold thief was talked about all around Forest Creek for days. The young Englishman was the toast of the town, and he was immediately recognised as one who was not to be trifled with.

  As the days wore on, John and Anna busied themselves with the routine of life on the diggings at Pennyweight Flat. In the morning, Anna would hang out her washing, chop wattle wood with a broad-bladed axe, and attend to the cooking. Anna had learnt the art from her mother, but adapting to the peculiarities of bush cooking was a real challenge. She and John had constructed a makeshift oven from a kerosene can with the top partially removed to form a door. Wattle was a good fuel, and a hot oven was quite easy to generate. In the afternoon, she would usually help John by ladling water into the sluice box, keeping an eye open for the glint of gold specks.

  The couple’s fortuitous choice of Pennyweight Flat was a happy one. Despite the physical hardships, there was at least a sense of community and a respect for their digger mates, which was not necessarily to be found at all the diggings. A great number of immigrants to Port Phillip were in a demoralised state—escaped convicts, drunkards, prostitutes, thieves, and murderers from the four corners of the globe had gravitated there.

  From the respectable country towns of the British Isles, it was impossible to imagine life on the Australian goldfields. The brutal and obscene language that was to be heard on all sides was a measure of the depravity of this godforsaken colony. Anna felt quite safe at Pennyweight Flat where the few married women were generally treated with respect by the miners. She did, however, feel somewhat isolated at times. The newspapers from Melbourne rarely arrived in Forest Creek, and the residents relied almost exclusively upon immigrants and itinerant salesmen for news of the outside world.

  It was Friday, Anna’s usual day for shopping at the Forest Creek store. What an extraordinary range of items there were to be purchased—sugar candy and potted anchovies, East India pickles, and Bass’s pale ale, ankle jack boots, baby’s bonnets, and every conceivable apparatus for mining from a pick to a needle. After making her few purchases, Anna walked past the Post Office counter and noticed to her surprise a few copies of last week’s Melbourne Gazette for sale. As a special treat, she bought a copy for John and presented it to him after dinner that evening.

  John sat down on an u
pturned bucket under the kerosene lamp and began to read avidly. The price of gold was rising, four murders had been reported in Melbourne, and the Blue Marlin, a British sailing ship on her maiden voyage had been wrecked on the west coast of Van Diemen’s Land with no known survivors.

  Suddenly, John caught sight of an advertisement on page seven. ‘Oh my god!’ he whispered to himself.

  WANTED

  Information Concerning The Whereabouts Of

  JOHN FRANCIS OXLEY

  McCann and Suter, Solicitors

  Sheffield, England

  McCann and Suter, one of Yorkshire’s foremost law firms wanted to find out where he was. Could it be that Charlotte was pursuing him? After all she would have a case for breach of promise of marriage. A feeling of apprehension swept over him. He thought of all that he had left behind in England. The past is never far below the surface of one’s present experience. Slipping outside, John carefully removed the advertisement from the paper and destroyed it. He was not anxious for Anna to see it. The less she knew of his prior relationship with Charlotte at this stage the better. John resolved to lie as low as possible. But fate was not about to allow him to realise such anonymity.

  For the time being, John set about prospecting at Forest Creek. He learnt to endure the most incredible hardships. In the winter, he often worked up to his knees in mud. In the summer, he struggled under the blazing sun with mosquitoes and stinging March flies constantly molesting him. His eyes smarted and his throat grew dry and parched as the hot North winds, laden with dust blew around him. Interestingly, far from depressing his spirit or weakening his body, these conditions appeared to give him energy and strengthen his resolve to succeed.

  On one such occasion, on a hot summer day, he had sunk a hole eighteen feet deep not far from their tent. He had to dig through gravel set hard as rock. This six-hour effort in a temperature well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit yielded only a few pennyweights of gold dust. There was no way in which John could make his fortune at this rate.

  He was in the middle of digging a new shaft, when up strode Richard. ‘There’s a meeting at three o’clock this afternoon outside the store to talk about licenses. Make sure you’re there won’t you!’ Without waiting for a response, Richard made off up the hill to contact other miners.

  The afternoon was bright and sunny and the store was decked out in red ribbons and flags. A small dray stood in the shade of a large gum tree on one side of the door. As the hour approached, men began to collect in small groups along the creek and make their way to the meeting. By three o’clock, some four hundred men had assembled. A bush band was heard in the distance and as it approached a few more men began to arrive from the lower diggings.

  The speaker, a stocky fair-haired man named Bevan, took his place on the dray. A conspicuous red ribbon was tied around his miner’s hat. His reputation had preceded him and cheers rang out as he stepped forward to speak.

  ‘Men of Forest Creek!’ he began. ‘I see before me men that any country would be proud to own as her sons. You are the cream of this colony, the sinews of her strength. The question, gentlemen is this—Do you intend to be slaves or freemen? Will you bow your neck to the yoke of heavy and unfair taxes or, like free men will you stand up for your rights?’

  A spontaneous shout of approval came from the audience as the speaker continued. ‘Why should we bear this grievous imposition when it is in our power to change it? It is an unjust tax and the government knows it,’ he said emphatically.

  ‘Here, here!’ yelled Richard who seemed spellbound by the oratory. Others joined in the shouting.

  As Bevan continued, he stirred the crowd into an angry mood. The sergeant of police and his three constables fearing for their safety removed themselves quietly from the scene.

  ‘We are willing to pay a reasonable tax. But few of us can afford to pay £50 a year,’ said the speaker.

  Some believed that this heavy tax was imposed by the government to discourage farmhands from leaving the squatters’ employment for the lure of the goldfields.

  ‘The Gazette describes us as a band of cut-throats and scoundrels. What else would you expect from that rag?’ Bevan railed. ‘It’s out to please its wealthy owners. They say we’re dishonest! Is there anyone here who secures his tent at night? We go out to work on the diggings, leaving thousands of pounds in our cash boxes without lock or guard. What does that say about most of us? Do not fathers’ trust daughters among us, and husbands their wives? Has there ever been a case of a woman being molested in Forest Creek? No! You, my friends live more moral lives than many of the residents of Melbourne with all their blue-coat force, pistols, and carbines. Let’s have no more talk about physical violence to achieve our ends. Moral force! That’s what’s needed. You are men of strong conviction. Stand firm against your would-be extorters. Refuse to pay the higher charges!’

  Bevan raised his right hand in exhortation. ‘I call upon you, men of Forest Creek to pledge yourselves to support one another against this immoral tax.’

  John was moved by the strength of the speech. Here was no rabble-rouser, but a man of substance, a man to be trusted, and followed. He sought to speak with Bevan.

  Bevan was one of the more conservative members of the Red Ribbon League. He was keen to recruit level-headed men to the cause and was pleased to meet John.

  ‘We can do with young men like you in the League, Mr Francis. I hear that you have quite a following here in Forest Creek.’ John was flattered at the compliment, and the two men struck up an animated conversation. John told Bevan of his erstwhile involvement in the Chartist movement, which to him was a protest against the lack of representation in government by the labouring classes in England, and how he saw the League as having similar goals and aspirations. John was obviously stirred by the events of the afternoon and reported to Anna that he had signed up in membership of the Red Ribbon League.

  Throughout the next few months, John’s reputation as a public speaker at meetings of the League grew rapidly. The more and more he was expected to set the agenda of the branch at the Creek, his capacity to enthuse the miners was receiving growing recognition from the leaders.

  Together John and Anna visited other mining families in the vicinity, seeking to win support for the Red Ribbon League. But as her pregnancy progressed Anna was seen less frequently in public as she prepared for the birth.

  Since Anna had learnt to read and to write in the rectory at St James she had practised whenever possible. But reading matter was scarce, and neither of them was given to letter-writing. Anna found that reading the Gazette was a little too hard, and she had come to rely on an infrequent broadsheet that was locally produced giving a summary of events in the outside world.

  For some time, Anna had had a growing feeling that she ought to write to her parents. Her resentment at her father’s intransigence was subsiding, and she felt it was time to try to be reconciled with him. What her first simple attempt to write lacked in spelling it more than made up for in love.

  Dear mother and farther, I am riting to let you no I am veri well and hapy. John and I are living at Frost Creak, looking for gold We hav not fownd much yet, but enuf too by food to eet We are both ecited becaus we will soon hav a baby. I luv you and mis you veri much. From anna.

  Anna’s pregnant state was becoming more obvious by the day. They talked about the names they might select for the little one. ‘I’m not so keen on Pennyweight,’ quipped John. ‘Do you like Harriette?’ asked Anna. ‘And what about Richard for a boy?’ she added. John laughed. ‘You seem to have it all worked out, don’t you.’

  In the cool twilight air, many of the bush animals became active. A koala scampered across their path and up a nearby gum tree. With his practised eye, John pointed out to Anna the bandicoots, the kangaroo rats, and possums. The laughing Jackass made its presence very obvious. ‘Isn’t it beautiful, John?’ said Anna, drawing close to him. ‘I�
�m beginning to love this place.’ John looked at her in admiration. He smiled wryly as he wondered what Charlotte’s reaction would have been to a place like this.

  As John and Anna approached their tent, they were surprised by two diggers running through the bush calling for help. The two panting figures stopped and without explaining what the trouble was implored John to come quickly. John followed them as they ran off along the path. When they reached the big bend in the creek, one of the two pointed in the direction of a poorly kept calico tent twenty yards or so into the bush.

  ‘I think old Martin lives there,’ said John, breathing heavily. Martin was a retired boatswain from the Royal Navy. The old salt had sailed the seven seas for more than forty years and had finally come to try his luck at Port Phillip. He lived alone, and despite John’s several attempts to get to know him he remained single, aloof, and cantankerous. He found his comfort in the rum bottle, and whenever he had a strike, he blew it all on grog. However, Martin’s dissipated life was by no means exceptional on the goldfields.

  When John stopped to think about it, the old boy hadn’t been seen for weeks. That was nothing unusual. He seemed to like the life of a hermit. John hurried with the men towards Martin’s tent to see what the trouble was. When they got close to it, they were stopped in their tracks by the stench of death wafting down the hill to meet them. Fearing the worst, and tying their scarves around their noses, the three approached cautiously. John threw open the tent flaps to be faced by the gruesome sight of the old sailor lying on his leafy pallet, empty rum bottle in his hand, and his whole body crawling with bull ants. They reckoned that he had been dead for at least ten days by the state of him. Without delay, they wrapped the body in the calico tent and buried him on the spot. John said the Lord’s Prayer over him as they rolled his body into the grave.

  The news of old Martin’s unfortunate demise soon spread around the diggings. It was generally agreed that this was an unpleasant way to depart, and that people should be discouraged from living in such isolation. The problems of living alone were not lost on those women whose husbands were away from home from time to time. This was a concern faced by Anna as John was being called more and more to attend political meetings in places like Ballarat and Bendigo.