d
by saying:

"They are all gone but Joe."

She had been a widow more than twenty-five years. She was a young
woman, tall and strong, before Bonaparte, Wellington, the United
States, or Australia, had ever been heard of in Lancashire, and from
the top of a stile she had counted every windmill and chimney in
Preston before it was covered with the black pall of smoke from the
cotton-mills.

AMONG THE DIGGERS IN 1853.

I.

I lost a summer in 1853, and had two winters instead, one in England,
the other in Australia.

It was cold in the month of May as we neared Bendigo. We were a
mixed party of English, Irish, and Scotch, twelve in number, and
accompanied by three horse-teams, carrying tubs, tents, and
provisions. We also had plenty of arms wherewith to fight the
bush-rangers, but I did not carry any myself; I left the fighting
department to my mate, Philip, and to the others who were fond of
war. Philip was by nature and training as gentle and amiable as a
lamb, but he was a Young Irelander, and therefore a fighter on
principle. O'Connell had tried moral suasion on the English
Government long enough, and to no purpose, so Philip and his fiery
young friends were prepared to have recourse to arms. The arms he
was now carrying consisted of a gleaming bowie knife, and two pistols
stuck in his belt. The pistols were good ones; Philip had tried them
on a friend in the Phoenix Park the morning after a ball at the
Rotunda, and had pinked his man--shot him in the arm. It is
needless to say that there was a young lady in the case; I don't know
what became of her, but during the rest of her life she could boast
of having been the fair demoiselle on whose account the very last
duel was fought in Ireland. Then the age of chivalry went out. The
bowie knife was the British article bought in Liverpool. It would
neither kill a man nor cut a beef-steak, as was proved by experience.

We met parties of men from Bendigo--unlucky diggers, who offered to
sell their thirty-shilling licenses. By this time my cash was low;
my twenty-dollar gold pieces were all consumed. While voyaging to
the new Ophir, where gold was growing underfoot, I could not see any
sound sense in being niggardly. But when I saw a regular stream of
disappointed men with empty pockets offering their monthly licenses
for five shillings each within sight of the goldfield, I had
misgivings, and I bought a license that had three weeks to run from
Wil