he diggers,
and are only known by their carrying a gun in lieu of a pick or shovel.
Delinquents unable to pay the fine, have the pleasure of working it out
on the roads.

Now for my story--such as it is.

Mike and Robert were two as good mates as any at the Mount Alexander
diggings. They had had a good spell of hard work, and, as is usually
the way, returned to Melbourne for a holiday at Christmas-time; and
then it was that the bright eyes of Susan Hinton first sowed discord
between them. Mike was the successful wooer, and the old man gave his
consent; for Mike, with one exception, had contrived to make himself a
favourite with both father and daughter. The exception was this. Old
Hinton was a strict disciplinarian--one of what is called the
"good old school"--he hated radicals, revolutionists, and reformers,
or any opposition to Church or State. Mike, on the contrary, loved
nothing better than to hold forth against the powers that be; and it
was his greatest boast that Government had never pocketed a farthing
from him in the way of a licence. This, in the old man's eyes, was his
solitary fault, and when Mike declared his intention of taking another
trip to the "lottery fields" before taking a ticket in the even greater
lottery of marriage, he solemnly declared that no daughter of his
should ever marry a man who had been openly convicted of in any way
evading the licence fee.

This declaration from any other man, who had already promised his
daughter in marriage, would not have had much weight; but Mike knew the
stern, strict character of Hinton, and respected this determination
accordingly. The day of their departure arrived, and with a tearful
injunction to bear in mind her father's wishes, Susan bade her lover
farewell, and Robert and he proceeded on their journey. Full of his own
happiness, Mike had never suspected his comrade's love for
Susan, and little dreamt he of the hatred against himself to which it
had given birth--hatred the more to be dreaded since it was concealed
under a most friendly exterior.

For the first month Mike behaved to the very letter of the law, and
having for the sum of one pound ten shillings purchased his legal right to
dig for gold, felt himself a most exemplary character. Success again
crowned their efforts, and a speedy return to Melbourne was contemplated.
In the ardour of this exciting work another month commenced, and Mike at
first forgot and then neglected to renew his licence