"In there?" pointing
to the blanket tent.
She nodded her head, adding in a lower tone:
"He's asleep now. He sleeps more than he did. He's killed hisself
digging for the gold, and he never got none, and he says 'he'll
dig till he dies.'"
"Dig till he dies." Fit motto of many a disappointed gold-seeker, the
finale of many a broken up, desolated home, the last dying words of
many a husband, far away from wife or kindred, with no loved ones near
to soothe his departing moments - no better burial - place than the very
hole, perchance, in which his last earthly labours were spent. These
were some of the thoughts that rapidly chased one another in my mind as
the sad words and still sadder tone fell upon my ear.
I was roused by hearing Frank's voice in inquiry as to how she made her
candles, and she answered all our questions with a child-like NAIVETE,
peculiarly her own. She told us how she boiled down the fat - how once it
had caught fire and burnt her severely, and there was the scar still
showing on her brown little arm - then how she poured the hot fat into,
the tin mould, first fastening in the wicks, then shut up the mould and
left it to grow cold as quickly as it would; all this, and many other
particulars which I have long since forgotten, she told us; and
little by little we learnt too her own history.
