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Chapter I.

To you whose lines have fallen in pleasant places, on whose paths in life fortune has beamed with gracious smiles, the following narrative will possess but little interest. Surrounded as you are with home comforts, troops of friends, and social pleasures, your severest pang, perchance, arising from satiety, you are utterly unable to estimate aright the strenuous struggle for existence maintained by the penniless poor. You will perhaps read no further, but dismiss the subject from your minds with the usual cant phrases about drink, improvidence, &c. Be it so. I address not the callous.

I seek an auditory only among those in whom the milk of human kindness still retains a lodgment, whose hearts are responsive to the cries of human woe. More especially do I address those who, having themselves fought the fierce and somewhile dubious battle with outrageous fortune, are ever ready to sympathise with, and wherever possible alleviate, the miseries of poor humanity.

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In the year 187-, Alick Spencer, a stalwart young shoemaker, with his wife and child arrived in the port of Lyttelton. Having heard in the Old Country of the high wages to be obtained, and the many facilities which New Zealand afforded for getting on in the world, he concluded it to be a veritable land of promise. So Jeanie and he, having laid their heads together, and being young, hopeful, and moderately ambitious of improving their lot, resolved to emigrate. Settling in Christchurch, they began their colonial career with all the happy confidence arising from the possession of youth and vigorous health. For a time fortune seemed to promise success. Alick was lucky enough to procure employment in one of the boot factories, where, being a steady workman, he remained in receipt of good wages for over two years. Jeanie, who had proved herself a thoroughly economical housekeeper, had managed to save a considerable portion of their income, which was invested in the purchase of a small section a little way outside the city. Here a modest three-roomed cottage was erected, and they entered on possession of their freehold with happy hearts. Not a cloud marred the simple pleasure of their lives, and all their dreams of the future were of a rosy hue.

But trouble was at hand. A great dulness of trade set in. “Hands” were being discharged in all directions. The boot factories suffered in common with every other branch of business; orders were few and scarcely to be had at all at anything like paying rates. At length, as the depression deepened, Alick Spencer found himself, much against his will, in the ranks of the unemployed. For a week or two he busied himself about his home, draining, forming a garden, and otherwise improving his section; his constant companion being his “wee Bobbie,” a bright little lad of three years. Frequently too, Jeanie, who was enthusiastically interested in the garden, would come out, and setting Ethel the baby on the grass for Bobbie to play with, would assist her husband in the pleasant task of planting and sowing. Here sometimes they would con- page 7 verse together as to the look-out ahead of them. In spite of himself, Alick found his usual good spirits give place occasionally to a feeling of despondency. His great fear was, that being unable to pay the monthly instalments, by which he had arranged to discharge the debt still remaining on the cottage, their little freehold of which they were so proud would be taken from them. At such times his bright-eyed sanguine little wife would rally him on his grumpiness, and the conversation usually take something like the following turn:—

“If the house were only free of debt, Jeanie, I shouldn't mind it so much; as it is, we may be planting those potatoes for others to dig, and these flowers for the pleasure of strangers.”

“Nonsense, Alick, I never saw the like of you; you're always fearing the worst. Keep up your courage man, times 'll mend, trade can't be always bad; somehow or other, you'll see, we'll manage to pull through.”

But time wore on; weeks lengthened into months, and the dearth of employment still continued. Alick daily ransacked the town in search of a job. Work of any kind, it mattered not what, he was eager to get; but night invariably saw him come home jaded, weary-eyed, and disheartened. Always it was the same; when a vacancy for one man occurred, a dozen were ready to fill the gap.

At length, together with a neighbour of his who was similarly placed, he shouldered his swag and, leaving the town, resolved to seek work further afield. They tramped the country districts in company for some weeks but, alas! the rural labour market, they found, was in much the same condition as the urban. Once, indeed, they got a job—to erect a few chains of post and rail fencing—and right heartily they set to work. Partly owing, however, to the heavy rains that ensued, causing what ought to have been an eight days' job to last a fortnight, and partly because of the low price at which the work was taken, they found that their fortnight's earnings little more than sufficed to pay page 8 for their fortnight's “tucker.” Disgusted with their want of success, they now decided on going back to Christchurch, the more readily as they had heard from a passing swagger that trade was beginning to look up in town.

Reaching home after an absence of six weeks, a poorer man than when he left, Alick lost no time in paying a visit to the boot factory. There, the manager told him that they were indeed busier, that trade had greatly improved, but he had no room at present, he was sorry to say, for any extra hands.

Meeting some of his former shopmates in the next street, he learnt that none of the old hands had been taken on, the reason being that their places were now filled with boys! The employers, it appeared, had discovered that young lads, after a short training, could execute much of the plainer sorts of work almost as efficiently, and certainly much more cheaply than men could, and being fully alive to their own immediate interests, had developed the discovery in a wholesale fashion. This general employment of cheap boy-labour was now a sore subject with the unemployed journeymen, but all their discussions of the matter had hitherto failed to elicit a feasible remedy. They felt themselves helpless in the face of it. As the little group sauntered through the town warmly debating their grievances, Alick felt that never before had his prospects seemed so gloomy. A temporary dulness of trade was bad enough, but this new departure in the tactics of the employers seemed to bar all hope of a betterment. He was quite at his wit's end as to his next step.

Just then a shrill voice bawled out, “Evening Star! Evening Star! Great Rush on the West Coast! Buy a Star, Sir? Full particulars of the Rush, Sir!”

A penny was produced aud the Star became the property of the group. The telegrams respecting the Rush were speedily devoured, and the pros and cons of the matter eagerly discussed; all the more eagerly inasmuch as each man felt that the news was to him as the dawn of hope. page 9 Here was a chance for unemployed hands. It appeared that a tract of alluvial country near the lower reaches of the Teremakau, had been discovered to be auriferous. A number of claims had been taken up, from two or three of which the yield was said to be surpassingly rich. It was further alleged that the lucky diggers did not care to disclose the full extent of their gains, the plain inference being, of course, that the ground was even richer than it was reported to be. The sensation was widespread. From all parts of the Colony men were hastening to the new gold-field.

Leaving his companions, Alick took a long, solitary stroll, pondering over the question—“Ought I to go?” In his then state of mind, he was inclined to look upon it as a providential opening. Here at least was a field where a man could labour without being under the pitiful necessity of begging leave to toil. True, he had no experience of gold-fields, but then, had he not often heard of raw new chums being frequently more successful than veteran diggers. And who could tell, there might possibly be a streak of luck in store even for him.

He finally decided that it was his clear duty to join the rush. But Jeanie—what of her! Next day he broached the subject, and found as he had feared that she was averse to his going. “You know,” she said, “that when you left here before and went up country, I was opposed to your going: yet you would go, and what did you gain by it? Nothing, came back poorer than you went. What reason have you to think that this new notion of yours would result more fortunately? Diggings indeed! Everybody knows that where one man succeeds at the diggings a hundred fail. And really Alick, don't you think that married men ought to stay at home to look after their wives and families, and let those who have nobody depending on them go to such places?”

“It cuts me to the heart to leave you Jeanie. God knows I have no desire to be away from you and the page 10 children. But what can I do? Don't you see that the very fact of my being a married man and having a family to provide for, compels me to this course? I cannot, dare not remain idle while there's a chance of doing better. Besides, there's no saying, Jeanie, I might possibly be lucky, just for once you know, and if so, would not our bettered circumstances afterwards amply repay us for the hardship of a short separation?”

Needless to repeat all the persuasive arguments that were employed. Suffice it to say that finally, his wife, faintly hoping it might prove for the best, yielded a reluctant consent, and Alick set about the necessary preparations.

With considerable difficulty, land being just then a drug in the market, he disposed of his house and section. The price realized being a low one, he found that when all his liabilities were discharged, (his monthly payments on the cottage being in hopeless arrears) the sum he could honestly call his own amounted to but a few pounds. This money he proposed to leave with his wife, to keep the pot boiling as he said, until he had tested his luck as a digger.

All his arrangements being at length concluded, the morning of his departure arrived, and found Alick ready to set out on his journey with scarcely more than the proverbial half-crown in his pocket. Being no stoic, and devotedly attached to his wife and family, he felt the impending separation keenly. Though putting a brave face on the matter in the presence of Jeanie, he could hardly refrain from murmuring against Providence for the cruel necessity he was under of parting from all he held dearest upon earth.

The previous night, before retiring to rest, husband and wife, their feelings unusually chastened and softened in view of their troubles, had conversed long and earnestly together, and, both having been piously trained, had read together from the “Big Ha' Bible,” had knelt together and humbly craved the blessing of “Our Father.”

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And now having snatched a hasty breakfast, he repaired to the bedroom, kissed his two still sleeping children, and after warmly embracing his wife, took up his swag and moved to the door.

“Good-bye Jeanie.—Good-bye dear!”—But Jeanie's long suppressed tears now burst forth, and rushing forward she caught his hand in her's They stood for a space tenderly regarding each other. Not a word was spoken, but each silently commending the other to the care of “Him who careth for us,” they parted!