height of two feet six inches, demand what he wanted.

A digging started near us and was worked by a score of two dark-browed
sons of Italy. They made mother nervous, and she averred they were not to
be trusted, but I liked and trusted them. They carried me on their broad
shoulders, stuffed me with lollies and made a general pet of me. Without
the quiver of a nerve I swung down their deepest shafts in the big bucket
on the end of a rope attached to a rough windlass, which brought up the
miners and the mullock.

My brothers and sisters contracted mumps, measles, scarlatina, and
whooping-cough. I rolled in the bed with them yet came off scot-free. I
romped with dogs, climbed trees after birds' nests, drove the bullocks in
the dray, under the instructions of Ben, our bullocky, and always
accompanied my father when he went swimming in the clear, mountain,
shrub-lined stream which ran deep and lone among the weird gullies,
thickly carpeted with maidenhair and numberless other species of ferns.

My mother shook her head over me and trembled for my future, but father
seemed to consider me nothing unusual. He was my hero, confidant,
encyclopedia, mate, and even my religion till I was ten. Since then I
have been religionless.

Richard Melvyn, you were a fine fellow in those days! A kind and
indulgent parent, a chivalrous husband, a capital host, a man full of
ambition and gentlemanliness.



Amid these scenes, and the refinements and pleasures of Caddagat, which