" DIGGER " STORIES.

THE literature which has sprung up in the track of the gold- finding events of the last twenty years has so much in common with the life whioh inspired it, that it is both rough and romantic, both grim and grotesque. It is more foreign to English experience than any other literature in existence, and it takes a stronger hold upon our imagination than any other which deals with adventurous life,—than the stories of Indian tiger-hunting or African lion-hunting,—perhaps because in the digger stories the men are the wild beasts and the hunters at once. There is a grim fascination for the fancy in the variety of human types exhibited in these gold-camp stories, in the notion of great numbers of men weeding themselves out of civilisation in order to pursue the object most desired by all civilised races, in the strange laws and customs to which they submit themselves, and in their ways of speech and action, different from those of all the world beside. The gold-digging and gold-mining life can only be understood from stories. Grave accounts of it in travel-books, and by the writers who keep the records of the world posted-up for the historians of the century, do not let us really into it ; we never came to understand it until Bret Haste took us to Roaring Camp, and to Poker Flat, introduced us to the Pikes, and to that wonderful digger-talk, in which the profanity almost ceases to shock us by reason of its waved, and the humour is of a kind irreducible to any known definition of that quality, irreconcilable with any of our previous notions, not anyhow to be analysed, but which we feel, as Dickens describes Mr. Morfin's neighbours to have felt his violoncello-music, "in our bones." What Bret Harts has done for Us in respect of the Californian, Mr. Marcus Clarke has done for us in respect of the Australian gold-digger ; he has painted that lawless, lavish, toiling life, with the startling fidelity of his pictures of convict existence and bush-ranging exploits, in the bad old times of our great colonies. Mr. John Lang was the first writer of fiction founded upon terrible fact who told us a real bushranging story, and it was very interesting, but one the reader might forget. The writer had taken with him to Australia the easy indolence of the Anglo-Indian, the superficiality which is an attribute of the un- disputedly superior race, where other races are not savage, but only subdued, and are therefore not studied with the solicitude

• of fear ; and he contented himself with sketching the outside of men and conditions. He has not impressed his Australian people upon us, though his Anglo-Indians are memorable. "The Wetherbys, father and son," are as distinct as Colonel Newcome, Mr. Marcus Clarke is a writer of a totally different order, full of the earnestness, the outspokenness, the vigour, the roughness, nod the gloom which characterise the life of which he is the ex- ponent, but he fails to depict a humorous side to it, so that we do not know whether the Australian digger is a much duller dog than the Californian, or Mr. Marcus Clarke too English to catch the cosmopolitan humours of the scenes whose wildness, wickedness, picturesqueness, and "human nature," in Sam Slick's sense of the phrase, he thoroughly appreciates. However that may be, and though many delightful tales of Australian gold- camps are to be found in the Australian newspapers from time to time, tales which would make a welcome volume for us here, who have to import our romance and adventure, it is to the Californian digger stories that we owe the quite unique sensation before alluded to. The Californian digger is a being apart from every other "kind of people," as Rip Van Winkle says, a terrible creature, unspeakably diverting and repulsive, very unhuman, not so much brutal as diabolical, quite amazing to us, in Ins reckless- ness, his disregard of life, his power of work, his destructiveness, 'his upside-down and inside-out notions of things, his whimsical gleams of sentiment, and his inverted ideas of honour. Only American writers can interpret him,—there must go the kinship of the soil and the sun to the true apprehension and rendering of him. No more than an English writer, though the most perfect master of his craft, could have drawn "Nick of the Woods," or "Horse- shoe Robinson," or the Kentucky man, "half-horse, half-alliga- tor," of Mr. Bird's two wonderful novels—one reads them in early boyhood, and remembers them all one's life—could an English writer execute even the least successful among Bret Harte's sketches of the miners in the Golden State. His novel, " Gabriel Conroy," was, indeed, a dead failure, but even in it we find living bits beyond the reach of any but an American born, We owe an invaluable addition to the literature of the gold camps to the wide-spread popularity of "Helen's Babies," a book which came just in time to correct the general impression that Ameri- can humour was "played out," because the "Heathen Chines" had been shamefully overworked in the matter of quotation ; Mark Twain had become monotonous, and there was no sign of a new novel from Dr. Mayo, the only American who can write one with native humour in it, and no base imitation of bad French originals. The literary lawlessness, the unconventional air of easy talkativeness, the exuberant yet sly humour of this book, and its successor, "Other People's Children," combined with a peculiar vein of soft-hearted amiability, a peaceful per- mission ofof mastery to women and children essentially Ameri- can, charmed everybody. Not one of us could do anything like these books ; they are as much out of our line as out of our power, as is amply proved by a silly imitation of them, which

became waste-paper immediately,—but every one of us could enjoy them. Still more thoroughly can every. one of us enjoy "Some Folks," whose very motto, "There's as much difference in 'some folks' as ' anybody,' " is one of those quaint American

sayings as characteristic as an Irish bull, and equally indescrib- able. These digger stories might be told by " Toddie " him- self, grown-up, but with all his impishness unsubdued, his intolerable perception of theological difficulties undimmed, his devil-may-carishness developed into the gigantic propor- tions of all things Californian, and his humour, still chiefly stimulated by his stomach, finely touched to extraordinary dryness, subtlety, grimness, breadth, audacity, and exquisite affectation of simplicity. Mr. Habberton tells us stories which are terrible and ludicrous with all the mildness of Nathan the Quaker and all the ferocity of Nick of the Woods ; he intro- duces us to the "shootist," the " knifeist," and the " bettist," the "judge " and the "deacon ;" to the " boys " generally, and their doings, in an easy style of flowing narrative, which sometimes is downright shocking, sometimes pathetic—with a wonderfully clever unintentionalness about the pathos—but more often than either, simply, utterly, satisfactorily ludicrous ; so that one would have to laugh out loud in the night if they recurred to one's memory, or in an underground train, when every one else is reading the money article. The soft-hearted amia- bility and submission to women which we have already remarked as peculiar to Americans turn up constantly in these stories, in the funniest association sometimes ; as, for instance, when the first " school-marrn " arrives at Bottle Flat, a run on Yankee Sam's store sets in, his stock of white shirts, seven in number, become visible on manly forms, his pocket-combs and glasses give out, and he "prevents blood- shed over his only bottle of hair-oil by putting it up at a raffle, in forty chances, at an ounce a chance." One of the funniest and most painful stories within our knowledge is the story of " Bliz- zer's Wife." It is difficult to read that of "The Last Pike at Jagger's Bend," because one must laugh until one aches, and hates oneself for doing it. The matter-of-fact bloodthirstiness of the general society, the inimitable comicality of their notions of friendship and "squareness," the extraordinary mingling of the phraseology of religious sects with the lingo of the mines, and this with a simplicity which makes the combination irresistibly humorous ; the singular placidity of the narrator's tone, which almost makes one hear the drawling voice and see the twinkling eye of the Transatlantic raconteur, all make up a novel and inde- finable treat for the reader of this funniest of strange books.

Since Bret Harte's succinct and cynical description of how the "chunk of old red sandstone" hit the disputant Professor" in the abdomen," and "the subsequent proceedings interested him no more," there has been nothing like the story of the fight with knives in "First Prayer at "[annoy's." The description of " Han- ney's " as a place avoided by the missionaries, is so quietly dreadful. "Men came out from 'Frisco and the East to labour with the Chinese miners ; who were the only peaceable and well-behaved people in the mines ; but the white -faced, good-natured, hard-swear- ing, generous, heavy, drinking, enthusiastic, murderous Anglo- Saxons they let severely alone Perhaps they thought it preferable to be killed 'and eaten by cannibals than to be tumbled into a gulch by a revolver-shot, while the shootist strolled calmly on in company with his approving conscience, never thinking to ascertain whether his bullet had completed the business, or whether a wounded man might not have to fight death and coyotes together." At " Hanneyle " a fight between the Judge and Billy, two celebrated knifeists, takes place, preceded by a friendly drink:—

" Such exquisite carving had never before been soon at Enemy's,— that was freely admitted by all. Men pitied absent miners all over the State, and wondered why this delightful, lingering, long-drawn-on. system of slaughter was not more popular than the brief and common

plaee method of the revolver. The Webfoot rapturously and softly quoted the good Doctor Watts :— " My willing soul would stay In such a place as this, And "

When suddenly his cup of bliss was dashed to the ground, for Billy, stumbling, fell upon his own knife, and received a severe cut in the abdomen.'

This is followed by a description of the sorrow of the "boys," their efforts to save the wounded man, their actual tender- ness. The doctor, who has been watching the fight, says, "No go, Billy, you're done for." Then comes a

grim bit of humour Good God !" exclaimed the Judge, who had watched the Doctor with breathless interest ; "ain't thee no chance ?"—" Nary," replied the Doctor, decidedly.

" I'm a ruined man. I'm a used-up cuss," said the Judge, with a look of bitter anguish. "I wish I'd gone under too." "Easy, old hoss," suggested one of the boys, "you didn't do him, yer know."—" That's what's the matter," roared the Judge, savagely ; " "nobody'll ever know which of us whipped." And the Judge sorrowfully took himself off, declining most reso- lutely to drink. Billy is dying, and implores some one to pray ; and here comes one of the most painfully-humorous scenes within our knowledge, a scene in which this especial type of American humour is exhibited in its perfection :—

" The boys looked sorrowful ; if gold-dust could have bought prayers, Billy would have had a first-class assortment in an instant.—' There's Deacon Adams over to Pattin's,' suggested a bystander ; an' they do say ho's a reglar rip-roarer at prayin' 1 But %would take four hours to go and fetch him.'—' Too long,' said the Dooter.-6 Down in Mexico, at the cathedral,' said another, they pray for a feller after he's dead, when per pay 'cm fur it, an' they say it's jist the thing—sure pop. I'll give yer my word, Billy, an' no go back, that I'll see the job done up in style fur yer, of that's any comfort.'—' I want to hoar it mYsol_fr, groaned the sufferer ; 'I don't feel right ; can't nobody pray—nohody in the crowd ?' Finally matters were brought to a crisis by Mose—no one knew his other name. Mose uncovered a sandy head, face, and board, and remarked :-4I don't want to put on airs in this here crowd, but of nobody else ken say a word to the Lord about Billy Bent, I'm a-goin' to do it myself, It's a biznese I've never bin in, but nothin' like tryin'. This mootin"11 curn to order to wunst.'— 'Hats off in church, gentlemen I' commanded Pentecost. Off came every hat, and some of the boys knelt down, as Mose knelt beside the bench, and said: Oh, Lord, here's Billy Bent needs 'tondin' to I He's panned out his last dust, an' he seems to hey a purty clear Mee that this is his last chance. Be wants you to give him a lift, Lord, an' it's the opinion of this house that ho needs it. 'Tain't none of our bizness what he's done, an' of it wuz, you'd know more about it than we cud tell yor ; but it's mighty sartin that a cuss that's been in the cliggin's Sur years needs a sight of mendin' up before he kicks the bucket.'— That's so,' responded two or three, very emphatically.—' Billy's down, Lord, an' no decent man blieves that the Lord 'ud bit a man when he's down, so there's one of two things got to be done—either he's got to be let alone, or he's got to bo helped. Latin' him alone won't do him or anybody else onny good, so holpin's the holt, an' as onny ono uv us tough fellers would help of we know how to, it's only fair to suppose that the Lord '11 do it a mighty sight quicker. Now, what Billy needs is to see the thing in thot light, an' you ken make him do it a good deal better than we ken. It's mighty little fur the Lord to do, but it's meat an' drink an' clothes to Billy just now. When we wuz boys, sum uy us road some promises of you'rn in that Book thet was writ a good spell ago by chaps in the Old Country, an' though Sunday-school teachers and preachers mixed the matter up in our minds, an' got us all tangle- footed, we know they're day, an' you'll know what we moan. Now, Lord, Billy's jest the boy—ho's a hard ease, so you can't find no better stuff to work on—he's in a bad fix, thet we can't do nuthin' fur, so it's jest yor chance. He ain't exactly the chap to make an A Number One Angel of, but ho ain't the man to forget a friend, so he'll be a handy Seller to hey aroun'.'—' Feel any better, Billy ?' said Mose stopping the

prayer for a moment.—' A little,' said Billy, feebly ; 'but you want to tell the whole yarn. I'm sorry 'for all the wrong I've clone.'—' He's sorry for all hie deviltry, Lord—..2 An' I ain't got nothin' agin the Judge,' continued the sufferer. ' An' he don't boar no malice agin the Judge, which he shouldn't, seem' he generally gin as good as he took. An' the long an' short of it, Lord, is jest this—he's a-dyin', an' he wants a chance to die with his mind easy, an' nobody else can make it so, so we leave the whole job in your hands, only puttin' in, fur Billy's com- fort, that we recollect hearing how yer forgiv' a dyin' thief, an' that it ain't likely yor a-goin' to be harder on a chap that's alwas paid fur what he got. That's the whole story. Amen.'—Billy's hand, rapidly growing cold, reached for that of Mose, and he said, with considerable effort, Mose, yor came in oz handy as a nugget in a gone-up claim. God bless yer, Mose. I feel better inside. Ef I get through the clouds,

an' bey' a livin' chance to say a word to them as is the chiefs dar, that word'll be fur you, Mose. God biros yer, Mose, an' ef my blessin's no account, it can't cues yor, ennyhow. This claim's washed out, fellers,

an' here goes the last shovelful, to see if thor's °may gold in it or not.' —And Billy departed this life, and the boys drank to the repose of his soul."

After that, can any other notion be given of the mingled grue- someness and ludicrousness of these digger stories than that one feels them "in one's bones?"