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"D' ye know what the diggins the squire did it for, Gaffer Solomons?" asked one many-childed matron, with a baby in arms, an urchin of three years old clinging fast to her petticoat, and her hand maternally holding back a more adventurous hero of six, who had a great desire to thrust his head into one of the grisly apertures.
There's Waller, now, as 'll tell ye that when he `can't help it he guesses he'll jist grin an' bear it. And there's an old Irish trapper that's bin in the mountains nigh forty years now, and who's alive at this day if he bean't dead that used to say to himself when ill luck came upon him, `Now, Terence, be aisy, boy; an' av ye can't be aisy, be as aisy as ye can. So you see, Mr Bertram, we have got a few sparks of wisdom in these diggins."
"I ain't a vain man, and never was. You know, Squire, I hante a mossel of it in my composition; no, if you was to look at me with a ship's glass you wouldn't see a grease spot of it in me. I don't think any of us Yankees is vain people; it's a thing don't grow in our diggins.
The Archdeacon asked if no authorities had interfered. "I heard, sir," said George Diggins, "that a revenue officer did what he could to stop 'un, but they hadn't a sarved he very genteel." This statement meant that they had pushed him over the cliffs.
"Yes, massa," replied Quashy, "got lots ob eart' quaks in dem diggins. Ebery day, more or less, dey hab a few. Jest afore you come down dis mornin' I hab some conv'sashin' wid de landlord, an' he say he don' like de look ob t'ings." "Indeed, Quashy. Why not?" "'Cause it's gittin' too hot, he say, for de time ob year sulfry, he called it." "Sultry, you mean?"
"It's a fact: Eben Javash, that went out better'n a year ago, hez got back, and he wuz at the next diggins an' heerd all about it. 'T seems the officers ketched Brown, an' Jim Hockson gave 'em thirty thousand dollars to pay them an' the bank too, and then they let him go. Might's well ha kept his money, though, seein' Brown washed overboard on the way back.
"O, Daniel," said Aunt Katie, half chidingly, "how you do talk." "Why, it's true. I 'member when you war de puttiest gal in dese diggins; when nobody could top your cotton." "I don't," said Aunt Katie. "Well, I do. Now, let me go on wid my story.
I dismounted and asked him the cause of all this disturbance. He answered: 'That thar yaller-bellied, toad-eatin' Parly Voo, over thar, an' me, we've been havin' a small chance of a scrimmage to-day. The sneakin' pole-cat, I'll raise his har yet, ef he don't quit these diggins'!
Let's see whether it's John Bull or Patlander that's to blame, or both on 'em; six of one and half-a-dozen of tother. By Gosh! Minister would talk, more sense in one day to Ireland, than has been talked there since the rebellion; for common sense is a word that don't grow like Jacob's ladder, in them diggins, I guess. It's about, as stunted as Gineral Nichodemus Ott's corn was.
"Then we shall have to send another bullet into the tree to start you." "If ye don't cut hout of these diggins, yer'll wish that ye had," replied our defiant acquaintance. "Once for all, will you surrender?" was demanded. "See ye blasted fust," was returned, in a dogmatical manner.
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