his eye and manner, which had a curious effect. The hunt for gold is, after all, a sort of gambling with nature, and though the ways and details of the stakes are different, yet the same influences affect, in varying ratio and degree, the professed gamester at Homburg or Baden and the Australian digger. A blind subserviency to simple chance has a deteriorating influence on ordinary labour, and by its disloyalty to the laws of nature, which are of that code under which men are truly taught to look for their daily bread, leave room for vices to grow, and weaknesses to harden into vices. It is often seen that men whose intellects are acute, and whose reason is strong in other atmospheres, will bow round the gaming-table with childish obedience to some vague theory of chance which they could not find a reason to approve. All the circumstances are different with the Australian digger, but his nature is the same, and in degree is affected by the same cause. His purpose becomes so absorbing that other things are forgotten. In every other sphere labour is accepted as a task, and yielded as a price to be paid, and rest from it is sought by men-by some whenever it may be taken on the other side of the line of duty, by others from idleness. The digger for gold finds such feelings absorbed in his pursuit. He has a diseased craving for the work. Different natures are of course bent differently by the same strong influence, but all are bent. In some the strain wreaks ample ruin, and vice and crime grow rankly; but in others, though the influence is felt, the roots are not displaced. It was, therefore, curious, but not strange, that when Philip spoke with all his earnestness his three companions gradually listened to his speculations almost as though he were an oracle, and that, had they confessed truly to themselves, they did so because of an indefinable and simple belief in his lucky star! James and William Burlow were men of long experience in the colony, and had been at the diggings from the first discovery; Gordon had almost an equal experience of gold-finding, if not of colonial life; but Philip had been with them barely for two months. Philip's enthusiasm certainly for the time had a strong effect upon them all, and they began to discuss his views in the most sanguine manner. They were all seated just inside their tent when they commenced the division of the gold; but when they proceeded to talk over their prospects and proposals, William Burlow carefully drew together the canvas flaps which were used to close the entrance to the tent, and then they spoke in an eager undertone. The gist of Philip's speculations was this. It was evident that the gold was formed somewhere else than in the alluvial deposits from which they now worked it. It was, therefore, washed down by streams from its original site, or had in former times been so washed down, and thus was always found either in the beds of rivers, or in the valleys made by streams now dried up. The form in which they found it, whether in dust, grains, scales, or nuggets, was always water-worn, and such as to show that it had been carried by the currrent, and acted upon by the friction. Purely natural agencies, of which water-action was one, at work through long series of generations, had without doubt dissolved the rock in which the gold was born, but had no action on the metal, and the particles of gold were carried forward amid the débris of the rock, and finally mingled with it when it became a deposit of clay in the bed of the river-which might be running now, or which might have ceased to run, leaving a valley, or gully, such as those from which they were now accustomed to work it by washing. Now gold is at least seven times heavier than any rock, and not being subject to decay by water, or time, or ordinary natural agencies, the portions released, however minute, must be of much greater weight than the particles of disintegrated rock which formed the clay. It was on this very principle that they now washed the clay in their cradles. It was fair enough and natural to suppose that a violent current would have amply sufficient strength to hurry even considerable portions down, and there might be, or have been, agencies with which we are not acquainted which would transport large isolated pieces. But, he argued, it was equally fair to suppose that those larger nuggets or masses which had been set free by the disintegration of the rocks in which they were born, and which had not been carried away by some exceptional agency, had settled down by natural laws, either on their original site, or been removed perhaps by the first violence of the torrent which broke up their rocky covering, not far from it. The larger the pieces the shorter the distance they could have been removed by such natural forces, unless exceptionally. Where should they seek -how could they find such sites? The companions drew closer together, and there was a momentary silence; but the goldfever was intensely plain in a burning red spot on each cheek, and in the fiery earnestness in every eye. Men are dangerous when crossed at times like these. Then there followed a rapid and desultory conversation, full of sanguine speculations. James Burlow drew apart, sat a little back in the tent, and became silent. He was making a great struggle, such as only a strong man cares to initiate, to have defrauded Richard Gordon's father of against the seduction of passionate speculation, and the too hasty desertion of facts and reason. But it was easy to see that Gordon and William Burlow now spoke to Philip with a sort of deference in their manner and their ideas akin to subserviency. The weak moment had supervened, and they were offering unconscious homage to his lucky star, and the homage seemed growing kindred to a blinded trust. So they conversed of probabilities till, elated, Philip in a louder tone said that he felt he could lead them where such might be found -he felt he should be so fortunate if they would explore. At this moment they were stricken, as it were, into a momentary silence. They heard, first a snap, as of some one treading on a dry stick, outside the tent; then the sound as something touched an old tin dish which lay outside, and after that, of rapidly retreating footsteps. Some one had been listening. In a moment they were all outside the tent. Gordon and William Burlow were first. It was almost dark, but Philip, looking in the opposite direction from that in which the step had been first heard, saw a man just entering the belt of trees near to which the tent was pitched. He called out and pointed. In an instant both Gordon and William Burlow fired their revolvers-Gordon twice-but without effect, and the man, whoever he was, was gone. "Who was he?" asked James Burlow. "Who can he be?" echoed Gordon. "I did not see his face; I only caught sight of him for a moment as he went behind the trees," said Philip. Probably one of the ticket-of-leave scoundrels," said William Burlow; we must look out." a large sum by an ingenious transaction, the particulars of which had never seen the light; and in this he was said to have been helped by a certain Major Cutler, of a native regiment stationed at the same place. Philip knew as much as this of the matter, but no more. On the first day of his arrival, when Philip was inquiring for his friends, he had got from many of the diggers but short answers and no information, till he asked a tall man, who, muddy to the eyes, was working a cradle with great avidity, and who, unlike the rest, stepped forward for a moment with some politeness, and pointed to the very next claim, where James and William Burlow were working. Philip had remembered the strange courtesy, and returned it, as he was working, in a hasty acquaintanceship. The man was called William Brisbane. Before they knew each other's names, in some light talk Philip had alluded to Brisbane's lameness, when he said carelessly that he had been in the army, and got a ball in his right knee in a duel at Bareilly; but he had left the army now." Some time after this, one evening, Philip went across to a small store a good distance off to fetch something, where he saw Brisbane, who was drinking and playing cards on a barrel-head with another digger. Brisbane cheated, and Philip saw the trick. The two players quarrelled, and a drunken fight ensued, in which each used furious words, and Philip heard Brisbane's opponent use these, "You thieving hound! You daren't use your own name. I don't care who knows it, Major Cutler. That's your name -Major William Brisbane Cutler!" Cutler turned his eye on Philip's face in an instant, and a drunken reconciliation and a restoration followed. Philip departed, but had not gone But Philip knew, although he said nothing far toward his tent before Cutler limped after more. He had noticed that the man was more than ordinarily tall, and that he had a peculiar limping action with the right leg. He knew him, but to have said so might have brought to light a weakness under which he suffered. As they were to move, to be silent could have in it no harm. He was silent, though he felt his face burn. He covered a first weakness, which to have made known would have so detracted from his present exaltation, with another weakness, and said nothing more. The fact was this. Philip's father was captain in the -th. The regiment was long stationed at Bareilly, in the Indian service. To his poor wife, Philip's mother, John Fraser had behaved with brutal meanness, and the dissolute rascal spent her money recklessly; but be spent also more than hers. He was known him, and overtaking him, said, "I say, Fraser, "Call me Brisbane, you know," said Cutler, with a nasty chuckle. "I don't want any quarrelling unless you do. I know more about you than perhaps you think; at all events I know you well, for I knew your father in India. You heard what that man said to me just now, and I could see you knew my name when you heard it. Well, it is my name. Have you heard it before?" "I have heard it before." "So I thought. Well, other people don't know it here, and it suits me that they shouldn't. I shall be much obliged if you won't mention it, especially in your gang,” he said; and the same chuckle stretched the thin lips "I don't want to interfere with you in any way," said Philip; and he turned away, humiliated, and with a sickening sensation of rage and insult, made powerless by those feelings which had grown from the ruins of baffled love and respect. He blushed to be ashamed The feeling held him still, of his own father. and he was silent now. The determination which the companions ultimately arrived at was, that they would suddenly start for Queensleigh, and try their best to get a first chance there before the place became much known. There was a sort of compromise in this, just enough of chance in it. James Burlow had endeavoured to talk down the desire which the younger men had to engage in a more simply speculative plan, and his discretion soon ballasted their ideas. The next day they quietly made their preparations, and long before dawn on the following morning they had started, with all their traps packed in a small, strong cart, through the bush for Queensleigh. They reached the place on the 11th of January, 1855, and were in the best spirits when they pitched their tent on a slope, at the bottom of which ran the shallow, intermittent stream. The spot looked most likely; and they soon enjoyed the excitement of prospecting, with a small tin dish in hand, for the choice of a claim. James Burlow chose one, and the very next day they were at work. Only a few of the inevitable Chinamen, and not many diggers, were as yet there, and they had plenty of freedom in the choice. But every day several more diggers arrived; and two or three days afterwards, when sauntering back to the tent, Philip was surprised to find Brisbane accost them, asking, with an ill-concealed anxiety in his tone, "What luck? Where's your claim?" "Ah! so you've tried a move," said William Burlow, laughing. "Well, it's pappy enough to work in; but it doesn't seem to wash out much." And they passed on. yield was not only not improved, it had grown less. The spot seemed an unfortunate one, for not one single nugget, of even ordinary size, had they found; nor could they hear that others had. At last, when they had laboured three weeks thus, some one said the claim was a failure; and it was acknowledged so. The reaction was severe after their undue elation; but, though a sort of carelessness and discontent had come over them, they were not hopeless by any means. At least, they had plenty of speculation left. The seed sown at their last conference, at Bendigo, was not forgotten, but was cultured now; and it was proposed and voted, while they covered what they knew to be a weakness with much laughter and jeering, that "Lucky Phil." should try his hand and choose another claim. Philip chose another, much higher up the gully; and to work they went. The spot that Philip selected was purely his own choice. It was just below where a considerable and sudden rise took place in the ground, over which, perhaps, ages and ages ago a torrent might have flowed; but it seemed to have little of the ordinary signs of likelihood to recommend it. It was a considerable distance from the tent, and a good way from any water wherein they could fix their cradle to wash the soil recovered. They divided the party for labour thus :-One sank the hole, and threw up the soil to be washed; one took the soil in a barrow and wheeled it down to the cradle, where the remaining two washed it and sought for the gold. On the first morning they went gaily enough to work, and each one lent a hand at opening the claim; then they divided the party, set up the cradle, and commenced in earnest. They did not get any gold at all the first day; but on the second and third they came upon a stratum of pipeclay, in which they found the ore. But it did not seem to be in greater quantity than they could find anywhere almost. Still, no one said so, and the work went on. On the fourth day it came to Philip's turn to work down in the hole; Gordon and William Burlow were stationed at the cradle; and James Burlow went between. Philip felt a sort of thrill which he could not well define as he stepped in and began his work. His choice had not fructified as yet; but he was to put his own hand to it now; and whether it was hope he felt, or a sensation more akin to that with which a man watches the turn of the card at rouge-et-noir, he hardly It ventured to ask himself, nor did he express it in the least. He worked patiently through the morning and on into the afternoon, sometimes simply delving and sometimes wielding a short William Burlow was right; and they all came gradually to confess the disappointment to themselves, if not openly to each other. was a great disappointment. The move appeared to be a failure. They tested the place with hard and patient work; but the average pick. James Burlow paused for a moment, breathing hard, with his hand on the projecting mass, which stood out three or four inches from the clay in the recess which Philip had hollowed out. He then took up the knife, cleared a little more, probed it further where Philip pointed out the widening surface, and hastily took up a bit of the wet clay and dabbed it on the spot, covering the gold up again. "We must be careful of this, and not let it be known; stay here quiet a minute while I prospect." And in a moment he was out of the hole, and Philip lost sight of him, as Burlow gazed cautiously, and with apparent carelessness, around. He looked for a minute; then, as it seemed mechanically, took up his spade, put it into the barrow, moved the barrow a little nearer to the edge as though to load it again, and, taking the spade, got down into the hole. Every now and then James Burlow knelt down to examine it with an unerring came to load his barrow with the selected soil, instinct. or to help clear the hole of what was manifestly useless. The hole was sunk, in its deepest part, more than thirteen feet, when it became apparent that the seam of pipeclay was failing. Philip having cleared right through the seam at one end of the claim, turned and began working with his pick at the other. He had plunged it so often into the sticky soil with the same unvarying amount of resistance, and the same dull thud, that he was continuing the action almost mechanically and in an abstracted mood. One, two, three, and then he wrenched the end of the pick from the clay after a somewhat deeper stroke. Again, onebut the next blow sent a thrill through him, for the point struck, not deeply, but against a hard, firm substance. What was this? He knelt upon the wet detached pieces of clay and tore at the place with his hands. He felt, as he cleared it, a rounded point. He took off his cap and held his head sideways, to let the light shine against it, and he saw the score of the iron in a bright line on the pure gold. He had then found a large nugget. At the sight he felt his face flush and burn under the eyes. He rose, by an uncontrollable impulse of joy, thirsting, so to speak, to communicate the news of his prize; and he placed one foot on the rough side of the hole, by which he could ascend. But he went no further. What was he leaving? He was weak and foolish. Why not dig it out? He knelt again and put his hand on the gold, and forced his fingers round it. He then took his knife, opened it, cut away the clay, and cleared it from around the gold with frenzied eagerness. He essayed to move it, and prize it out with his knife. thrust his fingers round it, and he felt the edges broadening inwards, and it resisted him as firmly as a rock. The conviction flashed upon him that it was a firm rock of gold,-the reality of his speculations,—and his hand fell from it. He sank back upon the little heap of clay behind him, and leant for support against the side of the hole, while a cold faintness crept over him; and he gazed up helplessly at the hot day above him, as one might look from the depths of a grave. At this moment James Burlow looked over the edge of the hole. Philip felt his face flush again, and said, in a husky voice, "Come down here?" He "Why, what's the matter now, Phil? Are you ill?" said Burlow, as he got down into the hole. "No, no; but I have found gold-the gold -there," said Philip, thrusting himself nervously against Burlow, who had in a moment "The coast seems pretty clear. Now listen to me, Phil. We two must dig this out quietly and quickly. Stop. I know what you are going to say,-you think it is an endless mass. We must prove it, if it is; but, above everything, we must be self-possessed now. If this should be a big lump, and it gets known we've found it, it will make a panic here. We're out far up here, recollect, and have to protect ourselves. We should be murdered for it; and, besides, if we get this out safe we may find more, which we can never do if this gets known. Take a drop of brandy now, and keep yourself quiet. Don't let your spirits get too high, or your expectations too great; and, whatever we do, don't let us betray any difference in behaviour." James Burlow spoke without a falter in his voice. He was a very strong and discreet man; but his chest heaved, notwithstanding, and his eye sparkled, as though the anxious spirit within were strongly bound, but struggling to get free. Philip had regained enough of his self-possession, and they set to work. Rapidly and dexterously Burlow excavated a large space in the side of the hole above the gold, and then began to uncover the mass. Philip worked on one side of it, and for some time not a word was spoken. They had uncovered more than a foot of the clear, pure slab of metal, when Burlow paused and took off his cap, and as he did so his hand trembled. Philip looked up and saw that he was pale, and the perspiration standing thickly in beads upon his forehead, and dripping from the hair by his ears. He wiped his face and said, in a curiously quiet tone, "If this should be as you thought, Phil, a great system of it, it may prove disastrous to us. It was evident that he was stricken with a belief in the delusion which was burning in Philip's very heart. They resumed the work; but as they uncovered more, the form of the mass began to narrow again, then to get broader, and finally terminated, showing as one immense piece of gold apparently without a speck of alloy. By prizing it gently with the pick it moved; and then, getting their hands under the edges, with a great effort they raised it from its place, leaving the clear mould of one-half of it in the pipeclay wherein that part had been embedded; and they placed it on the ground-the richest nugget that had ever been seen, perhaps, by any man since men had hunted, or laboured, or fought for the precious earth. (To be concluded in our next.) ARCHERY. THE archery of England, famed throughout all its ancient annals, by which, nearly to the close of the seventeenth century, her greatest battle-fields have been won, is an institution dating back from William the Norman. It was during the long-drawn struggle between Charles and his Parliament that our chronicles made their latest allusion to this grand old historic weapon. It is a remarkable fact, that for at least two centuries after the invention of gunpowder, and gradual improvement in the construction of firearms coexistent with it, the bow should continue to hold its own as a valuable arm of the service. Bows were found on board that redoubtable man-of-war, the "Mary Rose," sunk in an action with a French squadron at Spithead, temp. Henry VIII. ; and one or two of those very rare specimens of old English missile weapons, found in the vessel's armchest by the divers employed to remove her timbers and those of the "Royal George," are now preserved amongst the most recherché curiosities of the Tower and of the United Service Museum. It would be a great error to suppose that this long lingering affection for the weapon of their forefathers, in preference to the "hellborn murderer," as Carew quaintly styles the musket, which was destined to supplant it, arose from the imperfection of the latter. More than two centuries ago, at all events, English guns and ammunition are proved to have been far from despicable. In an entertaining narrative of the struggles and dangers endured by a few hardy pioneers who, in 1621, sought to establish a home on the North American coast, it is said that "Mr. Hilton," one of the settlers, strolling along the seashore, "perceived a great shadow over his head, the sun shining out clear. Casting up his eyes, he saw a monstrous bird soaring aloft in the air, and of a sudden all the ducks and geese, there being a great many, diving under water, nothing appearing of them but their heads. Mr. Hilton, having made ready with his piece, shot and brought her down to the earth. How he disposed of her I know not, but had he taken her alive and sent her over to England, neither Bartholemew nor Greenwich fair could have produced such another sight." Here we have a sportsman of Charles the First's time, who shoots flying, with a single ball, for as well might he have pelted a bird of that size with peas, as with small shot. An old tract, speaking of the arrival of the Ambassador from Morocco, A.D. 1637, says: "He is so good a shot with his piece, that he will shoot eight score at a mark as big as an English sixpence and hit it." There is plenty of evidence, beside, to the same effect. It is obvious enough that the bowman, when opposed to combatants so completely armed as the medieval chivalry, had a far more difficult game before him than has the modern rifleman; for, unless his shaft would punch a hole clean through their shields and breastplates, it was wholly ineffective, being splintered or glancing off. "Thrice did Locksley bend his shaft against De Bracy," writes Sir Walter in his story of "Ivanhoe," "and thrice did the arrow bound back from his armour of proof. 'Curse on thy Spanish steel coat,' shouts the enraged yeoman, ‘had an English smith forged it, these arrows would have gone through as if it had been silk or sendal.'" Our archers, therefore, adopted a shrewd expedient to get more on an equality with their foes. During the heat and dusty whirlwind of oft-repeated charges, the man-at-arms, with barred helmet tightly secured, and sweltering beneath eighty or a hundred pounds of iron, concentrating the rays of a mid-day summer's sun, occasionally sought to refresh himself with a mouthful of the pure element, and opened his visor. But a hundred and more of remorseless spirits, with eyes sharp as those of the lynx, are watching the chance, and have seen it. A hundred shafts with lightning speed have left the string, to be buried in the brains of as many incautious foemen. Thus fell Harold on the shores of Kent, pierced through the eye; at the Battle of Barnet, during the Wars of the Roses, King Henry takes refuge in a poor man's cottage, wounded in the face by one of a storm of arrows that flew "like a snowdrift around |