Band of Gold Read Online Free Page A

look, but he pretended not to notice.
    ‘We live in Melbourne now,’ Mr Harcourt went on. ‘I have a small business there.’
    ‘And a lovely little home,’ Mrs Harcourt interjected, her knitting needles clattering away.
    ‘And it was worth your while, was it?’ Rian asked. ‘The mining?’
    ‘Oh yes, very worth my while. I’m a rich man now,’ Mr Harcourt replied without a trace of humility. ‘I went into partnership on seven or eight claims, all at Ballarat. We had a consortium. Didn’t dig myself, of course. Too much like hard work.’ He patted his considerable belly. ‘And of course they’re all deep-sinkers now, and a man of my stature isn’t suited to that sort of toil. It’s a younger man’s game, deep-sinking.’
    ‘Deep-sinking,’ Kitty echoed. ‘What’s that, exactly? I realise it means digging into the ground for some distance, but what exactly does it entail?’
    ‘Well, my dear, it’s a trifle confusing. Lots of technical terms and all that,’ Mr Harcourt replied patronisingly. ‘You might not catch my drift.’
    Simon winced inwardly, but Rian only smiled to himself.
    Kitty stared at Mr Harcourt unblinkingly.
    Mr Harcourt harrumphed. ‘Yes, well, of course, if you’d reallylike to know. Deep-sinking is the technique by which a shaft is sunk below the surface of the ground to a distance of anything between twelve and a hundred feet, and sometimes even deeper. Some leads run further down than others, of course.’
    ‘Leads?’ Kitty asked.
    ‘A line of ore, shingle and rock and the like, that contains the gold. They run all over Ballarat. Or should I say, under Ballarat—they’re actually the beds of ancient rivers.’
    ‘Don’t they fall down?’ Amber asked.
    Mr Harcourt frowned. ‘Don’t what fall down, dear?’
    ‘The shafts. On top of the men.’ She turned to her father. ‘You won’t be going down the shafts, will you, Pa?’
    Rian opened his mouth to reply, but Mr Harcourt said hurriedly, ‘No, they don’t fall down. Well, hardly ever. You see, the miners line the shafts with slabs of eucalypt to hold up the sides, which is why there are hardly any trees left around Ballarat. Then, when the shaft reaches the lead, and all the ground water and sand and mullock and what-have-you has been winched out, the extraction of the gold can begin.’
    ‘I know what a mullock is,’ Amber said triumphantly. ‘It’s a fish.’
    Rian laughed. ‘No, that’s a mullet.’
    ‘Mullock is the useless rock that lies above the lead,’ Mr Harcourt explained patiently.
    ‘How do the men working in the shafts breathe?’ Kitty asked.
    Rian hoped the man wouldn’t go into detail—in his opinion, Harcourt was making the whole process sound a lot more dangerous than it was. And frightening his wife and daughter.
    ‘Wind-sails,’ Mr Harcourt said. ‘Erected above the shafts to direct fresh air down them. Quite ingenious, really.’
    ‘And they never fail?’ Kitty asked.
    ‘No, they don’t.’
    Kitty stared at him: he’d put an emphasis on the word ‘they’, as ifother devices associated with gold mining did fail. But she let it pass.
    Mr Harcourt shifted in his seat. ‘You’ve not been involved with gold mining previously, Mr…er…?’
    Rian realised he hadn’t introduced himself. ‘Farrell, Captain Rian Farrell. And no, I haven’t. But I’ve just bought a claim, so I thought I’d try my hand at it.’
    ‘You’ll need a lot more hands than just your own, then. It can take up to twelve men to work a claim these days.’
    ‘I have my crew of seven.’
    ‘Crew as in labourers, or crew as in seamen?’
    ‘Seamen. Mr Bullock here is one of my men.’
    Mr Harcourt turned to inspect Simon, who nodded politely. ‘So you’re a mariner, Captain?’
    ‘Sea trader,’ Rian corrected. ‘My ship is in dock at Melbourne at the moment.’
    ‘Ah. Well, then, I wish you luck. You’ll need it.’
    It was an ominous comment, and followed by silence.
    ‘There are some