“Three men who want to kill you, eh?  Do you expect me to believe that anybody among the crowd there would murder you in broad daylight?  My impression is, my friend, that you are a sneaking thief, and that you came here to look for gold.  I’ll send a man to the police to come and fetch you, and if you stir a step I’ll shoot you.”

“For goodness’ sake, mate, keep quiet.  I am not a burglar, not now at any rate.  I’ll tell you the truth.  I was a Government flagellator, a flogger, you know, on the Sydney side, and I flogged those three men.  Couldn’t help it, it was my business to do it.  I know they are looking for me, and they will follow me and take the first chance to murder me.  They are most desperate characters.  One of them was insubordinate when he was assigned servant to a squatter, and the squatter, who was on horseback, gave him a cut with his stockwhip.  Then this man jumped at his master, pulled him off his horse, dragged him to the wood-heap, held his head on the block, seized the axe, and was just going to chop his master’s head off, when another man stopped him.  That is what I had to flog him for, and then he was sent back to Sydney.  So you can just think what a man like that would do.  When my time was up I went as a trooper to the Nyalong district under Captain Foster, the Commissioner, and after a while I settled down and married an immigrant woman from Tipperary, a Catholic.  That’s the way I happened to be here at Mass with my mates, who are Catholics; but I’ll never do it again; it’s as much as my life is worth.  I daresay there are lots of men about Bendigo whom I flogged while I was in the business, and every single man-jack of them would kill me if he got the chance.  And so for goodness’ sake let me stay here till dark.  I suppose you are an honest man; you look like it anyway, and you would not want to see me murdered, now, would you?”

Barton was, in fact, as great a liar and rogue as you would meet with anywhere, but in extreme cases he would tell the truth, and the present case was an extreme one.  Philip was merciful; he allowed Barton to remain in his tent all day, and gave him his dinner.  When darkness came he escorted him to the tent of the men from Nyalong, and was introduced to them by his new friend.  Their names were Gleeson, Poynton, Lyons, and two brothers McCarthy.  One of these men was brother-in-law to Barton, and had been a fellow-trooper with him under Captain Foster.  Barton had entered into family relations as an honest man; he could give himself any character he chose until he was found out.  He was too frightened to stay another night on Bendigo, and he began at once to bundle up his swag.  Gleeson and Poynton accompanied him for some distance beyond the pillar of white quartz on Specimen Hill, and then he left the track and struck into the bush.  Fear winged his feet’ he arrived safely at Nyalong, and never went to another rush.  The other five then stayed on Bendigo for several weeks longer, and when they returned home their gold was sufficient for a dividend of 700 pounds for each man.  Four of them bought farms, one kept a store, and Barton rented some land.  Philip met them again when he was promoted to the school at Nyalong, and they were his firm friends as long as he lived there.