“You need not look so fierce, mister.  I have as much right to sit on this rail as you have.”

“Lilias,” I replied, “you won’t sit there long.  You bandicooted my potatoes last night, and you’ve left the marks of your dirty feet on the ground.  The police are coming to measure your feet, and then they will take you to the lock-up.”

I gazed across the barley paddock for the police, and Lilias looked as well.  There was a strange man approaching rapidly, and the bandicoot’s courage collapsed.  She slid from the fence, took to flight, and disappeared among the tussocks near the creek.

The stranger did not go to the garden gate, but stood looking over the fence.  He said:  “Is Dr. Ignatius at home?”

“No, he is away somewhere about Fiery Creek, and I don’t think he’ll return until Saturday.”

The stranger hung down his head and was silent.  He was a young man of small frame, well dressed for those days, but he had o luggage.  He looked so miserable that I pitied him.  He was like a hunted animal.  I said: 

“Are you a friend of Dr. Ignatius?”

“Yes, he knows me well.  My name is Carr; I have come from Ballarat.”

“I knew various men had left Ballarat.  One had arrived in Geelong on December 4th, and had consulted Dr. Walshe about a bullet between his knuckles, another was hiding in a house at Chilwell.* He had lost one arm, and the Government were offering 400 pounds for him, so he took outdoor exercise only by night, disguised in an Inverness cape.

“There was a chance for me to hear exciting news from the lips of a warrior fresh from the field of battle, so I said: 

“If you would like to stay here until the doctor returns you will be welcome.”

[Footnote] Peter Lalor.

He was my guest for four days.  He said that he went out with the military on the morning of December 3rd, and was the first surgeon who entered the Eureka Stockade after the fight was over.  He found twelve men dead in it, and twelve more mortally wounded.  This was about all the information he vouchsafed to give me.  I was anxious for particulars.  I wanted to know what arms he carried to the fray, whether he touched up his sword on the grind-stone before sallying forth, how many men or women he had called upon to stand in the name of her gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, how many skulls he had cloven, how many diggers he had “slewed,” and how many peaceful prisoners he had brought back to the Government camp.  On all these points he was silent, and during his stay with me he spoke as little as possible, neither reading, writing, nor walking about.  But there was something to be learned from the papers.  He had been a witness at the inquest on Scobie, killed by Bentley and two others, and principally on his evidence Bentley was discharged, but was afterwards re-arrested and condemned to three years’ imprisonment.  Dr. Carr was regarded as a “colluding associate” with Bentley and Dewes, the magistrate, and the official condemnation of Dewes confirmed the popular denunciation of them.  At a dinner given to Mr. Tarleton, the American Consul, Dr. Otway, the Chairman said: