led out, thinking
that he was asleep, but he did not answer.

Another look showed them that he was dead. The beard and hair were
long, and the face like that of a mummy. They turned away from the
horrid sight.

"Bob, do you know, I believe that the dead man is no other than Tony
Peach," said Sam. "We must tell Mr Ramsay, and he'll come and see.
The poor wretch has escaped being hung, which they say he would have
been if he had been caught."

They soon reached their friends, and Mr Ramsay and others came to look
at the dead man. They had no doubt who he was. A shallow grave was dug
by some of the party, while two others cut out a slab of wood, on which
they cut, with their knives, "Here lies Tony Peach, the bushranger."
What became of his misguided mate no one knew. Tony Peach had started
in life with far more advantages than Joseph Rudge, yet how different
was the fate of the two men. Joseph and all his family prospered, and
he is now, though connected with Mr Ramsay, the owner of a large flock
of sheep and a fine herd of cattle. Tom Wells, who married Sally, has a
farm of his own near him. He has bought land for Sam and Bob, on which
they both hope to settle before long; and they are looking out for the
arrival of a family of old friends from England, with several daughters,
from among whom they hope to find good wives for themselves. No more
need be said than this--that the honest, hard-working man who goes to
Australia with a family, though he may meet with many ups and downs, may
be pretty sure of doing well himself, and of settling his children
comfortably around him.

STORY SIX, CHAPTER 1.

LIFE UNDERGROUND; OR, DICK THE COLLIERY BOY.

Young Dick Kempson sat all by himself in the dark, with a rope in his
hand, at the end of a narrow passage, close to a thick, heavy door.
There was a tramway along the passage, for small wagons or cars to run
on. It was very low and narrow, and led to a long distance. Young Dick
did not like to think how far. It was not built with brick or stone,
like a passage in a house, but was cut out; not through rock, but what
think you? through coal.

Young Dick was down a coal mine, more than one thousand feet below the
green fields and trees and roads and houses--not that there were many
green fields, by the bye, about there. The way down to the mine was by
a shaft, like a round well sunk straight down into the earth to where
the coal was known to be. Coal is fou