a proverb, sir, that says, `misfortin makes strange bed
fellows,' an' I 'spose it's the same proverb as makes strange messmates;
anyhow, poor Tom Graham, he an' me an' his wife, we become messmates,
an' of course we spun no end o' yarns about our kith and kin, so I found
out how your father had treated of 'em, which to say truth I warn't
s'prised at, for I've obsarved for years past that he's hard as nails,
altho' he _is_ your father, sir, an' has let many a good ship go to the
bottom for want o' bein' properly found--"

"You need not criticise my father, Gaff," said Kenneth, with a slight
frown. "Many men's sins are not so black as they look. Prevailing
custom and temptation may have had more to do with his courses of action
than hardness of heart."

"I dun know _that_," said Gaff, "hows'ever, I don't mean for to
krittysise him, though I'm bound to say his sins is uncommon dark grey,
if they ain't black. Well, I wos a-goin' to say that Mr Graham had
some rich relations in Melbourne as he didn't want for to see. He was a
proud man, you know, sir, an' didn't want 'em to think he cared a stiver
for 'em, so he changed his name to Wilson, an' let his beard an'
mowstaches grow, so that when he put his cap on there was nothin' of him
visible except his eyes and his nose stickin' out of his face, an' when
his hair grew long, an' his face was tanned wi' the sun, his own mother
would have cut him dead if she'd met him in the street.

"Well, we worked a year in Melbourne to raise the wind. Tom, (he made
me call him Tom, sir), bein' a clever fellow, got into a store as a
clerk, an' I got work as a porter at the quays; an' though his work was
more gentlemanly than mine, I made very near as much as him, so we lived
comfortable, and laid by a little. That winter little Emma was born.
She just come to poor Tom and his wife like a great sunbeam. Arter that
we went a year to the diggin's, and then I got to weary to see my old
missus, so I left 'em with a promise to return. I com'd home, saw my
wife, and then went out again to jine the Grahams for another spell at
the diggin's; then I come home again for another spell wi' the missus,
an' so I kep' goin' and comin', year by year, till now.

"Tom was a lucky digger. He resolved to quit for good and all, and
return to settle in England. He turned all he had into gold-dust, and
put it in a box, with which he shipped aboard the `Fairy Queen,' of
which I was one o' the crew at th