face I thought I had seen before, was
not deterred by slight obstacles, and by dint of using his elbows
vigorously, and treading on his neighbors' corns, he soon got within a
few feet of us.

"And it's sitting him a-fighting, is it, ye spalpeens?" cried the
fellow, with a Hibernian accent that was not to be mistaken; and he
looked around the crowd, as though he wished some one would pick a
quarrel with him, for the sake of variety.

"And it's bushrangers ye think they is, do ye?" the Irishman continued,
scornfully; "do ye think ye would know a thafe if ye seed one? Can't ye
tell a rale gintleman from a snaking blackguard?"

"What is the matter, Pat?" the miners asked, good-naturedly, most of
those present appearing to know our new defender.

"Matter, is it?" he repeated, scornfully; "I tells ye that if a hair of
these two gintlemen's is hurted, I'll lick the whole of ye, blackguards
that ye is."

A roar of laughter followed this speech, which excited the Irishman's
indignation to its fullest extent.

"Ye laugh, do ye? It's little ye would laugh if ye saw these two
gintlemen dressing the cuts and sores of poor miners who had divil a
ha'penny to pay the doctor with. It's little ye would laugh if ye had
seed this gintleman standing up and having a crack at old Pete Burley,
the bully of Ballarat; and by me faith, he brought him down in less time
than ye can descend a shaft with the crank broken."

The allusion to the expeditious manner in which miners sometimes went
down a shaft, much against their will, and at a great loss to their
personal dignity, was received with rounds of laughter.

"You know those men, then?" cried a fellow who had been remarkably
officious during the disturbance.

"Men, are they?" cried our indignant champion, and he raised one of his
huge fists and dropped it with full force upon the head of the speaker,
and down he went, as though shot.

"Call them gintlemen, hereafter, or by the powers, I _strike_ ye, the
next time I _hit_ ye."

There was another good-natured laugh at the expense of the fallen man,
and at the Irishman's wit.

"Are these the two Americans who have recently arrived, and who were
concerned in that duel with Burley?"

"Of coorse they is; and haven't they been giving a number of us poor
divils medicine and good advice? O, by the powers, let me say the man
that wants to hurt 'em, that's all!"

This announcement completely changed the feelings of the crowd, and the
m