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XXXVIII.
UN BON CALCIO, E LA CANAGLIA,
STRONCA VA COME LA PAGLIA.
The drill afterwards was gone through with eagerness.
Another scene, though of a different kind all together was going on at a corner of the above picture.
Judas Iscariot, "Goodenough," was among us, in the garb of a fossiker; he appeared to me, then, to be under the influence of drink; so Vandemonian-like were his shouts about standing up and fighting for rights and liberties; and burning down the camp in a blaze like the late Eureka Hotel.
Mind good reader, I tell you no joke, I am not in humour just now to spin a yarn.—I wished to shame the fellow for his villany on such a solemn occasion. The fellow persisted in his drunken shouts. I lost my temper, and gave the scoundrel such a respectable kick, in a less respectable region, with a most respectable boot of mine, that it served me right when both my new watertight boots were robbed from my shins by Good-enough's satellites on the subsequent Sunday, at the Ballaarat Camp.
The Thursday's sun is setting: we returned to the Eureka. I had to attend the "Council for the Defence."
XXXIX.
DISCIPLINA, SUPREMA LEX IN BELLO.
In the afternoon, our camp on the Eureka was enclosed in by slabs, near-handy thrown down at random. All diggers who had been able to procure fire-arms kept coming in, in right earnest, and formed new divisions. The pikemen grew stronger and stronger. Drilling was tolerably progressing. We were of all nations and colours. Lalor gave me his consent and order to direct all foreigners in their respective language, however little they knew of the English, to fail in in divisions according to the arms they had got; and here I solemnly declare, to whomsoever it may concern, that up to four o'clock of Saturday there was not one single division distinguished by nationality or religion.
