Page:History of Knox Church Dunedin.djvu/69

Rh on ending it I added by way of comment, "Mates, if you can allow yourselves to break this Divine commandment, which is replete with love to men, I trust you will at least respect your fellow-workers, who have met for the worship of God." At these words more than five hundred pairs of eyes were directed to them, and quicker than I can describe it saw and axe were dropped, and the men retired into the privacy of their tent. I believe that what seemed bravado was sheer thoughtlessness.

The diggers were anything but remiss in attending to the comfort of the ministers who visited them for the purpose of preaching the Gospel. As I have already mentioned, they provided a comfortable and comparatively roomy tent which served as study and bedroom. It was lined throughout with woollen stuff. One stormy night I found my way to its comfortable bed. The storm waxed fiercer and fiercer, but it only rocked me to slumber. Towards morning I found the tent prostrate, while the snow was around me and above me. As it fell dry as oatmeal I soon dressed myself and returned to the hotel without scar or cough or cold. The prostration of the ministers' tent was ascribed more to my carelessness than to the lack of strength in its poles or ropes.

Returning from a visit to Cromwell, Clyde, and Naseby, by Pigroot, we reached the hostelry there some two hours late owing to the bad roads. I had the late Mr A. C. Strode for a fellow-traveller. After supper I proposed we should have worship. As travellers going up and down met there, some thirty joined in the worship. At its close a bright digger from the Green Isle said, "Parson, we have obliged you; will you oblige me?" I innocently replied, "I shall have pleasure in doing so." "Landlord," he shouted, "bring in thirty nobblers." The "nobblers" appeared, but I am not going to say how many of the party partook of what was meant as a kindness. Next morning we started at four o'clock, and did not complete a stage of twelve miles till eight. The road was so bad that I was exceedingly sick, and could not look at breakfast. My friend the digger, perceiving my plight, followed me before tasting his own breakfast, and found me under the lee of a haystack. He brought me comfort in the form of a spoonful of brandy and hot water, which he pressed me to take, and not without advantage to my distressed stomach.