How Mac Held The Bonnie Dundee
The Golden West Magazine 1921
For The Golden West by JOHN DRAYTON
“My apologies for the Scottish dialect, but it wouldn’t be the same if translated to plain English, hope you can make it out”
In the early days of the Victorian goldfields, when , the present writer, was a youthful, straight-haired chap, with but one ambition in his juvenile mind to be permitted to wear long boots and say ”Damn!” there were lively times on the alluvial fields.
The diggings, then, were mostly alluvial – mainly be cause people knew nothing of quartz mining. I am speaking of the later ‘1850s and early ‘1860]’s – and only sought the gold on ”the bottom.” The bedrock, except where it was very soft and holding, was never penetrated. There was little need to go into the hard stuff in country where the wash in the pockets and indentations in ”the bottom” went pounds weight to the dish at times and piles were made by men who never thought of gold being found in quartz. Though they had seen it with quartz now and then in the puddling tubs.
The majority of the diggers of those days worked in pairs, for a couple of men could do all that was necessary in putting down a hole to a depth rarely exceeding twelve feet, generally running less. Very often individuals worked their holding and lived apart from their fellow hatters, who made their bit on their own and ate and drank, and slept, in solitude.
The ‘Mining Act’ in those times, and in that country, was a very equitable and a rather elastic, which permitted the Warden to exercise his common sense in his endeavours to preserve the balance of justice. But in one particular, the written law was rigidly observed – every holder must work his claim. Here, though, there was a latitude allowed. One day’s work in fourteen protected him from the claim jumper.
But if fourteen clear days elapsed without any work being done, the claim was jumpable, and it was competent for any person to enter on the property and proceed to work it as if it were his own. And it was also competent for the original holder to regain possession by force, or any other way, when his right was re-established.
The Bonnie Dundee was one of the richest little patches on the Golden Point, and was the property of a grizzled Scot who was known as ”Mac.” He had had the good luck to sink dead onto a gutter, and pulled out the yellow stuff in pannikins full. Mac, “was a hatter, and a Scot.”
It is perhaps unnecessary to add that no one knew exactly how good the Bonnie Dundee was, but they had well-founded suspicions that it was about the best thing on the Point. And as Mac was fond of a drop of some thing hard, the boys watched him pretty closely in the hope that one of his jigs might last over fourteen days, when the Bonnie Dundee would change hands.
The Claim Jumper – Image C T Gill
It happened this way! It was Mac’s birthday in June, and he started in to keep it up. For fifteen days he was on a quiet and respectable spree, and when he came to resume work he found a brace of diggers punching away in good shape down below, one in the drive and one 0n the bottom. ”Come up oot o’ that,” roared Mac in a voice of thunderous emphasis. ”Whit aey’ ya doin’ in ma claim?’
”It’s all right, Mac, ”said one of the boys, ‘we jumped her.’
“Ye’ve jump her, have ya? Well, ma bonnie laddie, y’ell jump oot braw and quick, or I’ll jump doon, y’ll ken it’ll nae be ower guid for ye.’ “No Mac.,” was the chipper’ response. “Y’can’t bluff us y’ know. Y’ve been fourteen days away, and she’s forfeited.”
”And y’ll no come oot ?” queried Mac. “Not on your #@%* life,” was the reply.
”Ah weel” sighed Mac., “A’m sorry for ye; I’ll a wa’ to Jamie Macpherson’s bar an make a day of it. Ye’ll hae no luck wi’ the gowld, lads. It’s ill got to rob a fulish auld man. But I’ll no wish ye ill.” ”I thought the old chap would have kicked up,” commented one of the jumpers; “but he’s taking it like a lamb.”
“We are well inside our rights, “said his mate. “And he can’t get us out.”
”A’m not so sure o’ that,” said a voice from above. “Ye’ ken a Scotsman’s hoose is his castle, and his shaft is his property. Man, y’ have ma pick in yr hand ma gowld in y’r pouch. I ask y’e for the last time, will y’ come oot? “Oh, go to #@%*,” came from below. “Weel,” commented Mac. y’r time short, say y’r prayers and confess y’r sins, for a doot y’ll have many to repent. A hae here a tin of powder in ma hand , and a wee bit lighted fuse in it, an a think if she drops doown you’ll be mired in the wreck o’ the Bonnie Dundee. “Blastin’ powder o’ the best,” he commented, as he pulled the lighted fuse toward him and blew at the spark.
By god he’s got the Joe’s, ”shouted the man at the bottom. “Come out, Jim, the old lunatic is going to blow us up.’
“naething o’ the kind,” said Mac. “Man, if the tin disna drop y’r safe. But this bittie fuse is gettin ower hot’ he remarked confidentially, as he sat 0ver the edge of the hole, with his legs above the heads of the men below.
A hurried scrambling of feet and clawing at the sides of the shaft, as the men came up by the footholds, signified the retreat of the invaders , and Mac, placing the tin of powder on the edge, clambered below, and proceeded to throw out the tools of the jumpers .
From a safe distance they watched the fuse burn down into the powder and waited for the explosion. None came! Five minutes, then ten, elapsed. Then they ventured to approach, just as Mac’s head appeared at the opening. “Whit’ll y be wantin’?” he enquired. ”What game’ this” snapped one of the evicted. ”It’s nae a game” replied the Scot. ‘An’ maybe y”ll be gettin’ off ma groond’. Awa’ wi’ y’, and find a gutter to yersells ya jumpin scoundrels.’
” Oh, go to blazes” Was the vicious retort. ”What’s in that tin?” ‘BLACK SAND, ma braw”· laddie.”!!!!
Moya Sharp
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