Among his digging outfit was a huge pick; it was a two-man pick, and
he carried it on his shoulder to suggest his enormous strength. He
threw tailordom to the winds; when a rent appeared in his trousers he
closed it with pins, disdaining the use of the needle, until he
became so ragged that I ordered him into dock for repairs.
One day in passing Philip's school I peeped in at the flap of the
tent. He had already acquired the awe-inspiring look of the
schoolmaster. He was teaching a class of little boys, whose
wandering eyes were soon fixed on my face, and then Philip saw me.
He smiled and blushed, and came outside. He said he was getting
along capitally, and did not want to try digging any more. He had
obtained a small treatise called "The Twelve Virtues of a Good
Master," and he was studying it daily in order to qualify himself for
his new calling. He had undertaken to demonstrate one of Euclid's
propositions every night by way of exercising his reasoning
faculties. He was also making new acquaintances amongst men who were
not diggers--doctors, storekeepers, and the useful blacksmiths who
pointed our picks with steel. He had also two or three friends at
the Governmnt camp, and I felt inclined to look upon him as a traitor
to the diggers' cause but although he had been a member of the party
of Young Irelanders, he was the most innocent traitor and the poorest
conspirator I ever heard of.
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