Cirrus@Austlit

Harry's father, an English sailor from Cornwall, is drowned and Harry leaves his mother and new fiancee Isabel to go to Melbourne and the diggings to earn their fortune. Good descriptions of the mud, crowds, drink, the road, the bush, Macedon etc.. Harry meets the tempestuous Italian beauty Sylvia who had murdered her husband to run away with another who ill-treated her. Diggings life continues, gold is struck, and the Italian woman poisons herself and her partner who is by then running a gambling saloon. A lawless Californian digging mate, Ned, complicates honest partnership. A lucky strike; a bushfire followed by a flooding rains which drown some miners sheltering in their shafts; the absconding of their Californian partner with their gold - his capture, robbery and murder by bushrangers who also capture Harry and his mate Jim but let them live. Harry's discovery that his money sent to England has been retained by the shopkeeper he trusted increases his fears for mother and Isabel starving back home. The rush ends, Harry narrowly escapes arrest for not having a miner's license; becomes friends with a neighbouring German family and helps find their children lost in the bush. Meanwhile Harry's mother and fiancée eke out a living from sewing but get evicted from their home and source of work when Isabel refuses to marry the local employer. Returning to their native Cornish village Isabel is courted by the local estate owner but refuses him too despite his money, looks, kind heart and loving mother because she loves Harry. In Australia Harry and Jim try to rescue a dying miner but succeed only in bringing his young wife to his side. Jim is attacked by colonial fever. They meet an 'old hand' [ex-convict] from Van Diemen's Land. Despair strikes just before they discover gold on the surface after rain, and buried treasure. They return to England via thriving Melbourne, encountering various friends and bushrangers before they go. Arriving in Cornwall they discover the forged deed seeking to evict Isabel and Harry's mother. Reunion, justice and marriage follow ... and Harry and Jim with their families emigrate to settle in Australia in the Gourlburn River Valley. (PB)