3546	----	None 
57471	----	produced from scans of public domain works at The National Library of Australia.) _ADVANCE AUSTRALIA._ A SETTLER'S 35 YEARS' EXPERIENCE IN VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA, And how £6 8s. became £8,000. WITH ADVICE TO SETTLERS, &c. "Men are agents for the future, As they work so ages win, Either harvest of advancement, Or the product of their sin." _Inscribed by the kind permission of the HONOURABLE ALFRED DEAKIN, Chief Secretary of Victoria._ Melbourne: M.L. Hutchinson, 305 & 307 Little Collins Street, Nearly Opposite Royal Arcade. Rae Bros., Printers, 547 and 549 Elizabeth Street North. [Illustration: "Off for 200 Miles' Tramp." See Page 10.] CONTENTS. PAGE. Sketch of Artist Life 1 Farewell to Dear Old England 3 Melbourne at Last 6 Christian Socialism 7 Melbourne Experience 9 Off to the Diggings 10 Ten Years on the Diggings 12 Commence Farming 18 Increase of Holdings 25 The Consummation 26 A Dissertation on Temperance 28 The Vine Industry 31 The Settlement of the Lands 32 Irrigation 35 A Scheme of Settlement 37 A Glimpse at the Future of Australia 45 Conclusion 48 Poetry, "All the Way" 49 Introduction. In giving this little "Life Sketch," I am actuated by a desire to assist many, not only hard-handed men in the "Old Country," but many soft-handed ones also, as I was, and especially those who have large families, as I had, and who are struggling for a living, and see but little hope for the future in the already over-crowded hive in the "Old Land," and a still poorer prospect for the new swarms; I, therefore, think a little advice and encouragement to those desirous to "cast off," from one who has been through it all, will be welcomed by many.--E.H. Sketch of My Artist Life. When living in the "Old Land," over 35 years since, I belonged to a class of which there are many thousands--a struggling professor--and of the class I have designated as "soft-handed." I was an artist by profession; studied from a child; never did anything else; and in 1850 and 1851 had so far advanced in my profession to have the honor of having my works hung in a creditable position on the walls of the Royal Academy of Arts, of which I was also a student. I married rather young (at 25), and soon had little ones running round. I started fairly well in the neighborhood of London, at Clapham, adding teaching. Just about this time (1847) artists were invited by the Government to send in specimens of their works for exhibition in Westminster Hall, for competition for the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament, then just finished. I was rather too young and inexperienced an artist for so great and honored an undertaking; however, I thought I would venture. I got my large picture finished, but from over-study, excitement, and anxiety, my health gave way. I contracted nervous typhus fever, and consequently could not finish the other one, which was required by the Commissioners to enable me to compete. But Sir Chas. Eastlake, the President, whose letter I still have, said my painting--under the section of "Scriptural Allegory," subject, "The King of Kings and Lord of Lords"--though not entitled to compete, could, if I liked, be hung in the vestibule of the hall; which was an honor I gladly consented to. On getting up from my long and dangerous illness, my medical advisers persuaded me to go to a milder climate for perfect restoration, and to give up my profession for a time; at least, to do but very little painting. South Devonshire was recommended. We therefore left our home at Clapham, and took up our residence about four miles from that lovely spot, Torquay. To our residence was attached a small farm and a splendid orchard. In this beautiful climate I soon regained my strength. I did all sorts of labor on the farm, so that I got a general insight into all sorts of farming work. This I have found exceedingly useful since taking to farming in Australia. I found many kind friends in Devonshire. (I cannot help naming the Savile family. God bless them for their kind patronage and introduction in my profession!) We resided in Devonshire about four years. We then came again to London, but found a difficulty in looking up a connection again; had to fill up my time in decorating in the various courts of the Crystal Palace, at Sydenham, just then being erected. I, however, saw but little prospect of advancing in my profession, or even making a living, and less prospect for a large and increasing family; we having by this time seven children, six boys and one baby girl; besides, I had contracted a great taste for a rural life while in Devonshire. We determined, therefore, to depart for Australia--the land of gold! The goldfields being at that time in full swing. A wide field indeed for enterprise, and anticipated prosperity, with God's blessing; for, I am happy to say, I had long sought His grace and guidance, and committed my ways unto Him, and was sure He would guide our steps. In the first place, I applied to the Commissioners of Emigration for a situation as schoolmaster for the voyage, on a Government emigration ship; my wife to act as matron. I presented letters of recommendation--one from the Bishop of London (Blomfield). I was well known to him, as Fulham, near London, where he resided, was my native place. The commissioners said my letters were more than enough, but desired to know the number of children I had. On hearing the number they informed me that they regretted to say that, according to their regulations, this would be a bar to my appointment. Three, I think, was the number allowed. This was a great blow to us, as we should have saved our passage money, and had a salary besides; I think about £150 as schoolmaster, and wife as matron. Parties told me I could have managed it if I had liked, by getting some of the passengers to take the other four children; but this I could not do from principle. To pay our passage in a general passage ship, therefore, exhausted all our little means. Farewell to Dear Old England. We did intend taking our passage in the new ship "Schomberg," just launched, and owned by "The White Star Company." On enquiring at the London office, they informed me that I could send our goods on to Liverpool, but they would not be put on board any ship until our passage money was paid, and that I should find them in the company's warehouse in Liverpool; consequently, I sent the goods on. We could not, however, get ready to go by the "Schomberg." On arriving at Liverpool, and enquiring for our luggage, I found it had been sent on in that vessel. Now, the fate of that fine new ship, I presume, is generally known. The captain had a bet with the captain of the ship "Kent," a well known clipper, and declared "if he did not beat the 'Kent,' he would knock her ('the Schomberg's') bows in." On hearing that the "Kent" had made the passage before him, the "Schomberg" was wilfully run on shore, just a little way from Cape Otway. Luckily, it was fair weather, and the passengers and crew were taken safely off, but with only the luggage they could carry in their hands; there being only just standing room on board the rescuing steamboat. The "Schomberg" became a total wreck. This, I suppose, is one of the most wicked and shameful incidents that ever happened on the shores of Australia. We took our passage in the next ship; the good ship "Sultana," from Liverpool, on the 21st October, 1855. I remember, as we weighed anchor, being some distance out in the stream, and out of hearing of any friendly cheer, a serious calm appeared to pervade the ship; all appeared absorbed with their own thoughts, when we found the ship was under way, more by the apparent moving of the receding shore; she being a sailing vessel. I don't know the feelings of the other passengers; possibly many were like our own, at departing from the good "Old Land." Hitherto, we had borne up well in parting from kindred and friends. We said "Good-bye" in London; but now, in those few calm moments, seated upon the ship's deck, with wife, six sons, and a baby girl around us, we felt the necessity of faith in that good Providence on Whom we had cast the future. Our feelings, however, would have vent in a few hot tears, but these had to be brushed quickly on one side. I do not think it necessary in this little sketch to give a long account of our voyage, or the various incidents that happened. There was nothing very sensational; our worst experience was our first night out. The ship was so crowded that there were not berths enough, and, as we came late on board, ours had to be erected, so that we had to huddle down between decks, the best we could. The children being our great care, there was no rest for wife or self. We had fearful weather in the Channel, and, everything being loose on board, the din was fearful; the heavy iron cable on deck rolling from side to side, and the ship's bell tolling at every roll of the ship, and the carpenters working all night, fitting up berths, and the state of the passengers--one can guess the confusion! And what added to it more--just as we reached the most dangerous part of the Channel, off the coast of Ireland, the tug-hawser parted, but, when pulled on board, it evidently had been cut adrift with an axe--a most shameful act. The contract was to take us clear of the Channel. This, then, made further trouble, as all hands had now to set to and work the ship, and there was great danger in working her out of the difficult position she was left in, and anxiously did all wait for the morning. It may be imagined that the whole of the voyage was no pleasure trip for wife or self, in a crowded ship, and seven children (under 12 years of age) to look after. Neither do I think the children liked it; they were too young, and they did not thrive at all on the rough ship's fare, particularly the hard ship's biscuits--they could not manage them at all. After a time, though, we got on better; I had a carpenter's plane with my goods, and we shaved the biscuits down on that, and made it into puddings, and so managed to get rid of them in this way. The plane went the round of the ship after this, particularly among the old people. We had, however, on arriving at Melbourne, an American cask full, unconsumed; these we took on shore with us, and they went fine in soups, &c., with good Australian beef, at 3d. a pound. Melbourne, at Last. We were thankful to arrive safely, after a fine passage of 81 days. We arrived off Cape Otway in the night, and stood "off and on" until daylight, when the pilot came on board, and the first thing he told us was the loss of the "Schomberg." Well, of course, we then knew also that all our goods were at the bottom of the sea. We were thankful, though, that we did not ship on board that ill-fated vessel; but ought we to attribute her loss to _fate_? No! It was wilful wickedness. I regretted our loss the more as my Westminster Hall picture was among the things lost, as it was the highest class work I ever attempted. It was with anxious eyes myself and several other heads of families viewed the shore of the "promised land." It certainly (from the deck of the vessel) did not look very prepossessing; not even with a good glass, and more particularly as we went up the bay nearer to Melbourne. It being the dry season--January--nothing looked green, and the dry grass looked more like sand, and the trees looked stunted. It was a hot wind and dust storm on the day we landed, and the place looked very dreary; what few shops there were, were nearly closed to keep out the dust. We were brought up the Yarra River to Melbourne from the ship by steam tugs. Of course, most of us had on our "Old Country" clothes; it was quite easy to know a "New Chum." I don't remember seeing a belltopper hat, or a coat, being worn in Melbourne at that time, and "New Chums" hated to be conspicuous, as they were always "Joed," that they soon dropped their "Old Country" style, and took to jumpers and straw, or slouched felt hats. The highest style, however, was the cabbage-tree hat. I had carefully preserved a nearly new belltopper hat through the voyage, but somehow had forgotten it in the bustle of leaving. The last I saw of it, however, it was being kicked about on the other lighter as a football, which I did not after regret. There were several parties with large families on board. The head of one, who had been on shore to look round for a few hours, and had been a schoolmaster, took charge of the women and children (about 30 children), and conducted them to a place he had seen--"the Wesleyan Home"--about a mile and a quarter from the landing place, leaving myself and the other males to look after the luggage, and follow on with the drays. It was after dark when we arrived at the "home." It was a pleasant sight to see the dear children sitting round the table enjoying their tea and nice "soft tack" (bread, &c.), after roughing it so long on board ship. "The Wesleyan Emigrants' Home"--I believe it is still in existence; it was a few years since--was a fine institution, and a great boon to emigrants. It was a peaceful, christian home, and the only one, I think, at that time. Hotels and restaurants were the resort of the lowest characters, and hardly safe for anyone to enter; most people in them went armed, and fearful scenes took place. Christian Socialism. The manager of the "home" had a book, in which he entered the names of all who lodged there. He also entered your nationality and religion; also denomination. When he put the last question to me, I answered, "A Christian Brother." "Why," said he, "yours is the first entry I have made in my book of such a sect." "Sect!" I replied, "I did not know it was a sect at all." I hoped not, for I had adopted it in opposition to sectarianism, of which I had seen so much evil in the "Old Country." I therefore determined to drop "isms" in the sea, and, on arriving at this new and good land, hoped to be known simply as a christian, and "give the right hand of fellowship to all who loved the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth," irrespective of denominations. I regret, however, that the old animosities have reached this new land. The old bickerings and trifles, non-essentials, about "Apostolic Succession," "Dipping or Sprinkling," "Free-will," "Election," "Reprobation," &c., &c.--neglecting the more paramount matters, "Belief," and a "consistent walk in life." But now, at this time (1891), I am glad to see a growing desire for unity and christian socialism in Victoria, and more particularly in the country districts; and I think they are setting an example to the towns, where there is a sad want of unity among the clergy, and christian socialism among the people. The congregations even are divided into "sets," or, as the Yankee would call them, "grades," who "stand off" from each other, and think it quite condescending, in any way, to recognise the lower "set." The visitations, also, of the clergy, are in very many cases confined to the higher "grades." There are, though, a few grand exceptions. Now, all this should be broken down if the church is ever to take its true place in the world. We should rather begin at the bottom--with men of low estate--for, hath not God chosen such? In my long life I have found the best traits of character among the poor. Verily, many that we think last shall stand first on _that day_. In my humble opinion, nothing will tend to overthrow the sceptical and atheistical tendencies of the age so much as christian fellowship and brotherhood; in fact, it is the want of this, with the dissensions and bickerings of professors, which create this scepticism; and this will continue until the world can say of christians of to-day, as it was said of old, "See how these christians love each other." "Dearly beloved brethren" will then not only be upon the lips, but in the heart. I must, however, stop this homilistical strain, and return to my narrative. Melbourne Experience. I stepped on shore in Melbourne, with my dear wife and seven children, with the grand sum of _ten shillings_ in my pocket; but, with a stout heart and willing hands, and a firm reliance on God's blessings, things did not appear so very hard. We stayed two or three days at the "Wesleyan home." On the second day after landing I got work, digging potatoes at 14s. per day. We then rented a small two-roomed house in Collingwood; had our boxes, at first, for furniture; but the grand wages of fourteen shillings per day soon provided what other little furniture we required. It appeared a poor home, though, after the style of the "Old Country;" but it is astonishing how soon one gets over this feeling, where love and happiness reign. I am not a believer in that foolish saying, that "when want comes in at the door, love flies out of the window." No; true hearts cling the tighter. On looking round Melbourne, I found some few parties I knew in England. They were very old settlers long before the discovery of gold; they were in affluent circumstances. They kindly gave me a commission to paint a few portraits in oils, which led to one or two more. I also painted a few fancy pictures. The colony, however, was too young to appreciate the _fine_ arts to any extent. The _rougher_ arts were more in vogue, and the gold fever was not abated. I also got a touch of it, my wife having two brothers on the Ovens diggings, who had been in the colony about a year. I determined, therefore, to join them. Off to the Diggings. I started alone with swag, blankets, billy, pannikin, etc., in orthodox style, for a 200 miles' tramp through the bush. (See frontispiece.) This, however, was not much of an undertaking for me, as I was a great pedestrian, could do my six miles an hour easy, and often over 50 miles per day on my sketching tours in the "Old Country;" being tall (fully six feet), I had a good stride. At that time the Sydney Road was only formed a few miles out of Melbourne, and from the Rockey Waterholes to the foot of the Big Hill (commonly then called Pretty Sally's Hill) was swamp ground. I found a difficulty in getting over this; I had to tread the thistles down for miles to prevent bogging, and it was raining fast. The contractors were just forming the road, and on the first rise on the other side of the swamp the camp was formed. The men had knocked off on account of the rain. Just as I was level with the camp, I heard my name called out in true Irish accent, and out ran one of our shipmates to greet me. He occupied the next berth to us on board ship, and was ill a great part of the way. He had been a tradesman in Dublin. He was lively enough now, as he grasped my hand and cut a real Irish caper, with "Hurrah! for Australia and 14s. a day, and wood and water!" He was driving one of the contractor's drays. He wanted me to stay, as it was far into the afternoon, but no--my alloted mileage was not done, so I marched on. My first night's "bushing" was a strange experience. Rolled up in blankets, at the foot of a gum tree, I had not turned _down_ long (I cannot say turned _in_) when I was conscious of something being upon my shoulder, and, cautiously turning round, saw an animal perched quite innocently there. It was an opossum. I presume he did not recognise me from a log. He appeared quite content to sit there until I gave him a cant, and sent him some distance off. This "camping out" is not at all an unpleasant experience, as many might think, and this was a splendid moonlight night. At that time it was far more safe to keep clear of restaurants and shanties, as they were the resort of the vilest characters. Neither was it safe to camp out alone with a fire at night, as this was an attraction, and you were pretty sure to get objectionable company. The plan, therefore, generally adopted, was to boil the billy for tea, then, after tea, leave, and go on a little distance in the dark, and turn off the road or track into the silent bush, and roll up in your blankets; thus you avoided unpleasant company. I got through in about seven days. I passed through the famous "Woolshed Diggings," where the rich claims were, and where the men had to wash the gold off their boots when they left work. There was a "strike" on just then. The claim-holders wanted to reduce the wages to £1 per day. I was interviewed, and offered work at that price, but, of course, I refused, as I was on my way to join my wife's brothers. I then went on through Beechworth--Spring Creek diggings. The scenes on the diggings were strange and novel to me. Beechworth was the chief centre of the mining district, and the other diggings around were named by the distance from Beechworth, thus--"The One Mile," "The Three Mile," and "The Nine Mile." This last was my destination. It was also called "Snake Valley," from the winding course of the creek. It was late in the evening when I arrived, quite dark and pouring rain, and there had been a long rain before, so that the roads in the township were wretched. At the crossings of the creek it was impassable, and was only indicated by side logs, on which I had to crawl. The worst of it was, I had to wander up and down the creek to find my brothers' hut. The storekeepers knew them by sight, but could not say where they lived. I was directed to a large restaurant, about a mile down the creek. There were about 40 diggers, just at tea. I walked up and down between the tables, and I think they were the finest, strongest, and roughest set of men I ever saw. I did not see my brothers, though. Came back, enquired at the police camp, also to no purpose. Over the creek again, when at last I found a butcher who pointed out on the bank, on the other side of the creek, the light shining through the calico top of their hut. He lent me a piece of candle to cross the creek with, and I managed to work my way among the holes and sludge, etc., to the other side. And glad I was to get there, and I was as "wet as a rat," and pretty well tired out. I soon got "a shift" however, and such a fire as they had I never saw before; enough to roast a bullock; at which also I got a good roasting; and after a good supper of beef, damper and tea, soon felt all right. This for my first tramp in Australia. Ten Years on the Diggings. I joined my brothers in their claim, and we had two other mates, making a party of five. We were driving out wash-dirt, and sluicing it in long boxes with the creek water. We did fairly well--made from £6 to £7 per week for each man. This year (1856) was an exceedingly wet one, particularly in the winter and early spring. This drove the miners, out of shallow sinking, and the great "Woolshed Diggings" (Read's Creek) were flooded out, and thousands rushed the shallow sluicing ground of the Nine-mile Creek; in consequence, there was great trouble about water, and "water rights," which caused endless litigation. The creek could not supply half the water required; therefore, all the hills for miles round were tunneled for water, and an astonishing number of springs were opened. These were recognised by the Mining Warden as independent--independent of the creek--and a permit given for the sole use of the same. Many of these cost hundreds of pounds to cut. It was also called "created water;" that is, water before locked up in the hills, and not feeding the creek. The creek water was available to all, but this would not command one-thousandth part of the mining ground. Our party, therefore, looked about for indications of springs, by sinking trial shafts, and then driving tunnels. We were fortunate in tapping water. This we conducted to dams, and used for sluicing purposes in shallow ground, from 3ft. to 10ft. deep, washing away the whole of it. I could not rest long with my family remaining in Melbourne, as some of the children had colonial fever; a very distressing complaint, but not very fatal. Most "new chums" had it at that time, but I don't hear anything of it now. Therefore, I tramped down to Melbourne and back twice during the first year to see them; the last time to bring them up; so that during my first year in Australia I walked about 1000 miles. The last time I was over two months in Melbourne, as our eighth child was near at hand, and I thought it my duty to be with them. I filled up my time in Melbourne decorating the new Legislative Chambers, just then finished. My wages were just about the same as what I was getting in the claim, viz., £6 to £7 per week--good wages too; but not high for that class of work. Masons at that time got over £1 per day. I then started with the wife and family in the arduous duty of taking them 200 miles through the bush in an American waggon. We were 20 days on the road. It is now done in about six hours per rail. We had a fearful time on "Pretty Sally's Hill" (before mentioned); it blew a gale with heavy rain. It would have blown our tent clean away had I not "turned out" and cut saplings down and logged it all round. We pitched our tent every night, and had a long picnicing all the way. We could only procure milk at one place (Benalla) the whole 200 miles. We went per coach from Beechworth to the Nine Mile; had to place all the children in the bottom to prevent them being pitched out, the roads being so rough, and hills all the way. Glad, indeed, were we (dear wife, in particular, with baby) to arrive at our digger's home. I had previously erected the sides and skeleton of our future residence, and had only to put the calico top on, and stretch the fly roof. The sides were made of split slabs, the plates and rafters trimmed saplings, so that it took us, with the assistance of our mates, only a few hours to get it ready for occupying. It was very cold up there in the winter. I think the altitude is over 3000 feet. I often had to "turn out" in the night to shake the snow off the fly roof. We managed to keep nice and warm, though, with the huge logs on the fire--the fire-place almost as wide as the hut. It took two men to roll some of the back-logs in, and the fire was kept burning all night. In a few years we put up a better residence. Sawn timber for the frame, shingle top and a verandah; and we started a good garden from the very first, and were the first to introduce fruit trees in the district. Mine was the second formed garden on the Creek, and out of which we made many a pound in vegetables--sold cabbages at sixpence per pound. Had splendid flowers also. I likewise introduced the watercress, and had a sale for them even in Beechworth. They grew to perfection with our spring water running over the beds. The boys carried them round among the miners, and they were greatly appreciated. This was long before the Chinamen thought of gardening (which they monopolize now), and there were about 4000 of them then on the Nine Mile. I will not dwell long on our life on the diggings. I was not a "lucky digger," with the exception of one little patch (which see particulars further on). We lived, however, a comfortable, happy, healthy, and a very independent life, and brought up a large family--they now had increased to eleven, seven boys and four girls. This ten years on the diggings was, by far, the longest rest down, up to then, of our married life. For instance, of our seven children born in England, not two were born in one house; here, in our digger's home, we had three in addition, one being also born in Melbourne. It will be imagined that by this time I had worn off all my "smooth-handedness." Yes, indeed, I had become a "horny-handed" working man, and considered it no disgrace either. "Who will hang his head in blushes For the stains to toiling due? There is dignity in labor, If the laborer be true." I worked like a navvy for ten years, through many hardships and danger. I had two narrow escapes in falling banks of earth--had my pick caught each time, and buried as I was dragging it in running out of the way of the fall. I had also, during the first year, a very narrow escape of being buried alive, working underground when the ground was rotten and dangerous from the continued wet, mentioned before. It happened thus: Just before knocking-off for dinner, I had given up the wash-dirt to the man at the windlass, and put a prop in. On resuming work after dinner, I remarked that the prop had got "as firm as a church," and that I did not like the appearance of things at all, as this was a sign that the ground was giving. I also said that, as the stuff would hardly pay for driving much further, I would sweep it out and try in another direction from the shaft which my brother had pointed out, where he had got a fair prospect. I had just sent up the few buckets of sweepings, and was pointing out to the windlass-man the direction I intended driving, when, all of a sudden, without the least warning, the sides of the shaft commenced cracking; large masses also from the lower part breaking off. Of course, the rope was immediately let down, and I was hauled up, but not before a large block of earth struck me on the knee, which lamed me for about a week. Well, in about an hour afterwards, the whole of the ground, for about half an acre, sunk bodily down. The ground was completely honeycombed with drives. I was thankful I put that prop in before dinner, as it gave the indication of danger. As the mines are not now very interesting or attractive to intended emigrants, it is not necessary to enlarge further. It will be sufficient to say that when we broke up our partnership, my wife's brothers, being single men, had saved, I think, about £400 each, but I only had my share of the water right, which we also sold. My share was about £60. The whole of my earnings, therefore, had gone to bring up my large family. My money was invested in them, to be drawn upon some day, by God's blessing, with interest--and compound interest, too. Neighbors used to think they could command and use my boys as they liked. "No," I said, "you cannot draw upon my bank in this way; you must remunerate them for their services." About this time, the Government were beginning to sell the country lands in the district. My brothers went with their savings and purchased land some thirty miles from the diggings, and started farming--an occupation they had been used to in the "Old Country." I continued working on the diggings with the boys for some time longer, sinking and driving for "a patch" I thought should exist from the formation and dip of the ground--but failed. A short time after, though, a party went down one of my shafts, and only drove a few feet and struck what I had been looking for so long. I believe it was about £90 worth. This is a very common fate on the diggings. The largest nugget ever got in Australia was found in an old drive only two or three inches under the bottom. The original occupiers had actually driven over and knelt over it, but the mass of gold, being so heavy, had sunk into the pipe-clay, below the ordinary run of wash-dirt. I could tell of many curious incidents of the sort. After this I and the boys worked a puddling machine; some of them were able to do a fine day's work now. We only just made a living, though, and had to keep the horse; feed, also, was very expensive. I can remember hay being worth £50 per ton, and that only bush hay; of course, it was only then used for the Government--for police and gold escort horses. By this time (1865), these old diggings were nearly worn out. About this time (1865) the Government passed a new Land Act, opening the lands of the colony for free selection, and deferred payment at £1 per acre, payable in half-yearly payments of one shilling per acre, without interest; certain improvements to be effected in residence, fencing, clearing, cultivation, etc., enforced. Of this liberal Land Act I thought I would avail myself. I could select up to 320 acres; but that was beyond my means. At the next sitting of the Land Board I selected 128 acres--the most suitable to my capital. A river-side lot. Of this, 30 acres were river flat, not suitable for cultivation, being subject to floods; 35 acres only were fit for cultivation, the other portion being inferior, crab-holey, grass land. I said above, this was most suitable to my capital. Upon selecting, I had only just cash sufficient to pay the first deposit, as the first half-year's rent, viz., £6 8s. Little enough, it will be said, after 10 years' hard labor in the colony. But, remember, labor is equivalent to capital, and I was backed with that banking account named before, viz., my seven good boys. Commencing Farming. Now, striking out my digger's experience, I will dwell a little. It may be asked, Why did I put upon the title page of this "Life Sketch," "How £6 8s. became £8000?" Why did I not start with the 10s. I landed with? It is this. My object in writing at all is to induce others, under similar circumstances and conditions, to settle upon the land; therefore, I put down £6 8s., the amount I started farming with; or it may be seen further on that I might have put down £76 8s., but, the other £70 was only prospective, or hardly that at the time, as will be seen. Well, even this is no great sum, as many a laborer can earn that, or rather, can save that sum, in a little more than a year, at present wages; pick and shovel men getting 7s. to 8s. per day. Had I a large sum of money saved from mining, it might have been said--"Oh! with that amount of capital, anyone ought to succeed." So myself and two eldest sons started to make a home on the land. At this time I had one son, the third, aged about 16, living upon a station with squatters, not far from where we selected. He was getting small wages, but at the same time he was getting good experience with cattle, &c., and his masters were gentlemen of high character, and for whom I have the greatest respect. The two who joined me were now able to do a good hard day's work, and they had to do it, too. So we started at once. I left the wife and the smallest of the children (seven of them, one other son being at a dairy some few miles off) for a time, at the home on the diggings, and registered our claim for a few months to prevent anyone "jumping" it. We put up residence No. 1 on the farm, composed of two side logs, and sheets of bark for top. We got a party to plough about an acre ready for potatoes and vegetables, and then started into the bush, about six miles off, to split fencing stuff; living under a few sheets of bark, for about two months. While there, I wrote a letter to my good mother in dear old England, and just in fun, headed it, "Splitters' Hall." This was taken in earnest, and I received a letter in due course, addressed to "Splitters' Hall." This gave us much amusement. Having got our stuff split, a difficulty arose. How to get it out of the bush! We must either give our labor to some farmer for a time for fetching it out for us, or return to the claim, and try for a few pounds, as we only had one old horse we used in the puddling machine, and no dray. We determined, therefore, to go and wash a few machines of stuff on the claim. I took one of the boys with me, and, to our agreeable surprise and astonishment, we washed out £70 worth of gold (alluded to before at page 18) in one week. The only "patch" we ever got, and for which I trust we were thankful enough; and grand indeed did it look as we washed it off, and it followed the sluicing fork in the clean water in washing down the boxes. But it was only just a "patch," and ran out the next day. We call it our "Providential patch." On coming from the bank, where I sold it, my pocket felt nicer than I ever recollected (except upon one other occasion), and we all felt quite jubilant! This other occasion I will insert here, although it should have been in the sketch of my "Artist Experience." This is an occasion which I shall always remember with pleasure and gratitude to the individual who interested himself so kindly in my interest. I went into Norfolk professionally, portrait painting, drawn on this occasion in that direction by the attractions of a certain individual whose acquaintance I had formed in London. The Bishop of London, who was always my friend, and always kindly gave me letters of introduction, gave me one to the Bishop of Norwich (Bishop Stanley), the father of the late honoured Dean Stanley, of Westminster. He kindly introduced me to the Mayor of Norwich, Mr. Freeman, as the best way to introduce my profession. The first portrait I painted there was the Mayor's, in his robes of office. He also kindly took charge of some paintings of fancy subjects I took with me, to show to his friends. After painting for some time in various parts of the country, in the meantime I got married, and this act, I suppose, under the circumstances, would be considered (and what is generally called) "improvident" and "imprudent," as I had no settled home of my own. It then became imperative that I got one. My wife's home was about 22 miles from Norwich, and, as I always was a great pedestrian, which I have mentioned before, I started off one fine morning early to Norwich, to see my good friend, the Mayor, and inform him of my position, and see what could be done with the paintings he had charge of. We were dining together when I broached the subject. He said my pictures had been much admired, and he thought several of his fellow citizens would like to purchase them. He at once then, at the table, wrote a note stating my intention of leaving for London, and would they make me an offer for one or more of my pictures. An answer was soon back, but the answer and offer was not satisfactory to him. "No," he said, "he shan't have it for that;" sent a note to another, and thus this novel auction went on until he got rid of several of my pictures, and, as the term is, "at satisfactory prices," and before the evening I had the money in my pocket (between £66 and £70), and, indeed, it felt warm, as my heart also did, with gratitude. On starting back _the same evening_, how I "lift my feet!" Like Jacob of old, after his dream and receiving the blessing. (Read from Gen. 10th v. xxviii ch. to 1st v. xxix ch.). It says--"_He went on his journey_;" but the Heb. in the margin is far more expressive to one who has gone through a somewhat similar experience. It there says--"_He lift up his feet_." Light of heart, light of heel. I well remember the son of the Mayor, a fine young fellow, about my own age, accompanying me for a few miles on my journey back, conversing by the way (as christians love to do) of God's good providence and love; and who knows but what there was a third person in _spirit_ with us, as He was in _person_ with the "two disciples on the road that evening journeying to Emmaus?" But it could not be said of us that "we were sad," as they were. They were sad because the "Comforter" had not then come, but we were in full enjoyment of that "Comforter." And they, also, when the Saviour revealed Himself, had "burning hearts of love;" and did not our hearts burn with love also? On our parting, with a good-bye and a hearty and friendly grip, I shall never forget his kindly words. They were these--"_Remember how sweet is the day of prosperity to those who have tasted adversity's cup_." And thus we parted on that memorable day and evening on the Norwich high road. I hardly felt the remainder of my long walk. It was rather late in the evening (or rather night) when I reached home, and, upon entering, threw the proceeds of my trip into my young wife's lap. Our feelings may be imagined. We then went up to London and furnished our first home at Clapham, as narrated in the sketch of "My Artist's Life." It will be seen that this transpired before my health broke down from over study. But to resume. With this £70 from the claim we purchased a good draught horse, new dray, etc., so that we were enabled to cart our fencing stuff, and felt quite like getting on. After erecting the fence around a good part of the allotment, we commenced clearing the land, as there was a good bit of timber on. Grubbing trees, chopping up, and burning off, occupied us during the winter. We found hut No. 1 rather cold some nights, as our fire was outside. I often took my blankets and slept outside by the large fires, where the large logs were being burned off; these, also, required "rounding up" during the night. We got about 12 acres cleared, ploughed, and sown with wheat and oats by the month of June. We started then with the orchard and garden, planted about 50 fruit trees of various sorts, and put in a few vines. This should always be done as soon as possible, but very few do it. We considered now we had got fairly started. Thus: A good deal of the fencing done, 12 acres cleared and under crop, orchard and garden dug and planted, one good horse and dray, also old puddling horse, being light, was useful for riding, etc.; three cows, with calves, from the station; out of my son's wages--2 pigs in the sty, and a few dozen fowls. Therefore we began thinking of shifting the family down. I sold our claim for a few pounds, and as our house on the diggings was still good, we shifted the materials down, and erected farm residence No. 2. This put us up till nearly our first harvest time. Thus we were all together again, except the son at the station, but he was only a few miles off. Our youngest child at this time--a boy--was 2 years old. We did not leave the digging's home, though, without some regrets. God having blessed us with many peaceful years of comfort and independence, and, although we had not saved much money, it did not interfere with our happiness; and the hills were very healthy, abounding in crystal springs, as will be supposed, for during the 10 years' residence I had no occasion to consult a medical man. It was a great blessing with 11 young children. I had, however, made it a duty to study medicine to some extent, which is necessary in a colony like this, and, particularly in those early days. Up to this time all our furniture had been home-made bush furniture, with the exception of one sofa-bedstead, and one American rocking chair, but then it matched with the bush residences. I now made a new set of furniture for our farm-house. I have now to record a great sorrow which befell us. We had not all been together on the farm many weeks, when we lost our fifth son, by drowning. He was a fine lad of 15 years. It happened in this way. He was out with the gun, keeping the cockatoos off the crops, but seeing some ducks in a lagoon near the river, he shot one of them, and stripped and swam in to secure it. He was a fine swimmer. He, however, did not, in his hurry, take the precaution to keep his cap on, as he always did when bathing, and, it being an exceedingly hot day, I believe he got sunstruck, as his younger brother, who was with him, said he laid upon the top of the water some time. There were several parties sunstruck on that day. He was a good boy, and had that morning, as usual, with his brothers and sisters, said their prayers, and sang together their little hymn-- "Come to this happy land, Why will you doubting stand?" There is one there awaiting us "beyond the river." Myself and boys kept grubbing and clearing, and got in four acres of maize by harvest time. Two of them then went to assist their uncles at harvest; they resided about six miles from us. They coming, in return, to help us. So our first harvest-home in Victoria was completed. "The wilderness was, indeed, blossoming as the rose," and we felt proud at being permitted to fulfil the Heavenly behest of "subduing and replenishing the earth." What occupation on earth can equal that of the husbandman, to raise man's mind from "Nature to Nature's God"; that is, to a properly-regulated mind. To see the beautiful order of all Creation. The unerring instinct of animals. The song and wonderful plumage of birds, so very beautiful in Australia. The sweet hum of the busy bee fructifying the beautiful flowers, and modelling their cells so wonderfully and as unerringly as in the garden of Eden. Man, in his regenerate state, standing thus amid these surroundings, and leaning upon the merits of his Saviour alone, to atone for the sin of the first Adam, and with his face and aspirations raised heavenward, must feel that Paradise is, in a measure, restored even in this world. He has, at least, a foretaste of the Paradise above. Unregenerate man alone appears the only contradictory element and anomaly in the universe. Increasing our Holdings. We selected 115 acres more land the next year, and 95 the year after. All spare time, the two eldest sons went out fencing, etc., for other settlers, but, in a few years, we had plenty of work at home, and our son from the station joined us; the other sons, as well, growing up strong and useful. My wife and daughters also busy attending to housework, dairying, etc., which now had increased considerably by natural increase and further purchases. Horse stock also increased in the same way. Thus we have gone on year after year, all working for one common object and mutual welfare, and which we have now continued to do for nearly 25 years on the farm up to this time, 1891. Two of my sons have selected other allotments, and we have purchased two "drunk out" farms from the mortgagees. We also, in 1884, purchased a very eligible block of land. We had to pay dearly for it, though. It contained about 400 acres of good tillage land--good for this district, where land is not first-class, like many parts of Victoria. For this, we gave £8 per acre, and for 636 acres of grass land adjoining, £4 per acre, costing altogether over £6000. This we had to get partly upon loan. With our own great strength, now of six grown-up sons, and plenty of horse strength besides, we have reaped in produce and stock from the same land, quite two-thirds of the amount, and expect in a few more years' crops to clear it, so that it was a good investment, but there has been very heavy labor attached to it. Although we have a large quantity of the finest land in the district suitable for Hop-growing, we have scrupulously and conscientiously refrained from growing the same; considering it would be most inconsistent with our principles to have anything whatever, directly or indirectly, to do with any product that contributed to the production of that substance that has been the greatest curse to the world; also putting some of the best land to a base use, instead of using it for the benefit of mankind. The Hop is different altogether from the Grape, or Barley, as they are in themselves a blessing, and of eminent use to man, properly and rationally used. The Consummation. About six years since we erected on the "Home Farm"--our first selection--Residence No. 3, a superior brick house, which cost about £500, and very desirable now and appreciated, as wife and I are growing old--self, 74; wife, a few years younger. The bush furniture has given place to as good a suite of furniture as anyone could wish for in sitting, bedrooms, etc., also a superior organ, with which to praise and glorify the good God who has blessed and prospered us. I have, besides, taken the brush in hand again to adorn the walls, and leave some of my handiwork behind me for the children. In fact, for the last eight years I have done a few paintings, sold a few landscapes, and exhibited them at various places in the colonies; also sent a large one to the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London, for which I got a certificate and medal. Heavy, laborious work, of course, begins to tell upon me now if long continued, so that this "soft-handed" work is a relaxation. My department now in the firm is principally in the garden and orchard, of which we have now a large one, both fancy and useful. We have also an orangery recently planted, have also a good many old trees, which bear wonderfully well. We irrigate with a horse-pump. We are all still working together in partnership, as it has always been my policy to give my sons a direct interest in all our undertakings and property, and this is only right and just, as to them mainly, under God's blessing, I must attribute our success; anyhow, the labor portion has largely devolved upon them. We stand now (1891), after 25 years on the farms, thus:-- Amount of Land, 2,523 acres At a fair valuation, free £6,150 Stock, cattle, horses, etc. 1,500 Plants, Machinery, etc. 550 ------ £8,200 Thus I have shown, as I promised, how £6 8s., or, if you like, £76 8s., has increased to £8,000. It must be remembered, although this looks a nice sum of money, that if divided between six sons and four daughters, the amount for each would not be large; say among the six sons, the amount to each would only be about £1,350. However, by still holding together in partnership, they can increase it much more than if they divided; in fact, they are just doing so by purchasing a property in New South Wales of 3,000 acres, mainly for sheep-farming. Besides, I have known steady, single farm-men, as hired hands at £1 per week and "found," and £1 10s. per week for harvest work, who have banked at least £40 per year, for over 20 years, which, with compound interest, I presume would total up to the above sum. Not that I am an advocate for this style of saving, as, when the money was about half that sum, they would have the means to marry and settle down; thus be better citizens, and add more to the prosperity of the colony. Now, doubtless, the question will be asked by many situated as I was, and others, "Can I do the same?" My answer is, I really cannot see why they cannot. But they must have seen that even upon the land, there is a very rough time to go through, especially in new country, and many years of careful labor, though, with all, a pleasant, healthful, and independent occupation, and, "with a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether," and a firm reliance on God's blessing, a peaceful and restful end. A Dissertation on Temperance. It must be born in mind, however, that there was one great and important, if not indispensable factor, which I have not mentioned in the foregoing sketch, that has greatly contributed to our success, viz.:--The curse of alcohol was never permitted to enter or pollute our home. I was early in life (1840) convinced of the advantages, physically and morally, of abstaining from the narcotic poison--alcohol. My pledge card, which I still have and keep with much pride, is dated 1841. I had abstained some time before, so that I can count over half a century in this good cause. And I am happy to say the whole of my children have followed our example, and it was only natural that they should do so, as I am a firm believer in parental example. When this great cause was first advocated, we all gladly joined it, as we, as a family, had suffered from the curse--and what family has not, in some measure? My own father was a victim to the demon; but those were days of ignorance, and drunkenness was only looked upon as a venial weakness, and almost as a virtue among all classes--the clergy not even exempt; and it was considered a breach of hospitality if you did not make your guests drunk. Thank God those bad old times are past! My dear parent was more excused as he was a naval man--a "man-of-war's-man," and fought under the great Nelson, and at that time it was thought necessary to make men half mad with rum before they could fight. Now: how changed! The commanders call for the teetotalers when they want any particular or dangerous duty performed. I said, as a family we suffered, for he died early in life, and left his widow with six very young children to battle alone in the world. But I must draw the curtain; we cannot claim ignorance now. Now, do not let it be understood that I mean to say that no one will succeed unless they are abstainers; but from my long experience and extensive observation, it is extremely rare to find those who started with moderation in intoxicants, can continue so, at least with the potations in the same quantity or strength; it is almost physically impossible to do so. Alcohol is a substance that principally exerts its influence on the nervous system, like opium--a kindred substance. It creates an artificial appetite or craving, and nervous prostration is the result, which can only be relieved, in thousands of cases, by a continued increase in quantity or strength, and a diseased state of the system is insensibly created. In very many cases moderation is impossible. No man ever started in life with the intention of being a drunkard, and if you suggested the possibility of such, he would be most indignant. Nevertheless, they fall against their will. Neither do I think any man leaves his home and family with the deliberate intention of getting drunk, and coming home to abuse those who, in his sober moments, he treats with affection. If he did so, such a man has fallen far below the brute creation. Man is simply deluding himself with this alluring and fascinating "serpent." In fact, "mocked," and "he that is deceived thereby is not wise." And the true wisdom is to banish this "curse of the race" from your home, as no one knows how soon they or someone dear to them, may be drawn into this snare. I never knew an abstainer but what prospered in this colony, and I have known hundreds of drinkers "go to the wall." I have not known a single farmer in this district who planted a vineyard, and made wine, who has not been "bitten by his own dog," and died prematurely; except one, and he sold out, but is still a confirmed drunkard. Alas! what shocking tales I could tell of wasted homes. I have already mentioned two "drunk out" farms we purchased--premature deaths, violent deaths. Children turned adrift on the world, sacred and loving ties sundered, etc., etc., simply from indulgence in this most insidious, useless, and dangerous habit. However, a brighter day is dawning even for Australia, which, as yet, is far behind in this glorious movement of true temperance (temperance in all lawful things). Alcohol is unlawful, being foreign and destructive to man's physical nature, but the total abstinence cause is destined also to be the moral salvation of the world, and the hand-maid and stepping-stone to a religious and Christian life. And I am happy to say many of our youth are seeing the advantages and duty of abstinence from intoxicants. The Vine Industry. On the other hand, many of our politicians and others are advocating the advantages of the vine-growing industry for making wine, and have even dubbed Australia--"John Bull's Vineyard." Yes, vineyard, I will, if you like, endorse, but "Wine Shop," which they mean, I will ignore. The grape, rightly used, is one of God's greatest gifts, and I would like to see every hill-top clothed with the vine, but not quite so, for we are, or should be, wise enough to know that the hill-tops should never be denuded of their forest's adornment. Say every hill-side. The pure "fruit of the vine," the blood of the grape unfermented, or grapes preserved as raisins, are wonderfully nutritious, and contain many of the elements of the blood. By fermentation, which is a process of decay and destruction, nearly the whole of the nutriment is destroyed. Thus, the gluten and gum are entirely destroyed. Six-sevenths of the albumen, and four-fifths of the sugar, and most of the others, are also destroyed. And what do we get _in lieu_. Why, a narcotic, sleeping, irritant (irritating) poison; irritating, though, should have been placed first, as it excites the passions to commit every evil deed, long before the drunken or sleepy stage commences. Now, will any sane person have the temerity to say that this poison alcohol, the substance created by the destruction of all these life-sustaining constituents, is "the good gift of God" as "received from His hand?" There is hardly a substance on earth but what can be and has, in like manner, been perverted. Grain of all sorts, fruit, rice, potatoes, beet-root, starchy substances of all sorts, in fact, anything that can be converted into saccharine (sugar: the foundation of alcohol), milk also, and even meat. Were all these good gifts ever intended to be worse than destroyed? In the United Kingdom, 80,000,000 bushels of bread food are thus destroyed, when millions of people are in a state of pauperism or semi-starvation. And all this waste, to do what? To feed men? No. To give health? No. Strength? No. To warm? No. To allay this? No. It is of no earthly use whatever. But this it does. Debases men below the beast, also producing crime, poverty, disease, and moral degradation. This is the sum total that man reaps for destroying the bountiful fruits of the Creator. Is it then a wise policy on the part of a paternal Government to unduly encourage the manufacture of wine in bonuses and viticultural colleges? Is it patriotic? Is it philanthropic? Is it Christian! With a climate that can produce wine by natural fermentation up to 34 per cent. (this is disputed by experts in Europe) of alcoholic strength, two-thirds the strength of brandy, and a very large quantity is being distilled into brandy, how can we expect a sober people? It may appear to some that I have dwelt unreasonably long upon this question, but feeling strongly, I must write strongly. Having, therefore, pointed out to the best of my ability what I consider the greatest drawback to the advancement of this fair colony, viz., the wasteful expenditure of 6,000,000 of money annually for Victoria alone, I will return to consider at greater length the object for which this sketch was mainly written. The Settlement of the Lands. Husbandry is the source of all true wealth, and the back-bone of every country. I regret to say the farming interest in Victoria has been heavily handicapped by the protective duties, to sustain the interests of the manufacturers and importers. The crisis came upon the farmers first, as soon as they had to compete in the world's market, and it will come upon the manufacturers just in the same way, when they have over-produced for the home market. It is just now upon the turning point. Can they compete with the world with men's present wages, and eight hours' labor? I very much doubt it. If not, what will they do with their surplus goods. Farmers' sons have had to rush the cities for employment, and there is a vast population just growing into manhood--sons of artisans, which our football matches testify. Can these be absorbed into the various trades? I don't like taking a gloomy view of things, but I think the subject should have very serious thought. It is very easy to boast about the eight hours' movement, and wages to be fixed, and "strikes" ordered by a Trades' Hall Council. But will they provide an outlet for the working man's commodities at colonial prices? But to return to the land. In the first place, I may say as regards Victoria, the open selection of Crown land has ceased. Even the grazing blocks, under the new Act, 1884, which nearly covers all the inferior or waste land, I think are all pretty well taken up, and the only hope now is the breaking up or sub-division of the large estates, and they comprise, luckily, the very finest runs of land, on 100 acres of which, a family could live better than on 320 of ordinary land. Of course, to get this good land requires some capital, but the return lies surely in the soil, and it only requires labor--the poor man's capital--with strict economy, to recover the first expenditure. The breaking up of these large estates will be the making of Victoria. Or the cutting up into tenant blocks would be even better for the owners, and better for men of limited means. A ten years' lease on prime land should make him independent. I don't mean make his fortune, but should place him in a position to go ahead. This is the only land that will bear a dense population, or bear intense cultivation, and is, in fact, the only hope for the colony. This want of land for the rising generation is the cause of so many of our young men--farmers' sons--seeking employment in Melbourne, their parents' holdings not being sufficient to maintain the whole of the family, and many are marrying, and desire to have homes of their own. I trust the large owners of estates are patriotic, if not philanthropic enough to see the necessity of this, which is also a duty to God and man, for it is pitiable to see men willing to go upon the land, and many with sufficient means, looking about in vain. Without these are cultivated, how can the population increase as it should? And how can work be found for the artisans in the cities? These and the farmers must go hand in hand, and prosper together; for if the 130,000 farmers have only a surplus of an average of £10 each yearly, it throws into their hands £1,300,000--no insignificant sum. To a small extent, there has been a disposition to sub-divide. I trust they will increase a hundred-fold. I think it will be seen from what I have written, that for "New Chums," at least in Victoria, there is not much chance for settling on the land, without they possess a few hundreds in cash. Therefore they must be satisfied with patient, frugal labor for a few years, to save sufficient capital. But there are the other colonies of Australia--New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland, and Western Australia, where they have liberal land laws. Splendid countries, inviting capital and labor, and upon which, in the various latitudes, the products of the whole world can be grown to the greatest perfection, and the area so vast, that the population of another Europe could be set down; but a very great portion of it, from its position, climate, etc., is not very inviting, or hardly suitable for needy emigrants. There is, though, a vast outlet for the profitable investment of capital in those outlying districts. Capital and labor must go hand in hand like twin brothers. Then the waste places of the earth would soon "blossom as the rose," and we should soon find the over-stocked hives of the old lands relieved of the burden of humanity, for as yet it is idle to talk of the "over-population of the world;" why, we know in fact that as yet it is not half populated, not only Australia. Look at the vast country of South America, watered by that mighty river the Amazon, also the Argentine Republic. Then the great north-west of Canada, also the regions of the Congo and Central Africa, and many other considerable and desirable places. Yes, there is room enough yet in the ample and bountiful bosom of "Mother Earth," and she is inviting, with open arms, her children to partake of her bounties. We hear a great deal about "over-population" and "over-production." Why is it? Simply because the great masses of the working bees are not placed in a position to gather the world's honey, and thus to become customers for the products of the manufacturing countries. _The cry should be--Put the people on the lands, at whatever cost!_ They will return interest an hundred-fold. Irrigation. At the present time the subject of irrigation is absorbing the attention of the Government and the community in general. The appointment of the Royal Commission on Water Supply was a grand idea, and for which the colony should be grateful, and particularly to the president, the Honourable Alfred Deakin, M.P., for his arduous and indefatigable labor to promote a general interest in the subject. The visit also of the Commission to America, and the report of the same, are highly interesting and useful, and which led to the establishment of Messrs Chaffey Bros.' Irrigation Colony at Mildura. This will do immense good. It will be an open book, giving ocular and practical demonstration of the advantages of water and intense cultivation, but above all, to show how capital can be advantageously invested for the mutual and common good, and I think it will lead to many such in Victoria, and also extend right across the continent to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and thus make a profitable outlet for English capital, and at the same time relieve the old lands of the plethora of humanity. What can be done in arid countries without water? What would India, Egypt, Italy, &c., be without irrigation? In fact, it is the life of all nature. We can hardly estimate its value. It is the only solvent and menstruum to set free the constituents of the soil. Intense culture with water requires intense labor and intense manuring. It will also require cheap labor and cheap mechanical appliances. At present our machinery is nearly double the price it is in America. How then can we compete with the world without we start fairly? A 50-acre irrigated farm will suffice to keep a family comfortably, as crops are not only doubled, but you can double crop. That is, take at least two crops, one grain and the other roots or fodder plants, in one season, and you can cut fodder crops three or four times, and lucerne five or six. I have experimented for some years, and I have come to the conclusion that "soakage" is the best; that is, run the water in the furrows between the lands or beds, not too wide, so that the water, by capillary attraction, may soak quite through. There is a very great deal to learn. The right time to put the water on, and the time to leave off, otherwise it will do more harm than good. For fruit, also, you must not keep watering too long, or the fruit will never mature properly, and be of inferior flavor and quality, and the young wood will not mature for the next year's crop. Independent of fruit growing, which is so much advocated just now, I think irrigation is of as much advantage to the general farmer, not so much for corn growing, as it is difficult to catch the right time, and an excess is pretty sure to create mildew and rust; but for roots and fodder crops, and "catching crops" after harvests, for the dairy, etc., too much cannot be said in favor of irrigation. Every stream, however small, running through a dry country, should be utilised, if not, it is so much wealth running to waste, and its use to the dairy industry, which has advanced with such strides during the last few years, is not half enough appreciated. The Government has aided this industry most liberally, and it has been the making of thousands of families, but improved methods of growing crops by irrigation and better feeding, and an improved breed of dairy cattle, would quite double the produce. I think I have said enough as to the advantages and difficulties of irrigation, difficulties which experience will overcome. As this "Life's Sketch" was written mainly to induce the settlement of the people on the land, my concluding division will be an endeavour to propound. A Scheme of Settlement. It appears strange that the wealth of Great Britain has not gone in this direction long ago for the benefit of her own sons. "Charity should begin at home." The poverty and the drudgery of the masses is appalling in England, and this by the side of enormous wealth. A burden of poverty and a burden of wealth. Strange anomaly! Not only the produce market, but the money market as well, is regulated by Great Britain. The hands and eyes of the whole world are lifted up to her! What would be the state of most countries without the markets and wealth of England? Look at the millions wasted in worthless Turkey. Then we see the millions that have been spent in India and Egypt. Blessing indeed, no doubt, to those countries. Then it appears so passing strange that a portion of this British wealth has not been diverted more to the lands of her colonies _in a systematic way_, and there can be no safer investment. N.B.--The Chaffey Brothers' scheme. We find, however, that the British Government are commencing action in this direction, at least at home, in establishing peasant proprietary, and millions of money is to be appropriated to this purpose in purchasing land, &c. This is a step in the right direction, and I trust this sort of thing will be extended to the colonies, where, as I said before, there is room for another Europe. Britain's sons and our colonies should be thought of first. It would not be charity. Charity in this sense is rather an unchristian term; the benefits would be reciprocal. When her sons are wanted for the defence of the Empire, they are willing to lay down their lives by thousands, and millions upon millions of money, for the purpose of war, is forthcoming. Is it, then, too much to ask that a few millions be spent in the cause of peace, to enable them to do battle with rugged nature? As regards the extension of settlements in Victoria, I think I have hinted enough respecting the necessity of sub-division and irrigation. I think after a few years, when the advantages of irrigation have been proved, many will be glad to sub-divide their present holdings of 320 acres, and confine themselves to half the quantity, especially if the anticipations of the fruit industry are realised, and I have considerable faith in them, but not such glowing results as are held out; only one-half of the profits stated would suffice. One thing we know: this generation appears to have made the discovery that man is more of a fruit and vegetable eater than was before supposed, so that therein a good deal of our hope lies. By the partaking of fruit, we require much less drink, as a pound of most fruits contain more than three-quarters of a pound of water; we may say three-quarters of a pint to one pound, so that they are eminently meat and drink. As to the other vast portions of Australia, I can see no hope for settlement, particularly in the arid districts, without either the Governments at home or in the colonies, or syndicates, take the matter up. With respect to individual settlements in these parts, we cannot compare it with North America; the conditions are so very different, there is such a very small portion of Australia in the temperate zone, the climate of which is so suitable for European constitutions, whereas, in North America and Canada, there is an enormous territory congenial for the products and people of temperate climates. In Australia, wheat appears to fail north of 30deg., at least, it does not pay to grow it without it is on table-land, such as part of New England district in New South Wales. It is strange that as yet that great colony, four times as large as Victoria, does not grow near corn enough to feed her own people, and Victoria has already exported this year, 1891, millions of bushels. Well, as regards that, Victoria cannot boast, and it is quite as strange that they cannot, or do not grow half meat enough for the insignificant population. The facilities and inducements for settlement in America are grand. Many a sturdy man has "gone west" into the wild woods, and made a home with nothing more than his axe, and a bag of seeds, living well in the meantime upon the indigenous products of that splendid country, which are abundant. Wild animals, large and small, birds, fish, native fruits and nuts, and sugar from the maple tree, &c. Truly, that was a rich land! But nothing of this sort can be attempted in Australia. If I were to draw up a plan of settlement, basing the costs according to my own personal experience, but depending upon a company for the capital to start with, I would advise, after the company had agreed with the Government for the purchase of the land, and the same was surveyed in blocks of 200 acres each, to settle down 200 families, which would amount to 40,000 acres, and a reserved right for 40,000 more at a somewhat higher figure. The cost to place each family of say five individuals, would be about £200 each family; that is, to pay passage, supply them with food, implements, stock, seeds, &c., for the first year, until some produce came to hand. Residences, of course, would be rough, and should be erected by themselves. Thus far the support and provision of the 200 families for one year would be £40,000, or for 1600 families--8000 souls--£500,000. Say, for illustration, the company got the land for two shillings per acre, and gave each family a lease for 10 years at two shillings an acre per annum, the payment to be for purchase money, so that at the end of 10 years it would be his own, having paid the company £1 per acre. The £200 also, advanced in the first instance, to be paid off by instalments with 6 per cent. interest per annum added, so that at the end of ten years or a little more, each family should be possessed of their own freehold, and a considerable increase of stock, etc. The company should have a depôt, where everything necessary for the settlement could be supplied at the lowest possible rate, and also undertake to preserve and market the produce of the settlers to the best advantage, to ensure them the highest possible price, like Chaffey Bros. propose doing. To go more into detail and figures as to the first year's expenses of a family of five, I would put it down thus:-- Cost of bringing out and placing upon the land a family of five individuals £50 0 0 Provisions for one year 50 0 0 -------- £100 0 0 Stock-- 2 horses at £10 20 0 0 4 cows at £7 28 0 0 4 pigs 3 0 0 Fowls 2 0 0 -------- 53 0 0 Implements-- Dray 10 0 0 Plough 6 0 0 Harrows 5 0 0 Sundry tools 2 10 0 Dairy utensils 2 10 0 Harness 6 0 0 House utensils 5 0 0 -------- 37 0 0 Seeds-- For 20 acres of wheat 6 0 0 For 10 acres of oats 2 5 0 For 5 acres of maize 0 5 0 For garden seeds 1 0 0 50 fruit trees (various) 3 0 0 -------- 12 10 0 --------- Total £202 10 0 --------- If a family of five--husband, wife, one daughter, and two strong lads of from 14 to 16 years of age--entered upon the land in the month of January, and started at once putting up a house and getting stuff ready, they should be able to do all the work among themselves, and get the wheat and oats in in June--orchard and garden in July. The maize ground could be left until the fence was up round the crop. The amounts put down for food may look small, but it would not be more than that, as in six months (and before, with milk, butter and eggs) they would have potatoes, &c., from the garden, and one pig killed, which together would be half a living. Such a scheme as this could be easily worked out in detail, and thus I think millions of capital could be profitably invested. In fact, without some such scheme I don't know how the vast territories under the British Crown, now lying waste, can be utilised. A few such settlements would give an immense impetus to trade and manufacture, and we should soon cease to hear the cries of "want of employment," "over-population," and "over-production." N.B.--Such a scheme should commend itself to General Booth. It may further be said as regards settling a large population upon the land with intense culture--What is the amount of land a family can comfortably live upon? The sub-division of land has taken place considerably in the original eastern States of America. I see by the Government reports of the State of Massachusetts, 71,000 persons live from the products of farms averaging only 56 acres, and the average size of farms over the whole State in 1850 was 99 acres; in 1875, 76 acres, so that they are now being reduced. The income of these farmers average about £125 per year, independent, I presume, of farm products consumed by themselves. Any way, it shows a very thrifty, frugal, and industrious people. The population also has increased in the 13 original States from 15 per square mile in 1780, including towns, to 55 in 1880, _or over 11 individuals to the acre_. This is amazing! Then take Belgium, France, and Ireland, where families live, or appear to do so, or are compelled to do so, comfortably upon only five, eight, and ten acres of land. Take France, as its position, various industries, and climate much resemble Victoria. I find by the Government reports that there is a population of nineteen millions (19,000,000) existing on farms of about eight acres each. This is wonderful! And, as our Governments are partial to commissions, it would be very interesting and instructive if we had one to go through France, as they did through California, to see how these farmers manage their system of farming, various products, prices, &c., also diet, beverages and social standing. It would, I think, open the eyes of some of the settlers in Victoria who say they cannot make a living on 320 acres. I can give a very good example of frugality, and also details of a farm in Ireland under Earl Spencer's prize system, on his estates. A tenant named Hill was awarded the first prize; area, 11 acres. Division of Land. 1 acre 1 rood, turnips and mangles. 1 acre 2 roods, potatoes. 4 acres, oats. --------- 6 acres. 1 acre 2 roods, upland. 1 acre, lowland. 1 acre 3 roods, permanent pasture. --------- 11 acres. Half an acre of land seeded after potatoes, 1-1/4 after manured roots, 2-1/2 under lea-oats. Live stock consisted of 1 horse, 3 dairy cows, 2 heifers, 2 pigs, and 46 poultry. [Illustration] Balance-sheet. Cr. £ s. d. Dr. £ s. d. Produce of cows 35 0 0 Rent and taxes 12 18 4 Oats (exclusive of horse feed) 21 0 0 Wages and keep of servant 22 0 0 Profit on beast sold 19 0 0 Seeds 1 1 0 Potatoes (5-1/2 tons at £3) 16 10 0 Labour (spring and harvest) 5 0 0 2 calves 9 0 0 Hand feed to cows 1 12 0 Profit on pigs 6 0 0 Eggs 6 10 0 ---------- --------- £113 0 0 £42 11 4 ---------- --------- Balance. Cr. £113 0 0 Dr. 42 11 4 ---------- Profit £70 8 8 ---------- I (the reporter) asked Hill what wages weekly would have been equal to this. He seemed astonished at such a question, and confessed that no reasonable wages could have placed him in such a comfortable and independent position. This is a modest affair, and yet the tenant was most contented and happy. In concluding this section, I must say I would very much like to see in Victoria, a small model farm of say 25 acres of tillage as a dairy farm; everything to be consumed on the farm; that is, all the produce from the land--hay, straw, fodder plants, roots, etc.--and the whole to be under the direction and supervision of the Minister of Agriculture, and the Government Agricultural Chemist, ---- Martin, Esq., and everything carried out under an intelligent tenant and his family, and a strict balance-sheet kept. A Glimpse at the Future of Australia. I am not so sanguine as many that Australia, in the near future, will have such a very large population, and particularly a European one. There is not temperate climate enough. I have already stated that wheat cannot be profitably grown beyond 30 degrees of latitude north, and we may say most of the European products also, and the climate, beyond another 20 degrees, is not suitable for European constitutions to labor in. If we, therefore, draw a line at 30 degrees across the map of Australia, we shall see the insignificant portion there is left in the temperate zone; we shall find it not one-fourth of the continent. Take it through Western Australia, and there is just a little corner. What, then, is the future of the enormous country north of 30 degrees, and which is only suitable for tropical and semi-tropical products, all of which will grow to the greatest perfection? The question then is, will Europeans grow these products? I think not. At least, not European labor. It must, and no doubt will be done, by large companies, by employing Chinese, Coolie, or Kanaka labor, under the superintendence of Europeans. These hotter regions, otherwise, will never be utilized. Therefore, it is my belief that instead of persecuting and expelling these races as the fashion now is, we shall be glad to invite them to assist in developing this vast territory. I think this conclusion will strike everyone as correct, who calmly reflects upon the subject. Besides, the products of these districts, such as sugar, rice, tea, coffee, etc., require so much hand labor, that to compete with these with other countries which have cheap labor, will be impossible. Even at the present day, neither Englishmen nor Europeans will do the necessary work in the northern districts, and even in Victoria our tobacco, hops, and vine industries can hardly be carried on without the despised Chinese. We have an example already in the sugar industry in Queensland. Recently a plant was up for sale that cost £26,000, and the highest offer was £5000. What are we then to do without this cheap labor? Without it this vast territory must evidently remain in a state of nature, or still be devoted to wandering herds of cattle, and by their vast numbers cripple the farmers of the more temperate parts by competition. Where, then, are the boasted millions of population to come from, which so many calculate upon? One great factor which will stay the progress of this great country more than any other is the present jealousy and war between Capital and Labor. No country can advance without there is perfect security for life and property. If capital cannot find security in one country, it can easily go to another. Social order must be maintained at all costs. It appears coming to this, whether the Elected Government is to rule the country, or the Trades' Hall Council. There is a class of men in Melbourne who want to fix things according to their own Utopian ideas, and upon such "hard and fast" lines that would be totally unbearable and tyrannical even to their own class. It would be well for them to ponder the wise words recently uttered by President Harrison, viz., "_The safety of the State, the good order of the community, all that is good, the capacity, indeed, to produce material wealth, is dependent upon the intelligence and social order. Wealth and commerce are timid creatures, they must be assured that the rest will be safe before they build. So it is always in those communities where the most perfect order is maintained, where intelligence is protected, where the Church of God, and the institutions of religion are revered and respected, we find the largest developments of material wealth._" There is far too much "dog in the manger" feeling among the well-to-do artisans in Melbourne. They are jealous of others coming into this good land. They were glad enough to come themselves. It is the fear that a few shillings will come off their own wages. It is strange that sensible men, with any idea in their own heads, can listen to, or be guided by the strange contradictory logic of the leaders of the labor party. Recently, one of them said, speaking against the "Bloated Capitalists," "those who are living without working, you may depend upon it, are living upon those who do work, and that all independent people are 'loafers or parasites' on the State." Holding that independence is a crime. Well, many of their own class, by industry and frugality, are independent or approaching to it. These, then, are graduating to this new species of crime. Another said these "loafers and parasites" should be compelled to turn out and work, and in the next breath called competition the work of the devil, and over-production the curse of the colony. According to this logic, if all were workers and all producers--what then? The greatness of Melbourne consists of the great number of independent non-workers, who employ and consume the produce of the workers, and this is also the secret of England's greatness, and their wealth is assisting the great national works of the whole world. These wiseacres even dictate to the farmers in this matter, thinking, I suppose, that they cannot see a yard from the plough-tail. If we get an overplus, and the prices consequently lower, and of which they reap the benefit, they tell us it is over-production again, and say, "Why don't you just produce what the colony requires, and then you would be all right?" But should we do so, and their loaf be double the price, which it would be, they would be the first to cry out that "we were not utilising the land." Not considering that in advocating this grand remedy, this colony, instead of exporting millions of bushels of wheat to feed the hungry in Europe, would simply revert to a sheep walk, or nearly so, and two-thirds of the agricultural population would swell the present too over-crowded cities, and increase their own ranks with double the number of workers--and what then? The railways also might shut up, as sheep, &c., can travel to market on their own legs. But enough of this. The farming and the town interests are identical, the one cannot prosper without the other, but the farmer can get over a pinch best. Farming also is paramount, and Governments should see to it as soon as possible and establish farm colonies--see that the large estates are put to the best use. Previous Governments have frittered away the best of the land by special surveys, and permitting dummyism. _They should also see that the remaining unalienated land is kept in the hands of the State, and only leased to tenants._ A 20 years' lease, renewable, is almost as good as a freehold, and suits thousands better. Large estates in England have been let in this way, and have remained in the hands of the same tenants for generations. As I have previously said, I now emphasize again, viz.--PUT THE PEOPLE ON THE LAND AT ALL COSTS!--without which it is impossible, even in Victoria, to have a large population or prosperity in town or country. Conclusion. In concluding, I trust this little "Sketch from Life" and personal experience and advice therein contained, may cause many in the "dear old land" who are situated as I was, and others, to take heart and courage, and I doubt not the same blessing will attend them. They may have a rough time for a few years, and many ups and downs, but what of that? Labor with plenty, gives the best health, strength, enjoyment and longevity. Thus, with a firm trust in the "All-wise" to direct their path, their feet shall never slip, and they shall cause the "wilderness to blossom as the rose," and, "by the good hand of God upon them," build up a home, as surely as Nehemiah built up Jerusalem, and to cheer their hearts I will give them a song to sing all along their pilgrim journey. ALL THE WAY. All the way my Saviour leads me, What have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy, Who through life has been my guide? Heavenly peace, divinest comfort, Here by faith in Him to dwell! For I know whate'er befalls me, Jesus doeth all things well. All the way my Saviour leads me, Cheers each winding path I tread, Gives me grace for every trial, Feeds me with the living bread. Though my weary steps may falter, And my soul athirst may be, Gushing from the rock before me, Lo, a spring of joy I see! All the way my Saviour leads me, Oh, the fullness of His love! Perfect rest to me is promised In my Father's house above. When my spirit, clothed immortal, Wings its flight to realms of day, This my song, through endless ages, JESUS LED ME ALL THE WAY. N.B.--The profit, if any, from the sale of this little sketch will be devoted to the furtherance of True Temperance. [Illustration] Melbourne: Rae Bros., Printers, 547 & 549 Elizabeth Street 1891. [Illustration] 
19162	----	THE LOST VALLEY By J. M. WALSH 1921 The C. J. DeGARIS PUBLISHING HOUSE MELBOURNE CONTENTS PART I. THE POSTHUMOUS PUZZLE OF MR. BRYCE I.--The Adventure on the Sands II.--An Old Friend III.--The Strange Behaviour of Mr. Bryce IV.--The Thief in the Night V.--Circumstantial Evidence VI.--I Tell a Lie VII.--Introducing Mr. Albert Cumshaw PART II. THE ADVENTURES OF MR. ABEL CUMSHAW I.--Nightfall II.--The Pursuit III.--The Hidden Valley IV.--When Thieves Fall Out V.--Expiation VI.--The Hegira of Mr. Abel Cumshaw VII.--The Gathering of the Eagles PART III. THE FINDING OF THE LOST VALLEY I.--The Cypher II.--Over the Hills and Far Away III.--The Promised Land IV.--We Enter the Valley V.--Dies Irae VI.--The Solution VII.--The Adventure Closes PART I. _THE POSTHUMOUS PUZZLE OF MR. BRYCE._ CHAPTER I. THE ADVENTURE ON THE SANDS. I came upon the place quite unexpectedly. Centuries of wind and wave had carved a little nook out of the foot of the cliff and fashioned it so cunningly that I did not see it until I was right on top of it. After the warmth of the open beach and the glare of the white road I had recently travelled its shade looked so inviting that I limped in under the overhang of the cliff and dropped joyfully on to the cool patch of sand. It was the first moment of contentment I had known for many weary months, and, needless to say, I set myself out to make the most of it. I was absolutely sick of tramping about. My left boot had burst and, by the feel of it, there wasn't too much left of my right sole. I had been crawling along the road since daylight--and for many days before for that matter--searching for a job that failed to materialise. Jobs, it appeared, were just about as scarce as cool spots in Hades. They had been very kind to me at the last farmhouse. The good lady had given me an excellent breakfast and an extra glass of milk, had loaded my bedraggled pockets with food and had finally put me on the road to the sea. Work, she said, they could not give me. They had put off two men the previous day. I might find something to do in the next town. She did tell me what it was called, but my thoughts were on my own poor prospects and I didn't quite catch what she said. On the principle that a rose by any other name would still have its thorns, I didn't ask her to repeat it. I just said, "Thank you, ma'am," in my best tramp manner and set off down the road to the sea. On the way my left boot burst and a pebble worked in through the opening and set me limping. To make matters worse the day was perhaps the hottest of all that memorable summer, and the glare from the white grit of the road played the devil with my eyes. I was very pleased when at length I reached the low sand dunes and dropped between them on to the wet sand of the beach. I walked along this aimlessly for a mile or so until the big hump of the bluff rose up over me. Then, as I have already related, I came across that heaven-sent cave and threw my weary length on its damp flooring of sand, determined to snatch as much peace and repose as I could before I continued my search for work. I can't say for the life of me how long it was before I first sat up and took notice of the fat little man. He was bobbing up and down in the surf for all the world like some ungainly porpoise, and every time he moved he shot sunlit streams of water off his gross body. I've seen fat men in my time, but this one was just about the limit. He was all up and down and then across. I know that doesn't quite explain what he looked like, but it's about the only way I can describe him. He was short and tubby; if he had been any shorter he would have been a human Humpty-Dumpty. He was so obviously enjoying himself and getting the best out of his gambols in the water that my heart went out to him. He was ducking and splashing about, rolling and wallowing in a way that reminded me of a hippopotamus I had once shot at--and missed--in happier if not more spacious days spent on the lower Nile. "The Hippo" I christened him, and then chuckled to myself at the singular appropriateness of the name. Even his bathing dress seemed designed expressly to add to his rotundity. It was one of those queer garments bearing a faint resemblance to a convict's uniform, and the wide stripes of it went round and round his figure like hoops on a barrel. It was so funny that I chuckled again and forgot all about my burning feet and my burst boot. Presently he stopped his antics and looked over my way. He gave one glance at me, and then started to run inshore with short, jumpy little steps. Something seemed to have struck him all of a sudden, and I was just beginning to wonder what the deuce it could be when, out of the corner of my eyes, I caught sight of a pile of neatly folded clothes thrust into the cleft of the rock a little above my head. I began to understand then. I looked more disreputable than I really was; my suit was in the last stages of ruinous decay, while his brand-new clothes just above me would have been a gift from the gods to a man with less conscience and more figure than I possessed. He evidently presumed on the strength of my proximity that I had evil designs on his clothes, but he needn't have troubled himself. If I could judge anything from his own figure I would have been completely lost in them. I didn't like to confirm his suspicions by running away now that I found I was observed, so I just sat there and waited for him. There was a piece of something that looked very like driftwood protruding from the sand close to me, and I kicked idly at it as he came pounding up the beach. It was set loosely in the sand, and a more accurate kick than usual knocked it out of its resting-place. Something queer about it caught my eye, and I bent over to pick it up. "Whatever else it is, it isn't driftwood," I said to myself. "I'll bet----," and then I stopped short, for I remembered that my sole worldly wealth at the moment consisted of exactly three pennies. All the same I was right about it. Driftwood doesn't get the dry rot, nor does it come ashore covered with rich black loam. "Somebody's planted it here," was my next thought, and my mind strayed to the panting bulk of a man who was thundering down on top of me. "It's his, I suppose," I said, and looked up at him. At that precise instant he tripped and fell full length on the sand. I've seen a good many lucky escapes in my day--a man who has travelled the out-of-the-way places of the world from the Yukon and the White Nile down to the headwaters of the Fly River in the snow-mountains of Dutch New Guinea does see a bit of life--but the way that fat chap upset himself into the sand was the most wonderful piece of good fortune I ever came across. He must have missed death by a fraction of an inch. I saw him fall, heard the shot ring out and watched the sand spurt up all in the one crowded second. The next moment I was running towards him, my hand moving instinctively to my empty pistol-pocket. But my mind readjusted itself in a flash, and I recollected that I wasn't dodging cannibals in the upper reaches of the Mambare, but was living in a civilised country where a man who carries a revolver, and gets caught at it, is fined more money than I'd seen in the last twelve months. The other chap seemed to divine instinctively that I was a friend, for he yelled at me even while he was hauling himself up from the sand. "There's one in my pocket," he shouted and gesticulated back towards his clothes. I didn't waste a moment, but sped over the intervening yards like a man possessed. As luck would have it his coat was the first thing I grabbed, and the weight of it told me at once in which pocket to look. I plunged my hand in and drew out the sweetest little automatic it has ever been my lot to handle. As a rule I prefer a Colt--in my experience it never jams--but I rather fancied my present weapon would do all that was required, so I slipped back the safety catch with my thumb and whirled round on my heel to face whatever was coming. The overture was already over and the invisible marksman had settled down to steady firing. The fat man was now almost on top of me, and I saw instantly that that brought me right into the line of fire. It takes a long time in the telling, but, as I figured it out afterwards, from the instant the first shot missed the old chap down to the moment I pulled the trigger, more than half a minute could not have elapsed. There was only one place in sight where a man could take cover, and that was a bunch of rocks just a little to the left of my position. I let off a fancy shot in that direction, and a second later the reply rang out. The cliff overhead shed a shower of dust on top of the pair of us, and the fat man crouched into the corner. I knew now where my man was, so I waited until he exposed himself, as I saw he must do when he fired again. "Gimme the gun!" the fat man demanded in the interval. "Shut up!" I said, without turning my head. "I'm a better shot than you, I reckon, and, anyway, it's just as much my funeral now as yours. He's had a shot at me, and that's a thing I don't forgive in a hurry." "Well, of all the----," I heard him say, and then the rest of his remark was drowned in the report of my weapon. I had spotted a white wrist back of a gleam of polished metal and, taking a sporting chance, I let drive. The other man's gun dropped to the sand, and a yell told me that I had made no mistake. "Here's where I come in," I said, and, forgetting the condition of my feet, I sprinted towards the rocks. But the other fellow had decided that the place was getting too hot for him, and he made off along the sand as fast as his legs could carry him. He must have been in excellent trim, for he shot along the heavy track as if he was running on the cinder-path, and I saw before I had gone fifty yards that I hadn't a chance in the world of catching him. Also there were half a dozen black specks of men a mile or so along the beach, and my reason told me that homicide before witnesses wasn't likely to prove a healthy pastime. So I swallowed my pride and, consoling myself with the thought that some day we might meet again, I wheeled about and made back to the nook. The fat chap had shed his bathing suit and was climbing into his clothes when I arrived. He beamed at me and his whole face crinkled into smiles. I was so afraid that he was going to make a silly speech that I pushed his automatic into his hands and said, "You'd better take this, old man. The other party's in swift retreat and, from the condition of his wrist, I don't fancy you'll receive another billet-doux for some time to come." "Well, I'm hanged if you're not the coolest chap I've ever laid eyes on," the fat man said admiringly. "You were nearer being shot," I hinted, "and, if you don't mind me saying so, the sooner you struggle into those clothes of yours and get home to mother, the safer you'll be. I don't object to fighting for you once in a while, but I'll see you further before I make a habit of it." "Um!" said the fat man, "I'm sorry. I'd hoped to persuade you to take it on permanently." I thought at first that he was joking, but the way he looked at me showed that he was in deadly earnest. For all his flippancy there was something back of his eyes, a trace of fear that kept peeping out every now and then, that told me he went in danger of his life. I hated to have to refuse him, but I had very good reasons, which I intended to keep to myself, too, for not putting my life into danger too often. So I told him point-blank that if he wanted to hire a bodyguard he'd have to go somewhere else. He wasn't as put out at my reply as I would have expected. Instead he smiled up at me--for all his bulk I towered over him--and there was a touch of gameness in that smile that I rather liked. I couldn't help telling him just what I thought. "I don't think you want anyone to look after you," I said. "You're as game as they make 'em. I'm pretty used to reading men--I've been in places where my life depended on my ability in that direction--and when I see a fellow smile like you're smiling now, you can take it from me that he's grit all through." "They'll get me yet," he said with a sigh. "I'm handicapped, you see. I couldn't have sprinted along the beach the way you did. I'd have wheezed. Bellows gone and all that, you know. Too much fat, the doctor says." "Now, you're just about right there. I don't like to be personal, but now you mention it, you don't seem to have the cut of an athlete." "And you have," he said, as he insinuated himself into his collar. It was a trifle too small for his neck, and he had to coax it a lot before he got both ends to meet. "You're the type of man I take to instantly, Mr. ----." He asked me a question with his eyes. "Well," I said in answer, "if it's any use to you my name's Carstairs, Jimmy Carstairs at that, and I'm an explorer by inclination, gentleman by instinct, and the rolling-stone-that-gathers-no-moss by sheer force of unlovely circumstance. Now you know all that I intend to tell you about myself." "Um!" he said again. "I had better introduce myself, I suppose. I fancy my card-case's in my coat pocket." "Don't trouble about a card," I said airily. "I'm not at all fussy. I'm quite willing to take your word for it." There was a twinkle in his eye, as he replied, that showed he rather appreciated my cheap wit. "Bryce is my name," he said. "You may have heard of it?" "Can't say I have," I told him, "though I'm pretty certain to see it often if you make a practice of keeping up this guerilla warfare." It wasn't a nice thing to say, but then I'm never very particular, and if my listeners don't like my remarks they're always welcome to change the subject. When all's said and done there was more in that last jab of mine than met the ear. I wanted very much to know why that sharpshooter should be so extremely anxious to put him out of action. Also he had said "they." There had only been one man behind the rocks, and I could have sworn on a stack of Bibles that there wasn't another human being--with the sole exception of the men a mile or so along the beach--within coo-ee at the time. "You've been there before, my friend," I thought. "This isn't the first time you've flushed a chap with a bit of hardware." From what I could see Bryce hadn't the slightest intention of making me as wise as himself and even the broad hint I gave him didn't seem to move him in the least. He surveyed me steadily for the scrag-end of a minute and then his left eyelid flickered. I knew right enough what that wink meant. It said as plainly as could be that dead men tell no tales and wise men follow their example. "Now, Mr. Bryce," I said, "I like your company and it pains me to leave you, but I can't stop here for ever. I've got an important engagement at the next town and the sooner I get there the better. Under the circumstances you'll have to excuse me." He didn't tell me that I was a liar but he went pretty close to it. "The next town's Geelong," he said, "and it's a good fourteen miles away. You might have sprinted along that sand in record time when somebody's life was trembling in the balance, but that doesn't say you can walk fourteen miles on a rotten road on a broiling hot day. And if I wished to be as personal as you are I'd point out that a burst boot doesn't help make the way any easier." "Bowled out first shot," I told him. "What's your little game?" "To use your own inimitable phraseology, my little game amounts to this. I've taken a violent fancy to you, Carstairs, and I want to keep you by me. I don't think your luck's been too good lately, but between us I fancy we can mend it. If you want to go into Geelong all you've got to do is wait and come with me. I'm going back shortly, and I'm sure you'd feel much better riding in a motor than travelling on foot." "Now you mention it," I said, "I can't see why I shouldn't. The only trouble is that some of your excitable friends might see me in your company and include me in the sudden-death stakes." "Quite likely," Bryce said, with a smile. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if they hid behind a convenient hedge and potted us as we passed. But you needn't come if that's what you're afraid of." "I'll forgive you this time," I rattled on, "just because you've had such an exciting experience, but don't ever hint anything like that again. I don't know what fear's like." "Self-praise," said Bryce, "is sometimes the highest form of recommendation. At any rate it shows you've overcome fear, if only the fear of criticism. But to be serious, Carstairs, there's trouble ahead of both of us. My pursuers are getting very game, tackling me in front of a third person, and I've got a funny sort of feeling that they'll catch me napping one of these days. No matter what you say or do, you can't alter the fact that you've identified yourself with me, and that means that you're running just the same amount of danger that I am. You don't look too prosperous yourself. What about joining forces with me and sharing the plunder? Of course I can make it worth your while." "Plunder," I said. "What do you mean! Are you running up against the law?" "If it's any relief to you to know it, I'm not. I rather fancy I've got the law on my side." "I was merely enquiring what inducements you had to offer. What do you call 'making it worth my while?'" When I turned down his first tentative offer I had quite made up my mind that he wanted to engage me as a sort of super-butler with sudden death included amongst the risks of service, and I had no intention of mixing up in other people's quarrels on such terms. When I questioned him directly about it I got a pleasant surprise. "Well, my idea of making it worth your while is something like £100 for three months. That's about as long as I'll require you. After that you can 'go to hell or to Connaught,' whichever you prefer." "That's nice hearing," I told him. "And, I suppose, any time I take an extra risk I get something _pour boire_?" He nodded cheerfully. "That's my offer, Carstairs," he said. "What do you say to it?" "It's so damned alluring," I answered, "that I'm frightened to look at it too close. I don't mind admitting that I'm about as hard up as I can be. As a matter of fact I've not the least idea where I'm going to get my next meal. All of which makes your offer doubly inviting. But I don't want to jump at it in hot blood. I want time to think it over. I want to stand off and wave my hat at it and say, 'Scat, you brute!' and see if it'll shoo off. I'm frightened that it's not real, and that I'll take it on and then wake up. Will you give me time to wake up?" "If you'll drive in with me the two of us can dine together," Bryce suggested. "That ought to give you time to wake up." "I can't ask anything fairer than that," I agreed. "When do we start?" "No time like the present. I've got the car paddocked down near the reserve. It's only a matter of walking around the bluff. Come on." I went along with him without comment, though I noticed that the last thing he did was to bend down and pick up the piece of wood which had so excited my curiosity earlier in the proceedings. It was small enough to slip into his pocket, and this he did without a word either of apology or explanation. "It's a mighty innocent piece of wood," I thought, "but I'll bet all Australia to an albatross that it's mixed up in the plot." As we moved around the foot of the bluff I couldn't help turning the situation over in my mind. Half an hour before I had been a wanderer on the face of the earth, a man with no special abilities and no outstanding vices. In that short space of time I had saved one man's life, nearly taken that of another, and seemed in a fair way to make money out of my twin attributes of steady nerves and good shooting. I was still thinking in this strain when we rounded the bluff and commenced to crawl across the intervening stretch of spinifex grass. I say "crawl" advisedly. Bryce was far too heavy to do more than lumber along and my feet were steadily getting worse. The spinifex grew knee-high and its roots extended in all directions. They were hard, knobby things that protruded through the loose sand, and every time I took my attention off the ground for an instant I stubbed my toe against one or the other of them. Bryce panted and puffed and wheezed and seemed more like an hippopotamus than ever. Whatever might be the gain as far as decency was concerned, his clothes, from a spectacular point of view, made him look worse than ever. His collar was tight, and that made his face the color of a scraped carrot, and his coat and trousers clung to him in the most unexpected places--just where they shouldn't. To make a long story short, we came at last to the edge of the spinifex, and thence dropped steadily down into the hollow that contained the reserve. I picked out Bryce's car right off. It was painted a battleship grey, and if cars can have a personality, this had such another as its owner. It wasn't slim--there was nothing of the racer about it. It was squatly built and had just the same heavy and humorous look as Bryce himself. It stood out from the other cars like a hunch-back amongst a line of athletes. "That's my car," said Bryce proudly. "She's not much to look at, but she's just the sweetest runner you've seen." I nodded. I was quite open to conviction. CHAPTER II. AN OLD FRIEND. Hitherto events had moved so swiftly that I hadn't had time to look calmly at the situation, but once we settled down in the car and Barwon Heads dropped into the dust behind us, I began to think rather seriously. It was perfectly obvious, even to a more clouded intelligence than mine, that there was something mysterious, if not shady, about my prospective employer. Despite his assurance that the law was on his side, I had grave doubts. If everything was perfectly square and above board why the deuce didn't he report the affair to the police and give them the task of looking after him, instead of hiring me at an exorbitant wage? He seemed anxious to fight shy of publicity in any shape or form and, though he had been very cordial, even familiar with me, his very apparent frankness and joviality had awakened my suspicions. There was something fishy going on, and that something, whatever it was, centred round the piece of wood that I had so casually kicked out of the sand. It struck me all of a heap that nothing had really begun to happen until I had unearthed it. As soon as Bryce had seen where I was sitting, he had started to run inshore, the other man had stationed himself behind the rocks, the curtain had been rung up and the play had begun. Now the question was what part did the piece of wood play in the game? Bryce, I felt sure, could clear the mystery up with a word, but I was certain that it would be long before he would say that word. The car was all and more than he had said. It had speed, it was comfortable, and its mechanism was far less complicated than any I had yet seen. We ate up distance in fine style. Bryce seemed to have no nerves at all, for more than once he tore round corners on two wheels while I clung to the side of the car and swore at him. He grinned cheerfully over his shoulder at me and asked me if I were nervous. I laughed back at him with as much _sang-froid_ as I could muster. I had no objection to risking my life once in a while when there was good pay at the end of it, but I couldn't see the sense of tempting Providence just for the sheer fun of the thing. Of course, if we did spill, it would be all right with Bryce--he was so fat that he'd just bounce--but I was slimmer, and I knew from experience that I had very brittle bones. Once in the Solomons, when a wild boar charged me, I lay for weeks in a trader's hut waiting for an obdurate fracture to knit up again. Some idea of the furious pace at which Bryce pushed the car along can be guessed from the fact that we did the fourteen miles in something over twenty minutes. It had been quite half-past eleven when we left the Heads, and the clock in the car wanted a few minutes to twelve when we sailed over the bridge and up Moorabool-street. We cleared a stationary tram by inches, twisted in an S curve to avoid a farmer's waggon and then, with a heart-rending grind, Bryce threw over his clutch and slowed down to a snail-like crawl of ten miles an hour. "This asphalt paving makes a great motor track," Bryce said to me, "but there's speed-laws in existence here. That's the trouble of it. When a man has a nice track he's interfered with, and when there isn't anyone to meddle with him it's ten to one that he's crawling over something like a corduroy road." "Corduroy!" I said, and sat up and looked at him. I knew what he meant. Any man who has ever travelled the heart-breaking log-roads of the interior New Guinea goldfields does not need to be told what 'corduroy' is. It is an ever-present memory, an astonishment and a nightmare. Bryce did not speak from hearsay--the note in his voice told me that--but was talking from experience garnered at great cost, both of money and energy. "Corduroy," he repeated after me. "Doesn't that sound familiar to you, Carstairs?" "It does," I said with emphasis. "But how the deuce----?" And then I stopped dead. Bryce? Bryce? What was familiar about that name? Bryce and New Guinea and----. I had it. And Walter Carstairs. "Ever heard of Walter Carstairs?" I questioned. "The minute I heard your name I knew you," Bryce said. "Ever heard of Walter Carstairs? Why, he was the best friend I ever had. He saved my life in the early days of the Woodlarks." "According to the Dad," I said, looking him straight in the face, "it was the other way about." He laughed happily. "Jimmy, I'm losing my memory if that's so. But whatever happened to him? I lost sight of him the last ten years or so." "You would," I answered. "He stuck to the Islands. He had a life's work planned out, but he got cut-off in the Solomons before he had reached finality. I carried it on after that, came all the way from the Klondyke to take it up. I got through but it took every penny I had, and that's why this morning when I came across you I only had a boot and a half to my feet." "Well, well," he said kindly, "that's all changed now." "I don't know so much about it," I told him. "You might have been the best friend the Dad ever had, but that doesn't say you're going to keep me. What I get I work for. I'll take charity from no man living." Again he laughed, and his fat face crinkled up into little rolls of flesh until he looked as if he had double chins all the way up to his eyes. I knew now why he had been so familiar with me earlier in the day. He was a sunny-natured old chap always, even in the hard, toilsome New Guinea days, and I suppose his heart went out to me as the son of an old comrade in arms, doubly so--perhaps because I had saved his life. On the whole I rather wished I hadn't. It complicated matters so. It made me feel bound to give him a hand, whether his enterprise was shady or not. If he had turned to me then and said, "I suppose I can count on you all right?" I would have been torn between duty and inclination. He did nothing of the sort. He made no reference to his offer of service, in fact he seemed to have completely forgotten it, and I thought it just as well to say nothing. The way he forebore from seizing a perfectly obvious advantage sent him up fifty per cent. in my estimation, and by the time we had reached the heart of the city I was quite willing to do anything he asked me. "I'll park the car," he said, "and then we'll go off and have some dinner." "Will we?" I said and eyed my tattered raiment ruefully. "I don't fancy I'm dressed for dinner." "Um!" he said. "You're not. I'd quite overlooked that. That bars a public dinner. I don't fancy you'll be able to make much of one if you come down to my place. The cook's away. I didn't expect to be back so soon." "Cook or no cook," I told him, "if you've got anything eatable in the house I'll guarantee to turn it up right. Give me the run of the kitchen and put me next to the meat-safe, and you'll see wonders. I don't know how you feel, but I'm so hungry that I'd make a meal off a pair of kid boots." "In that case, Carstairs, I think I'd better take you home and see what sort of a culinary expert you are." With that he twisted the car about and headed out for the eastern suburbs. The place was unfamiliar to me at the time--I hadn't the faintest idea of the street the man lived in--and in the face of what happened later I made no enquiries. As a matter of fact the rush of events crowded all such petty details out of my mind. "Can you drive a car?" he asked abruptly. "I can drive anything but an Andean mule," I told him. "I tried once in the Chilian foot-hills, but after the animal dislocated my shoulder I sort of lost heart." "I gather from the retiring modesty of your last remark," he smiled, "that you consider yourself an expert as regards all other forms of animal and mechanical traction." "Quite so. I can always do anything on principle, and I've yet to meet the job that I'm unwilling to tackle!" He glanced sideways at me. I didn't like the look he gave me. There was too much of appraisement in it, something that was alien to the nature of the man, a sort of cold, calculating shrewdness that made me wonder again if I had not been mistaken in my estimate of him and the extent of his good-nature. "If you keep on admiring me instead of looking where you're going," I hinted, "you'll end up in a funeral. That motor-bus isn't the sort of thing I'd care to hit." He twisted the wheel over a fraction and edged out beyond the motor-bus before he replied. "Life is full of thrills," he remarked when at last we reached the comparative security of open space. There was a challenge in his voice that I thought it well to ignore. "It is," I agreed. "Too much so." For all the lightness of his speech and the careless ease with which he took unnecessary and avoidable risks I had a feeling that there was deep design under everything he did. Though I couldn't have proved it if I'd been asked, I felt sure that he was trying my nerve. After all there's no better test of that than the crowded traffic of a big city. I've met men who'd cheerfully face a crowd of howling cannibals and yet would develop a very bad case of jumps if asked to cross a street roaring and humming with traffic. Yes, clearly he was testing me. With a jerk that nearly shot me out of my seat the car pulled up. I stared about me. We had stopped outside a substantial red-tiled house, built in the bungalow fashion. There was a well-kept lawn in front of it, with here and there a trim flower-bed to relieve the monotony of the expanse of grass. "This is the place," Bryce said. "Just slip down and open that gate, will you?" He gesticulated towards a six-foot gate at the side of the house. From my position in the car I could see that it opened on a path that ran round the side of the building and almost certainly led to the garage. Accordingly I slipped out on the road, walked up to the gate and found that, by standing on tip-toe, I could just reach the catch at the top. I swung it back, pushed with my weight against the erection and the gate came open. As I turned to come back to the car I caught sight of a man standing on the opposite corner. He was engaged in lighting a cigarette in the cup of his hands. He seemed to be taking an undue time over it, and that and something that I could not put a name to in his attitude convinced me that he was watching us. His hands were so cupped that they hid his face, but I received an impression, that was almost a certainty, that he was watching Bryce and myself through his fingers. Perhaps my prolonged stare convinced him that I was fully aware of his presence and its meaning. At any rate he twisted on his heel so that his back was turned to us, dropped the match he had been playing with and ostentatiously struck another. "That gentleman across the road, the one with his back to us, is keeping your house under surveillance," I said to Bryce. "I suppose he's afraid the place'll run away." "Afraid I'll run away, more likely," Bryce answered. "Evidently he doesn't want to be identified next time we meet. But he needn't worry over that; I wouldn't know him from a bar of soap. We'll leave him alone for the time being, Carstairs, and get this machine in. I don't see any reason why we should let this gentleman delay our dinner." "No more do I. Let her out." I stood on the step of the car until it had passed the entrance in safety, then I went back and made the gate fast. But before doing so I just couldn't resist taking a peep at the Roman sentry figure of a man opposite. He was staring straight at the gate--as if that was going to help him in any way--but he was pretty alert. The moment he sighted me he wheeled about and walked off in another direction. But, quick and all as he was, I caught a passing glimpse of him. He had on a blue serge suit, a rather cheap affair as well as I could judge at that distance, and a black felt hat. Somehow I got the impression, though I was too far away to say anything with certainty, that he was not so much sallow as sunburnt. It was more than likely that he had not got a good look at me--in that case he would not know me again, as I flattered myself that there was nothing very distinctive about me. Still, as that marksman behind the rocks must have been taking stock of me for some considerable while, I realised that no definite advantage would accrue from the fact that one of the gang might not be able to identify me. I had no means of ascertaining how many there were in the organisation, and something warned me not to display too much interest in Bryce's presence. When I walked down the path and discovered him backing the car into his garage I made no comment on the situation beyond telling him that the spy had gone temporarily out of business and was at present taking a constitutional down the street. "All we can do then," Bryce said, "is to let him depart in peace and trust that nothing happens. I wouldn't like any of that bunch to be cut off in the midst of their sins. I've got another end mapped out for them." "If you figure me in on that, you're mighty mistaken," I said to myself. "I'm the first line of defence, but I'll be hanged if I'm going to carry the war into the enemy's country." I needn't have been so cocksure about it, for as will shortly be related that was just exactly what I did do. CHAPTER III. THE STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF MR. BRYCE. I made an excellent dinner. Bryce's kitchen and the meat-safes attached proved on investigation to contain enough food for a family. First of all I had a wash, and then when I felt a little more presentable, I dug up a frying-pan, asked Bryce if he liked sausages and, being told that he did, thanked Heaven that his tastes were similar to mine and set about cooking them. Now I like my sausages fried nice and crisp, but I have yet to find the lodging-house keeper this side of Gehenna who can fry anything without burning it to a cinder. Though I don't wish to crack up my own work, I'll say this for it--that, if I do like things done any particular way, I can always be sure of pleasing myself if I do the cooking. I cooked with one eye on the gas-stove and the other on Bryce. I had scarcely set to work before he wandered into the kitchen, found the nail-brush or whatever it was that the cook used for cleaning the pots, washed the black loam off the piece of wood which had so excited my curiosity earlier in the day, and then commenced to scrub it. He used up an inordinate amount of soap and quite a lot of elbow-grease, but when he had finished the wood looked as if it had just been newly cut and trimmed. What took my attention about it was that it was covered from end to end with queer little marks or scratches. These seemed to interest Bryce very much, for he pored over them like an antiquary who has discovered a new kind of hieroglyphics. He got so interested in them that he forgot my presence altogether. Once when I asked him some simple question about the dinner he jumped as if he were shot, colored up and then said, "Oh, I beg your pardon. What did you say?" I repeated my question and he answered me as if his thoughts were miles away. He was wide-awake enough when I walked over to the kitchen sink on some errand or another to slip the wood into his pocket and face me with a look in his eye that said as plainly as so many words, "You're not going to steal a march on me, my lad. That's for my eyes alone." Only once during the dinner-hour did he say anything that stuck in my memory. On this occasion he turned to me and asked, "Can you use a typewriter?" "Now, he's going to make a private secretary of me," I thought. "I won't bite." So I looked him straight in the eye and unblushingly answered that I couldn't use one if I tried and hoped he didn't want me to learn, as I was sure I'd only make a mess of it. He seemed rather relieved at that and later in the afternoon, when I heard the "tick-tack" of his machine drifting out from the room in which he had locked himself, I began to wonder just what he had been driving at. He drifted out to the kitchen later on and asked me to light the fire for him. I did so and he watched it blaze up, and as soon as he was sure that it was well alight he drew that inevitable piece of wood from his pocket, soaked it in kerosene and dropped it into the heart of the fire. I'm hanged if he didn't sit there and watch it until it had burnt into a charred heap of ashes. While he had been attending to it he had left a sheet of typewritten paper down on the table and as he turned to get it it fluttered to the floor. I was the nearer to it so I picked it up and handed it to him. As I did so I caught a glimpse of the characters that covered most of it. I got just the one look at them, but one line I noticed ran somehow like this-- --3¼½743 ½3:3; "335 "49--5@3 3¼½534; 3; £ He looked at me queerly as he took the paper. "Have you ever done any timber measurements?" he asked. "None at all," I answered promptly, and this time I told the truth. "You wouldn't understand this then," he ran on, indicating the paper, though he was careful not to let me have another look at it. "I saw some of it," I said off-handedly, as if it were no affair of mine, "and it looked to me like the sort of thing a mathematician would see if he ever got the willies." "You have a most expressive way of putting things, Carstairs," he said with a smile. There was more than humor in that smile; there was something in it that looked remarkably like relief. "I can't stand figures of any sort," I volunteered with a fervent hope in my heart that I wasn't over-doing my part. "A sheet of them'd just about give me the D.Ts." He laughed out loud at that and then, expressing a hope that I would make myself at home, he padded out of the room. It was astonishing how quietly he could walk when he was moving about the house. For all his gross bulk there was something furtive and cat-like about him that told me just how insistent must be the menace of a sudden death. He moved so silently that I never knew he was there until I looked up and saw him. He glided from room to room like some obese ghost. At first it got on my nerves, but pretty soon I settled down to it, and in a day or so got quite used to seeing a silent bulk sliding noiselessly about the house, appearing at all sorts of odd times in all sorts of queer places. The cook returned about 5 o'clock and seemed rather inclined to take up a high-handed attitude with me, until a few well-chosen words from her master quietened her down a little. She was not slow to show me in other ways that she regarded me as an intruder in the house, and if any one thing about me was more preferable than another it was my room rather than my company. Still as I kept out of her way as much as possible, and as my sole duties consisted in keeping an eye on all strangers that approached the place and in listening for any unaccountable sounds, I came into conflict with her very seldom. Matters progressed so quietly for the next couple of days that I began to wonder whether I had not fallen into a sinecure after all. Bryce had procured me a decent outfit so that I was now my own man again, ready to argue the right-of-way with all comers. Added to that my feet were well on the mend and my general health was keeping pretty near to the top-notch mark, so I wasn't finding life such a bad thing after all. Bryce worried me but little. At times I went odd messages for him, but all my trips were so arranged that I was never away from the house more than half an hour at a time. The more I thought over the mystery surrounding him the deeper and more inexplicable it became. I knew of whom he was afraid, but I had no more idea of the reason of his fear than I had of the name of the man in the moon. My occupation was more reminiscent of revolutionary South America than of a civilised country, and the thought of it set me wondering whether Bryce had ever lived amongst the volatile Latins on the other side of the Pacific. Come to think of it the one man I had seen closely had been a dark type. It was just barely possible that Bryce had somehow tangled himself in something of the kind. But then that cipher business--I was fully convinced by now that it was some original kind of cryptogram--rather pointed the other way. One of the things I had noticed had been a £ sign, and anything dealing with any of the Latin Republics would almost assuredly have been written with a $ sign. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that I had been barking up the wrong tree. I jotted down the figures that I remembered, but I must have had some of the signs down wrong, for, try as I would, I could make nothing out of them. As a matter of fact the solution was so simple that in the end I only stumbled on it by accident. Bryce had a bad habit of locking himself in his room for hours at a time, and it occurred to me that such a course wasn't in his own interest any more than mine, so I tackled him about it at the first opportunity. "Here you are," I said, "paying me for being a mixture of Swiss Guard and watch-dog, but for all the looking-after you get I might as well be miles away. I don't want to be hanging on to your skirts every ten minutes or so, but doesn't it strike you as a reasonable man that you're inviting trouble by locking yourself in so securely?" "I do that so I won't be disturbed," he urged. "That's a reason that cuts both ways," I said. "Suppose somebody happened to be in the room when you arrived. Don't you see that he could do all he wanted to do without being disturbed either." "But you'd hear any uncommon noise," Bryce objected. "Maybe I would and then maybe I wouldn't. I'm not infallible, you know, and anyway it's quite possible that any visitor you had wouldn't make a row at all. And while I'm on it, wouldn't it be just as well to give me a sketch of the plot? I'm working in the dark as it is, but, if I had some idea of what's at the back of all this, I might be able to look after you better." "I'm afraid I can't do that," he said slowly, and for the first time since we had met he eyed me with suspicion. There was doubt in his glance, the sort of doubt that a man does not care to see in the eyes of a friend. I saw that I had made a radical mistake in even hinting that I wished to know his secret, and I hastened to make what amends I could. "I'm sorry," I said, "if you look at it in that way. I was only doing it for your own good. You're paying what's an enormous sum to me, and I'm trying to justify your expenditure. If I know your enemies and all about them, I can certainly plan level and, maybe, occasionally outguess them. That's the only thing I had in mind when I spoke, and if I gave you any other impression I'm sorry I said what I did." He moved his shoulders in a kind of half-shrug. It was at once a gesture of relief and of dismissal, so without more ado I said, "If there's nothing further you want, I'll make off now. If you want me any time I'll be pottering around the house somewhere." "Well, there is something I'd like you to do, Jim," he said. "I want half-a-dozen parish maps. Here's the list of them"--he handed me a piece of paper with a few names scribbled on the back--"and here's the money. Go down to the Lands Department and they'll fix you up. Mind that they are large scale maps, the largest they've got. You'd better take the car, and don't be any longer than you can help." "It's a twenty minutes' run at the outside," I said. "I won't waste any time." He nodded quite cheerfully to me and went into his room. I heard the key grate in the lock as I walked down the passage and I remember saying to myself, "That habit's going to get him into trouble yet." I reached the office in record time. They had some trouble in finding the maps I wanted--most of them were of parishes situated around the foot of the Grampians--but in the end they produced some that I fancied would suit my man. My twenty minutes' limit had almost expired and, as it is a matter of pride with me to be punctual, I let the car out a little. That, I suppose, was my undoing, for just as I crossed over the busiest street a motor-lorry swerved out and nearly collided with me. I did some very neat wheel-work, but my new course took me right across to the gutter, and before I had quite realised what had happened I had speared my tyre with a jagged piece of glass. The tyre popped off with a report like that of a small revolver, and the next second I was bumping on the frame. I pulled up as quickly as I could, but the mischief was done and the tyre was just one great rip from end to end. Luckily I carried a spare wheel, but I am an unhandy man at the merely mechanical part of the work, and I took twice as long over it as a professional would have. By the time I was ready to start again my twenty minutes had lengthened into an hour, and somehow the knowledge of that worried me. I packed my tools anyhow, hopped back into the car and threw over my clutch. The car started with a little jerk that I didn't quite relish, and on looking over the side I saw that the new wheel was wobbling, not very much indeed, but just enough to show me that I had bungled my work. I immediately cut down my speed and proceeded for the rest of the journey at something closely approaching a snail's pace. "Now," I said to myself, "if this was in a novel I'd say that the lorry cut across my path deliberately. But as this is in real life and the lorry belongs to a firm of respectable grocers it can't be anything else but just my own darned bad luck." I dismissed the incident at that and turned my attention to my driving. I had no intention of mixing myself up in another such accident if I could possibly avoid it, and now that I had definitely taken service with Bryce I felt I owed it to him to exercise all reasonable care. After my first few spasmodic attempts at resistance I had succumbed rather quickly to his enticing offer. After all, I thought, I wouldn't be putting myself in any greater danger than I had been in for the past four years. I had faced sudden death in many shapes and forms during my sojourn in the strange wild lands about the Line, so much so that, once I had taken into account the money Bryce was giving me, the present adventure rather degenerated into a pleasant little game of hide-and-seek. I was still turning this over in that portion of my mind which wasn't occupied with the sheerly mechanical side of my work when I reached the house. More from force of habit than from any other cause I cast my eyes along the road, much as if it had been a forest trail that held secrets only a woodsman could read. Plainly marked in the dust of the roadway were the tracks of a vehicle that I instinctively knew to be a cab. It had veered right in towards the kerb, and a moment's study convinced me that it had stopped at Bryce's house. Now that meant that somebody had arrived during my absence, and, as Bryce had said nothing to me about expecting a visitor, I decided that the sooner I entered the house and investigated the better for the safety of all concerned. I drove the car into the garage in record time and darted into the house as if the devil were at my heels. There wasn't a sound to be heard; even the eternal clatter of the typewriter had ceased. With a caution born of experience I tip-toed up the passage, all my senses instinctively on the alert. The door of Bryce's room was still locked and everything, to all outward seeming, was just as I had left it. I don't know what I had expected to find in the passage, but the very apparent quietness of the place sobered me considerably, and I realised abruptly on what a slender foundation I had based my fears. If anything had happened during my absence it was almost certain that I would have found some trace of it in the hall, a rug disarranged, or a mat kicked away from the door. All the odds were on Bryce working quietly behind the locked door. Yet of all the foolish things in the world for me to think of the idea that entered my mind just then was that something that concerned me very intimately was being worked out in the room across the passage. I made one step forward and then I stopped abruptly. Some one else than Bryce was in the room. Out of the silence came a voice, a woman's voice. It was smooth and well-modulated, and there was the faintest touch of music in it. In some curious way it touched a stray chord in my memory. I knew at once that I had heard it before, but how or where I could no more say than I could fly. Perhaps that was because its full notes were muffled by the door that intervened. "I'd do anything," the woman said in the quietest tones imaginable, "anything but that. You don't understand. If you knew all the circumstances, if you knew just how and why we parted you wouldn't ask me. I'm sorry for it all now, more sorry than you could believe, but you can't expect me to take up things just where they left off--as if nothing had happened." "Bryce's got a little romance tucked away up his sleeve," I thought. "This sort of complicates matters. Wonder who the lady is?" "My dear girl," came the reply in Bryce's tones, softer and more persuasive than I had ever heard them, "I know more perhaps than you think. I'm doing this out of the fullness of my knowledge in the hope that when I'm gone...." "Don't!" the woman interrupted sharply. "Don't talk like that!" "It's one of the things we've got to face," Bryce said gently. "I won't live for ever anyway, and you know as well as I do just what chance I run of having a period put to me ... any time now." The last three words were spoken very slowly and distinctly, as if Bryce wished them to sink into the mind of his companion. "You're the only person in the world that I care a hang about," he continued with a note of indescribable pathos in his voice, "and I'm doing all this for you ... and him." "But I tell you," the girl said with a little flash of anger, "I tell you I won't have anything to do with him. If you bring him to the house I'll cut him dead." "And put yourself doubly in the wrong and make it all the harder for everybody," Bryce told her. There was a dogged note in the girl's voice as she replied. "I know I was wrong, but I just can't do what you want. I can't say more than that." "I'm sorry you look at things that way," Bryce said. "I had hoped...." I did not catch the nature of his hope, for his voice dropped an octave or so and his sentence ended in whispers. "Jimmy Carstairs," I said to myself, "you've been eavesdropping and you know it. You mustn't be caught doing those kind of things. Get out of the way as fast as you can," and at that I twisted round on my heel and went back down the hall. I hadn't any desire to be caught listening to conversations that were obviously not intended for me and that anyway weren't of the least interest. So you can be sure that when I did return up the hall I walked fairly heavily and coughed discreetly as soon as I was within hearing distance of Bryce's room. The key turned in the lock of a sudden and the door was flung wide open. The girl stood in her own light so that the shadows masked her face, but the sun fell full on mine and my features must have been clearly visible to her. "You!" she said, with a little catch in her voice. "Shut the door, please," I said, in the most matter-of-fact tones I could muster. "Shut the door and come out here." I knew her now. God! Could I ever forget her? In a flash my mind flew back through four years--or was it five?--to that evening when she had caused my little world to rock and tremble, and then to fall in pieces at my feet. I had loved her then--I thought I loved her more than anything or anyone in this world--but a dying father's wish had come between us. The poor old Dad had made a life study of the Islands--how monumental a study it was let his three volumes of Solomon Island Ethnology bear witness--yet he died before he had quite completed his notes. Though he had said nothing to me I knew the wish that lay nearest his heart, and I made his dying hour almost the happiest of his life by promising to carry on his work. I remember the night I came out to tell her. The sky was streaked with dead gold and cerise and warm-tinted clouds trailed across the heavens like the ends of a scarf streaming from the neck of a hurrying woman. All the world was gay that evening and I whistled as I went. She was waiting at the gate as always she had waited for me. She greeted me with a smile and some bright little remark that I forgot practically the instant it was uttered. "I want to talk to you," I said; "I want to talk seriously." She smiled up at me, a trusting little smile as I thought. She had no idea what was coming, but she always gave me my head in the things that do not matter much. "What is it, Jim?" she asked. "It's this," I said, and then I told what I had promised. "But that," she protested, "means burying yourself in New Guinea and the Solomons for four whole years." "It does," I said. "There is no other way." I had not been looking at her face--there had been no need, for I was quite convinced that she would see things in a proper light--but now I turned on her. To my surprise there was just the least little touch of annoyance in her face. "You don't quite relish the idea," I said. "It's a very foolish idea," she said quite frankly. "I don't know what you could have been thinking of." "I was thinking of my father," I told her. "I was making his last hour happy, and he died in the knowledge that I would carry his work on to the conclusion he had planned." "Are you going to see it through?" The abruptness of the question took me aback. "Of course," I said. "What else could I do?" "Four years!" she said. "What is to become of me?" "The time will soon go by," I answered, "and then I'll come back to you and everything will be right." "You seem to think of everyone but me," she said hotly. "You promised so that your father would die easy, and that's the end of it. If you are going to be bound by such a thing as that you're nothing more than an impractical idealist." "I passed my word and a Carstairs never breaks a promise." "You mean that, Jim? You mean that you are going away to ... carry out that absurd promise?" "It's not absurd," I declared. "I think it is," she said wilfully. "If you go, you need never come back." "I am going," I said steadily. "As an honorable man there is no other course open to me. I'm sorry that you look at it this way, but I can't do anything else." "At last I know how much you think of me," she said with that little touch of anger with which a woman always defends the indefensible. "You never did care for me." "I do, I do," I protested. "Can't you see it?" "I can't see anything," she said stubbornly, "except that you'd do this rather than listen to me. It shows all you think of me. Oh, I hate you! I never, never want to see you again!" "Is that your last word?" I demanded. "Absolutely my last," she answered firmly. "Well," I said, "here's my last too. I'm going to carry out my promise, and if a man had spoken to me about it as you have spoken to me to-night I would have pulped his face." "I really believe you would," she said exasperatingly. "You see, Jim, you were always something of a savage. That, I suppose, is why you are so anxious to go to the Islands ... where the savages are." That was the very last word she had said to me, for the next moment the gate was banged behind her and shut me out of her life. I was hurt, badly hurt in my self-esteem, but my rising anger, burning hot within me, kept me from feeling as bad as I might have felt. In two months' time I landed at Tulagi on Florida Island, and for the next four years or so the civilised world knew me not. I reached finality, but I spent my fortune and came back to Australia to all intents and purposes a pauper. Four years...! Here she was facing me at last--just as if nothing had ever come between us. "Yes, it's me," I said ungrammatically. "Why?" She raised her hand to her throat with a queer little gesture. "I didn't quite expect to see you ... yet," she said. "It's the unexpected that happens," I remarked. "I've come back at last, though in slightly different circumstances." "I know, Jim. I've heard." "He told you," I suggested, and nodded towards the door she had just closed. "How do you know that?" she asked quickly. "It is my business to know things," I told her. "I'm a professional caretaker of secrets now." She looked at me blankly and I saw that he had not told her everything. It behoved me to play the game warily until I was sure of my ground. "What are you doing here, Moira?" I asked her point-blank. "That's a question I could ask you," she countered. "But I am here, not from any desire to meet you--I didn't know you were here--but because he sent for me." "And why should he send for you?" I persisted. There was just the faintest flicker of a smile moving about her lips now; she had turned a little and the light was playing on her face. "For just the simplest reason in the world. He wanted me." "Why should he want you?" I demanded. She looked at me a moment as if astonished that I should ask such a question. But there was that in my eyes which told her that my ignorance was anything but assumed. "You really mean to say you don't know?" she asked incredulously. "If I did know I wouldn't question you about it," I said shortly. "What is the reason?" "Well, you see," she answered lightly, with just a slight uplift of her eyebrows--an old theatrical trick that I used to admire in the days gone by--"he happens to be my uncle." "That puts another complexion on matters," I said half to myself. But her quick ear caught the drift of my remark and she was down on me like the wolf on the fold. "You're in with him, are you?" she questioned, with that devouring flame I knew so well flaring up in her golden-brown eyes. "You're in with him ... in this?" In a way I wasn't. As a matter-of-fact I suspected from her last words that she knew more about everything than I did, but I was perfectly sure that she wouldn't believe me if I denied it, so I said instead, "Yes, I am." "I might have known it," she said with a little shake of her head. I didn't quite follow her logic, but I judged it best to let it pass. One would think from the way she spoke that there was something reprehensible in being mixed up in anything conducted by her venerable relative. I wondered why. "Yes, you might have known it," I said, falling in with her own humor. "I have a habit of doing things I shouldn't." I knew she understood my veiled allusion, for I saw her bite her lip and again the lambent flame leaped up in her eyes. But it died as suddenly as it had come, and in another instant the old tantalising smile was playing about the corners of her mouth. In the smoky interminable depths of the Solomon Island jungle I had crushed that smile out of my life, for ever I had thought. I had deliberately erased it from my memory, and at night beside the smudge fire, when my eyes closed for an instant and that beautiful imperious face peeped at me from out of the mazes of recollection, I would open my eyes and stared fixedly at the misshapen headhunters who were my sole companions in that wilderness. "These," I would say, "are the kindred of us both. Their women smile as she smiles, and the men respond to it as I used to respond." And with that thought in my head I would fall asleep and not dream. "Jim," she said with abrupt irrelevance, "you've changed. You usen't to be like that before. You're different somehow ... cynical, I think." "That's more than likely," I agreed. "I'm learning to hit back. And now if you'll excuse me," I ran on before she had time to answer, "I'll just drop in with this parcel." Then without more ado I turned on my heel and knocked at Bryce's door. CHAPTER IV. THE THIEF IN THE NIGHT. "I've got those maps you wanted," I remarked as Bryce opened the door, "and I hope I haven't kept you waiting too long." "You haven't," he said with a smile. "As a matter-of-fact I've been otherwise occupied. I've had a visitor." "A visitor?" I said guardedly, though what on earth there was to guard against was more than I could have said just then. Some cross-grained streak in my nature made me both cantankerous and suspicious, and while the mood was on me I would have contradicted or queried the word of an archangel. "Yes," Bryce replied. "The lady you met in the passage. I gather that she knows you." "We knew each other years ago," I said shortly. In a flash the meaning of the conversation I had overheard burst on me. I began to perceive that her presence in the house was due in part at least to me. Well, if he fancied he was going to patch up our old love affair he had undertaken a bigger job than he thought. For two pins I would have told him, had he uttered another word, that there was one matter in which I would brook no man's interference, and that even the ties that bound him to my father were not strong enough to allow him to settle what was nobody's affair but mine. But, with even greater tact than I believed he possessed, he switched the conversation on to quite another subject and talked to me for the better part of half-an-hour about the maps I had brought. He had the formation of the country and its industries at his fingers' ends, and he spoke like a man who had gained his information at first-hand. I listened attentively, for I guessed in some queer fashion of my own that the maps and that foolish cryptogram, the shooting on the beach and the piece of driftwood were all somehow connected. But either I must have missed some very obvious point or else he picked his words so carefully that he misled me. I used my eyes for all they were worth, which wasn't much. The typewriter stood on the table in its old position, and the table itself was littered with sheets of typed figures. "More timber measurements," I said to myself. Somehow the sight of those sheets troubled me. They were innocent-looking enough in all conscience, and I couldn't for the life of me understand why they should have this peculiar effect on me. I felt as if a cold gust of wind, the icy breath of Death himself, had passed and touched me in the passing. I flatter myself that I have pretty strong nerves--the Lord knows they've been tested often enough--but there was something in the atmosphere of that room, something in the sight of those littered sheets of paper, that sent a cold shiver through me, that made me want to rush from the place into the golden sunshine out of doors. It was a presentiment, but one that could not be localised. It did not appear to be one that could be shared either, for Bryce still talked on in his own quaint way, apparently unaffected by the strange influence which so troubled me. At last he rose and proceeded to gather up the disordered papers on the table. I rose too, and with a careless "So long," was making for the door when he stopped me with a question. "I suppose," he asked, "that you haven't seen anything lately of our inquisitive friends?" "The Roman sentry and the gentleman with the hardware and the smashed wrist?" I answered his question with one of mine. He smiled at my description and the laughter-lines about his mouth creased into a myriad wrinkles. "You have them exactly," he remarked. "No, I haven't seen them," I said. "They seem to have disappeared into nothingness." Curiously enough the news, instead of pleasing, seemed to disappoint him. "They evidently mean business," he said in a semi-undertone. It seemed almost as if he was speaking his thoughts out aloud. He glanced up at me with brooding eyes and brows drawn close together. "We'll hear from them presently," he murmured, "and then the end won't be far away." "Cheer up," I said hastily, "They've got a long way to go yet, and I don't think they'll find me altogether pleasant to deal with." "If you knew all about it," he said, and then he hesitated. For just the fraction of a second he trembled on the point of divulging everything, and then his old cautiousness re-asserted itself and the impulse died away. "That'll be all," he said briskly. "Just keep your eyes and your ears open, Jim, and, as you say, we'll beat them yet." But I rather fancied from his tone that he meant that last sentence the other way about. * * * * * I came awake instantly. The noise that had awakened me still echoed in my ears and, though I could not put a name to it, I could have sworn that it came from the room where Bryce did his typing. It was a very faint noise, not the kind to bring a heavy sleeper instantly awake. But my nerves work like a hair-trigger, and the almost noiseless pad of a cat across the room at night is sufficient to rouse me. What I had heard had been so faint that a less matter-of-fact man might have imagined that he had dreamt it. But I knew better. I don't dream. The obvious thing was to slip out of bed at once and investigate. I didn't. I knew a trick worth two of that. I sat up and listened. It might be a wandering tabby that had blundered into a piece of furniture; perhaps the window had creaked; it might be any one of half a hundred things. If there was an intruder in the house I felt certain that presently I would hear something more. No man, no matter how careful he be, can move with a complete absence of sound. Five minutes passed, ten, a quarter of an hour. Nothing happened. And then, just as I was beginning to despair, I heard it again. It was a little plainer this time. Somebody had scraped a chair across the floor and it had creaked slightly. That was more than enough for me. I slipped out of bed, but I did not hurry. Many a man with the prize almost within his grasp has lost it simply because he has rushed at it with his eyes shut. I didn't dawdle, but I said to myself, "The more haste the less speed, Jim," and accordingly I took my time. Of course if I had fancied that there was one chance in a hundred of the man getting away, I would have been on the spot like a shot, but I guessed from what I had heard that the visitor was in no hurry, and certainly hadn't the faintest suspicion that anyone in the house was aware of his presence. I got my clothes on somehow and took a grip of my long Colt by the barrel end. I didn't want to shoot unless there was no other way out of it, and anyway a revolver-shot kicks up such an infernal racket inside a house and brings on the scene quite a number of people who'd be better at home and in bed. I slunk down the passage like a shadow, walking as if I were treading on eggs. Very softly I tried the door. To my disgust it was locked. Now the only time Bryce ever locked it was when he was at work inside, so I knew that my man was still within reach. As if to make assurance doubly sure I caught, as I stepped back, the faint gleam of a pencil of light from under the doorway. The position as I summed it up was this:--The intruder had entered through the door and had quietly locked it behind him. That would have been the first noise I had heard. Then he had hunted about for whatever he wanted and, once it had been found, he had drawn the chair up to the table and settled down to a prolonged study of the matter. That would explain the two sounds. Now as my man had come in through the door he was almost certain to go out the same way and, in the interests of peace and quiet, the proper course to take was to sit down and wait until he decided to come out. I can't say how long I waited there. It seemed like hours, but of course at the outside it could not have been many minutes. I would dearly have liked to smoke, but I rather fancied that the other man's nose would be sure to scent me out. Also a scrape of a match in a still house at the dead of night sounds like a bomb-explosion. So I just squatted down on my heels and cursed my man under my breath. I was in deadly fear most of the time that he would make a noise of some kind and bring the other inhabitants down about my ears. He was my meat, and I meant to eat him myself. At length the pencil of light went out. Somebody moved stealthily across the room and the key turned softly in the lock. I balanced the gun in my hand and got ready to swing. It was pitch-dark in the hall and I could not see an inch in front of me, but I had my fingers right up against the jamb of the door and I could feel it opening. The man was breathing with a barely perceptible wheeze and, if I had not been listening for something of the kind, I might have missed it altogether. But it was quite loud enough for me to position the fellow, and the next instant I flopped out of the darkness on to him. He gave a surprised little gasp, a sort of sizzling like the air escaping out of a punctured tyre, and went down on the mat underneath me. I had taken him so completely off his guard that there was no need for me to use my gun. I got one hand on his throat in the most approved style of the garrotte and just pressed. He wriggled a little at first, but I kept up the same even pressure, and presently he went limp. I knew then that he was harmless for the next ten minutes, so I released my hold, slipped my useless Colt into my pocket, and made to stand up. But at that precise moment the electric light in the hall went on, and a silvery voice said, "Hands up, please!" In the astonishment of the moment I shot my hands heavenwards and turned round to view the new arrival. It was just as I thought. Moira had blundered into my little surprise party, and she was doing her level best to annex all the honors for herself. She was standing with one hand on the light switch and the other held Bryce's automatic. Her face was very pale, and the hand that held the revolver wasn't quite as steady as I could have wished. She blinked a little at me--her eyes seemed blinded by the sudden radiance--and I don't think she recognised me for the moment, so much do one's ordinary clothes make the man. It was clearly up to me to disillusion her and persuade her either to put down the revolver or hold it in a way less calculated to alarm the peaceful public. "You'd better put down that infernal thing, Moira," I said calmly, "or you'll be doing someone damage. The mere sight of you makes me nervous, Diana." There was a studied insult in the last word, but I think somehow she must have missed it in the excitement of the moment, for she lowered her gun and ran towards me. "Oh, it's you!" she cried surprisedly. "It's me," I said dourly, and I dropped my hands into a more convenient position. "In fact it's so much me that I'd be obliged if you'd keep quiet for a while and help me look after this gentleman on the floor. I want to examine him, and I don't think I'll be able to do it in comfort if you wake the rest of the family." "Who is he?" she asked, showing by the subdued note of her voice that she had taken my warning to heart. "That's more than I can say," I answered. "I discovered him in the room there, and when he came out I promptly sat on him." "But what did he want?" "If one can judge anything from his present attitude, he came to study the pattern of the carpet, Moira." "Be serious, Jim, please." "I couldn't if I tried," I said, rising to my feet. "It's too much like hard work. But let's look at the captive, Diana." This time the shot went home, and in a way I was glad. I had four years' arrears to make up yet. It was not a very manly thing to do, I know--it certainly wasn't at all gentlemanly--but it gave me a deuce of a lot of satisfaction, and that's about all I can say in defence. She looked up at me with both hurt and contempt in her eyes, but I was far too engrossed in the business in hand to give her more than passing notice. When I came to think it over in calmer moments I realised that, despite all that had happened, the girl was just as much in love with me as ever she had been. The fellow was young, at the most he could not have been more than twenty-four or five, and I saw instantly that he was the man I had called the Roman sentry--the chap who had been spying on the house the day Bryce had driven me home from the Heads. The life wasn't crushed out of him by any means; even as I examined him he stirred a little and his eyes opened. They were nice black eyes, the sort that brim over with humor, yet way at the back of them I caught a glimpse of something else. It was a queer mixture of anger and determination, and I saw just sufficient of it to warn me to take no unnecessary risks. Save for that first spasmodic movement he lay perfectly still, those black eyes of his laughing up at me and challenging. Somehow they filled me with a curious sense of unrest, a feeling as if everything that made life safe and secure was slipping away from me. I did not speak a word, however, but gave him back look for look, striving with my eyes to beat down the challenge I read in his. They said as plainly as so many words, "I'm the better man, and I'll beat you yet. Try and see if I don't." "What are you doing here?" I demanded at length, seeing that one of us must speak, and he seemed the less likely. "If I told you I was a somnambulist you wouldn't believe me, would you?" he replied. "I wouldn't," I said tersely. "I'm not, anyway," he continued, with those infernally self-possessed eyes daring me ... daring me what? "You've got to explain what you were doing in that room," I threatened. "The sooner you tell me the better it'll be for you." "It's no use talking like that, my friend," he said. "You won't get a word more out of me than I wish, and while I think of it you'd better call in the police at once and have done with it." It was the first time that the idea of the police had occurred to me, and, now I came to think of it, it wasn't too acceptable. Without knowing much about it, I surmised that the less Bryce had to do with the police the better he'd be pleased, that is if I could base anything on the way he had behaved that morning on the beach. As it was Moira seemed to have much the same idea as myself, or perhaps she spoke from superior knowledge. "Don't call the police in, Jim," she said in a quick whisper. "You mustn't do that. It'd be better to let him go." I shook my head. "I don't want to let him go," I said, "but if you don't want to make an example of him, I don't see what else there is for it. I'll have a word with him first, at any rate, and see what I can make out of him." "Be careful, Jim," she whispered, all the strain and anger occasioned by my ill-timed insult disappearing in her anxiety for my welfare. I ignored her admonition, more because I could think of no suitable reply than for any other reason, and addressed myself to the captive. "Get up," I said. "You and I are going to have a little heart-to-heart talk." He made no effort to rise, so I leaned over and hauled him up by the collar. By the feel of him he was some forty pounds lighter than I, and I made a mental note of that in case we had a scrimmage on the way. Weight counts a good deal in a rough-and-tumble. I got a good neck-hold on him, and then I turned to Moira. "You'd better get back to bed and forget," I said. "I'll deal with this smart Alec here." I did not wait to see if she took my advice, but I prodded my captive with my free hand. "Jog along, Eliza," I said. "Straight down the hall, and don't try any monkey tricks." He went quietly enough; if I had had my wits about me I would have had my suspicions aroused by that same fact. I was flushed with victory, and, what was even more pleasant, I was acting to an impressionable audience. I was sure that Moira could not fail to appreciate the neatness with which I had conducted the whole affair, and, though I kept telling myself that I did not care a hang for her, I hadn't the faintest objection to showing off before her. On the contrary. That, in part at least, was the cause of my undoing. The hall ended in a big French window that opened out on to the back verandah. It was very seldom used, indeed I had never seen it opened, but there it was with glass all the way to the floor. When I marched my prisoner down the hall I had some vague idea of taking him out on to the verandah and inducing him to tell me what he had come for. But the man had other plans maturing, and when we were just about six or seven feet away from the window he gave a little twist and a wriggle and slipped out of my hands as if he had been an eel. Then, before I had quite recovered sufficiently to make a grab at the empty air, he hurled himself against the window. It was one of those foolhardy things that succeed just because of the sheer, daring recklessness of the man who carries them through. He swept through the glass with a splintering crash that must have been audible for half-a-block away, and then, while the falling pieces still tinkled on the floor, he placed his hand on the verandah rail and vaulted to the ground. I drew my revolver at once--I had been pulling it out of my pocket even as I ran down the hall--and took a flying shot at him. But in the hurry of the moment I missed, and I padded out on to the verandah through the splintered window just in time to see him scaling the back fence with the practised ease of the family tabby. I did not attempt to follow him. I knew the uselessness of such a proceeding. Just for the fraction of a second his hurrying silhouette had shown on the top of the fence, and then it had melted into the surrounding shadows of the dawn with a silence and celerity which, more than anything else, told me how difficult it would be to trace him. I turned on my heel, only to find that the lights were blazing up in practically every room, and Moira, Bryce and the servants were gathered in a huddled, indecisive group just inside the window. Most of them looked startled. Bryce had been a little shaken, but his self-possession was rapidly returning. Moira, indeed, was the only one who faced me with anything like calmness in her face. "You'd better all get back to bed," I said, seeing that someone had to take the initiative. "It's nothing very much, nothing to worry you at any rate." "Yes, you'd better go back," Bryce said, seconding my remarks. "There's nothing doing." The servants moved away one by one, leaving the three of us together. For quite a minute Bryce eyed the revolver that I still held in my hand, then his glance travelled to the shattered window, and, completing the circle, came to rest on me again. "Well?" he queried, with intense interest in his voice. I knew what that monosyllable meant. It was a request for a detailed account of the events of that night. Seeing that there was nothing to be gained by withholding anything, I plunged into the tale and related everything just as it had happened. "So he got away from you?" he remarked when I had finished. "He did," I said emphatically. "That's about the best thing he could have done," Bryce ran on. "I don't know what we could have done with him if we had kept him." "'He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day,'" I reminded him. "That other day is a matter for the future," he answered. "We'd better see what he took though. Come on." He turned on his heel and led the way to his study just as the first rays of the rising sun crept up over the distant hills. CHAPTER V. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. The room was much as we had left it the evening before. The typed papers had disappeared, but a sheet which I recognised as the one I had picked up from the kitchen floor the day of my arrival lay on the table in full view. Beside it was the clean blotting pad that I had never yet seen used. Bryce took no notice of the sheet of figures, but lifted the pad up, and, drawing a magnifying glass from his pocket, ran his eyes over the rough white surface. Moira and I watched him with unfeigned interest. At last he looked up. "Just as I thought," he remarked. "Have a look yourself, Jim." He handed both glass and pad to me. I studied the latter for some seconds before I quite dropped to what he meant. Gradually I made out figures impressed on the rough surface. Our midnight visitor had made a copy of that single sheet, had made it hurriedly in pencil, and the impression had gone through on to the receptive softness of the blotting paper. My scrutiny over, I handed the materials to Moira. "You understand?" Bryce queried, with little laughter-wrinkles about his eyes. "I do," I said admiringly. "I don't know what the man was after, but he didn't get it. He got a fake instead." Bryce nodded. "He's up a gum-tree instead of under one," he said enigmatically. I made no answer to that, chiefly because it struck me that it was the sort of remark that meant a good deal more than appeared on the surface. I tucked it away in my memory, quite confident that sooner or later the march of events would make it clear to me. As a matter of fact, if I hadn't taken so much notice of that simple sentence, this story would never have been written, for the key to everything was contained in that casual remark. "Nothing else has been disturbed," Bryce announced, and included the whole room in one comprehensive gesture. "I'm going back to bed for a couple of hours. You young people can do just what you like." He hustled us out of the room, shut the door carefully behind us, and went off to his room. Moira made no attempt to follow his example, but stood in the passage with her deep golden-brown eyes fixed on me. There was a look in them that I could not quite fathom; it whirled me back through five years of sorrow and stress, brought me back to the days when----. No, I wasn't going to think about it at all. It didn't bring me back to anything; it brought nothing back to me. Yet I could not help remarking that her eyes held solicitude for me and something that was more than that. "Aren't you going back to rest?" I asked, and was surprised to note that there was both interest and defiance in my voice. "I want to talk to you," she said, answering my question by inference. "I want to talk seriously to you." So it was coming at last. She intended putting Bryce's advice into execution. Perhaps she thought it was merely a matter of telling me that she was sorry for what had occurred, and then everything would begin again just where it had left off. If she thought so she was radically mistaken. My love had been rejected and I had been wounded in my pride. Through four long years of repression the knowledge had rankled in my mind till now the very sight of her standing there and beseeching me with her eyes was more than I could bear. I would not have been human had I not felt the old wound pricking me again, and I certainly would not have been a Carstairs had the mere sight of her apparent contrition moved me to forgive her on the spot. I was quite willing to be friendly, I told myself, but by nothing short of a miracle could we regain the old footing. The worst of it was that something moved me to take her in my arms then and there and kiss away the tears that were very near her eyes. "I don't know what to say to you, Jim," she said tentatively. "There's no need to say anything, Moira." I tried to speak as kindly as possible, but somehow I think I failed. "I happened to overhear you and your uncle yesterday, and I know just what you mean. But, Moira, I don't see how things can ever be the same again. It isn't as if it were something I could forget. It isn't. It goes right down to the fundamentals. If our love wouldn't stand the strain I put on it, it wasn't worth having. I hate to have to speak to you like this, but, when all's said and done, it's just as well to be frank first as last." She nodded with tight-closed lips. I saw that she was trying her hardest to keep control of herself, and for a moment it was touch and go with me. I very seldom set my mind to anything that I don't carry through, and in this instance I had a very clear and definite plan outlined in my mind. So I just set my teeth and carried it off as if nothing really mattered very much. "You heard us yesterday then?" she said at length. She spoke so slowly that she almost drawled her words. I nodded. "That's what you were doing then when I came out of the room?" "Exactly," I said. I fancied it would only make matters worse if I explained everything in detail. "I was wrong, Jim, and I apologise," she said. There was a little gleam of flame in her eyes that made me hang on her words. "I was wrong," she repeated. "I said yesterday that you had changed, but I don't think you have. You're just the same old Jim, a bit of a savage and just as primitive as ever." "Thank you, Moira," I said. "I didn't expect it from you, but now I know what to look for." "It is war then?" she said, with a little sparkle in her eyes. "War it is," I answered; "as the Spaniards say, 'Guerra al cuchillo.'" "Please translate," she requested. "I do not speak Spanish." "War to the knife," I said briskly. She half turned, then spoke to me over her shoulder. "I had hoped that we would be allies," she said softly, and was gone before I could ask her why. As was only to be expected, things were very quiet during the next few days. Bryce went about his own affairs more openly than hitherto. With the passing of our midnight visitor all fear of attack seemed to have disappeared. He did not say as much to me, but in many little ways he showed that he was much easier in his mind. I found that I had next to nothing to do. He did not go out of his way now to find something to keep me occupied. As a matter of fact, I saw very little of him and practically nothing at all of Moira. I spent most of my time thinking. I went over everything that had happened from the moment I sat down on the beach right down to the visit of that interesting and entertaining gentleman who had made his exit from the house in so unorthodox a manner. There was logic running right through the piece; every little incident seemed to dovetail into the others, yet, because I did not have the key, I could not read the riddle. Why did the man on the beach fire at Bryce? I could not say. Then just for amusement's sake I got a piece of paper and a pencil and dotted down the items that wanted explaining. They ran somehow like this:-- 1. Why was Bryce shot at? 2. Why was he being watched? 3. What was the meaning of those figures I had seen? 4. Why was Bryce so anxious to avoid publicity? 5. Why did everybody seem satisfied when the burglar got away? 6. What was the burglar after, and why was he apparently satisfied even when he got the wrong figures? 7. What did the piece of driftwood have to do with it, and what connection was there between the wood and the typed figures? And, lastly, what was it all about, anyhow? Some of the items taken singly were quite susceptible of explanation, but I could not put forward any solution that covered them in toto. So eventually I gave it up, deciding that it wasn't my affair, and the less I worried myself about what didn't concern me, the better. * * * * * The tragedy, coming as it did like a bolt out of a clear sky, so upset everything that I really cannot say whether it was a week or ten days later that it happened. But I do remember, with that accuracy of detail that a man sometimes retains even when he is doubtful of essentials, the various events of that evening. Immediately after tea Bryce rose from the table with the expressed intention of going to his study. I recall that he remarked to Moira as he passed her that everything was going along swimmingly, and that if he had no further word during the next couple of days he would consider that it was quite safe to try his luck. I didn't understand what he meant, though he seemed to be referring in a general way to the late burglary, if burglary it could be called. Moira was quite aware of the drift of his remarks, for she asked him wouldn't it be better to let the week elapse before he did anything. "We've waited too long," he said. "We should have got to work long before. Too much time has been wasted already." Then he turned to me and said casually, "Drop in and see me later on, Jim. I'll be working till about ten." I told him that I'd be along very shortly, and then I went hunting for a book to read. I found one at length, and I got so interested in it that I did not notice time passing. I was brought back to reality by a quick step in the passage, and I turned my head to view the newcomer. It was only Moira on her way to the study. She went by me with her head in the air, as if I did not exist. I recall taking out my watch and noting that it was just a quarter-past-nine, and high time I went in and saw Bryce. However, as Moira had got in ahead of me, and her business was probably of a private nature, I decided to wait until I heard her come out again. I turned back to my book, but had scarcely found my place when I caught the tinkle of breaking glass on woodwork, and practically at the same instant there was a sharp "pop," as if someone had drawn a cork from a bottle of some gaseous liquid. On the heels of that had come the single whip-like crack of a revolver. I swung to my feet in an instant, and the book dropped unheeded to the floor. During the last few days I had got out of the habit of carrying my revolver, but for all that I made straight for the study, and without the slightest ceremony turned the handle. The door was not locked; it opened at my touch. I doubt if it was even latched. If my long years of training in the hard school of experience have brought me nothing else, they at least taught me to keep my head in just such an emergency as this present one. It was well for me that I had my nerves under complete control, for the sight that faced me was one that I could not have pictured in even my wildest flights of fancy. Bryce was slumped forward in his chair, his big head sunk on his chest. All the color had fled from his face, leaving it ashen pale. The kind eyes that used to sparkle so were glazed now in death, and squinted up at me through the tangled mat of his eyebrows. The whiteness of his immaculate shirt-front was defiled for the first and last time by the big blood stain that showed how his life had ebbed away. But it was Moira most of all who caught and held my attention. She was standing just a little to the left of Bryce, her deep eyes wide with horror and a smoking revolver still held in her white clenched hand. She was staring at Bryce and the blood-stain on his shirt as if what she saw was too monstrous for belief. "Moira Drummond," I said, in a hard, cold, emotionless voice that I hardly recognised as mine, "put down that thing instantly." She turned her head at my words and regarded me dazedly for just the fraction of a second. Then in an instant the revolver dropped from her nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor, she swayed like a willow-wand in the wind, and would have fallen had I not sprung to catch her. She went limp in my arms. I did not need a second glance to tell me that Bryce was dead, and that no one in this world could do anything for him now. So, recognising that my first duty was to the living, I turned my attention to Moira. She had merely fainted, and one or two simple remedies brought her round very quickly. She opened her golden-brown eyes and looked up into mine. The unaccustomed horror of what she had just gone through had not yet died out of them; they held a plaintive, pleading look that somehow went straight to my heart. "I didn't do it," she quavered. "Who said you did?" I asked. "The way you looked and spoke to me, Jim----" I stopped her with a gesture. "That's all right," I said consolingly. "I wouldn't have thought so for a moment. But tell me just what happened." "That's more than I can," she said. "I was standing by him, talking, and suddenly I heard the window glass smash and something went 'pop.' And the next I knew uncle gave a little cry and his head fell forward on his chest. The blood was welling up out of his wound, and I saw that he was killed. His revolver was on the table, so I seized it and fired at the window. I don't know whether I hit whoever fired, but I hope I did," she concluded, with the faintest touch of forgivable viciousness in her voice. It was only when she drew my attention to it that I remembered having heard the glass break. The window had a great big star in the centre of it with a myriad little cracks radiating from it like the spokes of a wheel. Moira looked first at the window, then at the still figure sitting in the chair. Finally she turned to me. "Jim, what are we to do?" she asked helplessly. "Well," I answered, seeing now that everything fell upon me, "we'll have to get hold of a doctor. It's just for form's sake, you understand. He won't be able to do anything. Then we'll have to ring up the police. It's a blessing we've got the 'phone on, as I wouldn't care to leave you by yourself now even for a moment. It's a wonder that none of the servants heard the noise." "They're all out, Jim." "That's lucky in one way," I said. "Now, Moira, I want you to understand that the safety of us both depends on how far you back me up. We can't touch your uncle until the police come; there'd be trouble if we did. I'm going to ring up now, and in the meantime you'd better find some of your uncle's cartridges." "Why, Jim?" "I'll tell you when I come back," I said. "Just do as I tell you. There should be some in the drawer of that table. Be careful how you get them out; you don't want to have to touch anything more than you can help. I'll leave the door open so I can see you from the 'phone. You won't be frightened?" She shook her head, but her white face told me as plainly as so many words that the sooner I came back the better. Accordingly I wasted no further time, but turned on the hall light and took up the telephone-book. For a wonder I had no difficulty in getting connected with either the doctor or the police, and, once I had made my meaning plain, I hung up and returned to Moira. "The police'll be here in ten minutes at the outside," I said. "I've got just that time to make you word-perfect. You've got the cartridges? Thanks. I only want one. Now listen. Your story's thin, it's so thin that there's many a detective wouldn't believe it; but I'm not going to give them a chance. I'm going to rig up things so that they'll look right. What happened is this:--You and I were out in the next room, reading if you like, when we heard a shot. We rushed in and found your uncle just as he is now. We've no idea who shot him, and neither you nor I fired a shot. When we find your uncle's revolver in the drawer with its seven chambers undischarged we're going to be just as much at sea as anybody else." "But I did fire a shot," she objected. "How can you get away from that?" "Easy. First of all I take out the discharged cylinder. Then I clean out the gun. I mustn't forget to clean it out, because if I do and people examine it, they'll see that it's been discharged, and they'll begin to suspect. We mustn't leave the least ground for suspicion. Now, there's the gun ready loaded in all its chambers and as clean as the day it came out of the shop. Back it goes into the drawer, and it stays there until the police find it. You understand just what you've to do now?" "I think I do, Jim. But, oh, you've got to help me all you can!" "I will that," I said in a sudden burst of cordiality. "I want you to feel that you can rely on me right through. And if there's any questions asked just let me do the answering, and if you're asked anything, why just say the same as I do. You can't say anything else because we were together all the night." "But, Jim, I don't see why we should have to deceive people like this. Why is it necessary?" "Have you ever heard of the thing called circumstantial evidence, Moira? You must remember that I heard a shot, and ran into the room just in time to see you standing over your uncle with a smoking revolver. I know what happened, but the police mightn't look at the matter in the same light. There's plenty of other ways of explaining that broken window." "I suppose you know what's best," she said with a tired little sigh. "But it all does seem so horrible. I wish I hadn't to lie so." "There's worse things than lying," I hinted. "It's a case of choosing the lesser of two evils, and really, Moira, I think in his own peculiar way your uncle trusted me." She nodded as if she could not trust herself to speak. Then came the sound of heavy footsteps on the verandah, and the door-bell rang violently. "That's the police, very likely," I said in a quick whisper. "Just keep your head and leave the rest to me." She said no word, but the pressure of her hand on mine told me more than hours of speech. CHAPTER VI. I TELL A LIE. The police had brought the divisional surgeon with them, and he made his brief examination while the sergeant questioned Moira and myself. My story was the simple one that I had outlined, and I must say that Moira played up well to my lead. She was naturally upset at what she had gone through, and the sergeant, I fancy, made allowance for this, and attributed any trifling discrepancies between our two stories to this fact. He was one of the politest officials it has ever been my lot to deal with, and he carried out his duties in a way that made me his debtor for life. I was not as shocked by the occurrence as I might have been. I had seen far too much of the rough side of life and the sudden side of death to have any other feeling than a rather natural sorrow at losing a man who had been something more than a benefactor to me; but I did not make the radical mistake of treating Bryce's death too lightly. I rather flatter myself that I mixed my sorrow and my common sense in just the right proportions. It was different with Moira; she was genuinely distressed, and made no effort to conceal it. It was the first time for many years that I had seen her so unaffected, and natural, and I must say that the sight brought out all that was best in me. The sergeant took our names and then began a close personal questioning. He enquired into my past life, asked me how long I had been with Bryce, and then bluntly demanded to know in what capacity I was staying in the house. "Mr. Bryce," I said, "was an old friend of my father's, and naturally there was always a welcome here for me." I picked my words carefully, because I was in mortal dread that some stray remark might put him on to that affair on the beach. I knew that if he once got wind of that everything was up with us, and our hastily-built castle of cards would come tumbling to the ground. While I was thinking of this it struck me all of a heap that there was a chance of something leaking out about the burglar of the other day. The only thing I could see was to make a clean breast of it. "I don't know whether this has got anything to do with the burglary the other night," I said casually. "What's that?" the sergeant demanded. I repeated my remark. "This is the first I've heard of it," the man said. "Why wasn't it reported before? It's over a week ago, you say." "About that," I agreed, "but it was reported. Mr. Bryce went down himself to tell you." And here I looked warningly at Moira. She gave no sign that she had noticed my glance, but somehow I felt that she quite understood what was required of her. "I don't deny he might have come down," the man ran on, "but all the same no report has reached us." "That's mighty curious," I said with assumed thoughtfulness. "Now I come to think of it, it struck me at the time that you people hadn't followed the matter up. I meant to ask Mr. Bryce about it, but the matter went clean out of my mind, and it was just this moment that I recollected it. It does seem a bit of a puzzler." "If you tell me all that happened, Mr. Carstairs," the sergeant suggested, "it might help us a bit. There's something very like a motive in this." I gave him a rather sketchy account of the night of the burglar's visit, but, without actually giving a false description of the burglar himself, I so drew him that he would be difficult to recognise. I was swayed by cautiousness more than anything else at the moment, but I fancy that deep down in my mind was a primitive longing to settle with the man without having recourse to the law. At any rate no policeman in the country would have arrested him on the description I gave. "It's a pity he got away," said the sergeant when I'd finished. "It looks as if he's the man. What was taken, Mr. Carstairs?" "According to Mr. Bryce there wasn't anything even touched." "Looks as if Mr. Bryce had a past," the man said in a half-whisper meant for my ears alone. I regarded the suggestion with alarm. "I don't see how that could be," I told him. "I've known him for a good many years, and my father knew him before that. But of course I've been in the Islands for close on to four years, and something that I am unaware of may have occurred in that time." "Just so," he agreed. "We'll see what Miss Drummond has to say." "Had your uncle any enemies that you know of?" she was asked. She answered the question with admirable adroitness. "My uncle was the kindest of men," she said. "I can conceive of no reason why he should have any enemies." I suppose our very apparent frankness threw the man off his guard, for I'm perfectly satisfied that he could have tripped us up more than once had he had the faintest suspicion that we were not telling the exact truth. But we strove, rather successfully as it now appears, to twist the truth to suit ourselves without actually telling a downright lie, and we did it in a way that seemed to satisfy him, astute though he was. I told him but one lie that evening, though as a matter of fact it was much nearer the truth than anything else I had said, so strangely do things fall out. "Miss Drummond is Mr. Bryce's niece, isn't she?" he asked. "That's right," I said, and Moira nodded. "Now let me see," he ran on, ticking off the points on his fingers, "you are an old friend of the family's. That's correct, isn't it?" "That's so," I agreed. "Anything more?" "I don't quite understand you," I said, with the faintest doubt at the back of my mind. He spoke as if he knew or suspected something more than I had told him. He looked at Moira and then at me, and I saw that he was smiling. It was just the sort of smile that one would expect from that portion of the world that loves a lover. "Oh!" I said with a relief that I made no attempt to hide, "so you've guessed it." "Guessed what?" Moira queried quickly, her face paling to a perceptible degree. I turned to her with the cheeriest smile I could muster at the moment. "He's guessed that we're engaged, Moira," I said. And the note of exultation in my voice was more real than I had intended. "It's not the time to be rejoicing over such things," I rattled on, "but--well, I suppose we're all young only once and we've got to make the best of it." The sergeant was a gem of his kind, and even the nearness of a tragedy and the rigidness of the rules that governed his daily life had not crushed out of him that little touch of Nature that makes the whole world kin. Thanks to the easiness of my manner and his own ready stumbling into the trap I had not set for him, he now looked upon me as nothing more than a love-sick youth with no eyes for anyone or anything save the girl who occupied his heart. If the man could only have seen what was in my mind, if by any chance he had overheard our conversation on the morning of the burglary, how quickly he would have changed his good opinion of us both. But luckily he was no mind-reader, and my little piece of bluff achieved more success than was its due. "You needn't worry about anything," he said with an almost paternal note in his voice. "We police have certain duties to carry out, but we're human after all, and anything I can do as a man and a brother I'll be only too pleased to have you ask." "Thank you," I said, with gratitude that was less than half feigned. The divisional surgeon gave it as his opinion that death had been practically instantaneous. The bullet had entered the wall of the chest a little too close to the heart to be pleasant. The doctor did tell me just what else had happened, but either he did not make himself clear or I have forgotten it. Presently a couple of the police who had been put on the trail of the fugitive returned and reported nothing doing. The garden just outside the window was a good deal trampled about, and there were footmarks in plenty on the soft soil, but, as the sergeant remarked, "Footmarks are like finger prints--they're no use unless you know who made them." All things considered, it looked as if our man had got clean away again. I had a fancy that neither Moira nor I had seen the last of him. Standing there in the very room that had witnessed the tragedy, with the body of the murdered man hanging limply in the chair, the lifeless clay scarcely yet cold, it came to me with something of the clearness of prophecy that this was not the end but the beginning of the play. It was something closely akin to second sight, and for the moment the spaciousness of the vision that I saw but dimly thrilled me with its possibilities. I knew, though how I knew I cannot say even at this distant date, that the calm, silent policemen with their helmets in their hands, the earnest, energetic divisional surgeon, and his confrère the sergeant, even the dead man himself, were but the merest supers in the prelude to adventure. Moira and I were the only ones who were real, the only actors that were something more than mummers. Yet even I failed to see that what had happened that night was something more than a queer insoluble mystery. There was nothing in my experience to tell me that it was vitally connected with the early history of Victoria, that it had its being in the now far-off days before Australia became a nation. I think if any supernatural whisper of the truth had reached me that I would not have been surprised, but that is the most that I can say. I came back abruptly to reality to find a cold wind blowing in through the crack in the window. The doctor and the two policemen between them were lifting Bryce out of the chair he would never more occupy, and I, with my profounder knowledge of death and its consequences, saw just what they were going to do. "I think I'd better take Miss Drummond outside for the present," I whispered to the sergeant. The man nodded, and, taking Moira by the arm, I led her from the room. "It would be better if you could go to bed," I suggested. She shook her head wearily. "I can't, Jim. It's no good trying to persuade me. I just couldn't." "I think I understand," I said softly. "I don't feel sorry a bit, Jim. I know it's a strange thing to say, but it's the truth, and there it is. I couldn't summon a tear. But just inside me there's a vacancy, a sense of loss. He's gone out of my life, and I'll never meet anyone who'll quite take his place. I can't put what I mean into so many words, but I think you can understand. You're quick at understanding, Jim. I don't feel sorry a bit, and I don't want to cry, somehow; but I'll miss him dreadfully. I'm hard in some ways, Jim. I must be terribly devoid of affection." I made no answer to that. My thoughts were on one summer's evening four--or was it five?--years ago, and in the light of what had happened then I could scarcely contradict her now. "I'm sorry," I said abruptly, "that I had to tell that lie about our being engaged. But I had to be as natural as I could, and the more obvious an explanation I gave the better for us all." She looked at me for a moment with unutterable things in the depths of her golden-brown eyes. "I'm sorry," she said slowly, "that you had to tell a lie." I took her remark as the natural corollary of mine, but some sub-conscious sense in me insisted that its very ambiguity was designed. Almost at that moment I heard footsteps in the hall, and knew that the servants had just come home. The big clock in the hall chimed ten. "There's the women," I said. "You'd better tell them, and see they don't make a scene." Moira nodded and went down the hall to meet them. There is little more to relate of this phase of my story. Naturally there was an inquest, and just as naturally was a verdict returned of "death at the hands of a person or persons unknown," or words to that effect. The situation, in fine, was that Bryce was dead and buried, and the police admitted that they held no clue to the identity of the murderer. Motive there was none as far as they could see, and the whole affair looked like one of these senseless crimes that from time to time startle the city folk from their easy-going equanimity. The matter was not even a nine-days' wonder, for other things occupied the attention of the press, and a stickful was the most it ever got in any paper. I stayed on in the house at Moira's request and attended to several matters that were rather outside her province. The old man turned out not to be as rich as we had thought, though he had money enough in truth. The bulk of this went to Moira, with the curious proviso that she could not invest it in any way without first submitting the proposal to me and receiving my sanction. The will was of recent date, as a matter of fact it had been drawn up within a few days of Moira's arrival. There was a sum left to me, too, enough to make me independent for a good many years to come. Moira's mother arrived the day after the tragedy, and showed no very evident intention of returning home. She was very nice to me, but then there was no reason why she should have been anything else. Any strain that there had been, and was still for that matter, was between her daughter and myself, and, like a wise mother, she forebore from interfering in what did not immediately concern her. For my own sake, if for no other reason, I hurried along the winding-up of Bryce's affairs. I saw, or fancied I saw, that the sooner I left the house the better would Moira be pleased. For when all was said and done there could be no denying that things were far from satisfactory. Neither of us made any further reference to my bare-faced lying on that ill-starred night, but the more I thought of it the more equivocal did the present situation seem. I for one was doubly glad when at last we finished with the lawyers, and things--blessed, indefinite word--seemed like to settle down again. My time of departure was no further off than twenty-four hours away when the incident occurred that led to a hurried readjustment of my plans and that brought us, willy-nilly, to the Valley--for so I still persist in calling it, as if there were not another valley in the world--and the treasure that lay there and helped us to unravel the tangled threads of Bryce's past life. I had my bag already packed, and had announced that I was going the next evening, when Moira stayed me with a word. "I've been meaning to talk to you for a long time," she said, "but somehow I could never seem to summon up enough courage. It's about Uncle and ... well, you know as well as I do, that there was some mystery about him." "Go on," I said. "Well, he told me once that if ever anything happened to him we would find documents in his room that would help us to take up the work where he left off. He repeated that the very night he died. Don't you see what that means?" "It means that they are still there," I said soberly. CHAPTER VII. INTRODUCING MR. ALBERT CUMSHAW. "That's the peculiar part of it, Jim. They should still be in the room, because they couldn't possibly have been taken away. Yet I've hunted high and low and I can't find them." "And, now you find you're in difficulties, you call me in," I hinted. "Jim, I wish you wouldn't talk that way. There's no call for us to be continually bickering. If we can't be anything else, at least we can be friends, can't we?" "I suppose it's worth trying. But what have the papers to do with me?" "They affect you as well as me, Jim. Uncle wished the two of us to carry on his work." "How pleasant!" I murmured. "And suppose I refuse?" "Well," she said, with just the least gesture of helplessness, "I'll have to do whatever I can myself. But it was Uncle's wish that we divide the proceeds." "The proceeds of what?" "That's more than I can say, Jim. We've got to find the papers first." "That's so, Moira. Seeing it's you, I'll hunt for them; if it's worth while I might even help you through, but you'll have to understand from the very start that I won't finger a penny of what you call the proceeds." "You usen't to be like that, Jim." "I've changed a lot, haven't I?" I grinned. For a moment she stared blankly at me, then she asked me, as if the thought had just occurred to her, "There isn't any other girl, is there?" "There never was any other girl," I said. "There was always only the one, but she failed...." I saw that she had some intimate little revelation on the tip of her tongue, so, for fear she might say too much--one never knows what a woman will say if she fancies any words of hers will gain the day--I said briskly, "Now, about those papers, Moira. Where did you look?" "Everywhere, Jim." "You couldn't have. There's one place at least where you haven't looked." "And that?" she queried eagerly. "The place where they're hidden," I answered disconcertingly. "Oh," she said blankly; and then, "Have you any idea where that is?" I shook my head. "None at all, Moira. Still your uncle told you that they were in his study, and as you say they couldn't have been taken away, the only thing to do is to look in every likely place for a start." "And if we find nothing?" "Then we'll look in the unlikely places. And as there's no time like the present, I suggest we start now." Moira was quite agreeable to that, so we entered the room. Books and everything lay just as we had left them the night of the tragedy; only the broken window-pane had been taken out and a new one inserted. "I never thought of it before," I remarked, "but the sight of that new pane just brought to my mind how narrow a squeak you had that night." "I don't follow you, Jim." "Well, if our friends the police hadn't been so willing to swallow the obvious, they would have seen that my tale was all bunkum. When that chap fired he starred the window, and when your shot went through it finished the job and knocked a finger of glass right out. If the sergeant had only gone over to the window and examined it carefully, he would have seen enough to make him wonder how the deuce the same shot could have hit the same bit of glass in two places. But he didn't go over to examine it; I had filled his mind with an hypothesis, and he couldn't see anything else but that. Now it's the same with this business of looking for the papers. You seem to think your uncle would put them just where anyone could lay hands on them. I don't. Your uncle had a fair amount of foresight--he realised all along that it was likely that he'd be cut off short--and the mere fact that he told you twice at least that he had left you instructions shows that he had gone about things carefully and methodically. Again, he had no means of knowing just how he would be killed, so you can take it for granted that he provided against such a contingency as this room being thoroughly searched by the murderers. In other words, the papers are so placed that only an intelligent person who knew your uncle's mind would guess where the hiding place is. Now I'm having a wild shot at it, but it's logical enough in all conscience. When you can't find a thing, try to take over the mentality of the man who hid it." "I'm afraid you're getting too deep for me, Jim." "I'll put it another way, Moira. Something influenced your uncle in the hiding-place he selected, and we've got to parallel his thoughts, if we can, in order to find out the spot." "But that's impossible." "At first glance it seems like it. But just think the matter over. I've got more than half an idea already. Whatever those papers are they're certainly typewritten, and I'm sure they've something to do with that bit of wood. Oh, I forgot. I've never told you about that. It happened on the beach." "Uncle told me how he met you," Moira volunteered. "I'll bet he didn't say anything about the driftwood though." "No, he did not," Moira admitted. So then and there I told her the tale. "You can understand from that," I concluded, "that whatever he was typing had something to do with that piece of wood. Now when he had made up his mind to secrete the papers two words would be prominent in his thoughts." "I know," she said with a flash of intuition. "Tell me," I smiled. "'Sands' and 'wood,'" she said eagerly. "'Wood' is one of them," I answered, "but I rather prefer to say 'bury' for the other. Now the only place he could bury anything about here in such a way that it wouldn't be noticed is under the hearthstone; but, as it's cement in this case, I think we can leave it out of the question. He wouldn't put them under the floor. For one thing it'd take too long, and the sweepers would be sure to notice if the carpet or the linoleum had been disturbed. So that brings us back to 'wood' again." "How about the wall? A secret panel, or something of the kind?" "I don't think he'd select anything so obvious," I said with a shake of my head. "It had to be a place that we'd find, but that everyone else would miss. There's quite a lot of wooden articles here, Moira, so we'll go over them very carefully." I surveyed the furniture ruefully. "Looks as if we'll have to chop a lot of things to pieces," I remarked. "Silly!" said Moira Drummond disgustedly. "We're looking for something hollow, so why not tap?" "Brilliant idea!" I said. As I sit writing at this table in that very same room, the scene comes back to me with all the clearness of a well-developed photograph. In my mind's eye I see Moira and myself on our knees tapping every inch of the old mahogany and the newer imitation Chippendale, and I realise as I have realised a dozen times since to what needless trouble we went, when a little thought upon the lines that I have already mapped out would have led us just as easily, and perhaps a good deal quicker, to the very spot itself. But we were young then--though for that matter we are still--and to young people all motion is progress. It is only when one gets older and sees things in perspective that one realises.... But that wasn't what I set out to write about. The long and short of it was that we tapped all the furniture most carefully, and at the end of it found that our persistence was still unrewarded. "There's something wrong somewhere," Moira said disappointedly. "It seems as if there's been a mistake in our judgment," I agreed. "Still I fancy the table's the most likely place. You see he sat there always." "Suppose you sit in his place then, Jim." "Excellent idea, Moira," I said, and at once proceeded to put it into practice. "Now if I had just finished typing anything and was looking for a safe place to hide it, where would I naturally go?" I said out aloud. Moira dropped into a chair on the other side of the table and leaned forward, her chin resting in her hand, and regarded me with intense interest. I went on talking to myself. "I'm thinking of wood, and the nearest wood to me is the table. Therefore I'd hide it somewhere about the table, not in or on it, but just about it." Moira's eyes glowed--I remember that particularly--and we both must have seized on the idea at one and the same instant. "Oh, why didn't we think of it before?" she cried, and then the two of us were on our knees and groping under the table. It was a massive piece of furniture in its way, with a large cross-piece running from side to side underneath. And on this cross-piece, so tied with string that it could not slip off, was a tiny packet of oil-skin. "The safest place in the house," I said, as I stood upright and held out a helping hand to Moira. "No one would ever think of looking there. See how nearly we missed it." "Jim, Jim, let's have a look!" she begged. My answer was to place the package in my pocket. "Not here," I said in explanation. "You must remember that those murdering gentlemen aren't accounted for yet, and it'd be a pity to let them get hold of the very thing we've been keeping out of their clutches for so long." "I never thought of that," she said with a crestfallen air. "Of course you're right. But where'll we go?" "Any of the inner rooms. The drawing-room, say. That hasn't got any windows opening out on to the garden." Moira caught my arm. "Come on, Jim," she cried, "I'm dying to know what is in it." "The more haste the less speed," I remarked soberly. "Likewise there's many a slip between the cup and the lip." "Don't, Jim, don't be pessimistic just when everything's beginning to turn out well." "Beginning," I repeated. "You're right there. We're just beginning now." But all the same she did not take her hand off my arm, and when hers slipped through mine in quite the good old way, I could not find it in my heart to tell her that she must do no such thing. The drawing-room was just as comfortable a place as a man could wish, and I saw at a glance that there was no likelihood of our being disturbed there. I held the packet in my hands for I don't know how many seconds, almost afraid to open it. Inside was the secret that had lost Bryce his life, the secret that had cost, though I did not know it at the time, almost a dozen lives, and that would bring two at least of our associates perilously close to the grave before our work was ended. Moira shared some of my hesitation, for she made no effort to hurry me into undoing the packet, but stood awaiting my pleasure. The string was tied so tightly that I could not unknot it. I drew my knife and cut it, and the oil-skin unrolled of itself. The first thing I came across was a letter from Bryce addressed to the two of us. It was not contained in an envelope, but seemed to have been slipped in as an after-thought. It ran:-- Dear Moira and Dear Jimmy,-- If you ever read this it will be because I am no more and have failed to bring my plans to a successful conclusion. In that case I look to the two of you to carry on from the point where I left off, but because you are both young, and so have very little sense, I don't intend to let either of you fall into an easy thing. There's money at the back of this, enough to make you rich for life, but you'll have to use the brains you both have got and work like the very dickens to get it. I've put some of the necessary directions in a cypher that a child could read, but apart from that you'll have to use your heads. As you know some things that Moira doesn't, Jimmy, and vice versa, you can see that it won't pay either of you to quarrel. The man who really holds the key to the situation is a gentleman named Abel Cumshaw. Abel, I understand, is in his second childhood, and can never be brought to realise that it is any later than the early eighties, but his son Albert is a most astonishing young fellow, as you'll find when you meet him, if you have not already done so before this falls into your hands. You see I have sufficient confidence in your ability to believe that you will find this package sooner or later. If it's too late when you do find it, of course the joke'll be on the pair of you. Now, a word to you, Moira. Jimmy knows the hidden valley quite well, so don't believe him if he says he doesn't. I spent nearly an hour the other day telling him all about it, and even went the length of showing him a map of the place. If he doesn't help you out, it's because he's got a bad memory. As for yourself, Jimmy, remember that you can't get along without Moira and don't try. Once you've found what you're looking for you can each go your own way, but I rather fancy you won't want to then. I think that's about all, unless to remind you that Mr. Albert Cumshaw will be entitled to his fair share of the spoils. And on that note the letter ended, and underneath was his sprawling signature, "H. Bryce," written as firmly as ever he had written it. "Well, what do you make of that?" I asked when I had finished reading it. "I--I----" "I know," I cut in. "I feel that way too. Do you think he's put up a joke on us?" "I just don't want to speak about it," Moira said tearfully. "It's--it's--I wouldn't have expected it of him." "It's the unexpected that happens," I said with some idea that I was consoling her. I could see that the tears were very near her eyes, and I didn't want her to break down now and cry. A man is always at a great disadvantage in dealing with a weeping woman; she can usually persuade him to do almost anything for her while she's in that state. If I find my wife crying--but it doesn't matter what I'd do, for I've no right to be introducing purely speculative matter that has nothing at all to do with the story. "It doesn't explain anything," Moira said at length. "It only makes everything worse than ever." "I wouldn't say that," I said. I saw, or thought I saw, a glimmer of light. It was so faint that I daren't as yet put it into words. "He must have been in a rather frivolous mood when he wrote this," I continued. "All the same, I think we're getting closer. We haven't looked at the cypher yet, you know." "No more we have, Jim. Let's see what it's like." I handed it to her. At first sight I could have sworn that it was the identical piece of paper that I had picked up from the kitchen floor that momentous afternoon, but a second glance showed me that I was mistaken. Many of the characters were the same, but the grouping was altogether different. They ran as follows:-- 2@3; 5@3 &9; 3 5433-3/4 5@3 @75 £994 1/4; £ 5@3 48-1/2-8;? 1/2-7; 1/4-43 8; &8;3 --3-1/4-1/2-743 1/2-3: 3; "335 3-1/4-1/2-5.5@3; "1/4-/3 £843/5 ;945@3/4 £4-1/4-2 1/4;95@34 &8;3 1/4-5 48?@5 1/4;?&3-1/2 59 5@3 043:897-1/2 9;3 3)53; £8;? "94 523&:3 "335.£8? 5@3. "It doesn't seem to mean anything, Jim," she said in consternation. "I'll admit it's pretty hard to understand," I told her. "It looks like a page out of a ready reckoner or a mathematician's nightmare. But it does mean something or your uncle wouldn't have put it up to us. What it is we've got to find out. Possibly the Mr. Cumshaw of the letter can throw a little light on the subject." "Who is Mr. Cumshaw, Jim?" "I never heard of the man until I read this letter," I said. "He's a new element in the plot, and, unless your uncle's pulling our legs, I think he's going to be a very important factor." "He's got to share with us, too," she reminded me. "Share with you," I corrected. "I've told you a couple of times already that I'll help you to it, but that I don't intend to take a penny of the money. So, when you're figuring it out, remember it's halves, not thirds, you're working on." "If it was anybody else but me you'd take it quickly enough," she said accusingly. "Maybe I would and again maybe I wouldn't," I said with a smile. "Oh, Jim, I hate you!" she cried in a sudden blaze of temper. "I'm sorry," I said easily. "It doesn't take much to make you hate seemingly." She turned and faced me with one of those swift changes of front that made her so hard to deal with. The white-hot anger had gone as suddenly as it had come, and in its place there was nothing but hopelessness. She looked so weary and so miserable that for the moment I was tempted to take her in my arms and tell her that the past did not matter any more than did the future. But the memory of the words with which she had driven me out of her life that summer's evening long ago lashed me like a whip, and in an instant I had hardened my heart. "Why do you make it so hard for me, Jim?" she moaned. "If only you would help me a little." "I'm helping you all I can," I said with a touch of cynicism in my voice. "You can count on me until the adventure's finished." "You know I don't mean that," she said weakly. "There's nothing else you can mean," I answered stubbornly. For the space of a heart-beat we stood facing each other. I saw that she was on the verge of a breakdown, and I knew that my own resolution was failing. After all, what need was there for me to be so brutal? She had suffered more than enough for the idle words spoken in haste all those years ago. There is no knowing what might have happened had not Fate intervened. But just as things had reached breaking-strain the door-bell rang. The prosaic sound brought us back instantly to earth, and a dramatic situation, tense with possibilities, became in a moment common-place. "There's the door-bell," Moira said calmly. "I wonder who it can be." "Some visitor or other," I remarked. "What visitor could it be?" she asked. "I know of no one who'd have business here." I knew of one at least, but I did not put my thoughts into words. Instead I remarked, "Quite possibly it's some house-hunter." We heard the maid's steps go up the hall past us. There was a whispered colloquy at the door, and then, quite distinctly, the maid's voice said, "I'll see if he is in." "That must be me," I guessed. "I'm the only 'he' in the house." "But who knows you're here?" Moira objected. "That's right," I said. "Who does?" I opened the door of the room and looked out. The maid, who was coming down the passage, caught sight of me. "There's a gentleman wishes to see you, Mr. Carstairs," she announced. "Show him in here," I said. I turned back into the room. "You'd better stop here, Moira," I said as she made a movement to go. "It can't be anything private. It's just as likely that it's something that interests you too." She sat down again. The maid ushered the newcomer into the room. I ran my eye over him as I advanced to meet him. He was small and dapper, and his air of self-possession was almost perfect. His features were clean-cut, dark eyes glowed in a face that had evidently been exposed to the weather for many years, and his brow was surmounted by a mass of black curls. "Mr. Carstairs?" he asked. "That's me," I said truthfully but ungrammatically. "This will explain my business," he said, and handed me a piece of pasteboard. I took it from him; it was one of Bryce's visiting cards, and scribbled across the foot of it were these words:--"Introducing Mr. Albert Cumshaw. H. Bryce." "I've been expecting you, Mr. Cumshaw," I said. "I've been expecting you for some days now." As a matter of fact I hadn't, but it is always a good rule to allow the other man to think you know everything. "Moira," I said, "this is the Mr. Cumshaw we've been waiting for. Mr. Cumshaw, Miss Drummond." "Pleased to meet you," he said and looked as if he meant it. "Take a seat, Mr. Cumshaw," I said, and when he had accepted a chair, "What can I do for you?" I enquired. He looked curiously from one to the other of us as if to seek an inspiration. "I presume Mr. Bryce is not about," he said at length. "Well, hardly," I answered. "He's been dead this last couple of weeks." It was longer than that in reality, but I mentioned the first period that came into my head. Anyway, it didn't matter much how long it was since he died; nothing could make him any the less dead now. "Oh," said Mr. Cumshaw quietly, as though my news was just what he had been expecting all along. "It is most regrettable," he added. "Now what can I do for you?" I persisted. "Touching the little matter of the gold escort," he said and fixed me with a glowing eye. "Yes, the gold escort, Mr. Cumshaw. What about it!" He did not answer that immediately, but eyed both Moira and me as if to test our receptive capacities. I maintained an attitude of complete indifference; Moira leaned forward a little with interest plainly marked in every line of her face. "You were both in Mr. Bryce's confidence?" His quiet remark took the form of a question. I nodded. "Go on," Moira urged. "You came to tell us about your father, Mr. Abel Cumshaw." "That's right," said the young man with amazing alacrity. "You're all right too. I wasn't sure at first, but now I see you're in the game with me. From what I know of it we're all like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. We all fit in, and none of us is any use without the others. That being so, I fancy that we had better all place our cards on the table. Now which of you has got the cypher?" Moira looked at me for guidance. I was pleased to see that she was learning that she couldn't do without me. I was pleased--no, I wasn't pleased at all, for it didn't matter now what Moira thought of me. "What cypher is that?" I enquired innocently. "There is only one cypher, Mr. Carstairs," Mr. Cumshaw stated. He seemed so sure about it that my curiosity was aroused. "Indeed?" I said politely. I knew better than to contradict him outright, so I did it by implication. "There's only the one," the young man repeated. "You should know, because Mr. Bryce left it to you." If I had had any doubts before as to the genuine character of my visitor they all vanished at that last remark of his. It was one of those things that a man could not have guessed, however clever he might be. He must have had inside knowledge. Hitherto I had been indulging in that pleasant pastime that is known in boxing circles as "sparring for wind," but now I dropped the pose completely and answered him as straightforwardly as was consistent with reasonable caution. "Yes, he did leave a cypher to me," I admitted. "But what do you know about it?" "Only what Mr. Bryce wrote me. I'm sorry I can't show you the letter, but Mr. Bryce had an invariable rule that all correspondence from him must be burnt as soon as read." "I guess I've got to accept you at your face value, Mr. Cumshaw," I said. "You'll pardon me for doubting you at first, but it pays to be cautious in a game like this. Now I'd like to know just how we are going to assist each other." "That's more than I can say," the young man smiled. "If I tell you the story from start to finish, maybe you'll get a better idea of what we're after." "Would it take long?" I said diffidently. "It's fairly late now." "If Mr. Cumshaw would stop to tea," Moira suggested, and looked to me for approval of her proposition. Under the circumstances there was only one thing for me to do, so I did it. "You'll greatly oblige us if you stop," I said. "That is if it won't be causing any inconvenience?" I added questioningly. "None at all," he said cheerily. "Nothing of this sort ever inconveniences me"--this latter with a glance at Moira. "So that's the game, is it, young man?" I said to myself. "Well, here's luck to you." Aloud I said, "I am pleased to hear it." The funny part of it all was that I really meant it. There was something open and honest about the man himself, there was a healthful glow in his dark eyes, and he had a way of looking at one that was the very essence of frankness itself. Without knowing more of him than I had learnt in the few minutes we had been conversing, I felt that he was as open as the day. In this case at least my first impressions were more than justified by the course of events. * * * * * Mr. Cumshaw stopped to tea and made himself very much at home, and afterwards he told us the story of the gold escort. I have not set out his tale as we heard it that evening. For one thing he only related what he happened to know about the matter, and as a result there were many little blanks he had to leave unfilled. But with the completion of our enterprise many additional facts have come to light, and so it is that, with Mr. Cumshaw's aid and at his suggestion, I give here a fuller and more comprehensive version of the affair than he related to us that evening. PART II. _THE ADVENTURES OF MR. ABEL CUMSHAW._ CHAPTER I. NIGHTFALL. Far away to the west the fiery globe of the setting sun dropped lazily down to rest behind the quaint goblin peaks of the Grampians. Its last lingering rays touched their summits with a crimson glow, flooded the valleys with garish light, and even penetrated into the recesses of the nearby woodlands until the whole place seemed to blaze as with the red fire of Hell. It was not a peaceful sunset; it did not even hold the promise of peace. It was alive and active, in the sense that light can live, and one could but feel that its potency was malignant and assured. There were clouds aplenty in the sky, light clouds looking as if they had been trailed through red ink, but there was nothing about them to suggest that a storm was brewing, or that even the slightest change in the weather could be expected. Nevertheless the air contained a hint of evil, so much so that an imaginative person would have peopled the hills with gnomes and the woods with devils. Even had fairies existed in the glades, one would have instinctively known them to be bad fairies. Yet one could not say offhand whence or from whom the evil that was to be, would originate; all earth and sky seemed somehow to be in the dread conspiracy. The lurid hues of the sunset flared and faded into the drabber colors of twilight, the shadows swept down in phalanxes from the hills, and the still lifeless trees, stirring in the evening breeze, became black mocking shapes of infamy. The yellow disc of a moon, climbing up over the woods, took on the semblance of the leering face of a drunken man. The two men who presently came riding along through the tangled fastnesses of what a couple of score years or more ago were the untenanted and, to a great extent, the unexplored depths of a Victorian forest, were very evidently unaffected by the grim fancies of the evening. They were not laughing certainly, and when they spoke it was in whispers, but the younger man hummed a music-hall tune under his breath. There was something rakish, not to say reckless, in the way the elder sat his mount. They went carefully, though, taking every possible precaution against making needless noise. Once the horse of the elder man stumbled and set a stone rolling down a declivity. Both men reined in instantly and listened until the echoes died away in the distance. "You're as nervous as a rabbit, Jack," the younger man remarked when presently they resumed their journey. "Every little sound seems to startle you." "There's no sense in taking chances, man," said the one called Jack. "If it comes to that there's no chances to take." "Only that of being caught and hanged, Abel." "There's not much hope of that," Abel Cumshaw replied. "Gentry like ourselves are rather out of fashion now since they've squashed the Kellys. The country's quietened down a lot, and a 'ranger's supposed to be a thing of the past. As it is, there's never been bushrangers in this part of the State, and what hasn't been is the least likely to happen in most people's estimation." "I'm with you there, Abel," Jack said. "But even that's no reason why we shouldn't go carefully. You must remember that we don't know this part of the State too well. That's the beauty of it, I suppose. Nobody knows it very much." "It'll make pursuit difficult," the other suggested. "But what I can't understand is why the banks should send so much gold across country when there's the railway." "The railway, friend Cumshaw, isn't the safest route. There's just as clever men working that as used to be working the stages. Moreover, this cross-country route's much the quicker way of the two." "For which we may thank the Lord," said Abel Cumshaw, with cheerful impiety. "Time enough to thank the Lord," the other retorted, "when we've finished the job successfully. All the same, I wish we had a pack horse." "If we had brought a pack-horse," said Cumshaw, "we'd have had half the country-side wondering what the deuce was up. Like as not they'd think there was a new gold-strike on." "And they wouldn't have been wrong in that," the other answered with grim humor. "But let's get to the business of the evening, Abel. I've got a good idea to put the pursuers off the scent, that is, if there's any pursuit." "Out with it, then," said Cumshaw. The elder man reined in his horse, and, leaning over, whispered in his companion's ear. As the tale proceeded a cheerful grin spread over Cumshaw's face. "That'll do fine," he said gleefully. "You almost make me wish they do pursue us just for the fun of seeing them fall in." "There's nothing to be gained by being foolhardy," the elder man warned him. "Now we can't afford to waste time. Let us get to work at once." Without more ado he led the way down through the tangle of forest and across the open glades until they reached the narrow track that wound like a monstrous brown ribbon through the enormous gums. At the edge of the road they both dismounted and tethered their horses to convenient trees. Then, stepping very gingerly, and taking extreme care not to leave any footprints on the dusty surface of the track, they groped about on the roadside. Presently they both returned to the horses, each of them carrying an armful of heavy stones which they loaded carefully into the enormous saddle-bags that dangled one on each side of the saddle-flaps. "That should about do it," Cumshaw remarked, when this was completed. "I hope so," the other answered curtly. He sprang to the saddle, loosed the reins that had tethered the animal, and setting his spurs deep into its flank galloped up the track for a matter of a hundred yards or so, closely followed by his companion. Then they turned sharply off into the bush, designedly traversing the soft impressionable ground. The heavily-laden horses floundered in the soft soil, and gradually the pace dropped away from a gallop to a canter, and finally to a walk. When nearly two miles of this sort of country had been covered, the two men reined in and dismounted. Next they unloaded the stones from the saddle-bags and hid them carefully in the undergrowth. Cumshaw then proceeded to cut his thick blanket into strips, each of about eighteen inches square. There were eight of these strips in all--four he kept himself and the others he handed to his companion. "It's a smart enough dodge, all right," the man remarked. "The only possible flaw in it is that there might be some gentleman present who's dealt with cattle-duffers in the past. If so, he'd be pretty sure to scent our little game, and block it." "Let's hope for the best," said Mr. Cumshaw, cheerfully, looking up from his work with a smile that even the darkness of the night could not hide. He was systematically wrapping the squares of blankets round the hoofs of his mount and securing them in such a way that they would remain fast even during a wild gallop over rough country. The trick itself was an old one; it had its origin many years previous in Texas and Arizona when the raiding Indians made their horses walk over blankets spread on the ground in order to hide the direction of their retreat. The idea had been adopted and developed by the Australian cattle-duffers to meet the exigencies of the country they worked in. The trick therefore was by no means a new one, and there was just a chance, as the man Jack remarked, that someone might drop to it. But the false hoof-prints were an unprecedented addition that would probably keep the pursuers long enough on the wrong scent to enable the precious pair to "escape" and "cache" their plunder. It was characteristic of the two men that once they had taken all precautions they quietly dismissed the matter from their minds and rode slowly back to the roadway with scarce a thought for the business in hand. Abel Cumshaw would have whistled had he dared; as it was he hummed softly to himself. The moon was now well up in the heavens, and its fitful light creeping through the leafy roof above, made gibbering ghosts of the swaying gums. Mr. Abel Cumshaw and his companion, Jack Bradby, had been brought up in the Australian bush, their nerves were as steady as a rock, and where others saw grim visions of fancy they saw only waving bushes and stripped gums. Though the present adventure was their first essay in ranging, both of them had lived by their wits, or rather by others' want of wits, for more years than were good for them. Singly or together they had run other people's sheep and cattle and made a lucrative, if dishonest, living at the game, and during their visits to the towns had made it a point of warped honor to pay their expenses with the ill-gotten gold of some duller fellow-creature. On top of it all they had a carelessness of life and a free hand with their easily-earned wealth that found them friends wherever they went. Bradby pulled up suddenly and held up his hand in warning to his companion. Some faint noise had caught his ear, and, excellent bushman that he was, he would not rest content until he had located and defined it. Silently as a shadow he slipped from his saddle and dropped recumbent on the ground. With one ear to the earth beneath he listened. He remained in this posture for perhaps a minute and a half, then he rose abruptly and turned to Mr. Cumshaw. "Horses," he said laconically. "Must be them," Mr. Cumshaw replied with almost equal brevity. Deftly, and without haste of any sort, each man knotted a red and white spotted handkerchief across the lower half of his face, leaving only the eyes and forehead visible. Then each tilted his hat so that the shadow thrown by the brim shrouded the uncovered portion of the face. Mr. Cumshaw, with the amazing simplicity of a conjurer, produced a pair of ugly-looking revolvers from apparent nothingness, while his companion slipped his holsters round so that his weapons were within easy and immediate reach. He did not, however, remount his horse, but threw the reins to Mr. Cumshaw, who draped them over his arm in such a way that they did not hamper his movements in the least. * * * * * The little group of horsemen, four, or perhaps five in all, clattered down the track as unsuspiciously as a man could wish. They were chatting quite easily, even joyously, of the thousand and one little matters that supplied their daily lives with interest, and nothing must have been further from their thoughts than what actually occurred. The bank that had sent them had departed from all precedent in parcelling out the gold amongst the messengers. It was certainly against the rather strict regulations of the bank, but the man who had instructed them had that contempt for rules and regulations which is the mark of a man destined to rise in the world. "The expense of sending you," he had said, "is certainly no greater than that of the recognised method of forwarding by coach. The security of my method is even greater as you are not at all open to suspicion." As a matter of fact, all would have gone well had not one of the chosen messengers been a little too fond of his nightly drink, and more or less inclined to talk when in his cups. True, on this particular evening he had exercised a kind of maudlin caution, but the tactics of Mr. Jack Bradby were of the sort to extract valuable information in the least noticeable way possible, and as a consequence the man, while keeping a strict guard of his tongue, at the same time let fall enough information to satisfy the curiosity of the 'ranger. The first intimation the little cavalcade had of the presence of the knights of the road was when a shadow moved out from behind a huge gum and a clear resounding voice invited them to halt or take the consequences. With one accord the riders pulled up, one man swore violently, and the hand of another dropped round to his belt in a hesitant manner. But Mr. Jack Bradby had eyes like an eagle, for he cried sharply, "Put your hands up instantly!" All the men shot their hands skywards with a precision that could not have been bettered by weeks of training. "You look ever so much better like that," said Mr. Jack Bradby pleasantly. "Just keep still. I'd hate to make corpses of any of you--you all look so much better alive." The humor of this was apparently lost on the captured ones, for they received it in silence, much to Mr. Bradby's disgust. "Laugh when I crack a joke!" he roared. "Laugh, all of you, damn you!" Somebody giggled in a half-hearted manner. "That's no sort of a laugh," snorted Mr. Bradby. "When I say laugh, I mean laugh. I don't want you to bubble like that jackass did." He indicated the giggler with one of his ugly-looking revolvers. "Now laugh altogether as if you meant it. One, two, three; off you go!" They all roared at that, but there was a lack of enthusiasm in their voices. Mr. Bradby, however, passed that over and proceeded to the business of the evening. "Now please keep your hands in the same position," Mr. Bradby continued. "You've got quite a lot of valuables in those saddle-bags of yours, and I'm going to annex them. And don't any of you move a hand or foot or you'll be shot before you can say 'Jack Robinson.' There's men in plenty in among those trees, so don't play any hanky-panky tricks if you value your lives." The scared horsemen with one accord glanced toward the trees that fringed the road. Mr. Bradby had stage-managed the affair with such consummate skill that they could only see the dim forms of several horses. The shadows were cast so that it was impossible to say how many there were; as far as the captives were concerned a regiment of cavalry might have been massed behind the trees for all they could say to the contrary. They had a feeling that unseen eyes watched them and invisible firearms covered their every movement. A solitary ray of moonlight, glinting for an instant on one of Cumshaw's revolvers lent color to this suggestion, so like wise men they surrendered to the inevitable and allowed the explosive Mr. Bradby to relieve them first of all of their weapons, and, when he had "drawn their teeth," as he succinctly expressed it, to rifle their saddle-bags for the little packages of gold that it was their mission to guard with their lives. Life at all times is dearer than gold, and the men realised that they were in a trap from which there was only one way of escape. They submitted meekly to their fate, saw the saddle-bags rifled without a word of protest, and, deceived by the shadows, watched what they took to be half a dozen men at least loading up with the gold. It speaks well for the dominant personality of Mr. Bradby that no one seemed to have suspected that only two men were concerned in the hold-up, despite the fact that they really only saw one man and the shadowy outline of another. "Turn round, all of you!" Mr. Bradby commanded when the transfer had been completed. "Turn round and keep your hands in the air!" Obediently, albeit clumsily, since they could not use their hands, the horsemen wheeled their mounts around, and Mr. Bradby surveyed the scene with satisfaction. "You all look nice from the rear," he remarked. "Some of you've got real fine backs. Just you keep like that now and see what the fairies'll send you." So silently that he might have been a disembodied spirit he turned on his heel, seized the reins Mr. Cumshaw threw him and vaulted into the saddle. As softly as two shadows the horses melted into the night, their muffled hoofs making no sound on the hard earth. Ten minutes later one of the horsemen, grown tired of the unearthly inaction and suspecting something of what had happened, slewed his head round very cautiously. In a flash he realised the position and imparted his discovery to his companions. "We can't follow them," the leader said. "We're unarmed. Furthermore we've got no idea which way they went. The only thing we can do is to get back to the nearest police station and report." The man who had first discovered the absence of the bushrangers had been employing his time in examining the ground for traces of the gang, and very shortly he came across the tracks that the precious pair had made earlier in the evening. An exclamation from him drew the others to the spot. By the flickering light of a match they inspected the hoof-marks, and then the leader of the party gave vent to a snort of disgust. "There's only two of them," he said. "What fools we've been!" "They completely took us in," remarked another member of the party. "That's so," agreed a third, "but we can't make people understand. If we tell them how two men stuck us up, we're going to look a lot of goats. I For one think we'd better keep the number to ourselves, or, better still, we might say that there was a big party of them." One or two demurred at this, but the bulk of the party knew well the ridicule that the truth would attach to them, and the result was that between them a story carrying the marks of probability was invented, and, thus armed against the laughter of the State, the party set out for the nearest town. In the meanwhile Bradby and Cumshaw had doubled back on their tracks and were heading for the Grampians. Though neither of them had explored the mountains before, they were quite satisfied from what they knew of the general formation of the country that there were gullies, even valleys, where an army might lie hidden. So confident were the two adventurers that there was no danger of pursuit that they did not press forward at anything like a reasonable speed. They took things easy. Somewhere about two o'clock in the morning they halted and removed the blanket-pads from their horses' hoofs. Mr. Cumshaw was just going to throw them into the bushes when Mr. Bradby stopped him. "Don't do that," he said, "we'd better destroy them outright." "How?" queried Abel. "Burn 'em, I should say," Mr. Bradby answered. "You make a good job of it, and you don't leave anything behind. If you throw them away someone's sure to find them just when it's most awkward for you. No, Abel, burn them and hurry up about it." So it came about that presently a tiny spot of light glowed like a red warning beacon from the lower slopes of the range. A lonely prospector, a few miles to the east, saw the spark and wondered at it. He knew that no one lived in that part of the country. The more he thought of it the more it puzzled him, though with the morning there came an unexpected solution. CHAPTER II. THE PURSUIT. A body of mounted troopers left Ararat an hour or so before daylight the next morning, and by seven o'clock had reached the scene of the robbery. They had with them a capable black tracker who had figured in recent events in the Wombat Ranges. He was a silent individual who answered to the name of "Jacky," a name that seems to be the heritage of all blacks who serve in the police force. He quickly picked up the false scent, and the party turned east. It wasn't until the horses stumbled over the heap of stones that some brilliant intellect dropped to the trick that had been played on them. Then, with the better part of an hour to the bad, the party returned to the starting-point of the trail. "Seems to me," the sergeant in charge remarked to his subordinate, "that they've laid this trail with a good reason. Now if a man wanted to put you on the wrong track, what would you think he'd naturally do?" "Send us in the opposite direction," said the other promptly. "Quite so," said the sergeant. "Now the false trail leads east, so it's only reasonable to suppose that they've gone west." "That's so," the other agreed. "Get-up, you brute." The latter remark was addressed to the horse, which showed an inclination to drop into a walk. "Here you, Jacky!" the sergeant called, and when the black came to him he said, "Those white men have gone this way," pointing westward. "Look out for their tracks, though I don't fancy we'll see any for some time." The black grunted non-committally. He had much the same idea himself, though he could not understand how the white man had guessed. Still he knew enough of the white men to realise that they were very, very clever, and sometimes found out things that even the black trackers did not understand. The black went back to his work in silence. Presently he grunted again. His quick eyes had noticed a grey woollen thread stamped into the earth. He lifted it gingerly up in his hand and held it out to the police. The sergeant took it, examined it carefully, and then, without any comment, handed it round to the others. There was no need to ask what it meant. All knew without being told that someone had lately passed that way, and who could that someone be unless one of the rangers? The black went back again to the trail, bending down close to the ground for all the world like a little dog following the scent of the chase. He turned sharply off into the bushes and the troop went after him. Here and there--wherever the earth had chanced to be a little softer than usual--one could see round depressions somewhat about the size of a saucer, and one patch of damp soil gave a remarkably clear imprint of the fibres of some material. "Clever chaps, by George!" the sergeant remarked. "They've got brains among them." "How's that?" queried one of the police. "They've tried the old duffers' dodge of blanketing the horses' hoofs. Sort of thing that works, too, unless a man happens to have his eyes well open. Luckily I've stumbled up against this sort of thing before." The other man, who had his own ideas about the matter, nodded his head, but otherwise made no comment. About ten o'clock the troopers debouched from the trees into a low-lying stretch of land. One could not call it a gully; it was more of a depression, a fault in the earth due to some local subsidence. On the nearest ridge a prospector's hut was perched, from the chimney of which a wisp of smoke ascended. When one of the mounted men dropped from the saddle and opened the door he found no one in charge, though a dinner was merrily simmering away on the fire. "Whoever he is he can't be far away," the sergeant commented. "He wouldn't leave his dinner unless he was handy. Have a look for him, boys. He might be able to tell us something." The men scattered in different directions down the depression, and presently a shout from one of them announced that the prospector had been found. He came toiling slowly up the slope, side by side with his discoverer. He was a small wiry man, with a heavy iron-grey beard, and his age, as well as one could guess, was something near to sixty. "You don't happen to have seen a body of men, horsemen, passing this way late last night or early this morning?" the sergeant queried. "Nobody passed this way last night," the man answered in a colorless voice. "Why?" "A gold escort was robbed yesterday evening," the sergeant said, "and we've got information that the robbers came this way." The man turned slowly and studied the lower slopes of the distant range. He saw, or seemed to see, something that interested him, and he stared so long that the sergeant said impatiently, "Well, what about it?" "I was just wondering," said the little man in the same colorless voice. "I was just wondering if that was them." "If who was?" the sergeant demanded. "Out with it, man, and don't keep us waiting all day." "Last night," said the man distinctly, "there was a fire up on those ranges. It wasn't a bush-fire. I know a bush-fire. It was just a tiny little glow from here. I thought it was a fire showing through the open door of a hut, until I remembered that nobody lived up there. It didn't last long; it must have burnt out in ten minutes or so, so I knew that it was started by some traveller. It wasn't a camp-fire and they weren't cooking anything." "How do you know that?" the sergeant said quickly. "How do I know that?" the little man repeated slowly. "It's easy enough. The fire was only alight ten minutes at the most, and you can't cook anything or boil a billy in that time, I know." "The old chap's right," one of the troopers said in an undertone to his superior. The sergeant nodded. He turned again to the old prospector. "You're sure you didn't see anyone pass this way?" he queried. "No, I'm not sure," said the man. "I'm only saying that I didn't hear anyone." "What do you mean by saying you're not sure that you didn't see anyone?" the sergeant asked curiously. "When there's shadows in the trees," said the old man, "there's times when you can't tell whether they're men or not. That's what I mean. I'm only saying that I didn't hear anyone. I'd have heard horses." "The man's a hatter," the sergeant remarked as the troop galloped off towards the ranges. "As mad as a March hare." The other grinned cheerfully. "Still there's a lot in what he said," he answered. "Now that about the fire----" "I wonder why they lighted it," the sergeant cut-in. "Don't know," the other said. "What's the sense of worrying anyway? We'll know soon enough. But don't you think we should have brought the old chap along with us?" The sergeant shook his head. "What'd be the good?" he said. "He couldn't do any more than he's done already." He swung round in his saddle and faced the troop. "Now, men," he said, "we've got to put our best foot foremost. Those 'rangers are somewhere ahead of us, making for the mountains. Keep your eyes skinned, for you never know the minute we'll catch up to them. They can't have such a big start of us, and they're heavily loaded at that." The troopers unslung their carbines and examined the loading, then, satisfied that every preparation had been made, they set spurs to their horses and cantered up the track that led to the ranges. It was Mr. Abel Cumshaw who first discovered the pursuers. Early in the afternoon the two men commenced to ascend the mountains proper. Just before they disappeared into the belt of timber that fringed the slopes the younger man turned in his saddle and cast one last backward glance at the valley they had left beneath them. Far away below them, in among the misty shapes of the distant trees, he caught a glimpse of a collection of dark little dots whose unfamiliar look puzzled him. He called Mr. Bradby's attention to them, and that gentleman glanced at them in an offhand way and pronounced them to be kangaroos. "Come on," he added in a different tone. "Hurry up with you there!" Mr. Cumshaw had no intention of moving until he was fully satisfied in his own mind that the little black dots were really kangaroos. Something seemed to whisper that they weren't. "They're not kangaroos," he said with conviction. He had caught the glint of sunlight on metal, a brass button of a man's uniform, or perhaps the polished barrel of a carbine. "Oh," said Mr. Bradby, "so you've tumbled." "They're police," Mr. Cumshaw stated. "That's what they are." "Didn't you know that, Abel? I guessed it as soon as I saw them. I'd never confuse a trooper with a kangaroo. I only said that to--well, I didn't want to scare you unnecessarily." "You needn't be afraid of that," said Mr. Cumshaw airily. "I'm in the game for good or ill, and I'm taking all risks equally with you. It's as much my funeral as yours." "It doesn't matter whose funeral it is," Jack Bradby said impatiently. "We've got to get away and do it smart. You must remember that neither of us knows anything at all about this country, and it's ten to one that those infernal police have got a black tracker or some other imp of Satan who'll be able to follow us, even if we left as little trace as so many flies." "Where are we heading for anyway?" Abel Cumshaw enquired as he spurred his horse alongside his companion's. "That's more than I can say," Bradby retorted. "If we'd had any gumption we'd have explored the place before we took on this last job. But we hadn't the time, and that's all there is to say about it. It's my impression that this section of the State is as full of hiding-places as ever the Blue Mountains or the Wombats were. If we only keep up this spurt of ours we'll make a gully or a valley where we can hide for months without a soul being a whit the wiser." "I hope so," said Cumshaw, in the manner of a man who has very grave doubts. "Hold your breath for your work," Mr. Bradby advised. "You might need it all yet." They had made good headway by this, and the path that they had picked out took them every hour deeper into the unexplored heart of the country. On every side of them stretched the unbroken fastnesses of the primeval wilderness, sheer precipices dropping suddenly into infinite space, jagged peaks towering dizzily into the misty vault of heaven, quaintly situated valleys so masked by timber and brushwood that one came across them only by accident. There is something in the naked face of Nature, in the sheer magnificence of incredible heights and the marvellous massiveness of big timber that somehow dwarfs man into insignificance and makes him realise the puniness of his strength. There was something in the scenes now opening up before the rangers that subdued them and beat them into silence. There was beauty in the sight, the soft eternal beauty of an unravished land, but over and above that was the suggestion that the travellers were fighting not merely against their kind but against the untrammelled forces of an all-powerful wilderness. The time was early December, and the golden wattle in full bloom. From end to end the ranges were a blaze of color, near at hand deep gold, fading away in the distance into that hazy blue-grey peculiar to Australian mountains. Hour by hour the men rode on in silence, at times galloping down the slopes, at others crawling slowly and painfully up hills that stretched apparently to heaven, hills that yet dropped suddenly into space when one had almost given up all hope of ever reaching the summit. They had lost all sight of the pursuers, though once Bradby caught a glimpse of smoke far away to the east, smoke that he fancied came from the mid-day fire of the troopers. They halted at sunset in the shadow of a clump of red gums and made the first meal since morning. As a result of a hurried consultation they decided to press on until midnight. But the horses were wearied with the rough and constant travelling, and it took the better part of two hours for them to cover a little under three miles. "They've got to have a rest and so have we," Bradby said finally. "The pace is killing, and I'm quite satisfied that the police are taking it fairly easy. We've got scared over nothing. They might not even be on our track. At any rate I suggest we finish for the night and get what sleep we can." Abel Cumshaw raised no objection to this--as a matter of fact he was almost falling from his mount out of sheer saddle-weariness--so a halt was called, the horses were unsaddled, the men unrolled their blankets and settled down to slumber just as the silver ghost of the moon flooded the place with its cool white light. It was broad daylight when they awoke, and the sun was already high up in the heavens. "Somewhere about nine or ten o'clock," Cumshaw guessed. "We've slept in, Jack." Bradby ruefully admitted that this was so, but excused it on the ground that they would be better fitted for the day's work. "I'm hanged if I like this game," Cumshaw growled as they made a meagre breakfast on almost the last of their rations. "The food's running short, and it's only a matter of time until they wear us down. You know what it means for us, Jack, if they catch us with the gold. Now I've got an idea, and if we carry it out I see a chance of escaping scot-free. The gold's weighing us down, so what we've got to do is to get rid of it." "You're surely not going to throw it away after all we've gone through," said Bradby, aghast at the proposal. "No, I'm not," Cumshaw told him. "What I suggest is that we hide it somewhere handy, make a note of the spot, and then clear out of this particular section for a time. We can easily keep afloat for a couple of months, and when the hue and cry has died down, we can come back and dig it up at our leisure. We'll gain nothing by sticking to it now and we'll run a chance of losing everything." "Not a bad idea," Bradby agreed. "But the trouble's to find a suitable spot." "We passed dozens of such places already, Jack. We're just as likely to strike something as good or even better during the course of the day. The whole country-side is honeycombed with hiding-places; it's like a rabbit-warren." "There's nothing like being an optimist," Bradby said. "Have it your way, Abel. Now the sooner you find some nice secure little spot the better for us, I'm thinking. For one thing the food's running short, as you just remarked, and for another I don't intend keeping up this dodging game for ever. We can't last; they'll wear us down." "That's supposing they don't get tired and go home," said the cheerful Mr. Cumshaw. "Not much chance of that," Mr. Bradby retorted. "I only wish they would." During the morning Bradby's horse developed lameness, and, though the two men slackened the pace in order to give it every chance, by mid-day it could barely limp along. "This won't do," said Bradby in despair. "We're losing time we can ill afford. All the same this old crock'll have to struggle on until nightfall, and then we'll see whether we'll have to shoot it." "I don't like shooting a horse," Cumshaw remarked. "It's like murder." Bradby's only answer was a muttered oath. The trials of the Journey were bringing out the worst side of the man, a side that Cumshaw had never seen before. He eyed his companion thoughtfully. If the wilderness was to get on Bradby's nerves at this early stage, Cumshaw could see that there was likely to be very serious trouble before the end came. The air in the highlands was laden with a freshness which, while it stung the men to action, at the same time put a keen edge on their tempers. Both of them were children of the warm, sun-kissed lowlands, and the difference of even a few degrees of temperature had a remarkable effect on them. With Abel Cumshaw it was such as to send a warm glow into his cheeks; the cold bite of the air made his blood sparkle like new wine and urged him on to fresh efforts. It affected Mr. Bradby in another and a worse way. He became sullen, and there was a certain marked vindictiveness in the way he spurred his lame horse on to exertions that were plainly too much for it. Once or twice Abel was on the point of remonstrating with him, but for the sake of peace he held his tongue and waited, in the hope that the day would bring forth some measure of relief. But nothing happened that morning, and the hope died within him. Late that day, when the pace had slowed down almost to a crawl, they stumbled across the place by the simplest kind of accident. They had been dropping down to lower levels the greater part of the day, and somewhere about three o'clock in the afternoon--they were not quite sure of the hour, since the sun was masked by the trees--they found themselves in what looked like a narrow gully. Both sides of it were lined with thick bushes of golden wattle that shut out all view on either hand. There were shadows galore in this narrow gully, and the place itself looked almost as dark as the entrance to the Pit. Cumshaw, who had a classical education and had not been able to forget it, any more than the fact that he had once been a gentleman, murmured under his breath. "What's that?" Bradby asked sharply. Cumshaw repeated his quotation. "Facilis est descensus Averno," he said. "What does that mean?" Bradby enquired, in the tone of a man who imagines he is being insulted in a language he does not understand. "It's easy to go to hell," Cumshaw translated. Bradby shot one sharp curious glance at him, but made no comment on what he had said. They rode on in silence. Presently they came to a patch of ground that had been broken by the wind or the rain, or perhaps both together. The shadows so fell that the travellers did not realise the treacherous nature of the soil until they were right in the middle of it. Cumshaw's horse floundered and would have fallen on its knees had he not reined in sharply. This caused him to cannon into his companion's mount. Bradby pulled back sharply, in some way jarring his animal's sore leg as he did so. It reared up on its haunches with the pain, and in the most approved manner bucked its rider off. He shot up in the air, described a beautiful half-circle, and sailed through the barrier of wattle like a human projectile. Cumshaw slipped off his horse with the quickness of thought. He had enough presence of mind to tether both his own and Bradby's mount, and then he cautiously parted the bushes. For the moment he could see nothing but a great wall of golden blossoms, and then out of the depths came Bradby's furious voice. He was cursing the horse and the slope and everything and everyone within hearing in the simple and forceful fashion of the Australian bushman. Cumshaw called to him and was answered with an oath. "Where are you?" he repeated. "Down here," said the voice, this time modifying its language. "Step carefully or you'll come a cropper." Mr. Cumshaw pulled the bushes apart and found that he was standing on the verge of a sheer descent. "Mind your eye," said the voice of the still invisible Mr. Bradby. "I've found the very place we've been looking for." CHAPTER III. THE HIDDEN VALLEY. Abel Cumshaw caught at the bushes to save himself from slipping and turned a curious eye on the scene before him. Really there wasn't very much for him to see. Bradby had fallen into a miniature valley so small that it looked like the creation of a child. The place was heavily timbered, and almost all definable features were masked beneath the trees. Abel saw even in the first glance that here was just that ideal hiding-place for which they had been searching. Softly and cautiously he commenced to descend. The slope was slippery with green grass, and he finished the last few yards with a run. He came down amongst a lot of bracken and fern, and suffered no worse harm than the shock of a sudden stoppage. Mr. Bradby, he saw, was sitting almost buried in a mass of bracken, and looking much cheerier than his recent utterance would seem to suggest. "Are you hurt?" Cumshaw asked him. He held out a helping hand. Mr. Bradby struggled to his feet and smiled at his questioner. "Hurt? No," he said. "Only surprised. Why, Abel, here's the very place we want. We could hide here for years, and they could be scouring the country for us, and them not a penny the wiser. That tumble of mine was just the luckiest thing imaginable. You talk about falling into hell! Why, man, we've fallen into heaven, and if we don't make the best use we can of the place we're the biggest duffers alive." "How are we to get the horses down here?" queried the practical Mr. Cumshaw. Mr. Bradby eyed the slope down which he had come so precipitately, and then pursed up his lips. "It don't look so easy from here," he said at length. "And from what I can see this place is walled in all round." "Whether it is or not," said Cumshaw, "we've got to get those horses down, and get them down at once." "But how?" "That's what we've got to find out," said Cumshaw. And with that he commenced to climb up the slope again. It was hard work, much harder than coming down, but in the end he managed it. When he reached the top he turned, to find that Bradby was almost at his heels. He surveyed the place with the eye of a trained bushman; then he said, "We can manage it, Jack. It's a case of sliding them down, but once we get them started they'll go right enough." "We'll give it a try," said Mr. Bradby. His usual good humor was fast re-asserting itself now that they had reached a haven of comparative safety, and he was ready to try any scheme that promised even the smallest chance of success. Without wasting any further words on the matter the two men scrambled through the bushes and made their way towards the horses. The lame animal had quite recovered from its fright, and suffered its owner to lead it up the slight rise to the wattles, though there it drew back as if conscious of the drop beneath. But by dint of prodding and coaxing Bradby forced it through the crackling brush, and then, with a wild whinny of fear, it lost its footing and slid down the slope in an avalanche of grass and twigs. Cumshaw's mount made the descent in fine style, and the two men followed. "Now," said Bradby, when they stood once more on level ground, "the further we get into this timber the better, I say. I don't suppose any passer-by would be likely to notice that we've come down here, do you?" "All things considered," Mr. Cumshaw said slowly, "we've made little mess. We've got to thank that grassy slope for that. If it had been dry earth there'd have been tracks enough in all conscience. Yes, I think we can reasonably say that we've no need to fear anything--unless accidents." As near as they could judge the valley was about a mile across at its widest, but it merged so gently into the further side of the ranges that it was almost impossible to say exactly. The wood grew thicker as the men advanced, until presently it was with difficulty that they could make their way forward. "Getting pretty close," Bradby said at length. Cumshaw nodded. He was too busy thinking over certain little peculiarities of the wood to take much notice of his companion's remarks. His quick eye had seen little cuts in the trees, bits of bark that had been chipped off here and there, and the sight set him wondering. The cuts were curiously like the blazing of a trail. They were regular, they were all about the same height on the tree-trunks, and they looked as if they had been made with an axe, not the crude stone weapon of an aborigine, but the sharp steel axe of a white man. Yet the place seemed deserted, and in all the air was that sense of utter desolation and absence of life that only those who have lived close to Nature can feel and understand. "We're not the first here," Cumshaw said suddenly. Bradby turned on him in alarm. "What d'y' mean?" he asked indistinctly. "Some of the trees are blazed," Cumshaw pointed out. "The cuts are clean, and that means they've been done with an axe. But they're all weather-worn, so it must have been some time ago." "I don't like the look of it all the same," Bradby said despondently. "It means that someone else has stumbled on this place--it doesn't matter much whether it was yesterday or ten years ago--and what has been done before will almost certainly be done again. If those troopers come this way----" "What's the good of crossing the bridge before you come to it?" Cumshaw interrupted. "We've been lucky so far, and who's to say our luck won't hold out till the end?" "It's the end I'm looking at," Bradby said gloomily. "It might be the sort of end neither of us'd fancy." Mr. Cumshaw made no immediate reply. He was peering very intently through the boles of the trees as if he was not quite sure that what he saw was really there. "What are you looking at?" Bradby demanded irritably. "If that's not a bit of a clearing and a hut on the edge of it, I'm a lunatic," Abel Cumshaw said. "Hell!" ejaculated Bradby, and he in his turn peered through the trees. "There's no smoke coming from it," Cumshaw said comfortingly. "It looks deserted. I daresay it's been like that for years." "I don't like this place," Bradby remarked with naive irrelevance. "It fair gives me the creeps. There's spooks about here." "If you talk that way," said Cumshaw fiercely, "I'll put a bullet through you. That sort of talk's only fit for children. You're not a child. You ought to have more sense. There's things here doubtless that you and I don't understand, but they're quite capable of a rational explanation, so don't go digging up any stuff about ghosts until you find you can't explain them any other way. There's the hut in front of us, and either there's someone in it or there isn't. If there is, we've got to use our wits; if there isn't, the game's ours." "Have it your own way," said Bradby. "I'm game enough when I know what I'm tackling. I only mentioned I didn't like the feel of the place, and I don't see that that gives you any call to say what you have." "We'll call it off until we've investigated," Cumshaw replied. "You stay here with the horses, and I'll creep forward a bit and see if anyone's home. All the same, I'm willing to bet that the place's deserted." "Maybe it is and maybe it isn't," suggested Bradby. "However, you go off as you say and I'll wait here for you." Abel Cumshaw threw the reins to his companion, slid his revolver holsters round to the front within easy reach, should he need the weapons they contained, and slipped through the trees with the silence of a marauding tom-cat. Bradby watched him with some misgiving. No man could say with certainty just what secret the dilapidated hut held, and Bradby's state of mind was such that he took the gloomier view of the situation. He would not have been very much surprised to see half a dozen troopers issue from the hut. He would have taken it as the inevitable ending of such an adventure. He failed to understand the natural cheerfulness with which Cumshaw faced the situation. He was bright and volatile enough himself when dealing with the ordinary man--his courage was of that average quality that is always at its best when exercised before an admiring or frightened audience--but the abnormal brought home to him his own futility of purpose and his natural helplessness. While realising all this he was not man enough to rise above and overcome the limitations of his spirit. Cumshaw swung round the corner of the hut and out of sight. Then it was that Bradby began to feel absolutely deserted, and the queer oppressiveness of the place descended on him as one shuts down the lid of a box. He was not the type of man who finds companionship in animals, and the nearness of the horses in nowise mitigated his fear. For he was afraid, unashamedly afraid, though of what he could no more have said than he could fly. He knew without understanding how the knowledge came to him that the valley was filled with the ghosts of dead things, dead trees, dead leaves, and perhaps dead hopes. His nerve was going; the intolerably close atmosphere of the wood brought little beads of perspiration out on him, and when he brushed his forehead with a trembling hand he was surprised to find it wet. The horses stirred uneasily, and the lame animal gave a low whinny. Then in the next instant the eternal silence of the valley was broken by a human voice. The suddenness of it startled Bradby, and it wasn't until he saw Cumshaw waving to him that he realised that the sound he had heard was his companion's "Coo-ee." He loosed his hold on the reins, allowing the two horses to wander where they might, and commenced to run towards the hut. Even as he ran his faculties collected themselves, and when he reached the corner of the hut he was almost his own man again. Cumshaw eyed him curiously as he pulled up. "Startled you a bit, didn't I?" he said. "I thought something had happened to you when I heard you call," Bradby answered, a trifle untruthfully. "Don't you worry about me," Cumshaw said with affected unconcern, though something in the man's nervous tone troubled him in a way he could not define. "I've found the old chap who made the marks on the trees," he ran on. "Where?" Bradby demanded. But he looked towards the hut-door apprehensively. "He's in there," Cumshaw said, following the other's glance, "but there isn't anything to worry about. He's as dead as a door-nail." "Dead," Bradby repeated dazedly. Cumshaw nodded. "This many a day," he said in semi-explanation. "But come in and see what there is to be seen." As if perfectly sure of his companion's acquiescence he turned and walked into the hut. After a moment's hesitation Bradby followed. The place smelt a trifle musty, and all the air was full of the subtle reek of decay. It was rather dim in the hut, and at first Mr. Bradby could see nothing but some indefinite shapes that might be anything at all. Gradually his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, and in the farthest corner he spied a rough bed of planks. "That's him," said Mr. Cumshaw irreverently, and stirred something with his foot. Mr. Bradby looked a little closer this time. The something that Cumshaw had stirred turned out to be the whitened skeleton of a man. The hideous thing about it was that it was not stretched out on the plank bed; it was propped up, as if the man had died while sitting. A rusted gun lay in line with the thing's left thigh, and Bradby, following the muzzle with a trained eye, saw that it was pointed at the man's head. "Suicide," said Cumshaw. "Look at his head. He's blown out what little brains he had." He was right. The frontal bones of the skull were shattered and twisted by the force of the charge; they gave the rest of the face a ghastly, leering look which turned Bradby physically sick. The other man was evidently troubled by no such qualms, for he loosened the gun from the bony hand that had clung to it so desperately through all those years, and tumbled the skeleton itself on to the plank bed. "I'm going outside," said Mr. Bradby suddenly, and disappeared through the doorway with suspicious alacrity. Mr. Cumshaw laughed softly. "Weak stomach," he murmured. "Well, someone's got to clear this old chap out, and, as it's certain to be me, I might as well do it first as last." At that he gathered the white, clean-picked bones up in his arms, carried his burden through the doorway, and deposited it carefully on the grass outside the hut. His eye lighted on Mr. Bradby, who was sitting on the ground some distance away, looking very pale, and having all the appearance of a man who had reluctantly parted with his lunch. "What the deuce are you doing?" he asked in tones that betrayed a certain amount of trepidation not unmixed with vague horror. "Evicting the late tenant," Mr. Cumshaw grinned with cheerful inconsequence. "Why?" There was more than a question in the quick monosyllable. It contained also a hint of protest. "Because we're going to camp inside the hut, and two's company and three's more of a crowd than I like. This old chap can stop out here for the night; I don't suppose he'll mind it much. If he's gone to the Abode of the Blessed he'll be above worrying over such mundane matters, and if he's anywhere else he'll be too much occupied to do anything but attend to the burnt spots." "You shouldn't speak like that of the dead," Bradby said solemnly. "It's not right." "If we stopped to consider whether a thing was right or wrong before we did it," Cumshaw retorted, "you and I wouldn't be here this evening. If you're wise, you'll leave all that talk till morning. The shadows are closing in, and we'll have the night on us before we know where we are. I'd suggest that we catch the horses while the light's still good. You must remember they've got those saddle-bags on them still. Of course, there's just enough food to make a meal for a pair of small-sized tom-cats, but I fancy we'll manage on it till morning. Who knows what we may find then? Perhaps a kangaroo, or at the worst a native-bear." Bradby rose reluctantly to his feet, and, with a nervous glance at the remains of the unknown, followed his partner in crime. The horses had not strayed far; they were busily cropping the grass, and seemed quite content with their lot. The two men unloaded the saddle-bags and carried the contents into the hut. Then they hobbled the horses and turned them loose for the night. The shadows were gathering in by this, and already the trees were full of misty shapes that had no relation to fact. The bulk of the hills shut out the last rays of the sun, though the western sky was still faintly tinged with crimson. Just as they entered the hut Cumshaw paused for a moment and ran his eye over the scene. The place seemed peaceful enough, but he had that queer sense of the bushman, a sense almost amounting to an instinct, that told him that there was trouble ahead. He shook the feeling off almost immediately and entered the hut. Bradby, despite his dislike of the conglomeration of bones on the grass outside, lingered a second or so longer. There was a light in the eastern sky, perhaps a faint reflection of the glow of the dying day, that lit up the hump of the nearest hill. It was practically bare of vegetation; only a solitary tree stood a lone sentinel on its very summit, showing black against the horizon. The thought that sprung into Bradby's mind at that was that here was a landmark which there could be no possibility of mistaking. Already certain plans were germinating in his brain, and he saw, or fancied he saw, a way of turning this latest discovery to practical use. The bleached bones in front of him, too, became a means to an end, and, with the smile of a man who sees the way suddenly made clear, he too entered the hut in his turn. Cumshaw was busily engaged in laying a fire in the centre of the hut, taking care, however, that its glow would not show through the open doorway. He looked up as Bradby entered and said, "I think we're safe in starting a fire here. It can't be seen by anyone crossing the hills, though there isn't much likelihood of that, and all the smoke we make won't do us any harm. There's always a certain amount of mist in a place like this, and a man a mile away wouldn't be able to tell the difference." "Go ahead," said Mr. Bradby quietly. "You know what you are doing." The compliment in the last remark was desperately like an insult, but Cumshaw did not seem to notice anything out of the way, for he bent down to his work and whistled cheerfully while he coaxed the fire into a blaze. Presently it was burning brightly, the billy was filled with water from the water-bottle, and tea was in a fair way of being prepared. "Great place, this," Cumshaw said presently. "Great place," Mr. Bradby assented. "A man can die here without anyone being any the wiser." Mr. Cumshaw made no reply to that, but the corners of his mouth tightened as if he suspected some hidden meaning beneath that smooth remark. CHAPTER IV. WHEN THIEVES FALL OUT. Just as the first rays of the rising sun slanted into the hut Mr. Bradby stirred uneasily, threw out one arm, rolled over on his side, and in an instant was wide-awake. He sat up abruptly and gazed around. Abel Cumshaw was still sleeping peacefully, his head pillowed on the saddle-bags that contained the plunder. Mr. Bradby smiled grimly at the sight. Softly, without waking his companion, he rose from his rough bed and glided to the open doorway. He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh morning air. The sun was just coming up behind the solitary tree that had so interested him the previous evening, and he noticed that from his position in the dead-centre of the doorway the sun and the tree were right in line. Again that curious, humorless smile flickered about the corners of his mouth. He stood meditating for a minute or so, then, with an assumption of carelessness that he did not feel, began pacing due east. He had not taken half a dozen strides before he turned at right angles to his previous course, and just as nonchalantly continued his stroll northward. This time he covered about double the distance, then stopped short and scratched a cross on the ground with the toe of his boot. When he returned to the hut Abel Cumshaw was just getting up. "Hallo, Jack," he greeted Bradby. "Been stirring long?" "No," said Bradby shortly. Then, perhaps fancying his tone was a little too abrupt, he continued, "I've just been for a bit of a tour round." "What do you think of the place?" Cumshaw asked casually. But he did not look up at his mate; he kept his eyes studiously on the ground. "Just the sort of place we could make our headquarters," said Bradby, with an enthusiasm that even the forced restraint of his tone could not hide. "I don't think we'll have much need of headquarters once this is over and done with," Cumshaw hinted. "Maybe not," Bradby replied. Cumshaw turned to the plank bed and lifted up the saddle-bags, one in each hand. "Don't you think we should get rid of these?" he remarked. "I'd almost forgotten about them," Bradby answered with an assumed indifference. "Yes, we'll 'tend to them as soon as we've had something to eat." "While you're talking about something to eat," Cumshaw told him, putting the bags down again, "I'd like to remind you that we're right on the last of the tucker. There's just enough flour for the day." "I wouldn't worry about that," Bradby said. "There's sure to be plenty of game about in a thickly-wooded country like this." Cumshaw nodded and dropped on his knees beside the embers of the evening's fire. In a few moments he was busy coaxing them into a blaze. Bradby stood behind him, watching the sweep of his shoulders with calculating eyes. Once his hand strayed almost unconsciously towards his revolver, then, with a gesture, half of horror, half of dismay, at the significance of his action, he twisted on his heel and strode to the door. He turned then, blocking the light with his figure, so that his face was just a black expressionless mask. "It wouldn't be a bad idea," he suggested, "if I looked about for a likely spot to bury that stuff." "Go ahead," said Cumshaw coolly, as if it were the most natural suggestion in the world. Without further parley Bradby walked over to the spot he had marked earlier in the morning. Bending down, he commenced to dig in the soft soil with the point of his sheath-knife. The ground was easily enough worked, and in less than half an hour he had excavated a hole of close on to three feet in depth. He deepened it another six inches or so, and then stood up with a smile of the utmost complacency on his face. "Nice spot you've chosen," said a voice at his elbow. He started at the sound. He had not heard Cumshaw approach, and the idea that his mate could come and go in such absolute silence filled him with dismay. Already the gold fever had seized hold of him and made him suspicious of every untoward move. Perhaps he fancied that some similar plan to his own was evolving in Cumshaw's brain. "Yes, it is a nice spot," he answered. "It's easy enough to find once you know where it is, but it isn't the kind of place a stranger would blunder on." Cumshaw eyed the hole in the ground, and then looked towards the hut, as if taking his bearings. Bradby noticed him and interposed hastily, "I've got the measurement of the place. Have you a piece of paper I can write it down on?" Cumshaw ran hastily through his pockets. "I haven't a bit," he declared. "Neither have I," said Bradby. "However, we'll have to keep it in our heads. It's just ten feet from here to the hut-door." "It doesn't look it," Cumshaw said promptly. "It doesn't," his mate agreed. "But distance is deceptive here. How's the meal going?" "Just about ready," Cumshaw told him. "I came to call you." The two men walked side by side to the hut. At the entrance Cumshaw paused. "Nearer fourteen than ten," he said thoughtfully. "Very likely," said Bradby indifferently. "What about that meal? I'm as hungry as a hunter." They were on short commons. Bradby ate heartily, remarking once that there'd be food enough to go round to-morrow. Cumshaw laughed and said he hoped so, but that to-morrow was a day that never came to some people. Bradby absently ignored the challenge in Cumshaw's reply and kept silence for the rest of the time. After breakfast the two of them took the saddle-bags down to the hole, placed them inside, and then stamped the earth tightly down on top of them. "Now that's done," said Bradby, with an air of relief, "the sooner we get out of here the better." "How about old bones over there?" Cumshaw said, pointing to the skeleton. "Better sling him into the bushes," Bradby suggested, all his superstitious fears vanishing now that it was broad daylight. "Poor old sinner," said Cumshaw as he lifted up the remains in his strong arms. "It might just as easily be one of us." "Don't talk like that!" Bradby cried. "It's tempting Providence." "You and I, Jack, have tempted that same all the days of our lives, and we're likely to keep on until the end, so why growl about this particular incident?" Bradby muttered something unintelligible, and Cumshaw, who was all for haste now that their work was finished, did not ask him to repeat his remark. Both horses had cropped their fill of grass, and the lame one seemed slightly better. Its limp was not so pronounced and the swelling had gone down. "It's out of the question getting them out the way we got them in," Cumshaw said. "I wonder if there's any other way." "Nothing like having a try," Bradby advised. "That darned old hermit must have come in some way, and I don't reckon it was the way we came in. If I was you I'd try over there towards the west. The hills look low enough." So they turned off at right angles to their path and presently were edging their way through the wood again. As Bradby had surmised, the ground rose steadily, though it was very rough. Big boulders lay about the ground amongst the trees, which were thinning off. Soon they emerged on to what was open country, and speedily found themselves right under a ledge of rock which rose sheerly above their heads to a height of twenty or thirty feet. "Blocked!" said Bradby savagely. "No," said Cumshaw in a tone that implied he refused to acknowledge defeat. "There must be some way out, Jack, and I'm going to look until I find it. Here, you take charge of the horses and I'll fossick out something." He was gone for ten minutes, ten long minutes that Bradby occupied in cursing the valley in particular and the rest of the world in general. Then there came a cry from the height above him, and, looking up, he saw Abel Cumshaw waving to him. Next instant the man disappeared and a few seconds later swung down through the rocks. "It's no use," he said. "We can't take the horses out here. We'll just have to leave them. A man can crawl up through a sort of funnel in the wall of the rock, but you'd want a sling to get the horses along." "Can't we go back and try the way we came in?" Cumshaw shook his head decisively. "No," he said. "It won't do to risk it. They just tumbled down yesterday when we brought them, but you must remember that we had to cling on with our hands and feet when we went back. We'll have to jettison the horses." "You said it was murder yesterday when I suggested shooting them," Bradby reminded him. "We had a chance of saving them then," Cumshaw argued, "but now it's either them or us. If we turn them loose, the police'll find them sooner or later. If we shoot them, it's over and done with, and even if anyone does wander in here by accident he's not going to come this way. If we let them roam about the valley, they naturally go over to the other side where the grass is, and the first fool that blundered in would see them and begin to wonder how they got there. You never want to give the other man food for thought, Jack. Once he starts thinking, it's only a matter of time until he noses out everything." "Shoot the horses, Abel, and have done with it. I'm sick and tired of talking. It's high time we did something." The horses were shot then and there as the easiest way out of it, and when the echoes had died away the two men crawled cautiously up the funnel-like opening in the rock. Footholds were precarious enough, but by dint of hanging on by teeth and claw the partners at length forced their way to the top and stood on the ledge that overhung the valley. Across the smoky sea of timber they caught sight of the long line of golden wattle through which they had broken their way the previous evening. It occurred to both in almost the same instant that no man would be very likely to blunder in by chance. The place was securely hidden from view on three sides at least, and on the fourth, the side where they now stood, the approach was so difficult and, as they learnt later, dangerous that a man must have some very good reason for attempting it. Cumshaw it was who first put his thoughts into words. "I can't help thinking," he said, "that the old chap must have come over from this side. Most likely he was dodging someone." "I wouldn't be surprised at that," said the other. "I don't think he'd have found the other way in a month of Sundays. However, let's get along. We'll have to make haste now we're without horses, What's it to be? Riverina or Adelaide?" "I favor the Riverina," Cumshaw said. "I'm more familiar with the country, and they've got nothing against me up there." "Riverina it is then," Bradby agreed with a laugh. "All places are the same to me. I've no more liking for one than for another." So it came about that the valley faded away into the dim distance south of them, and presently they were toiling across the barrier of mountains that cuts Northern Victoria off from the rest of the State. The tragedy happened that evening. An hour or so before sunset they decided to camp hard by a little creek they had just discovered. Cumshaw, as usual, tended to the fire, and Bradby, after idling about for a while, suggested that he had better go hunting, in the hope of being able to obtain fresh meat for the meal. "All right," said Cumshaw. "Go ahead. But don't be any longer than you can help." "I'll be back as soon as I can," Bradby answered, and slipped into the shadows that were already gathering thick and fast. Abel Cumshaw worked away, whistling softly to himself the while. He was so busy doing one thing and another that it was not until darkness fell suddenly and completely on the scene that he realised how quickly time had passed. His first thought then was that Bradby was away much longer than he had any right to be. It occurred to him that Bradby might have gone much further than he intended and by some mischance had lost his way. He decided to wait a while longer, and then, if Bradby did not appear in the meantime, to go in search of him. But the time passed, the fire died away to red hot coals, and the shadows fell thickly on everything; but still Bradby did not come. At last Cumshaw rose swiftly to his feet in the manner of a man who has decided on the course he must take and means to stick to it unswervingly. With quick yet noiseless steps he stole through the trees, occasionally swinging a sharp glance to the left or right. But it was very dark in the woods, and it was impossible to tell shape from shadow. A regiment might have been hiding behind the boles of the trees without him being one whit the wiser. He had profound objections against shouting his whereabouts to his mate--his woods' instinct warned him never to reveal his presence unless there was no other way out--but he saw speedily enough that there was no other course left for him to take. He made a megaphone of his hands, and sent a long-drawn "Coo-ee" out to wake the echoes. The sound reverberated from the hills and died rumbling away in the hollows. For some seconds after that there was absolute silence, and then somewhere ahead of him he caught a very faint noise as of long grass rustling in the wind. But the air was absolutely devoid of motion. The sound puzzled Cumshaw; the very stealthiness of it convinced him that no animal had made it, yet he could not understand why Bradby should exercise such unnecessary caution. Then in an instant he knew. The black wall ahead of him was split by a pencil of flame, the silence of the forest crackled into sound, and the whip-like crack of a revolver echoed and re-echoed. A bullet whistled dangerously close to Cumshaw. He swore under his breath and tugged furiously at his own revolver. Bending almost double he sprinted towards the shelter of the nearest tree, while at the same instant the stranger's weapon cracked again. Something stung his ear. He put up his hand, and the warm blood spurted through his fingers. He compressed himself into the smallest possible space behind the tree and then fired in the direction of the last shot. He allowed a short interval to elapse and then fired again. The other man must have seen the flashes, but he made no attempt to answer them. The moment the first shot was fired Cumshaw realised, in a flash of intuition, that his assailant was none other than Jack Bradby. The knowledge made him extremely angry, for such black treachery was the last thing he had expected to have to contend with. He saw now that it was the old case of thieves falling out over the division of the spoils, and that Jack Bradby was determined to stop at nothing, even murder, in order to gain the whole of the plunder. He continued firing with a savage fury that boded ill for his late mate. The thing itself happened suddenly. One moment he was peering out into the darkness in an effort to locate his enemy; the next strong sinewy hands were around his throat choking the life out of him. With that clarity of vision that comes to a man perhaps once in a lifetime, he saw, even in the all-pervading darkness, the shadowy face that was pressed close to his own. The eyes that looked into his were dim pools of evil light, faintly phosphorescent like those of a cat, and the face that framed them was contorted into a malignant leer of triumph. That much he saw before the darkness crushed him out of existence and all things earthly faded from his vision. Bradby felt the man's body go limp in his arms, and he quickly thrust into its holster the revolver with which he had dealt the final blow. There was a steamy smell of blood on the thick, damp air, and when Mr. Bradby drew away his right hand he found it warm and wet. "Christ!" he said in a tone of fear, "I've killed him!" That was precisely what he had intended to do from the very first, but now his plan had apparently fructified, he felt a vague horror at the result of his handiwork. He opened Cumshaw's shirt and put his hand over the man's heart. He could not detect even the faintest flutter. Then swiftly, with many glances about him as he moved, he carried the body to the undergrowth and very gently laid it on the ground. But he failed to notice that as he bent down a flat piece of wood had slipped from the pocket of his shirt and had fallen soundlessly into the soft green grass at the side of Abel Cumshaw's body. Five minutes later silence reigned. Only the heavy scent of the wattle was mingled with another odor--the warm, sickly smell of freshly-shed blood. CHAPTER V. EXPIATION. Unaccountably enough Bradby went no further than the dying embers of the fire. His first act was to build a big blaze, for he was already becoming afraid. He could not define even to himself just what this fear was; it was not so much horror at what he had done as a feeling that his sins would yet find him out. Some strange attraction kept him close to the scene of the tragedy, and all night he sat by the fire with his head in his hands and his eyes staring at the ever-widening ring of white ashes. Towards morning he fell into a doze, but scarcely had the first rays of the sun penetrated through the leafy mantle of the trees than he was wide-awake. There were dark rings under his eyes, and the eyes themselves looked strangely tired and haggard. He glanced at his hands with a faint idea that something had been wrong with them the night before. He was disgusted to find that they were caked with dried blood, and a feeling almost akin to nausea shook his frame. He made all the haste he could to the creek and washed every speck of blood and dirt off, so that when he had finished his hands were clean and spotless. He shot a parrot for breakfast and made a gruesome meal off the raw flesh. There was nothing else to eat, for the flour had all been finished the previous day. After the morning's meal he brightened up and set off northward with a brisk stride. The money was safe enough in the valley for the present, he decided, and a couple of months in the Riverina would not only not do him any harm, but would allow the hue and cry time to die down. After that he would come back and get the gold, and this time there would be no question of division; it would be his, all of it. Now that the daylight had come he could think of the dark figure suddenly growing limp in his arms and the smell of fresh blood mixing with the scent of the wattles without the slightest misgiving. He had no fear of it; he certainly felt no remorse. The further he got from the scene of the murder, the lighter grew his spirits. He turned the situation over in his mind and found abundant satisfaction in it; his primitive logic told him that there was no evidence against him. * * * * * It is doubtful who was the most surprised, the troopers or Bradby when he stumbled unexpectedly into their camp that evening. They were not the men who had been following the bushrangers from the start, but another body, warned by wire and hurriedly sent out from Murtoa. For some unexplained reason the camp-fire had been allowed to die down, and so there was no red glow to warn Bradby of their proximity. He had blundered into the midst of the men before he quite realised what had happened, and, when he made a wild dash for safety, he found that all way of escape had been cut off. He was hemmed in on every side. The troop was in charge of an officer of more than average intelligence, and he instantly jumped to the correct conclusion. Had Bradby not lost his head and endeavored to escape, he might have been able to pass himself off as a prospector or something of the sort, but the mere sight of his all-too-evident anxiety to get away wakened the suspicions of the sergeant. The Grampians and the country surrounding them had hitherto been singularly free from crime, and no malefactors from other parts of the State were known to be at large in that neighbourhood. Obviously this man, who displayed such a disinclination to meet the police, must be a criminal, and just as obviously must he be one of the men wanted for the gold escort robbery. The sergeant decided in one lightning flash on a plan that he hoped would startle the man into betraying himself. The moment Bradby turned to retreat and found himself hemmed in, the other walked over to him, scrutinised him carefully, and in the same instant placed his hand on his shoulder and said, "I arrest you in the Queen's name for the robbery of the Gold Escort on the night of 1st December." Bradby's jaw dropped and he stared open-mouthed at the other. He could not understand the process of almost instantaneous reasoning by which the officer had arrived at this conclusion, and the swift scrutiny the man had given him convinced him that in some strange and unaccountable way a description of him had been obtained and circulated. The man had recognised him, of that he felt sure. All round him were staring policemen, watching him intently with eyes that were no less full of astonishment than his own. They could not fathom the reasons that actuated their chief, but they realised, all of them, that the man before them must be in some guilty way connected with the robbery. His very manner told them that. The chief uttered the usual warning: "It is my duty to warn you that anything you say will be used in evidence----" He got so far when Bradby awoke from his stupor. He gave no warning of his intention, but his doubled fist shot out, caught the other on the point of the jaw and dropped him in a heap on the ground. Then with the swiftness of thought he leaped to one side, pulling his revolver loose at the same instant. He had just the smallest fraction of a second's start of the police, and in the flurry of the moment he actually burst through the cordon that had formed around him. The next instant the carbines of the police commenced to bark. Bradby stumbled, recovered himself, and fired over his shoulder. Several of the troopers were already on horseback, and it was only a matter of riding him down. He saw this himself, and his futile shot was designed to stop one at least of the horses. However, it went wide. He slipped behind a tree and began snap-shooting at the advancing mounted men. They spread out fanwise, thus coming at him from three sides at once. He moved slightly in order to get a better aim, and in doing so unwittingly exposed himself. One of the troopers, who had discarded his carbine in favor of a revolver, took a flying shot. Bradby lurched from behind the tree, clasped his hands to his left side and slipped down on to the grass. When they reached him the blood was welling out of his side, and they saw that he was mortally wounded. The man who had fired the fatal shot dropped on his knees beside him and lifted up his head. Bradby's face was ashy pale, even in the faint moonlight one could see that, but he was still conscious. "It's no use," he panted. "I'm done." "Where is the gold and where are your mates?" the man asked, conscious that a word from the dying bushranger would solve everything. Bradby's frame shook spasmodically, and when the other looked again there was blood on his pale lips. "Through the lung," muttered one of the others who had some knowledge of medical science. The first man repeated his question in another form. Bradby looked at him with a strangely inscrutable face and with eyes that were already darkening with the shadow of death. "Where's the gold? Where's ... my ... mates?" The last three words were almost whispered. "Yes," said the trooper eagerly. "Where are they?" The dying man moved his lips, but no sound issued from them. The other bent down closer to him. "That," said the bushranger with long and painful pauses between each word, "you ... will ... never ... know." And with that last taunt on his lips he died. "Game to the end," the trooper said to his comrades with an admiration he made no effort to hide. * * * * * The blow had not killed Abel Cumshaw. He lay unconscious for the better part of the night, and even when the day dawned he was too weak at first to do more than crawl a few paces at the most. His head was throbbing, his mouth was a raging furnace, and all his limbs felt as if they had been racked and twisted. When daylight came at length he lay still for a while, trying to recollect what had happened. But his mind was a perfect blank and he himself was a man without an identity. The blow that had knocked him unconscious had somehow affected his memory, and he knew no more about himself than he did about the man in the moon. Something terrible had happened, something in which he had played a very prominent part, that much he realised; but beyond that simple fact his recollection did not extend. He groped about in the grass in the hope that he might find something that would give him a clue to the situation. His hand fell on his revolver. That at least was tangible, but there was nothing enlightening about it. Further search revealed a small flat piece of wood. He picked it up curiously and stared at it. Two or three sentences had been hurriedly scratched on its smooth surface with the point of a sharp knife, but though they were intelligible enough they did not appear to refer to anything concerning him. The mere fact that he had been lying almost on top of the wood struck him as strange, and in a moment of unusual thoughtfulness he slipped it into his pocket. It was bright day by then, and the warmth of the sun seemed to revive him to a marvellous extent. He got on his feet more by sheer will-power than by any sudden accession of strength. He found that he could stagger along, though his pace was necessarily slow and his course very erratic. Some uncharted sense, instinct perhaps, led him along the track to the creek where he had pitched his camp the previous evening. There was a dim familiarity about the place that puzzled him. He felt in some absurd way that he should recognise it, and he was both angry and surprised that he could not. He found the remains of the parrot that Bradby had eaten for breakfast, and he wondered vaguely who the man might be who had been so close to him that morning. His wonder was such an impersonal thing that he did not connect his own condition with the fact of the other man's presence. Something had given way inside his head, that something that controlled rational and consecutive memory. He sat down on the bank of the creek and gazed into space. It would be incorrect to say that he was dazed or that he behaved like a man in a dream. Those are stock terms that in themselves are quite inadequate to convey his peculiar state of mind and body. It was something more than lassitude, yet it was not quite fatigue. It was rather as if some integral part of his brain had been removed. It is impossible to say just how long he remained on the bank of the creek. At last his hunger became so acute that he determined to go off foraging. He had his revolver with him; he was a fair enough shot, and so it was not long before he tumbled a 'possum out of a tree. He made a rough meal of it, and after that set off aimlessly into the bush. Had he kept to his original intention he would have speedily wandered into the Mallee, and would have run a good chance of dying of starvation in that thinly-populated district. But his mind was still in a whirl, and instinct alone guided his footsteps to the east. He was many miles north of the valley and during his travels he moved further north, so that he did not come across it during his journey back. His subsequent adventures are not very clear. Early in his travels the piece of wood began to trouble him, and he decided that the sooner he got rid of it the better. It is more than likely that he connected it in some way with that blank feeling of inexplicable tragedy which seemed to overshadow him. His instinct, however, led him to hide rather than destroy it. He read the wording very carefully, but it failed to awaken any responsive chords in his memory. As an after-thought, just as he was about to slide the wood into the hole he had scraped out, he took his knife and cut his name below the screed. Then he thrust it into the hole and stamped the earth in on top of it. In this relation it is interesting to notice the connection between the hiding of the money and the burying of the wood that held the key to the position of the former. It seems as if the sub-conscious memory of the one act had its influence on the man in his performance of the other. Thereafter Mr. Cumshaw simply disappeared off the face of the earth. His son's story is that he went to New South Wales, married there and raised a family, and in the light of subsequent events that seems to be what most likely occurred. It is known, however, that the Cumshaws were in Victoria again somewhere about nineteen hundred and two or three, Albert being at that time seven years old. With the lapse of years Abel had gradually recovered his memory, and bit by bit most of the incidents of the robbery had stolen out of the shrouded darkness of the past. He appears to have been perfectly contented with his family, and for one reason and another the gold remained undisturbed through the long years. The time was coming when the old play would be staged again and new actors would arise to carry it through. The tale of the gold robbery and the shooting of Mr. Jack Bradby, as the reader will readily understand, passed into the police records and thus became matters of history. Though no definite statement has been left us, Mr. Bryce must have first come across the story during his researches into Victorian history. He had friends in the Department, and it is quite feasible that he had ready access to many official documents that are usually beyond the reach of the ordinary public. He was not the only one in this enviable position. There were other students of the past who were moving along the same lines, and as he pieced together the puzzle of the robbery he was followed by a pair of agile, unscrupulous brains every whit as clever as he. The police records told Mr. Bryce just this much:--On the first day of December, 1881, there had been a gold robbery, and the robbers had got completely away. They had been followed, and subsequently a man had been killed in the Grampians who had been identified as John Bradby, a noted sheep and cattle-duffer. When dying he refused to tell who his pals were, and had in the same breath stated that the police would never find the gold. That in itself was conclusive, yet the additional fact remained that the whereabouts of the gold was still as big a mystery as ever it had been. The opinion of the police was that the other members of the gang--they seemed to think that it was a fairly large one--had returned when the hue and cry had died away and recovered the plunder. Bryce, reading between the lines of the dry official record, rather thought that they hadn't. At any rate the element of mystery was sufficiently strong to induce him to investigate the matter further. That was really the beginning of the trouble. CHAPTER VI. THE HEGIRA OF MR. ABEL CUMSHAW. Early in January, 1919, Mr. Bryce had advanced so far in his investigations that he resolved on taking a trip to the country around the Grampians. He had nothing very definite to go on beyond the facts that the robbery had been committed at one spot and Mr. Bradby had been killed at another, and logically the gold must have been hidden somewhere in between. He had hopes that he might stumble on something that in his capable hands would prove to be a clue to the long-lost hiding-place of the gold. Before he made any preparations he inserted an advertisement in several of the leading dailies. It ran somehow like this:--"Wanted--A capable and intelligent assistant to take part in dangerous expedition to Grampians. Apply," and then followed his name and address. He was convinced in his own mind that someone amongst those who read this notice would have some inkling at least of the events of 1st December, 1881, and he rather fancied that he or they would be on the alert. In that case it was just possible that the persons concerned would either approach him with a guarded offer or would dog his footsteps. In either case there was a chance of Mr. Bryce picking up information that might be to his immediate advantage. He convinced himself that there were still people living who had played an intimate part in the affairs of that memorable night. The advertisement, however, had two results that were unforeseen by Mr. Bryce. The third day after the insertion of the notice he was informed that a gentleman wanted to see him. He requested that the man be shown into his study. In due course the visitor arrived. He was a man somewhere in the neighbourhood of sixty, but, save for a slight greying of the hair about his temples, he showed little outward signs of his age. His eyes, which were of a deep, unfathomable black, were very alert and followed Mr. Bryce's every movement with a glittering serenity, if one can use the expression, that was very disturbing. "Sit down," said Mr. Bryce, and he waved his visitor to a chair. The man sat down in the chair indicated, looked Mr. Bryce up and down, without, however, the least sign of offensiveness in his gaze, and said without any further preliminary, "I've come to see you about that advertisement." "Um!" said Mr. Bryce non-committally. "Yes, that ad. What about it?" "I think," said the other with his eyes fixed intently on Mr. Bryce, "I think I am the best man for the job." "I haven't told you yet what the job is," Mr. Bryce objected. "That's so," the other admitted. "Beyond saying that it was dangerous, you did not attempt to describe it. It doesn't matter what you want in the Grampians. I'm the man to take. I know the place well." "It's changed vastly in thirty years," Bryce said suddenly. The other must have been expecting something like this, for he never turned a hair. As far as he was concerned Mr. Bryce's observation might have been the most casual remark in the world. He ignored it. Perhaps it would have been better had he commented on it and asked what association to-day's expedition had with what had happened during thirty odd years. He passed the matter over in silence, and in that instant Bryce guessed that the man knew as much, if not more, than he did. "Do you know why I advertised that expedition as dangerous?" Bryce asked, seeing that the other made no attempt to reply. The man shook his head. "No, I don't," he said distinctly. "I'll tell you," said Bryce, and he leaned forward in simulated confidence. "I'm fat and I wheeze. My bellows are all to blazes and the doctors won't give a rap for my heart. I might go out any minute, more especially if there's any extra exertion. Now I want a man who won't ask questions, who will do the exertions for two, and take what's coming with a grin." "That sounds simple enough," the man remarked. "May I ask what we are after?" "I'm searching for gold," said Bryce with a startling clearness. The other shifted in his seat, looked at Bryce as if to measure the possibilities of his next remark, and then said, "There's no gold there." "You mean," said Bryce, "that none's ever been discovered there; quite a different thing. I hope to discover some before I'm done." "It's too far west for mines," the other asserted. Mr. Bryce passed over the man's statement in a way that showed that as far as he was concerned that aspect of the matter was over and done with. The obvious answer for him to make would have been, "Gold comes in other ways than out of mines," but he was cautious enough not to air all his knowledge at once. "What's your name?" he demanded. "Abel Cumshaw," the other answered, and saw by the way Bryce screwed up his brows that it conveyed nothing to him. "Well, Mr. Cumshaw, would you care to take this job on?" "How long would we be away?" "Six weeks or two months. I'm not certain of that." "When do we start?" "This is Monday. Be here Friday and we'll get right away. Friday morning, mind, at ten-thirty sharp. That's all, I think. Good-day." After Mr. Cumshaw had gone Bryce slipped back in his chair and laughed till his whole face creased up in rolls of quivering fat. "That's a good one on him," he murmured. "He didn't ask what screw he was to get, and I didn't tell him because I wanted to see if he'd ask. But he didn't, so he must have been thinking of something else. He's anxious to get to the Grampians, darned anxious. From the way he went on he seems to know a bit about the place too. I wonder has he any suspicion?... Good Lord! wouldn't it be a streak of luck if he knew! Yes, I did the right thing in sending in that ad. One man's bitten at any rate." He went about the house all day chuckling away to himself. * * * * * The second incident which occurred that same day was of even a more disturbing nature. Late that afternoon the telephone bell rang, and when Bryce answered it a voice asked if he was the Mr. Bryce who had advertised for an assistant in an expedition to the Grampians. "That's me," said Bryce. "But I'm sorry to say that the position's filled." "Why are you sorry?" the voice asked disconcertingly. "Um!" said Mr. Bryce. "Aren't you after it?" "No chance," said the voice. "As a matter of fact, I was on the point of writing out a similar one myself, when I saw yours and guessed I'd let you do the work." "Who are you?" Bryce demanded with a trace of sharpness in his voice. The man at the other end of the wire laughed cheerfully. "Never you mind," he said. "You'll know soon enough, as soon as you've landed Jack Bradby's plunder. Now, I want to put up a sporting proposition to you. We'll retire gracefully, if you'll split fifty-fifty." "We!" Bryce repeated. "So there's more than one of you?" "There's lots of us, and we've got the whip hand of you because, you see, you don't know who we are. We know you; we've been following a couple of jumps behind you right through all the records, and we guess it's high time we cashed in." "I'll see you in Hell first!" said Bryce angrily. "Probably you will," said the voice with a chuckle. "If you won't treat with us, we'll get what we want in other ways." "No, by thunder, you won't!" said Bryce shortly. "I'll warn you that I'll shoot on sight." "So do we," the other laughed. "I hope, for your sake, you recognise us first, though I don't think it likely." "If I catch you monkeying around I'll fill you so full of holes that your own mother won't know you from a colander," Bryce threatened; but the voice laughed irritatingly, and when Bryce tried to get a reply he found that the other had rung off. He flickered the hook with his finger. "Exchange," he said, giving his number, "can you tell me who was speaking just now?" "Box three, G. P. O. public 'phones," said the girl wearily. "Oh, hell!" said Bryce in disgust, and hung up the receiver. * * * * * The rest of the week passed without incident of any sort, and, despite the warning he had received. Bryce went on calmly with his preparations. For all the fat flabbiness of him he was grit through and through, and it took more than a warning over the telephone to turn him aside once he had made up his mind to take a certain course. He went on quietly and silently; his only sign of perturbation was that first thing on Tuesday he slipped down town and bought a big calibre revolver. Friday morning came, and at ten-thirty exactly, not a minute before or after, Mr. Abel Cumshaw knocked at the front door and was admitted. He was shown at once into Mr. Bryce's study, where that gentleman awaited him, watch in hand. "On time to the tick," he said affably as Cumshaw entered the room. "Everything's ready for an immediate start. I suppose you've got all you want." "I'm always ready at a moment's notice," Cumshaw said. "I travel light. I'm an old campaigner." "That's the way I like to hear a man talk," Bryce said breezily. "We'll be going in my car as far as we can. After that we'll have to walk, and I'm not a very good hand at that. There's some rough spots up there, they tell me," he said off-handedly. For all his seeming nonchalance he was watching Cumshaw intently, and he saw him give an almost imperceptible start. It flashed across Bryce's mind that perhaps Cumshaw was in the pay of the people who had gone to such pains to 'phone him. A second look at the man convinced him that such was not the case. Cumshaw's eyes were frank and clear, and met his unswervingly. They were not the eyes of a man who was playing a double game. There was something in them that Bryce did not quite understand. It was the animation of newly-resurrected hope, such a light as might have shone in the eyes of the men who rode to find the Holy Grail. Bryce knew nothing of him or his history, and his only thought was that in some queer way the man had a vital interest in the Grampians. It must be remembered that, as far as known facts were concerned, Bryce knew nothing more than the police records had told him. True, his reasoning faculties, which were none of the densest, carried him a little further, but he would have been the very first to admit his fallibility. Nothing had occurred as yet to connect Cumshaw with Mr. Jack Bradby. He recognised that the man had a definite object in view in going to the Grampians--that was plain enough--but it might after all be merely coincidence. Such things have happened. Mr. Cumshaw, on the other hand, was alert and suspicious. He suspected everybody and everything, and he had answered the advertisement solely because he believed, or affected to believe, that an expedition to the hill country could have no other object that the recovery of the gold. Doubtless it will appear strange that Mr. Cumshaw had allowed so many years to elapse without attempting to secure it for himself, but, as he told Bryce later on, there were reasons even for that. * * * * * They stopped at Ballarat for lunch; Bryce refilled the petrol tank, and then they set out on the long stretch to Ararat. Though no definite statement exists, they passed the night at the latter town, for Cumshaw afterwards told his son that they reached Landsborough about 10.30 the following morning. Beyond Landsborough the track became very trying for the car, and somewhere towards the evening of the second day the machine was hidden away securely in one of the many gullies that abounded in the neighbourhood. Then the hardest part of the journey began. Child's play though it might have been to Cumshaw, who, for all his years, had a constitution such as it is given to a few men to possess, it certainly must have been a matter of infinite torture to Bryce, handicapped as he was with his weak-heart and his wheezy lungs. They spent the next few days in working across to the spot where Bradby had been killed thirty odd years before. As they drew near to the place Cumshaw became more self-contained and uncommunicative than ever. The sight of the old scene seemed to have depressed him marvellously. Bryce watched him with increasing attentiveness; he noticed that he picked out the road as if he had been used to it from childhood. There were times when Bryce turned suddenly on him and caught a glimpse of a hard-set jaw and a mouth about which strong lines of determination had woven themselves. Yet, as soon as Cumshaw fancied he was observed, the mask of his face melted into a smile, and the sombre eyes sparkled with a humor that somehow seemed too real to be assumed. "You seem very familiar with the place, Cumshaw," Bryce remarked one morning. "I told you I was," Cumshaw answered, his unfathomable eyes searching his employer's face. "How long is it since you were here last?" Bryce asked. At the question all expression vanished from the other's face, leaving it as immobile as a carven image of stone. "I have been here many times," he said evasively. "Um!" said Bryce in that peculiar way of his, and he looked the other up and down contemplatively. "I didn't think anyone had been here since Bradby was shot." Bryce made the remark in the most casual and innocent way; he hadn't the faintest notion in the world that what he had said was like a bombshell bursting beneath the structure of Mr. Cumshaw's composure. He was intelligent enough to realise that it was more than probable that Cumshaw possessed knowledge of that almost forgotten episode which was not shared with anyone else, but he had not the least suspicion that his casual utterance would hit home so shrewdly as it did. Mr. Cumshaw stared at him as if he could not believe his ears. For once he made no attempt to disguise his emotions beneath the mask of stoicism. He saw laughter in the other's eyes, the jovial laughter of a man who has always known the sweets of victory, and he jumped to the natural though erroneous conclusion that Bryce had fathomed his connection with the late Mr. Bradby. For all that he did not abandon his defences without some show of resistance. "What do you mean?" he demanded in the belligerent attitude of a man who is fighting a desperate though losing fight. "Just what I said, Mr. Cumshaw," Bryce smiled. "What else did you think I meant?" The quiet question was put in such an unexpectedly mild tone that Cumshaw was left wordless for the nonce, though his face showed in all their fulness the emotions that were stirring within him. Doubt, indecision, fear of a kind. "I thought----," he said and then stopped short. "You thought," Bryce repeated with a gentle persuasiveness in his voice. "What was it you thought, Cumshaw?" They were both fencing, in sporting parlance "sparring for wind," each of them with the Big Idea almost within reach, and each not daring yet to put it into words. For the space of a heart-beat they stared into each other's eyes, seeking to read the other's thoughts. In the end it was Cumshaw who gave in first. He tore his eyes away from that fixed yet kindly gaze that seemed to search and read his very soul. "I see," said Bryce, with a sudden intake of breath that lent a sibilant quality to his speech, "I see that we are on the same track. Mr. Cumshaw, place your cards on the table. You are after the gold that Bradby hid; so am I. Our aims are the same. Let us be partners, instead of employer and assistant. What do you know that I do not? What do I know that you do not?" Like most fat and comfortable people Bryce was the soul of generosity, and his offer was dictated not so much by expediency as by a sense of the pity that he felt for this man, who seemed to have aged years in the last few minutes. He, too, in his time had known what it meant to have the prize within a hand's touch and then at the last moment lose it after all. "You know nothing about me," Cumshaw said impulsively. "You don't know who I am or what I've been. You haven't an idea...." Bryce cut him short with a sweeping gesture of his chubby hands. "My dear man," he said, "what you've been doesn't matter a tinker's curse to me. It's what you are that counts." "You don't even know that," the other answered, his lips curling in a wry smile. "I'll know as soon as you tell me," Bryce hinted. It is a difficult matter for a man, who all his life has held a close secret, to divulge it at a moment's notice, in a sudden fit of warm friendliness, to a comparative stranger, and so Abel Cumshaw found it. It is even harder to surrender one's hopes and ambitions in favor of a potential rival, honest and all as that rival may appear to be. For one brief moment Cumshaw paused on the brink of revelation, the while he weighed the matter in his mind. In some strange way Bryce had guessed that he was after the gold, but did he know why and how? Cumshaw rather fancied he didn't. He was so sure of it that he decided that he would gain nothing by divulging the connection between himself and the late Mr. Bradby. So the mouth which was opening to speak shut up again like a steel trap, and the dark eyes turned bleak and cold. He looked Bryce steadily and calmly in the face. "There is nothing to tell," he said, and turned on his heel. * * * * * Black night had descended on the forest many hours before, so many in fact that the camp fire had sunk to a feeble red glow, and the dying embers were already circled by a ring of dead white ash. The breeze was crooning softly through the branches of the trees, singing weird chanties to itself. In between the murmurs of the wind there came another sound, the indistinct sound of a sleepy man mumbling to himself. Bryce half-raised himself on one elbow and listened. Half a dozen feet away from him Cumshaw lay tightly rolled in his blankets. He tossed restlessly and once all but sat up. Bryce dropped quickly but soundlessly back into a prone position. But the alarm had been a false one, and presently he quietly raised himself again. The indistinct mumbling went on as before, and he strained his ears to catch some intelligible word. "Kill me, would you?" he heard the other say. His voice sank again, and for a time he mumbled and mouthed his words so that Bryce missed most of what he said. He was just on the point of settling down again when Cumshaw suddenly sat up. "I'll beat you yet, Bradby!" he cried with startling distinctness. "You're dead now and the gold's mine." His eyes opened and he stared dazedly around him. Bryce was lying prone and snoring away hoggishly. He was fast asleep; there was not the slightest doubt in the mind of the man who watched him so closely. "I must have dreamt I said it," Cumshaw murmured to himself. "If I'd spoken the way I thought I had he'd have been wide-awake." And then he in his turn composed himself to slumber. * * * * * They were very quiet at breakfast. Bryce was turning the situation over in his mind, viewing it from all possible angles and seeking some method of getting Cumshaw to speak without in any way antagonising him. Cumshaw himself was troubled by lingering doubts. It was quite possible after all that Bryce had heard him, supposing he had spoken aloud, and was quietly dissembling for some purpose of his own. His very thoughtfulness seemed to lend color to that idea. He looked at Bryce across the carpet of grass and at the same instant Bryce raised his eyes. They stared at each other with the breathless intensity of two men who know that in all things they are evenly matched. Each was striving to the last atom of his will-power to break down the resistance of the other and force him in some way to take the initiative. At last it was Bryce who dropped his eyes a fraction and Cumshaw who breathed a sigh of relief. But his relief was short-lived, for in the last half-second his guard had relaxed. Bryce said: "Why did Bradby want to kill you, Mr. Cumshaw?" The quick yet calm question, covering as it did the one episode of which nobody but the two participants could possibly have any knowledge, startled Cumshaw. For once his impassive face showed signs of fear, and his eyes became those of a hunted man. He half-rose to his feet and then dropped back again, as if aware of the uselessness of flight. He tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. In one short sentence Bryce had shattered all his hopes and pulled his airy castles to the ground. Did this man but like to speak he would be once again Cumshaw the bushranger, the man who had been hand in glove with Bradby, and who, through some miracle of mischance, had not been bracketed with his dead colleague. Bryce knew all apparently, and a word from him----. Cumshaw shivered. "You can trust me," Bryce said softly. "I guess I know your secret now. You and Bradby carried out that robbery between you. You hid the gold, and for one reason and another you've never retrieved it. Isn't that it?" Cumshaw nodded. It was too late now to deny anything, even if he had so felt inclined. Nemesis in the shape of this laughing-eyed, gross-bodied man, had come upon him in his old age, and there was nothing for it but to take what was coming with as good a grace as he could muster. "What happened thirty years or more ago is over and done with," Bryce ran on, "and I'm not the sort to bring it into the light of day again. I'm after that gold, and, in order to get it, I'm quite ready to repeat my previous offer. We each seem to have something that the other lacks. You can tell me many things I don't know. Of that I'm sure." "There's a lot of things you seem sure of," Cumshaw said with a half-defiant air. "I'm as sure that you're the man who was with Bradby as if I'd seen it all myself," Bryce stated. "Remember, before you refuse, that it's always better to compromise than fight. Furthermore, if you have to fight, it's much better to have an ally you can rely on." "What's that?" Cumshaw demanded with a show of interest. "What do you mean?" "Only this," Bryce said slowly. "There's another crowd on the track, and they've already warned me that they'll make the going heavy. If you've got to be up against them, why not throw in your lot with me? It's fifty-fifty with us; if you stand out on your own, you'll probably lose it all." "I think you've got me in a cleft stick," Cumshaw said a trifle ruefully. "I can't see that I can refuse. Now how much do you know?" Said Mr. Bryce untruthfully, "I know everything except where you've hidden the gold." "And even I couldn't swear to that," Cumshaw said. "It seems to me," said Bryce dryly, "that the best thing you can do is to tell me the whole story." He listened eagerly to the tale, occasionally stopping the other to question him on some obscure point, sometimes helping him along with a comment that threw unexpected light in the dark corners of the story. "It amounts to this," he said when Cumshaw had finished. "Bradby buried the gold in this hidden valley of yours. It's so hidden--the valley, I mean--that you only came on it by accident, and you have no definite idea as to its whereabouts. It's three or four days' journey into the mountains, that's all you can say. There's no way of recognising it from the outside that you know of. Well, I'll tell you this, Mr. Cumshaw. It's my frank opinion that your clever murderous friend had some way of finding it again, or he wouldn't have been in such haste to make away with you. He knew what he was doing, you can depend on it. Now I wonder if he left any clue?" "I've got a hazy memory that he left directions somewhere and that I had them," Cumshaw said despondently, "but I can't say what happened to them. You must remember that I was wandering about half-delirious for a long while after I got knocked, and it was years before I got really right again. I might have lost any note he made; I might have done anything with it." "You might have and that's a fact," Mr. Bryce agreed. "Now you say you've hunted for this valley many times during the last ten years or so." Cumshaw nodded. "It seems funny," he said, "but I've never been able to find it." "There's nothing funny about it," Bryce told him. "History and fiction abound with instances of similar miscalculations. I'll guarantee that there are scores of such places in every continent in the world. Australia's got just as many as any other place. What made you want to hunt it up again after all those years?" "Old associations, I suppose," Cumshaw said half-ashamedly. "While I was in New South Wales--I went there, you understand, until things blew over a bit--and my wife was alive, I didn't want anything else but to be near her. When she died and things began to go wrong with me, I drifted back here. Money was short. I was living as best I could, and there were the children to look after, and the sight of the old places brought things back to my mind. I was beginning to dig bits up from the memory of the past--the doctors have some fancy name for lapses like mine, though I could never remember what it was--and then one day I asked myself why shouldn't I go after the gold? It was as much mine as anyone else's, now that Bradby was dead, and the Bank that originally owned it had gone smash about the Land Boom time from what I could gather. I went, but I missed the place somehow. I went time and again, but it was always like that 'Lost Mountain' story of Mayne Reid's, though a valley's harder to find than a mountain you'd think. I couldn't find it anyhow, and that's about all there is to it." "Um!" said Mr. Bryce, and he ran his hand softly across his chin. "We are up against a bigger thing than I thought. I'm hanged if I can see a glimmer of light anywhere. Is there anything you can suggest?" Cumshaw did not reply. He was staring straight ahead of him, staring intently, and little furrows of anxiety marred the serenity of his forehead. He was peering into the shadows of the trees as if his eyes were twin searchlights that could cut substance from the gloom. He was staring so intently that Bryce whirled round, fully convinced that his friends of the telephone were upon them. "What's wrong?" he queried in a hoarse whisper. "What are you looking at?" "Nothing," said Cumshaw. "I thought I heard something moving, that's all." Bryce in his turn peered intently in between the tree-boles, but the shadows lay thick upon the grass between, and it was difficult to define even the shapes of the more distant timber. The place was still and gloomy, full of grim forebodings, like a summer sky in which a storm is gathering. "We must have been mistaken," Bryce remarked in his embracing way. "There doesn't seem to be anyone about." "Hands up!" snapped a crisp voice, and in the surprise of the moment Bryce obeyed. Cumshaw had no such intention. He dropped suddenly on to the ground even as a shot rang out, and a bullet whistled close above his head. The next instant he was crashing swiftly through the bushes, spinning down into the gully like a human projectile. CHAPTER VIII. THE GATHERING OF THE EAGLES. At first Bryce could see nothing but the dull gleam of unpolished metal from the barrel of a revolver which protruded from behind a tree, but a further scrutiny showed him the dim outlines of a man's figure standing in that place of gloom and ghosts. The man stepped out from his hiding-place, even as Bryce watched him, and was followed almost instantly by another man. They were both somewhere about the same height, in the neighbourhood of five feet ten. Their features were not visible, for each of them wore a handkerchief about his face in the time-honored fashion of the men of the road, and a hat pulled well down over the eyes completed the disguise. "Well, Mr. Bryce," said the man in front, "what have you got to say for yourself?" "It's a funny thing," remarked Bryce, with the adventures of Mr. Cumshaw and the late Mr. Bradby in his mind, "it's funny how history repeats itself." The leader made a step forward and stared intently at Bryce. "You're the man right enough," he said. "Where's your pal?" "Ask me something easy," sneered Bryce, "and I'd be obliged if you'd let me drop my hands awhile. This is getting fairly tiresome." "You should have thought of that before you started that business," the other one reminded him. "It's rather late now to be finding out the flaws in your plans." The sneering smile on Mr. Bryce's face broadened into a grin of triumph. "Didn't you ever hear the proverb about glass-houses and the people who live in them?" he enquired blandly. The first speaker stared at him, but the other one said impatiently, "Finish him off, Alick, and let's get it over." The man called Alick answered in a subdued voice. Bryce did not catch what he said, but supposed it to be a counsel of caution. His smile grew in intensity, so much so that Alick snapped at him. "What the deuce are you grinning at, you fat fool?" he demanded. "You'll know soon enough," Bryce said with a chuckle. He looked right past them into the shadows of the trees, on his face the joyful expression of a man who sees the long-locked gates of his prison swing open before him. Both men whirled round with a chorus of oaths. They were quite positive that Bryce's mate had stolen a march on them and crept up behind their backs. They had their heads turned away but for the fraction of a second, but the time, short though it was, was plenty long enough for Mr. Bryce. With an agility, remarkable in a man of his weight and state of health, he faded into the landscape like some fat fairy. "Fooled!" said Alick's companion, and he whipped round to face his prisoner, only to find that the keen-brained Mr. Bryce had vanished as completely as if he had been blown off the face of the earth. "Nice pair of goats we are," remarked Alick disgustedly. The other said nothing, but stood for a moment in a state of indecision. At that precise instant a pencil of flame shot out from one of the trees immediately in front of them, and Alick dropped his revolver with a howl of pain. "He's winged me," he said, and applied to Mr. Bryce an epithet not usually heard in polite society. His mate fired at the tree from which the shot had evidently come, but the bullet did nothing more than flatten itself against the trunk in a shower of dust and dry bark. Mr. Bryce's revolver spoke once again. This time he failed to register. "The sooner we get out of this the better," said Alick, with one hand clasped to his injured shoulder. "The beggar'll riddle us both if we stop here." The other man grunted his approval of the suggestion and proceeded to carry it into effect at once. "Better look where you are going," Alick advised. "That other chap's about somewhere, perhaps waiting for us." The other consigned both Bryce and his assistant to a place more noted for its warmth than its comfort. Despite their forebodings Mr. Cumshaw did not put in an appearance, and they gained the shelter of the thick timber in safety. Once he was sure that they had really departed Mr. Bryce stepped out from behind his tree, first, however, with commendable caution reloading the heavy revolver he carried. The smile was still flickering about the corners of his mouth, but there was a little wrinkle of anxiety across his forehead. "I wonder where the devil Cumshaw's gone?" he remarked to the unresponsive trees. "He went off like a scared rabbit. I'd better hunt for him. I can't get on without him now." With the laudable intention of finding Mr. Cumshaw as soon as possible he began to scour the neighbourhood. When Mr. Cumshaw disappeared so precipitately it was with the idea that he must maintain his freedom at any cost. True, Bryce might be captured, but by the same token he could be rescued just as easily. Though his intentions were right enough he was prevented in the simplest manner possible from carrying them into effect. He went crashing through the bushes as has already been related, and found himself on the edge of what was nothing more or less than a blind creek. The sides were covered with matted brushwood and were as slippery as glass. His momentum was such that he could not stop himself in time, and he went head over heels down the side of the gully, and spun on to the boulder-covered bottom like some new and monstrous kind of Catherine wheel. He collided with the rounded surface of one of the big weather-worn rocks which lay strewn about the gully floor like the tremendous marbles of a giant. The world spun round him in a blaze of colored lights, and his head felt as if it were filled with fireworks. Then in an instant all sensation ceased as though cut off with the clean sweep of a naked sword. Mr. Cumshaw lay still and lifeless under the shadow of the brushwood-covered gully. Some half an hour later, when Bryce happened on this very spot, he pulled the bushes aside cautiously and peered down almost between his toes; but the shadows lay thick beneath him, and the edge of the gully so projected that he could not see the body of the man for whom he was searching. Slowly he retraced his steps. He was deeply puzzled by this new aspect of the affair. It seemed impossible that Cumshaw could have completely disappeared in so short a space of time, yet the fact that he could not be found was in itself proof conclusive. Had Bryce lingered a couple of seconds longer he would have seen the rapidly-recovering Cumshaw turn over on his side, raise one hand to his head, and present a startled face to the scanty rays of light that filtered down to him. In a sense his revival was something more than a recovery; it was a resurrection. The years rolled away in an instant, and he ceased to be the Abel Cumshaw who had fallen down the side of the gully and cracked his head against an extra-large sized boulder; he became the Abel Cumshaw who had just been knocked into unconsciousness by the butt of Mr. Bradby's revolver, and whose head still throbbed with the force of the blow. He stared uncomprehendingly at the steep sides of the gully; they had no place in his gallery of mental pictures. He had a vague idea that there should be a creek somewhere close at hand. His head was throbbing, pulsing as if some mighty engine were working inside it. He rose unsteadily to his feet and regarded the steep declivities which formed the sides of the gully with a contemplative eye. He decided that they were climbable, but that he must wait awhile before he made the attempt. He was weak yet; one does not recover instantaneously from a crack on the head. He moved very carefully when he moved at all, and he kept well within the shadows of the overhanging banks. Mr. Bradby was somewhere handy, he argued, extremely ready and willing to finish him off, and it would never do to give him another chance. He had no idea that Mr. Bradby had died long years ago. Time had telescoped and he was back again in the early eighties. With the addled craftiness of a half-witted creature he set about escaping from the imprisoning walls of the gully-dungeon. Had it been anything else than a blind creek he would have found an exit by following the dry bed, and thus have disappeared entirely from this story. But it was fated otherwise. The one idea that gained any sort of prominence in his mind was that he must climb the side of the gully. He found a pool of clear rainwater in a little cavity in the dry bed of the creek, and bathed his head in it and drank a little. Its refreshing coolness acted on his jaded body like the sting of a spur on the flank of a lazy horse. He crept cautiously in under the overhang of the bank and searched about for a foothold. Such was not hard to find, and, in less time than it takes to write of it, he was swinging up the side of the bank, clinging to projecting ledges of rock with hands and feet that seemed to possess all the prehensile quality of a monkey's. Once on the top of the bank he burrowed into the mass of vegetation like some primeval creature taking to earth, a pitiful caricature of the sane, strong man he had been a few short hours before. Cautious and all as he was, his flight was not absolutely noiseless, and so it came about that presently Bryce heard him, and circled round the spot from which the sound came like a wolf heading off a herd of deer. Cumshaw crashed through the bushes and emerged into the open a hundred yards or so ahead of Bryce. The latter caught sight of him at the moment of his emergence and called out to him to stop. "Cumshaw," he called. "Come here!" The other heard the call and caught his own name, but instead of slackening he accelerated his pace. He did not look round; he was convinced in his own warped mind that his pursuer was none other than the late Mr. Bradby. Accordingly he swung along at such a rate that Bryce soon dropped behind, breathless and dispirited. He sat down on a convenient log and mopped his damp face with a large-sized handkerchief. Presently his breathing became normal again, and his agitated heart ceased fluttering like a caged bird. He fell to reviewing the position. The more he thought of it, the less hopeless it appeared to be. His unrecognisable and nameless antagonists had temporarily withdrawn from the fight, whether to consolidate their forces and plan some new form of attack, or because they had received a very salutary lesson, he could not say. Also it did not worry him over much. His ideas were centred mainly on Mr. Cumshaw. True, that gentleman had disappeared over the horizon with every mark of unseemly haste, and already he must be well advanced on whatever road he was taking. Not so very far away the car awaited Bryce, and he was sure that, once he reached it, it would be merely a matter of a day or so until he rediscovered Mr. Cumshaw. He repeated the verb. "Re-discovered" struck a distinctive note. One could not convey the same meaning with any form of the verb "to overtake;" Mr. Cumshaw had disappeared, not simply gone on ahead. He chuckled softly at his own quaint conceit, and at that his spirits began to rise again. Feeling now fully rested, he rose to his feet and swung out on the track with that long slow stride which was all that remained of his athletic form of the old New Guinea days. Of late years he had walked, when he had walked at all, with the quick nervous step of the city-bred man, and it heartened him immensely to know that he was recovering without any effort of his volition the old easy pioneer stride. It is not within the scope of this tale to relate how Mr. Bryce at length reached his car and set out on what he believed to be Abel Cumshaw's trail. Suffice it to state that he reached his machine without any untoward incident, the two gentlemen who had so rudely disturbed the serenity of his nature having seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth. Once he passed a drover and elicited from him that a man answering Cumshaw's description had passed him on the road the previous morning. Evidently then the missing man was keeping away from the towns, taking instead a trail that would inevitably lead him further into the bush. He was rather pleased at this. Abel Cumshaw in the city would be as hard to find as the proverbial needle in a bundle of hay, but in the bush it would be much easier to locate him, Bryce considered. So he drove the car along at a low speed, keeping all the time a watchful eye out for any signs of the truant. As he progressed he was surprised and not a little pleased to find that his New Guinea woodcraft was coming back to him by degrees. The joy of the chase was his, and he experienced again the same keen and primitive emotions that had thrilled him in the days when the elder Carstairs and he had trodden the unexplored wilds of Papua. * * * * * He came upon Cumshaw very suddenly. The car was creeping through the trees at a snail's pace--there was no clearly defined track in that part of the bush, and Bryce was taking no unnecessary risks--when he caught sight of a figure that might or might not be the missing Mr. Cumshaw. He stopped the car at once and descended to the ground. As has already been noted earlier in these memoirs, Mr. Bryce, when occasion required it, for all his huge bulk, could move as agilely and noiselessly as that pre-eminently silent animal, the domestic cat. He had been so keyed up by the emotional stresses of the last few days that he threw himself into the adventure with all the zest of a schoolboy just being introduced into romance. The man was dodging through the trees a hundred yards or so ahead, and there was something so furtive about his movements that Bryce approached with more than his usual caution. The man halted and glanced swiftly around. Bryce flattened himself against a handy tree, and fervently hoped that the shadow was thick enough to conceal him. The other patently had no idea that he was being followed, for, apparently quite satisfied with his hasty scrutiny, he dropped on his knees and commenced scraping the earth away with the point of a knife that had appeared in his hand with the magical suddenness of a conjuring trick. As the man worked away Bryce peeped out from his hiding-place and saw then that it was indeed Cumshaw. He watched fascinated. His heart was thumping away like the piston of a steam-engine, and some queer unnamed instinct told him that the chase was drawing to a close. Cumshaw was digging up something of vital importance; it might be the treasure itself or perhaps the key to it. But why should Cumshaw have gone so stealthily to work unless--? "Unless he is going to cut me out of it," said Bryce to himself. Abruptly the other straightened up and hugged something to his breast. It was covered with black loam, and at the distance Bryce could not tell what it was. He slipped stealthily from tree to tree until he had wormed his noiseless way right up to Cumshaw. Then, seeing that he had his man cut off should he attempt to escape, he stepped out into the open and laid a kindly hand on the fugitive's shoulder. Cumshaw turned in a flash, and, in the excitement of the moment, the earth-covered object slipped out of his hands and fell on the grass at his feet. "Where have you been all this time?" Bryce asked jovially. Cumshaw stared at him in a puzzled way. His face at first had shown all the symptoms of fear, but the moment Bryce spoke they faded out, to be replaced by a very obvious air of relief. Yet there was nothing of recognition in the man's eyes; they were full of a great blank wonder, like the eyes of a child who takes its first look at the teeming life beyond its doors. His forehead crinkled up as if he were trying to recall something that had slipped his memory. "Who are you?" he said at length. "I ... I don't think I know you," and he brushed his forehead with a weak, ineffective gesture of the hand. It was then that Bryce noticed the matted, blood-stained condition of his hair and the big purple bruise that disfigured his temple. His quick mind guessed at what had happened, though, erroneously enough, he concluded that Cumshaw had received the blows in an encounter with the men who had been the original cause of the man's flight. "You'd better come with me, Cumshaw," he said in the same soothing tone that he would have applied to a tired child. "I'm going home," said Cumshaw with weak stubbornness. "I don't want to go with you." "I'll take you home," said Bryce. That he decided was the only thing he could do. Cumshaw was in no fit state to continue the search for his lost valley, and Bryce realised that it would not be safe to leave him uncared for. If he went home with Cumshaw he would be throwing his pursuers off the track. That would help him considerably. He had no fear that they would discover the valley during his absence; their attack on him showed that they had come to the end of their resources, and fancied that their only hope of touching any of the spoils was by forcing the secret out of Bryce. Of course it was quite on the cards that they would follow the car, but it was just as likely that they would make no definite move until they had solved the meaning of his change of plans. Cumshaw was still standing like a man in a dream. Bryce placed his hand on the man's arm. "Come along with me," he said. "I'll see that you get safely home." He bent down quickly and picked up the loam-encrusted object that Cumshaw had dropped in the first moment of the encounter, Cumshaw followed his movements with troubled eyes, but did not interfere in any way. Bryce could see that the thing was a bit of wood, and on one piece of it, where the earth had been scraped off, there were letters scratched. He thrust it into his pocket, meaning to examine it more closely at his leisure. Cumshaw walked to the car with him. He yielded to the stronger will without any show of resistance. All his own will-power seemed to have departed, and he obeyed Bryce with a child-like faith. Once in the car he slumped into the corner and closed his eyes. Bryce seized the opportunity thus given him to steal another look at the wood he had picked up. He scraped away what loam he could with his finger nail, and soon was able to make out two complete words. "This'll have to wait," he said with a sigh, as he thrust it back into his pocket. "This bit of wood's got your name on it, Mr. Abel Cumshaw, and I'll bet all I ever owned that it's the key you've been hunting for." He cranked up the car, and soon was speeding back to the high road. In his corner Mr. Cumshaw slept. Ten minutes after they reached the main road another car swung out along the Ararat road. There were three men in it, the chauffeur and two passengers. One of the latter held his hand to a wounded shoulder, and swore at the chauffeur every time the car jolted and sent a quiver of pain through the wound. In course of time Bryce's car came to a little hamlet on the Geelong to Colac road--a hamlet that must be nameless in this story. There he found the Albert Cumshaw of this tale, delivered his father into his care and told him all that had happened, suppressing only the episode of the finding of the wood. He found Albert Cumshaw easier to deal with than he had expected--as a matter of fact the younger man already knew much of his father's story--and the result of the conversation was that the search was held over, pending the elder Cumshaw's recovery. Bryce remained the night with the Cumshaws, saw that a doctor was secured who would give skilled attention to the elder man, and then early in the morning set out for home. The day was very warm, and the cool breeze that presently sprang up from the ocean moved Bryce to motor down to the coast. At the worst it was only a few miles out of his road. At first he had no intention of making a stop at the heads, but the sea as he came within sight of it looked so cool and inviting that he was tempted to have a dip. He parked his car in the reserve, purchased a bathing suit at the local store and ambled down to the beach. It was only when he commenced to undress that he recollected that the wood was still in his pocket, so with rare caution he thrust it under the sand, quite satisfied that no one would dream of looking there. He had no idea that his pursuers were so close behind him; he was merely taking precautions against any casual tramp who might be tempted to run through his pockets. Ten minutes later James Carstairs, explorer, gentleman and rolling stone, limped into the picture, and the story of The Lost Valley entered upon its penultimate phase. PART III _THE FINDING OF THE LOST VALLEY._ CHAPTER I. THE CYPHER. "You may smoke if you like, Mr. Cumshaw," Moira said graciously to our visitor. I said nothing; instead I silently handed the man my cigar-case. He selected a weed with a discriminating care that I felt cast an unwarranted reflection on the quality of the cigars I smoked. I watched him in silence while he cut off the end with a neat, precise stroke of his penknife, lit the cigar and blew a cloud of blue smoke out of his mouth. All the time I was staring at him I could feel Moira's eyes on me, and I knew that she was wondering what made me so boorish and morose. Or, perhaps, with a woman's keen instinct for ferreting out the things she shouldn't know anything about, she guessed just what was the matter. To tell the truth I was just beginning to feel a little jealous. Frankly I considered that she was paying too much attention to Mr. Albert Cumshaw, and I hadn't two sharp eyes without seeing that he openly admired her. Of course I had turned down her overtures of reconciliation, and I think I told her plainly enough that there was no possibility of my falling in love with her again; but, if all that were perfectly true, I shouldn't have been jealous because the two of them took to making eyes at each other. The fact remained that I was a little hurt by what I saw, and I had to recognise, even though I ran counter to the promptings of my common-sense, that I wasn't as indifferent to her as I would have myself believe. I brought myself back with a jerk to the matter in hand. "What do you propose doing about the matter?" I asked of Cumshaw. He did not reply immediately. His right little finger flipped the ash from off the end of his cigar, and then the dark curly head lifted and the glowing eyes looked straight into mine. "What do I propose doing!" he repeated. "Well, if it was left to me," he said, after a contemplative pause, "I'd say the treasure's there, and the sooner we go after it the better. We know already that there's other people on the job--they killed Mr. Bryce and they made a mess of the Dad--and it's all right thinking, as Mr. Bryce did, that they've come to the end of their tether and are waiting for us to set the pace for them. There's been so many miracles in this play already that it doesn't do to risk the chance of any more. We've got no absolute guarantee that they won't stumble on the key to everything while we're wasting time here. You say you've got a cypher Mr. Bryce left you. Well, that cypher contains the position of the treasure; there's no doubt about that in my mind. Bradby carved it on the wood--neither he nor the Dad had any paper with them at the time--and from what I've heard of the man I'm confident that it's the kind of thing he would do. Then when Mr. Bryce got hold of it he burnt the wood and threw what was on it into a sort of cryptogram. One way and another he was pretty cautious when the fit took him, though I must say that when it was a question of his own life he wasn't so particular. It boils down to this. The Dad's out of the game for good and we've got to use our own wits. Within limits we've got a fair idea of the position of the valley, and, once we've solved the cypher, we'll probably have something more definite to go on." "That," I remarked, "is supposing we do solve it. As far as I can see it's too weird for anything." "Uncle," said Moira severely, "wouldn't have written it if he didn't think you could solve it. That's why he made it easy." "If you think it's easy," I retorted, "take it yourself and see what you can make of it." "That's a good idea," Cumshaw cut in, turning my own shaft against myself. "Suppose we all have a shot at it and see what we can make of it. We might get it all out and again we mightn't. When we get as far as we can we'll all pool our efforts, and maybe we'll make something out of it that way." "An excellent suggestion, Mr. Cumshaw," Moira said, and darted a glance of triumph at me. It said as plainly as so many words that here was a champion for her, a man who would defend her against the whole world. Of course I ignored it. What man would do anything else under the circumstances? But there are some things, of which this was one, that the more one ignores them the more insistent as to their presence do they become. So, though I affected not to see Moira's little glance of triumph, it photographed itself upon my mind's eye and completely spoiled the evening for me. "We'll get Jim here to type out a copy for you before you go, Mr. Cumshaw," she promised, "and you can see what you can make of it." "Thanks," said the young man briefly. I had expected him to make a bigger mouthful of it than that, and I thought it odd that he did not. It struck me too as queer that he did not ask for a look at the cypher; an ordinary man would have known no peace until he had examined it in all its baffling details. As I was to learn, Mr. Cumshaw was no ordinary man, and, for a young chap of his age, had his emotions and inclinations under rather remarkable control. I stood up. "If you want that cypher," I said, "I'll type it out now, and you can study it on the way home if you wish." "It's very kind of you," Cumshaw murmured with a well-bred lack of enthusiasm. "I think," said Moira, "that we'd all better adjourn to the study. I don't like to think of anyone being in there alone, especially at night. You see," she explained to Cumshaw, "the room hasn't been used since Uncle's death. He was killed in that very room ... in front of my eyes." "I understand," said Cumshaw softly, and he rose to his feet and held the door open for Moira to pass out. She led the way to the study and unlocked the door. It had been a fad of hers ever since the tragedy to keep the room sealed, and, as I saw no reason for gainsaying her, I had never interfered. She switched on the light and we stood for a moment on the threshold, dazzled by the unaccustomed radiance. Nothing in the place had been touched--we had not disturbed anything during our search for Bryce's papers--and, save for the absence of some of the actors in the scene, it might have been the very night of the tragedy itself. I broke the spell by walking into the room and proceeding to take the cover off the typewriter. The machine had not been used since its owner had died. Despite the manner in which I had lied to Bryce, I knew a thing or two about typewriters. As a matter of fact I transcribed the greater part of my father's three volumes of Solomon Island Ethnology on just such another machine. I sat down at the table and drew from my pocket the letter and the cypher, both of which I had thrust out of sight when Albert Cumshaw had been announced that afternoon. "There's the cypher," I said, and I spread the sheet out on the table. Cumshaw bent over it and read out aloud from beginning to end. "2@3; 5@3 &9; 3 5433-3/4 5@ 3 @75 £994 1/4;£ 5@3 48½8;? ½7; ¼43 8; & 8;3 --3¼½743 ½3:3; "335 3¼½5.5@3; "¼/3 £843/5 ;945@¾£4¼2 ¼;95@34 &8;3 ¼5 48?@5 ¼;?&3½ 59 5@3 043:897½ 9;3¾3)53;£8;? " 94 523&:3 "335.£8? 5@3;," he said, stumbling every now and then at the unfamiliar expressions. "What do you make of it?" I asked. He looked up at me with just the flicker of a smile about the corners of his mouth. "I can't say just yet," he replied. "All these things take time. You can't solve them in an instant." "I thought we might," I said, with just the least hint of offensiveness in my tone. I don't know whether or not he noticed it, but if he did he was gentleman enough to ignore it. "All right," I ran on, "I'll type this out if one of you'll read it to me. Go slowly, as I don't want to have any mistakes. It's bad enough to have to do it once without having to do it again." "I'll read it," Cumshaw volunteered. I nodded to show my agreement. I then threaded the paper through and said, "I'm ready." He began to read it very slowly and carefully, and I typed away as he spoke. I had just got the first four or five combinations down when Moira interrupted me. "I knew you'd make a mess of it," she said coldly. "I told you so at the beginning." As a matter of fact she had said no such thing, but I let it pass. "What's wrong?" I queried, looking up at her. "I've been watching you," said she, "and you haven't depressed your figure lever once. You must have it all wrong. It'll just be simple letters instead of the signs." I had been typing all the time with my eyes on the keyboard, and I hadn't once glanced at the finished work. Now I looked at it I saw that she was right. I had been typing letters all along when I should have been printing figures. And then something queer about the letters struck me. My heart gave a jump. "Go on," I said huskily to Cumshaw. "Give me a few more." He read out two or three more combinations and then I leaned back in the chair. "Look," I said triumphantly, "look what I've done!" Two heads bobbed down over my work, stared at it for a moment, and then two pairs of eyes smiled at me. "You've solved it by accident," said Cumshaw. "I'm sorry for what I said," Moira said simply. "It's just the simplest cypher in existence," I said. "You've got a keyboard with letters and figures on it. When you want letters you type straight out, and when you want figures you just depress the lever. Now look at this. That 5 is on the same key as T, @ is on H's key, 3 means E, and so on. When Bryce worked it out he simply pressed down the figure lever and left it down, and now to reverse the process all we've got to do is to hit the keys these signs are on and leave the lever alone. Simple, isn't it?" "Very," said Cumshaw. "Get it all out, Jim, quick!" said Moira with feminine impatience. I did. I pressed 2 and I got W, and so on all along the keyboard, and when I had finished I pulled the sheet out and handed it to them. "Read it out, Moira," I said. "It's your turn." "'When the Lone Tree, the hut door and the rising sun are in line measure seven feet east. Then face direct north, draw another line at right angles to previous one, extending for twelve feet. Dig then.'" "If it hadn't been for you," said Cumshaw, "we wouldn't have found it. I congratulate you," and he held out his hand to me. "Rubbish!" I said. "It was all a lucky accident." But all the same I took the proffered hand. "We can go right on with it now," Moira cried joyously. "There's nothing to stop us." "Only that we've got to find the valley yet," said Cumshaw gloomily. "My father made several attempts but couldn't locate it." "You've got to bear in mind," I told them, "that we've got some information your father hadn't, strange though it seems." "And that?" Cumshaw queried quickly. "We're looking for a valley that's got a lone tree overlooking it. Your father didn't seem to be aware of that." Cumshaw seized the paper and read it through quickly. "By the Lord Harry, you're right, Carstairs! That's one piece of information he didn't have. If he had known that when he went after the gold himself he'd have got it." "Maybe he would," I said doubtfully. "You don't seem too sure of it, Carstairs," Cumshaw remarked, with a sidelong glance at Moira. "No more I am," I told him. "I don't like our chances either." "But," he protested with a puzzled indrawing of his eyebrows, "as far as we're concerned it's as easy as falling off a log." "Just as easy," I agreed, "providing our friends the enemy don't interfere. They don't seem to be the kind of men who rest on their oars, that is if we can judge anything from their past exploits." "You're right there, Carstairs," Cumshaw said. "I never gave them a thought, but I see now that they're likely to prove a pretty active menace to our safety." "That," I said, turning to Moira, "cuts out all possibility of your coming with us. You can't be running into danger." "Can't I just," she said with an assertive toss of her head, "and, whether I can or not, I'm going," she finished. I looked at Cumshaw. I could not tell from his expression whether he was pleased or sorry. His face was as devoid of emotion as that of a china doll. "What do you think about it?" I asked him straight out. He glanced at me in his turn with a curious baffling light in his dark eyes, and I felt as if he had stripped my soul bare of all pretences and was reading my thoughts in all their nakedness. "I should think," he said at length with an air of absolute impartiality, "that Miss Drummond is the mistress of her own actions and neither you nor I have any right to dictate what she is to do." "Have it your own way then," I said, with difficulty suppressing my rising anger. "But if anything goes wrong remember that I warned you beforehand." "I'll remember that," Moira said, and she favored Cumshaw with a little smile of gratitude. She never smiled at me like that, not even in those far-away days when we were all the world to each other or thought we were. Which in the end amounts to much the same thing. "Well, if you don't mind," said Cumshaw, breaking an awkward silence, "I'll go home now and think matters over. And then to-morrow we'll decide what to do." "Home?" I echoed. "I thought----" And then I stopped. "I'm staying in town," he said with a smile. "That's what I meant when I said home." "In that case," I said, "you'll be handy whenever we want you. You'd better leave your address in case we want you in a hurry." He scribbled his address--a leading city hotel--on a blank card and handed it to me. I glanced at it and then thrust it into my pocket. When I looked up again he was holding Moira's hand in his, just a trifle longer than convention demanded I thought, and saying something to her that I did not catch. She smiled in return, a dazzling smile, and said quite distinctly, "Please call whenever you feel inclined. There is no need for us to stand on ceremony with each other now we're partners." I saw him to the door. At the threshold he turned and spoke with one foot on the step and the other on the ground, taking up that attitude of unaffected ease that gives an air of friendliness to even the most formal conversation. "I'm rather pleased I met you, Carstairs," he said. "In one way and another I've heard a lot about you, and I think you've got the kind of level head we'll need before we've seen this business through." "Thank you," I replied. I was nearly going to say 'Soft words butter no parsnips,' but my common-sense came to my aid just in time to prevent me making a fool of myself. He held out his hand, and I took it in the spirit in which he had offered it to me. Nevertheless I was absurdly jealous of the man, though Heaven knows I hadn't the least reason to be. I could see with half an eye that he had made a good impression on Moira, and the way she had spoken to him, especially that last remark of hers, showed me that she was egging him on. It didn't matter one single solitary damn to me. I had told her clearly and definitely that we were business partners and that love was altogether out of the question. Yet here was I, the moment a potential rival appeared on the scene, behaving for all the world like a spoilt child. And, like a spoilt child, for my own good I needed someone to bring me sharply and suddenly to my bearings. Cumshaw bade me a cheerful good-night. I saw his lithe figure swing along through the sub-tropical darkness of a moonless summer night. Then the latch on the gate clicked with the ringing sound of metal striking against metal. I closed the door and went inside. Moira was standing in the study just as I had left her, standing as motionless and devoid of life as a statue of carven stone. I don't think she heard me at first. "Well," I said conversationally, "how is it now?" She turned at the sound of my voice and faced me squarely. I could see that her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and something inside of me moved me with a sudden impulse to go up to her. I placed my hands on her shoulders and was amazed to find how unsteady they were. They trembled, my hands trembled! And yet they used to tell me in the old Island days that I hadn't a nerve in my body. I was quite prepared for anything except what really happened. I could feel a sort of tension in the atmosphere, and I expected her to do something theatrical. But she didn't. She backed away from me, but she didn't go far. The table was behind her. I don't know how long we stood looking at each other. It seemed a lifetime to me, and the silence was the sort that a man feels it sacrilege to break. "You make it very hard for me, Jim," Moira said calmly. The tears were still in her eyes, but her voice was under excellent control. It didn't vibrate a note. She looked at me as she spoke, looked me straight in the eyes, and I think it was then that I began to realise what an ass I had been making of myself. "How do I make it hard?" I asked. My voice was curiously low, almost husky in fact. I rather think she noticed it and took heart therefrom. A man is very easy to handle when he is not quite sure of himself. "I've got to pretend," she said in answer to my question. "Pretend that you are nothing to me when----" She stopped short. It seemed almost as if she regretted that she had said so much. "Go on," I urged. "There's not much to say," she continued. "I just want to tell you, to tell you in such a way that you'll believe me, that if I've treated you shamefully I've suffered for it. I can't make any reparation for it; you were quite right in saying that it is too late now to alter things. I just want you to know that I'm sorry. I can't say much more than that, though I don't want to take any credit for it now, seeing that it's been practically forced out of me." I remembered the way she had been standing when I came in, the tears in her eyes, and the way she had backed out of my reach the moment I put my hands on her shoulders. It would have been so easy for her to have done the other thing, but she hadn't, and I admired her all the more for it. She might easily have captured me in the first flush of emotion, but she had instead given me time to think and a chance to get away if I wanted to. There was something in her attitude that appealed to my sense of fair play and at the same time prevented me from in any way misinterpreting her last remark. "Moira," I said, "were you crying when I came in just now?" Her lip trembled a little as she asked, "Why do you want to know?" "Because," I said slowly, "I've solved one riddle already to-night, and I've a mind to solve another before I go to bed." "I was crying," she admitted, "only I didn't mean you to see." "And why was that?" "I thought you might imagine I was just doing it." I knew what she meant; there was no need for her to explain further. She didn't want to influence me in any way; whatever I did must be done of my own free will. "I'm beginning to understand," I said slowly. "Then you'll forgive?" she said quickly, and one hand went up to her throat as if she were choking. I nodded and impulsively she held out her hand to me. I did not take it, and she half-turned so that I would not see what was in her eyes. "Can't we even be friends?" she said, with a queer little catch in her words. Something snapped in my head at that, and the words I had been holding back all the evening came to my lips in a rush of speech. "I didn't mean you to take it that way," I said desperately. "I wouldn't shake hands because ... that's not what I want. It's too stand-offish. I'm going to do more than forgive, and we're going to me more than friends, if you still want me." "You know I want you," she said softly with her head bowed shyly and the blushes rising in her cheeks. I took her in my arms and kissed her. CHAPTER II. OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY. Once we had definitely fixed the date of our departure we lost no time in making ready. As the days went by I began to see more and more clearly that it was just as well I had thrown in my lot with Moira and young Cumshaw. Neither of them had the least idea of organisation, and they seemed to think that things just happened of their own accord. Moira couldn't see anything else but the glamor and romance of the adventure, and I found that, for all his cleverness, Albert Cumshaw did not know what was essential to the expedition and what wasn't. "We can't start off like a picnic party," I said to them on one occasion, "and just wander on until we come to a likely spot. We've got to have everything planned out right down to the last box of matches and the last cartridge." Cumshaw drew a deep breath. "Cartridges!" he said, "Are you talking figuratively?" "No," I answered. "I'm speaking literally. It might yet be the case of the last cartridge. You must remember that, even if we get the gold and come back here in safety, we're still not out of the wood. We're not safe until our friends the enemy are removed from our paths for ever." "You mean that they must be killed?" Moira demanded. "I don't mean anything of the kind," I answered. "As a matter of fact I've got a perfect horror of killing people. It makes such a mess, and I'm naturally a rather tidy person." Cumshaw laughed softly, but Moira bit her lip, though she made no reply to what I had said. "Now, while we're talking about it," I ran on, "I just want to impress on you the fact that we aren't going off into the bush--not the kind of bush that you read about in books, where it's all scrub and myall blacks and things like that. Most of the time we'll be within coo-ee of civilisation. Most of Western Victoria's pretty well settled, and it's just the luck of the game and the formation of the country that this valley's remained so long hidden away. We'll be near enough to people all the time to be noticeable if we do anything remarkable. We've got to go to work so that we'll attract as little attention as possible. We'll want food, enough for several weeks, I suppose, and we've got to get it and take it with us, and do it all in such a way that nobody's going to wonder what we're after. Another thing that that reminds me of. Miss Drummond here had better keep out of sight as long as she can. We two can manage to escape observation, but people always want to know what a woman's doing in it when there's anything suspicious happening." "If you mean by that that you think I can be turned back at the last moment, you're making a mistake," Moira informed me. "I don't mean that," I said calmly, "but I want to take every precaution that I can. I'm in charge of this expedition, elected by three votes to nothing, and I'm going to run things the way I think best. It mightn't be the best way in the end, but that's quite another matter. I haven't wandered across the world from Yokohama to the White Nile and from the Klondyke to the Solomons without knowing how to organise an expedition." "You're right there," Cumshaw acknowledged. "You're the only one amongst us who's had practical experience. In future what you say goes." "That's the spirit," I said briskly. "What have you to say, Moira?" "You know best," she answered. "As long as you don't leave me out altogether I'll agree to anything, but I want to take my share of the risk too." "Apparently," I remarked, "everyone's afraid that everybody else'll have the lion's share of the fighting. Well, if I can fix it, there'll not be any fighting at all." "What do you mean?" Cumshaw asked interestedly. "That's nothing to do with the situation at present," I informed him. "You'll all see when the time's ripe. Now what's next?" "There's nothing more that I know of," Cumshaw volunteered. "And you, Moira?" "I think I've got everything fixed," she answered. "That means we can start at the end of the week," I said with satisfaction. "It looks as if fortune's turning our way at last." The three of us laughed together, and Cumshaw I think it was who said, "Success to the expedition!" It sounded very nice, and we were all so sure that things were going to turn out well. But there was one little point that all of us had overlooked, and that was destined in one way and another to upset our plans to a remarkable extent. Profiting by Bryce's experience, I decided to leave the car at home, as I realised that we would have to abandon it sooner or later, and nothing is so apt to set foolish people talking as an apparently ownerless car. I resolved on making our headquarters at the spot where by all accounts the unlamented Mr. Bradby had met his death. For one thing all the later developments of the chase had centred round that one spot, and Bryce himself had gone there unhesitatingly by the shortest and most direct route he knew of. I couldn't see at the time where I could find a better jumping-off place. To say the least it was a fixed point from which to start exploring, and we had the comforting knowledge, though it might not be of any practical use to us, that the valley itself was within two or three days' march. With it as the centre we would have to cast a circle with a radius of anything up to fifty miles, and then somewhere within the enclosed area we might, or might not, find the elusive vale that held the treasure. We approached the rendezvous by widely divergent routes. It was a rather extravagant precaution, no doubt, but then I wasn't taking any risks that I could possibly avoid. The murderous gentlemen who were quite certainly on our track were a power to be reckoned with, and at the same time we had to keep our eyes open for the law itself. It was all right for Bryce to say that he was playing within the law--quite possibly he was--but I had no idea of paying any percentage to the Crown. I was rather hazy on the matter myself, though I seemed to have heard somewhere or other that the Government always gobbled a big share of the loot in the case of treasure trove. At any rate the quieter we kept the expedition the less likelihood there was of us having to pay anything at all. Moira was to travel with me from Murtoa, and Cumshaw decided to train as far as Landsborough--the recently opened Crowlands to Navarre railway would take him that far--and then do the rest across the hills on foot. His was the longer and more difficult route, and I had intended at first to take it myself, for reasons that have nothing at all to do with this tale; but he was so insistent, and at one stage threatened so much unpleasantness, that I gave into him, if only for the sake of peace. Before we started I had another talk with Moira and endeavored to dissuade her from accompanying us, but she very calmly told me that she had additional reasons now for going with us. There was sure to be trouble, she admitted that much; but then wasn't her place by my side, more especially if things weren't all they should be? Her logic left much to be desired, but it had the one merit of achieving its object. It was devastating; it completely crushed all my arguments and left me without a leg to stand on. The late March of the year 1919 saw the three of us at the rendezvous, which we had reached without incident of any sort. Contrary to our expectations the other party had not been sighted, and the outlook was certainly auspicious. For all that I felt worried. Everything was going along too swimmingly, and I had a queer feeling that we would meet with trouble very shortly, if only to even things up. Ease and success can only be won after much expenditure of blood and tears; there is not a thing in life worth trying for that can be bought with a minimum of effort. The greater the prize, the greater the price one must pay; always one pays, with health, with limbs, sometimes with life itself. During the time Moira and I had been travelling together I had slept of a night with one eye more or less open, and the strain of being constantly on the alert was just beginning to tell on me. As a consequence I was very pleased when Cumshaw suggested that we should take watch and watch about. I agreed, with the reservation that I must always be on guard for the dawn-watch. I didn't explain why I was so anxious to take that particular watch, and, though I noticed Moira looking curiously at me, she made no remark. I knew from experience that men are at their sleepiest about four o'clock in the morning, and an attack can be successfully launched then that would fail at any other hour of the day or night. I had yet to test Cumshaw on active service, so I claimed the four o'clock stretch for my own. It doesn't hurt to be careful; I've never yet met anyone who was sorry he had taken precautions. We camped within a hundred yards of the creek, and after supper Cumshaw and I sprawled on the grass and talked. Moira had retired to an improvised tent we had fashioned for her, and, as it was just out of earshot, we were free to speak our thoughts. I had not seen Cumshaw for the better part of two weeks--he had started from his own place and come right on from there without calling on me again--and I hoped that he might have some further news for me. I asked him casually how his father was getting on. "Right enough," he said, blowing a cloud of smoke out of his mouth. "Some days you wouldn't think there was a thing wrong with him. He'll talk pretty lucidly at times, but it isn't anything that can be of any use to us. He doesn't seem to have taken much notice of the position of the valley, he apparently thought at the time that it would be very simple to pick it up again, and I fancy that Bradby must have confirmed him in that view. He couldn't have taken into account the way they had twisted about in the mountains. It's the simplest thing in the world to lose yourself here, the more so if you're confident you know your way." "You've about struck it there," I said. "I just want to give you a little piece of advice, and I hope you won't take it amiss. I don't want to talk about this expedition any more than I can help for two reasons. One's this: I don't wish to cause Miss Drummond any more uneasiness than is absolutely necessary. You know as well as I do that there's a big chance of the lot of us being wiped out just about the time we get within sight of the end. I wouldn't be surprised if they let us walk into a trap and finished us at their leisure. As for the other reason--well, it's never safe to say that you're alone anywhere. If we raise our voices above whispers here we might be giving away valuable information. So just let us keep watch on our tongues. More hopes have been ruined and more chances of success spoilt by gabbling tongues than by any other dozen causes all rolled together." "I can quite understand that," Cumshaw said, between puffs at his pipe. It was one of those neat little affairs with a round bowl, a spick-and-span pipe that had burnt an even color and that shone as brightly as the day he bought it. My pipe was a sorrier article; it was battered and blackened, and one side of the bowl was down beneath the level of the other, showing that it had been lighted oftener with a blazing brand than with the orthodox matches. In a way it was like its owner; it had been tested by fire and had survived the test. If I were philosophical--but then I wasn't, and that's about all there is to it. "I didn't go to Landsborough," Cumshaw said after a pause. "I missed my train at Ararat, and so I came on to Great Western. It's much the shorter way. I wish you had known of it before." "I'm all the better pleased you came that way," I told him. "It will help to disorganise the chase." He bent over, picked up a live coal in his bare fingers and applied it to his pipe before replying. "I rather think," he said slowly, "that it will have just the opposite effect." "You can't have any nerves in those fingertips of yours," I said. "Why will it?" "I don't seem to have any, do I? I think I saw one of the men at Great Western." "You don't know them," I said. "How could you?" "Mr. Bryce described them in his letter," Cumshaw answered. "This man fitted the description of one of them, a dark sort of chap." "Spanish type?" I queried. Cumshaw nodded. "I wonder why it is," he ran on, "that we're always more suspicious of that sort of man than, say, a fair type?" "Relic of the Armada, I suppose," I suggested. "Tell me all about the man you saw." "I was coming along the roadside," Cumshaw began, "past one of the vineyards, when I noticed a man working close at hand. I was just going to pass by when it struck me that he was the only person about. I thought that rather queer and I gave him a second look. Then I saw that he wasn't digging, as I had thought at first, but that he was scratching aimlessly at the ground. One of those queer feelings that seem altogether unrelated to fact crept over me. Call it second sight or any other fancy name you please, the fact remains that I suddenly knew--not thought, mind you; I knew--that he did not want me to notice him and that he was pretending to be one of the workmen, just so that I would pass him by without more than a cursory glance. When I came to think it over afterwards, I remembered that it struck me when first I saw him that he was the only man I had seen in the vineyards for miles. Of course I had that idea in my mind when I looked at him the second time. That doesn't explain how I understood that I was the very man he did not want to see. He had his head bent down naturally, his hat well drawn over his face, and he went on scratching and scraping as if his very life depended on the energy with which he worked. I didn't get more than a passing glimpse of him, and that wasn't too good--you can't go over to a man and pull off his hat just because he looks suspicious--but I'd swear on a stack of Bibles that he's one of the men we'll have to deal with." "Perhaps so," I said. "At any rate I'm not going to allow chance workers in the fields to rob me of my night's rest." "No more am I," assented Cumshaw. "So you don't think there's any likelihood----." "I don't think anything at all," I cut in. "I take proper precautions, that's all." He made no comment on my unceremonious interruption, but the strange half-smile he gave me showed that he realised in part at least how his story had affected me. As a matter of fact I was more perturbed than I cared to admit. I had been thinking things over all day, and it had just occurred to me that, seeing we had heard nothing of them since Bryce's death, it was quite possible that they were even now following up the false clue that he had laid for them, and which one of them had got away with the night of the burglary. If that were so, why had they come back and killed Bryce? It was a curious enough situation, and the more I thought about it the more I became convinced that I was right. Our immunity so far was due solely to the fact that the others were well occupied with the faked plan they had stolen on that memorable evening. Now on top of that Albert Cumshaw must come with this circumstantial story of his and upset all my deductions. The strange part of it was, though my reason told me that he had been a victim of his own brilliant imagination, part of my mind--that part that believed in second sight and banshees and were-wolves, and stuff of that sort--told me that he was not so very much wrong after all. "I'll get to sleep," he said, interrupting the train of my thoughts. "I'll be fresh when my turn comes for guard." "Tell me," I said, for the matter had been puzzling me all night, "where did you learn to light your pipe with red-hot coals?" "Oh, that," he said with a laugh. "I saw you doing it earlier in the evening, and I made up my mind that what you did I could do." "Then it must have burnt you." "Horribly," he said with a grimace. "Good-night." CHAPTER III. THE PROMISED LAND. "This," I remarked, "is the sort of country Adam Lindsay Gordon would have loved. No man but he could do justice to it." "We've been out seven days," said Cumshaw, "we've travelled God knows how many miles, we've climbed up a Hades of a lot of mountains, and I don't think there's a blind creek for twenty miles that we haven't followed to the end and back again, and at the end of it all we're no nearer the Valley than we were when we started. Gordon might have made an epic out of it, but I'm hanged if I'm poet enough to appreciate the country or philosopher enough to ignore the sheer physical discomforts of the journey." "If you'd been through the things I've been through," I asserted, "if you'd been in New Guinea when there was a gold-strike on and had to climb hundreds of feet up a straight cliff to get to the fields, hanging on all the time to creepers as thick as your wrist, you'd think this was just Paradise. If you'd been with me in the sweltering Solomon Island jungle, where every breath you took made the perspiration stand out on your forehead in big beads, or up in the Klondyke when it was fifty below and a man's own breath turned into ice about his mouth, you'd know what life really meant. Here you're in the Garden of Victoria; you see sights that knock some of the beauty spots of the world into a cocked hat, and all you can do is growl at the country. You can't expect to go up and down the mountain side in a lift or anything of the sort." "It's all very well for you to talk like that," he objected. "You're used to this kind of life; we're not. That makes all the difference." "So it seems," I said. "But I haven't the slightest intention of giving in yet. As a matter of fact I rather think we've been a little too sure that we were on the right track. We haven't been as careful as we might. We've gone along blindly." "What do you mean?" he demanded. "Just this. We've been so infernally confident that we only had to find a clump of wattle and a lone tree, and we were there. Now that lone tree must be somewhere on the east side of the valley, and, despite the fact that it's on high ground, it's so hidden that we wouldn't see it until we were almost on top of it. It might be perfectly visible from inside the valley, and at the same time be hidden from the outside by another hill. As for the wattle, has it ever struck you that wattle only begins to spring into bloom about the end of August? It's almost April now, and you wouldn't find anything but just a mass of green bushes." "If there was a valley, which same I'm beginning to doubt," Cumshaw said doggedly, "we'd have found it before this." "I don't know what Miss Drummond is cooking for our tea," I remarked irrelevantly, "but it smells good." "If you think you can put me off that way," Cumshaw said, "you're mighty mistaken. I'm tired of it all, and for two pins----" "You know very well," I cut in, "that I haven't one pin, let alone two." "You apparently don't understand that I'm perfectly serious." "Yes, I do. I'm serious too. I'm quite satisfied that we haven't been going about things in the right way. We've made mistakes, and it's up to us to find out what those mistakes are and go over the ground again." "I'll give it another week," said Cumshaw, "and if we haven't found anything by then we might as well retire, for you can bet your sweet life we never will." I didn't answer him immediately. I was sprawling on the grass, on my back, with my eyes turned to the west, and something in the color of the sky surrounding the setting sun caught and held my attention. Curiously enough it made me think of Gordon and "The Sick Stockrider"--it must have been floating through my mind when I began to talk--and it needed very little effort of imagination to see-- The deep blue skies wax dusky and the tall green trees grow dim, And the sickly, smoky shadows through the sleepy sunlight swim, And on the very sun's face weave their pall, but there were no blue skies or green trees. The heavens were just a dull slate-grey with streaks of smoke-colored cloud scurrying across from the west, and the trees that might have been green in a better light were black and gaunt, like weird spectres which had taken on wild shapes and unorthodox hues. There was just the slightest suggestion of chill in the atmosphere, and that, combined with the scurrying clouds, made me study the sky with growing anxiety. "If that's not a storm brewing," I said, pointing skywards, "I'm anything you like to call me." Cumshaw cocked one eye in the direction indicated. "It does look like it," he said lazily, after a prolonged study of the sky. I looked him up and down as best I could. One can't survey a man too well when lying on one's back; but something in the glance and more that I gave him, struck him as being so odd that he sat up and stared at me. I made no movement. "Well?" he queried at length. "It's just the other way round," I said in my most aggravating tone. He looked at the sky again at that, and then turned his dark eyes on me. "I can see it's going to be a fine old storm," he said, "but I don't understand why you're worrying about it." "I'm not," I said a trifle untruthfully. I was worrying, but not as much as he seemed to think. Ordinarily I would have told him just what I fancied was wrong, but this time I didn't fancy anything. For all I could say to the contrary there was just an ordinary April storm brewing over across the hills, and presently the thunder would begin, and then the lightning, and after that the rain; still I felt like a man who is on the verge of a great discovery, on the brink of finding that something that means all the difference in the world between success and failure. Even now when I come to consider calmly the emotions of that hour I cannot say that what I have just written down is a true description of my feelings and thoughts. What happened later that same night has had its effect on my memory and has mixed itself inextricably with my earlier recollections. All this about my fancying that the storm meant more than a storm usually means may be due to the fact that, but for it, the momentous event itself would never have occurred. I do know that I was a little doubtful about the security of the improvised tent that sheltered Moira, and I think I must have showed a little of that anxiety in my face. That perhaps was what struck Cumshaw and led him to make the remark that he did. Presently Moira called us to tea, and we hauled ourselves up from the grass and went over to her. The fire was burning up brightly and threw the tent and the surrounding trees into bold relief. It made the sky look even darker and more threatening than before. The scurrying clouds had all passed away by now, but in their train came thicker and heavier ones, big black things that rolled slowly across the evening sky with the heavy implacability of Fate. They moved like the advancing vanguard of a wild army of infamy, and soon had shut out altogether the dying light of day and the growing radiance of the silver stars. The sudden chill of thirty minutes previously had passed like a swift breath of wind into the limbo of lost and forgotten things, and in its place had grown a deadly hot oppressiveness that somehow reminded me of the sweltering dampness of those Gaudalcanar forests I had so recently described to Cumshaw. It filled us with something of its own torpor, so much so that we ate languidly, and when we spoke at all we spoke in monosyllables. The storm broke almost without warning. There was just one low premonitory growl of thunder, the sky was split by a yellow sword of lightning, and then the rain came pouring down in the way that can be best described as the bursting of the flood-gates of heaven. At that our torpor vanished and we made an unceremonious rush for the poor shelter afforded by the tent, bringing with us what was left of our meal. The tent had not been constructed with a view to holding more than one; at its poor best it was but a rough shelter from the night dew. We had never intended it to keep out the rain; it had not entered our heads as even a remote possibility. I, perhaps, as the only one of the three who had had any practical experience of out-door life, should have kept just such a chance in mind. The fact remains that I overlooked it, and I can't say that then or at any other time was I sorry for my miscalculation. I had lived so long in the tropics that the rain that came seemed to me the veriest drizzle, but the others had their own opinion, as I learnt the moment I said what I thought. Cumshaw remarked that it was the devil of a downpour, and Moira expressed her idea in less forcible though more polite terms. It was no use my saying that if I were in Port Moresby or Samarai the rain would have gone through the thin fabric of the tent like a rifle bullet through butter-cloth. They pointed out with equal truth that the present rain was dribbling through even as it was, and that a quarter of an hour more would see us saturated. Whether we would or not must remain a mystery. No doubt we would have found out sooner or later had it not come on to blow. The thunder had ceased and the lightning flashed less frequently, now that the rain had set in, but the wind began to rise, and almost on the last clap of thunder I felt the wall of the tent shiver under the impact of the blast. It occurred to me in one of those flashes of memory that we sometimes have in moments of tension that we had not troubled about running up guy-ropes, and there was nothing now to hold the tent if the wind caught it squarely. Scarcely had the thought formed in my mind than an extra fierce blast caught the light fabric, shook it as a Newfoundland dog would shake a small terrier it had picked up in its mouth, and then, before we knew what had happened, the wind had whirled the tent away like a child's balloon, leaving us standing bareheaded, shivering and exposed to all the force of the elements. I left Moira with Cumshaw and groped about in the darkness, hoping to find our missing tent, but I might as well have been hunting for the proverbial needle in a bundle of hay for all the chance I had. I merely got wet through, so much so that I changed by mind completely about the force of Victorian storms, and when at last I found my way back to the others I was sopping from the sole of my boots to the top of the woe-begone hat I had hurriedly thrust on my head. As matters stood I could not get any wetter, and I supposed that Cumshaw was in much the same state. Nevertheless there was Moira to think of, and the sooner we got to shelter of some sort, a cave on the hillside or even a tolerably thick bush, the better it was going to be for all of us. I shouted this to Cumshaw--it was very hard to hear now that the gale had risen and was blowing everything to ribbons--and he understood me only after a couple of attempts. So I took Moira by one chill wet hand and Cumshaw took the other, and thus in the darkness and the steady soaking rain began our hunt for shelter of some sort. I haven't an idea how far we walked. We just kept on and on, and really I think we did not notice the storm so much as if we had been standing still. Most of the time our attention was too taken up with feeling our way, for the ground was very slippery and more than once I almost lost my footing, to give more than a passing thought to personal discomfort. It was too dark to see more than an inch or so in front of us, and even then we saw nothing more than a black wall that constantly receded as we advanced and yet was still as near as ever in the end. I don't think any of us realised that we had drifted into a gully or a track of some sort until I put out a tentative hand and felt a wall of bushes dead in front of me. I pulled back with a jerk, but my sudden movement startled the others, and in the flurry of the moment they did the very thing I had been trying to avoid. They slipped and I went with them. I had sense enough to release Moira's hand the moment I felt the drag of her body, and then, before I quite knew what had happened. I found I was whirling along in the mud, cavorting down the side of something that looked, or felt--for I couldn't see, as I've already stated--very much like the edge of a precipice. I brought up, just when I was beginning to wonder how much further I had to fall, by colliding with something that felt very like a hedge of brambles. There I lay in the soaking rain, with the mud plastered thickly on my face, and every bit of breath knocked out of my body. Somehow it seemed quieter down here. The wind still whistled and roared, but it was some feet or more above my head and it touched me not. Presently I began to sit up and wonder where I was and what had happened and what had become of the others. I felt very stiff and wet and dirty, and my right knee ached more than I liked. I was just on the point of staggering to my feet and feeling my way to leveller ground, when quite close to me I heard something very like a moan. I dropped on my knees at that and put out a tremulous hand. My fingers touched something soft and cold, and then I realised that it was a human face--Moira's, judging by the tangle of hair. I put my hand under the head and raised it up. A heavy mass of loose hair fell damply about my arm, and I knew then that it was my sweetheart I held. She stirred a little and moaned again. I was in a quandary. Clearly something must be done, but how or what I could no more say that I could fly. The night and the storm had swallowed Cumshaw up for the time being, but, beyond wondering vaguely what had become of him, I never gave him a thought. All my life long I'd been too used to men taking care of themselves to worry myself much about my missing colleague. But Moira's case was insistent and called for immediate attention. If there had been any shelter handy, even the rudest of bark humpies, I would have known what to do, and, what is more, I would have done it on the instant. Obviously the only course I could take was to crawl in under the ledge or precipice, or whatever it was, down which we had fallen and trust to the overhang--if there was any--and the few bushes that I had crashed through as I spun down, to keep the worst of the rain off us. Accordingly I rose to my feet and lifted Moira up in my arms. She was a greater weight than I had thought, and that and my own condition caused me to walk with the uneven steps of a drunken man. At last I found some sort of recess in the side of the slope--I came across it more by accident than of set purpose--and there I crouched with Moira between me and the wall. The rain whirled in on me, and, if possible, I got a trifle wetter than before, but I had the satisfaction of knowing that my body kept both the rain and the wind away from her. It was a tedious enough job, holding the unconscious girl in my arms, and more than once I felt like dropping her, only that I recollected in time that I was crouching ankle deep in mud. I am stronger than the average, and I have had my body trained in hard schools, but even that has not made a Hercules of me. I was more than glad when she opened her eyes, or, rather, when she moved a little in my arms and then spoke. She was not hurt much, she said in answer to my question, but she felt stiff in every limb, and the dampness seemed to have soaked through to her very bones. How was I, and what had happened? I answered the two questions in almost the same breath. Brevity is not only the soul of wit, but it is the sole method of carrying on a conversation when both parties are wet and shivering. "Have you any idea where we are?" Moira asked. I shook my head and then, remembering that my answer was unintelligible in the darkness, I said, "I haven't. We fell over a cliff or a precipice, and that's all I can say about it." "Why," she said, "you're shivering!" And she put out her hand to touch me. Her fingers came to rest on my arm, and I could feel her stiffen in the dark. "Jim, why did you do it?" she demanded, with yet a curious softness in her voice. "Do what?" I fenced. "As if I don't know that you're in your shirt sleeves. That's your coat that's wrapped round me." "What if it is?" "You shouldn't have done it. You'll catch your death of cold." "Much chance there is of that," I grunted. She was silent for a time, and then I felt her arms about me, and I realised that she was trying to place my coat about my shoulders. "If that's what you're after," I said, "I'll put it on. But you'll catch cold yourself." She made no direct answer, but I heard something that sounded curiously like a sob. Presently she moved up closer to me and a soft voice whispered in my ear, "Jim, I'll be warmer if you'll let me snuggle up to you. It's a long time since last ... I didn't deserve it then." I reached out in the darkness and drew her towards me. With her tired head resting on my shoulder we waited for the dawn. It was a long time coming, how long I cannot say, for in my then state of nervous tension the hours dragged with the awful unendingness of eternity. At last the black wall of night cracked into streaks of grey, looking for all the world like feeble sun-rays filtering through the chinks in the roof of a deserted house. Moira stirred a little, and I saw in one hasty glance that her wet hair was streaming about her face and her saturated dress was caked with black mud. I held her off at arm's length and looked her over quizzically. Then we each laughed outright at the sight the other presented. "You're wet through, Moira," I said, "and you look as if you've been having a mud-bath. All the same you're a brick to have stood it all the way you have." "I'm not and I haven't," she said cryptically, and silenced my further objections with a kiss. When I looked out on the world again it was to see that the day had already broken, and a dirty and bedraggled Albert Cumshaw was making his way towards us with slow and painful steps. CHAPTER IV. WE ENTER THE VALLEY. I cannot explain why just at that instant my heart gave a thump. There was nothing for it to thump about. Cumshaw, toiling up the slope, for all his woe-begone look, was the most ordinary figure imaginable, and there was nothing in the landscape to excite or rivet attention. It was a white dawn, and, though the rain had ceased long before, everything was still dull and grey. In the hollows the mist lingered and hung between us and the further view like a great white curtain. That and the advancing Albert Cumshaw completed the picture, a picture that was neither interesting nor sensational. Yet at the sight, as I've already stated, my heart jumped queerly and unaccountably. Do coming events really ever cast their shadows before them? Are we sometimes granted visions of "the things beyond the dome?" I do not know, and, even if I did, I would not care to express a definite opinion in my own case. I have seen things dangerously like coincidences happen so often in my own experience that I have grown chary of either affirming or denying that there is something more than chance at the bottom of it all. Still the fact remains that twice within twenty-four hours the same queer feeling crept over me, and on each occasion the course of events proved that it was premonition. But that is running a shade ahead of the story. I ran down the slope to meet Cumshaw, and the first thing I noticed was that there was a great livid bruise across his right temple. "You've got a nasty knock there on your forehead," I greeted him, in the casual self-contained fashion of the men who live in the open. He answered me with one of those laughs that are nothing more than almost soundless chuckles. "Is it hurting?" I enquired with a trace of anxiety in my voice. "Hurting, hell!" he said impolitely. "Of course it is." "How did you do it? Was it an accident?" "I don't look as if I did it just for amusement, do I?" he snarled. "It hasn't improved your temper, my lad," I said under my breath. Aloud I remarked: "We're all in much the same boat. Miss Drummond's had a stiff time of it, and I've got all my bruises where you can't see them, but I can assure you that they hurt all the same." At the mention of Moira a shadow passed over his face. Frankly I could not quite understand his attitude towards her. At first I was rather of the opinion that he was in love with her, but latterly I hadn't been so sure, for he had had the decency to suppress his feelings once he found how the land lay. The mere mention of her name calmed him down wonderfully. He even seemed a little ashamed of his outbursts of temper. "I might have remembered that I wasn't the only one in the party," he said. "But then I came a fearful cropper, and on top of it I've been out in the rain all night." "We were a little luckier." I told him. "We found an overhang and that kept off most of the rain. All the same I wouldn't mind a chance of drying myself." "And we're likely to get that," he said with some asperity. "All our goods are God knows how many miles behind. I've got a box of matches in my pocket, but they're just about as useful here as they would be at the bottom of the sea." "Come now," I said, "it's not as bad as all that. We've got a lady to take care of, and we've got to shuffle our brains about a bit and see what we can do. We'll never get anywhere by standing still railing at our fate." "Well, you're in charge, Carstairs," he told me. "It's up to you." "It is," I admitted, "and as the first step towards success I might point out to you that the mist is lifting." He wheeled round at that with greater agility than I expected, seeing that by his own account he was still feeling pretty dicky. The mist was lifting in truth, and yellow spears of sunlight were thrusting themselves through like hat pins run through cloth. "It'll be the better part of half an hour before the place's clear," he asserted, with one eye cocked at the sky and the other watching me. "In the meanwhile we'd better go back to Miss Drummond and set her mind at rest," I suggested. He trudged along at my elbow with a step that lacked its usual buoyancy, but the sidelong glances I stole at him every now and then showed me that he was fast recovering his spirits. The bruise on his forehead, seen now close at hand and in a better light, was not the fearsome thing I had at first taken it to be. True, it lent him an air of general disrepute, but then none of us were quite fit for the drawing-room. Even Moira, sheltered as she had been, showed very much the worse for wear. She greeted Cumshaw with a cheery smile, the bravest thing about her I thought, and a ready question as to his adventures. But he could tell her little more than that he had gone over the edge with us and rolled away until he brought up against the stone or whatever it was that had bruised his face so nicely. Our own story, what there was of it, was soon told, and a few glances about us showed that in the murk of the night and rain we had missed our footing and shot off the track a dozen feet or so to the level ground below. Above us waved the tall shapes of kingly gums, and below us lay vast spaces of bracken. Beyond that we could form little idea as to our position, though the mist was slowly drifting away now. "The best thing to do, I suppose," I remarked, "is to get back to last night's camping-place and see what we can find of the stores. Of course we shouldn't have left them, but it's no use being wise after the event. We've to go back as quick as we can now, and maybe we can dig up something warm. That's supposing that everything isn't too wet to be used." "As I remarked before, it's up to you," Cumshaw threw at me. "Lead on, Carstairs." "If you can show me any way back to the main track, I'll lead on with pleasure," I told him. "There's none visible that I can see, and I don't fancy that my eyes are over dull." Cumshaw said something under his breath, but before I could drop on him for it Moira interposed. "How about walking round at the foot of this ridge and seeing where it'll lead us to?" she suggested. "That's as fine a plan as any," I answered. "We'll try it." We did. We sauntered along listlessly for the best part of an hour, and then it struck me all of a sudden that we were rising rapidly. "We're on the wrong track," I said, stopping short. "We didn't come down as steep a slope as this last night." "You're right there, Carstairs. We didn't," Cumshaw said, stopping short and looking about him with a puzzled air. "Why not keep right on?" Moira advised. "It's just possible that we're working back to the track." "We'll give it a chance," I said, after chewing the suggestion over in silence for a few minutes. "We'll keep on for ten minutes or so, and if it gets any worse we can always go back." The ground became rougher at every step and finally in despair I called a halt. The sun was well up by this and the mist had cleared away from the hills, though filmy vapors still lingered in what I knew must be the hollows. In front was a causeway, strewn with boulders, and beyond that what I took to be a sea of wattles. I could see no use in progressing further in that direction, and I said so as succinctly as I could. Cumshaw was inclined to argue, but the consensus of opinion was against him. The outcome of it was that we decided to retrace our steps. Before we did so I suggested looking about for something that would give us an indication of our present position. I stumbled on it quite by accident. Another step further and I would have fallen down the funnel-shaped opening that gaped at my feet. I drew back just in time to save myself, and for the second time that morning my heart gave a jump. To think that we had gone so close to missing it altogether! The thing, so to speak, had lain at our feet all the time. I turned about and searched the landscape for my companions. Moira was visible in the near distance; the wattles had swallowed Cumshaw. "Cumshaw, Moira, I've found it!" I called at the top of my voice. Moira whipped round at the sound of my voice. I waved to her and she came running towards me. A second later I saw Cumshaw come out of the shadows, and I yelled at him with all the power of my lungs. I don't know what he must have thought of the yelling, dancing, frantically waving figure that caught his eye. He must have fancied for a moment that I had gone mad. Then, in a flash, so he says, the truth dawned on him, and he in his turn sprinted towards me, the one idea uppermost in his mind being that the valley must have been found. At the same instant my soul was singing "Eureka!" and Moira was weeping and laughing at the same time. "Cumshaw," I cried, as he came within speaking distance, "if that's not the funnel that your father and Bradby left the valley by you can call me a goggle-eyed Chinaman." And then somehow we all seemed to be talking together. "That must be the valley down under the wattles." "I knew we'd find it." "It only shows that one should never give in." "If we hadn't fallen down that slope last night...." "If I hadn't kept going when you all wanted to turn back, you mean." "It's found now and that's the best part of it." I must confess that I lost my head just as the others did. I should have known better, I suppose, than to go yelling out our discovery at the top of my lungs, but knowing's one thing and doing's altogether different. I've seen miners on the Lakekamu shouting themselves hoarse over even less of a discovery, seasoned men who knew how and when to hold their tongues. Could tyros like ourselves be blamed for what we did? I don't think so. "That's the funnel right enough," Cumshaw said. "There can't possibly be two of the same kind in the same district. I'm sure this is the one; it's been described too often to me for there to be any mistake about it. But what's puzzling me is the valley. There doesn't seem to be much of one here. All I can see is wattles, wattles whichever way I look." "There's one way to settle it," I said in an aside to him, and I looked at Moira. He gathered from my warning glance that I had something to say I didn't want her to hear, so he shifted out of earshot with me. "There's things you don't want a girl to see," I explained as we walked off; "but if this is the valley the skeletons of those two horses should be down there somewhere," and I pointed over the edge of the funnel. "I'll go down," he said with alacrity. "I guess it's my go. It's time I took some sort of a risk." "You surely don't expect there'll be anything wrong?" I queried. "I can't say," he answered with a shrug of his shoulders. "Anyway, I think you'd better get back to Miss Drummond. She's looking over this way, and in a minute or so she'll be asking awkward questions, if you don't go and tell her something." "All right," I agreed. "Look as slippy as you can, but be careful. An injured man is always more or less of a nuisance, you know." He grinned cheerfully at that, and then, without another word, turned on his heel and made off towards the funnel. I walked back to Moira. "What are you going to do now?" she asked me suspiciously. "What's Mr. Cumshaw after?" "He's going down through that funnel-shaped thing," I answered. "He wants to see what's at the end of it." The golden-brown eyes regarded me thoughtfully for a space and then: "Why didn't you go yourself instead of sending him?" she asked. "It was his suggestion," I said defensively. "He seemed to think he had a better right than anyone else, so I didn't argue with him about it. I let him go." "We could all have gone," she hinted. "We could have," I agreed, "but we didn't." In the meantime Cumshaw had lowered himself carefully down into the opening, felt about a bit with his feet, found a foothold, and then swung easily down from projecting ledge to projecting ledge. He emerged quite unexpectedly into a tangled mass of wattle. That puzzled him much, as it had puzzled me a few minutes previously; the elder Cumshaw's tale contained no mention of wattle save the golden barrier at the further side of the valley. Yet here was wattle as far as the eye could reach. It looked as if a generous scientist, like the man in H. G. Wells' "Food of the Gods," had let loose some power capable of forcing on this abnormal growth. The valley itself was in an undulating sea of vegetation. Had it been early in September the place would have been a vast expanse of golden glory, but as it was late March the dominant color note was that of grey-green. Under the circumstances it was as clear as daylight how the elder man had missed the place. It was buried under the rank growth, and all definable features, as we learnt later--everything that could be used as a leading mark--had disappeared or been swamped by the wattles. The bushes were not so thick about the lower entrance to the funnel as to impede Cumshaw's movements, and so he began to look about him in the hope of locating the one thing that would definitely identify the place. The horses had been shot close to the wall of rock, and it was a practical certainty that some trace of their bodies would be found in the vicinity. Ten minutes' close search brought to light a pile of bones that might or might not be those of the missing animals--Cumshaw had no knowledge of anatomical structure and so did not feel quite clear on that point--but the remarkable feature about them in his eyes was that they were all more or less blackened, and amongst them he found a heap of lime-dust, which he took to be bones reduced to their elemental form by the application of great heat. Still he felt justified in regarding the identity of the place as being sufficiently established, and without wasting any more time he returned the way he had come. "There's no doubt about it," I agreed when I heard his tale. "This is the valley right enough. I vote on going down there at once. The old hut can't be far away, and it'll be somewhere for us to camp in and fix up our clothes. And that reminds me that one of us'll have to go back for our stores and extra clothes. There's no need for both of us to go; one will do. However that can wait until we find the hut." "I'm not hungry," Moira said, "and I think my clothes are practically dry. The sun's coming out now, and I don't see why we should feel any the worse for last night's adventures if we only take reasonable care of ourselves." "If that's the case," I remarked, "let us go down by all means." I sent Cumshaw down first, as he was the only one of us who was familiar with the place, and then I handed Moira down to him. Or, rather, I helped her down; Moira at the best of times is no light weight. For a moment we stood blinking at the entrance to the funnel, and then Moira caught my arm in her impulsive way and cried, "Come on, Jim! Let's enter into Paradise!" I smiled at her quaintness and made to follow her, but Cumshaw interposed quickly. "Not that way," he said. "This is the way." He glanced at me as he spoke, and I realised that he was taking us by a path that would lead us away from the mouldering bones. The ground was rough underfoot, and the matted cover of vegetation that effectually hid stray boulders from view made it all the worse. In places the wattle grew over our heads in a profusion that was almost tropical, and more than once we would have lost our way had I not taken our bearings at the start, and thus was able to guide the party by means of my pocket-compass. "In your father's day there was a wood hereabouts," I said to Cumshaw presently. "There doesn't seem to be one now." "There doesn't," he said. "Can you understand how practically the entire physical features of the place have changed so much?" "Frankly I can't. But they apparently have, and that's about all we can say. We'll just have to keep our eyes open and trust to luck." "Our luck seems to have held good so far," Moira said, turning to me with high hope in her face. "Mind your footing," I said warningly. "You want to watch every inch of the way. There's all sorts of rocks and boulders under this stuff." "I'll be careful," she smiled, and scarcely were the words out of her mouth than her foot caught in something. She pitched forward on her face before I could spring to her assistance. I lifted her up carefully, but she seemed none the worse for her fall. "I don't know what it was that tripped me," she confided. "It wasn't a boulder or anything of the sort. I think it was a log of wood, yet my foot seemed to catch underneath it." I was on the point of offering a suggestion, but something held me silent, and instead I dropped down on my knees and felt feverishly in the undergrowth. Of course it was a silly thing to do--there might have been snakes and all manner of noxious crawling things there--but I didn't think of that at the time. I was too intent on solving the riddle. My hand touched something.... I straightened up and faced the others. "Moira and Cumshaw," I said. "I've found the hut. That's a piece of it there." Bending down, I dragged to light a rough-hewn beam that possibly had been the threshold plank. It was weather-worn, and in places the fungus had grown thickly on it; but I could see for all that that it had been warped and twisted and charred in the blaze of a fire. Three pairs of eyes met across the plank, and three lips put the same idea into words. "There's been a fire here," we said in chorus. "And that," I added on my own account, for the benefit of the others who had not jumped to the same conclusion as I had, "and that explains everything that's puzzled us since we entered the valley. There's been a bush fire here at some period during the last twenty years. It destroyed the hut, it burnt down the wood, and it made that pile of lime you found, Cumshaw." "What pile was that?" Moira queried quickly. "I didn't see any." "Mr. Cumshaw passed a pile in the bushes as we came along," I said off-handedly. "The heat must have rendered the stones down." She accepted my explanation at its face value. "No wonder the place remained hidden," I ran on. "If you'll look over east, where there should be a lone tree, you won't find any. It's wattle everywhere you look. The fire cleared out all the trees and forced the wattle on in their place. If you came by here on any side but the one we came by you'd take this to be just an ordinary hollow full of wattle." "You're talking nothing else but wattle," Cumshaw interrupted. "What has the wattle to do with the fire anyway?" "Why, don't you see?" I cried. "Without the fire there wouldn't have been any wattle here. The seed'll lie dormant in the ground for years sometimes; it takes great heat to germinate them. That's why wattle always springs up in profusion after there's been a bush fire. The same thing happens with grass, the coarser kinds, though to a lesser extent." "I see," he said gravely. "It means that we are back just where we began." "It doesn't mean anything of the sort," I said quickly. "All this is in our favor. We're better off than we were before." "I don't see how that is," he replied. "But it is," I persisted, "and I'll show you why when the time comes. And now there's plenty to be done. One of us has to go back for the provisions that we left behind last night, and the other's got to stop here with Miss Drummond and run up a bit of a bark humpy that'll keep off the wind and won't let the rain through. Now if you're as hungry as I am you'll understand just how pressing the need of that food is. It's you or I, Cumshaw. Which of us is to go?" "I'll toss you," Cumshaw offered. I nodded, and he drew a coin from out his pocket and spun it in the air. "Heads!" I called. We bent down over it. "It's tail," said Cumshaw. "I go back for the food," I said. I straightened up and spoke seriously to the pair of them. "Cumshaw," I said, "do as much as you can while I'm away, and keep one eye on the horizon all the time. You must remember that there's always danger about; the luck's been with us so far, but it may turn any minute, and our rivals are just the sort of men who'd come on you suddenly and shoot before you could say 'Jack Robinson.' And as for you, Moira, keep out of harm's way and do what you can towards keeping a good lookout. I'm going across to the other side, as I reckon that we must have travelled round the valley last night." "You'll be careful, won't you, Jim, dear?" Moira whispered. "Aren't I always careful?" I said. "It's you that's got to watch out. Now, one kiss, dear. I'll be back as soon as I can possibly manage it." * * * * * Five minutes later I had gained the further wall of the valley, and found that, with the help of the bushes, it was the easiest thing imaginable for an active man like myself to haul himself up over the ridge and drop on the track which Abel Cumshaw and the late Mr. Bradby had trodden so many years before. I took my bearings carefully, then snapped up my pocket-compass and set off down the road with as jaunty a swing as I was capable of. I had long got over my stiffness, and now that the sun was shining brightly I began to feel more confident than ever that all was going well. If it had not been for the terrible way in which the dread purpose of our rivals had been brought home to us already I would have felt absolutely at ease. As it was I did not let my rosy anticipations of the future interfere at all with my sense of caution. CHAPTER V. DIES IRAE. As a matter of strict fact the place was much further away than I had anticipated. We must have wandered a considerable distance in the confusion of the evening's storm and covered more ground than we had thought. I had positioned the sun as I had left the valley and judged the time to be about eleven o'clock; "that," I thought, "will bring me back by two at the very latest." But really it was close on five, and the shadows were already dropping down over the country-side before I was ready to return. I found our little store of goods intact, though most of them were rain-soaked, and as a measure of good fortune I retrieved the tent whose sudden departure had been the primary cause of our hurriedly shifting camp. There was a fair load in all, but when I had made it up and rolled everything packwise in the tent and fastened it on my shoulders with what odd bits of string I found handy, there wasn't anything in it that would seriously try the strength of a seasoned explorer like myself. Then, because the night was beginning to draw in and I did not want to go stumbling through the valley in the dark, I set off at my top pace. I don't claim to be anything wonderful as far as walking is concerned, but if I were ever asked what I considered my record I would point back to that very night. I forced myself along, my whole being intent on reaching the valley before the sun slipped down behind the hills. I think it was more will-power than sheer physical strength that kept me moving. I was just a little anxious about Moira too. Cumshaw was a fine chap and clever in his own way, though he did have occasional spurts of temper; but he lacked my woodcraft experience, and I wasn't sure but what he might go to pieces if any prowlers pounced down on him unawares. Neither he nor Moira had ever come up against anything that would teach them to act as quickly as they could think, and, though they might work like niggers when they were under someone else's orders, an emergency that threw them on their own resources might find them seriously wanting. The shadows lengthened as I sped along, the tired yellow sun slipped down behind the hills like a penny-into-the-slot machine, and the early April twilight touched all inanimate objects with its own drab lack of coloring. I had no fear of losing my way in the darkness--I had too much locality sense for that--but the possibilities of my being ambushed appeared too many to be pleasant. A hurrying man, who is also heavily-laden, cannot pick his footsteps with the meticulous care that he would like, and it seemed within the bounds of probability that some strange listener might start out on my track and put an abrupt period to my career of usefulness. I have an unqualified and not unreasonable objection to being cut off in what is practically the flower of my youth. I was afraid. I admit that quite frankly, and I have yet to find the man who has not known fear whenever he drifted into a tight corner. But fear is not the hall-mark of a coward; it is at worst a natural impulse to seek safety and take precautions, and at its best it is the intellectual penalty that a strong man pays for having a will-power that will not permit him to scurry away from danger and earth himself like a rabbit in its burrow. I reached the valley without incident, scrambled down the historic slope, now as slippery as a child's mud-slide, and was half-way across the open space before I received my first shock. Some queer sixth sense pulled me up in mid-stride. I had heard nothing, I had seen nothing; but for all that I knew that a strange and obtrusive presence was very close to me. The New Guinea native can at times tell the presence of an enemy simply by his sense of smell, and I suppose I've lived so long amongst them that I have acquired something of this kind. Be this as it may, I was aware of the other man's proximity long before my faculties went into action and confirmed me in my belief. I slipped my shoulders out of the pack-strings and dropped it noiselessly on the ground. At that precise instant I heard a stealthy movement on my left hand. It was so dark that I could not see an inch in front of my face, but a little eddy of the breeze brought me the merest whiff of stale tobacco--the sort of smell that comes from a pipe that has been put out before it has completely burnt away. It was that dead scent that always seems to hang about the vicinity of a newly quenched fire. I was so close that I caught the sound of the man's breathing. With every second breath there came a barely perceptible wheeze, and in an instant my mind flashed back to the night of the burglary in Bryce's house and the man I had caught coming out of the library. I was so sure of it that I wasted no further time in stalking him; no two men in the world could have that same regular wheezing breath. It requires a neat sense of distance to catch an invisible man round the throat when he and everything else tangible and real is hidden under cover of Stygian darkness; but this time I made the snatch of my life, and as luck would have it, had him by the windpipe before he realised that there was anyone within a quarter of a mile of him. I didn't give him a chance to cry out--I had no idea how close his friends were, if he had any--but just threw all my weight into my clutching hands and quietly but inexorably choked the life out of him. In the struggle his hat fell off and I released one hand and ran it through his hair. Up till then there was a lingering suspicion at the back of my mind, that after all I might have throttled Cumshaw by mistake, but the feel of that straight hair completely burked the last of my doubts. There was no possible chance of mistaking Cumshaw's curly crop for the strands I held in my free hand, for he suddenly went limp under my hands, and when I fumbled for his heart I could not feel it beating. At the time I felt rather cut up, and considered that I had practically killed the man in cold blood; but afterwards, when I came to reckon up the tally of disaster, I was sorry that I had passed him out so peacefully. There were a lot of other methods I might have used had I known in time. But then I didn't, and that makes all the difference. Satisfied in my own mind that the stranger was out of action for good and all, I rose to my feet and threaded my way back to where I had left my pack. I slipped the strings over my shoulders and set off again in the direction I hoped to find Moira and my companion. But scarcely had I taken a dozen steps forward when the silence of the night was shattered by the report of a revolver, and in an instant a perfect fusillade had begun. I dropped all caution at that. Throwing the pack from off my shoulders, I drew my revolver as I ran. I simply tore across the intervening space like a red god of vengeance suddenly descended on a planet of sin. The sound of the shots had maddened me beyond all belief, and in my then mood I would have walked single-handed into a whole army. Luckily for myself I had not gone far before I collided with a wattle bush, and the scratches I received brought me back to a saner frame of mind. I saw with an appalling clarity of vision that I was taking the worst possible course. Cumshaw and Moira were being attacked--that was beyond question--and my game was to come upon the attackers unawares and either rout or put as many of them out of action as I could with the weapons at my command. So when I moved off again I had slackened my pace down to a stealthy cat-like tread that took me along with an incredible absence of noise. As I moved forward I began to turn the configuration of the place over in my mind and wonder to what practical use I could put the fine natural cover of the bushes. As I could see none I put the matter out of my head and devoted all my energies to coming to immediate grips with the men who had murdered the eternal peace of the valley. Presently I caught sight of a little red flash from one of the revolvers, but as I had no idea as to whose it was I held my hand and commenced to circle round the fight. It must be remembered, in order to gauge the seriousness of the situation, that the night was as black as the ace of spades, and that the only guide I had was the occasional flash from a revolver--a flash that might have come from either friend or foe; I had nothing to tell me which. It was in this queer fashion that I was progressing when the toe of my boot touched something soft and alien. I slipped down by the side of it and ran my hand over it. It was a man's body--the still warm body from which the pulsing life had suddenly been hurled. With my experience of the other man I had handled earlier in the night I felt for the hair, and, to my utter horror, I clutched a crop of short, crisp curls. It was Albert Cumshaw beyond a doubt. I did not waste a moment in useless sentimentality over the dead. The truth flashed across my mind with the blinding clearness of lightning. Moira was by herself, fighting like some heroic goddess against those other bestial savages. I know it is the fashion to picture men in such moments as going berserker, but I don't think in my case that I have ever been so sanely clear-headed in my life. It was a monstrous and incredible thing that this quiet little corner of the quietest little State in Australia should be polluted by the presence of the incarnate fiends that had murdered Bryce, that had killed Cumshaw, and were even now seeking to send Moira to join them in the shades. A cold, pitiless anger took possession of me, and I set about my work of vengeance as calmly as if I were going rabbit-shooting. I knew now of a surety that I could shoot at any man who came within range without fear or favor. It was then I blessed my stars for the matted undergrowth and the wild profusion of wattle. The one deadened the sound of my movements and the other gave me all the cover I needed. The game was now fairly in my hands, and if I lost it would be through no one's fault but my own. It was quite evident on the face of it that the attacking force had no idea that a third party was maneuvering outside the range of fire, and I counted on that fact to assist me in my work. The one drawback at present was that I had no notion which was friend and which was foe. The shots seemed to come from all round the compass, and any one of them might be Moira's. It was quite on the cards that she was moving round in a circle, in the full knowledge that every time she fired she shot at an enemy, and again it was just as likely that she knew nothing at all about Cumshaw's death. Clearly it was a situation that called for an immense amount of care on my part. I had no time to waste puzzling the matter out; whatever I did had to be done as quickly as possible, for I had no guarantee that the one-sided warfare might not terminate fatally at any moment. One of the attackers was just as likely to hit Moira as she was to hit him. I had slipped up the catch of my revolver long before this, and was carrying it in such a fashion that it could be fired instantly. I felt ready for any emergency, and the contingency that presently arose found me well prepared. There was a stealthy rush through the undergrowth, and a man backed hastily in my direction. I couldn't see him, but I knew that it was a man by the sound of the footsteps. There is always a perceptible difference between the footsteps of a man and a woman, but it requires a trained ear to pick it out. I slipped down into cover as he rushed back, and, judging more by sound than sight, I fired as he passed me. He came down heavily amidst a crash of breaking branches and the smashing of twigs. "I seem to be the only sure-footed man about to-night," I thought as the fellow thudded to the ground. At that precise moment, as if to give the lie direct to me, a deafening report sounded right in my ear, a pain as of a red-hot needle stabbed through my right shoulder, and I pitched forward on my face. Even as my nose ploughed through the soft soil it occurred to me to wonder if I had received a shot intended for the other man, or if he was not as dead as I had fancied and signalised his escape by shooting me in his turn. I was more scared than hurt, and I quickly picked myself up and clapped an anxious hand to my throbbing shoulder. The ball, by the feel of it, had done nothing worse than skim through the fleshy part of my arm, and I was in no wise incapacitated. I thanked my lucky stars that I was whole and entire, save for a spoonful or so of unwanted blood, for I rather guessed that I had heavy work ahead of me before I went to sleep that night. Just as my mind was clearing again I became aware that someone was striking matches. I distinctly heard the scrape of one along the top of the box, and I fancied I saw a tiny phosphorescent glow such as a match makes when it misfires, but in that I may have been mistaken. As I watched for another flash it dawned on me that the artillery had ceased fire, and, for aught I knew to the contrary, I was probably the last bird topped off that night. Therefore the person with the matches could only be one of the victorious side, and was just as obviously counting up the casualties. There came another little interlude of scraping, a match spluttered undecidedly for a moment and then glowed brightly. After the Stygian darkness the light came as a queer physical shock, and for the space of a heart-beat I blinked like an owl in broad daylight. I think the other person must have been just as much dazzled as I was, for the light died out and the glowing tip of the match fell to the ground without a movement from either of us. But it was followed almost instantly by another match, less damp than its fellow, for it splashed into light right away. And there in the little circle of radiance I caught sight of the one face on earth that I ever wished to see again. "Moira!" I gasped and glided to her side. She dropped the match in the surprise of the moment, and I heard her breath come and go before she answered, "You, Jim! Oh, I'm so glad! I thought perhaps...." "They didn't," I said grimly, cutting across her thoughts. "It was the other way about." "Mr. Cumshaw, Jim? Have you seen him anywhere?" "No," I said truthfully enough. I hadn't seen him; it had been too dark, and I dared not strike a match. "Oh, I'm afraid he's been shot. We got separated in the darkness, and I don't know what happened to him." "How did you get separated?" I queried quickly. "We were making for the cave and I lost him in the dark. After that they started firing, and I just fired back, more to keep up my courage than anything." "But where on earth did you get the revolver? You hadn't one of your own." "Yes, I had, Jim. I brought it with me, and I didn't say anything because I thought you might laugh or else be angry with me." "You've certainly shown that you know how to use it," I said dryly. Something in my voice must have told her what had happened. "What do you mean?" she asked in a frightened tone. "Did I shoot anyone?" "Yes," I said slowly. "You pinked me. Right in the shoulder. It's only a flesh-wound; nothing to worry about." "I've hurt you and I didn't mean to," she wailed. I reached out and seized her by the shoulders. "Look here, Moira," I said with a semblance of sternness in my voice, "you've done a man's work to-night and it's making you hysterical. Don't let it. Pull yourself together, for heaven's sake if not for mine." I think it was just that last bit that brought her round. "I'm sorry, Jim," she said, though what there was to be sorry about was more than I could say. "And now, Moira," I ran on before she had time to say anything more, "the sooner we finish that interrupted journey to the cave the better. It's not as good as the hut would be if it was still standing, but it gives us shelter, and that's the main thing. Also we can light a fire and sleep the night in peace, now that the gang seems to have been rubbed out for good." She made no answer, so I took her arm, and thus we commenced our walk across the valley. I found the pack without any trouble, though my heart was in my mouth for fear that we would trip over poor Cumshaw's body. But the luck was with me that night, though it hadn't been with him, and I reached the pack and hoisted it on my shoulders without either of us striking any of the victims of the fight. The sting of the wound in my shoulder made the pack an uncomfortable burden, but I bore it as best I could, for I was afraid that Moira would notice me if I kept wriggling it into an easier position. So I fought the pain all the way to the cave, which we reached in something under five minutes. Moira did not speak a word all the way, and somehow I hadn't the heart to break the news of Cumshaw's death to her. It had to be done sooner or later, I knew, but I was inclined to put it off as long as possible. Once in the cave I built a little fire of chips and dry bracken that had somehow escaped the rain. That done I turned with a clear conscience to the task of making tea. Moira, however, had forestalled me; the billy was already full, and she but awaited me to adjust the tripod of sticks that held it in its place over the fire. It was while I was bending over doing this that she must have noticed the bloodstains on my sleeve. At any rate, when I straightened up, she looked at me with accusation in her eyes. "Why didn't you tell me before that it was as bad as that?" she asked. "Because it isn't," I answered with cheerful paradox. But she would have none of my jesting, and if I hadn't allowed her to wash and bind it up right away I'm afraid I wouldn't have got any tea that night. When she finished she placed her hands upon my shoulders and kissed me full on the lips. "My dear," she said brokenly, "you would die for me, I know, and yet I so little deserve your love." I had tact enough to suppress the banality that was trembling on my lips. * * * * * "I wonder what could have happened to Mr. Cumshaw?" she remarked about an hour later. "You'd have thought he'd have been here long ago if he was all right." "Maybe," I said, bending my head over the fire so she would not see my tell-tale face, "maybe he's not satisfied that this is our party." There was an interval of silence and, though I did not look up, I knew that she was regarding me steadfastly. I could feel her eyes boring into my head like twin gimlets. "Jim," she said suddenly and sharply, "what are you hiding from me? What has happened to Mr. Cumshaw? I know something has gone wrong by the way you're acting." I raised my eyes to meet hers; it was impossible to hide it any longer. "The very worst that could happen," I said frozenly, and I dropped my head once more. When I looked up again she was crying very softly to herself. I could understand her sorrow, and for once her regard for the man caused me no stab of pain; one cannot be jealous of the dead. CHAPTER VI. THE SOLUTION. The grey light of the early dawn found me wide awake and alert. I felt much fatigued after my exertions of the previous night, and would dearly have liked to have slept an hour or so longer, but there was that to be done which would admit of no delay. Further out in the Valley lay three dead men, and I felt I must get them out of sight before Moira awoke. Accordingly I scribbled a short note of explanation on a leaf torn from my pocket-book, placed it in a conspicuous position, and, taking with me the light spade we had brought with us, I slipped noiselessly out of the cave. I found the bodies of our two enemies without any trouble, but, to my great surprise, there was no trace of Cumshaw. He had disappeared as utterly as if the earth had opened up and swallowed him. True, there were broken branches and snapped twigs galore, but of signs that would show me where the body had been taken or what had happened after I had left, there was absolutely none. For the moment I wondered if it had all been but a vivid dream, but the sight of the torn and scarred ground and the memory of the other two bodies told me that it was only too real. Obviously then the corpse had been moved, but where or by whom I could not say. I spent the next half-hour in scouring the valley from end to end, yet when I had finished I was compelled to admit that I was no nearer to a solution than before. All the time, of course, there was a perfectly simple explanation staring me in the face, but it was so infernally obvious that I missed it. As my search had not led me any further forward, I shut the matter out of my mind for the present and turned to the less engrossing though certainly more pressing task of burying the bodies that remained. The spot I chose for the grave seemed rather familiar to me, but for the moment I could not say just what it brought to my mind. I pegged away with the spade, and had already dug a fair-sized hole when, unexpectedly, the further side of the grave caved in. I swore under my breath at this brilliant result of my efforts, and, with the intention of clearing away the rubble, thrust my spade deep into the loose earth. It met with a solid obstruction, something that seemed to me like the root of a tree, or----At that I stopped dead. Could it be possible that I had struck the foundation of the hut? The morning we entered the valley Moira had tripped over one of the loose logs that had once been part of the building, and at the time I had attached peculiar significance to the discovery; but now it appeared that I had actually gone one better. Without more ado I made the dirt fly, and in less time than it takes to tell I had shot away the covering earth and brought to light the object that had at first drawn my attention. I saw then, with a gasp of relief, that it was indeed the eastern foundation of the hut that I had unearthed. Whoever had built the place had built well, for the thick cross-piece still remained tightly nailed to the stout posts that had supported the foundation. The fire that had swept the neighbourhood had somehow failed to consume it, though subsequent developments had buried it under piles of bracken and dead brushwood. It was an amazing discovery, and under the circumstances the luckiest one imaginable. At the very least it enabled me to place one of the fixed points that were vital to the discovery of the plunder. At the same time it showed me how I might be able, with a little extra luck, to locate the sight of the burnt tree. I went on with my digging. Half an hour later I finished my self-imposed task, swung the spade over my shoulder, and prepared to return to the cave. I could see Moira in the distance moving towards me, and I guessed that my prolonged absence had made her feel somewhat uneasy. "Where have you been all the time, Jim?" was her greeting. "I was just beginning to fear that something had happened to you." "Something has," I answered, "but not in the way you mean. I've located the exact position of the hut. That piece of wood you tripped over must have been only a log that escaped being fully consumed. We're well on the way towards finding the treasure now." She eyed me keenly before she spoke again, and I knew what she was going to ask me almost before she put her thoughts into words. "Was that all you went to do?" she asked. "No," I said, "I came out mainly to bury the dead." She gave a little shudder at that, but her voice was steady enough as she said, "And you did? All of them?" I shook my head. "Not him," I said ungrammatically. "Why?" she demanded, with Heaven knows what idea at the back of the question. "Because," I said distinctly, "because he wasn't there." "Jim, whatever do you mean?" she cried. "I can't say any more than I've just said," I told her. "When I went to look I found he wasn't where I'd left him last night, and, though I searched the valley from end to end, I couldn't find sign or sight of him." "It's impossible," she asserted. "You can't make a dead man fade into thin air like that. If he's not in the valley, he's been taken out of it." "And who's taken him out?" I countered. "There's only two ways out. Nobody's passed us during the night, and anyone that went out through the wattles would leave a trail like an elephant." "That's true enough," she admitted crestfallenly. And then she turned on me swiftly. "Jim," she cried, "it's possible.... He might...." The idea jumped into my mind at almost the same moment, but it seemed too preposterous for belief. "No," I interrupted. "It isn't. He couldn't. Moira, I tell you he was as dead as a door-nail when I reached him." She made a little gesture of despair as she realised to the full the bitter futility of attempting to solve the puzzle, yet I had a feeling that she had not quite given up hope. She did not make any further remark on the way back to the cave, and she certainly wasn't as much thrilled by my discovery of the ruins of the hut as I had expected her to be. I let her be; it's never safe to divert the current of a woman's thoughts. I stepped into the cave ahead of her, and no sooner had I passed from the light outside into the interior darkness than a crisp voice snapped at me. "Hands up!" it said tersely. I shot my hands into the air more as a measure of precaution than anything else, for I recognised the voice--the voice that I thought had been silenced for ever. "Cumshaw!" I ejaculated. I could not see him since he was lurking right in the interior shadows, but some electric quality in the air convinced me that his astonishment was as great as mine. Nevertheless he answered me in tones that were as calm as could be. "So it's yourself, Carstairs," he said. "I'll have to apologise for being a little previous with you, but you must remember that you are standing in your own light and I can only see your outline. And----Ah! here is Miss Drummond too." He came towards us at that, a dark figure looming out of the gloom. And the next instant we had him one by each hand and pelted him with questions. "I thought you were dead," I said. "How did you come alive again?" "What happened?" Moira asked. "How did you get here and what were you doing all night?" "One question at a time," he said laughingly. "It seems pretty obvious that I'm not dead, doesn't it?" "It does," I admitted. "But you were dead, or you appeared to be, when I left you last night." "I don't quite understand," he said. "What do you mean?" I told him then how I had stumbled across his body on my return the previous evening, how I had identified him, and, satisfied that he was dead, had left him to attend to more pressing business. I related how I had scoured the valley that very morning and failed to find the least trace of him. What was the explanation of the seeming miracle? I asked. "There's nothing miraculous about it," he said. "Last night I must have been creased, sort of stunned, you know. The bullet didn't go near any vital part. It just ploughed along the back of my neck and knocked me unconscious. I suppose I would seem pretty dead to anyone who stumbled across me. It's not always so easy for a layman to tell whether a man is really dead or not. However, I remember coming-to just on daylight, and hearing someone crashing through the bushes. It struck me then that I didn't know how things had panned out, so I'd better take cover until I made sure. So when you were hunting for me I was running away from you, keeping a couple of jumps ahead all the time. I gradually edged round towards the cave, and was just in time to see a dim figure slip out into the bushes. I wasn't close enough to see more clearly. Miss Drummond, you say. Yes, I suppose so; but I didn't know that then. However, as the cave seemed deserted after that I took possession with the intention of turning the tables. And then----But you know the rest yourself. How much further have we got?" "Lots," I said. "The others are dead and buried, and I have found the original site of the hut. Once we locate the lone tree we're right." "That should be easy enough," said Moira with a woman's airy assurance. Cumshaw watched us both with a queer smile flickering about his lips. "What do you think of it, Carstairs?" he said at length. "I don't fancy there'll be much difficulty in that," I answered. "It should be plain sailing from now onwards." "It strikes me," he said, "that we're just entering upon the toughest stretch of the lot. However, the sooner we get to work the better. I vote we start right away." "But, Mr. Cumshaw," Moira protested, "do you think you feel well enough?" "Miss Drummond," he answered, "I've got pains all down my neck, and my head's humming like a hive of bees, and I've got incipient rheumatics in every joint in my body from lying all night on the damp ground. It's bad enough to have all that wrong with me, without being compelled to spend another day in idleness. No, if I get to work at once I'll feel much better. Work, you know, is a good soporific." "I suppose you know best," she conceded, a little doubtfully. "I've been thinking things over," I remarked as we made our way back to the site of the hut, "and it's just struck me that something I once heard Bryce say might have some bearing on the matter. The night those chaps burgled us he said, 'They're up a gum-tree when they should be under one.' I'm not so sure of the exact words now, but that's the substance of them anyway." "But," Cumshaw objected, "he didn't know as much about the Valley then as we do now." "Quite so," I said. "I never thought he really meant anything by what he said, but that remark's been running through my head. It seems to me that everyone right through has been obsessed by the idea of the tree, and now that it's disappeared we're at a loose end. Everybody, from your father and Bradby down to Bryce and ourselves, has taken it for granted that a tree's vital to the solution." "Isn't it?" Cumshaw queried quickly. I shook my head. "Not in the least," I said. "If the tree was absolutely necessary it'd mean that we'd have to wait until 3rd or 4th of December, the day on which Bradby buried the treasure, and the only day of the year on which the sun, the tree and the threshold of the hut would be in an exact line. Bryce's idea of having to wait three months must have been conceived in the belief that the 3rd or 4th June would answer equally well. It might, but I'm not so sure about it. I guess there'd be a lot of difference in the declination of the sun. But now the tree's gone we're left without that seemingly necessary leading mark." "What are we going to do about it?" Cumshaw demanded. "We can't give up after having gone so far," said Moira. "We're not," I told her. "There's a way out of it, and the simplest way on earth. It's so infernally simple that we've all overlooked it. It narrows down to a simple problem in geometry. Do you remember what the cypher said?" "'When the Lone Tree, the hut door and the rising sun are in line measure seven feet east. Then face direct north, draw another line at right angles to the previous one, extending for twelve feet. Dig then.'" He rattled through the directions so rapidly that I knew he must have had them off by heart. "That's it," I said, while the others listened in breathless interest. "Now this is the position to my mind: The line that runs through the doorway, the tree and the sun must go due east. The sun at that time of the year would be due east. Well, all we have to do is to cast our east line, carry it along for seven feet, and then turn so that we are facing direct north." "And at right angles to the previous line," Moira reminded me. "It's the same thing," I said. "Direct north runs at right angles to direct east, if you want to know. However, when we've got our north line we follow it for twelve feet, and after that we dig. Quite possibly Bradby made some slight variation--he wouldn't have the necessary instruments to make his figures absolutely exact--but, as I've said before, I don't see that we can go very far wrong. Whatever variation there is won't matter much once we start digging. If we allow a foot or so in all directions we'll be on the safe side. What do you think, Cumshaw?" "Well," he said slowly, "it sounds feasible enough, and if it turns out as well in practice as it does in theory I'll have nothing to say against it." "There's only one way of making sure," I said tentatively. Moira turned on me. "What's that?" she asked with unfeigned interest. "Trying and seeing for ourselves," I answered. "Here we are, right on the very spot, so why not put it to the test?" Neither of them answered. A queer, speculative look crept into Moira's eyes and Cumshaw paled a little beneath his tan. It was the crucial moment of the expedition, and the mere adoption of my suggestion meant that in the next few minutes we would be face to face with either failure or success--none of us knew which. While we were in ignorance there was always room for hope, but the instant our investigation was concluded the matter would be settled for good or for evil. "Well," I asked, "what about it?" "I suppose we've got to do it some time," Cumshaw said slowly. "We might as well do it first as last. What do you say, Miss Drummond?" "Ye-es," said Moira in a half-whisper. "Ye-es, I suppose we had better." "And you, Carstairs?" "Nothing venture, nothing win," I quoted gaily. "Anyway it's my suggestion, and I'm not going to fall down on it. I didn't bring the spade along just for the fun of carrying it." "Go on then," Cumshaw said. Then commenced the operation of locating the position of the treasure. As the one most used to such things I snapped open my pocket-compass, took a line from the mouldering ruin that had once been the threshold of the hut, and proceeded to calmly measure off the requisite distance. The others followed my movements with breathless interest; Cumshaw's cheeks were still pale, partly from the stress of emotion and partly, I fancy, because he feared that, even at the last, Fate would play a trick on us and bring the work of two generations to nothing. Two little red spots glowed in Moira's cheeks, and in her eyes was an opalescent glow that spoke of suppressed excitement. I wasn't so carried away by my feelings as the others were--I had been trained in a rough school, and my training had taught me at all times to keep an adequate control over my emotions--but the romance of the adventure and the excitement of the game had penetrated even my thick skin, and the mere fact that others hung breathlessly on my movements swayed me a little from the normal. That streak of vanity which is in all of us came to the surface, as it does with the best of men at the best of times. I didn't see how I could possibly make a mistake, and the only thing that troubled me was the likelihood of some stray prospector having stumbled on the hoard by accident. At last I reached the spot where the north line ended, and then calmly and methodically I took off my coat, folded it, and laid it on the ground. I rolled up my shirt sleeves and seized the spade in my hands. The others watched me with apprehensive eyes. CHAPTER VII. THE ADVENTURE CLOSES. I could hear Moira's quick breaths come and go as I worked, and with each shovelful of soil I turned Cumshaw craned his head a little further forward. "Three foot, maybe three foot six," Cumshaw said once, in a voice that was curiously hoarse. The remark puzzled me for a moment, and then in a flash I recollected that his father had told Bryce that the hole where the gold was buried would be three feet or three feet six deep at a guess. I went on digging. The hole deepened and widened, and still nothing appeared. I paused in my work and flung the damp perspiration from my forehead with a grimy hand. I had been working eagerly, excitedly. "I'll take a hand now," Cumshaw offered with surprising alacrity. I shook my head and stabbed the spade further into the earth. It struck something soft which yet offered a remarkable resistance to the progress of the instrument. And then in an instant I was down on my knees, the steaming sting of my perspiring face all forgotten in the wild intense eagerness of my discovery. I flung the spade about like a mad-man, and my breath came and went through my teeth with a hissing sound like that of escaping steam. I was mud and muck from head to foot and my hands were caked with clay, but that did not matter. Nothing mattered save the one startling fact that I had struck something that answered to the description of the stuff we were seeking. At last, after seemingly eternal hours of incredible toil, though in reality it couldn't have been more than a few seconds, the earth came away, and my spade lay bare four bags of mouldering leather--four torn and decaying things through which came the dull golden gleam of minted metal. With a smothered cry Cumshaw threw himself on the saddle-bags and hugged and clawed them like a man gone demented. For the moment there came a curious vulpine look into his face, and then it passed so swiftly that I could have fancied that it had never been there or anywhere else save in my imagination. "We've found it at last," I said, and was surprised to find how thin my voice had become. It was the first rational word since I had begun to dig, and it acted on Cumshaw like a douche of cold water. He dropped the bags as if he had been stung, and climbed out of the hole rather shamefacedly. Moira opened her mouth as if to speak and then shut it again. Ludicrous as it all looked, it was sufficient to show me just how unbalanced sane people can become at the sight of gold. The three of us looked at each other, and then I fancy we all laughed, albeit a little hysterically. The rest is soon told. We got the rotting bags out somehow, and portion of their contents spilled out on the ground, though we didn't mind that at the time. There was more money in each of the bags than any one of us had ever handled before. In the light of what happened afterwards I'm positive that it was Cumshaw who suggested filling up the hole. "A good idea," I thought. A gaping hole in the ground might attract the attention of strangers and lead to further enquiries--the kind of enquiries that would not be welcomed by us. I had thrown all but the last shovelful in when Cumshaw drew something from his pocket, looked at it a moment, and then, with a muttered exclamation, threw it into the hole and trod it deep into the earth. I got but the one look at it, and it seemed to me to be an ordinary leather-covered pocket-book. I was on the point of asking him the meaning of his action when I chanced to glance up at his face, and what I saw there made me shut my lips down like a steel trap. I said nothing, and beyond my first natural start of surprise I don't think I gave myself away at all. * * * * * It doesn't matter just how much we made out of it. If I were to write down the exact figures no one would believe them or me; but when I say that neither Cumshaw nor I--for Moira pooled her share with mine after all--will have to do a hand's turn again as long as we live, some idea can be gained of what was in those four decaying saddle-bags. To place gold, more especially minted coin, in circulation in this year of grace one thousand nine hundred and twenty requires more ingenuity than most men are possessed of, and frankly I could see no way out of it for many a long day. But in the end I struck an unexpected solution. What that solution was is neither here nor there: the expedients I resorted to would, if written down, fill a longer and perhaps a more exciting volume than this. Some day, when old age is creeping on me and the good opinion of my neighbours has almost ceased to matter, I may tell the tale in its entirety. As we had no desire to attract more attention than we could help we did not attempt to take the gold along with us. Instead we buried it in a secluded spot not far from the railway, and a week or so later Cumshaw and I returned in the car for it. * * * * * "I wonder," I said, "how those chaps managed to find out so much about everything? Of course they were paralleling Bryce's investigations, but that doesn't explain all; they knew more about some things than he did himself." We were sitting round the fire one evening a month or so later. Moira and I had just returned from our honeymoon, and Cumshaw had dropped in with the news that his father was in the hands of a noted alienist who hoped in time to completely cure the old man. The announcement had set us talking about our recent experiences, and _apropos_ of them I had uttered the above remark. "I've often wondered," Moira said, "how they first learnt about the treasure." There was silence for a space and then Cumshaw spoke. "I rather fancy," he said, "that they knew about its existence long before Mr. Bryce did." Moira shot a startled glance at him and I said, "Whatever do you mean?" "You remember that pocket-book I threw into the trench the day we found the treasure?" I nodded. "Yes," said Moira breathlessly. "I found that in the grass early in the morning before I went up to the cave. It was a diary belonging to a man named Alick Blane. I didn't read it right through--I didn't have the time for one thing--but what I did see told me all I wanted to know. I buried it in the trench because I did not want what was written in the book to be published to the world. It was one of those things that are better kept out of sight and circulation." "But what was it?" I queried. He looked at us a moment as if debating with himself whether or not to tell us. "Alick Blane's father was the trooper who shot Bradby," he said, and left us to imagine all the rest. THE END. 
53784	----	available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/oldmelbournememo00bold OLD MELBOURNE MEMORIES [Illustration: Logo] OLD MELBOURNE MEMORIES by ROLF BOLDREWOOD Author of 'My Run Home,' 'The Squatter's Dream,' 'Robbery Under Arms,' etc. Second Edition, Revised London Macmillan and Co., Ltd. New York: Macmillan & Co. 1896 All rights reserved TO MY EARLIEST ADMIRER AND MOST INDULGENT CRITIC My Dearest Mother FROM WHOM I DERIVE THE WRITING FACULTY AND TO WHOM IS CHIEFLY DUE WHATEVER MEED OF PRAISE MY READERS MAY HEREAFTER VOUCHSAFE PREFACE These reminiscences of the early days of Melbourne--a city which, as a family, we helped to found--awakened, when first published in the columns of the _Australasian_, an amount of general interest most gratifying to the writer. It is hoped that, in their present more convenient form, they may secure and retain the approbation of the public. I should feel bound to apologise for the mention of names in full were I not conscious that I have written no line calculated to offend; nor have I, for one moment, failed in sincere goodwill towards every comrade of that joyous time. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE A.D. 1840 1 CHAPTER II THE FAR WEST 10 CHAPTER III THE DEATH OF VIOLET 23 CHAPTER IV DUNMORE 33 CHAPTER V SQUATTLESEA MERE 41 CHAPTER VI THE EUMERALLA WAR 51 CHAPTER VII THE CHILDREN OF THE ROCKS 63 CHAPTER VIII THE NATIVE POLICE 74 CHAPTER IX KILFERA 87 CHAPTER X OLD PORT FAIRY 98 CHAPTER XI PORTLAND BAY 106 CHAPTER XII GRASMERE 121 CHAPTER XIII SUPERIOR FATTENING COUNTRY 132 CHAPTER XIV BURCHETT OF "THE GUMS" 142 CHAPTER XV WORK AND PLAY 151 CHAPTER XVI THE ROMANCE OF A FREEHOLD 160 CHAPTER XVII LE CHEVALIER BAYARD 170 CHAPTER XVIII THE CHRISTENING OF HEIDELBERG 179 CHAPTER XIX THE WOODLANDS STEEPLECHASE 187 CHAPTER XX YERING 200 CHAPTER XXI TALES OF A "TRAVELLER" 212 CHAPTER XXII YAMBUK 222 POEMS BALLAARAT IN 1851 237 THE DEATH OF WELFORD 242 SUNSET IN THE SOUTH 244 BALACLAVA 246 THE BUSHMAN'S LULLABY 249 MORNING 252 WANTED 253 PERDITA 255 "PRIEZ POUR ELLE" 257 CHAPTER I A.D. 1840 Standing in the gathering winterly twilight, at the intersection of Elizabeth and Flinders Streets, one instinctively remarks the long crowded suburban trains, laden with homeward-bound passengers, quitting the city and care for the night's charmed interval. All the streets of busy Melbourne are yet thronged, in spite of the apparently rapid diminution which is proceeding. The indefinable hum, noticeable in large urban populations at the close of the day, as the lamps are lit, which mark for most men the boundary between work and recreation, is increasingly audible. The grand outlines of the larger public buildings become suggestively indistinct. If your ear be good, you may hear the steam-whistle and the roar of the country trains at Spencer Street Station. The senses of the musing spectator are filled to saturation with the sights and sounds proper to the largest, the most highly civilised, the most prosperous city in the world, for the years of its existence. Stranger than fiction does it not seem, that in the month of April, in the year of grace 1840, we should have migrated _en famille_ from Sydney to assist in the colonisation of Port Phillip, in the founding of this city of Melbourne? The moderate-sized schooner which carried us safely hither in a few hours under a week had been chartered by Paterfamilias, so that we were unrestricted as to many matters not usually left to the discretion of passengers. It was a floating home. Colonists of ten years' standing, we had many things to bear with us, which under other circumstances of transit must have been left behind. There were carriage horses and cows, the boys' ponies, the children's canaries, poultry, and pigeons, dogs and cats, babies and nurses, furniture, flower-pots, workmen, house servants--all the component portions of a large household shifted bodily from a suburban home, and ready to be transferred to the first suitable dwelling in the new settlement. One can easily imagine to what a state of misery and confusion such a freight would have been reduced had bad weather come on. But the winds and the waves were kind, and on Saturday afternoon the harbour-master of Williamstown partook of some slight alcoholic refreshment on board, and welcomed us to Port Phillip. Well is remembered even now the richly-green appearance of the under-stocked grassy flat upon which the particularly small village of Williamstown stood. A few cottages, more huts--with certain public-houses, of course--made up the township. More distinctly marked even were the succulence and juiciness of the first Port Phillip mutton-chops upon which was regaled our keenly hungry party. We had just quitted the enfeebled meat markets of Sydney, scarce recovered from that terrible drought which wasted the years of 1837, 1838, and 1839. We had reached a land of Goshen evidently--a land of milk and butter, if not of honey--a land of chops and steaks, of sirloins and "under-cuts"--of all youthful luxuries well-nigh forgotten--of late unattainable in New South Wales as strawberry ice in a cane-brake. Among other trifles which our very complete outfit had comprehended was a small steamboat adapted for the tortuous but necessary navigation of the Yarra Yarra, of which noble stream, moving calmly through walls of ti-tree, we commenced to make the acquaintance. This steamerlet--she was a _very_ tiny automaton, puffing out of all proportion to her speed--but the _only_ funnel-bearer--think of that, Victorians of this high-pressure era!--had been sent down by the head of the family the voyage before, safely bestowed upon the deck of a larger vessel. "The _Movastar_ was a better boat," I daresay, but the tiny _Firefly_ bore us and the Lares and Penates of many other "first families"--in the sense of priority--safely to _terra firma_ on the north side of what was then called the "Yarra Basin." This was an oval-shaped natural enlargement of the average width of the river, much as a waterhole in a creek exceeds the ordinary channel. The energetic Batman and the sturdy Cobbett of the south, Pascoe Fawkner, had thought it good to set about making a town, and here we found the bustling Britisher of the period engaged in building up Melbourne with might and main. Our leader laid it down at that time, as the result of his experience of many lands, that the new colony, being outside of 36 deg. south latitude, would not be scourged with droughts as had been New South Wales from her commencement. In great measure, and absolutely as regarding the western portions of Victoria, this prophecy has been borne out. Sufficient time had elapsed for the army of mechanics, then established in Port Phillip, to erect many weatherboard and a few brick houses. Into a cottage of the latter construction we were hastily inducted, pending the finishing of a two-storied mansion in Flinders Street, not very far from Prince's Bridge. Bridge was there none in those days, it is hardly necessary to say; not even the humble one with wooden piers that spanned the stream later, and connected Melbourne people with the sandy forest of South Yarra, then much despised for its alleged agricultural inferiority: still there was a punt. You could get across, but not always when you wanted. And I recall the incident of Captain Brunswick Smyth, late of the 50th Regiment, and the first commandant of mounted police, riding down to the ferry, from which the guardian was absent--"sick, or drunk, or suthin"--and, with military impatience, dashing on board with a brace of troopers, who pulled the lumbering barge across, and fastened her to the farther shore. Large trees at that time studded the green meadow, which, after the winter rain, was marshy and reed-covered. There did I shoot, and bear home with schoolboy pride, a blue crane--the Australian heron--who, being only wounded, "went near" to pick out one of my eyes, wounding my cheek-bone with a sudden stab of his closed beak. The lovely bronze-wing pigeons were plentiful then amid the wild forest tracks of Newtown, afterwards Collingwood. Many times have I and my boy comrades stood at no great distance from the present populous suburb and wondered whether we were going straight for the "settlement," as we then irreverently styled the wonder-city. The streets of the new-born town had been "ruled off," as some comic person phrased it, very straight and wide; but there had not been sufficient money as yet available from the somewhat closely-guarded distant Treasury of Sydney to clear them from stumps. However, as in most communities during the speculative stage, any amount was forthcoming when required for purposes of amusement. Balls, picnics, races, and dinners were frequent and fashionable. Driving home from one of the first-named entertainments, through the lampless streets, a carriage, piloted by a gallant officer, came to signal grief against a stump. The ladies were thrown out, the carriage thrown over, and the charioteer fractured. Paterfamilias, absent on business, marked his disapproval of the expedition by resolutely refraining from repairing the vehicle. For years after it stood in the back yard with cracked panels, a monument of domestic miscalculation. It must be terribly humiliating to the survivors of that "first rush" to consider what untold wealth lay around them in the town and suburban allotments, which the most guarded investment would have secured. The famous subdivision in Collins Street, upon which the present Bank of Australasia now stands, was purchased by the Wesleyan denomination for £70! Acres and half-acres in Flinders, Collins, and Elizabeth Streets were purchased at the first Government sales held in Sydney at similar and lower rates. I have heard the late Mr. Jacques, at that time acting as Crown auctioneer, selling at the Sydney markets ever so much of Williamstown, at prices which would cause the heart of the land-dealer of the present day to palpitate strangely. I can hear now the old gentleman's full, sonorous voice rolling out the words, "Allotment so-and-so, parish of Will-will-rook," the native names being largely and very properly used. "Villamanatah" and "Maribyrnong" occurred, I think, pretty often in the same series of sales. The invariable increase in prices after the first sales led naturally to a species of South Sea stock bubbledom. He who bought to-day--and men of all classes shared in the powerful excitement--was so certain of an advance of 25, 50, or cent per cent, that every one who could command the wherewithal hastened to the land lottery, where every ticket was a prize. Speculative eagles in flocks were gathered around the carcase. Borrowing existed then, though undeveloped as one of the fine arts compared to its latest triumphs; bills, even in that struggling infancy of banking, were thick in the air. Successful or prospective sales necessitated champagne lunches, whereby the empty bottles--erstwhile filled with that cheerful vintage--accumulated in stacks around the homes and haunts of the leading operators. The reigning Governor-General, on a flying visit to the non-mineral precursor of Ballarat and Bendigo, noted the unparalleled profusion, and, it is said, refused on that account some request of the self-elected Patres Conscripti of our Rome in long clothes. Farms, in blocks of forty and eighty acres, had been marked off above the Yarra Falls. They had been purchased at prices tending to be high, as prices ruled then. But they could not have been really high, for one of them, since pretty well known as Toorak, for years rented for several thousands per annum, and possessing a value of about £1000 each for its eighty acres, was purchased by an early colonist for less than £1000, all told. It was subsequently sold by him, under the crushing pressure of the panic of 1842 and 1843, for £120. What a different place was the Flemington racecourse, say, when Victor and Sir Charles ran for the Town Plate--when Romeo's white legs and matchless shoulder were to be seen thereon--when Jack Hunter's filly, Hellcat, won the Sir Charles Purse, furnished by a generous stud patron for the owners of descendants of that forgotten courser. Fancy the change to the Cup day with Martini-Henry coming in! Where racing springs up, there also do differences of opinion frequently occur. With respect to the said victory of Hellcat, then the property of Jack Hunter, it was objected by a well-known "horse couper" of the day, known as "Hopping Jack," that she was no true descendant of Sir Charles. He was contradicted _very_ flatly, and sufficient proof having been afforded to the stewards, her owner received the stakes. Still the mighty mind of John Ewart held distrust as he ambled home, dangling his "game" leg on his eel-backed bay horse, the same which carried him overland from Sydney to Melbourne in ten days--six hundred miles. "A sworn horse-courser," like Blount, was Hopping Jack, and, unlike Marmion's fast squire, had ridden many a steeplechase. In the quickly shifting adventure-scope of the day it chanced that the two Jacks went to sea, desiring to revisit Scotia, doubtless for their pecuniary benefit. A great storm arose, and the homeward-bound vessel was wrecked. The passengers barely escaped with their lives, and were forced to return to Port Phillip. At one period of the disaster there was little or no hope for the lives of all. As they clung gloomily to the uplifted deck--fast on a reef--Hopping Jack approached Mr. Hunter with a grave and resolved air. All waited to hear his words. In that solemn hour he proved the exquisite accuracy of the thought, "The ruling passion strong in death," by thus adjuring his turf acquaintance, "Look here, Mr. Hunter, we shall all be in ---- in twenty minutes, it can't matter much _now_. Was Hellcat _really_ a Sir Charles?" History is silent as to the reply. How strange a Melbourne would the picture--still distinctly photographed on memory's wondrous "negative"--present to the inhabitant of 1884. A solitary wood cart is struggling down from the direction of Brighton along the unmade sandy track, patiently to await the convenience of the puntman. Frank Liardet is driving his unicorn omnibus team from the lonely beach, where now the sailors revel in many a glittering bar, and the tall sugar-refinery chimney "lifts its head" and smokes--or, at any rate, did recently. The squatter's wool-freighted bullock-teams lumber along the deep ruts of Flinders Lane. John Pascoe Fawkner bustles up and down the western end, at that time the fashionable part, of Collins Street. The eastern portion of that street--now decorated with palatial clubs and treasuries, and dominated by doctors--was then principally known as "the way to the Plenty," a rivulet on the banks of which still abode certain cheerful young agricultural aristocrats, who had not had time quite to ruin themselves. Now a whole tribe of blacks--wondering and frightened, young and old, warriors and greybeards, women and children--is being driven along Collins Street by troopers, on their way to the temporary gaol, there to be incarcerated for real or fancied violence. The philanthropist may console himself with the knowledge that they burrowed under their dungeon slabs and, I think, escaped. If not, they were released next day. Mr. Latrobe, successor of Captain Lonsdale, on a state day--not styled Governor, but his Honour the Superintendent--is riding towards Batman's Hill on a crop-eared hog-maned cob, yclept Knockercroghery, attired in uniform, escorted by Captain Smyth and his terrible mounted police, the only military force of the day. The great plains, the wide forest-parks, shut closely in the little town on every side. Countless swans and ducks are disporting themselves in unscared freedom upon the great West Melbourne marsh. The travel-stained squatter rides wearily up to the livery stable, as yet unable to shorten by coach or rail a mile of his journey. CHAPTER II THE FAR WEST It seems only the other day--but surely it must be a long time ago--that January evening of 1844, when I camped my cattle near the old burying-ground at North Melbourne. I was bound for the Western district, where I proposed to "take up a run." And towards this pastoral paradise the dawn saw my "following" winding its way next morning. A modest drove and slender outfit were mine; all that the hard times had spared. Two or three hundred well-bred cattle, a dray and team with provisions for six months, two stock-horses, one faithful old servant, one young ditto (unfaithful), £1 in my purse--_voilà tout_. Rather a limited capital to begin the world with; but what did I want with money in those days? I was a boy, which means a prince--happy, hopeful, healthy, beyond all latter-day possibilities, bound on a journey to seek my fortune. All the fairy-tale conditions were fulfilled. I had "horse to ride and weapon to wear"--that is, a 12-foot stock-whip by Nangus Jack--clothes, tools, guns, and ammunition; a new world around and beyond; what could money do for the gentleman-adventurer burning with anticipation of heroic exploration? Such thoughts must have passed through my brain, inasmuch as I invested 75 per cent of my cash in the purchase of a cattle dog. Poor Dora, she barked her last some thirty-five years agone. On the next day we crossed the Moonee Ponds at Flemington, took the Keilor road, and managed to bustle our mob all the way to the Werribee. A slightly unfair journey; but the summer day was long, and we made the river with the fading light about eight. I had a reason, too. Here bivouacked my good old friend the late William Ryrie, of Yering. He, too, was journeying to the west country with a large drove of Upper Yarra stores. He had kindly consented to join forces--an arrangement more to my advantage than his. So, as his cattle were drawing into camp, I cheerfully "boxed" mine therewith, and relieved myself by the act of further anxiety. Night watches were duly set, after an evening meal of a truly luxurious character. I felt at odd moments as if I would have given all the world for a doze unrebuked. At last the whole four mortal hours came to an end. Then I understood, almost for the first time in my life, what "first-class sleep" really meant. At sunrise I awoke much fresher than paint, and walking to the door of the tent, which held three stretchers--those of the leader of the party, his brother Donald, and myself--looked out upon the glorious far-stretching wild. What a sight was there, seen with the eyes of unworn, undoubting youth! On three sides lay the plains, a dimly verdurous expanse, over which a night mist was lifting itself along the line of the river. The outline of the Anakie-You Yangs range was sharply drawn against the dawn-lighted horizon, while far to the north-east was seen the forest-clothed summit of Mount Macedon, and westward gleamed the sea. The calm water of Corio Bay and the abrupt cone of Station Peak, nearly in the line of our route, formed an unmistakable yet picturesque landmark. The cattle, peacefully grazing, were spread over the plain, having been released from camp. The horses were being brought in; among them I was quick to distinguish my valuable pair. Old Watts, the campkeeper, a hoary retainer of Yering--who gave his name to the affluent of the Yarra so called--was cooking steaks for breakfast. Everything was delightfully new, strangely exhilarating, with a fresh flavour of freedom and adventure. After breakfast we saddled up, and, mounting our horses, strolled on after a leisurely fashion with the cattle. I was riding, as became an Australian, a four-year-old colt, my own property, and bred in the family. A grandson of Skeleton and of Satellite, he was moderately fast and a great stayer. Mr. Donald Ryrie rode a favourite galloway yclept Dumple--a choice roadster and clever stock-horse, much resembling in outline Dandie Dinmont's historic "powney." He and I were sufficiently near in age to enjoy discursive conversation during the long, slightly tedious driving hours, to an extent which occasionally impaired our usefulness. When in argument or narrative we permitted "the tail" to straggle unreasonably we were sharply recalled to our duty. Our kind-hearted choleric leader then adopted language akin to that in which the ruffled M.F.H. exhorts the erring horsemen of his field. Ah me, what pleasant days were those! A little warm, even hot, doubtless. But we could take off our coats without fear of Mrs. Grundy. There was plenty of grass. "Travelling" was an honourable and recognised occupation in those Arcadian times. "Purchased land" was an unknown quantity. Droughts were disbelieved in, and popularly supposed to belong exclusively to the "Sydney side." The horses were fresh, the stages were moderate, and when a halt was called at sundown the cattle soon lay contentedly down in the soft, thick grass. The camp fires were lighted, and another pleasant, hopeful day was succeeded by a restful yet romantic night. So we fared on past the Little River and Fyans' Ford, where a certain red cow of mine was nearly drowned, and had to be left behind; then to Beale's, on the Barwon; thence to Colac, for we had decided to take the inner road and not to go by "the Frenchman's," or "Cressy," then represented solely by Monsieur (and Madame) Duverney's Inn, as it was then called. _Apropos_ of Fyans' Ford, there was an inn as we passed up. When returning I met with an adventure nearly similar to that in "She Stoops to Conquer." I left the station for Melbourne in the December following, having earned a Christmas at home. When I arrived at Geelong I turned out early next morning, and rode to Fyans' Ford to see if I could find "tale or tidings" of the red cow left behind, as before mentioned. How honest were nearly all men in those days! I _did_ hear of her, and, having discovered her whereabouts, I went to the old house to breakfast, preparatory to riding to Heidelberg, fifty-seven miles all told, that night. Dismounting at the stable door, I gave my mare to the groom, with a brisk injunction as to a good feed, and passed into the house. In the parlour was a maid-servant laying the breakfast. I stood before the fireplace in an easy attitude, and demanded when breakfast would be ready. "In about half an hour, sir." I noticed a slightly surprised air. "Can't you get it a little sooner, Mary?" I said, guessing at her name with the affability of a tavern guest of fashion and substance. "I don't know, sir," she made answer meekly. "Come, Mary," I said, "surely you could manage something in less time? I have a long way to ride to-day." She smiled, and was about to reply, when a door opened, and a middle-aged personage, with full military whiskers, and an air of authority, looked in. "I don't think I have the pleasure of knowing you, sir," he stated, with a certain dignity. "No," I said; "no! I think not. Not been here since last year." (I did not particularly see the necessity either.) I was cool and cheerful, and it struck me that, for an innkeeper, he was over-punctilious. "This is no inn, sir," he said, with increased sternness. In a moment my position flashed upon me. I then remembered I had not noticed the sign as I rode up. The house and grounds, large and extensive, had been occupied by a private family. Nothing very uncommon about that. So here had I been ordering my horse to be fed, and lecturing the parlour-maid, all the while in a strange gentleman's abode. I could not help laughing, but immediately proceeded to apologise fully and formally, at the same time pointing out that the place had been an inn when I last saw it. Hence my mistake, which I sincerely regretted. I bowed, and made for the door. My host's visage relaxed. "Come," he said, "I see how it all happened. But you must not lose your breakfast for all that. Mrs. ---- will be ready directly, and my daughter. I trust you will give us the pleasure of your company." "All's well that ends well." I was introduced to the ladies of the house, who made themselves agreeable. There was a good laugh over my invasion of the parlour and Mary's astonishment. I breakfasted with appetite. We parted cordially. And, as my mare carried me to Heidelberg that night without a sign of distress, she probably had breakfasted well also. I recollect--how well!--the night I reached Lake Colac. Mr. Hugh Murray had, I think, the only station upon it, and the Messrs. Dennis were a short distance on the hither side. The Messrs. Robertson farther on. The cattle had rather a long day without water. Not quite so bad as the Old Man Plain, but a good stretch. We did not "make" the lake until after dark. How they all rushed in! It was shallow, and sound as to bottom. We concluded to let them alone, not believing that they would wander far through such good feed before day. So we had our supper cheerfully, and turned in. We could hear them splashing about in the water, drinking exhaustively, and finally returning in division. At daylight, the first man up (not the writer) descried them comfortably camped, nearly all down within a few hundred yards. How far is the Parin Yallock? It is many a year since I saw the Stony Rises, as we somewhat unscientifically called the volcanic trap dykes and lava outflows, now riven into boulders and scoria masses, yet clothed with richest grass and herbage, which surround for many miles the craters of Noorat, "The Sisters"--Leura and Porndon. Well, we took it very easily along that pastoral Eden, the garden of Australia, where dwelt pastoral man before the Fall, ere he was driven forth into far sun-scorched drought-accursed wilds to earn his bread by the sweat of his brain, and to bear the heart-sickness that comes of hope long deferred--the deadly despair that is born of long years of waiting for slow remorseless ruin. Ha! how have we skipped over half-a-century, more or less! Bless you, nobody was ruined in those golden days, because there was no credit. Riverina was almost as much a _terra incognita_ as Borneo--much more the Lower Macquarie and the Upper Bogan. But I must get back to Colac, and feel the thick kangaroo grass under my feet, quite as thick as an English meadow (I have been there since, too), as Donald and I led our horses. He had a rein which slipped out at the cheek, contrived on purpose for his horse, and the better sustentation of him, Dumple. We leave Captain Fyans' station on our right. He was the Crown Lands Commissioner in those days, and had the sense to take up a small, but very choice, bit of the "waste lands of the Crown" on his own account. There abide the "FF" cattle to this day, if the Messrs. Robertson have not deposed them in favour of sheep, or the rabbits eaten them out of house and home. We pass the police station, another rich pasture reserved for the mounted police troopers and their chargers. There old Hatsell Garrard dwelt for a season, with his fresh-coloured English yeoman face, his pleasant, racy talk, and unerring judgment in horse-flesh. Did not Cornborough, that grand old son of Tramp, emigrate to Victoria under his auspices? I need say no more. Then we come to Scott and Richardson's, the Parin Yallock station proper. Both good fellows. The latter might aver with Ralph Leigh-- Those were the days when my beard was black, and the good steed Damper was not much averse to "a stiff top rail," though carrying a rider considerably over six feet, and a welter weight to boot. Between the station and the crossing-place--difficult and dangerous it was, too, even for horsemen--we camped. It came on to rain. It was our only unpleasant night (except one when we missed the drays and had no supper. I didn't smoke then and oh! how hungry I was). The cattle were uneasy, and "ringed" all night. Next morning the camp was like a circus on a large scale. The soil is rich and black. I have seen no mud to speak of for the last ten years. Even the mud in those parts was of a superior description. Next day we faced the Parin Yallock Creek and its malign ford--save the mark! One dray was bogged; several head of cattle; my colt went down tail first, and nearly "turned turtle," but eventually the _corps d'armée_ got safely over to the sound but rugged stony rises. Crossing them, we reached the broad rich flats around the lovely lake of Purrumbeet. It was late when we got there, the cattle having been hustled and bustled to get out of the labyrinthine stony rises before dark; and the day turning out warm after the rain, they were inclined to drink heartily. To this intent they ran violently into the lake, I don't know how many fathoms deep, and shelving abruptly. All the leaders were out of their depth at once, and swam about with a surprised air. However, the beach was hard and smooth, so back they came, in good trim to set to at the luxuriant herbage which borders the lake shore. I wonder what the Messrs. Manifold would think now of a thousand head of cattle coming ravaging up close to the house, and walking into their clover and rye-grass, without saying "by your leave," much less "reporting." When the day broke how lovely the landscape seemed. The rugged lava country that we had left behind had given place to immense meadows and grassy slopes, thinly timbered with handsome blackwood trees. The Lake Purrumbeet was the great central feature--a noble sheet of water, with sloping green banks, and endless depth of the fresh pure element. On the western bank was built a comfortable cottage, where flowers and fruit trees by their unusual luxuriance bore testimony to the richness of the deep black alluvial. We did a "lazyally" sort of day--the cattle knee-deep in grass, every one taking it extremely easy. Leura, another volcano out of work, surrounded by wonderful greenery, wherein the station cattle lay about, looking like prize-winners that had strayed from a show-yard, was passed about mid-day. Next morning saw us at Mr. Neil Black's Basin Bank station. Here we saw the heifers of the NB herd. They were "tailed" or herded, as was the fashion in those days, and a fine well-grown, well-bred lot they were. The overseer was either Donald or Angus "to be sure whateffer," one of a draft of stalwart Highlanders which Mr. Black used to import annually. Very desirable colonists they were, and as soon as they "got the English," a matter of some difficulty at the outset, they commenced to save money at a noticeable rate. A fair-sized section of the Western district is now populated by these Glenormiston clansmen and their descendants, and no man was better served than their worthy chief--Neil of that ilk. From Basin Bank we drove towards the late Mr. William Hamilton's Yallock station, where we abode one night. Here, or at the next stage, the trail was not so plain. I have a reminiscence of our having camped one night at a spot not intended for such a halt, and losing our supper in consequence. No doubt we made up for it at breakfast. Now we had come to the end of the genuine Colac country. What we were approaching was a good land, richly grassed, and, agriculturally speaking, perhaps superior to the other. But I shall always consider the sub-district that I have just described, including Messrs. Black's, Robertson's, Manifold's, and one or two other properties, having regard to soil, climate, pasture, and distance from a metropolis, as the very choicest area to be found in the whole Australian continent. A few more days' easy travelling took us nearly to our journey's end. We reached the bank of the Merai, at Grasmere, the head station of the Messrs. Bolden, and there, not many miles from the site of the flourishing township of Warrnambool, we drafted our respective cattle, and went different ways--Mr. Ryrie's to his run, not far from Tower Hill, and mine to appropriate some unused country between the Merai and the sea. Here I camped for about six months, and a right joyous time it was in that "kingdom by the sea." I remember riding down to the shore one bright day, just below where Warrnambool now stands. No trace of man or habitation was there, "nor roof nor latched door." As I rode over the sand hummock which bordered the beach, a draft of out-lying cattle, basking in the sun on the farther side, rose and galloped off. All else was silent and tenantless as before the days of Cook. I took up my abode provisionally upon the bank of the Merai, which, near the mouth, was a broad and imposing stream, and turned out my herd. My stockman and I spent our days in "going round" the cattle; shooting and kangaroo-hunting in odd times--recreation to which he, as an ex-poacher of considerable experience, took very kindly. The pied goose, here in large flocks, with duck, teal, pigeons, and an occasional wild turkey, were our chief sport and sustenance. On the opposite side of the river was the first cultivated area in the Port Fairy district, then known as Campbell's farm. An old colonial whaling company had their headquarters at the Port, and Captain Campbell, a stalwart Highlander long known as Port Fairy Campbell, had utilised his spare crews in the early days, and tested the richness of that famous tract of fertile land now known as the Farnham Survey. We were not without practical demonstration of the bounty of the soil. One evening I was astonished to see splendid mealy potatoes served up with the accustomed corned beef. "Where did you get these, Mrs. Burge?" said I to the stockman's wife. "From the lubras," rather consciously; "I gave them beef in exchange." "A very fair one," but a light suddenly striking upon my mental vision,--"Where do the lubras get them from? They toil not, neither do they spin!" "I don't know for certain, sir," she answered, looking down, "but they're digging the potato crop, I believe, at Campbell's farm." Here was foreshadowed the enormous Warrnambool export, that immense intercolonial potato trade, which has latterly assumed such proportions, and which invades even this far north-western corner of New South Wales. What glorious times I had, gun in hand, or with our three famous kangaroo dogs, slaying the swift marsupial. In those days he was tolerated and rather admired, no one imagining that he would be, a couple of generations later, a scourge and an oppressor, eating the sparse herbage of the overstocked squatter, and being classed as a "noxious animal," with a price actually put on his head by utilitarian legislators. CHAPTER III THE DEATH OF VIOLET Though kangaroo were plentiful, they were not so overwhelming in number as they have since become. Joe Burge and I had many a day's good sport together on foot. Like Mr. Sawyer and other sensible people, we often saved our horses by using our own legs. For the dogs, Chase was a rough-haired Scotch deerhound, not quite pure, yet had she great speed and courage. Nothing daunted her. I saw her once jump off a dray, where she was in hospital with a broken leg (it had been smashed by the kick of an emu), and hobble off after a sudden-appearing kangaroo. She was said to have killed a dingo at ten months old--no trifling feat. Nero and Violet were brother and sister. They were smooth-haired greyhounds--the ordinary kangaroo dog of the colonist--very fast; and from a distant cross of "bull" had inherited an utter fearlessness of disposition, which was rather against them, as the sequel will show. Violet was so fast that she could catch the brush kangaroo (the wallaby) within sight. We rarely had occasion to search if they started close to our feet, and the largest and fiercest "old man" forester did not seem to be too heavy weight for her. When he stood at bay she would fly in at the throat, instead of looking out for a side chance. In consequence she was awfully cut up many times when a more cunning dog would have escaped scatheless. One afternoon Joe and I had taken a longer round than usual on foot, and were returning by the beach, when we heard Violet's bark a long way in front. We knew then that she had "stuck up" or brought to bay a large forester. If middle-sized she would have killed him; in that case running mute. So it was an "old man" large enough to stand and fight. "We'd better get on, sir," said Joe; "the poor slut'll be cut to ribbons. She's a plucky little fool, and don't know how to save herself." On we went, both running our best. We were in decent wind, but it was a couple of miles before we reached "hound and quarry." Some time had elapsed, and the fight had been many times renewed. When we got up the grassy spot was trampled all around, and in more than one place were deep red stains. Both animals were dreadfully exhausted. The great marsupial--the height of a tall man when he raised himself on his haunches--was covered with blood from the throat and breast, his haunches were deeply pierced by the dog's sharp fangs, but his terrible claws had inflicted some frightful gashes adown Violet's chest and flanks. As she feebly circled round him, barking hoarsely, she staggered with weakness; but her eye was bright and keen--there was not a shade of surrender about her. Joe rushed in at once and struck the old man full between the eyes with a heavy stick. He fell prone, and lay like a log. Violet staggered to his throat, which she seized, but, having not another grain of strength, fell alongside of him, panting and sobbing until her whole frame shook convulsed. I never saw a dog suffer so much from over-exertion. There was water near, and we carried her to it and bathed her head and neck. She had three terrible gashes, the blood from which we could not manage to stanch. Joe was genuinely affected. The tears came into his eyes as he looked on the suffering creature. "Poor little slut!" he said; "I'm doubtful it's her last hunt. Pity we hadn't took the horses, we should ha' bin up sooner, and saved that old savage from 'mercy-creeing' of her. Anyhow, I'll carry her home and see what the missis can do for her." He did so. I walking sadly behind, the dumb brute looking up at him with grateful eyes, and from time to time licking his hand. She was nursed by Mrs. Burge like a child. We tried all our simple remedies, sewed up the gaping wounds, and even went to the length of a tonic, suited to her condition. But it was of no use. The loss of blood and consequent exhaustion had been too great. Violet died that night, and for the next few days a gloom fell over our little household as at the death of a friend. A curious spot, in some respects, was that which I had pitched on--full of interest and variety. The river ran in front of our hut-door, losing itself in wide marshes that marked its entrance to the sea. It was a capital natural paddock, as at a distance of five or six miles the River Hopkins ran parallel to it towards the sea. Neither river was fordable, except at certain points, easily protected. Across the upper portion was a fence, running from river to river, and some ten miles from the sea, put up by the Messrs. Bolden, when this was one of their extensive series of runs, and, indeed, known as the bullock paddock. Warrnambool, as I before stated, was as yet unborn. There was not an allotment marked or sold, a hut built, a sod turned. No sound in those days broke upon the ear but the ceaseless surge-music; no sight met the eye but the endless forest, the sand-hills, and the long, bright plain of the Pacific Ocean, calm for the most part, but lashed to madness in winter by furious south-easterly gales. Its jetties and warehouses, mayor and municipal council, villas and cottages, fields and gardens, were still in the future. Nought to be seen but the sand-dunes and surges; little to be heard save the sea-bird's cry. But at the old whaling station of Port Fairy the town of Belfast--so named by the late Mr. James Atkinson--had arisen, and its white limestone walls afforded a pleasing contrast to the surrounding forest. It lay between the mouth of the River Moyne and the sea. An open roadstead, suspiciously garnished with wrecks, told a tale of the harbour which afforded a larger element of truth than invitation. Chief among the pioneers were Messrs. John Griffiths and Co., who had, for many years, maintained extensive whaling stations on the coast between Port Fairy and Portland. Captain Campbell, then and long after widely known as Port Fairy Campbell, was their principal superintendent of fleets and fisheries, farms and stores. He, in the pre-land-sale days, like John Mostyn, "bare rule over all that land"; and, moreover, if legends are true, "on those who misliked him he laid strong hand." His sway was for many a league of sea and shore unquestioned, and no "leading case" will carry down his memory to budding barristers. He never, however, relinquished his faith in prompt personal redress, and years afterwards, when harbour-master in Hobson's Bay, regretted to me that the etiquette of the civil service forbade him to convince a contumacious shipmaster by the simple whaling argument. Among his lieutenants, John and Charles Mills held the highest traditional rank. The brothers, natives of Tasmania, were splendid men physically, and as sailors no bolder or better hands ever trod plank or handled oar. Years afterwards I made one of a crowd assembled on the Port Fairy beach to watch a vessel encountering at her anchors the fury of a south-easterly gale. A wild morning, I trow; the sky red-gloomy with storm-clouds; the fierce tempest beating down the crests of the leaping eager billows; the air full of a concentrated wrath which prevented all sounds save its own from being audible. It was impossible that the barque could ride the gale out, and, in anticipation, the skipper had all his sails bent and merely made fast with spun-yarn. The supreme moment came. After a hurricane-blast which transcended all former air-madness, we saw the vessel quit her position. A hundred voices shouted, "Her anchors are gone!" In an instant, as it seemed to us, every sail was unfurled, and she swung round, with her stem towards the white line of ravening breakers. We had before us the unusual spectacle of a ship with every stitch of canvas set going before the wind, and such a wind, dead on to a lee shore. Proudly and swift she came gallantly on, while we watched, half-breathless, to see her strike. A sudden pause, a total arrest. The good ship struggled for a space, like a sentient creature in the toils, then broached to, and the wild, triumphant waves broke over her from stem to stern. But the situation had been foreseen. A dozen willing hands dragged out one of the whaleboats, and what sea ever ran which a whaleboat could not live in? She was safely, though with desperate exertion, launched, and we soon watched her rising and falling amid the tremendous rollers that came thundering in. At her stern was the tall form of Charley Mills standing unmoved with a 16-foot steer oar in his strong grasp, one of the grandest exhibitions of human strength, skill, and courage that eyes ever looked on. The skipper had carried out his immediate purpose successfully. He had run his vessel in comparatively close, by charging the beach at the pace which he had put on; and in successive trips of the whaleboat the crew were landed in safety. And though the barque's "ribs and trucks" added another unprepossessing feature to Port Fairy harbour, no greater loss occurred. Captain John Mills, afterwards harbour-master of the port of Belfast, and long a master mariner in the trade between Belfast and Sydney, was the elder of these two brothers. In his way, also, a grand personage. Not quite so tall as his younger brother, he was fully six feet in height, powerfully built, and a very handsome man to boot. There was an expression of calm courage about his face and general bearing which always reminded one of a lion. He had had, doubtless, as a whaler and voyager to New Zealand and the islands, scores of hairbreadth escapes. After such a stormy life it must have been a wondrous change to settle down, as he did, quietly for the rest of his days in the little village as harbour-master. He is gone to his rest, I think, as well as the grand, stalwart boat-steerer. They will always live in men's minds, I doubt not, on the west coast of Victoria, among the heroes of the storied past. I remember once, indeed, at a great public dinner, when a popular squatter, whose health had been drunk, declared with post-prandial fervour that he regarded all the inhabitants of old Port Fairy as his brothers. During a lull in the cheering, a humorous mercantile celebrity placed his hand on Charles Mills's shoulder, and cried aloud, "This is my brother Charley"--a practical application which brought down the house. Ah! those were indeed the good old days. How free and fresh was the ocean's breath as one looked westward over the limitless Pacific, where nothing broke the line of vision nearer than Lady Julia Percy Island! How green was the turf! How blue the sky! How strong and unquestioning was friendship! How divine was love "in that lost land, in that lost clime"--in the realm of poesy and the kingdom of youth! Port Fairy certainly had the start in life, and Belfast was, as I have narrated, a townlet before an acre of land was sold in Warrnambool. But it turned out that Warrnambool was situated in nearer vicinity to the wonderfully rich lands of Farnham and Purnim. The great wheat and potato yields began to affect shipments, and at this day I rather fancy nearly all the mercantile prosperity has taken lodgings with Warrnambool, while the broad, limestone-metalled streets of Belfast are less lively than they were wont to be a score of years agone. To the Johnny Griffiths dynasty succeeded that of Mr. John Cox, the younger, of Clarendon, Tasmania, a worthy scion of a family which had furnished, perhaps, more pattern country gentlemen to Australia than any other. He had quitted Tasmania for the western portion of the new colony, which promised wider scope for energy and enterprise. His earlier investments were a trading station at Port Fairy, the purchase of such town allotments and buildings as seemed to him likely bargains, and the first occupation of the Mount Rouse station, long afterwards known as perhaps the choicest, richest run of a crack district. Mr. Cox, however, relinquished his not wholly congenial mercantile task to the late Mr. William Rutledge, of Farnham Park, whose commercial talent and business energy soon made quite another place of Belfast. Mr. Cox from that time forth devoted himself wholly to pastoral pursuits, and having been unhandsomely evicted from Mount Rouse, which the Governor, without much practical wisdom, wished to turn into an aboriginal reservation, he retired to Mount Napier, a run only second in extent and quality. I may mention that some years after, the Government, finding that the aboriginal protectorate system merely served to localise gangs of lazy and mischievous savages without any sort of benefit to themselves or others, revoked the reserve. But instead of handing back the land to those from whom it had been taken unjustly, they had the meanness to let it by tender. This run of Mount Rouse brought a rental of £900 per annum, a price altogether unprecedented in the history of pastoral leases. After I had been a dweller on the banks of the Merai for a few months, I resolved to move farther westward, where there was country to spare and a more favourable opportunity of getting an extensive run than in my present picturesque but restricted locality. I was grieved to lose my pretty and pleasant home just as I had begun to get attached to it, but I judged rightly that to the westward lay the more profitable pastures, and I adhered to my resolution. A few days' muster saw us once more on the road. Our herd was increased and complicated by the presence of many small calves, of ages varying from a week to three months. These tender travellers would have much retarded our march under other circumstances. But we had not, as luck would have it, much more than fifty miles to move, and for that short distance we could afford to travel easily, and give time to the weaker ones. All our worldly goods were packed upon the dray, which, as before, sufficed to carry them. CHAPTER IV DUNMORE By this time the winter rains had commenced to fall. The wild weather of the western coast, with fierce gales from the south-east, and driving storms of sleet, showed clearly that "the year had turned." The roads were knee-deep in mud, the creeks full, the nights long and cold. However, grass was plentiful, and Little cared we for wind or weather, When Youth and I lived "there" together. So away. _Vogue la galère._ The dray, with Joe Burge and his wife, and Chase, the deerhound, went on ahead, while I, with Mr. Cunningham, a new companion, who had dwelt in those parts before my arrival, was to follow a day or two later with the herd. I had made a small exploring expedition a short time before in company with an old stockman; he, for a consideration, had guided me to a tract of unoccupied country. And to this new territory our migration was now tending. This experienced stock-rider--"an old hand from the Sydney side," as such men were then called in Victoria--was a great character, and a most original personage. He accompanied the dray, so that all might be in readiness for our arrival. Not that much could be done. But my all-accomplished chief servitor, the most inventive and energetic pioneer possible, would be sure to make some "improvements" even in the short interval before we arrived. Our first day's journey was most difficult. The cattle were loath to leave the spot to which they had become accustomed, and were troublesome to drive. However, with two good stock-whips, and the aid of Dora the cattle-dog, we got along, and reached Rosebrook, on the Moyne, close to Belfast. Mr. Roderick Urquhart, as manager for Mr. James Atkinson, was then in charge. He received us most hospitably. The cattle were put into the stock-yard for the night. My companion rode on to town, intending to rejoin me early in the morning. One may judge of the difficulty in "locating" tenants upon agricultural land in those early days from the fact that Mr. Urquhart was then supplying the first farmers on the Belfast survey with rations. For the first year or two this plan was pursued; after that they were able, doubtless, to keep themselves and pay the moderate rent under which they sat. Not that the Port Fairy "survey" was so fertile as that of Farnham Park--much of it was wet and undrained, much stony, and but fit for pasture; but it comprehended the greater part of the town of Belfast, and £5000 would not be considered dear now for 5000 acres, chiefly of first-class pasture land, comprising, besides a seaport town, an exhaustless quarry of limestone, a partially navigable river, and a harbour. I slept ill that night, oppressed by my responsibilities. At midnight I heard the continuous lowing, or "roaring" in stock-riders' vernacular, which denoted the escape of my cattle from the yard. Dressing hastily, I stumbled in pitch darkness through the knee-deep mud. It was even as I feared--the rails were down, trampled in the mud; the cattle were out and away. My anxiety was great. The paddock was insecure. If they got out of it there was endless re-mustering, delay, and perhaps loss. I could do nothing on foot. I heard the uneasy brutes trampling and bellowing in all directions. I went to bed sad at heart, and, like St. Paul's crew at Malta, "wished for the dawn." With the earliest streak of light I caught my horse, and galloped round the paddock without a sight of the missing animals. In despair I turned towards the shore of the large salt-water lagoon which made one side of the enclosure. In the grey light I fancied I saw a dark mass at the end of a cape, which stretched far into it. I rode for it at full speed, and discovered my lost "stock-in-trade" all lying down in the long marshy grass. They had struck out straight for their last known place of abode, but had been blocked by the deep water and the unknown sea--as doubtless the lagoon appeared to them in the darkness. Shortly after breakfast we resumed our journey, and made St. Kitts, a cattle station some ten or twelve miles on the western side of Belfast. The Messrs. Aplin were there, having taken it up a year before. The stock-yard was more substantial, as became a cattle station. Our hosts were cultured and refined people, not long from England; like myself, enthusiastic about pastoral pleasures and profits. All our work lay ahead. How bright was the outlook! how dim and distant the shoals and quicksands of life's sea! We sat long into the night, talking a good deal of shop, not wholly unmingled with higher topics. I remember we decided that cattle stations were to improve in value, and ultimately lead to a competence. How little could we foresee that the elder brother was to die as resident magistrate at Somerset--an unborn town in an unknown colony--and the younger, after nearly thirty years' unsuccessful gold-mining, from Suttor's Mill to Hokitiki, was to make a fortune in tin at Stanthorpe! That the writer--bah! "Fate's dark web unfolded, lying," did not keep him from the soundest sleep that night; and we again made a successful morning start. The start was good, but the day was discouraging. The cattle were safe enough in the new yard, though rather bedraggled after twelve hours of mud up to their knees. However, there was water enough where they were going to wash them up to the horns, and the grass was magnificent. The rain came down in a way that was oppressive to our spirits. The sky was murky; the air chilling. Our whips soon became sodden and ineffective. My companion had a bad cold, which deprived him of all of his voice and most of his temper. The dog Dora would hardly bark. Worse than all, the track was difficult to find. We drove hard for hours, doubting much whether we had not lost our way. My comrade was sure of it. And It was about the filthy close Of a most disgusting day, as a somewhat irreverent poetaster hath it, when we disputed in the gathering gloom as to whether or not we were miles distant from Dunmore--our port of refuge--or had really hit off the right track. My friend, in hoarse boding tones, commenced to speculate as to how we should pass the night under a steady rainfall, and how many miles off, in different directions, the cattle would be by morning. My answer was simple but effective--"There's the horse-paddock!" It was even so. Straining my eyes, I had caught sight through the timber of a two-railed sapling fence. It was enough. Paddocks were not then five miles square, and as likely to be twenty miles from the homestead as one. Dear labour and limited credit militated against reckless outlay in posts and rails. A 100-acre enclosure for horses and working bullocks was all that was then deemed necessary. To see the paddock was to see the house. A considerable "revulsion of feeling" took place with both of us as we slogged the tired cattle round the fence and came in view of the old Dunmore homestead, then considered one of the best improved in the district. To be sure, it would not make much show now beside Burrabogie or Groongal, let alone Ercildoune or Trawalla, and a few others in the west. But then some of the shepherd kings thought it no dishonour to sleep in a watch-box for a month at a time, and a slab gunyah with a fold of hurdles was held to be sufficient improvement for a medium sheep station. At Dunmore there were three substantial slab huts with huge stone chimneys, a _pisé_-work dairy, a loose-box for Traveller, the son of Camerton, as well as a large milking-yard and cowshed. A great dam across the River Shaw provided an ornamental sheet of water. The season was, as I have stated, verging on midwinter. The day was wet. The drove of milkers passing and repassing had converted the ground outside of the huts, which were protected by the paddock fence, into a sea of mud, depth from one foot to two feet. Through this we approached the yard. If I live to be a hundred I shall never forget the sight which now met my astonished eyes. A gentleman emerged from the principal building in conspicuously clean raiment, having apparently just arrayed himself for the evening meal. He proceeded calmly to wade through the mud-ocean until he reached the yard, where he took down the clay-beplastered rails, leaving the gate open for our cattle. I declare I nearly fainted with grateful emotion at this combination of self-sacrifice with the loftiest ideal of hospitality. We had never met before either; but long years of after-friendship with James Irvine only enabled me to perceive that it was the natural outcome of a generous nature and a heart loyal to every impulse of gentle blood. Another night's mud for the poor cattle. But I reflected that the next day would see them enfranchised, and on their own "run." So, dismissing the subject from my mind, I followed my chivalrous host to the guests' hut--a snug, separate building, where we made our simple toilettes with great comfort and satisfaction. After some cautious walking on a raised pathway we gained the "house," where I was introduced to Messrs. Campbell and Macknight--for the firm was a triumvirate. Dwelling in a drought-afflicted district across the border, where for months the milk question had been in abeyance, or feebly propped up by the imported Swiss product, and where butter is not, how it refreshes one to recall the great jug of cream which graced that comfortable board, the pats of fresh butter, the alluring short-cake, the baronial sirloin. How we feasted first. How we talked round the glowing log-piled fire afterwards. How we slept under piles of blankets till sunrise. Mrs. Teviot, the housekeeper, peerless old Scottish dame that she was (has not Henry Kingsley immortalised her?); for how many a year did she provide for the comforts of host and guest unapproachably, unimpeachably. How indelibly is that evening imprinted on my memory. Marked with a white stone in life's not all-cheerful record. On that evening was commenced a friendship that only closed with life, and which knew for the whole of its duration neither cloud nor misgiving. If a man's future is ever determined by the character of his associates and surroundings at a critical period of life, my vicinity to Dunmore must have powerfully influenced mine. In close, almost daily, association with men of high principle, great energy, early culture, and refined habits, I could not fail to gain signal benefit, to imbibe elevated ideas, to share broad and ennobling ideas of colonisation. As soon as we could see next morning the cattle were let out and "tailed" on the thick, rich pasturage, which surrounded every homestead in those good old days. After breakfast I set out to find my station; that is, the exact spot where it had pleased my retainers to camp. I found them about seven miles westward of Dunmore, on a cape of lightly-timbered land which ran into the great Eumeralla marsh; a corresponding point of the lava country, popularly known as The Rocks, jutted out to meet it. On this was a circular pond-like depression, where old Tom, my venerable guide and explorer, had in a time of drought once seen a dingo drinking. He had christened it the Native Dog Hole--a name which it bears to this day. And at the Doghole-point had my man Joe Burge commenced to fell timber for a brush-yard, put up the walls of a sod hut, unpacked such articles as would not suffer from weather, and generally commenced the first act of homestead occupation. I was greeted with enthusiasm. And as Old Tom the stock-rider was at once despatched to Dunmore to bring over the cattle, with Mr. Cunningham, my friend and travelling companion, I hobbled out my charger and proceeded to inspect my newly-acquired territory. CHAPTER V SQUATTLESEA MERE Pride and successful ambition swelled my breast on that first morning as I looked round on my run. My run! my own station! How fine a sound it had, and how fine a thing it was that I should have the sole occupancy--almost ownership--of about 50,000 acres of "wood and wold," mere and marshland, hill and dale. It was all my own--after a fashion--that is, I had but to receive my squatting license, under the hand of the Governor of the Australias, for which I paid ten pounds, and no white man could in any way disturb, harass, or dispossess me. I have that first license yet, signed by Sir Charles Fitzroy, the Governor-General. It was a valuable document in good earnest, and many latter-day pastoralists with a "Thursday to Thursday" tenure would be truly glad to have such another. There were no free-selectors in those days. No one could buy land except at auction when once the special surveys had been abrogated. There were no travelling reserves, or water reserves, or gold-fields, or mineral licenses, or miners' rights, or any of the new-fangled contrivances for letting the same land to half a dozen people at one and the same time. There was nothing which some people would consider to be romantic or picturesque in the scenery on which I gazed. But the "light which never was on sea or shore" _was there_, to shed a celestial glory over the untilled, unfenced, half-unknown waste. Westward stretched the great marshes, through which the Eumeralla flowed, if, indeed, that partially subterranean stream could be said to run or flow anywhere. Northward lay the lava-bestrewn country known as the Mount Eeles rocks, a mass of cooled and cracked lava now matted with a high thick sward of kangaroo grass, but so rough and sharp were the piles and plateaux of scoria that it was dangerous to ride a horse over it. For years after we preferred to work it on foot with the aid of dogs. On the south lay open slopes and low hills, with flats between. On these last grew the beautiful umbrageous blackwood, or native hickory, one of the handsomest trees in Australia. At the back were again large marshes, with heathy flats and more thickly-timbered forests. Over all was a wonderful sward of grass, luxuriant and green at the time I speak of, and quite sufficient, as I thought, for the sustenance of two or three thousand head of mixed cattle. There were no great elevations to be seen. It was one of the "low countries" in a literal sense. The only hill in view was that of Mount Eeles, which we could see rising amid the lava levels a few miles to the north-west. The marshes were for the most part free from timber. But a curious formation of "islands," as the stock-rider called them, prevailed, which tended much to the variety and beauty of the landscape. These were isolated areas, of from ten to one hundred acres, raised slightly above the ordinary winter level of the marshes. The soil on these "islands" was exceptionally good, and, from the fact of their being timbered like the ordinary mainland, they afforded an effective contrast to the miles of water or waving reeds of which the marshes consisted. They served admirably also for cattle camps. To them the cattle always retired at noonday in summer, and at night in winter and spring-time. One "island," not very far from our settlement, was known as "Kennedy's island," the gallant ill-fated explorer who had surveyed a road to the town of Portland some years before my arrival having made his camp there. How far he was to wander from the pleasant green west country, only to die by the spear of a crouching savage, within sight of the ship that had been sent to bring him safely home after his weary desert trail! We didn't know anything of the nature of dry country in those days. All the land I looked upon was deep-swarded, thickly-verdured as an English meadow. Wild duck swam about in the pools and meres of the wide misty fen, with its brakes of tall reeds and "marish-marigolds"--"the sword-grass and the oat-grass and the bulrush by the pool." Overhead long strings of wild swan clanged and swayed. There were wild beasts (kangaroo and dingoes), Indians (blacks, whose fires in "The Rocks" we could see), a pathless waste, and absolute freedom and independence. These last were the most precious possessions of all. No engagements, no office work, no fixed hours, no sums or lessons of any kind or sort. I felt as if this splendid Robinson Crusoe kind of life was too good to be true. Who was I that I should have had this grand inheritance of happiness immeasurable made over to me? What a splendid world it was, to be sure! Why did people ever repine or complain? I should have made short work of Mr. Mallock, and have settled the argument "Is life worth living?" had it then arisen between us, with more haste than logic. Action, however, must in colonisation never fail to accompany contemplation. To which end I returned to our camp, just in time to partake of the simple, but appetising, meal which Mrs. Burge had prepared for us. Cold corned beef, hot tea, and a famous fresh damper, the crust of which I still hold to be better than any other species of bread whatever, when accompanied, as in the case referred to, with good, sweet, fresh butter. How splendid one's appetite was after hours spent in the fresh morning air. How complete the satisfaction when it all came to an end. Then commenced a council of war, in which Joe Burge was a leading spokesman. "Old Tom can look after the cattle. Mr. Cunningham and I will go and fell a tree. I know one handy that'll run out nigh on a hundred slabs, and if you'll bring up the bullocks and dray to the stump, sir, to-night, we'll have a load of slabs ready to take home." What was the next thing that was necessary to be done? To build a house. At present we were living under a dray. Now, a dray is not so bad a covering at night, when extremely sleepy and tired, but in daylight it is valueless. And if it rains--and in the west it often did, and I am informed does still, though not so hard as it did then--the want of a permanent shelter makes itself felt. The walls of a sod hut were indeed already up. Clean-cut black cubes, rather larger than bricks, when new and moist, make a neat, solid wall. In little more than a day we had a thatched roof completed, so that we were able to have our evening meal in comfort, and even luxury. A couple of fixed bedsteads were placed at opposite corners, in which Mr. Cunningham and I arranged our bedding. Joe Burge and his wife still slept under the "body" of the dray, while Old Tom had a separate section allotted to him under the pole. But the "hut," of split slabs, with wall-plate top and bottom, and all the refinements of bush carpentry, was to be the real mansion. And at this we soon made a commencement. I say we, because I drove the bullocks and carted the slabs to the site we had pitched on, besides doing a bit of squaring and adzing now and then. Joe Burge and Mr. Cunningham (who was an experienced bushman, and half a dozen other things to boot) soon "ran out" slabs enough, and fitted the round stuff, most of which I carted in, preferring that section of industry to the all-day, every-day work of splitting. Old Tom looked after the cattle. They needed all his attention for a while, displaying, as they did, a strong desire to march incontinently back to the banks of the Merai. In two or three weeks the hut was up. How I admired it! The door, the table, the bedsteads, the chairs (three-legged stools), the washstand, were all manufactured by Joe Burge out of the all-sufficing "slab" of the period. A wooden chimney with an inner coating of stone-work worked well without smoking. The roof was neatly thatched with the tall, strong tussock-grass, then so abundant. Our dwelling transcended that of the lowland Scot, who described his as "a lairge hoose wi' twa rooms intil't," inasmuch as it boasted of three. One was the atrium--being also used as a refectory--and chief general apartment. The rest of the building was bisected by a wooden partition, affording thus two bedrooms. One of these was devoted to Joe Burge and family, the other I appropriated. Mr. Cunningham and Old Tom slept in the large room, where--firewood being plentiful--they kept up a roaring fire, and had rather the best of it in the cold nights which then commenced to visit us. Excepting a stock-yard, there now remained next to nothing to do, and being rather overmanned for so small a station, Mr. Cunningham, with my free consent, elected to take service with the Dunmore firm, with whom he remained for some years after. I had now attained the acme of worldly felicity. I had always longed to have a station of my own. Now I had one. I had daily work of the kind that exactly suited me. I went over to Dunmore and spent a pleasant evening every now and then, rubbing up my classics and having a little "good talk." I had a few books which I had brought up with me in the dray--Byron, Scott, Shakespeare (there was no Macaulay in those days), with half a score of other authors, in whom there was _pabulum mentis_ for a year or two. I had, besides, the run of the Dunmore library--no mean collection. So I had work, recreation, companionship, and intellectual occupation provided for me in abundant and wholesome proportion. What else could cast a shadow over my prosperous present and promising future? Well, there was one factor in the sum which I had not reckoned with. "The Amalekite was then in the land," and with the untamed, untutored pre-Adamite it appeared that I was fated to have trouble. The aboriginal blacks on and near the western coast of Victoria--near Belfast, Warrnambool, and Portland--had always been noted as a breed of savages by no means to be despised. They had been for untold generations accustomed to a dietary scale of exceptional liberality. The climate was temperate; the forests abounded in game; wild-fowl at certain seasons were plentiful; while the sea supplied them with fish of all sorts and sizes, from a whale (stranded) to a whitebait. No wonder that they were a fine race, physically and otherwise--the men tall and muscular, the women well-shaped and fairly good-looking. To some even higher commendation might with truth be applied. One is often tempted to smile at hearing some under-sized Anglo-Saxon, with no brain power to spare, assert gravely the blacks of Australia were the lowest race of savages known to exist, the connecting link between man and the brute creation, etc. On the contrary, many of the leading members of tribes known to the pioneer squatters were grandly-formed specimens of humanity, dignified in manner, and possessing an intelligence by no means to be despised, comprehending a quick sense of humour, as well as a keenness of perception, not always found in the superior race. Unfortunately, before I arrived and took up my abode on the border of the great Eumeralla mere, there had been divers quarrels between the old race and the new. Whether the stockmen and shepherds were to blame--as is always said--or whether it was simply the ordinary savage desire for the tempting goods and chattels of the white man, cannot be accurately stated. Anyhow, cattle and sheep had been lifted and speared; blacks had been shot, as a matter of course; then, equally so, hut-keepers, shepherds, and stockmen had been done to death. Just about that time there was a scare as to the disappearance of a New South Wales semi-civilised aboriginal named Bradbury. He was a daring fellow, a bold rider, and a good shot. As he occasionally stayed at the native camp, and had now not been seen for a month, it began to be rumoured that he had agreed to accept the leadership of the outlawed tribes against the whites. In such a case the prospects of the winter, with thinly-manned homesteads eight or ten miles apart, looked decidedly bad. However, the discovery of poor Bradbury's bones a short time afterwards set that matter at rest. He always took his gun with him, distrusting--and with good reason--his trans-Murray kin. On this occasion they "laid for him," it seems, and by means of a sable Delilah, who playfully ran off with his double-barrel, took him at a disadvantage. He fought desperately, we were told, even with a spear through his body, but was finally overpowered. Just before they had killed and chopped up a hut-keeper, and at Mount Rouse they had surprised and killed one of Mr. Cox's men, the overseer--Mr. Brock--only saving himself by superior speed of foot, for which he was noted. I was recommended by my good friends of Dunmore and others of experience to keep the blacks at a distance, and not to give them permission to come about the station. Being young and foolish--or, let me say, unsuspicious--I chose to disregard this warning and to take my own way. I thought the poor fellows had been hardly treated. It was their country, after all. A policy of conciliation would doubtless show them that some of the white men had their good at heart. To the westward of our camp lay the great tract of lava country before mentioned. This had been doubtless an outflow in old central-fire days from the crater of Mount Eeles. Now, cooled, hardened, cracked, and decomposed, it annually produced a rich crop of grass. It was full of ravines, boulders, masses of scoria, and had, besides, a lakelet in the centre. It was many miles across, and extended from Mount Eeles nearly to the sea. It was not particularly easy to walk in. And, as for riding, one day generally saw the end of the most high-couraged, sure-footed horse. As a natural covert for savages it could not be surpassed. In this peculiar region our "Modocs lay hid." We could see the smoke of their camp fires in tolerable number, but had no means of seeing or having speech of them. One day, however, having probably sent out a scout previously who had made careful examination of us while we were totally unconscious of any such supervision, they debouched from the rocks and came up to camp. They sent a herald in advance, who held up a green bough. Then, "walking delicately," they came up, in number nearly fifty. I was at home, as it happened, as also was the old stockman. How well I remember the day and the scene! We all carried guns in those days, as might the border settlers in "Injun" territory. CHAPTER VI THE EUMERALLA WAR We had been informed that the Eumeralla people, when that station was first taken up by Mr. Hunter for Hughes and Hoskins, of Sydney, always took their guns into the milking-yard with them, for fear of a surprise. The story went that one day a sudden attack "was" made. While the main body was engaged, a wing of the invading force made a flank movement, and bore down upon the apparently undefended homestead. There, however, they were confronted by Mr. William Carmichael, a neighbour of Falstaffian proportions, who stood in the doorway brandishing a rusty cutlass which he had discovered. Whether the blacks were demoralised by the appearance of the fattest man they had ever seen, or awestricken at the fierceness of his bearing, is not known, but they wheeled and fled just as their main army had concluded to fall back on Mount Eeles. Of Messrs. Gorrie and M'Gregor (uncle and nephew), who were chief among the Eumeralla pioneers, having come down with the original herd of ITH cattle, with which the run was first occupied, many tales are told. The former, a stalwart, iron-nerved, elderly Scot, was the envied possessor of a rifle of great length of barrel and the deadliest performance. The coolness of its owner under fire (of spears) was a matter of legendary lore. In a raid upon the heathen, shortly after an unprovoked murder on their part, two aboriginals bolted out of their cover immediately in front of Mr. Gorrie. Running their best, and leaping from side to side as they went, the nearer one made frantic signs to the effect that the other man was the real culprit. "Bide a wee," quoth the calm veteran, as the barrel of the old rifle settled to its aim. "Bide a wee, laddie, and I'll sort ye baith." Which the legend goes on to say he actually did, disposing of the appellant at sight, and knocking over the other before he got out of range of _la longue carabine_. One day Mr. M'Gregor was returning through disturbed country. While discovering "Injun sign" to be tolerably plain and recent, his horse at speed fell under him, and rolled over, a tremendous cropper. He picked himself up, and, going over to the motionless steed, found that he was stone dead--he had broken both forelegs and his neck. A moment's thought, and he picked up the saddle and bridle, and, thus loaded, ran the seven or eight miles home at a pace which Deerfoot would have respected. Things went on prosperously for some months. "The hut," a substantial and commodious structure, arose in all its grandeur. It boasted loopholes on either side of the huge, solid chimney, built out of the cube-shaped basaltic blocks which lay around in profusion. So we were prepared for a siege. A stock-yard was the next necessity; to split and put up this important adjunct, without which we had no real title to call ourselves a cattle station, was imperative. "Four rails and a cap," as the description ran, of the heavy substantial fence then thought necessary for the business, were to be procured. The white-gum timber, though good enough in a splitting sense for slabs, was not the thing for stock-yard work. So, as we knew by report from the "Eumeralla people" that there was a tract of stringy-bark forest about eight miles south of us towards the coast, we determined to get our timber there. The bushman who had put up the Eumeralla huts--one Tinker Woods, an expatriated gipsy, it was said, whom therefore I regarded with great interest--had marked some trees which would serve to guide us. Joe Burge thought he could manage the rest. The "round stuff" we could cut close about. But the heavy rails, nine feet in length, from three to five inches thick, and as straight as a board paling, we had to get from the forest. As Mr. Cunningham had gone, and the old stockman, Tom, had quite enough to do minding the cattle, the work fell on Joe Burge and myself. This is how it was managed. At daylight we started one Monday morning, taking the dray and team, with maul and wedges, crosscut saw and axes, bedding, blankets, and a week's rations, not forgetting the guns. When we got to the forest, after finding the Tinker's Tree (it bore the name years after)--an immense stringy bark, with a section of the outside wood split down to see if the grain was free--we soon pitched upon a "good straight barrel," and set to work. Joe cut a good-sized "calf" in it first, and then we introduced the crosscut. I had got through a reasonable amount of manual exercise, and had more than one spell, when the tall tree began to sway, and, as we drew back to the right side of the stump, came crashing down, flattening all the lighter timber in its way. "Now, sir," quoth Joe, "you give me a hand to crosscut the first length. There'll be two more after that. Them I'll do myself, and now we'll have a pot of tea. You can take the team home, and come back the day after to-morrow. I'll have a load of rails ready for you." We had our meal in great comfort and contentment. Then I started off to drive the team back. At sunset I saw the thatched roof of our hut. I had walked sixteen miles there and back, besides helping to fell our tree, and unyoking the team afterwards. I slept soundly that night. I drove the team back to the forest on the day named, and found Joe perfectly well and contented, having split up the whole of the tree into fine, straight, substantial rails, thirty of which were put upon the dray. After helping to cut down another tree, I departed on my homeward journey. On Saturday the same proceedings took place, and _da capo_ until all the rails were split and drawn in. Joe must have felt pretty lonely at night, camped in a bark gunyah, with the black pillars of the stringy-bark trees around him, and not a soul within reach or ken. But he was not of a nervous temperament--by wood or wold, land or sea, on foot or horseback, hand-to-hand fight, sword or pistol, it was all one to Joe. He was afraid of nothing and nobody. And when, years after, his son returned from India with the Queen's Commission and the Victoria Cross, I knew where the bold blood had come from. Towards the end of our wood-ranging, a rumour got abroad that the blacks had "broken out" and commenced to spear cattle. They had, moreover, "intromitted with the Queen's lieges," as Dugald Dalgetty would have said. Mr. Cunningham, riding through the greenwood at Dunmore, had had three spears thrown at him by blacks, one of which went through his hat. They then (he averred) disappeared into an "impenetrable scrub." Neighbours talked of arming and going out in force to expostulate, if this kind of thing was to go on. I told Joe of this, and brought a message from Mrs. Burge to say that Old Tom, who knew the blacks well, was getting anxious, that he must not stay away any longer, but had better come home with me. Joe agreed generally, but said there was one lovely, straight tree that he _must_ run out, and if I would help him fell this, he would come directly it was finished. I tried to persuade him, but it was useless. So we "threw" the tree, and loaded up. I started home again alone. Now the tree was a large tree; the load heavier than usual. My departure was late in consequence, and the moon rose before I had half finished my homeward journey. To add to my trouble I got into a soft spot in the marsh road, and in the altercation one of my leaders, a hot-tempered animal, slued round and "turned his yoke." Gentlemen who have driven teams will understand the situation. The bows were by this manoeuvre placed on the tops of the bullocks' necks, the yoke underneath, and the off-side bullock became the near-side one. I was nearly in despair. I dared not unyoke them, because they, being fresh, would have bolted and left me helpless. So I compromised, and started the team, finding that by keeping pretty wide of my leaders and behaving with patience they would keep the track. The road was moderately open, and they knew they were going home. At one part of the road I had to pass between two walls of ti-tree, a tall kind of scrub through which I could not see, and which looked in the moonlight very dark and eerie. I began to think about the blacks, and whether or no they might attack us in force. At that very moment I heard a wild shrill cry, which considerably accelerated the circulatory system. I sprang to the gun, which lay alongside of the rail, just within the side-board of the dray. "I will sell my life dearly," I said to myself; "but oh! if it must be--shall I never see home again?" As I pulled back the hammer another cry, hardly so shrill--much more melodious, indeed, to my ears--sounded, and a flock of low-flying dark birds passed over my head. It was the cry of the wild swan! I was not sorry when I saw the hut fire, and drew up with my load near the yard. I had some trouble with my leader, the off-side bullock not caring to let me approach him, as is the manner of his kind. But I got over the difficulty, and dealt out retributive justice by letting him and his mate go in their yoke, and postponing further operations to daylight. Mrs. Burge was most anxious about her husband, and inveighed against his foolishly putting his life in jeopardy for a few rails. Old Tom laughed, and said as long as Joe had a good gun he was a match for all the blacks in the country, if they did not take him by surprise. "We're going to have a bit of trouble with these black varment now," he said, filling his pipe in a leisurely way. "Once they've started killing cattle they won't leave off in a hurry. More by token, they might take a fancy to tackle the hut some day when we're out." "You leave me a gun, then," said Mrs. Burge, "and I'll be able to frighten 'em a bit if I'm left by myself. But sure, I hardly think they'd touch me after all the flour and bits of things I've given the lubras." "They're quare people," said the old stockman, meditatively; "there's good and bad among 'em, but the divil resave the blackfellow I'd trust nearer than I could pull the trigger on him, if he looked crooked." I said little, being vexed that my policy of conciliation had been of no avail. I roused myself, however, out of a reverie on the curious problem afforded by original races of mankind, foredoomed to perish at the approach of higher law. "They have not touched any of our cattle yet," I said; "that shows they have some feeling of gratitude." "I wouldn't say that," answered the old man. "I missed a magpie steer to-day, and I didn't see that fat yellow cow with the white flank. Thim's a pair that's always together, and I seen all the leading mob barrin' the two." "We must have a hunt for them to-morrow," I said, "and the sooner Joe comes in the better, Mrs. Burge." "Yes, indeed," said that resolute matron, casting a glance at the cradle where lay a plump infant not many weeks old; "and is there any other man in the country that would risk his life for a load of stock-yard rails? Not but it's elegant timber; only he might think of me and the baby." The argument was a good one, so next day I went out and forcibly brought away Joe and a final cargo of rails, though to the last he asserted "that we were spoiling the yard for the sake of another week's splitting." I may here state that we got our stock-yard up in due time. It was seven feet high, and close enough--a rat could hardly get through. My share was chiefly the mortising of the huge posts, which afforded considerable scope for amateur execution, by reason of their size and thickness. If the yard is still standing--and nothing less than a stampede of elephants would suffice to level it--I could pick out several of "my posts" with unerring accuracy. "God be with those days," as the Irish idiom runs; they were happy and free. I should like to be drafting there again--if the clock could be put back. But life's time-keeper murmurs sadly with rhythmic pendulum, "Never--for ever: for ever--never!" All of a sudden war broke out. The reasons for this last resource of nations none could tell. The whites only wished to be let alone. They did not treat the black brother unkindly. Far from it. There were other philanthropists in the district besides myself, notably Mr. James Dawson, of Kangatong, then known as Cox's Heifer Station, distant about twenty miles to the east. Then, as now, my old friend and his amiable family were most anxious to ameliorate his condition. They fed and clothed the lubras and children. They even were sufficiently interested to make a patient study of the language, and to acquire a knowledge of tribal rites, ceremonies, and customs, which has lately been embodied in a valuable volume, praised even by the super-critical _Saturday Review_. It is a fact, not altogether without bearing on the historical analysis of pioneer squatting, that four of us--rude colonists, as most English writers persist in believing all Australian settlers to be--were, in greater or less degree, authors. Charles Macknight had a logically clear and trenchant way of putting things. As a political and social essayist he attracted much attention during the latter years of his life. His theories of stock-breeding, culled from contemporary journals, are still prized and acted upon by experienced pastoralists. Of the two brothers Aplin, the elder was a lover of scientific research, and, having a strong natural taste for geology, addressed himself to it with such perseverance that he became second only to Mr. Selwyn, the late Victorian Government geologist, a man of European reputation, and was himself enabled to fill the position of Government geologist for Northern Queensland. His brother Dyson was a poet of by no means ordinary calibre. Mr. Dawson's book is now before the public, and the present writer has more than one book or two to his credit, which the public have been good enough to read, and reviewers to praise. Before I begin my history of the smaller Sepoy Rebellion, I must introduce Mr. Robert Craufurd, younger, of Ardmillan, a brother of the late Lord Ardmillan. This gentleman dwelt at Eumeralla East, a subdivision of the original run, which, in my time, was the property of the late Mr. Benjamin Boyd. The river divided the two runs. Messrs. Gorrie and M'Gregor had acquired Eumeralla West, with its original homestead and improvements, by what we should call in the present day something very like "jumping." However, I had no better claim to the Doghole-point, which was a part of the old Eumeralla run--as indeed was Dunmore and all the country within twenty or thirty miles--if the original occupant of that station was to be believed. The commissioner--the gallant and autocratic Captain Fyans--settled the matter, as was the wont of those days, by his resistless _fiat_. He "gave" Messrs. Gorrie and M'Gregor the western side of the Eumeralla, with the homestead and the best fattening country. He restricted Mr. Boyd to the eastern side of the river, giving him his choice, however. That was the reason why Tinker Woods had to build new huts; and he eventually allotted to me Squattlesea Mere, and its dependencies, as far as the Doghole-point, though my friend, Bob Craufurd, on behalf of his employer, strove stoutly to have me turned out. Mr. Craufurd, like other cadets of good family, had somewhat swiftly got rid of the capital which he imported, and, for lack of other occupation, accepted the berth of manager of Eumeralla East for Mr. Boyd, and a very good manager he was. A fine horseman, shrewd, clear-headed, and energetic on occasion, he did better for that enterprising ill-fated capitalist than he ever did for himself. He and the Dunmore people were old friends and schoolfellows. So, it may be guessed that we often found it convenient to exchange our somewhat lonely and homely surroundings for the comparative luxury and refinement of Dunmore. What grand evenings we used to have there! He was a special humourist. I often catch myself now laughing at one of "Craufurd's stories"--an inveterate practical joker, a thorough sportsman, a fair scholar, and scribbler of _jeux d'esprit_, he was the life and soul of our small community. He once counterfeited a warrant, which he caused to be served on Mr. Cunningham for an alleged shooting of a blackfellow. Even that bold Briton turned pale (and a more absolutely fearless man I never knew) when he found himself, as he supposed, within the iron gripe of the law. We were all pretty good shots. For one reason or other the gun was rarely a day out of our hands. We were therefore in a position to do battle effectively for our homesteads and means of subsistence if these were assailed. Between my abode and the sea was but one other run--a cattle station. Sheep were in the minority in those days. It was occupied by two brothers--the Messrs. Jamieson--Scots also; they seemed to preponderate in the west. Their run rejoiced in the aspiring title of Castle Donnington. It was rather thickly timbered, possessed a good deal of limestone formation, and had a frontage to Darlot's Creek, an ever-flowing true river which there ran into the sea. CHAPTER VII THE CHILDREN OF THE ROCKS Mr. Learmonth had taken up Ettrick and Ellangowan, a few miles higher up on the same creek, about the same time that I "sat down" on the Lower Eumeralla. This gentleman, since an officer of high rank in the volunteer force, had lately come from Tasmania, whence he brought some valuable blood mares, with which he founded a stud in after years. The cattle run comprised a good deal of lava country. It was there that Bradbury, the civilised aboriginal before mentioned, met his death. All the land that lay between Eumeralla proper and the sea, a tract of country of some twenty or thirty miles square, had been probably from time immemorial a great hunting-ground and rendezvous for the surrounding tribes. It was no doubt eminently fitted for such a purpose. It swarmed with game, and in the spring was one immense preserve of every kind of wild fowl and wild animal that the country owned. Among the Rocks there were innumerable caves, depressions, and hiding-places of all kinds, in which the natives had been used to find secure retreat and safe hiding in days gone by. Whether they could not bear to surrender to the white man these cherished solitudes, or whether it was the shortsighted, childish anxiety to possess our goods and chattels, can hardly ever be told. Whatever the motive, it was sufficient, as on all sides at once came tales of wrong-doing and violence, of maimed and slaughtered stock, of homicide or murder. Next day we saw the greater part of the cattle, but those particular ones that Old Tom had missed were not to be found anywhere. We were turning our horses' heads homewards when I noticed the eaglehawks circling around and above a circular clump of ti-tree scrub in a marsh. While we looked a crow flew straight up from the midst of the clump, and we heard the harsh cry of others. The same thought evidently was in all our minds, as we rode straight for the place, and forced our horses between the thick-growing, slender, feathery points. In the centre, amid the tall tussac grass, lay the yellow heifer with the white flank, stone dead. A spear-hole was visible beneath the back ribs. Exactly on the corresponding portion of the other side was another, proving that, strange as it may seem, a spear had been driven right through her body. After Old Tom had concluded his exclamations and imprecations, which were of a most comprehensive nature, we agreed that the campaign had been opened in earnest, and that we knew what we had to expect. "We'll find more to-morrow," said the old man. "Onest they'll begin like this, they'll never lave off till thim villains, Jupiter and Cocknose, is shot, anyway." These strangely-named individuals had been familiar to our ears ever since our arrival. "Jupiter" was supposed to have a title to the head chieftainship of the tribe which specially affected the Rocks and the neighbourhood of the extinct volcano. Cocknose had been named by the early settlers from the highly unclassical shape of the facial appendage. He was known to be a restless, malevolent savage. Again on the war trail next morning, we tried beating up and down among the paths by which the cattle went to water, at the lower portion of the great marsh. It may be explained that the summer of 1844 was exceptionally dry, and much of the surface water having disappeared, the cattle were compelled to walk in Indian file through the ti-tree, in many places more than ten feet in height, to the deeper portion of the marsh, where water was still visible. Here Joe Burge hit off a trail, which seemed likely to solve the mystery. "Here they've been back and forward, and pretty thick too," he said, getting off and pointing to the track of native feet, plain enough in the swamp mud. "Cattle been here," said the old stockman, "and running too. Look at thim deep tracks. The thieves of the world, my heavy curse on them!" As we followed on the trail grew broader and more plain. A few head of cattle had evidently been surrounded--two or more bullocks, we agreed, and several cows and calves, heading now in this direction, now in that. Presently half of a broken spear was picked up. We followed the track to a thick brake of reeds nearly opposite to a jutting cape of the lava country. There we halted. A new character was legible in the cipher we had been puzzling out. "They've thrown him here," said the old man. "Here's where he fell down. There's blood on that tuft of grass; and here's the mark of the side of him in the mud. They've cut him up and carried him away into the Rocks, bit by bit--hide and horns, bones and mate. The divil resave the bit of Magpie ever we'll see again. There's where they wint in." Sure enough we saw a plainly-marked track, with a fragment of flesh, or a blood-stain, showing the path by which they had carried in a slaughtered animal. Further we could not follow them, as the lava downs were at this spot too rough for horses, and we might also have been taken at a disadvantage. So, on the second evening, we rode home, having found what we went out to seek, certainly, but not elated by the discovery. It now became a serious question how to bear ourselves in the face of the new state of matters. If the blacks persisted in a guerilla warfare, besides killing many of the best of our cattle, they would scatter and terrify the remainder, so that they would hardly stay on the run; besides which, they held us at a disadvantage. They could watch our movements, and from time to time make _sorties_ from the Rocks, and attack our homesteads or cut us off in detail. In the winter season much of the forest land became so deep and boggy that, even on horseback, if surprised and overmatched in numbers, there would be very little chance of getting away. By this time the owners of the neighbouring stations were fully aroused to the necessity of concerted action. We had reached the point when "something must be done." We could not permit our cattle to be harried, our servants to be killed, and ourselves to be hunted out of the good land we had occupied by a few savages. Our difficulty was heightened by its being necessary to behave in a quasi-legal manner. Shooting blacks, except in manifest self-defence, had been always held to be murder in the Supreme Courts of the land, and occasionally punished as such. Now, there were obstacles in the way of taking out warrants and apprehending Jupiter and Cocknose, or any of their marauding braves, in the act. The Queen's writ, as in certain historic portions of the west of Ireland, did not run in those parts. Like all guerillas, moreover, their act of outrage took place sometimes in one part of a large district, sometimes in another, the actors vanishing meanwhile, and reappearing with puzzling rapidity. We went now well armed. We were well mounted and vigilantly on guard. The Children of the Rocks were occasionally met with, when collisions, not all bloodless, took place. Their most flagrant robbery was committed on Mr. John Cox's Mount Napier station, whence a flock of maiden ewes was driven, and the shepherd maltreated. These young sheep were worth nearly two pounds per head, besides being impossible to replace. Mr. Cox told me himself that they constituted about a third of his stock in sheep at the time. He therefore armed a few retainers and followed hot on the trail. He had unusual facilities for making successful pursuit. In his house lived a tame aboriginal named Sou'wester, who had a strong personal attachment for Mr. Cox. Like most of his race, he had the true bloodhound faculty when a man-hunt was in question. He led the armed party, following easily the trampling of the flock in the long grass until they reached the edge of the Rocks. Into this rugged region the flock had been driven. Before long Sou'wester's piercing eye discovered signs of their having been forced along the rocky paths at the point of the spear. It was evident to him that they were making for the lake, which was in the centre of the lava country. By and by he pointed out that, by the look of the tracks, they were gaining upon the robbers. And shortly too sure an indication of the reckless greed and cruelty of the savage was furnished. Passing round an angular ridge of boulders, suddenly they came upon about a hundred young sheep, which had been left behind. "But why are they all lying down?" said one of the party. The tracker paused, and, lifting a hind-leg of one of the helpless brutes, showed without speech that the limb was useless. _The robbers had dislocated the hind-legs_ as a simple preventive of locomotion; to insure their being in the same place when it should please their captors to return and eat them. "I never felt so wolfish in my life," said Mr. Cox to me, afterwards, "as when I saw the poor things turn up their eyes reproachfully as they lay, as if imploring our assistance." A few more miles brought them up with the main body. They opened fire upon the tolerably large body of blacks in possession, directly they came within range. "It was the first time I had ever levelled a gun at my fellow-man," John Cox remarked. "I did so without regret or hesitation in this instance. I never remember having the feeling that I could not miss so strong in me--except in snipe-shooting. I distinctly remember knocking over _three_ blacks, two men and a boy, with one discharge of my double barrel." Sou'wester had a good innings that day, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He fired right and left, raging like a demoniac. One huge black, wounded to death, hastened his own end by dragging out his entrails, meanwhile praising up the weapons of the white man as opposed to those of the black. Sou'wester cut short his death-song by blowing out his brains with the horse-pistol of the period. A few of the front-rankers were shot on this occasion; but most of the others saved themselves by precipitately taking to the lake. After this nothing happened for a while, until one day a good-sized party was discovered killing a bullock of Messrs. Jamieson, near Ettrick. The brothers Jamieson and Major Learmonth--then unknown to martial fame--went out to dispute title. The scene was in a reed-brake--the opposing force numerous. Spears began to drop searchingly amid and around the little party. It looked like another Isandula, and the swart foe crept ominously close, and yet more close, from tree to tree. Then a spear struck William Jamieson in the forehead--a rough straw hat alone saving his brain. The blood rushed down, and, dripping on his gun, damped the priming. Things looked bad. A little faltering had lost the fight. But the Laird of Ettrick shot the savage dead who threw the spear, and under cover of this surprise he and Robert Jamieson carried their wounded comrade safely out of the field. Among other experiments for the benefit of the tribe, I had adopted a small black boy. He was formally handed over to me by his grand-uncle, who informed me that his name was Tommy, and adjured me to "kick him plenty." With this thoughtful admonition from his only surviving male relative I did not trouble myself to comply, though it occurred to me subsequently that it was founded upon a correct analysis of boy nature generally, and of Master Tommy's in particular. So he was a good deal spoiled, and, though occasionally useful with the cattle, did pretty much as he liked, and vexed the soul of good Mrs. Burge continually. One night, when we had been on the run all day and had found the cattle much disorganised, we noticed an unusual number and brilliancy of fires at the black camp in the Rocks. We could generally see their fires in the distance at night, and could judge of the direction of the camp, though, owing to the broken nature of the ground, we did not seek to follow them up, unless when making a _reconnaissance en force_. On this particular night, however, something more than usual appeared to be going on. The dogs, too, were uneasy, and I could see that Old Tom appeared to be perturbed and anxious. "I wouldn't be putting it past them black divils to be makin' a rush some night and thryin' to burn the hut on us," he said gloomily. "If we lave them there, atin' and roastin' away at shins of beef and the hoighth of good livin', as they have now, they'll think we're afraid, and there'll be no houldin' them. Ye might get the gintlemen from Dunmore, and Peter Kearney, and Joe Betts, and Mr. Craufurd, from Eumeralla, and give them a fright out of that before they rise on us in rale arnest." "No, Tom," I said; "I should not think that just or right. I believe that they have been killing our cattle, but I must catch them in the act, and know for certain what blacks they are, before I take the law into my own hands. As to driving them away from the Rocks, it is their own country, and I will not attack them there till they have done something in my presence to deserve it." "Take your own way," said the old man, sullenly. He lit his pipe, and said no more. That night, about midnight, the dogs began to bark in a violent and furious manner, running out into the darkness and returning with all the appearance of having seen something hostile and unusual. We turned out promptly, and, gun in hand, went out some distance into the darkness. The night was of a pitchy Egyptian darkness, in which naught was visible a hand's breadth before one. Once we heard a low murmur as of cautious voices, but it ceased. Suddenly the black boy, Tommy, who had crept a few yards farther, came tearing back past us, and raced into the hut, where, apparently in an agony of fear, he threw himself down among the ashes of the fireplace, ejaculating, "Wild blackfellow, wild blackfellow!" to the great discomposure of Mrs. Burge. We fired off a gun to let them know that we were prepared, and separating so that we surrounded the hut on three sides of a front, and could retreat upon it if hard pressed, awaited the attack. It was rather an exciting moment. The dark midnight, the intense stillness, broken only by the baying of the dogs and the "mysterious sounds of the desert"; the chance of a rush of the wild warriors, who, if unchecked at the onset, would obliterate our small outpost--all these ideas passed through my mind in quick succession as we stood to our guns, and shouted to them to come on. "But none answered." They probably came near, under cover of the darkness, and, true to their general tactics, declined to make an attack when the garrison was prepared. Had they caught us napping, the result might have been different. This view of the subject was confirmed by something which happened a little while afterwards, and gave us a most apposite text on which to enlarge in our memorials to the Government. I happened to be away with Old Tom on a journey which took us more than a week. When I returned, "wonderful ashes had fallen on our heads," as Hadji Baba phrases it. Our homestead had been surprised and taken by the enemy. They had held possession of the hut for an hour or more, and cleared it of all that they regarded as valuable. Blood had not been spilled, but "it was God's mercy," Mrs. Burge said, "that she, and Joe, and the precious baby had not all been killed and murdered, and eaten, and all the cattle driven into the Rocks." I began to think that I would never go away again--certainly not for a few years--if adventures of this sort were possible in my absence. After a little blowing off of steam, on Old Tom's part, I gathered from the calmer narrative of Joe Burge the substance of the affair. CHAPTER VIII THE NATIVE POLICE On the third day after our departure Joe and his wife were in the milking-yard finishing the morning's work, when suddenly Mrs. Burge, looking towards the road, exclaimed, "Good God! the hut's full of blacks!" Realising that her infant lay in his cradle in the front room, she rushed down, in spite of Joe's command to stay where she was while he confronted the enemy. "Sure, isn't the child there?" she said. "And whether or not, mayn't you and I be as well killed together?" Joe, having no sufficiently effective answer at hand, was fain to follow his more impetuous helpmate with what speed he might. When they arrived on the scene, they found about twenty or thirty blacks briskly engaged in pillaging the hut. They were passing and repassing from out the doorway, handing to one another provisions and everything which attracted their cupidity. Mrs. Burge, in her own words, first "med into the big room, and the first thing I seen was this precious baby on the floor, and him with the cradle turned upside down over him. It's a mercy he wasn't smothered! I jostled the blackfellows, but none of them took any notice of me. When I got outside, who should I see but that little villain Tommy coming out of the dairy with something in his hand. I put down the child and riz the tin milk-dish off the meat-block and hit him over the top of the head with it. Down he drops like a cock. I caught hold of him by the hair, and tried to hold him down, but he was too slippery for me, and got up again. I thought worse of the ungrateful little villain than all the rest. Many's the good drink of milk he had in that same dairy, and now he comes an' lades on the blacks to rob the hut, and perhaps kill poor Joe, that never did him anything but good, and me and the baby." Said Joe Burge--"I went into the hut quiet-like, and seeing the old woman's monkey was up, after she got outside, gave her a strong push as if I was angry, and sent her back to the milking-yard. She wouldn't go at first, and I made believe to hit her and be very angry with her. This seemed to please the blacks, and they grinned and spoke to one another about it, I could see. I saw them carry out all the tea, sugar, and flour they could find. As far as I could make out, they were not set upon killing me or her. They seemed rather in a good humour, but I knew enough of blacks to see that the turn of a straw might make them change their tune. One fellow had my double gun, which was loaded; he did not know much about the ways of a gun, which was lucky for us. He held up the gun towards me, and pulled the trigger. The hammers were up, but there were no caps on. I had taken them off the night before. When the gun wouldn't go off, he says, 'no good, no good,' and laughed and handed it to another fellow, who held it in one hand like a fire-stick. I saw they were out for a day's stealing only. I thought it was better not to cross them. They were enough to eat us if it came to that. So I helped them to all they wanted, and sent them away in good humour with themselves and me. By and by down comes the wife from the milking-yard, and she rises an awful pillaloo when she sees what they had took. About a hundredweight of sugar, a quarter-chest of tea, a half-bag of flour, clothes, and, worse than all, two or three silver spoons, with the wife's initials on, which she looked on as something very precious. Master Tommy, who had put up the job to my thinking, cleared out with them. I saw them making a straight board for the rocks, toward the lake. I guessed they would camp there that night. As soon as they were well out of sight I catches the old mare and ripped over pretty quick to Dunmore. I saw Mr. Macknight, and told him, and he promised to make up a party next morning and follow them up, and see whether something might not be recovered. "Next morning, soon after sunrise, he, and Mr. Irvine, and Mr. Cunningham, and their stockman, all came riding up to the place. They left their horses in our paddock, and we went off on foot through the swamp, and over to the nearest point of the rocks. "We had all guns but me. Mr. Macknight and Mr. Irvine had rifles, Mr. Cunningham and the Dunmore stockman double-barrels. It was bad walking through the rocks, but after a mile or two I hit off their tracks by finding where they had dropped one or two little things they had stolen. The grass was so long and thick that they trod it down like as they were going through a wheat-field, so we could see how they had gone by that. "Well, after four or five miles terrible hard walking, we came in sight of the lake, and just on a little knob on the left-hand side, with a bit of flat under it, was the camp. I crept up, and could see them all sitting round their fires, and yarning away like old women, laughing away now and then. By George, thinks I, you'll be laughing on the wrong side of your mugs directly. "Well, I crept back and told the party, and we all began to sneak on them quietly, so as to be close on them before they had any notion of our being about, when Mr. Cunningham, who was a regular bull-dog for pluck, but awful careless and wild-like, trips over a big stone, tumbling down among the rocks, drops his gun, and then swears so as you could hear him a mile off. "All the dogs in the camp--they're the devil and all to smell out white men--starts a barkin'. The blacks jumps up, and, catching sight of the party, bolts away to the lake like a flock of wild duck. We gave 'em a volley, but it was a long shot, and our folks was rather much in a hurry. I didn't see no one tumble down. Anyway, between divin' in the lake, getting behind the big basalt boulders on the shore of the lake, and getting right away, when we got up the camp was bare of everything but an old blind lubra that sat there with a small child beside her, blinkin' with her old eyes, and grinnin' for all the world like one of the Injun idols I used to see in the squire's hall at home. Just as we got up, one fellow bolted out from behind a rock, and went off like a half-grown forester buck. Mr. Cunningham bangs away at him, and misses him; then flings down his gun, and chivies after him like a schoolboy. He had as much chance of catching him as a collie dog has of running down an emu. "I couldn't hardly help bustin' with laughin'; there was Mr. Cunningham, who was tremendous strong, but rather short on the leg, pounding away as if he thought he'd catch him every minute, and the blackfellow, a light active chap, spinning over the stones like a rock-wallaby--his feet didn't hardly seem to touch the ground. Then Mr. Macknight was afraid Mr. Cunningham might run into an ambush or something of that kind. 'Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Cunningham, come back! I order you to come back!' Howsoever, Mr. Cunningham didn't or wouldn't hear him; but, after awhile, the blackfellow runs clean away from him, and he come back pretty red in the face, and his boots cut all to pieces. We rummaged the camp, and found most of the things that were worth taking back. The flour, and tea, and sugar they had managed to get rid of. Most likely sat up all night and ate 'em right off. Blacks feed like that, I know. "But we got the gun and a lot of other things that were of value to us, as well as my wife's silver spoons, which she never stopped talkin' about, so I was very glad to fall across 'em. After stopping half an hour we made up all the things that could be carried, and marched away for home. It was a long way, and we were pretty well done when we got there. However, my old woman gave us a first-rate tea, and I caught the horses, and the gentlemen rode home. There's no great harm done, sir, that I know of, but it might have been a _plaguy sight worse_; don't you think so, sir?" I could not but assent to the proposition. The caprice of the savage had apparently turned their thoughts from blood revenge, though they "looted" the establishment pretty thoroughly. Another time worse might easily happen. We determined to keep good watch, and not to trust too much to the chapter of accidents. After half a ream of foolscap had been covered with representations to the Governor, in which I proudly hoped to convey an idea that our condition was much like that of American border settlers when Tecumseh and Massasoit were on the war-path, a real live troop of horse was despatched to our assistance. First came two of the white mounted police from Colac; then a much more formidable contingent, for one morning there rode up eight troopers of the native police, well armed and mounted, carbine in sling, sword in sheath, dangling proper in regular cavalry style. The irregular cavalry force known as the Native Police was then in good credit and acceptation in our colony. They had approved themselves to be highly effective against their sable kinsmen. The idea originated in Victoria, if I mistake not, and was afterwards developed in New South Wales, still later in Queensland. Mr. H. E. Pulteney Dana and his brother William were the chief organisers and first officers in command. They were principally recruited from beyond the Murray, and occasionally from Gippsland. They were rarely or never used in the vicinity of their own tribes. Picked for physique and intelligence, well disciplined, and encouraged to exercise themselves in athletic sports when in barracks, they were by no means to be despised as adversaries, as was occasionally discovered by white as well as black wrongdoers. Mounted on serviceable, well-conditioned horses, all in uniform, with their carbines slung, and steel scabbards jingling as they rode, they presented an appearance which would have done no discredit to Hodson or Jacob's Horse. Buckup, as non-commissioned officer, rode slightly in front, the others following in line. As I came out of the hut door the corporal saluted. "We been sent up by Mr. Dana, sir, to stop at this station a bit. Believe the blacks been very bad about here." The blacks! This struck me as altogether lovely and delicious. How calm and lofty was his expression! I answered with decorum that they had, indeed, been very bad lately--speared the cattle, robbed the hut, etc.; that yesterday we had seen the tracks of a large mob of cattle, which had been hunted in the boggy ground at the back of the run for miles. "They only want a good scouring, sir," quoth Buckup, carelessly, as he gave the order to dismount. As they stood before me I had a good opportunity of observing their general appearance. Buckup was a fine-looking fellow, six feet high, broad shouldered and well proportioned, with a bold, open cast of countenance, set off with well-trimmed whiskers and moustache. He was a crack hand with the gloves, I heard afterwards, and so good a wrestler that he might have come off in a contest with Sergeant Francis Stewart, sometimes called Bothwell, nearly as satisfactorily as did Balfour of Burley. Tallboy, so called from his unusual height, probably, was a couple of inches taller, but slender and wiry looking; while Yapton was a middle-sized, active warrior, with a smooth face, a high nose, heavy, straight hair, and a grim jaw. I thought at the time he must be very like an American Indian. The others I do not particularly recall, but all had a smart, serviceable look, as they commenced to unsaddle their horses and pile their arms and accoutrements, preparatory to making camp in a spot which I had pointed out to them. They spent the rest of the day in this necessary preliminary, and by nightfall had a couple of mia-mias solidly built with their backs to the sea wind, and neatly thatched with tussac grass from the marsh. During the afternoon Buckup held consultation with me, Joe Burge, and Old Tom, at the conclusion of which he professed himself to be in possession of the requisite information, and decided as to future operations. Next morning, early, the white troopers and the blacks started off for a long day in the Rocks, on foot. It was almost impossible to take horses through that rugged country, and the police horses were too good to be needlessly exposed to lameness, and probably disablement. Long afterwards a trusty retainer of mine was betrayed into a hardish ride therein after an unusually tempting mob of fat cattle and unbranded calves, which had escaped muster for more than a year. The shoes of the gallant mare which he rode came off before the day was done. He was compelled to leave her with bleeding feet a mile from the edge of the smooth country, bringing out the cattle, however, with the aid of his dogs. Next day we went back to lead her out, but poor Chileña was as dead as Britomarte. So, lightly arrayed, the black troopers stole through the reeds of the marsh, in the dim light of a rainy dawn, and essayed to track the rock-wolves to their lair. Camps they found, many a one, having good store of beef bones at all of them, but the _indigènes_ were gone, though signs of recent occupation were plentiful. An outlying scout had "cut the track" of the trooper's horses, and "jaloused," as Mr. Gorrie would have said, only too accurately what was likely to follow. Anyhow, the contingent returned tired and rather sulky after sundown, with their boots considerably the worse for wear. I did not myself accompany the party, nor did I propose to do so at any other time. I took it for granted that blood might be shed, and I did not wish to be an eye-witness or participator. The matter at issue was now grave and imminent. Whether should we crush the unprovoked _émeute_, or remove the remnant of our stock, abandon our homesteads, and yield up the good land of which we had taken possession? It would hardly have been English to do the latter. So we had nothing for it but to make the best fight we could. A fresh reconnaissance was made daily from my homestead, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another. But though rumours were heard of their appearance in different and distant parts of the district, no actual sight of the foe could be accomplished. Buckup and his men-at-arms, after the first day, were very patient and cheerful about the matter. They played quoits, of which I had a set--wrestled and boxed during their leisure hours, shot kangaroo and wild duck, and generally comported themselves as if this sort of thing was all in the day's work. Meantime, the heavy winter rains had begun to fall and the marshes to fill; the forest became so saturated that horses could hardly be ridden over it in places. I had occasion to go to Belfast for a couple of days on business. When I returned I found that a regular engagement had taken place the day before, the result of which would probably be decisive. Neither of my men had been out, as it happened, but they had gleaned their information from the white troopers, and very sparingly from Buckup. Beyond saying that they had come up with the main body of the tribe and given them a scouring, he was disposed to say but little. On this particular day an expedition had been made to a "heathy," desolate tract of country which lay at "the back" of the run. Here were isolated marshes covered with rushes, and for the most part surrounded with belts of tall ti-tree scrub. Between these were sand-hills with a thick, sheltering growth of casuarina and banksia, while here and there grew copses of mimosa and blackwood, the Australian hickory. Here, it seems, the police were plodding along, apparently on their usual persistent but unavailing search, when suddenly one of the men pulled up, dismounted, and, picking up something, gave a low, sibilant whistle. In an instant the whole troop gathered around him, while he held up a small piece of bark which had quite recently been ignited. Not a word was said as Yapton took the lead, at a sign from Buckup, and the rest of the black troopers followed in loose order, like questing hounds, examining with eager eyes every foot of the way. Shortly afterwards a tree was discovered where, with a few fresh cuts of a tomahawk, a grub had been taken out of the hollow wood. The trail had been struck. Patiently for several hours the man-hunters followed up the tracks, while fresh signs from time to time showed that a large body of blacks had quite recently passed that way. Suddenly, at a yell from Yapton, every man raised his head, and then rode at full speed towards a frantic company of savages as, startled and surprised, they made for a patch of scrub. The horses fell and floundered from time to time in the deep, boggy soil, but their desperate riders managed to lift and hustle them up as the last black disappeared in the ti-tree. Unluckily for them, the scrub was not a large one, and the ground on either side comparatively clear. Buckup sent a man to each corner, and himself with two troopers charged into the centre. Spears began to fly, and boomerangs; but the wild men had little chance with their better-armed countrymen. Out bolts a flying fugitive, and makes for the nearest reed-bed. Tallboy is nearest to him, and his horse moves as he raises his carbine, and disturbs the aim. Striking him savagely over the head with the butt end, he raises his piece, fires, and Jupiter drops on his face. Quick shots follow, a general stampede takes place, but few escape, and when the troop turn their horses' heads homeward, all the known leaders of the tribe are down. They were caught red-handed, too, a portion of a heifer and her calf freshly slaughtered being found on the spot where they were first sighted. Such was the substance of the tale as told to me. It may have been more or less incorrect as to detail, but Jupiter and his associate with the unclassical profile were never seen alive again; and as no head of stock was ever known to be speared or stolen after that day, it may be presumed that the chastisement was effectual. Years afterwards a man showed me the cicatrix of a bullet-wound in the region of the chest, and asserted that "Police-blackfellow 'plenty kill him'" on that occasion. He further added that he promptly, upon recovery, hired himself as a shepherd to "old man Gorrie," as he disrespectfully termed that patriarch, being convinced that lawless proceedings were likely to bring him to a bad end. This would seem to have been the general opinion of the tribe. After due time they came in and made submission, working peaceably and usefully for the squatters, who were only too glad to assist their efforts in the right path. Many years afterwards the remnant of the tribe was gathered together and "civilised" at the missionary station of Lake Condah, a fine sheet of water at the western extremity of the lava country, and less than twenty miles from the scene of the proceedings described. There the black and half-caste descendants of the once powerful Mount Eeles tribe dwell harmlessly and happily, if not usefully to the State. A resident of the district informed me some time since that a black henchman of mine lived at the Mission, and was last seen driving some of his kinsfolk _in a buggy_. Tommy had taken advantage of his opportunities, moreover, for he sent a message of goodwill and remembrance to me, further intimating that if I would write to him _he would answer my letter_! Such is the progress of civilisation; but, with all good wishes for the success of the experiment, I do not anticipate permanently valuable results. When Tommy and I swam the Leigh together, one snowy day, bound for Ballarat with fat cattle, I suspect he was employed in a manner more befitting to his nature, and more improving to his general _morale_. CHAPTER IX KILFERA Our border ruffians being settled with for good and all, we pioneers were enabled to devote ourselves to our legitimate business--the breeding and fattening of cattle. For this industry the Port Fairy district was eminently fitted, and at that time--how different from the present!--sheep and wool were rather at a discount. Of course, some men had sufficient foresight and shrewdness to back the golden fleece, but their experiences were not encouraging. The heavy herbage and rich soil of the West tended lamentably to foot-rot. The flocks seemed to be in a state of chronic lameness. The malady either reduced wool increase and condition to a point considerably below zero, or necessitated the employment of such a number of hands in applying bluestone and butyr of antimony (the remedies of the period), that the shearing subsidy was considerably encroached on. Then there was "Scab"--word of dread and hatefulness, herald of ruin and loss, of endless torment to all concerned, of medicated dippings, dressings, deaths and destructions innumerable; the dreadful multiplication of station hands, who assisted with cheerful but perfunctory effort, patently disbelieving in "any species of cure," and looking on the whole affair--disease, dressing, and dipping--as a manifest dispensation of Providence for the sustentation of the "poor man." When all had been done that could be done by the proprietor in his desperate need, a single sheep straying among the straggling flocks, or reintroduced by a careless or malignant station hand (and the latter crime is alleged to have been more than once committed), was sufficient to undo a year's labour. Then the distracting, expensive task had to be commenced _de novo_. In those days, too, when fencing was not; when the shepherds comprised, perhaps, the very worst class of labour in the colonies, it may be guessed how hard and anxious a life was that of the western Victorian sheepowner. His neighbour, too, was but too often his natural enemy. A careless flockholder might supply a nucleus of contagion from which a whole district would suffer. This state of matters continued until the gold discoveries, when the shepherds having mostly withdrawn themselves, and a compulsory admixture of flocks taking place, scab spread throughout the length and breadth of Victoria. What its cost to the Government and to private persons was before it was finally stamped out would be difficult, very difficult, to find out--so large a sum that it would have paid all concerned ten times, a hundred times over, to have purchased all infected stock at, say, £5 per head, only to have cut the throats of and cremated the lot. "Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth" is a scriptural aphorism strictly applicable to acarian development. Many a well-to-do sheepholder was burnt out of house and home by the quick-spreading ovine leprosy which germinated at a friend's carelessly-ordered establishment. So that it came to pass that the "Gallants of Westland" were loath to exchange the free roving lives of cattle-tending caballeros for the restricted, "pokey," worrying round of duties to which the sheepholders seemed doomed. At one of our gatherings, at which--the majority being cattle-men--a toast involving a little indirect self-laudation was duly honoured, a pioneer squatter from a distance remarked gravely, "How little you fellows can realise what a life _we_ have been leading in our district the last year or two!" He had just finished "cleaning" his flocks, as had also his neighbours. He certainly looked, as the financial survivor of a drought expressed it once, as though he had "come through the Valley of the Shadow." When we rubbed along thus jovially, deeming life to be "a great and glorious thing," fat cows were well sold at £2 per head, and bullocks at £3. Certainly you could buy stores (or, as they primevally called them, "lean cattle") at from 10s. to 16s., prices which left a margin. The Messrs. Manifold bought a large number of bullocks from the Shelleys, of Tumut, at the latter price, somewhere about the year 1845. How they fattened at Purrumbeet and Leura may be imagined! They fetched top prices, but were not thought to pay so well as the early ripening station-breds, on which the 3M brand was thenceforth chiefly placed. I became possessed of a herd of a thousand head about the same time, which I took "on terms," as the arrangement was thus called--a convenient one for beginners with more country than capital, and _vice versa_. I was to have one-third of the increase, and to be paid ten per cent upon all sales of fat cattle. They were to be "personally conducted" by me from the Devil's River--a place uncanny sounding, but not otherwise objectionable. They were the property of Messrs. Curlewis and Campbell; the first-named gentleman arranged preliminaries with me in town, and in a few days I again started from Melbourne with high hopes and three stock-riders. Our route lay over country that has since become historical. One half of the herd was located at Strathbogie, and through those forest-clothed solitudes and adown the steep shoulder of the leading range had we to drive our unwilling cattle. It was on that occasion that I made acquaintance with my good, warm-hearted friend Charles Ryan--then a gay young bachelor living at Kilfera, on the Broken River. We met at an extremely small, not to say dismal hut at Strathbogie, already inhabited by Messrs. Joe Simmons, Salter, and Hall, who, together with my men and myself, were constrained to abide therein till the cattle, weak and low after their drive from the head of the Abercrombie in New South Wales, were mustered. "Come along over with me and let them muster the cattle themselves, _you_ have only to take delivery," was his highly natural salutation (_i.e._ natural to Charles Ryan), and I came along accordingly. Kilfera station was a comfortable bachelor homestead, and it struck me, as I saw it for the first time, that it had a distinctly "Galway" look about it. The hospitality was free and unstinted. I was not the only guest. As we rode up we came upon a match at quoits, the players at which wore the air of non-combatants. There was a fine upstanding son of Peter Fin, "Modderidderoo" by name, in the stables; on the next day I was shown the very panel where Mr. Jack Hunter had jumped "The Badger" over a three-railed fence, without bridle or saddle. "We saw him coming up the paddock," said my host (he had gone down to catch his horse and taken no bridle with him), "at a swinging hand-gallop, and all turned out of the verandah to look. He had only a switch in his hand; when he came to the creek he took it at a fly, and then faced the three-railed fence at the stable. He went over here--over this very rail--and came down sitting as square as if he was riding in the park, holding his hat, too, in both hands." "How did he stop the horse?" "He jumped off on the straw heap here, and fell on his legs like a cat." I had a slight previous acquaintance with the gentleman referred to, whose whilom sobriquet of "Jack the Devil" was fully deserved, as far as feats of horsemanship were concerned. He rode equally well in a side-saddle, and once at least defied the minions of the law decorously attired in a lady's riding habit, with hat, gloves, and whip to match. To complete the "wild sports of the West" flavour with which my fancy had invested Kilfera, entered to us that night, travelling with horses, one Mr. Crowe, evidently of kin to the "three Mr. Trenches of Tallybash," popularly known as "mad Crowe." Slightly eccentric to an unprejudiced observer he appeared to be. He was a tall, fair-haired, athletic fellow, and he had not been half an hour in the house before, after gifting all his horses with impossible qualities and improbable pedigrees, he offered to row, wrestle, ride, drink, or fight any one of the company for a liberal wager. He finished off the evening's entertainment by volunteering and going outside to execute an imitation of an Irish "keen" at a wake, a performance which was likely to have cost him dear, as it offended the sensibilities of several of the station hands, who were strongly minded to arise and "hammer" him (Crowe) for belittling their native land. "How happily the days of Thalaba went by" at Kilfera; indeed, I regarded with complacency the somewhat protracted muster of the Strathbogie herd. However, one fine day they were mustered and counted out to me, mixed with the Devil's River contingent; blacks and brindles, yellows and strawberries, snaileys and poleys, old and young, they were "a mixed herd" in every sense. But cattle were cattle in those days. So I bade farewell to my kind friend and pleasant acquaintances, and took the road for Port Fairy--four hundred miles or so. But an odd hundred leagues of a journey was nothing then. How the country must have altered since those days. No Beechworth diggings--Castlemaine, Sandhurst, and Ballarat all in the "forest primeval" stage, innocent of cradle and pick, windlass and bucket. Quartz indeed! The first time it was mentioned in my hearing was by James Irvine, who was chaffing Captain Bunbury about the quality of his run on the Grampians, and averring that the only chance of his cattle getting fat was in the event of their being able to live on quartz. Quartz, quotha! I hardly knew what it meant, save that it was a kind of rock. Heavens! Could I have foreseen how closely it was to be interwoven with my destiny--with all our destinies, for the matter of that! It was the autumn season, and the way was pleasant enough, after we left the sunless glens and darksome mountain-sides of Strathbogie. We passed Seven Creeks homestead, then, or somewhat later, the property of Mr. William Forlonge. He, like the rest of us, did not know when he was well off, and must move northward evermore, towards the great Saltbush Desert, that false Eldorado, which, like the loadstone mountain in the Arabian tale, has attracted and ruined so many a life, swallowed how many a fortune! However, _nil desperandum_ is his motto; and if fortune favours the brave, the plucky veteran of the pastoral army should come out well in the end. By easy stages we fared on till we came to Kilmore. That flourishing city, as I suppose it calls itself now, was then chiefly noted for its mud, the depth and blackness of which were truly remarkable. A few potato-growing farms and the usual complement of public-houses made up the town. There I lost two horses, a serious and melancholy occurrence which was likely to interfere with our march. I left the cattle to come on, and resolved to ride to Melbourne to find them or get others. I knew they were likely to "make" in that direction, about the Upper Plenty. At Kinlochewe I encountered the late Mr. Dalmahoy Campbell. He condoled with me. How pleasant is a sympathetic manner from an older man to a youngster! I have never forgotten those who, in my youth, were kindly and tolerant. He gave me the advice of an experienced overlander, and promised to write to a friend in the neighbourhood to look out for the runaways. At the next stage I encountered my old friend Fred Burchett, late of "The Gums," another Port Fairy man, luckily also bound that way with a herd of cows and calves--the latter given in--which he had purchased from Mr. Shelley, at Tumut. His cattle were just ahead, and he proposed that we should join forces at Keilor, and journey together the rest of the way. Nothing could be nicer. I forgot my griefs. "Lost horses," like "lost sheep," produce acute suffering while they last; but the agony abates, as Macaulay said. I spent the evening with him, and next day went on to Melbourne. Poor dear Fred! The kindest, the best-tempered, the most humorous of men! How many a laugh we had together! It has always been a grief to me that he died before the advent of Bret Harte or Mark Twain! How he would have revelled in their inimitable touches, their daring drolleries, their purest pathos. A well-read man and a fair scholar, his was a mind nearly related to that of Charles Lamb, of whose wondrous semitones of mirth and melancholy he had the fullest appreciation. He, though living fifty miles away, was one of the "Dunmore mob," and aided generally in the symposia which were there enjoyed. It was a great stroke of luck our being able to join forces, and I looked forward to the rest of the journey as quite a pleasant picnic party. I did not get my truant horses (they were ultimately recaptured), but I foraged up other remounts and rejoined my cattle, with which I made a cut across country _via_ Deep Creek, Woodlands, and Keilor, then the property of Mr. J. B. Watson, and exhibiting no foreshadowing of a railway station. Mr. Burchett was only one stage ahead, I was told. At the Little River I overtook him. This was his observation on that eccentric watercourse. Scanning with an eye of deepest contemplation its cavernous channel and apparently perfect freedom from the indispensable element, he thus delivered himself: "They call this the Little River. Well they may! It's the smallest blooming river _I_ ever came across! Why, we had hard work to get water enough in it to boil our kettle with!" After this amalgamation everything went prosperously. We had plenty of driving power, and the cattle strung along the road daily with comparatively nimble feet. Something of this cheerfulness may be attributed to the fact that we had ceased to camp or watch them. Judging correctly that after so long a trail they would be indisposed to ramble, we left them out at night, and slept the sleep of the just. At daylight they were always well within view, generally lying down, and half-an-hour's work put them all together. Fred was always averse to early exercise, so we compromised matters by his lending me his one-eyed cob, "The Gravedigger," so called from a partial resemblance to the animal incautiously acquired by the Elder in "Sam Slick" at a Lower Canadian horse fair. "They're a simple people, those French; they don't know much about horses; their priests keeps it from 'em." This quotation Fred had always in his mouth, and as "The Gravedigger" was not quite what he appeared to be, a perfectly-shaped and well-mannered cob, there certainly was a resemblance. One of his peculiarities, probably arising from defective vision, was an occasional paroxysm of unreasonable fear, accompanied by backjumping, which had occasionally unseated his master and others. One day, however, Fred rode into camp with a triumphant expression, having just had a stand-up fight with "The Gravedigger." "He tried all he knew, confound him!" he explained, "but he couldn't shift me an inch. I had too much mud on my boots." This novel receipt for horsemanship was comprehensible when we glanced at the amount of solid western mud disposed not only on the boots, but upon his whole person and apparel. I had no compunction, therefore, in taking it out of "The Gravedigger" in those early morning gallops, and he was decidedly less unsocial for the rest of the day in consequence. The only bad night we had was just before we came to the Leigh River. There we were amid "purchased land," that bane of the old-world pastoralist, so had to watch all night and keep our horses in hand, which was unprecedented. When daylight broke my comrade said, with an air of tremendous deliberation, "The men can bring on the cattle well enough now, Rolf; suppose you and I go and breakfast at the Leigh Inn?" I caught at the idea, and we rode on the seven miles as happy as schoolboys at the idea of a real breakfast with chops and steaks, eggs and buttered toast, on a clean tablecloth. After a night's watching, too, our appetites were something marvellous. Fred related to me how on a previous occasion he had originated this "happy thought," and, not to be deficient of every adjunct to luxurious enjoyment, had ordered a bath, and borrowed a clean shirt from the landlord. We contented ourselves with the bath on this turn. As we sat in the pleasant parlour a couple of hours later, serene and satisfied--I might say satiated--reading the latest _Port Phillip Patriot_, we saw the long string of cattle draw down a deep gorge into the valley, and cross the river in front of the house. Then we ordered out the horses, paid our bill, and, with a sigh of gastronomic retrospect, followed the trail across the plain. CHAPTER X OLD PORT FAIRY Mr. Burchett was rather famous for combining pleasure with business when travelling on the road with stock. At times his experiments were thought _un peu risqués_. It was related of him and Mr. Alick Kemp (I think) that finding themselves so near Melbourne as the Saltwater River, in sole charge of a mob of fat cattle from "The Gums," they held council, and decided that the cattle would be all right in a bend of the river till the morning, being quiet and travel-worn. The friends then started for Melbourne, where they went to the theatre and otherwise enjoyed themselves. They came back the first thing in the morning, to find the cattle peacefully reposing, and as safe as houses. It might well have been otherwise. There was a dismal tale current in the district of the first mob of fat cattle from Eumeralla--magnificent animals, elephants in size, and rolling fat--stampeding at the sight of a pedestrian, on the road to market, being lost, and, as to the greater part, never recovered. This time we decided to take "the Frenchman's" road, past Crécy, a trifle monotonous, perhaps,--it was all plain till you got to Salt Creek,--but possessing advantages for so large a drove. We reached an out-station of the Hopkins Hill property, then owned by a Tasmanian proprietary, and managed by "a fine old 'Scottish' gentleman, all of the olden time." We put the cattle into a small mustering paddock, and retired to rest with great confidence in their comfort and our own. About midnight a chorus of speculative lowing and bellowing acquainted us with the fact that they were all out. An unnoticed slip-rail had betrayed us. We arose, but could do nothing, and returned to our blankets. Our rest, however, had been effectually broken. "How did you sleep, Fred?" was my query at daylight. "Well," meditatively, "I've had a quantity of _very inferior sleep_," was his rejoinder. At Nareeb Nareeb, the station then of Messrs. Scott, Gray, and Marr, we, by permission, camped for the purpose of separating our cattle, either by drafting through the yard, or by "cutting out" on horseback. After a brief trial of the latter method, we decided for the stock-yard, there being a large and well-planned one on the ground. But the mud!--it was the merry month of May, or else June only, and rain had fallen in sufficient quantities to make millionaires _now_ of all the squatters from Ballarat to Bourke. We put on our oldest clothes, armed ourselves with sticks, and resolutely faced it. What figures we were at nightfall! We smothered a few head, but the work was done. Our entertainers had a short time since mustered their whole herd, and sold them in Adelaide. We heard some of their road stories. In crossing the great marshes which lie to the north-west of Mount Gambier, they had to carry their collie dogs on horseback before them for miles. We had nothing quite so bad as this, but after we parted next day, Fred for "The Gums," and in cheering proximity to the Mount Rouse stony rises, the best fattening, and withal best sheltered, winter country in the west, I envied him his luck. I had farther to go, and when I arrived my homestead was situated upon an island, with leagues of water around it in every direction. To "tail" or herd cattle daily in such weather was impossible, so both herds were turned out, and by dint of reasonable "going round" and general supervision, they took kindly to their new quarters. Fred, I remember, told me that his cattle went bodily into the "Mount Rouse stones," which by no means belonged to his run, and there abode all the winter. He did not trouble his head much about them till the spring, when they came in, of course, as mustering commenced. There were no fences then, and no man vexed himself about such a trifle as a few hundred head of a neighbour's cattle being on his run. On our way we returned to and camped opposite Hopkins Hill station homestead. A neat cottage in those days, slightly different from the present mansion. Thence I think to Mr. Joseph Ware's of Minjah, a cattle station which had not been very long bought from Messrs. Plummer and Dent, who had purchased from the Messrs. Bolden Brothers. Then past Smylie and Austin's to Kangatong, where dwelt Mr. James Dawson. We remained at Kangatong for a day, so as to give Joe Burge time to come and meet us, which he did, considerably lightening my labours and anxieties thereby. Thence to Dunmore, which was "as good as home." The next day saw the whole lot safe in a big brush-yard, which Joe Burge had thoughtfully prepared for their reception, thinking it would do to plant with potatoes in the spring. And a capital crop there was! I always think that the years intervening between 1846 and the diggings--that is, the discovery of gold at the Turon, in New South Wales, in 1850, and at Ballarat in 1851--were the happiest of the pastoral period. There was a good and improving market for all kinds of stock. Labour, though not over-plentiful, was sufficient for the work necessary to be done. The pastures were to a great extent under-stocked, so that there were reserves of grass which enabled the squatter to contend successfully with the occasional dry seasons. There was inducement to moderate enterprise, without allurement to speculation. The settlement of the country was progressing steadily. Agricultural and pastoral occupation moved onward in lines parallel to one another. There was no jostling or antagonism. Each of the divisions of rural labour had its facilities for legitimate development. There were none of the disturbing forces which have assumed such dangerous proportions in these latter days. No studied schemes of resistance or circumvention were thought of by the squatter. No spiteful agrarian invasion, no blackmailing, no sham improvements were possible on the part of the farmer. From time to time portions of land specially suited for agricultural settlement were surveyed and subdivided by the Government. On these, as a matter of course, when sold by auction at some advance upon upset price, according to quality, was a purely agricultural population settled. It had not then occurred to the squatter, hard set to find money for his necessary expenditure upon labour and buildings, stock and implements, to pay down £1 per acre or more for ordinary grazing ground. The farmer, as a rule, sold him flour and forage, supplied some of the needful labour, and hardly more came into competition with his pastoral neighbour than if he had lived in Essex or Kent. I can answer in my own person for the friendly feeling which then existed between the two great primitive divisions of land-occupation. The Port Fairy farmers were located upon two large blocks, the Farnham and Belfast surveys, about ten miles from the nearest and not more than fifty from the more distant squattages. "The Grange," afterwards known by its present name of "Hamilton," was then part of a station, and was not surveyed and subdivided till some years after. The majority of the squatters found it cheaper to buy flour and potatoes from the farmers than to grow them. Most of us grew our own hay and oats; but in after years our requirements were largely supplemented from Port Fairy, even in these easily produced crops. In return the farmers purchased milch cows, as well as steers for breaking to plough and team; and if these, with the increase of the female cattle, strayed on to the runs, they were always recoverable at muster time, and no threat of impounding was ever made. The agricultural area was enlarged when needed. To this no squatter objected, nor, to my knowledge, was such land purchased by other than _bona-fide_ farmers. I cannot call to mind any feud or litigation between squatter and farmer having its inception in the land question. Both classes met alike at race meetings and agricultural Shows; and, as far as could be noticed, there was none of the smouldering feeling of jealousy regarding the prevalence of _latifundia_, or other _casus belli_, which has of late years blazed up and raged so furiously. Wages were not high in those days, and yet the men were contented. They certainly saved more money than they do now. They managed to acquire stock, and after taking up a bit of unoccupied country, became squatters, and wealthy ones too. Joe Burge and his wife received £30 a year. Old Tom had 10s. a week; lodging and rations, in which matters, at that time, we shared much alike, were included. I recall, moreover, instances of genuine attachment as exhibited by old family servants to the children of their masters, though it is generally asserted that this particular kind of faithful retainership is confined to those who are happy enough to be born in Europe. Mr. John Cox, of Werrongourt, supplied one instance, at least, which illustrates the feeling so honourable to both master and servant. A shepherd named Buckley had saved sufficient money in his service wherewith to purchase a small flock of sheep. He found a run for them on a corner of the Mount Rouse country, where they increased to the respectable number of 14,000. He told me and others that, as Mr. Cox had in the first instance given him facilities for investing his savings profitably, and in every way taken an interest in his welfare, he was resolved to leave his whole property to "Master Johnny," the second son, then a fine ingenuous lad of twelve or thirteen. Buckley was a bachelor, I may state, and had presumably no other claims upon his fortune. But, about a year before his death, he received intelligence that a sister, of whom he had not heard since his arrival in Tasmania, had emigrated to America, and was still living. He consulted a mutual friend, and was told that Mr. Cox was the last man who would wish, or indeed allow him to neglect his own kin. "I must leave Master Johnny something," he said; and when the old man passed away, and his property was chiefly devised to his sister, a sum of £1000 was duly bequeathed to Mr. John Cox, jun. Mr. Cox was unfortunately in failing health at that time. The station, Werrongourt, was sold to Mr. Mooney, the great cattle-dealer, for the magnificent (?) price of £5 per head! It was the first rise in cattle after the gold of 1851, and anything over £3 per head was thought a high figure. Mr. Cox, however, was anxious to visit the old country, chiefly on account of his health. The change was unavailing. He died on the voyage, to the great grief of the district, where all revered him as a high-minded, honourable country gentleman. He was, indeed, a worthy son of the good south land, a staunch friend, a true patriot, and as a magistrate famed for the unswerving justice which equally regarded rich and poor. Among his humbler countrymen, "Mr. Cox said it" was sufficient to close any argument, whatever might be the interest involved. "Master Johnny," some years after, elected to enter the German army. He and a younger brother fought in the Franco-Prussian war; they were both wounded at Sedan, where their mother, an Australian by birth (_née_ Miss Frances Cox, of Hobartville), attended them till their recovery, continuing her unselfish labours by acting as hospital nurse until the end of the war. The brothers were, no doubt, promoted. They were in the cavalry, as became Australians, and most probably now, as Baron and Count von Coxe, are adding fresh branches to a wide-spreading and generally flourishing family tree. When "Master Johnny," one fresh spring morning, rode down to Squattlesea Mere from Werrongourt, bringing two couples of draft foxhounds from his father's pack, to be sent to an intending M.F.H. in another colony, we little dreamed of the ranks in which he was to ride, the sport in which he was to share, ere the second decade should have passed over our heads. CHAPTER XI PORTLAND BAY Squattlesea Mere was about ten miles from the coast, and equidistant from the towns of Port Fairy and Portland, the latter lying about thirty miles westward. My first visit to it was on the occasion of a sale of some fat cattle to Mr. Henty for the use of the whalers--who were then still extant. Of course there were plenty of bullocks at Muntham, but it was hardly worth while to send so far for so small a lot. I was ready to deliver, and not indisposed for the trip and adventure myself. So, having been helped off the run by Joe Burge, I started with my beeves, and made the journey safely to the slaughter-yards, which were then a few miles on the hither side of the town, near the beach. The road lay through the marshes for five or six miles, then through the stringy-bark forest, whence I emerged on an open sandy tract known as "the heath." Such land is not uncommon in the vicinity of Portland and west of Port Fairy; indeed, the greater part of the country between Portland and the wondrous downs of the Wannon consists of this undesirable formation alternately with stringy-bark forest. The soil upon the heath is pure sand of a white or greyish colour. Small lagoons, thickly covered with dark-brown reeds, are spread over the surface; it is mostly firm riding ground, though very indifferent pasture. Several species of epacris grow there, the pink and white blossoms of which were gay and even brilliant in spring. Open as a plain, and, apart from a question of grass, an effective contrast to the endless eucalyptus. A few miles of heath--the forest again--and we come to Darlot's Creek, narrow, but running deep and strong, like a New Zealand river. This singular stream must in some way receive the water of the great Eumeralla marshes, which, as they have no visible outlet, probably filter through the lava country, from which, near Lake Condah, Darlot's Creek issues without previous notice. Summer and winter this cheery little stream, from twenty to fifty feet wide, and hardly ever less than from six to ten feet deep, rushes whirling and eddying to the sea. We cross at a stone causeway, over which the water runs, and in another mile or two come to the Fitzroy River. This is a true Australian watercourse, and has the usual abruptly alternating depth of channel. Both streams debouch on a sandy sea-beach, a few miles from Portland. The channel mouths are continually shifting, and as the main road from Port Fairy then crossed them, the depth of water was often unpleasantly altered, to the manifest danger of travellers. Many a misadventure was credited to the "mouth of the Fitzroy," and more than one poor fellow, when the tide was high, essaying to cross with a heavy swag, lost the number of his mess. The proper thing for non-pedestrians at that time was to ride or drive some distance into the waves, where the depth was shallower; but there were said to be quicksands, in which horse or wheel might sink, and, with the surf breaking over, in such case the look-out was bad. Before reaching this part of the road, at an elevated point of the heath, a full view of the ocean burst suddenly on my view. What a sight it was! A world of forest greenery lay north, east, and west; on the south the tumbling billows of the unbounded sea. Far as eye could reach was the wondrous plain of the South Pacific, stretching away to the farthest range of vision, where it was lost in a soft, shimmering haze. Did I clap my hands and shout "Thalatta! Thalatta!" like the author of _Eothen_? I had the inclination to do it, I know. In the distance, lying north-west, were the cliffs and noble bay of Portland--not a very grand town, but noteworthy as the _point d'appui_ whence those representative Englishmen and distinguished colonists, the Hentys, commenced the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Australia Felix. I had the pleasure of knowing these gentlemen; and the longer I live, the stronger becomes my conviction that the genuine Englishman, compacted as he is of diverse races, holding the strong points of each, is the best "all-round man" the earth affords. And the Hentys, as a family, have demonstrated my proposition perhaps more completely than any other which ever landed on our shores. For, consider what manner of colonisers they were! Explorers, sailors, whalers, farmers, squatters, merchants, politicians (Mr. William Henty was chief secretary of Tasmania)--in all these different avocations the brothers were of approved excellence. Indeed, each displayed in his own personality an aptitude for the whole range of accomplishments. Stalwart and steadfast were they in body and mind, well fitted to contend with the rude forces of nature, and still ruder individuals, among which their lot was chiefly cast in those days. But withal genial, hilarious, and in their moments of relaxation prone to indulge in the full swing of those high animal spirits which, for the most part, accompany a robust bodily and mental organisation. Always familiar with the great industry of stock-breeding both in Tasmania and their new home, they imported, from their earliest occupation, the very choicest stud animals, as well as the best implements in all departments of husbandry. "Little John," "Wanderer," imported thoroughbreds, were at one time in their possession. Suffolks and Lincolns were not lacking to ensure production of waggon horses, and in general effect to speed the plough. And I saw at Muntham the first English coaching sire that my eyes had rested upon--a grand upstanding bay horse, with a well-shaped head, lofty forehand, and clean, flat legs. I remember describing him to a horse-loving friend as an enlarged thoroughbred in appearance--a description which would hold good of some of the better sort of coachers of the present day, the only doubt being whether, having regard to the abnormal shapes of some of our modern racehorses, the coacher's reputation might not suffer by the comparison. At the time of which I speak Mr. Edward Henty was at Muntham--that Australian "promised land" of rolling downs, hill and dale, all equally fertile, well grassed, well watered; favoured as to climate, soil, and situation; the only drawback being that the great grass crop, summer-ripened, was occasionally ignited in a dry autumn, and, like a prairie fire, swept all before it. In a later day preparation was made for such a contingency, and light waggons, with adequate teams known as the "fire-horses," kept ready to start at a moment's notice for the warning smoke-column. Mr. Frank Henty abode at Merino Downs, the name of which explains the early attention paid by him to the chief source of Australian wealth. Mr. Stephen Henty had his residence in the town of Portland, where at that time he was the leading merchant, and, excepting Mr. Blair, the police magistrate, the leading inhabitant. No more delightful country home ever existed than the wide-verandahed spacious bungalow, from the windows of which the view was unbroken of the waters of the bay. A well-trimmed garden hedge hid the intervening street and slope to the beach without obstructing the view. There, if anywhere, was to be found true earthly happiness, if such can ever be predicated of this lower world and its inhabitants. A promising family, full of health, spirits, and intelligence; parents and children alike overflowing with kindness; hospitality unostentatiously extended both to friends and acquaintances, residents and strangers; a noble property gradually and surely increasing in value; family affection exhibited in its purest form. But It is written on the rose-- Alas! that there, decay Should claim from love a part,-- From love a part! Where are now the energetic, kindly husband and father, the merry boys and girls, the tender mother, then sheltered and united in that most happy home? The mournfullest task of memory lies in realising how large a toll is yielded in a few fleeting years to the unsparing tax-gatherer Death. Portland, although devoid of the fertile lands which encompass Port Fairy and Warrnambool, had yet beauties of its own. Its situation was romantic. Lofty cliffs rose from the beach, and from many a picturesque eminence the residences of the townspeople looked on the broad ocean and the peaceful waters of the bay. Still were visible when I first saw Portland the grass-grown furrows turned by the hand of Edward Henty, who had not only accomplished that highly important feat--vitally necessary, indeed, in a settlement poorly provided with grain--but put together the plough with which the first rite to Ceres was performed. In those days a deep-rutted, miry road connected the port with the rich lands of the Wannon--forty miles of sore affliction to the driver of any species of vehicle, bullock drays included. Now the rail has simplified all difficulties. From the glorious "downs country" to the shore is but a journey of hours--from Hamilton to Melbourne how trifling a stage! What if the gallant explorer, the immortal Major Mitchell, could return and look upon the network of farms, the metalled roads, the railway terminus, the telegraph, the mail-coach! How would he recall the day when, with his toil-worn party, he reached Portland, and, unaware of the presence there of wayfarers other than themselves, took the Hentys' settlement for one of an escaped gang of bushrangers! How little can we forecast the future in these days of rapid development and almost magical national growth! Besides the Messrs. Henty the principal Wannon squatters were the Winters (George, Samuel, and Trevor), men of remarkable intellect; the Messrs. Coldham were at Grassdale, where, indeed, they have the good fortune still to remain; Lang and Elms were at Lyne, near neighbours to Mount Napier; Acheson Ffrench at Monivae, near Hamilton; John Robertson Nowlan, who rented Murndal for some years from Mr. Samuel Pratt Winter. He afterwards went into partnership with Captain Stanley Carr, an ex-military man domiciled in Silesia, who imported Saxon merino sheep, and had a very proper idea of the "coming event" in Australia--the great rise and development of the merino interest. Farther on, the Hunters (Alick, Jemmy, and latterly Frank and Willie) were at Kalangadoo, Mount Gambier, with Willie Mitchell, Evelyn Sturt, and John Meredith as next-door neighbours. Charles Mackinnon and his partner Watson--am I trenching on sacred confidences when I allude to the sobriquet "Jeeribong"? What a lot of splendid fellows, to be sure! All the men I have named were gentlemen by birth and education. It may be imagined what a jolly, genial society it was, what a luxurious neighbourhood, when a few miles' ride was a certain find for culture, good fellowship, and the warmest hospitality. While at the race meetings at Portland and Port Fairy, when these joyous comrades amalgamated confessedly for enjoyment, as the old song has it-- And for that reason, And for a season, We'll be merry before we go, there was a week's revelry fit for the gods on high Olympus. Not only from across the Adelaide border--for Mount Gambier was on the farther side--did both knights and squires wend their way in pilgrimage to the Port Fairy revels, but from Trawalla and Mount Emu, from Warranbeen, Ercildoune, and Buninyong. Adolphus Goldsmith from Trawalla, William Gottreaux from Lilaree, Philip Russell from Carngham (I can hear him now ordering his gray colt's legs to be bandaged the night he rode in), Charley Lyon, Compton Ferrers, Alick Cuningham, Will Wright. Ah! We were a gallant company, Riding o'er land, sailing o'er sea. * * * * * And some are dead and some are gone, ... ay di mi--Alhama! And some are robbers on the hills, That look along Epirus' valleys. Well, perhaps not exactly. They abide on those hills which overlook the winding Thames, and in the season the Serpentine or historic Seine. Any robbery they may engage in is getting the better of unwary brethren at pool, or picking up the odds on the favourite a trifle before the general public is taken into the confidence of the stable. It is hard to find a poet who expresses your feelings and circumstances with precision. Yet even Byron's friends and fellow-believers in Greek independence have hardly had a more complete dispersion than the comrades of that lost "Arcady the Blest." We ought to have made the most of those days--of the time which came "before the gold." We never saw their like again. Then we tasted true happiness, if such ever visits this lower world. Every one had hope, encouragement, adequate stimulus to work,--hard work which was well paid,--leading to enterprise, which year by year fulfilled the promise of progress. Nobody was too rich. No one was wealthy enough to live in Melbourne. Each man had to be his own overseer; had to live at home. He was, therefore, friendly and genial with his neighbours, on whom he was socially dependent. No one thought of going to Europe, or selling off and "cutting the confounded colony," and so on. No! there we were, _adscripti glebæ_ as we thought, from a dozen or so to a score of years. It was necessary for all to make the best of it, and very cheery and contented nearly everybody was. In these days of universal fencing it seems curious to think that from Portland Bay to Geelong, from Geelong to Melbourne, was there never a fenced-in estate--only the horse and bullock paddocks. Tens of thousands of cattle were managed and controlled by the stockman--as he was then called--(stock-rider came later), with, perhaps, an assistant black boy or white urchin of some sort. It was held that in that respect the cattlemen had the best of it, as one good stockman with occasional aid could look after two or three thousand head of cattle--none of our herds were over this number--whereas every thousand or fifteen hundred sheep needed a shepherd, great loss ensuing if the labour and tendance were not provided. The great industries of Port Fairy were agriculture on the one hand, and pastoral on the other. The rich lands which lay westward of Warrnambool were gradually sold, always after survey and by auction, having been subdivided into moderate-sized farms. These were purchased by resident farmers or small capitalists who desired to try agriculture for an occupation. There was a good market for produce, and the fame of the Port Fairy wheat crop, as well as that of the potato harvest, commenced to spread. Than the lands on the banks of the Merai, around Warrnambool, and between that town and Port Fairy, none more fertile are known in Australia. They enjoy the conditions of deep, rich loam, resting on a substratum of tufa and limestone, with perfect natural drainage. So friable, too, as to be ready for the plough immediately after rain. Apparently of an inexhaustible fertility, and lying near the sea, which occasionally sends its spray over the wheat sheaves, they are but little subject to frost. The coast showers preserve the moisture of the soil, and, whether for grain, roots, or grass, prevent the disastrous desiccation so unhappily common in the fields and pastures of the interior. As the farmer commenced to press closely upon the pastoral Crown tenant, a certain soreness was engendered, but no complaint of wrong-doing on the part of the Government followed. The squatters accepted the situation; they did their best to lighten the difficulty. Those who had high-class grazing or arable lands bestirred themselves to buy as much around the homestead as would serve to make a moderate estate. The situation and climate being undeniably good, they argued that they could make as much out of a few thousand acres of freehold as formerly from the whole area under an imperfect tenure. As a matter of fact, when the dreadful "auction day" arrived, the greater portion of the menaced squatters thus saved themselves. Men sympathised with them, too, and did not bid too persistently against the former Lord of the Waste, whose day of dominion was over. The nearest station to Port Fairy was Aringa, the property of Mr. Ritchie. It was only distant about four miles. Partly arable land, but possessing more "stony rises" and oak ridges, it was capable of growing excellent grass, but not likely to need the plough. The proprietor made an excellent survey of his run, carefully excluding the more tempting agricultural portions. And so judiciously did he purchase at auction that he found himself the owner of twelve or fourteen thousand acres of splendid grass land, without a road through it, and therefore capable of being enclosed within a ring fence. The average of price was, I fancy, below 25s. per acre. After fencing this truly valuable freehold, Mr. Ritchie discovered that he could let it for such a yearly rental as would enable him to live handsomely without the responsibility of stock. Mr. Edols, of Geelong, was, I think, the first tenant on a five years' lease, and ever since that day Aringa has been a highly productive estate, covered with a matted sward of clover and rye-grass, adapted either for sheep or cattle, equally profitable to farm or to let. Yambuk, formerly the property of Lieutenant Andrew Baxter, a retired military officer, did not come off quite so well. But I fancy the present proprietor, Mr. Suter, who has lived there since 1854, or thereabouts, finds that he has a freehold sufficient for all ordinary wants. "Tarrone," lying to the eastward, was not distant more than ten or twelve miles from Port Fairy. It was occupied in those early days by another army man, Lieutenant Chamberlain. Both of the ex-militaires made exceptionally good squatters, refuting the general experience which does not assign a high rank as successful colonists to soldiers. With enormous reed-beds and marshes, and a certain proportion of stony rises and well-grassed open forest, Tarrone was a model cattle run, carrying generally between two and three thousand head of cattle. It was a splendid tract of fattening country, and some of the grandest drafts of bullocks that ever left the West bore the Tarrone brand, "KB." It had formerly belonged to Messrs. Kilgour and Besnard, but for alleged doing to death of aboriginals the license of these gentlemen had been withdrawn. It was subsequently granted to Mr. Chamberlain. The paternal Government of New South Wales, until late years, kept the whip-hand of the squatters by reason of its power to withhold the only title by which we held our lands, and occasionally, as in the case referred to, the power was exercised. This run was also assailed by the auctioneer's hammer, but being strictly non-agricultural land, it retained virtually its integrity as a grazing estate. "Tarrone" was the station which suffered most on that day of fiery wrath, long remembered as "Black Thursday." All did so more or less; but Mr. Chamberlain, who then lived there, lost fences and homestead, house and furniture, his household escaping barely with their lives. For weeks previously the summer weather had been hot and dry. There was, for a wonder, a cessation of the coast showers. The fated morning was abnormal--sultry and breezeless. The vaporous sky became lurid, darksome--awful. More than one terrified spectator believed that the Last Day had come, and not altogether without reason. The whole colony of Victoria was on fire at the same time, from the western coast to the eastern range of the Australian Alps. Farms and stations were burning at Port Fairy and Portland. The wife and children of a shepherd on the Upper Plenty rivulet, eastward of Melbourne, were burned to death, nearly three hundred miles in another direction. Far out to sea passengers viewed with wonder and alarm a dense black cloud overhanging the coast-line like a pall, such as may have shrouded buried Pompeii when the volcano heaved its fiery flood. Far from land showers of ashes fell upon the decks of approaching ships. Though not without expectation of a larger bush-fire than usual, we were chiefly unprepared as the flame-wave rolled in over grass and forest from the north. The fire travelled fast on the preceding night, and the north-east wind rising to a gale towards mid-day, the march of the Destroyer waxed resistless and overpowering. Mr. Chamberlain told us afterwards that, feeling indisposed for exertion, and unaware of actual danger, he was lying down reading _Vanity Fair_. So enthralled was he by Becky Sharp's fascinations that he delayed going out to reconnoitre, though uneasily conscious that the smoke-clouds were thickening. He went at length on foot. Then he saw, to his astonishment, a wall of fire approaching the homestead with appalling rapidity. He turned and fled for his life, but had barely time to warn the station hands when the devouring element swept after. It was idle to resist in any ordinary method. The flames seemed to leap from the tree tops, as they scaled the trunks, then the higher branches, and were borne on loose fragments of bark far ahead of the line of fire. In a quarter of an hour each fence, building, and shed of a well-improved homestead was in flames. So great was the heat that after the first flight of the inmates from the dwelling-house, it was impossible to re-enter. Nothing of the contents was saved but a desk and a picture, while the household stood awestricken in a plot of garden vegetation, moistening their parched lips from time to time, suffocating with heat and smoke, and holding much doubt as to their ultimate safety. As they gazed around they could see the wild birds dropping dead from the forest trees, the kangaroos leaping past with singed and burning fur, while cattle, bellowing with fear and astonishment, dashed wildly to the river-bank, to plunge into the deeper pools. At Dunmore a better look-out had been kept. By the united efforts of the establishment the flames were arrested on the very verge of the homestead; but so close and desperate was the contest that the garden gate was burned, and Mr. Macknight was carried indoors insensible, having fainted from the severity of the protracted struggle. Had he died it would not have been the only instance on record of the danger of over-exertion with the thermometer at more than a hundred and fifty degrees of Fahrenheit in the sun. We at Squattlesea Mere were more lucky than our neighbours, inasmuch as the fire took a turn southward, behind Dunmore, and continued its devastating progress through the heaths and scrubs which lay on the north bank of the Shaw. It was in a manner shunted away from our homestead by the region of marsh country which stretched around and beyond it. CHAPTER XII GRASMERE What tales came in from far and near of ruin and disaster--farms and stations, huts and houses, rich and poor!--all had equally suffered in the Great Fire, long remembered throughout the length and breadth of the land. However, a bush fire is not so bad as a drought. A certain destruction of pasture and property takes place, but there is not the widespread devastation among the flocks and herds caused by a dry season. Heavy rain set in a short time afterwards, in our district at any rate. The burned pastures were soon emerald-green, and Mr. Chamberlain, who had been compelled to flee to Port Fairy homeless, and there abide till a cottage was built at Tarrone, made sale of a thousand head of fat cattle in one draft before the year was out. If the system of moderate alienation of Crown lands then prevalent could have been carried out in after years--viz. the disposing of agricultural areas from time to time, as the demand increased--no great harm would have accrued to the pastoral interest, and the legitimate wants of the farmers would have been fully supplied. The owners of the stations referred to, as the wave of population approached, chiefly applied themselves to secure the purely pastoral portions of the runs, leaving the arable land for its legitimate occupiers. No squatter was then suddenly ruined, while all intending farmers were satisfied. Good feeling was maintained, as each class of producers recognised the necessity for compromise, when the mixed occupation had become a fact. It was far otherwise when the whole land lay open to the selector, who was thus enabled to enter at will into lands which other men's labour had rendered valuable, or to exact a price for refraining. In good sooth, the pioneer squatter of that day had many and divers foes to contend with. Having done battle with one army of Philistines, another straightway appeared from an unexpected quarter. We had had trouble with our aboriginals: a canine "early Australian," the dingo, had likewise disturbed our rest. He used to eat calves, with perhaps an occasional foal, so we waged war against him. We were not up to strychnine in those days. The first letter I saw in print on the subject was from the ill-fated Horace Wills, whose sheep had been suffering badly at the time. He had come across the panacea somewhere, and lost no time in recommending it to his brother squatters. With the help of our kangaroo dogs, and an occasional murder of puppies, we pretty well cleared them out. As cattlemen, taking a selfish view of the case, we need not have been so enthusiastic. Though he killed an occasional calf, the wild hound did good service in keeping down the kangaroo, which, after his extinction, proved a far more expensive and formidable antagonist. We had more than once seen a small pack of dingoes surrounding an "old man kangaroo" in the winter time, when from weight and the soft nature of the ground he is unable to run fast. They also kill the "joeys" or young ones, when too small to run independently, though not to feed. I saw this exemplified on one occasion when returning late from a day's stock-riding. There was still light enough to distinguish surrounding objects, when a doe kangaroo crossed the track in front of me, hard pressed by a red dog close at her haunches. At first I took the pursuer to be a kangaroo dog, but seeing at a second glance that it was a dingo, I pulled up to watch the hunt. The forest was clear; rather to my surprise he gained upon her, and, springing forward, nearly secured a hold. She just got free, and not till then did she rid herself of the burden with which she was handicapped, and without which the dog could not have "seen the way she went," as the stock-riders say. "Needs must when the devil drives" is an ancient proverb, and some idea of corresponding force must have passed through her marsupial mind as she cast forth from her pouch poor "Joey"--a good-sized youngster of more than a month old. He recognised the situation, for he scudded away with all his might, but was caught and killed by "Br'er" Dingo before I could interfere, his mother sitting up, a few yards off, making a curious sound indicative of wrath and fear. I somewhat unfairly deprived dingo of his supper by placing it carefully out of his reach in a tree; but in the kangaroo battues which ensued, it more than once occurred to me that I was interfering with a natural law, of which I did not then foresee the consequences. On the eastern side of Port Fairy lay Grasmere, which on my first introduction to the district, in 1843, was the property of the Messrs. Bolden Brothers. Pleasantly situated on the banks of the Merai, its limestone slopes formed beautiful paddocks for the blue-blooded Bates shorthorns, of which these gentlemen were, at that time, the sole Australian proprietors. They had also a share in the Merang and Moodiwarra runs jointly with Messrs. Farie and Rodger. It was, however, arranged that they should remove their cattle within a certain time, and, I think, early in 1844 the arrangement was carried out. These enterprising and distinguished colonists also owned Minjah, then known as "Bolden's sheep station," now Mr. Joseph Ware's magnificent freehold estate. A considerable sum of money for those days had been spent, as early as 1843, at Grasmere, when the Rev. John Bolden and I rode in there, having been piloted from the "lower station," where we had spent the previous night, by a grizzled old stock-rider hight Jack Keighran. It was pitch dark, and I was glad to hear the kangaroo dogs set up their chorus, and to know that we were at home. Messrs. Lemuel and Armyne Bolden were then the resident partners. In the morning I was able to look around at my leisure, and as I had just become inoculated with the shorthorn complaint, which I have never wholly lost, I had a treat. The paddocks, in size from fifty to two hundred acres, were securely enclosed with three-rail fences, and were well grassed, watered, and sheltered. I have never ceased to regret that the low prices which ruled then and for several years afterwards, coupled with the failure of a well-considered experiment in shipping salt beef in tierces from Melbourne, should have caused the breaking up of that model stud farm, the dispersion of a priceless shorthorn tribe. I had been previously introduced to "Lady Vane," a granddaughter of "Second Hubback," and her inestimable calf "Young Mussulman," at Heidelberg. Here I had the pleasure of seeing them again, if not on their native heath, still in pastures befitting their high lineage and aristocratic position. Also a former daughter of Lady Vane and the Duke of Northumberland. There grazed the imported cows Lady and Matilda; the imported Bates bulls Fawdon, Tommy Bates, Pagan, and Mahomet. Besides these a score or more of Circular Head shorthorn cows, then perhaps the purest cattle which the colony could furnish. No pains or expense were spared in the keep and rearing of these valuable--nay _invaluable_ cattle--for which, indeed, high prices, for that period, had been paid in England. Everything seemed to promise well for the enterprise--so incalculably advantageous, in time to come, to the herds of Australia. And yet ere the year had rolled round the whole establishment had been disposed of to the Messrs. Manifold. The bulk of the herd cattle went to Messrs. John and Peter Manifold, of Lake Purrumbeet, with a proportion of the bulls. The shorthorns were purchased by the late Mr. Thomas Manifold, who for some years after made Grasmere his residence. In the Spring Valley, a lovely natural meadow, were located a lot of beautiful heifers, the progeny of picked "H over 5" cows (the Hawdon brand), and then the best bred herd in New South Wales. I was present at the purchase of Minjah from the Messrs. Bolden by Mr. Plummer, of the firm of Plummer and Dent, which took place in 1843. With him came Mr. Richard Sutton, as _amicus curiæ_, in the interest of Mr. Plummer, who was a newly-arrived Englishman--verdant as to colonial investments. There was a certain amount of argument; but finally Minjah was sold with fifty head of Spring Valley heifers and a young bull, the price, I think, being £5 per head for the heifers, £50 for the bull, _and the station given in_. This was the origin of the famous Minjah herd. Grasmere and Spring Valley, as also the run of Messrs. Strong and Foster, were subsequently "cut up" and sold. They were too near the town of Warrnambool to escape that fate. Mr. Manifold saved part of his run, but Messrs. Strong and Foster were less fortunate, losing nearly the whole of "St. Mary's." It was not sold, I think, until the gold year, 1851, which accounted for its wholesale annexation. This is the only instance I can recall in that district of the proprietor losing his run in its entirety. The land, however, was exceptionally good, and unmixed with ordinary pastoral country. The Messrs. Allan Brothers--John, William, and Henry--held Tooram, and the country generally on the east bank of the Hopkins, where that river flows into the sea. It was a picturesque place, having a fine elevated site, and overlooking the broad, beautiful stream not far from its mouth. I thought they should have called it "Allan Water," but apparently it had not so occurred to them. The country was more romantic than profitable, it was said, in those days, being only moderately fattening, and wonder was often expressed that, having the rich western country all before them when they arrived in 1841, or thereabouts, they did not make a better choice. But pioneers and explorers are often contented with country inferior to that which is picked up by those who come after. The real secret is that explorers are far more interested in the enterprise and adventure than in the promised land which should be the reward of their labours. They delight in the wilderness, and often undervalue Canaan. No spot could have been more suitably situated than the _locale_ the Messrs. Allan selected for ministering to such tastes. On the south was the coast-line, stretching away to far Cape Otway. On that side they had no neighbours, and Mr. John Allan, who was an intrepid bushman, made hunting and exploring excursions in that direction. I paid them a visit in the early part of 1844. I regarded it as a perfectly lovely place, with all kinds of Robinson Crusoe possibilities. Wrecks, savages, pathless woods, an island solitude--it was on the road to nowhere; nothing was wanting to enable the possessors to enjoy perfect felicity. The romantic solitude has, however, of late years been invaded by a cheese-factory. No doubt it supports a population, but the charm of the frowning, surf-beaten headland looking over the majestic, limitless ocean--of the broad reaches of the reed-fringed river--of the south-eastern trail leading into "a waste land where no one comes, or hath come since the making of the world"--must be fled for ever. "St. Ruth's" was the name given to a tract of country which joined Squattlesea Mere on the western boundary. I believe the name and the reputation of the district sold the place more than once, which was hard upon the purchasers, for it was one of the worst runs in Australia. It comprised a few decent limestone ridges--with some passable flats, but the "balance" was scrub, fern, swamp, stringy-bark forest, and heath. Considering it lay in a good district, and enjoyed a fine climate, it was astonishing how it contrived to be so bad. If it did not ruin everybody that was ever connected with it, it was because they had no money to lose, or that exceptional amount of acuteness which enabled them to dodge hard fortune by passing it on. It was taken up, soon after our performance in that line, by Messrs. Cay and Kaye, sometimes called English and Scotch Kay. The former of these gentlemen, Mr. Robert Cay, was "shown" the run by the Yambuk people, when he rode over a very small bit of it, and, going back to his homestead on the Lodden, sent a trustworthy man up with two or three hundred head of cattle, who formally occupied it. A hut and yard were built--the cattle broken in, more or less--and the occupation was complete. A year or two after Mr. Cay sold out to Mr. Adolphus Goldsmith, of Trawalla, for a reasonable price, the cattle to be taken by book-muster. Mr. Goldsmith had a herd at Trawalla, which was being encroached upon by the sheep. He required room, and bought this curiously unprofitable place to put them on. The Port Fairy district, I should say, had a great reputation; so had the adjoining runs. Mr. Goldsmith could not imagine that a run so near Tarrone, Yambuk, and Dunmore could be so very bad. Buyer and seller rode over it together. At the end of the day Mr. Cay said, "Look here, old fellow! I never saw half as much of the run before. I had no idea it was such an infernal hole, I give you my word. If you like you can throw up your bargain!" "Oh no!" quoth Dolly, "I'll stick to it. It will answer my purpose." The end of it was that Mr. Cunningham, as overseer, came down in charge of five or six hundred well-bred cattle, which were turned out at St. Ruth's after a reasonable "tailing," and presently were all over the district. Mr. Cunningham, as I have before stated, was one of the most energetic men possible, but he failed to make St. Ruth's a payable speculation. The cattle never fattened; they became wild; they could never be mustered with certainty; they furnished none of the pleasing results with which cattle in a crack district are generally credited. Eventually Mr. Goldsmith lost patience, and sold this valuable property to a former manager of his own--Mr. Hatsell Garrard. This gentleman had accompanied Mr. Goldsmith from England, and, it was said, had chosen for him the celebrated "Cornborough," a son of Tramp, a grandson of Whalebone, and one of the grandest horses that ever looked through a bridle. A good judge of stock, both in England and Australia, how Mr. Garrard came to buy such a place is "one of the mysteries." The terms were easy, probably, and the price tempting; he thought "it couldn't hurt at the price." The homestead, too (Mr. Cunningham was a great improver), was now very comfortable. That and the name together did it. Mr. Garrard, who was a most genial, jolly, but withal tolerably shrewd old boy, kept the run for a year or two, just selling cattle enough to pay his way, when _he_ dropped on a chance to "unload" and make a sale to Messrs. Moutray and Peyton. The former, like the seller, had abounding experience, had lived on an adjoining run, was quite capable of managing his own affairs, yet _he_ went into it with his eyes open. His only excuse was, that store cattle were worth £4 and £5 a head "after the gold," and he thought he saw his way. His partner, Mr. Peyton, was a young Englishman of good family, vigorous and ardent, just the man to succeed in Australia, one would have thought. He was told exactly and truly by his friends all the bad points of the run; but it was difficult in that day of high prices to find an investment for two or three thousand pounds, so _he_, being anxious to start, made the plunge. In a couple of years the partnership was dissolved, Moutray having saved some of his money, and Peyton having lost every shilling. They sold to Mr. Doughty, who had formerly owned a sheep station near Mount Gambier. He was a married man, and preferred, for some reasons, the Port Fairy district to live in. He was economical, active, a famous horseman, and a good manager. He tried "all he knew," but was beaten in a little more than a year, and "gave it best." I heard of other purchasers, but about that time I severed my connection with the district and followed the fortune of St. Ruth's no further. Probably, if cleared, drained, laid down in grasses at the rate of £10 per acre, fenced and subdivided, it might, under the weeping western skies, produce good pasture. But it always was an unlucky spot. In the strongest contradistinction to St. Ruth's--a regular man-trap, and as pecuniarily fatal as if specially created for Murad the Unlucky--was the station generally known as "Blackfellows' Creek," lying east of Eumeralla. By the way, the original pathfinders of Port Fairy had a pretty fancy in the naming of their watercourses. There were Snaky Creek, Breakfast Creek, and, of course, Deep Creek and Sandy Creek. Now, this Blackfellows' Creek was as exceptionally good a station as St. Ruth's was "t'other way on." It was proverbially and eminently a fattening run; and on the principle "who drives fat oxen should himself be fat," its owner, Mr. William Carmichael, was, and always had been, far and away the fattest man in the district. CHAPTER XIII SUPERIOR FATTENING COUNTRY Blackfellows' Creek, or "Harton Hills," as the proprietor caused it to be designated when it commenced to acquire fame and reputation, was a striking example of the well-known faith held by experienced pastoralists, that a good run will manage itself, and make lots of money for its owner, whereas no amount of management will cause much difference in the profits or losses of a bad run. Blackfellows' Creek was proverbially managed "anyhow." There was a large herd of cattle upon it, which certainly enjoyed about the smallest amount of supervision of any cattle in the world, not being Red River bisons, Chillingham wild cattle, or the _Bos primigenius_. Twice a year they were mustered to brand; a little oftener, perhaps, to get out the fat cattle. Sometimes there was a stock-rider, often none at all for months. The owner enjoyed the inestimable advantage of having been born north of the Tweed, a fact which indisposed him to employ more labour than was absolutely necessary. It also prevented him from wasting his ready money on "improvements." The yards were generally referred to as a proof of how _very_ little expenditure was really necessary on a cattle station. "I wish I'd been a Scotchman, Rolf," said Fred Burchett to me once, in a contemplative mood. "I should have had a good run and 20,000 sheep by this time." "True--most true, friend of my soul; the same here--and we should not only have had them,--the acquisition is not so difficult,--but have _kept_ them. That's where one division of the empire differs so much from the other." Now, the owner of Blackfellows' Creek, partly by reason of his abnormal girth and a sort of Athelstane-the-Unready kind of nature, never did anything. Yet he prospered exceedingly, and waxed more and more wealthy and rotund. All the stock-riders in the district came cheerfully to his muster, knowing that they would be treated with a certain easy-going liberality, and, moreover, be sure to find quantities of unbranded calves and strayed stock, all in the best possible condition, and never driven off the run or impounded from the richly-abounding and carelessly-ordered pastures of Blackfellows' Creek. I myself secured at a muster, and sold there and then, a whole lot of fat bullocks to Mooney, the cattle-dealer, who was lifting a draft at the time. They were a portion of my Devil's River store lot, which had, with correct taste and calculation, taken up their abode at Blackfellows' Creek on the first winter of their arrival. They had not my station brand, but their own hieroglyph was sufficient to protect them in those Arcadian times. I received Mr. Mooney's perfectly negotiable cheque for a round sum. They had fattened up wonderfully,--great, raw-boned, old-fashioned Sydney-siders,--and looked like elephants. The only remark the owner of the run made on the transaction was, "As they had done so well, it was a pity that more of them hadn't come at the same time." It was indeed a lovely bit of country, speaking from a grazing standpoint. There was plenty of water in the Blackfellows' and other unpretending channels to provide for the stock in all seasons without obtrusive parade. The run itself consisted principally of open well-grassed forest land, with a large proportion of "stony rises," and several marshes, very useful in the summer. Not an acre of waste or indifferent land was there upon it. Nobody knew where the boundaries were, there being no natural features of any kind, and the current belief was that it was much larger than was generally supposed. It did not seem to have any of the ordinary drawbacks to which other squattages were exposed. In spite of its ill-omened name, the blacks had never been "bad" there. If they had killed a few cattle no one would have minded, and I have no doubt they would have discontinued the practice voluntarily. As a matter of course, the cattle were always "rolling fat." There was never the least trouble of selling a draft to be taken from the camp. The dealers gave the highest price, and bid against one another. Even the two-year-old steers were often taken, so "furnished" and "topped up" were they. How they were bred could never be ascertained, and was popularly supposed to be wholly unknown to any white man of the period. Bulls were seldom bought. Not the smallest trouble was taken about their breeding. No money was spent, except upon the stud, in which were some noble Clydesdales--on one of them, by the way, I once saw the proprietor, and very worthily mounted he was. The animal in question was a son of old Farmer's Favourite, a gigantic gray, no doubt having some blood on the side of the dam, and seventeen hands in height. He was active and well paced, and carried his nineteen stone most creditably. There were sheep on the run as well as cattle. From the richness of the soil and herbage they suffered a good deal with foot-rot, which they were permitted to cure by nature's own healing art. But they paid pretty well, too, growing a heavy fleece, and gradually increasing in numbers--shepherds, ailments, and occasional free selection by dingoes notwithstanding. Mr. Carmichael either bought the place very early or "took it up"--the latter most likely. Such a property was, presumably, not often in the market; but the proprietor told me that he had once placed it under offer, at what he doubtless considered a very fancy price, to Mr. Jack Buchanan, a handsome, spirited young Scot, who bought one of the Messrs. Boldens' runs--the Lake--in 1844. The extreme fancy price being £3 per head for the cattle and 10s. all round for the sheep, the run about a quarter stocked! After the gold "broke out," the drafts of fat cattle from Harton Hills began to tell up in such figures on the right side of his banking account that the owner saw the necessity for acquiring the fee-simple. This was effected, like everything else there, without much trouble. A good house was built, fencing was put up. Thousands of acres were purchased, and the whole run pretty well "secured," out of its own profits solely, by the time the invasion of the free-selecting Goths and Vandals under Gavan Duffy's Act took place. Mr. Carmichael ultimately retired, and betook himself to a town life. But, however his idyll ended, no better example than Blackfellows' Creek ever demonstrated the soundness of the old squatting belief before alluded to, that _the run is everything_--stock, improvements, management, capital, etc., being all secondary considerations. It has been mentioned in the early portions of these reminiscences that the Mount Rouse station, originally taken up by Mr. John Cox, had been resumed by the Government of the day, represented by His Honour the Superintendent, and devoted to the use and benefit of the aborigines of the district. Some compunction seems to have been felt by Mr. La Trobe, a humane and highly-cultured person, at the rapid decrease and deterioration of the native race. Whether he originated the idea of an aboriginal protectorate, with a staff of officials known as "Black Protectors," I cannot state with precision. A certain missionary named Robinson had the credit of inducing the remnant of the wild men and women of Tasmania to surrender to the clemency of the Government. They were then, with a somewhat doubtful generosity, presented with an island, and maintained thereon at the charges of the State. It does not appear that they lacked henceforth any material comfort. But the fierce savages who had long harassed the outlying settlers, and who possessed considerably more "bull-dog" in the way of courage than their continental congeners, refused to thrive or multiply when "cabined, cribbed, confined," even though they had alternation of landscape in their island home, and but the restless sea for their encircling boundary. They pined away slowly; but a few years since the last female of the race died. The monotonous comfort told on health and spirits. It was wholly alien to the constitution of the wild hunters and warriors who had been wont to traverse pathless woods, to fish in the depths of forest streams, to chase the game of their native land through the lone untrampled mead, or the hoar primeval forests which lay around the snow-crested mountain range. The missionary diplomatist displayed an amount of nerve and astuteness which would have led to promotion in other departments. He crossed the straits to Victoria, and, if I mistake not, held council with Mr. La Trobe. Whether _propter hoc_ or only _post hoc_, an aboriginal protectorate was established, and Mr. Cox had the honour of giving up a property worth now say about £100,000 for the presumed advantage of the black brother. It was no trifling loss. Even in those days the "Mount Rouse Stones" was an expression which made the mouth of a cattleman to water. It was the richest run in a rich fattening district. The conical hill, so named, was an extinct volcano, which towered over a wide extent of lava country and open lightly-timbered forest. The lava lands alternated with great marshes. Strayed and other cattle found there, when recovered, were always spoken of by the stock-riders as being "mud-fat." When once cattle were turned out there they never seemed to have any inclination to roam, being instinctively aware, doubtless, that they could never hope to find such shelter, such pasture, such luxurious lodging anywhere else. I remember Charles Burchett remarking one day that it would be a fairly promising speculation to bring up a thousand head of store cattle and _lose_ them at the foot of Mount Rouse; after a short, unsuccessful search, to depart, and return in the autumn, when they would be sure to be found all fat, and within a dozen miles of the hill. He reflected for a moment, and then added thoughtfully, "I think a popular man might do it." However, there was no fighting with the powers that be in those days. There was no Parliament--no press of any great weight--no fierce democracy--no redress nearer than Sydney. It was "a far cry to Lochow." So Mr. Cox shifted his stock and servants out, and Dr. Watton moved in, took possession as Protector of Aborigines, and gathered to him the remnant of the former lords of the soil, with their wives and their little ones. The intention was humane; the act was one of mercy and justice towards the fast-fading children of the waste; but it never could be demonstrated to be more successful in results than the Tasmanian experiment. There were several protectorate stations established about the same time, one notably near Ballarat, one, I think, on the Wimmera, and one on the Murray. Long after a Moravian Mission was organised for their behoof at Lake Boga, near Swan Hill. All came to naught. The blacks visited them from time to time, when the season was unpropitious, or for other reasons. They were fed and clothed. The younger ones were taught to read and write, and received religious instruction. But the whole thing doubtless appeared to them unendurably dull and slow, and like all savages, and a largish proportion of whites, being passionately averse to monotony, they deserted by degrees, and pursued a more congenial career as wanderers through wood and wold, or as servants and labourers at the neighbouring stations. There they could earn money, and, I fear me, proceeded to "knock down" the same by means of periodic alcoholic indulgence, "as nat'ral as a white man." Meanwhile good old Dr. Watton, a genial, cultured English gentleman, lived a peaceful patriarchal life at Mount Rouse--not, I should imagine, vexing his soul unduly at the instability of the heathen. They were welcomed and kindly treated when they came, not particularly regretted when they chose to depart. All attempt at coercion would have been, of course, inexpedient and ludicrously ineffective. So matters at the "Reservation" wore on. The doctor's small herd of cattle, the descendants of a few milch cows needed for the family, were wonderful to behold by reason of their obesity, as they lay and lounged about the spring which trickled down a plough-furrow in front of the cottage. The pastoralists never approved of the protectorate system. They accused certain of the protectors--not the gentlemen to whom I refer--of instructing the blacks that if whites shot them it would be considered murder, and the offenders hanged, but that if they speared the cattle or the stockmen occasionally, it was only, let us say, an error of judgment, for which they would not suffer death. This probably was an exaggeration, and some allowance must be made for the habitual antagonism of pioneers to "Injuns" of any sort or kind. If these establishments did no particular good, they did no harm. They afforded shelter to the aged and infirm of both sexes, and they attempted, in all good faith, to teach the young the great truths of the Christian's hope in life and death. Still, I know but of _one_ instance where any permanent educational good resulted to the pure race. Yet I took much interest in the question, and remember watching closely the career of a highly intelligent half-caste, who had been brought up by Mr. Donald M'Leod at Moruya. He was a tall, well-made man, intelligent, "reliable," and shrewd. He married a respectable emigrant girl. They had two children, and a situation under Cobb and Co. At this stage of ethnological interest a snake bit him. The poor fellow died, and I lost the opportunity of watching the development of the mixed blood. After the Mount Rouse aboriginal station had been devoted to this philanthropical purpose for a certain number of years, it became gradually apparent to the official mind, from the well-nigh complete disappearance of aboriginals, that its utility had ceased. It was accordingly disestablished. One would have thought that the obviously fair thing would have been to have handed back the right of run to the former owner. This was before any gospel of free selection had been preached, and while the "poor man" was still a harmless, contented unit of the body politic, ignorant of his wrongs, and unacquainted with the fatal flavour of vote by ballot. The license could have been granted afresh to Mr. Cox or his executors, and no one would have thought of protesting. But no! With a certain cheese-paring economy, of which Governments are often justly accused, it was decided to let the right of run by tender. Though assessments were high enough, no one in those days dreamed of offering more than £200 or £300 annually for the mere grass right of any run. Mount Rouse was hardly improved in any way. Every one was considerably astonished when it was proclaimed that the tender of the Messrs. Twomey had been accepted for £900 per annum! This was a rental for the waste lands of the Crown with a vengeance! It was thought that it never would pay the daring speculators. However, the event showed that the Messrs. Twomey had gauged the capabilities of the run accurately enough. They had a small station close by, and had made their calculations justly. They put sheep on, fenced, and presumably made money thereby, as they eventually purchased the greater portion of the freehold. CHAPTER XIV BURCHETT OF "THE GUMS" This was the well-known name of an exceedingly choice run close to Nareeb Nareeb, on Muston's Creek, and at an early period in the occupation of the Messrs. Charles, Henry, and Fred Burchett. The name was allotted by Charles, who said that as the old country places were christened "The Oaks," "The Ashes," "The Beeches," and so on, he thought it befitting that an Australian homestead should be known as "The Gums." So mote it be; and I fancy Mr. Ross, the present owner, has by no means changed the name. Charles Burchett was a humourist of the first water, and as such delighted in by his numerous friends. The district was hardly ever without the excitement of "Burchett's last." He had a serious, tentative, doubtful way of bringing out his good things, which heightened the effect. "The Gums," like Dunmore, boasted a better library than ordinary, and there was set on foot the Mount Rouse Book Club, which, founded on a moderate subscription, and compelling members to send round the books at monthly intervals, provided mental food for a goodly number of friends and neighbours. Charles Burchett and his brother Fred were both somewhat deaf. Whether or not the slight infirmity concentrated the reflective powers, certain it is that they resembled each other closely in being exceptionally original and amusing in conversation. Occasionally Mr. Charles Burchett's difficulty in hearing led to diverting cross purposes, as in the case of his celebrated interview with the bushrangers. He and a friend, it is related, some time in the early days, met with two men, one of whom carried a gun. They addressed themselves to his companion, who appeared to be, from the expression of his countenance, much interested in their remarks. Mr. Burchett looked at them with an inquiring air. "What do they want, Scott?" he said, in his resonant, high-pitched voice, accentuating always the last word of the sentence. "Do they want _work_?" None of them could help laughing, it is said; but the man with the gun, observing the gentleman place his hand to his ear, raised the gun sharply to a level with his breast, by way of explaining matters. Again Mr. Burchett looked up with a grave and meditative expression. Then he addressed the spoiler--"I say, take away that gun, it might go off." Even the hardened old hand was not proof against this characteristic jest; he put down his gun in order to laugh in comfort. However, it was explained that business was business. So having relieved Mr. Burchett and his friend of their horses and loose cash, the robbers departed. But they behaved with civility, and a ten-mile walk was the worst of the affair. The horses were afterwards found at no great distance from the spot, and returned to their owners. Unfortunately, as it happened, the fraternal triumvirate at "The Gums" held diverse opinions as to the stock upon which to stake the fortunes of the firm. Henry Burchett was gifted with a strongly arithmetical turn, in consequence of which he was generally alluded to by Charles as "my brother Cocker." A calculation of the average value of the wool-clip led him doubtless to decide--with considerable accuracy, as events proved--in favour of sheep. Charles and Fred preferred cattle. In the end Charles sold his share of run and stock, and commenced a business in Melbourne. Having made a pilgrimage to Riverina, riding one wiry hackney the whole way there and back, without apparent distress to man or beast, Henry posed as the apostle of a new faith on his return, after beholding, near Deniliquin, what he then decided to be the true home of the merino sheep, and purchasing for a small price a certain run on the Billabong, since tolerably well known to wool-buyers as "Coree." He bought sheep with which to stock it, and removed those still at "The Gums." He it was who first placed a dam across the uncertain watercourse of the Billabong, and thus aided the inception of the great system of water-storage now so universal. It was a primitive time enough on the Billabong, one may be sure. The late Mr. Sylvanus Daniel was a man in authority at Deniliquin, then known as one of "The Royal Bank" stations. Some of his good stories the wayfarer from Port Fairy brought back with him, so that the fame of that gentleman's hospitality and genial temperament reached the colony of Victoria years before he migrated to the north-western district of New South Wales. Henry Burchett retained his share in "The Gums" after his purchase of Coree, but, wishing to concentrate his investments, he--unfortunately for his partner and himself--decided to realise on the Port Fairy property. The sale of "The Gums" accordingly took place. It was, of course, before the gold--only one year I think. The price of a first-class, well-improved, fattening run, with a good herd of 1500 cattle thereon, was--what does any one think?--£2 per head! Yes, at this melancholy price did "The Gums" pass into the hands of Mr. Henry Gottreaux, a gentleman lately arrived in the colony, formerly in the Austrian service. He was a brother of William Gottreaux, of Lilaree; he had, therefore, the advantage of the advice of an experienced colonist. Mr. Gottreaux did not look, to our eyes, the "man for Galway"; or likely to make much out of a cattle run in those hard-riding, hard-living days. Tall and soldierly-looking, with a big moustache, he had a bluff, German-baron sort of air. He was portly withal, and, though a cavalry man, not up to much in the "cutting-out" or cattle-muster line. The first thing to which he devoted his energies was the building of a spacious, wide-verandahed brick cottage, dooming the snug old slab homestead, where we had all spent so many pleasant hours, to do duty as barracks and out-offices. After this he inquired of one of the visitors, who, after our custom, had come to help at the muster, whether it would not be easy to transmit his share of the profits to a friend in England, who had an interest--as a sleeping partner--in the station. The man whom he addressed smiled inwardly, and sardonically replied, "Very easy." We thought this a good joke when it was handed over to us a week after. But Mr. Gottreaux was right, and we were all wrong, proving how difficult it was to decide in such matters unless all the factors of the sum are in view. In the first place, the new proprietor was a man of brains and method, culture and knowledge of the world. He did not scurry about in the camp on the stock-horse of the period--it was not his _métier_; but he paid and controlled a good stock-rider who did. He lived comfortably, preferring, reasonably, to dine at ease after the business of the day was concluded. But he kept his accounts correctly, and provided that the balance should be on the right side. The seasons were favourable; they are rarely otherwise in the pleasant west country, to the green pastures of which fate had guided the "bold Uhlan." And then--trump card of all--the Gold Magician played shortly afterwards. He threw down an ace--waved his wand. The cattle which our friend purchased at £2, with right of run added, became worth £10 per head. So he _had_ profits to remit to his partner after all, by no means of small annual amount either. Terenallum was in early days the property of Messrs. Lang and Elms, who considered it a fairly paying sheep run, though bare of timber and rather desolate of aspect. Disadvantageously for the firm, as it turned out, Mr. Elms, the resident partner, was tempted by what was then thought to be a high price--12s. per head or so, with about one-third of the stock it afterwards carried--to sell to Mr. Russell of The Leigh. He invested in a presumably richer country between The Grange and the Eumeralla, and, I should think, never ceased to regret the exchange. The new runs were chiefly cattle country, being well-grassed forest, not over dry in winter, and therefore in those days looked upon as liable to foot-rot. The eastern subdivision, called "Lyne," was at no great distance from Mr. Cox's Werrongourt station. This transaction illustrates the errors of judgment so often made by pioneer squatters, men of exceeding shrewdness and energy notwithstanding. So George Wyndham Elms sold Terenallum, now proverbially one of the most valuable sheep properties west of the Barwon, and purchased a run which must have paid indifferent interest on capital for long afterwards. Yet the seller was sufficiently experienced, could work with both hands and head, had confronted all the regulation pioneer troubles--bad shepherds, blacks, low wool, everything--had shepherded on a pinch, and slept in a watch-box. Then, when all was well and a fortune coming to meet him, he was fated to ruin everything for the sake of change. _Mais, telle est la vie._ Lyne and the other station were good enough, fairly watered, splendidly grassed, and so on; but the cautious critics said they would never make up for Terenallum. And they didn't. The original cattle had been neglected, it would appear. Among them was a large proportion of bullocks which declined with fiendish obstinacy to fatten. They would do anything but go off to the butcher. They oppressed the rest of the herd, showed a bad example, and paid nothing. They were what are known by the stock-riders as "ragers" or "pig-meaters." Fierce of aspect, and active as buffaloes, they appear with regularity at each muster, but are never permitted the chance of road-adventure with any buyer of fat cattle. The price offered for them is generally so small that in many instances the owner ceases to form plans for their conversion into cash, and, if easy-going, permits them to eat grass and demoralise the herd indefinitely. The run was now worked with fair results for a year or two, but it soon became apparent that it was not likely to return the same sort of dividends which were so satisfactory each year at Terenallum. This probably tended towards discussion between the partners. However that might have been, a division of the runs took place. Mr. Lang retained Lyne, with the herd of cattle depastured thereon, while Mr. Elms removed to that portion of the area which lay nearer to the town of Hamilton. Upon this he built a new homestead, and proceeded to convert it into a sheep station. Mr. Lang had visited England more than once during the partnership, and so loosened his hold upon matters colonial. It has generally happened, within my experience at least, that a squatter who permitted himself to behold "the kingdoms of the earth, and the glory of them," rarely settled down into a contented colonist upon returning to Australia. So Mr. Lang put Lyne into the market. It was sold to Captain Stanley Carr, a retired military officer, who had passed years at a German court, and held property in Silesia. There, it seems, he had acquired a taste for high-class merinoes. He had been tempted to visit Australia, probably as a larger field for investment, bringing with him some good sheep of the type then prevailing, and fashionable in the country of his adoption. These were sent to Lyne, where they were only moderately praised by the sheepholders of the district, being acknowledged to be fine as to quality of fleece, but considered small and delicate of frame. Captain Stanley Carr, by birth Scoto-Irish, was a genial and polished personage, not altogether averse to the privilege accorded to travellers, but most amusing and agreeable. He bought, as did Mr. Gottreaux, "before the gold." The price he paid was therefore moderate, leaving a large margin for profit in the rising markets which were imminent, and of which he shortly experienced the advantage. Residing for a few months at Lyne, he made himself popular with his neighbours, who were nothing loath to visit and entertain a courtier, a man of the world, and a _raconteur_ at once so experienced and original. He justified the shrewd outlook upon events which had caused him to become an investor in the first instance, by prophesying an extraordinary development of Australian prosperity which was to be rapid and astonishing. The soil, the climate, the extent of the waste lands of the Crown, all excited his admiration. The captain's pre-auriferous predictions have since received curiously close fulfilment. Our gallant pastoral comrade had some knowledge of sheep-farming. For the management of a mixed herd of cattle, after the Australian fashion, he was as unfitted as the confidential German shepherd of his priceless Silesian ewes to "run" a South American _saladero_. Wisely, therefore, he took the neighbours into his confidence, requesting the advice which was cheerfully given. He was, in the first instance, by them adjured to cull the herd severely--to that end to eliminate without delay all the bovine "larrikins" (the word had not then been coined, but an analogous social remedy may yet in future ages be legally applicable) by boiling them down. There happened to be at Port Fairy in that brooding year just before the gold--and what embryo events were not then ripening in the womb of fate!--a regularly-appointed _saladero_. How much more concise is the expression than "a boiling-down establishment where salting beef for exportation is also carried on," and yet foolish utilitarians see no advantage in schoolboys learning Greek and Latin. But this savours of digression. Such an institution was then in full working order, organised for the reduction of the "dangerous classes" of the bovine neighbourhood into tallow and corned beef. It was managed by Mr. M'Cracken, and (of course) subsidised by Mr. William Rutledge. "Unto this last" the Lyne larrikins were by a consensus of notables forthwith relegated. CHAPTER XV WORK AND PLAY The captain's first cattle-muster was fixed for a certain day. I had the honour of being invited specially to superintend the classing and drafting of the bullocks, retaining the presumably marketable, and condemning the irreconcilables. I was happy to accede, but a slight difficulty stood in the way. The night preceding the muster had been devoted to the coming ball at Dunmore, an anxiously-anticipated festivity, to which all Port Fairy was bidden, and from which no loyal Western man could be absent if alive. Certainly not the writer, Terpsichore's not least ardent votary. The difficulty was to combine drafting and dancing with a conscientious attention to both. "Minorca lies in the middle sea." Lyne is half-way between Dunmore and Hamilton--over twenty miles anyhow. The drafting would commence at sunrise--the dancing would continue till daylight. Such trivial discrepancies were negotiable, however, Ere nerve and sinew began to fail In the consulship of Plancus. The ball was in its way perfect, "with music, moonlight, love, and flowers," probably in the usual proportions. Daylight found the revellers still unsated; but an hour before the first tremulous dawn wavelet rippled over the pale sky-line I had doffed the canonicals, slipped on boots and breeches, mounted my favourite hackney--"The Gaucha" to wit--and was stretching out along the track to Eumeralla at the rate of twelve miles an hour. The summer morn was refreshingly cool, the first hour's ride delicious; then an increasing drowsiness made itself felt, and ere long I would have given all the world to lie down under a tree and sleep till noon. But the inclination was sternly repressed, and less than another hour's ride brought the creek in view, below the blackwood-crowned slopes of Lyne, one of the loveliest spots in all the West. The position of the stock-yard was denoted from afar by the great cloud of dust which rose pillar-like to the clear sky, while the "roaring" of the restless, excited cattle had been audible long before the dust-cloud was visible. It was a lovely, clear, summer morning; yet, as I rode onward, the sentence of Holy Writ kept ceaseless iteration through my brain as curiously apposite, while ever and anon through the green forest echoed the deep-resounding lowing of the imprisoned herd--"And the smoke of their torment ascendeth for ever." As I rode up to the yard a score of stock-horses stood under the trees. The ocean of unbroken greenery that lay to the eastward was flame-tinted by the rising sun, but, early as was the hour, work had begun. Joe Twist of Werrongourt, and Mackay of Eumeralla, were at the drafting gates; the cattle were running through. I was just in time to enter upon my duty as classifier, at which arduous and delicate task I continued till noon. A half-hour for the mid-day meal, a few minutes' grace while pipes are lighted, then through the long, dusty hours of the hot afternoon the laborious, exciting work is ceaselessly carried on. Strangers and pilgrims, calves and clear-skins, are separated at the same time. The sun declines, dips lower still, and lower. The day is done, and a highly respectable amount of necessary work has been performed. The liberated herd streams back in a score of droves to familiar pastures. Two hundred and twenty "boilers" are safe in the small yard, the which will be started for their last drive on the following morning. The stock-riders are accommodated on the station. Some ride home--those who had no calves or stray cattle on their minds; the rest remain, ready to give a hand with the boiling-down draft next day. I partake of Captain Carr's hospitality, warmly thanked for my exertions. Do I not doze off almost before the evening's meal is concluded? I beg to be excused on the ground of fatigue, and depart incontinently for bed thereafter. Do I turn round until sunrise next morning? I trow not. But I was soon in the saddle then, and away with the drove referred to. What a rush they made when the gate was opened!--what a pace they went for the first mile or two! I can see Joe Twist now on his favourite stock-horse--a steed that even his master cared not to ride without his permission--going like a Comanchee Indian, the merest trifle less than racing speed, parallel with a tossing forest of horns, his bridle-hand low, his stock-whip raised threateningly, the eager horse's head now on the ground, now raised higher than a nervous rider would choose. Was there another man "steadying the lead" on the opposite side, right well mounted also, gallant in the pride of youthful horsemanship and the full inspiration of "God's glorious oxygen"? It may have been so. Ah me! those were pleasant days. Would they might return! Even as I write, Still comes the memory sweet Of bygone hours, long-gathered flowers Pressed by our youth's gay feet. It may not have been wholly in the interests of an Australian merino principality that our shores were honoured by the captain's company and capital. With him--and to a certain extent, it was understood, indebted to his guardianship--came a Prince of Augustenburg, who had not then succeeded to his present exalted position. This royal personage was apparently not deeply interested in the pastoral life of Australia, and remained to the last unconcerned about the weights and fineness of fleece of merino sheep. Providence had arranged his destiny so as to be unaffected by the wool market, or even by the prevalence of dry seasons. He also spoke English indifferently, and, thus handicapped, preferred the sylvan shades of Toorak and the tempered solitude of a club smoking-room to the primeval waste. His more mercurial senior meanwhile utilised his colonial experience to some purpose, as the sequel will show. Possibly a strict provincial life at Lyne became monotonous after the "boilers" had realised some 30s. per head. The Ballarat diggers would have eaten them gaily at £7 or £8 each a year or two after, but we did not forecast that and a few other unimportant changes. After the calves were branded, after the German shepherd had with paternal care cured the Silesians of foot-rot--(how different from the demeanour of Australian Corydon puffing at his foul pipe, and double-blanking the sheep, with everybody connected with the place, from the ration-carrier upwards, as he pares the offending hoof)--after these, and divers other engrossing duties, had helped to hurry along the stream of Time, the captain delegated such and the like, permanently, to Mr. J. R. Nowlan, a gentleman who dwelt hard by, constituting him his managing partner. He then betook himself with his Prince back to Europe, _via_ Panama, a route then coming into fashion with Australian home-returning voyagers. The travellers--including, I think, Messrs. Lang and Winter--had nearly completed their foreign tour in an abrupt and melancholy fashion. While crossing the Chagres river (I will not certify as to the name, but, if doubtful on the point, communicate with Baron Lesseps, Captain Mayne Reid, and Mr. Frederick Boyle) their light bark sprang a leak. They were partly canoe-wrecked, and left by their boatman upon a sandbank in the mid-stream of a big, rapid river, swarming with alligators. The river was rising, which tended to limit their period of security. In this strait, a small dug-out was seen approaching from the farther bank. The Indian paddler explained by pantomime that he could take but two. That was self-evident. One passenger even suggested risk. Then arose a generous contention. To the Prince was unanimously yielded the _pas_. The second place the captain was prayed to take. "No," said the gallant veteran; "you fellows have all the world before you. I have had my innings, and a deuced good one too. _Moi qui parle!_ Get in, either of you; I'm dashed if I do." The time was rapidly growing shorter; the sandbank contracting its area. The boatman gesticulated. The alligators, presumably, were expectant. It was no time for overstrained ceremony. One of the squatters stepped in, and the frail craft swirled into the eddying current. It returned in time, and the _Greytown Herald_ missed a sensational paragraph. That was in other respects an exciting trip. Mr. Lang found himself, when at Panama, relegated to a huge dormitory, crowded like a sixpenny boarding-house. Comforting himself with the reflection that it was but for a night, he invoked Somnus, all vainly. The groans of a sick man on the next couch forbade repose. "What's the matter with him?" he inquired at length of his nearest "strange bedfellow." "Only Isthmus fever," was the answer. My friend shuddered, knowing how the railway labourers were even then being decimated. "And why is the bed between you and me vacant?" he went on to inquire. "They buried a cholera patient out of it this morning. You don't happen to have a cigar, do you?" It was too late to retreat. The streets were none too safe. But it may well be believed that the ex-owner of Lyne wished himself back among the blackwood trees, or even in the stock-yard, were the day ever so dusty, and what delicately constituted persons term oppressive. And when the red sun aroused him from the troubled slumber which ended the night's unrest, he naturally doubted whether cholera or "the fever" would first lay upon him a fatal grasp. Mr. Nowlan, an experienced manager, after Captain Carr's departure "worked" Lyne pretty vigorously, selling the original herd as they became fit for market, and putting on store cattle to the full carrying capacity of the run. The gold discovery of course transmuted profits magically. At the first onset of the revolution, cattle stations reaped most of the benefit, so much less labour being required than on sheep stations. Within a few years not only had large profits been realised for the partnership, but the value of the property had quintupled. An estate of freehold land had been purchased at Melton, near Melbourne, from the profits of fat stock. A thousand head of cattle more than the station had been purchased with were now depastured. At the post-auriferous prices then obtaining, Lyne, with 3000 head of cattle, was a very different property from that which Captain Carr had originally purchased. At this stage a plenipotentiary from Captain Carr arrived in the person of Baron von Loesecke, a jolly, blue-eyed, fair-bearded Teuton, who had married his only daughter and heiress. He prudently concluded to sell. Lyne and the Melton property were accordingly, "on a future day, of which," etc., put up to auction by, I think, Messrs. Kaye and Butchart. The Baron used to remind us at the Melbourne Club a good deal of Monsieur le Comte de Florac, in the character of his sentiments and the quality of his English. He was good-natured, effusive, polite, though ready to resent any criticism which he did not interpret as friendly. "Do you think he intended himself to be satirical for me?" he once inquired, with earnestness; "if I thought so, I would challenge him on the instant." The challenge did not come off, and it need hardly be said that no offence was intended to a guest and a foreigner. The day of sale came off, and as we walked up from the Club the Baron requested a friend to bid for him the amount of the reserve price, which had been fixed, I think, at £6 or £5 : 15s. per head. The run was, if anything, overstocked. As a number of stores had been recently put on, it was thought a fair price. Whatever it was, owing to a misconception, he went £500 higher than he had been instructed to do. The bidding was not very brisk towards the end, the sale trembled on the balance for a minute or two, then the purchaser came forward and made a further advance. The station was knocked down to him. The Baron rushed up to his friend and shook his hand enthusiastically; "You have made for me £500," he said, "but I did hold my breath till the next offaire arrive." Mr. Nowlan, as well as the captain, his heirs and assigns, must have realised handsomely from the proceeds of Lyne. Purchased for less than £4000, it fetched nearly £20,000, not reckoning intervening profits and the Melton freehold. It afforded one more illustration of the strangely-assorted luck which apparently besets colonial investments, the occasional success of outsiders, not less than the hard measure too often dealt out to pioneers. I am not aware whether the last purchaser of Lyne found the scale of profits perennial. I doubt it, inasmuch as Duffy's Act followed, bringing darker days for the squatter. Fortune did not favour the original owners either. Cheery and full of pluck to the last, George Elms sailed for Fiji, as after an interval did his old comrade Lang--pleasant, ever-courteous "Allan-a-Dale." It was the fashionable "rush" for a while. They lie at rest under the whispering palm. Perhaps, ere the last slumber, the murmur of the surges had lulled to sleep all bitter memories of the wild southland in which their early manhood was passed. CHAPTER XVI THE ROMANCE OF A FREEHOLD In a recent advertisement in the _Australasian_ I observed public notice to be given that "the rich agricultural lands of the Kangatong estate, near Port Fairy, would be subdivided at an early date, and sold in farms to suit purchasers." What changes time doth bring! When I first saw the ground referred to, then known as "Cox's Heifer Station," how could one divine the transformation it was fated to undergo? As little in 1844 was prevision possible of the separate sale notices in which it would figure as the years rolled on. It epitomises the history of the district, perhaps of the colony. First of all, "that well-known fattening station known as Kangatong, with choice herd of cattle, stock-horses given in," etc. Then, "that fully improved, fenced, and subdivided sheep property, of which the wool is so favourably known to Melbourne buyers." Again, "that valuable pastoral estate of Kangatong, comprising 35,000 (let us say) acres of freehold"; and now, lastly, "those rich agricultural lands, divided into farms to suit purchasers." All these progressive wonders were to be evolved from the lone primeval waste upon which a solitary horseman then gazed in the autumn of 1844. And the wand of the squatter-sorcerer was to do it all. I might then have seen lakelets glittering in the sun, orchards and cornfields, barns and stables, mansion and offices, a village in itself, the spacious wool-shed and the scientific wash-pen, had I possessed the prophetic eye. But Fate held her secrets closely then as now. Only the vast eucalyptus forest, stretching unbroken to the horizon, waved its sombre banners before me. Only the scarce-trodden meadows of the waste lay unfed, untouched around me. I beheld a pastoral paradise without so much as a first inhabitant, and at which the very beasts of the field had hardly arrived. It was a spectacle sufficiently solemn to have awed a democrat, to have imbued even the Arch-Anti----, well, Anti-Capitalist, with some respectful consideration for pioneers, whether in toil or triumph. How I appeared on the scene at this particular juncture came about in this wise. When I first arrived in Port Fairy, the "Heifer Station" was what would be called in mining parlance "an abandoned claim," and possibly "jumpable," to use another effective expression with which the gold-fields have enriched the Australian vernacular. Mr. John Cox of Werrongourt had reconsidered his first intention of segregating the immature females of his herd--probably as too expensive--had withdrawn them and their herdsmen, leaving hut and yards untenanted, the run unoccupied. This last was now for sale with "improvements." I really can't recall the date of that comprehensive euphemism, which included everything, from a watch-box to a wool-shed, from a brush-yard to a family mansion. Perhaps about the time when the children of married servants advertised for were feelingly referred to as "encumbrances." However, improvements and encumbrances notwithstanding, we must get on with our "Heifer Station" history. Here it was for sale, with one hut, one log-yard, and the right to 40,000 acres, more or less, of first-class pasture--for how much? Would I could get the offer again! _Thirty pounds!_ This was the price--everybody knew it. Mr. Cox wanted to sell--had plenty of country at Werrongourt--couldn't be bothered with it. The best thing I could do was to go and see it, or close for it at once. Mr. Cox was in Tasmania just at present, but had, of course, left instructions. Thus far the friendly public. I thought I would go and see. So I mounted Clifton, the grandson of Skeleton, and turned my face to the setting sun. Making my way to Tarrone, where at that time Mr. Chamberlain lived, I explained to him the object of my tourist wandering. I was most hospitably received. It turned out afterwards that he had had a hint that I wanted to "sit down" somewhere in his neighbourhood. The runs at that time were, as may be imagined, very sparsely stocked. If the Commissioner of Crown Lands was in a bad temper, he had the power to "give away" to the interloper a seriously appreciable portion of any pastoral area, however long established and secure the occupant might fancy himself to be. So, as he afterwards told one of the neighbours, he determined to show me every courtesy; after which, appealing to all chivalrous feelings in my nature, he felt that I could not, in common decency, annex any portion of his (Mr. Chamberlain's) run. This was a shade of diplomacy sometimes roughly described as characteristic of "the old soldier." If so, my host's military experiences, as on another historical occasion, served him well. When I left Tarrone that morning, with a guide, towards the Heifer Station, I would have driven on to Western Australia--a pastoral Vanderdecken--rather than infringe on the tolerably liberal boundaries which he claimed for Tarrone. I rode along and passed the great Tarrone Marsh, with its well-defined wooded banks and its miles upon miles of mournful reeds, wild-duck and bittern haunted. My guide pointed out to me a place where, riding one day a mare that he described as "touchy," by the edge of the marsh, suddenly a blackfellow jumped out from behind a tree--"a savage man accoutred proper." The touchy mare gave so sudden a prop, accompanied by a desperate plunge, that he was thrown almost at the feet of the "Injun." Others appeared--like Roderick Dhu's clansmen--from every bush and "stony rise," which had till this moment sheltered them. He raised himself doubtfully, much expectant of evil; relations had certainly been strained of late between the races. However, they did not (apparently) kill him, he being there to relate the story. I forget what trifle prevented them. Then he proceeded to sketch the "lay of the country." Told me (of course) that "I couldn't miss the place if I followed the swamp round for two or three miles, then made for the east a bit, till I came to some thickish country, then to look out for a ti-tree crick as would lead down to the main crick. I'd cut the tracks where they had been tailing the heifers. Then I'd see the hut and yard." He then went on his way, having "to run in a beast to kill," and I saw him no more. No track, no road, no bridle-path was there, no known thoroughfare; while, after you left the great Tarrone Marsh, there was not a landmark to speak of within twenty miles, not a bit of open country the size of a corn-patch. A long, solitary, unsatisfactory day lay before me. Sometimes I was pretty sure I was on the "run"; at other times I was confident that I was off it. I found the creek a minute but permanent-looking rivulet, with occasional water-holes. The hut and yards were on this watercourse; both inexpensive structures. I saw, however, that the whole country-side was covered with a sward of kangaroo grass two or three feet high, and as thick as a field of barley. No doubt it was good fattening country, but I did not take to it somehow. It was a "blind" place, in stock-riders' phrase--no open country, no contrasts, no romance about it in fact. "_Toujours_ gum-tree," as Sir Edward Deas Thomson said when he drove Sir Charles Fitzroy and Colonel Mundy--somewhere about that time--with a four-in-hand drag to Coombing, near Carcoar. I didn't fancy it altogether, good though the grass undoubtedly was. I managed to make my way back to Tarrone that night, where I recruited after the toils of the day. I informed my gallant and politic host that I thought I should go farther west. We parted on the morrow--to his relief, doubtless--with feelings of high mutual consideration. Years afterwards we had many a laugh about the fright I gave him; and when I was safely settled at Squattlesea Mere, less than twenty miles to the westward, I nearly concluded an agreement with him to rent Tarrone for five years, with the option of purchase, while he went to England. This was a year or two before the gold. The rental asked for run, herd (the same numbers, ages, and sexes to be returned), and homestead was calculated upon the fat cattle prices of the period--£2 : 10s. for cows, £3 for fat bullocks; so was the purchase money. I often thought how awfully sold my friend and neighbour would have been, as a shrewd man of business, not wholly unmindful of the main chance, had I closed with his offer. I finally declined it on the ground of the run being fully stocked up--our _bête noir_ in those deliciously simple days, when we thought it took ten acres, more or less, to fatten a bullock. But though it was not considered good form to settle down too close to a man's horse paddock, it would never have done to have taken the first occupier's word for what was his lawful right of run. By his own account there was never any permanent water "out back." All the decent land within twenty miles was his; the best thing the intending pastoralist could do was to go clean out of the district. Had the Dunmore people listened thus dutifully to Mr. Hunter of Eumeralla, they would never have taken up Dunmore, which, in the future, turned out a more valuable property than Eumeralla. Nor would the Messrs. Aplin have got St. Kitts, the runs of Yambuk and Tarrone being popularly supposed to absorb all the available country between their boundaries. Mr. Lemann, however, managed to insert himself and his belongings, wedge-fashion, between Tarrone and Kangatong, on the border of the Tarrone Marsh. Though small of stature, and not stalwart, he held his own, and fattened a decent average of his herd of 1000 or 1200 head annually until he sold out to Mr. Smith. Mr. Lemann had formerly been a kind of neighbour of ours, having fed his herd previously in the vicinity of a creek running into the Upper Yarra, near a flat which, if I mistake not, is known as "Lemann's Swamp" to this day. He was a well-informed man, who took a great interest in liberal politics. I well recollect his being filled with righteous wrath at the high-handed act of Rajah Brooke in making a clean sweep of a fleet of pirates. I said then, and have since been confirmed in my opinion, that the gallant ruler of Sarawak knew his business better than his Exeter Hall critics. Mr. Lemann had for working overseer and general stand-between him and personal exertion a country Englishman named Tom Cook, who with his wife managed everything that his stock-rider Hugh was not responsible for. I took some interest in the family, as we had hired Thomas aforesaid from the emigrant vessel as ploughman, and he had been in our service in that capacity at Heidelberg. From the fair-haired, fresh-coloured English farm labourer that he was then, I watched his development through various stages of colonial experience--into dairyman, knock-about-man, bullock-driver, and finally stock-rider at Kangatong. I rather think he had his smock-frock when he came to us, with English rustic tongue and gait. When I afterwards saw him at Mr. Smith's muster (I had sold Mr. Gibb, the dealer, who was lifting the fat cattle there, an additional drove, just started for Melbourne, at £8 all round, cash) he was quite the stock-rider of the period, with neat boots and seat to match, a sharp eye for calves, and, alas! a colonially-acquired taste for grog, and a fight afterwards, if possible. However, such were only occasional recreations, between which he was a first-rate worker and most worthy fellow. He and his good wife reared a family of Australian-born East Saxons; his eldest son--a tall fellow with a team of his own, grown a carrier--took away the first load of wool I ever sent from Squattlesea Mere, in 1862 or thereabouts. Among other things in which Cook showed his power of adaptation was the building of a stone cottage and dairy for Mr. Lemann. The country being of volcanic formation, stone to any amount was on hand, and he principally built the walls, nearly two feet in thickness, of a very snug bachelor establishment--a vast improvement, both in summer and winter, upon the ordinary slab architecture. After deciding not to buy Mr. Cox's heifer station, I happened to be staying at Grasmere, when I met, one evening, two strange gentlemen, a mile or two from the place, coming along rather travel-worn as to their steeds. These were my worthy friends James Dawson, now of Camperdown, and his friend and partner Mr. Selby. They, like Mr. Lemann, had been trying to make cattle pay on the Upper Yarra ranges--had, like him, concluded to start for the west country, then reported to be the best grass going, and not all taken up. They speedily heard of Mr. Cox having a station for sale, and he soon after returning from Tasmania, Mr. Dawson closed with him for the £30 or thereabouts. Messrs. Dawson and Selby shortly afterwards brought up their cattle, and, with their belongings, occupied the run. I always suspected Mr. Dawson, who was philologically inclined, to have extracted the name Kangatong from the aborigines subsequently, and christened the run after his arrival. It was among the things not generally known before his advent. Gradually and judiciously, as time passed on, Kangatong was improved, and so successfully managed that it took rank as one of the best paying stations in the district. Mr. Dawson and his family showed exceptional kindness towards the blacks who lived near them. Kangatong was just outside of the "tauri," or hereditary district of "the Children of the Rocks," or matters might not have continued so pacific, my old friend being of a temper singularly intolerant of injustice. But his tribelet had long mingled with the whalers of the Port, from which they were distant less than twenty miles. I doubt Port Fairy Campbell and his merry men had "civilised" them previously--_i.e._ shot a few of the more troublesome individuals. However, Mr. Dawson succeeded in making a valuable collection of data, from which he was enabled to publish his late work upon the manners, language, and religious customs of certain Australian aboriginals, which has received favourable mention from the _Saturday_ and other leading reviews. CHAPTER XVII LE CHEVALIER BAYARD It was in a year "before the gold" that I had occasion to ride to Kalangadoo, across the Adelaide border near Mount Gambier. Kalangadoo was a cattle station, then the property of the Messrs. Hunter, Alick, Jemmy, and Frank, who then dwelt there, and led the half-laborious, half-romantic life which to the cattle-station holder of the day was allotted. The "Mount Gambier mob," as in colonial parlance described, was at that time composed of men the majority of whom had attained to social distinction. Not far off, at Compton, lived Evelyn Sturt, to my eyes the veritable _fine fleur_ of the squatter type. In that year, let us say about 1850, he was a very grand-looking fellow--aristocratic, athletic, adventurous; an explorer, a pioneer, a _preux chevalier_ in every sense of the word, a leading colonist, with a strong dash of Bayard about him; popular with the men of his set, and, it is unnecessary to say, a general favourite with the women. He had the features, the bold autocratic regard with which the early romance-writers were wont to depict the Norman Baron, whose part I make no doubt he would have acted creditably had Fate but arranged his existence synchronically. The prejudices of the day being against a younger son's procuring a competence after the simple and masterful plan of his ancestors, he was constrained to betake himself with his brethren and kinsfolk to far countries and unknown seas. And right manfully had he, and they, of whom more than one name shines brightly on the pages of modern history, dared the perils of sea and shore, of waste and wilderness. He had been an explorer, was now a pioneer squatter drawing nearer and yet nearer to the goal of fortune. He had been rich, he had been poor, had driven his own bullocks, and been hardly pressed at times. But whatever the occupation or garb in which he elected to masquerade temporarily, no one ever looked upon Evelyn Sturt without its being strongly borne in upon his mind that he saw a gentleman of high degree. I admired him with a boy's natural feeling of hero-worship. All that I saw and heard of him heightened the idea. Not less stalwart than refined, But in close fight a champion grim, In camps a leader sage. The hero besides of numerous local legends. He had leaped from a bridge into a flooded river and rescued a drowning man. He had offered to suck the poison from the wound of a snake-bitten stock-rider. He had quelled the boldest bushman in a shearing row. He was chief magistrate, universal referee, good at all arms, gallant and gay. The modern exemplar of the good knight and true. Willie Mitchell was a different type--a more recent importation--tall, slight, delicate in frame and constitution--cultured and artistic; he was the nearest approach to the languid swell that in that robust and natural-mannered epoch we had encountered. He had been enticed to Australia by one of the Hunters, who, it appeared to us bush-abiding colonists, were always going "home." They had very properly pointed out to him that he could obtain a high interest for his money by investing it in stock, living like a gentleman the while--a point upon which he was decided. He had recently purchased a small but rich cattle run in the Mount Gambier district, where the water was subterranean, and the cattle had to be supplied by troughs. He afterwards sold this and purchased Langa-willi from Wright and Montgomery, who never did a bit of good after they sold it, the most perfect place and homestead in the West. But this by the way. Why Langa-willi will always be a point of interest in my memory, apart from other reasons, was that Henry Kingsley lived there the chief part of a year as a guest of Mitchell's. It was at Langa-willi that _Geoffrey Hamlyn_, that immortal work, the best Australian novel, and for long the only one, was written. In the well-appointed sitting-room of that most comfortable cottage one can imagine the gifted but somewhat ill-fated author sitting down comfortably after breakfast to his "copy," when his host had ridden forth with the overseer to make believe to inspect the flocks, but in reality to get an appetite for lunch. I like to think of them spending the evening sociably in their own way, both rather silent men--Kingsley writing till he had covered the regulation number of sheets--or finished the chapter, perhaps, where the bushrangers came to Garoopna; Mitchell, reading steadily, or writing up his home correspondence; the old housekeeper coming in with the glasses at ten o'clock, then a tumbler of toddy, a smoke in the verandah, or over the fire if in winter, and so to bed. Peaceful, unexciting days and nights, good for Mitchell, who was not over-strong, and for his talented guest. I suspect that in England, where both abode in later years, they often looked back with regret to the peerless climate, the calm days, the restful evenings, spent so far beyond the southern main at Langa-willi. The surroundings were judiciously utilised by the author as furnishing that flavour of verisimilitude which added so much to the charm of his fiction. Baroona, where the Buckleys lived, is the name of a property not far from Mount Hesse, and Widderin, the name of Sam Buckley's famous horse, is also that of a hill visible from the plains of Skipton. Mr. Mitchell, I may mention, was one of those investors who apparently have only to buy a place to make money out of it. He did so at the Mount Gambier station, knowing no more of cattle and their ways, when he bought it, than of the habits of the alpaca. He then bought Langa-willi, with 20,000 sheep or so, having the same pleasing ignorance of their tastes and management; held it till after the gold; never did any work himself; spent a fair portion of his time at the Melbourne Club. Finally sold out at a handsome profit with a large stock of sheep, and departed to England, never to return. This looks like luck. Doubtless there was an infusion of that most agreeable ingredient. But I have no doubt either that the mild and elegant William possessed a reasonable share of prudence, about which, like his other endowments and accomplishments, he said nothing. His first introduction to our Port Fairy community was at race time, when he appeared with the Hunters and Sturt, riding a beautiful little blood mare called Medora, a safe and easy mount, his long legs curiously near the ground. There couldn't be, however, a nicer fellow, and Australia will ever owe him a debt of gratitude for extending the hand of generous and delicate hospitality to the artist who first worthily illustrated her free forest life, her adventurous sons and daughters fair. Charles Mackinnon, erst of Skye--old Charles as he may possibly now be called, alas! and may not the insidious adjective be applied to others of his contemporaries?--dwelt hard by with Mr. Watson, his partner. He yet lives in my memory as the kindest of men. "Kind as a woman" exactly describes his disposition as exemplified in my case. There were no women, by the way, thereabouts in those days, except black ones, who used to fetch in the horses on foot, carry water, and otherwise make themselves useful. While at Kalangadoo I was suddenly knocked over by a feverish attack--an exceptional case with me--then, as now, tolerably tough; but an hour or two of that kind of thing takes the conceit out of the best of us. Shivering and burning by turns, with throbbing headache and nausea, I had to lie down to it, and was very bad all one night. Charles Mackinnon watched over me in the most patient manner the while. We were new acquaintances, too. I remember distinctly his appearance next morning with a bowl of beef-tea, with which I broke a twenty-four hours' fast. Finding that I anxiously desired to become possessed of a black boy, he procured me a small imp, so young and callow that he fell off the quiet old horse (which Mackinnon also lent me for him to ride home on), and, sprawling in the midst of the dust, cried piteously. Poor Charlie Gambier! as I named him--he had the honour of being christened by his lordship the late Bishop Perry of Melbourne. He was also taught, with great pains and perseverance, his catechism. He could read his Bible well. He turned out much the sort of Christian that might have been expected, deteriorating rapidly after the age of fifteen, and learning to drink spirits and copy the undesirable white man with painful accuracy. John Meredith, a scion of a well-known Tasmanian family, was another resident within hail of the Mount. A stalwart Australian in good sooth, 6 feet 4 inches, or thereabouts, in his stocking-soles; blue-eyed, fair-bearded, and about twice as tall as any old-style Cambrian, I should say, in the somewhat "rangey" country whence his ancestors came. I had made his acquaintance by riding from Melbourne with him a year or so before. Having just come over from Tasmania with a faithful retainer and four horses, thence imported, he was journeying to a run which he had bought. He rode an immense black horse, which carried him "like a pony," fifteen stone and over as his weight probably then was! I well remember speculating as to how such a horse might be bred--a grand forehand, clean flat legs, active, powerful, blood-like, a great jumper, and a good carriage horse. Let any one try to pick up an animal of this type, no matter what price he is prepared to give. He will then realise the correctness of my conviction then, wholly unaltered by after-experience, of his rarity and value. The faithful retainer, whose name was William Godbold, was a grim-looking "old hand," who had, however, risked his life in a memorable flood in order to save a comrade. Years after the faithful retainer came to work on my station, and being looked upon as "such a good man," was permitted to purchase a colt on credit. He availed himself of the credit (and the colt) by riding him across the border to Mount Gambier. There was no extradition treaty in those days. A fawn bay, with a black stripe down his back, a shoulder cross and mule markings (see Darwin), four years old, fast and sound--I never was paid for that colt, and "still the memory rankles," trifling as is the deficit! Many debts have I forgiven. Some, alas! have had to be forgiven to me. But that colt--"Chilleno" by name, own brother to my best hack "The Gaucha"--I can't forgive that one. On my way out and back--it was some four or five days' ride--I stayed at various stations. It was _de règle_ in those days, and I don't know a pleasanter ending to a day's ride than meeting a hospitable squatter in his own house. You have had just work enough to tire you reasonably, to make you enjoy a cheerful meal, some fresh unstudied talk (people are twice as confidential in the bush, even with strangers, as they are in town), a smoke in the verandah, and the sound, peaceful sleep that follows all. Then the awakening in the lovely fresh bush air, winter or summer, the feeling is ennobling, invigorating. As he fills his lungs and expands his breast therewith the wayfarer feels a better and wiser man. Old Mr. Robertson, a Scottish settler, had a lovely station on the Wannon. To his homestead travellers chiefly gravitated for reasons which he summarised somewhat plainly on one occasion. "Don't think I believe you come to see old Robertson," he said. "In the summer it's the fruit that fetches you, and in the winter Mary's jam." Now, Miss Robertson's preserves and conserves were the admiration of the whole district, while the orchard in the season was a marvel for fruit of every kind and sort. I wish I could show those good people and certain conceited gardeners who persist in pruning and cutting every lower limb of their fruit trees, the orchard at Wando Vale, as in those days. Great umbrageous apple trees with long lateral branches trailing on the ground, covered with fruit of the _finest size_ and _quality_. The remarkable thing about these apple trees was that they had never been grafted or pruned. They all came from the seed of a barrel of decayed apples, and which, being of many different varieties, were, as the old gentleman expressed it, "each better than the other." That such is not the general result I am aware, being a bit of a gardener myself, but it was the fact in this instance, as I saw and tasted the fruit, and have the word of the owner for it besides, who planted the trees with his own hands. Mr. Alfred Arden I remember visiting at Hilgay, as also the late John Coldham of Grassdale. What a lovely bit of country his was! And is not all the Wannon the "pick of creation"--Colac, perhaps, excepted? Low deep-swarded hills, rolling downs, and thickly-timbered slopes, all wheat land, and forty bushels to the acre at that. Too good for this wicked world almost! The men who took it up first had hardly sufficient inducement to exert themselves. There is such a thing as being too well off. I am aware it is not good for me, above all men, but I should like to have a try at bearing it again, and risk His dangerous wealth With all the woes it brings. CHAPTER XVIII THE CHRISTENING OF HEIDELBERG When we came to Melbourne in 1840 we might have bought all the land between Prince's Bridge and Upper Toorak for the merest trifle above "upset price." As to Sandridge, St. Kilda, and Brighton, they might almost have been "taken up," so low was the estimate of their value by the colonists of the period. Mr. Dendy did pre-empt 5000 acres hard by the city, at Brighton, under the special survey regulations which then obtained, at £1 per acre. We certainly secured a trifle of seventy acres, upon which the viceregal residence of Toorak was afterwards erected. But some frivolous objection to the agricultural properties of the soil weighed with the head of the family, who, after a few unimportant purchases of town allotments--such as two acres in Flinders Street running back to the lane so named and adjoining Degraves' buildings, a half-acre near to the corner of Collins and Elizabeth Streets, another in Bourke Street, besides a dozen more in various parts of Melbourne--finally decided to build and permanently reside at Heidelberg. This romantically-named suburb was seven miles from Melbourne, with an unmade road through black soil of considerable richness, and a tenacity, when resolved into mud, which I have, during much after-experience, rarely seen equalled. It might have appeared to some persons a matter of supererogation this planting one's self so many miles away from an infant settlement, such as Melbourne then was. A matter involving loss of time, too, expense in transit, besides exile from whatever society was then available. But these considerations availed not against the charming prospect of a rural home, a country-house surrounded by an estate of fertile land, bordered by the clear-flowing Yarra, and glorified by a distant prospect of the Australian Alps. But chiefly alluring were the persuasive tongue, the sanguine predictions, and the enjoyable _al fresco_ entertainments of Mr. R. H. Brown, a social celebrity of the day, fashionable and distinguished, generally known, from his reminiscent enthusiasm on the subject of the grand European tour, as Continental Brown. This sentimental speculator, most refined of land agents, had, either personally or as deputy for a firm of Sydney capitalists, purchased a block of land extending nearly from the Darebin Creek to the village, and comprising the estates of Chelsworth, Waverley, Hartlands, and Leighton. There was also a section named Maltravers. I am not sure, indeed, whether he did not christen the whole block "Maltravers," in compliment to the Master upon whose melancholy, philosophical, resistless hero so many of the _viveurs_ of the day fashioned themselves. Slight, vivacious, _soigné_ in dress and courteous of manner, a good business man (was he not a bank director in his leisure moments, that is, when he was not giving dinners and _déjeuners_, getting up picnics, improvising balls and generally _faisant l'agréable_ all round?), he managed to "place" Heidelberg at a considerable advance upon the original purchase money. I can see him now in the centre of a group of admiring friends, chiefly of the fair sex, standing on one of the heights which overlooked the meadows of the Yarra. "There, my dear madam, permit me to direct your gaze. Do you not observe the silver thread of the river winding through that exquisite green valley? It reminds me so vividly of the gliding Neckar, and, alas! (here a most telling sigh) of scenes, of friends, loved and lost. I can fancy that I look at my ever-remembered, ever-regretted Heidelberg! Those slopes rising from the farther river-shore will be terraced vineyards; and there, where you can faintly discern the snow pinnacle on yon spur of the Australian Alps, I can imagine the grand outline of the Hartz Mountains. It is, it shall be, Heidelberg! Charles, open more champagne. We must christen this thrice-favoured spot, on this trebly-auspicious day, worthily, irrevocably!" In some such fashion Heidelberg was named, and, what was more to the purpose, sold. It is undeniably strong as to scenery, superior as to soil; it has water privileges; but seeing that all this happened a trifle over forty years agone, it may strike the original investors who still hold a proportion of the ground, that they might have laid out their cash to greater advantage, and that they have waited a good while for that advance in prices which will recoup everything. Heidelberg, thus sponsored, took rank as a fashionable suburb, and divers personages, according to an inevitable natural law, were attracted thereto. Captain George Brunswick Smyth, formerly of her Majesty's 50th Regiment, purchased Chelsworth. Mr. David M'Arthur came next to him. Then Waverley and Hartlands, the Rev. John Bolden, Mr. Hawdon at Banyule, and later on Dr. Martin, beyond him again. Still more distant, on the Rosanna estate, dwelt no less a potentate than Mr. Justice Willis, the Supreme Court Rhadamanthus of the day, who must have expended considerably more than half his time in driving in his carriage and pair into Melbourne and back along the miry, almost impassable track into which the winter rains invariably converted the road. This not undistinguished legal celebrity we had known in Sydney, and he presented himself to my youthful intelligence as a good-natured, mild-mannered old gentleman, with whom I used to go quail and duck shooting in the meadows bordering the Yarra on Mr. Hawdon's and neighbouring estates. On these occasions the late Mr. Archibald Thom, who rented part of Banyule from Mr. Hawdon, often accompanied us. And a very deadly shot he was. The Judge shot fairly well, and after a decent morning's sport was genial and gracious in a marked degree. But when he doffed the russet tweeds and donned the ermine, he became utterly transformed. It was averred, too, altogether for the worse. His impatience of contradiction, his acerbity of manner, and his infirmity of temper, were painful to witness, and dangerous to encounter. They landed him in contentions with all sorts and conditions of men, and ultimately led to his suspension by the Governor-General, a rare and exceptional proceeding. I quote here verbatim from my journal, of date Wednesday, 3rd August 1841:-- Nothing particular happened on the farm to-day, but the whole of Melbourne was in a commotion about His Honour Judge Willis. It appears that His Honour having said that he would commit anybody who offered to serve the order upon him to go to Sydney, signed by the three judges there resident, as being illegal, was met by Messrs. Carrington and Ebden, who tendered the order to him, and, upon his refusing to take it, _actually threw it at him_, upon which he immediately committed them to gaol. There was a great crowd, many of whom supported the Judge, but others the prisoners. Some gentlemen, however, were present and saw the insult offered. On the following day's page I find further allusion to this "high-toned" episode in Melbourne's early life. THURSDAY, _4th August 1841_. The gentlemen who insulted the Judge yesterday were brought up before the Magistrates in order that they might be committed to take their trial. However, strange to say, in spite of the evidence of four or five respectable persons who swore to the outrage, the worthy gentlemen were acquitted. There were, however, upon the Bench several personal enemies of the Judge. Many persons are of opinion that the decision is infamous. It will be seen that we then distinctly sided with His Irascibility, and would doubtless have been a vigorous partisan against the "personal enemies" had we written for the press of the period. However, in spite of our sympathies, and those of other well-meaning friends, His Honour Mr. Justice Willis was compelled to go to Sydney, thence to England. It was understood that he there gained a technical victory, but had a hint to resign. Mr. Thomas Wills owned "Lucerne," close by Alphington, the village on the Darebin Creek since called into being and so named. He had a fancy for the great fodder plant, and was the first proprietor in the neighbourhood to lay down any considerable breadth of land with it. From it, or as a _souvenir_ of the world-renowned lake, the estate was named. I don't know that the Heidelberg proprietors could be called a fortunate community. Something of the nature of disaster happened to all of them. Possibly in the course of three or four decades an average of misfortune occurs in most families. But our district was exceptional. The wreck of the _London_ brought mourning and lifelong grief into one family. Cheery, kindly Joe Hawdon, the pioneer, the explorer, the jolly squire of Banyule, died when scarce over middle age. The Bolden family lost two sons who had arrived at man's estate--one killed by a fall from his horse; one, a young officer rising in the service, by a tiger in India. Our house, endeared by many memories, was burned by an incendiary, still undiscovered. A tree fell on our good friend and neighbour, Mr. M'Arthur, and _very_ nearly crushed the life out of him. Captain Smyth died young, and Lucerne has long been untenanted by any representative of the Wills family. Some of these fine days, they tell me, there will be a railway to Heidelberg. Then the slopes will be cut up into building sites, the river meadows irrigated, or turned into market gardens and creameries. The Australian Alps will be more visible to the naked eye than ever. Some squatter from Riverina or Queensland, who has just disposed of his stations for half-a-million to a syndicate, will build an imitation of the historic Castle, with the Great Tun, to be filled with White Yering. Dances of vignerons or happy peasants will be frequent; and Mr. R. H. Brown, if still in the flesh, may see his prophetic vision so nearly fulfilled that it will hardly be worth his while to return to a continental Elysium. But, sentiment apart, there was a flavour of real country life about the district, protected as it was from intrusion on the east and north-east by the deep unforded river, in which more than one death took place from drowning. Heidelberg, apparently, always had attractions for men whose sympathies lay in the direction of stud farms and the improvement of stock. Chelsworth then, as later on, was the home of pedigree shorthorns, Captain Brunswick Smyth having imported cows of very blue blood, which passed into Mr. Bolden's possession, and were incorporated with the Grasmere herd. Mahomet, Young Mussulman, Lady Vane and her daughter were located at Leighton; whilst "Snoozer" by "Muley Moloch," and other sires of high lineage, abode hard by. Yes; in some respects the devoted admirer of Bulwer Lytton had not over-coloured the landscape. Heidelberg was undeniably picturesque, and had climatic advantages. It was cooler than the sand-dunes of Brighton and St. Kilda, than the low hills of Toorak, than the river meadow upon which Melbourne proper then chiefly stood. Waves of mountain air were wafted from the Alps, on which, though many miles distant, the snow was clearly visible. Those of us who, in after years, were members of the old Melbourne Club in Lower Collins Street, often preferred a longish night ride for the immunity from mosquitoes which Heidelberg then afforded. The river meadows by the Yarra were composed of a deep, black, fertile loam, eminently suited for orchards, cereals, and root crops. Taking into consideration the quality of the soil, the proximity of the river, the variety of the landscape, no suburb would have equalled Heidelberg in attractiveness had it not been handicapped by distance from the metropolis. Rail, road traffic, and settlement--all appeared to have gone north, south, west; anywhere but towards Heidelberg. Now that every foot of building land near Melbourne has been bought and built upon--has become "terraced slopes," in the evil sense of modern overcrowding, perhaps the beneficent Heidelberg and Alphington Railway will open up the untouched glades which still silently overlook the murmuring river, still lie hushed to sleep in the shadow of the great Australian mountain chain. CHAPTER XIX THE WOODLANDS STEEPLECHASE Oh! the merry days, The merry days, when we were young! Sang the ladye fayre. I can hear the clear rich tones even now. Ah me! what days were those! Why will they not come back? We are scarcely of such hoar antiquity that we may not enjoy the present reasonably, when "gracieuses" dames and demoiselles look brightly on us with those haunting eyes of theirs. But, oh! the awakening at dawn, that is when we find the difference. How glorious was it to regain consciousness from out a realm of poet dreams, with the certainty of a day of stirring world-strife before us. At the _réveille_ of that enchanted time, how gaily the knight donned harness and mounted steed, serenely conscious of his ability to perform his devoir "right manful under shield," confident of winning his guerdon, even, perchance, a smile from the Queen of Beauty herself. Now, alas, the sky seems lowering and sad-coloured, the lines of the foe ever serried and close ranked, the blows come shrewder and more difficult of parry. More than once has the knight been, by trusty squire or faithful friend, Dragged from amid the horses' feet, With dinted shield and helmet beat. We were ever and anon minded to answer in the affirmative to the "rendez vous!" of Fate so persistently repeated. Yet will we forward still, parrying lance-thrust here, fending sword-play there. Many a trusty comrade is down; we miss the cheery tones of a voice that sounded never far from our right arm, in feast or in foray. Yet still _en avant_ seems more natural than halt or retreat. Ye gods! what a spring morning was that on which we hurled ourselves out of bed at Woodlands, with the full, absorbing, wildly-exciting knowledge, even in that first moment of consciousness, that _The Steeplechase_ was to be run that day--an Olympic game in which we were to share. A truly classic conflict in which the competitors were mostly men of mark, where the spectators were friends, relatives, and sympathisers, and where divine personages in the shape of various ladies of the period, lovely and beloved, were to gaze upon our prowess, thrill at our daring, and "weep when a warrior nobly falls." We had a warrior, Colonel Acland Anderson--poor fellow; we had four squatters, Molesworth and Rawdon Greene, Edmund M'Neill, and "the duffer who writes this" reminiscence. Last, not least, we had a Chief-Justice _in posse_. He wasn't Sir William in those days, only a hard-riding, hard-working, manifestly rising barrister, perhaps not inaptly described by a maid-servant from the Emerald Isle, at a house where he had called, and who, in the fluster of the interview, had forgotten his name, as "a mighty plisant young man with foxy whiskers." We were a goodly company, all staying at Woodlands for a week or two--have people leisure and inclination to do this sort of thing now?--and this steeplechase had been improvised to take place on the plain before Woodlands House, as an acceptable variation of the ordinary programme, which comprised other entertainments besides the orthodox dance which ended the day. Was there not also another legal celebrity not as yet graced with the accolade? Cheery, cultured, courteous Redmond Barry--did he not write a charade duly enacted by us youths and maidens, besides coaching us in "The Chough and Crow" and divers glees and part-songs? In that Arcadian period what a nice place Woodlands was! Somehow one could afford to take life more easily in those days. The sons of the house were sometimes up the country at their stations, especially at shearing time, but managed to be a good deal at the old home. And when they were there the châtelaine wisely took heed to make home a pleasant place; to that end inviting friends and well-wishers, among whom I had the privilege to be inscribed. Great were the doings done, and very pleasant the days we spent there. Thus Woodlands stands before me, looking back over those half-forgotten days, as "the country-house" _par excellence_ of the period. Neither a farm nor yet a large estate, it was something between the two, while the household and the _ménage_ generally were more in accordance with the habitudes of English country-house life than often obtains in Australia. Mr. Pomeroy Greene, resolving to make Victoria his future home, had emigrated after a comprehensive fashion--not now so common. He brought with him, in addition to his large family, a house, with men-servants and maid-servants, horses and carriages, farm tools and implements, nearly everything which he could have needed had he proceeded to free-select an uninhabited island. Was there not "Rory O'More," a son of "Irish Birdcatcher"; "Nora Creina," dam by "Drone"; the graceful "Taglioni," and the hunter "Pickwick," a big, powerful, Galway-looking nag, up to any weight over any height, and not too refined to draw a cart or do a day's harrowing on a pinch? An exceedingly useful stamp of horse in a new country, most of us will admit, and quite worth his passage money. Also, in this connection, came Tom Brannigan, an active, resolute, humorous young Irishman, with a decided family likeness to one Mickey Free about him. He was stud groom, and a model retainer during the first years of the settlement of Woodlands. Let me not forget Smith, the butler, a decorous, solemn personage of staid demeanour and faultless accuracy of get-up, an occasional twinkle of the eye only at times betraying that he belonged to the Milesian and not the Saxon branch of his widely-dispersed family and vocation. Just thirteen miles from Melbourne, Woodlands was a pleasant morning or afternoon's ride--an easy drive. You left Melbourne by the Flemington road, traversed the Moonee Ponds, finally debouching upon the plain, whence you saw the house, built bungalow fashion upon a wooded slope, with flanking wings and a courtyard, verandah-encircled likewise, facing eastward towards Sunbury, and on the west having an extensive outlook over plain and forest, with the sea in the distance. The landscape was extensive, "wide and wild, and open to the air," but sufficiently wooded to prevent the expression of bleakness. These thoughts possibly do not occur to me as I dress provisionally in shooting coat, slippers, etc., and rush out to the stables to look at the gallant steed that is to carry Cæsar and his fortunes, a game-looking Arab grey, fast and a good fencer, the property of one John Fitzgerald Leslie Foster--a guest at the time, and lent to me for the occasion. Only been a few days off grass, though otherwise in good buckle. The certainty of his being short of condition does not weigh with me, however, so anxious am I to have a throw in and sport my tops and cords. Tom Brannigan thinks "he has a great spring in him entirely," and encourages me to hope that a lucky chance may land me a winner. He relates an anecdote of his brother Jim, a well-known steeplechase jock, in a race where the fences were terrific. One of the country people was heard to say, "Sure the most of them would break their necks, but Jim Brannigan and the ould mare would have a leg to spare, somehow or somehow." Much comforted by this apposite reference, I shut the door, and inspect the rest of the stable. It is not a very small one. Having a look for the hundredth time at "Rory O'More"--a beautiful brown horse, showing great quality, with a strong likeness to "The Premier" in more than one of his points, and glancing at a couple of yearlings--I betake myself to an inspection of the battle-steeds of the day. They are a goodish lot, and in that state and condition of life which impress on me the idea that, unless under the favouring accident of a general _bouleversement_, my chance of winning is slender indeed. First of all stands an elegant blood-looking grey, the property of the heir-apparent, sheeted, hooded, and done up in great style. He is as "fit as a fiddle," and will have on his back an exceedingly cool and determined rider--who, like Mr. Stripes, "will not throw a chance away." Next to him is a powerful, hunter-looking bay, an animal which would fetch about four hundred guineas in England. Let me describe him--remembering as I do every hair in his skin. I had ridden him more than once, and the reader, if he has been home lately, will note if I have overrated his price. A three-quarter or four-fifths bred horse, bay with black points, save one white hind leg. A light, well-shaped head, a good neck, and shoulders so oblique that it took the length of the snaffle bridle to pay out for rein; flat and clean bone under the knee, deep across the heart, powerful quarter, with muscular thighs and well-bent hocks. He would have been quite in the English fashion of the present day, as he had a shortish pulled tail. Height about fifteen hands three inches, on short legs. This was "Thur'mpogue," the property of Edmund M'Neill, of the firm of Hall and M'Neill, near Daisy Hill. The portrait is that of a weight-carrier, doubtless. And so he needed to be, the aforesaid Edmund being of the unusual height of six and a half feet. Though not particularly broad, it will be seen that he could not be a very light man. In another box stands a long, low, blood-like chestnut horse. He winces and lays back his ears after a fashion which indicates temper, as the boy pulls the sheet off at my instigation. The test is a true one. What little he has is proverbially bad, and he has deposited so many riders in unexpected localities by "mount, and stream, and sea," that a less resolute horseman than the Chief would have fought shy of him as an investment. He is in great form, however, and as hard as nails, his close bright golden coat shining like shot satin. I involuntarily give vent to an exclamation, which denotes that my own and other people's chances have receded since interviewing "The Master of the Rolls," for such is the legal luminary I now behold. Back to bedroom and bath; for by this time dressing has set in seriously all over the house, and the bachelors' apartments, in a separate wing, resound with the careless talk and frequent laughter which are sure to emanate from a number of friends in the golden prime. All sorts of opinions are volunteered about the merits of each other's horses, sarcastic hints as to horsemanship and condition, laughing retorts and confident anticipations, are to be heard on every side, welling out from the bed-chambers and along the corridors, into which, with the exuberance of youth, the inmates, in various stages of apparelling, likewise overflow. We all met at breakfast, of course. Talk about suppers! There may be, doubtless, a fair share of enjoyable "causerie," or even serious love-making, at supper, "when wit and wine sparkle instead of the sun"; but for real, honest, hearty enjoyment, when all is sanguine anticipation of excitement or success, with good weather, good spirits, and good company, commend me to a country-house at breakfast time, where the sexes are judiciously mingled, and a hunt, a steeplechase, or a picnic is on the cards. There may be a few things better in this life of ours. If so, I have seldom come across them. Of course it was then and there arranged who were to drive whom--what traps, carriages, hacks, and so on were to be requisitioned. The organisation even went so far--if my memory serves me--as that every knight should be presented with the colours of some ladye fayre--after humble petition on bended knee--by my halidome!--which he doubtless swore to carry to the front, or nobly fall. I don't retain a clear account of the preliminaries on the morning of the "Grand National"; but I think we must have made as much fuss and given as much trouble. When, about mid-day, we turned out on the plain below Woodlands House, where the carriages were drawn up and the spectators assembled in expectation of our appearance, the excitement had passed from the stage of tireless energy to that of fervent concentration. Each man wore an aspect of settled, unflinching resolution, such as might have befitted, in an after-time, Those who ran the tilt that day With Death, and bore their lives away From the Balaclava Charge! Out we came at last, a fairish field to look at, men and horses, though I say it. I should premise that the leaps were composed of two-railed fences, brushed underneath, about fifteen in all, from four feet to four feet six in height, and sufficiently stiff, as the event proved. On the upper or eastern side of the course, where shade was procurable, were entrenched the carriages and non-combatants, among whom Mr. Redmond Barry, Mr. Leslie Foster, William Anderson, "Count" Ogilby, and other disengaged cavaliers, who did their devoir in entertaining the ladies and judiciously criticising the field. Jimmy Ellis, friend and pastoral partner of one William Stawell, a brisk, black-bearded, hard-riding little Milesian, was starter and clerk of the course. Here we came up for the last time, more or less soberly or skittishly, to the post, with cords and tops, silk jackets and caps, "accoutred proper," full jockey costume being _de rigueur_. A correct card of the race would probably have read as follows. The colours of the riders may have partially faded out of memory's ken, inasmuch as "it was many and many a year ago." 1. Mr. Molesworth Greene's grey horse "Trifle," four years, pink and white--ridden by owner. 2. Mr. Stawell's "Master of the Rolls," aged chestnut, scarlet and black--owner. 3. Mr. E. M'Neill's bay horse "Thur'mpogue," blue and silver--owner. 4. Mr. Acland Anderson's bay horse "Spider," ridden by Mr. Rawdon Greene--crimson and gold. 5. Mr. William Anderson's chestnut horse "Murgah," ridden by Mr. Acland Anderson--maroon jacket, black cap. 6. Mr. Leslie Foster's grey horse "Achmet," ridden by Mr. Rolf Boldrewood--white and magenta. We are marshalled in line by Jimmy Ellis, and a good start not being so vitally important as in a flat race, we get comfortably away. Pretty close together we charge the first fence, which is negotiated with "ease to the riders and satisfaction to the lookers-on." The turf is green and firm, and the distance to the next fence rather greater, so we make the pace better, and, as we near it, blood begins to tell. The brothers Greene are first over, followed by "Thur'mpogue," the rider of the "Master of the Rolls" lying off, and evidently doing a little generalship. In the second division come my grey and William Anderson's chestnut. Both clear the fence well, and pull double, as we try to keep what wind they have, available for the finish. So we fare on; each fence shows that the race will mainly lie between Molesworth Greene's grey and the chestnut of Mr. Stawell, the latter taking all his fences in stride, and looking as resolute as at the first. Rawdon Greene, Acland Anderson, and M'Neill are riding jealously for second place. The pace is now as good as we can make it. We are all at the second fence from home. The grey and the chestnut, almost neck and neck, are taking their leaps together, "Trifle" with a slight lead. We are all going our best. It has come to the do-or-die stage, and every man sets his teeth and rides for his life. We are in full view of the grand stand too. I have been taking a pull at my grey, and manage, by a rush, to send him up into respectable prominence, when Rawdon Greene's horse hits a top-rail a terrible clout, which flies up and disturbs "Thur'mpogue's" sensitive nerves as he measures his distance for the leap. Half looking back, half jumping, he strikes the rail close to the post. It bends, but does not break. The big horse balances for a moment, and then falls, rolling heavily over his rider. "Thur'mpogue" rises in a moment, and makes a beeline--head up and rein flying--for the nearest road to Daisy Hill--a practice "quite frequent" with him whenever he happens to get loose. His rider does not rise, or indeed move for a few minutes. He has broken a rib, and, like Mr. Tupman, had all the temporary supply of breath knocked out of his body. The rest of the field finish creditably close, Molesworth Greene's grey being beaten on the post by the "Master of the Rolls." We did not wait there long, every one being anxious about the precise amount of damage sustained by "Emun Mhor," or Long Edmund, as we heard he was called by the tenantry of the estate after his return to Ireland. Knowing that if he did not die on the field, he would naturally be anxious for the safety of such a horse as "Thur'mpogue," and an extremely swell Wilkinson and Kidd saddle, I started off on the track, and was lucky enough to run him down just as he was preparing to cross the Deep Creek. As I led him back I encountered Jimmy Ellis, also running the trail like a black tracker, with his head so low to the ground that he did not see me till I was close on top of him. When we returned to the scene of our contest the wounded warrior was being conveyed to the house in Mrs. Anderson's barouche, doubtless receiving an amount of sympathy which fully compensated for the pain and inconvenience of his mishap. He was not able to join in the dance which delightfully finished up the day's entertainment, or, indeed, to leave his room; but he was an interesting personage thenceforth, with his arm in a sling, and gained prestige and consideration during the remainder of the revels. The worst of these brief sketches, roughed off at intervals snatched from a busy life when Mournful memory sitteth singing Of the days that are no more, is that melancholy reflections will obtrude themselves. How many of one's comrades who made the joy of that pleasant time are no more! Of that same cheery gathering, how many lie low--how small a party should we now make could we meet--how different would be our greetings! It boots not to grieve. If we don't ride steeplechases, or try conclusions with the half-tamed steed, we still find a warm place in our hearts for a good hack. His Honour Sir William Stawell doesn't do much in the four-in-hand line nowadays, but I hear that he can walk up a mountain yet, and do his share of bush travelling in vacation. Life is but a battlefield at best, and we, the survivors of more than one decisive action, must bow to the merciful fate which has kept us so far unscathed, while in secret we make moan over those who lie beneath green turf or murmuring wave, desert sand or wild-wood tree; whose place in our hearts, spite of careless speech and smiling brow, may never be filled up. CHAPTER XX YERING When Mr. Lemuel Bolden and I rode to Yering from Heidelberg, about the year 1845, to pay a promised visit to Mr. William Ryrie, the Upper Yarra road and the place of our destination presented a different appearance. We forded the Yarra below Mr. D. C. M'Arthur's orchard, and crossing a heavily-timbered river-flat, with deep reed-fringed lagoons, debouched on the up-river road. This particular locality was well known to me, inasmuch as, being formerly in our pastoral possession, it had constituted a species of "chase" in my early sporting days. The only denizens of that period were an occasional pair of sawyers, generally "Derwenters," as the Tasmanian expirees were called, thither attracted by the unusual size and straightness of the timber which grew in the flats and "bends" of the winding Yarra. Owing to the sinuous shape of the lagoons on the south side of the river, coupled with the dense nature of the thickets, it was not an easy matter for a stranger to find his way through the maze. It naturally came to be, therefore, the happy hunting ground of my boyhood; many a grand day's sport and thrilling adventure did I have therein. The largest lagoon was fringed with a wide border of reeds, growing in deep water. It had in the centre a clear lakelet or mere, upon the lonely waters of which disported the mountain duck, with his black and other congeners, the greater and lesser grebe; while among the reeds waded or flew the heron (_Ardea australis_), the sultana water-hen, a red-billed variety of the coot, the bittern, the land-rail, and in the season an occasional flock of pied geese or black swans. To approach the wild-fowl in the open mere was a work of difficulty, if not of danger, inasmuch as the water was too deep for wading, and the entanglement with weeds--which then cost more than one strong swimmer his life--was not out of the reckoning. I did once struggle to the verge of total exhaustion within the green meshes of one of these weed nets, in a lonely pool in which I had to swim for a black duck. The thought uppermost in my mind was that it would be such a time before I should be found, in case of--an accident which didn't come off. I used to circumvent my feathered friends in the horse-shoe lagoon by climbing a tree upon the slope which lay opposite. From this coign of vantage I could see the birds swimming in fancied security, and lay plans accordingly. In order to open fire with effect, I had caused to be conveyed a light canoe, which one of my sawyer friends had neatly scooped out for me, into the outer mere among the reeds. It was in waist-deep water--carefully concealed, and I could, of course, gain it unseen. Paddling or pulling it through the outer reed-brake, I ensconced myself at the edge of the clear water, waiting patiently until the unsuspecting birds sailed past. Once I remember getting two couple of black duck. An occasional goose, or even the lordly swan, found its way into my bag. Once, as I had planned a day's shooting, I was startled by seeing a flock of ducks wheeling around, and finally making straight for the South Pole, as if decided not to return for a year. Gazing angrily around to discern the cause of this untoward migration, I descried a man carefully got up in correct shooting rig emerge from the reeds. Half-paralysed by the audacity of the unknown--this was years before the free-selection discovery--I sat still in my saddle for one moment. Then, as the enormity of the offence--trespass on our run--rose before me, I dashed spurs into my horse and charged the offender. "What's your name, and what do you mean by coming here to shoot and frighten the ducks?" I called out, stopping my frantic steed within a few feet of him. "Don't you know whose ground you're on?" The unknown looked calmly at me with a rather amused countenance (I was about fourteen, and scarcely looked my age), and then said, "Who the devil are you?" "My name's Boldrewood," I returned, "and this is our run, and no one has any right to come here and shoot or do anything else without my father's leave." "Gad! I thought it was the Lord of the Manor at least! You're a smart youngster, but I don't know that there are any game laws in this country. What are you going to do with me for instance?" The stranger turned out to be a guest at a neighbouring station. There were cattle stations in the vicinity in those days. Anyhow, we compromised matters and finished the day together. Not far from the spot the late John Hunter Kerr, afterwards of Fernihurst, had a veritable cattle station. I attended one of the musters for a purpose. The cattle were in the yard, with various stock-riders and neighbours sitting around, preparatory to drafting, as I rode up, attended by a sable retainer driving a horse and cart. What did I please to want? "I've come for our black J. B. bullock," said I. "He has been running with your cattle these two years, and I thought he would most likely come in with your muster." "He is here sure enough, and in fine order, but how are you going to take him home? He always clears the yard when we begin to draft, and no stock-rider about here can drive him single-handed." "I'll take him home fast enough," returned I, with colonial confidence, "if he'll stay in the yard long enough for me to shoot him." "Oh, that's the idea," quoth Mr. Kerr. "Go to work; only don't miss him or drop any of my cattle." "No fear." Old Harvey, an expatriated countryman of Cetewayo's, handed me my single-barrelled fowling-piece, a generally useful weapon, which had been loaded with ball for the occasion. I walked cautiously through the staring, wildish cattle, to the middle of the yard, where stood the big black bullock. He lowered his head, and began to paw the ground. I made a low bovine murmur, which I had found effective before; he raises his head and looks full at me for a second. The bullet crashes into the forehead "curl," and the huge savage lies prone--a quivering mass. Harvey promptly performs the necessary phlebotomy, and being dragged out of the yard, the black ox is skinned, quartered, and on his way to the beef-cask at Hartlands well within twenty minutes of his downfall. Years after, when a full-fledged Riverina squatter, Mr. Kerr and I met _in partibus_. He at length recalled my name and _locale_, remarking, "Oh yes! remember now; you were the boy that shot the black bullock in my yard at South Yarra long ago." Well, Mr. Bolden and I ride along the winding, gravelly bush road, over ranges that skirt and at times leave the course of the river wholly, not seeing a house or a soul, except Mr. Gardiner's dairy farm, for more than twenty miles. The country, in an agricultural and pastoral point of view, is as bad as can be. Thick--_i.e._ scrubby, poor in soil, scanty as to pasture, when all suddenly, as is so often the case in Australia, we come upon a "mountain park." We cross a running creek by a bridge. We see a flock of sheep and a shepherd, the genuine "old hand" of the period. The slopes are gently rising towards the encircling highlands, the timber is pleasingly distributed, the soil, the pasture, has improved. We are in a new country. We have entered upon Yering proper, a veritable oasis in this unredeemed stringy-bark desert. How Mr. William Ryrie, in the year 1837 or 1838, brought his flocks and herds and general pioneer equipment straight across country from Arnprior in far Monaro in New South Wales, hitting precisely upon this tenantless lodge in the wilderness, will always be a marvel. It was one of the feats which the earlier explorers occasionally performed, showing their fitness for the heroic work of colonisation, wherein so many of them risked life and limb. With the great pastoral wild of Australia Felix lying virgin and unappropriated before him, Mr. Ryrie might easily have made a more profitable, a more expansive choice. But he could not have hit upon a more ideal spot for the founding of an estate and the formation of a homestead had he searched the continent. Amid the variously-gathered outfit which accompanied the pastoral chief, as he led flocks, herds, and retainers through unknown wilds to the far promised land, happened to be some roots of the tree, the survival of which caused Noah so much uneasiness, and more or less humbled his descendants, before John Jameson and Co. took up the running with the now fashionable product of the harmless _avena_. A few grape vines reached the spot unharmed. Planted in the first orchard on the rich alluvial of the broad river-flat which fronted the cottage, they grew and flourished, so richly that the area devoted to the vine was soon enlarged. From such small beginning arose the vineyards of Yering and St. Hubert's. From those, again, Messrs. de Pury and others planted the wine-producing district which has now a European reputation. Little of this, however, was apparent to my companion and myself, or we might have been entertaining royalty by this time--who knows?--carrying ourselves like other eminent and gilded colonists, envied by everybody and sneered at by our less fortunate compatriots. We rode steadily on, through hill and hollow, past plump cattle, not, however, showing quite so much white and roan as do the present herds; past a "manada" of mares and foals, from which ran out to challenge our steeds Clifton the Second, "with flying mane and arching crest." Finally we ride up to a neat weatherboard cottage, whence issues our kindly, warm-hearted host, breathing welcome and hospitality in every tone of his jolly voice. We were soon enjoying the change of sensation, which after a thirty-mile ride is of itself a luxury. With him as visitors were "Hobbie" Elliot, a well-known squatter of the period, and a stalwart younger brother just out from home. The cottage, as I remember it then, was built upon a slight elevation overlooking a richly-grassed meadow, below which the Yarra, not much less wide and rapid than near Melbourne, ran its winding course. On the farther side of the river, looking eastward, was a purple-shadowed mountain, apparently, though not in reality, overhanging the stream. In the dimmer distance rose the vast snow-crowned range of the Australian Alps. We walked about after our afternoon meal, admiring the great growth of the trees in the garden, and the picturesque appearance of things generally. On the next day we took a long ride, and, I well remember, crossed the river upon a primitive bridge, which enables me to say to this day that I have ridden across a river upon a single tree. It was even so. An enormous eucalyptus (_E. amygdalina_), growing upon the bank of the Yarra, had been felled or grubbed--I think the latter--so as to fall across the stream. Afterwards it had been adzed level--a hand-rail had been supplied. A quiet horse could therefore be easily led or ridden across to the other side, the width being an average of three feet. We crossed that way, I know, next day, and had a look at the Heifer Station, as the trans-Yarra run was then called. It was a sort of Yering in miniature, not so open, and much smaller. To it, however, our host was compelled to retire, when (upon how many good fellows has the same fate fallen?) he made a compulsory sale to Paul de Castella and his partner, another Swiss gentleman. Fortunately for him, pastoral property rose in value prodigiously "after the gold," so that he was enabled to sell the heifer station for five times as much as he got for Yering. However, "unconscious of our doom," we took a long and pleasant ride through ferny dales, and darksome woods where the giant eucalypti reared their heads to heaven. We watched the sparkling streamlets dash down their course from alpine heights, praised the cattle and horses, and returned with appetites of the most superior description. Our chief adventure was in crossing a water-laden flat, when Mr. Elliot, jun., raised his long legs high on his horse's sides to escape splashing. That animal, being young and "touchy," immediately exhibited a fair imitation of that well-known Australian gambade known as "buck-jumping." For the honour of Scotia, however, our friend, new chum as he was, stuck to the pigskin, and was justly applauded at the end of the performance. Live stock were cruelly low about that time--£1 a head for store bullocks, and so on. Fat cattle were never worth more than £3 each, often considerably under that modest price. The expense of stock-management bore hard upon receipts, particularly when the proprietor had not inherited the saving grace of "screwiness." Our host, gallant, generous, warm-hearted William Ryrie, was not in that line; far otherwise. As a matter of fact, Yering was sold to Messrs. de Castella and Co., within a year of our visit, for two or three thousand pounds--some such trifle, at any rate. So Yering passed into the hands of another good fellow. Though "foreign," and _not_ "to the manor born," he quickly demonstrated his ability to acquire the leading principles of stock-management. Of course, the gold came to his aid, causing the cattle he had purchased at £2 each to be worth £8 or £10, and in other ways making things easy for an enterprising pastoralist. Besides managing the herd satisfactorily, Mr. de Castella saw his way to developing the vineyard, enlarging it twenty or fifty fold, besides building cellars, wine-presses, and all the adjuncts of scientific vine-culture. He imported French or Swiss vignerons, and commenced to acquire that high reputation for "white and red Yering" Hermitage which remains unblemished to this day. Years afterwards, when the tide of pastoral prosperity throughout the colonies was high and unwavering, I made another visit to the spot, under different circumstances and in far other company. A large party had been invited by Mr. and Mrs. de Castella to spend a week at Yering, when a picnic, a dance, and all sorts of _al fresco_ entertainments were included in the programme. We were to meet at Fairlie House, South Yarra, and the day being propitious, the gathering was successful; the _cortège_ decidedly imposing. Charlie Lyon's four-in-hand drag led the way; Lloyd Jones's and Rawdon Greene's mail phaetons, with carriages and dog-carts, following in line--it was a small Derby day. The greater proportion of the ladies were accommodated in the vehicles. There were horsemen, too, of the party. The commissariat had been sent on at an early hour, accompanied by a German band, retained for the occasion, to a convenient halting place for luncheon. As we rattled along the broad, straight roads of Kew we saw hedges of roses, orchards in spring blossom, miles of villas and handsome houses, all the signs of a prosperous suburban population. How different from the signs of the past! Early in the afternoon we sighted the dark-browed Titan on the hither side of which the homestead lay. Mending our pace, we entered a mile-long avenue, cleared with a bridegroom's munificence, as a fitting approach for so fair a bride, on the occasion of his marriage. I don't think we danced that night--the fairer portion of the company being moderately travel-worn--but we made up for it on the succeeding ones. Each day's programme had been marked out, and arrangements made in regal style. Some of us had sent on our favourite hacks; side-saddle and other horses were provided by the host in any quantity. Riding parties, picnics to fern gullies, to Mount Juliet, and other places of romantic interest, were successfully carried out. Races were improvised. Shooting parties, fishing excursions, kangaroo and opossum battues--everything which could impress the idea that life was one perpetual round of mirth and revelry--had been provided for. As we sat at mid-day on the velvet green sward, by fern-fringed streamlets, under giant gums or the towering patriarchs of the mountain ash, while merry jest and sparkling repartee went round, ardent vow and rippling laughter, we might have been taken--apart from the costume--for an acted chapter out of "Boccaccio." When we came dashing in before sunset, the sound of our approach was like that of a cavalry troop, or the rolling hoof-thunder of marauding Apachés. The Germans were musicians of taste; to the "Morgen-blatter" and the "Tausend-und-eine Nachte" valses we danced until the Southern Cross was low in the sky, while as we watched the moon rise, flooding with silver radiance the sombre Alp, and shedding a passing gleam on the rippling river, all might well have passed for an enchanted revel, where mirth, moon, and music would disappear at the waving of a wand. Years had rolled on since my first visit to the pioneer homestead. The cottage had disappeared, or was relegated to other purposes. In its place stood a mansion, replete with the appliances of modern country-house life. The vineyard covered acres of the slope, and the grapes were ripening upon thousands of trellised vines. The stables were filled with high-conditioned, high-priced animals, with grooms and helpers in proportion to their needs. In the meadows below the house grazed hundreds of high-priced shorthorns, some hundreds of which had been purchased from me, Rolf, a few months previously, so that I had the exceptional privilege of drawing attention to the quality of my herd. Steeds of price were there that day. Diane and Crinoline, two peerless ladies' horses; Mr. de Castella's half-Arab carriage pair; Sir Andrew Clarke's roan Cornborough hackney, equally perfect in harness; Mr. Lyon's team of chestnuts, high bred and well matched, not to mention the swell bright chestnut mare "Carnation," for which the owner had refused eighty guineas from an Indian buyer. The cool, capacious wine-cellars played their part on the occasion, being requisitioned for their choicest "cru." Soda was abundant, the weather warm, and the daily consumption of fluid must have been serious. When the "decamerone" expired, the guests, one and all, were ready to testify that never did mortals more deeply drink of Pleasure's chalice, never return to the prose of ordinary life with more sincere regret. CHAPTER XXI TALES OF A "TRAVELLER" This is a "horsey" sketch, possibly therefore unacceptable to the general reader. But any chronicle of my early days, connected as they were with the birth of a great city, would be incomplete without mention of the noble animal so dear to every youthful Australian. Reared in an atmosphere redolent of the swift courser's triumphs, often compelled to entrust life and limb to the good horse's speed, care indeed requires to be taken that the southern Briton does not somewhat overvalue his fascinating dumb companion--overvalue him to the exclusion from his thoughts of art and science, literature and dogma--to the banishment of rational conversation, and a preference for unprofitable society. So thought an old family friend, Mr. Felton Mathew (he upon his blood bay "Glaucus," and I upon my Timor pony), as we rode towards Enmore from Sydney in old, old days. He testily exclaimed, "For Heaven's sake, Rolf, don't go on talking about horses everlastingly, or you'll grow up like those colonial lads that never have another idea in their heads." I winced under the rebuke, but accepted it, as became our relative ages. None the less did I bear in my secret breast that Arab-like love for horses and their belongings which marks the predestined son of the Waste here as duly as in Yemen or the Nejd. How I longed for the day when I should have a station of my own, when I should have blood mares, colts and fillies, perhaps a horse in training, with all the gorgeous adjuncts of stud-proprietorship! The time came--the horses too--many a deeply joyous hour, many a thrill of hope and fear, many a wild ride and daring deed was mine Ere nerve and sinew began to fail In the consulship of Plancus. And now the time has passed. The good horses have trotted, and cantered, and galloped away from out my life; most of them from this fair earth altogether. Yet still, memory clings with curious fidelity to the equine friends of the good old time, indissolubly connected as they were with more important personages and events. Among the earliest blood sires that the district around Melbourne boasted were "Clifton" and "Traveller"--both New South Wales bred horses, and destined to spend their last years in the same stud. Of this pair of thoroughbreds, Clifton, a son of Skeleton and Spaewife, both imported, was bred by the late Mr. Charles Smith, and named Clifton after his stud farm near Sydney. "Skeleton," a grey horse of high lineage, own brother to "Drone," and the property of the Marquis of Sligo, was imported by the late Mr. William Edward Riley, of Raby, New South Wales. To him many of the best strains of the present day trace their ancestry. "Clifton," a lengthy bay horse, possessing size, speed, and substance, was purchased by Mr. Lyon Campbell, one of the earlier Melbourne magnates, formerly in the army, and by him kept at Campbellfield, on the Yarra, near the Upper Falls. His stock, of which we possessed several, were speedy and upstanding, great jumpers, and as a family the best tempered horses I ever saw. This descended to the second generation. You could "rope," as was the unfair custom of the day, any "Clifton" colt or filly, back them in three days, and within a week ride a journey or do ordinary station work with them. They were free and handy almost at once, and remained so, no matter how long a spell they were treated to afterwards. "Red Deer," with which Mr. Sam Waldock won the Jockeys' Handicap and the All-aged Stakes at Sandhurst, was a Clifton, bred by me. "Jupiter," the winner of the All-aged Stakes in Melbourne in very good company, in 1854 or thereabouts, was another, bred by Mr. James Irvine. His first purchaser put the tackle on him at Dunmore and _rode him away the same day_. He was never a whit the worse hack or racehorse for the abrupt handling. My old Clifton mare, "Cynthia," was ridden barebacked with a halter once, after nearly a year's spell. She was only five years old at the time. Observation of these and other traits confirmed me in the opinion, which I have long held, that the method of breaking has little to do with a horse's paces, and less with his temper or general character. _Bonus equus "nascitur, non fit,"_ as is the poet. You can no more imbue the former with desirable dispositions by force of education, even the most careful, than the schools can turn out Tennysons and Brownings by completest tuition. "Traveller" was another "Sydney-side" celebrity, bred by the late Mr. Charles Roberts--if I mistake not, a turf antagonist of Mr. C. Smith. He was a very grand horse. "The sort we don't see now, sir," as the veteran turfite is so fond of saying. A son of "Bay Camerton," his ancestry ran back, through colonial thoroughbreds, to the Sheik Arab. Not more than fifteen hands in height, a beautiful dark chestnut in colour, he was a model of strength, speed, and symmetry. His shapes inclined more to the Arab type than to the long-striding, galloping machine into which the modern thoroughbred horse has been developed. Standing firmly on shortish, clean, iron-like legs, which years upon years of racing (in the days of heats too) had never deteriorated, he was a weight-carrier with the speed of a deer--a big-jawed Arab head, a well-shaped, high-crested neck, oblique shoulders, just room enough between them and a strong loin for a saddle, a back rib like a cask, high croup, muscular thighs, and broad, well-bent hocks. Everything that could be wished for as a progenitor of hacks, racers, and harness horses. His one defect was moral rather than physical. I shall allude to it in its place. His legs were simply wonderful. At twenty years old--about which time he died suddenly, never having suffered an hour's illness or shown the slightest sign of natural decay--they were as beautifully clean and sound as those of an unbroken three-year-old. He had run and won many a race, beginning as early as 1835, when he competed with Mr. C. Smith's Chester--a half-brother, by the way--on the old Botany Road racecourse, near Sydney. I, with other schoolboys, attended this meeting, and have a clear remembrance of the depth of the sand through which the cracks of the day--Whisker, Lady Godiva, Lady Emily, and others--had to struggle for the deciding heat. He was the property of Mr. Hugh Jamieson, of Tallarook, Goulburn River, as far back as 1841 or 1842. That gentleman, one of the originators of the Port Phillip Turf Club, temporarily relinquished breeding, and Traveller passed into the hands of a discriminating and enthusiastic proprietor, Mr. Charles Macknight, late of Dunmore, and by him was employed in the foundation of the celebrated Dunmore stud. When I referred to the moral defect of "Traveller"--a horse that deserves to be bracketed with "Jorrocks" in the equine chronicles of Australia--my meaning had reference to the temper which he communicated to his immediate, and, doubtless, by the unvarying laws of heredity, to his remoter descendants. This was as bad as bad could be, chiefly expressed in one particular direction--the crowning characteristic vice of Australian horses--that of buck-jumping. Curiously, the old horse was quiet and well conducted himself, though there _was_ a legend of his having killed a man on the Sydney racecourse by a kick. However that might be, he was apparently of a serene and generous nature. So was his first foal born at Dunmore. "St. George" was the offspring of "Die Vernon" by "Peter Fin," well known afterwards as a hunter, when owned by Alick Cuningham and James Murphy. "St. George," from circumstances, was a couple of years older than the first crop of Traveller foals, and, having been made a pet of by Mr. Macknight, was very quiet when broken in by that gentleman personally, a fine rough-rider and philosophical trainer as he was, a combination not often reached. Hence, from "St. George's" docility, great expectations were entertained of the temper of the "Traveller" stock. "All depends upon the breaking," says the young and ardent, but chiefly inexperienced, horse-lover. "Not so! The leading qualities of horse and man are strongly hereditary. Education _modifies_, but removes not, the inherited tendency--sometimes hardly even modifies." So, whether "Traveller's" dam had an ineradicable taste for "propping," or was cantankerous otherwise, disencumbering herself, on occasion, of saddle, rider, and such trifles, or whether he himself, in early youth, used to send the stable-boys flying ever and anon, I have no means of knowing. Nothing can be surer, however, than this fact, that most of the Traveller colts and fillies at Dunmore and surrounding stations displayed an indisposition to be broken in little short of insanity. When ridden for the first time they fought and struggled, bucked and kicked, fell down, got up, and went at it again with unabated fury. Tamed by hard work and perseverance, when they were turned out for a little rest, they were nearly as bad, if taken up again, as at the first onset. When apparently quietened, they would set to work with a stranger as though he were some new species of pre-Adamite man. All sorts of grooms were tried, dare-devils who could ride anything, steady ones who mouthed carefully and gave plenty of exercise and preparation. It was all the same in result. They were hard to break in, hard to ride when they were broken in, and sometimes hardest of all in the intervals of station work. Of course there were exceptions. But they were few. And a stranger who was offered a fresh horse at a station in the neighbourhood was apt to ask if he was a "Traveller"; and if answered in the affirmative, to look askance and inquire when he had been ridden last, and whether he had then "done anything," before committing himself to his tender mercies. It was the more provoking because in all other respects the family character was unassailable. They were handsome and level of shape, iron-legged, full of courage and staying power, well-paced, and in some instances very fast--notably Tramp, Trackdeer, St. George, No Ma, Triton, The Buckley colt, and many others. Triton won the Three-year-old Stakes at Port Fairy against a good field, and the Geelong Steeplechase the year after, running up and winning on the post after a bad fall, and with his rider's collar-bone broken. The offspring of particular mares were observed to be better tempered than others. Triton's dam, Katinka, was a Clifton, and he was in the main good-humoured; though I remember him throwing his boy just before a race. The "Die Vernons" were mostly like their mother, free and liberal-minded; but many of the others--I may say most of them--were "regular tigers," requiring the horsemen who essayed to ride them habitually to be young, valiant, in hard training, and up to all the tricks of the rough-riding trade. That they seldom commended themselves to elderly gentlemen may easily be believed. Even here was the exception. The late Mr. Gray, Crown Lands Commissioner for the Western District, when on his rounds, took a fancy to a fine bay colt, just broken in, and bought him. He, however, caused a young police trooper to ride him provisionally, and for many a month he went about under one or other of the orderlies. I never observed the portly person of the Commissioner upon the bay colt. He eventually disposed of him untried for that service. Four colts in one year went to "that bourne from which no 'Traveller' returns"--(James Irvine's joke, all rights reserved). One filly threw her rider on the run, galloped home, and broke her neck over the horse paddock fence, which she was too _tête exaltée_ to remark. One reared up and fell over; never rose. One broke his back, after chasing every one out of the yard, in trying to get under an impossible rail. And one beautiful cob (mine) fractured his spinal vertebræ in dashing at the gate like a wild bull. The history of this steed, and of others which I have observed more recently, has most fully satisfied me of the hereditary transmission of qualities in horse-breeding, and nothing, therefore, will convince me to the contrary. I was then in a position to try the experiment personally, as well as to see it tried. For, observe the conditions. The proprietors of Dunmore were young, highly intelligent persons, with a turn for scientific research; good horsemen, all fond of that branch of stock-breeding. The run being of choice quality was comparatively small in extent. The stock were kept in paddocks for part of the year. The grooms were good, and always under strict supervision. The young horses were stabled and well fed during breaking, brushed and curry-combed daily. They were used after the cattle when partly broken--an excellent mode of completing a horse's education. And yet the result was, as I have described, unsatisfactory. The majority of the young horses turned out of this model establishment were with great difficulty broken to saddle, and even then were troublesome and unsafe. How can this condition of affairs be accounted for, except upon the hypothesis that in animals, as in the human subject, certain inherited tendencies are reproduced with such strange similarity to those of immediate or remote ancestors as to be incapable of eradication, and well-nigh of modification, by training? I may state here that I should not have entered so freely into the subject had the Dunmore stud, as such, been still in existence. Such is not the case. Two of the three proprietors, once high in hope and full of well-grounded anticipations of success in their colonial career, are in their graves. Dunmore, so replete with pleasant memories, has long been sold. The stud is dispersed. My old friend James Irvine, though still in the flesh and prospering, as he deserves, has only an indirect interest in the memory of "Traveller," whose qualities during life he would never have suffered to be thus aspersed. The "Traveller temper," still doubtless existent in various high-bred individuals, is perchance wearing out. After all, this equine exhumation is but the history of the formation of an opinion. It may serve a purpose, however, if it leads to the resolution in the minds of intending stud-masters, "never to breed from a sire of bad-tempered stock." CHAPTER XXII YAMBUK Once upon a time, in a "kingdom by the sea," known to men as Port Fairy, "Yambuk" was a choice and precious exemplar of the old-fashioned cattle station. What a haven of peace--what a restful elysium, would it be in these degenerate days of hurry and pressure and progress, and all that--could one but fall upon it! If one could only gallop up now to that garden gate, receive the old cordial welcome, and turn his horse into the paddock, what a _fontaine de jouvence_ would bubble up! Should one ride forth and essay the deed? It could hardly be managed. We should not be able to find our way. There would be roads and fences, with obtrusive shingled cottages, and wheat-fields, barns, and threshing machines--in short, all the hostile emblems of agricultural settlement, as it is called. I like it not; I would the plain Lay in its tall old groves again. Fronting the farther side of the Shaw River, down to a bank of which the garden sloped, were broad limestone flats, upon which rose clumps of the beautiful blackwood or hickory tree, some of Australia's noblest growth, when old and umbrageous. The bungalow, low-roofed, verandah-protected, was thatched at the early period which I recall, the rafters the strongest of the slender ti-tree saplings in the brush which bordered the river-side. The mansion was not imposing, but what of that? The rooms were of fair size, the hospitality refined, spontaneous, and pervading every look and tone; and we, who in old days were wont to share it on our journeys to and from the metropolis of the district, would not have exchanged it for a palace. People were not so ambitious then as of late years. Nor was the transcendent future of stock-holding visible to the mental eye, when companies and syndicates would compete for the possession of mammoth holdings, with more sheep and cattle de-pasturing thereon than we then believed the whole colony could carry. No! a man with a thousand head of well-bred cattle, on a run capable of holding half as many more, so as to leave a reserve in case of bush-fires and bad seasons, was thought fairly endowed with this world's goods. If prudent, he was able to afford himself a trip to Melbourne twice a year or so, and to save money in reason. He generally kept a few brood mares, and so was enabled to rear a superior hackney for himself or friend. As it was not the custom to keep more than a stock-rider, and one other man for general purposes, he had a reasonable share of daily work cut out for himself. "Yambuk" was then an extremely picturesque station, combining within its limits unusual variety of soil and scenery, land and water. The larger grazing portion consisted of open undulating limestone ridges, which ran parallel with the sea-beach. The River Shaw, deepening as it debouched on the ocean, was the south-eastern boundary of the run. All the country for some miles up its course, past the village of Orford, then only known as The Crossing Place, and along the coast-line towards Portland Bay, was originally within the bounds of the "Yambuk" run. Between the limestone ridges and the sea were sand-hills, thickly covered with the forest oak, which, growing almost to the beach, braved the stern sea blasts. Very sound and well sheltered were they, affording advantageous quarters to the herd in the long winters of the West. When our dreamy summer-time was o'er, a truly Arcadian season, with "blue and golden days" and purple-shadowed eves, wild wrathful gales hurtled over the ocean waste, rioting southward to the Pole. Mustering in stormy weather was a special experience. Gathering amid the sea-woods, the winter's day darkening fast, a drove of heavy bullocks, perhaps, lumbering over the sands before us, amid the flying spume, their hoofs in the surf ever and anon,--it was a season study, worth riding many a mile to see. No cove or bay restrained the angry waters. A misty cloud-rack formed the horizon, to which stretched the boundless ocean-plain of the Pacific, while giant billows, rank on rank, foamed fiercely landward, to meet in wrath and impotently rage on the lonely shore below us. How often has that picture been recalled to me in later years amid the arid plains of Australia Deserta! The sad-toned, far-stretching shore--the angry storm-voices of the terrible deep--the little band of horsemen--the lowing, half-wild drove--the red-litten cloud prison, wherein the sun lay dying! Pleasant exceedingly, in contrast, when the cattle were yarded and rails securely pegged, to unsaddle and walk into the house, where lights and glowing fires, with a well-appointed table, awaited us, presided over by a Châtelaine whose soft voice and ever-varied converse, mirthful or mournful, serious or satirical, practical or poetic, never failed to soothe and interest. Stock-riding in those days, half real business, half sport, as we youngsters held it to be, was certainly not one of those games into which, as Lindsay Gordon sings--"No harm could possibly find its way." Part of the "Yambuk" run was distinctly dangerous riding. Where the wombats dug their treacherous shafts and galleries, how many a good steed and horseman have I seen o'erthrown! These peculiar night-feeding animals, akin to the badger of the old country, burrowed much among the coast hummocks. Their open shafts, though not particularly nice to ride among at speed, with your horse's head close behind the hard-pressed steer, were trifling drawbacks compared to the horizontal "drives" into which, when mined too near the surface, your horse's feet often broke. The solid turf would disappear, and letting your horse into a concealed pitfall up to the shoulder, gave a shock that often told tales in a strained joint or a broken collar-bone. We fell lightly in those days, however, and, even when our nags rolled over us, scorned to complain of the trifling occurrence. The limestone country, too, held cavities and sudden appearing fissures of alarming depth, which caused the fiery steed to tremble and the ardent rider to pale temporarily when suddenly confronted. At the south-eastern boundary of the run the forests were dense, the marshes deeper, the country generally more difficult, than on the coast-line. The ruder portion of the herd "made out" that way, and many a hard gallop they cost us at muster-time. The run had been "taken up" for and on account of Captain Baxter, formerly of Her Majesty's 50th Regiment, about a year before my time, that is in 1843, by Mr. George Dumoulin, acting as overseer. This gentleman, a son of one of the early Imperial officials, and presumably of Huguenot descent, was a most amusing and energetic person. Inheriting the _legèreté_ of his Gallic ancestors, his disposition led him to be _toujours gai_, even under the most unpromising circumstances. A capital manager, in the restricted sense then most appreciated, he spent no money, save on the barest necessaries, and did all the stock-keeping himself, with the occasional aid of a black boy. When I first set eyes on Yambuk station there were but two small thatched huts, no garden, no horse-paddock, and a very indifferent stock-yard. The rations had run out lately--there was no salt, for one thing--and as the establishment had then been living upon fresh veal for a fortnight, it was impressed upon me, forcibly, that no one here would look at fillets or cutlets of that "delicate meat that the soul loveth," under ordinary culinary conditions, for at least a year afterwards. Mr. Dumoulin, though wonderfully cheery as a general rule, was subject to occasional fits of despondency. They were dark, in proportion to his generally high standard of spirits. When this lowered tone set in, he generally alluded to his want of success hitherto in life, the improbability of his attaining to a station of his own, the easiest thing in those days if you had a very little money or stock. But capital being scarce and credit wanting for the use of enterprising speculators who had nothing but pluck and experience, it was hard, mostly impossible, to procure that necessary fulcrum. Regarding those things, and mourning over past disappointments, he generally wound up by affirming that "all the world would come right, but that poor Dumoulin would be left on his--beam ends--at the last." And yet what splendid opportunities lay in the womb of Time for him, for all of us! So when Captain Baxter and his wife came from their New England home to take possession and live at Yambuk "for good," there was no necessity for Mr. Dumoulin to abide there longer, the profits of a station of that size rarely permitting the proprietor and overseer to jointly administer. When the gold came we heard of him in a position of responsibility and high pay, but whether he rose to his proper status, or malignant destiny refused promotion, we have no knowledge. He was a good specimen of the pioneers to whom Australia owes so much--brave to recklessness, patient of toil, hardy, and full of endurance--a good bushman and first-class stock-rider. The captain and Mrs. Baxter drove tandem overland the whole distance from New England to Yambuk, some hundreds of miles, encamping regularly with a few favourite horses and dogs. Their journal, faithfully kept, of each day's progress and the road events was a most interesting one, and would show that even before the days of Miss Bird and Miss Gordon-Cumming there were lady travellers who dared the perils of the wilderness and its wilder denizens. A fine horsewoman, passionately fond of her dumb favourites, Mrs. Baxter was as happy in the company of her nice old roan Arab "Kaffir," the beautiful greyhound "Ada," and the collie "Rogue," as more _exigeantes_, though not more gently nurtured dames, would have been with all the materials of a society picnic. One advantage of this sort of overland-route work is that when the goal _is_ reached the humblest surroundings suffice for a home, all luxury and privilege being comprehended in the idea that you have not to move on next day. Once arrived, the abode _en permanence_ is the great matter for thankfulness. The building may be unfinished and inadequate, not boasting even of a chimney, yet rugs are spread as by Moslems in a caravanserai, and all thank Allah fervently in that we are permitted to stay and abide there indefinitely. With the arrival of the master and mistress speedy alteration for the better took place. The cottage was built--an Indian bungalow in architecture--with wooden walls, the roof and verandahs thatched with the long tussock grass. A garden with fruit trees and flowers was planted, the fertile chocolate-coloured loam responding eagerly. Furniture arrived, including a piano and other lady adjuncts. A detached kitchen was constructed. Mr. Dumoulin's "improvements" were abandoned to the stock-rider, and the new era of "Yambuk" was inaugurated. Far pleasanter in every way, to my mind, than any which have succeeded it. The _locale_ certainly had many advantages. It was only twelve miles from that fascinatingly pleasant little country town of Port Fairy--we didn't call it Belfast then, and didn't want to. The road was good, and admitted of riding in and out the same day. As it was a seaport town, stores were cheap, and everything needful could be procured from Sydney or Melbourne. There was then not an acre of land sold, west of the Shaw, before you reached Portland, and very little to the east, except immediately around the town. One cannot imagine a more perfect country residence, having regard to the period, and the necessities of the early squatting community. The climate was delightful. Modified Tasmanian weather prevailed, nearly as cold in winter, quite sufficiently bracing, but without frost, the proximity to the coast so providing. English fruits grew and bore splendidly. Finer apples and pears, gooseberries and cherries, no rejoicing schoolboy ever revelled in. The summers were surpassingly lovely, cooled with the breezes that swept over the long rollers of the Pacific, and lulled the sleeper to rest with the measured roll of the surge upon the broad beaches which stretched from the Moyne to Portland Bay. Talking of beaches, what a glorious sensation is that of riding over one at midnight! Ah! well do I remember That loved and lonely hour when a party of us started one moonlight night to ride from Port Fairy to Portland (fifty miles) for the purpose of boarding an emigrant vessel, from which we hoped to be able to hire men-servants and maid-servants, then, as now, exceeding scarce. My grand little horse "Hope" had carried me from home, thirty miles, that day, but, fed and rested, he was not particular about a few miles farther. We dined merrily, and at something before ten o'clock set forth. Lloyd Rutledge, who was my companion, rode his well-known black hackney and plater, "Molonglo Jack." As we started at a canter along the Portland road--the low moon nearly full, and just rising, the sky cloudless--it was an Arabian Night, one for romance and adventure. The other horses had been in their stalls all day, but as I touched my lower bridle rein my gallant little steed--one of the most awful pullers that ever funked a Christian--rose on his hind legs and made as though about to jump on to the adjoining houses. This was only a trick I had taught him; at a sign he would rear and plunge "like all possessed," but it showed that he was keen for business, and I did not fear trying conclusions with the best horse there. Like Mr. Sawyer's Jack-a-dandy, he would have won the Derby if it had not been more than half a mile. He did win the Port Fairy Steeplechase next year, over stiff timber, with Johnny Gorrie on his back, and in good company too. Away we went. The sands were some miles past Yambuk. When we rode down upon them, what wonders lay before us! The tide was out. For leagues upon leagues stretched the ocean shore--a milk-white beach, wide as a parade-ground, level as a tennis-court, and so hard under foot that our horses' hoofs rang sharp and clear. Excited by the night, the moon, the novelty, they tore at their bits and raced one another in a succession of heats, which it took all our skill, aided by effective double bridles of the Weymouth pattern, to moderate. As for our companions, they were left miles behind. We were at the turn, just abreast of "Lady Julia Percy Island," which lay on the slumbering ocean's breast like some cloud fallen from the sky, or an enchanted isle, where the fairy princess might be imprisoned until the Viking's galley arrived, or the prince was conveniently cast away on the adjacent rocks. Far as eye could see shone the illimitable ocean, "still as a slave before his lord," star-brightened here and there. Southward a lengthening silver pathway rippled in the moon-gleam, shimmering and glowing far away towards the soft cloudland of the horizon. Tiny capes ran in from the forest border, and barred the line of vision from time to time. Sweeping around these, our excited horses speeding as they had become winged, we entered upon a fresh bay, another milk-white beach, fitted for fairy revels. While over all the broad and yellow moon shed a flood of radiance in which each twig and leaf of the forest fringe was visible. So still was the night that even "the small ripple spilt upon the beach" fell distinctly upon the ear. As the pale dawn cloud rose in the east, the slumbering ocean began to stir and moan. A land breeze came sighing forth from the dense forest like a reproachful dryad as we charged the steep side of Lookout Hill, and saw the roofs of Portland town before us. It was a longish stage--fifty miles--but our horses still pressed gaily forward as if the distance had been passed in a dream. We had no time to sentimentalise. Labour was scarce. We stabled our good steeds, and transferred ourselves to a waterman's boat. When the employers of Portland came on board in leisurely fashion some hours later, the flower of the farm labourers were under written agreement to proceed to Port Fairy. It rather opened the eyes of the Portlanders, whom, in the sauciness of youth, we of the rival township who called William Rutledge our mercantile chief were wont to hold cheap. They needed servants for farm and station, as did we, but there was no help for it; they had to content themselves with what were left. Personally, I had done well. The brothers Michael and Patrick Horan--two fine upstanding Carlow men as one would wish to see--were indentured safely to me for a year. They served me well in the after-time. Their brother-in-law, with his wife, as a "married couple," and a smart "colleen" about sixteen, a younger sister, came with them. It was a "large order," but all our hands had cleared for Ballarat and Forest Creek; we had hardly a soul in the place but the overseer and myself. These immigrants were exactly of the class we wanted. I know a place where a few such shiploads would be of great and signal utility now. They were willing, well-behaved, and teachable. I broke in Pat Horan to the stock-riding business, and within a twelvemonth he could ride a buck-jumper, rope, brand, and draft with any old hand in the district. He repeatedly took cattle to market in sole charge, and was always efficient and trustworthy. Mick showed a gift for ploughing and bullock-driving, and generally preferred farming. They both remained with me for years--Pat, indeed, till the station was sold. They are thriving farmers, I believe, within a few miles of Squattlesea Mere, at this present day. I waited until nightfall, making arrangements to receive our _engagés_ when they should arrive in Port Fairy, and then mounted "Hope," in order to ride the thirty miles which lay between me and home. The old horse was as fresh as paint, and landed me there well on the hither side of midnight. One feels inclined to say there are no such horses nowadays, but there is a trifling difference in the rider's "form," I fancy, which accounts for much of this apparent equine degeneracy. Anyhow, Hope was a "plum," and so was his mother before him. Didn't she give me a fall over a fence at Yambuk one day, laming me for a week and otherwise knocking me about--the only time I ever knew her make a mistake? But wasn't a lady looking on, and wouldn't I have broken my neck cheerfully, or any other important vertebra, for the sake of being pitied and petted after the event? When the gold discovery, and the consequent rise in prices, took place, Captain Baxter was tempted to sell Yambuk with a good herd of cattle, and so departed for the metropolis. Our society began to break up--its foundations to loosen. People got so rich that they voted station life a bore, and promoted their stock-riders to be overseers in charge. Many of these were worthy people. But the charm of bush life had departed when the proprietor no longer greeted you on dismounting, when there was no question of books or music or cheery talk with which to while away the evening. And thinking over those pleasant homes in the dear old forest days, where one was always sure of sympathy and society, I know one wayworn pilgrim who will ever in fancy recur to the _bon vieux temps_ whereof a goodly proportion--sometimes for one reason, sometimes for another--was passed at Yambuk. POEMS BALLAARAT A VISION OF GOLD I see a lone stream, rolling down Through valleys green, by ranges brown Of hills that bear no name, The dawn's full blush in crimson flakes Is traced on palest blue, as breaks The morn in Orient flame. I see--whence comes that eager gaze? Why rein the steed, in wild amaze? The water's hue is gold! Golden its wavelets foam and glide, Through tenderest green to ocean-tide The fairy streamlet rolled. "Forward, 'Hope!' forward! truest steed, Of tireless hoof and desert speed, Up the weird water bound, Till, echoing far and sounding deep, I hear old Ocean's hoarse voice sweep O'er this enchanted ground?" The sea!--wild fancy! Many a mile Of changeful Nature's frown and smile Ere stand we on the shore. And, yet! that murmur, hoarse and deep, None save the ocean-surges keep? It is--"the cradles' roar!" Onward! we pass the grassy hill, Around the base the waters still Shimmer in golden foam; O wanderer of the voiceless wild, Of this far southern land the child, How changed thy quiet home! For, close as bees in countless hive, Like emmet hosts that earnest strive, Swarmed, toiled, a vast, strange crowd: Haggard each worker's features seem, Bright, fever-bright, each eye's wild gleam, Nor cry, nor accent loud. But each man dug, or rocked, or bore, As if salvation with the ore Of the mine-monarch lay. Gold strung each arm to giant might, Gold flashed before each aching sight, Gold turned the night to day. Where Eblis reigns o'er boundless gloom, And, in his halls of endless doom Lost souls for ever roam, They wander (says the Eastern tale), Nor ever startles moan or wail Despair's eternal home. Less silent scarce than that pale host These toiled, as if each moment lost Were the red life-drop spilt; While, heavy, rough, and darkly bright, In every shape, rolled to the light Man's hope, and pride, and guilt. All ranks, all ages! Every land Had sent its conscripts forth, to stand In the gold-seekers' rank: The stalwart bushman's sinewy limb, The pale-faced son of trade--e'en him Who knew the fetters' clank. * * * * * 'Tis night: her jewelled mantle fills The busy valley, the dun hills, 'Tis a battle host's repose! A thousand watch-fires redly gleam, While ceaseless fusillades would seem To warn approaching foes. The night is older. On the sward Stretched, I behold the heavens broad, When--a Shape rises dim, Then, clearer, fuller, I descry, By the swart brow, the star-bright eye, The Gnome-king's presence grim! He stands upon a time-worn block; His dark form shades the snowy rock As cypress marble tomb: Nor fierce yet wild and sad his mien, His cloud-black tresses wave and stream, His deep tones break the gloom. "Son of a tribe accursed, of those Whose greed has broken our repose Of the long ages dead, Think ye, for nought our ancient race Leaves olden haunts, the sacred place Of toils for ever fled? "List while I tell of days to come, When men shall wish the hammers dumb That ring so ceaseless now; That every arm were palsy-tied, Nor ever wet on grey hillside Was the gold-seeker's brow. "I see the old world's human tide Set southward on the ocean wide. I see a wood of masts, While crime or want, disease or death, With each sigh of the north-wind's breath, He on this fair shore casts. "I see the murderer's barrel gleam, I hear the victim's hopeless scream Ring through these crimeless wastes; While each base son of elder lands Each witless dastard, in vast bands To the gold-city hastes. "Disease shall claim her ready toll, Flushed vice and brutal crime the dole Of life shall ne'er deny; Danger and death shall stalk your streets, While staggering idiocy greets The horror-stricken eye! "All men shall roll in the gold mire-- The height, the depth of man's desire-- Till come the famine years; Then all the land shall curse the day When first they rifled the dull clay, With deep remorseful tears. "Fell want shall wake to fearful life The fettered demons. Civil strife Rears high a gory hand! I see a blood-splashed barricade, While dimly lights the twilight glade The soldier's flashing brand. "But thou, son of the forest free! Thou art not, wert not foe to me, Frank tamer of the wild! Thou hast not sought the sunless home Where darkly delves the toiling Gnome, The mid-earth's swarthy child. "Then, be thou ever, as of yore, A dweller in the woods, and o'er Fresh plains thy herds shall roam. Join not the vain and reckless crowd Who swell the city's pageant proud, But prize thy forest home." He said: and, with an eldritch scream, The Gnome-king vanished--and my dream: Dawn's waking hour returned; Yet still the wild tones echoed clear, For many a day in reason's ear, And my heart inly burned. THE DEATH OF WELFORD[1] Out by the far west-waters, On the sea-land of the South, Untombed the bones of a white man lay, Slowly crumbling to kindred clay-- Sad prayer from Death's mute mouth! Alone, far from his people, The sun of his life went down. A cry for help? No time--not a prayer: As red blood splashed thro' riven hair, His soul rose to Heaven's throne. Ah! well for those felon hands Which the strong man foully slew, The cry from the Cross when our Saviour died "Father, forgive"--as they pierced His side-- "For they know not what they do." _They_ have souls, say the teachers Hereafter, the same as we: If so, it is hid from human grace By blood-writ crimes of savage race So deep, that we cannot see. Fear than love is far stronger: The cruel have seldom to rue: The neck is bowed 'neath the heavy heel, Love's covenant with _Death_ they seal; "For they know not what they do." This Dead, by the far sun-down, This man whom they idly slew, Was lover and friend to those who had slain With him all human love, like Cain; But "they know not what they do." 'Twixt laws Divine and human To judge, if we only knew, When the blood is hot, to part wrong from right, When to forgive and when to smite Foes who "know not what they do." The wronger and wronged shall meet For judgment, to die, or live; And the heathen shall cry, in anguish fell, At sight of the Bottomless Pit of Hell-- "We knew not, O Lord! Forgive." [1] A young Englishman, "killed by blacks on the Barcoo." SUNSET IN THE SOUTH It is Autumn, it is sunset, magic shower of tint and hue; All the west is hung with banners, white with golden, crimson, blue; Drooping folds! far floating, mingling, falling on the river's face; Upturned, placid, silver-mirrored, gazing into endless space. Faint the breath of eve, low-sighing for bright summer's fading charms; Woodland cries are echoing, chiming with the sounds from distant farms; And the stubble fires are gleaming red athwart the wood's deep shade, While the marsh mist, slowly rising, shrouds the greenery of the glade. Redly still the day is dying, as if o'er the desert waste, And we pictured camels, Arabs, and the solemn outline traced Of a pillared lonely Fane, clear against the crimson rim, Voiceless, but of empire telling, and the lore of ages dim. Low the deep voice of the ocean, whispering to the silent strand; Gleam the stars, in silver ripples; stretches broad the milk-white sand; And a long, low bark is lying underneath the island shore Weird and dream-like, darksome, soundless, spell-struck now, and evermore. Deeper, darker fall the shadows, and the charmed colours wane, Fading, as the fay-gold changes into earth and dross again, Wildfowl stream in swaying files landward to the marshy plain; Louder sound the forest voices and the deep tones of the main. "BALACLAVA" The word is "Charge," the meaning "Death," Yet, welcome falls the sound On every ear in the listening host, Whose pennons flutter, zephyr-tossed, That messenger around. Among them Nolan reins a steed Frost-white with gathered foam, And pale and stern points to the foe, In heavy mass, receding slow-- "Charge, comrades, charge them home!" There rides one with fearless brow, By time and sorrow scarred. For him life knows no tale untold, But empty names, love, hope, and gold,-- Cool player of Fate's last card! Beside him, he whose golden youth Is in its pride and bloom. His thoughts are with a dear old home, Its loved ones, and that _other one_, And will she mourn his doom? Another knows of a sweet fond face That will fade into ashy pale As she hears the tale of that day of tears; And a prayer rises to Him who hears The widow and orphan's wail. "We die," passed through each warrior's heart, "And vainly, but the care Rests not with us; 'tis ours to show The world, old England, and the foe, What Englishmen can dare." Then bridle-reins are gathered up, And sabres blaze on high, And as each charger bounds away Doubts flee like ghosts at opening day, And each man joys to die. St. George! it is a glorious sight A splendid page of war, To mark yon gorgeous, matchless troop, Like some bright falcon, wildly swoop On the sullen prey before. CAPTAIN MARTINET (_loquitur_). "Hurrah for the hearts of Englishmen, And the thoroughbred's long stride, As the vibrating, turf-tearing hoof-thunder rolled, 'Twas worth a year of one's life, all told, To have seen our fellows ride!" But what avails the sabre sweep? There rolls the awful sound, Telling through heart, and limb, and brain, That the cannon mows its ghastly lane, And corses strew the ground. Ha! Nolan flings his arms apart, And a death-cry rings in air; And see, may Heaven its mercy yield! His charger from a hopeless field Doth a _dead rider_ bear. The gunners lie by their linstocks dead, While deep on every brow, In the bloody scroll of our island swords, Is the tale of each horseman's dying words, "Our memory is deathless now." Staggering back goes a broken band, With standards soiled and torn, With gory saddles and reeling steeds, And ranks that are swaying like surging reeds On a wild autumn morn. Despair has gazed on many a field Won by our fearless race; And well the night wind, sighing low, Knows where, with breast broad to the foe, Is the dead Briton's place. But never living horsemen rode So near the eternal marge, As those who ran the tilt that day With Death, and bore their lives away From the Balaclava charge. THE BUSHMAN'S LULLABY Lift me down to the creek bank, Jack, It must be fresher outside; The long hot day is well-nigh done; It's a chance if I see another one; I should like to look on the setting sun, And the water, cool and wide. We didn't think it would be like this Last week, as we rode together; True mates we've been in this far land For many a year, since Devon's strand We left for these wastes of sun-scorched sand In the blessed English weather. We left when the leafy lanes were green And the trees met overhead, The rippling brooks ran clear and gay, The air was sweet with the scent of hay, How well I remember the very day And the words my mother said! We have toiled and striven and fought it out Under the hard blue sky, Where the plains glowed red in tremulous light, Where the haunting mirage mocked the sight Of desperate men from morn till night,-- And the streams had long been dry. Where we dug for gold on the mountain-side, Where the ice-fed river ran; In frost and blast, through fire and snow, Where an Englishman could live and go, We've followed our luck through weal and woe, And never asked help from man. And now it's over, it's hard to die Ere the summer of life is o'er, When the pulse beats high and the limbs are stark, Ere time has printed one warning mark, To quit the light for the unknown dark, And, O God! to see home no more! No more! no more! I that always vowed That, whether or rich or poor, Whatever the years might bring or change, I would one day stand by the grey old grange, And the children would gather, all shy and strange, As I entered the well-known door. You will go home to the old place, Jack; Then tell my mother for me, That I thought of the words she used to say, Her looks, her tones, as I dying lay, That I prayed to God, as I used to pray When I knelt beside her knee. By the lonely water they made their couch, And the southern night fast fled; They heard the wildfowl splash and cry, They heard the mourning reeds' low sigh, Such was the Bushman's lullaby,-- With the dawn his soul was sped. MORNING Morn on the waters! the glad bird flings The diamond spray from his glittering wings. Old ocean lieth in dreamless sleep, As the slumber of childhood calmly deep, Light falls the stroke of the fisher's oar, As he leaves his cot by the shingly shore; While the young wife's gaze, half sad, half bright, Follows the frail bark's flashing flight. Noon on the waters! O rustling breeze, Sweet stealer 'mid old forest trees, Wilt thou not thy sweet whisper keep Nigh him who journeys the shadeless deep? The wanderer dreams of the shadowy dell, And the green-turfed, fairy-haunted well, While the shafts of the noon-king's merciless might Mingle day with sorrow, and death with light. Night on the waters! murmuring hoarse, The vexed deep threatens the bold bark's course, The thunder-growl and the tempest moan Sound like spirits that watch for the dying groan. The storm-fiend sweeps o'er the starless waste, And the unchained blasts to the gathering haste; Man alone, unshaken, his course retains, While the elements combat and chaos reigns. WANTED A young Lady of twenty-three years of age, as a teacher in a Ladies' School. Satisfactory references required.--"TIMES" _Advertisement_. Why should I be _twenty-three_? What are the virtues they can see Just about to bloom in me In the magical year of _twenty-three_? Does a maiden, fair and free, Get prudent just at _twenty-three_? Whatever can the reason be That they want a girl just _twenty-three_? Dignified matron, whoever you be, Would not twenty-two do for thee? Would twenty-one be shown to the door, And twenty told to come no more? Nineteen, perhaps, would hardly be fit, Eighteen strikes one as rather a chit. Why must you search o'er land and sea For the golden age of _twenty-three_? Still the years glide on--for you and for me, We're nearer, or farther from, _twenty-three_. Oft, as I sit over my five o'clock tea, I think, did she get her? age _twenty-three_! When friends are cold and unkind to me, I think there's a refuge when _twenty-three_. On my birthday I'll write, unknown friend, to thee, Exclaiming, "Here, take me, I'm _twenty-three_!" PERDITA She is beautiful yet, with her wondrous hair And eyes that are stormy with fitful light, The delicate hues of brow and cheek Are unmarred all, rose-clear and bright; That matchless frame yet holds at bay The crouching bloodhounds, Remorse, Decay. There is no fear in her great dark eyes-- No hope, no love, no care, Stately and proud she looks around With a fierce, defiant stare; Wild words deform her reckless speech, Her laugh has a sadness tears never reach. Whom should she fear on earth? Can fate One direr torment lend To her few little years of glitter and gloom With the sad old story to end, When the spectres of Loneliness, Want, and Pain Shall arise one night with Death in their train? I see in a vision a woman like her Trip down an orchard slope, With rosy prattlers that shout a name In tones of rapture and hope; While the yeoman, gazing at children and wife, Thanks God for the pride and joy of his life. * * * * * * Whose conscience is heavy with this dark guilt? Who pays at the final day For a wasted body, a murdered soul, And how shall he answer, I say, For her outlawed years, her early doom, And despair--despair--beyond the tomb? "PRIEZ POUR ELLE" AN INCIDENT OF THE INDIAN MUTINY In the old tower they stand at bay, Where the Moslem fought of old; True to their race, in that sad day Their lives are dearly sold. They are but three; a woman fair, A boy of fearless brow, He, whom she vowed to love is there-- God help her! then and now. With fiercer leaguer never did Those rugged stones resound, As the swarthy yelling masses swayed The time-worn keep around. Our death-doomed brothers fired fast, Our sister loaded well; With each rifle-crack a spirit passed; By scores the rebels fell. Though corses choke the narrow way, Still swarms the demon hive; Like a tolling bell each heart _will_ say "We ne'er go forth alive!" Undaunted still--the leaden rain Slacks not one moment's space-- With a crashing bullet through his brain, The boy drops on his face! With outstretched arms, with death-clutched hands, His mother's darling lies, No more, till rent the grave's dark bands, To glad her loving eyes. Gone the last hope! faint gleam of light-- Death stalks before their eyes-- While yells and screams of wild delight From the frenzied crowd arise. O God of mercy! can it be? It is a hideous dream-- No!--nearer rolls the human sea, Arms flash, and eyeballs gleam. He thinks of her, pale, tender, fair-- To nameless tortures given, Gore-stained and soiled the bright brown hair-- His very soul is riven. He lifts the weapon. Did he think Of a happy summer time-- Of the village meadow--river brink, Of the merry wedding chime? Little he dreamed of this dreary Now, Or that ever he should stand With the pistol-muzzle at her brow, The trigger in _his_ hand! They kissed--they clung in a last embrace, They prayed a last deep prayer-- Then proudly she raised her tearful face, And----a corse lay shuddering there! He stooped, his love's soft eyes to close, He smoothed the bright brown hair, Smiled on the crowd of baffled foes, Then, scattered his brains in air. _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. 
5789	----	EARLY MELBOURNE AND VICTORIA BY WILLIAM WESTGARTH. (PLATE: EDWARD HENTY. Died August 14th 1878. George Robertson & Co. Lith.) (PLATE: JOHN PASCOE FAWKNER. Died September 4th 1869. George Robertson & Co. Lith.) PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY MELBOURNE AND VICTORIA BY WILLIAM WESTGARTH. "Oh, call back yesterday, bid time return." --Richard II. "A story of the mount and plain, The lake, the river, and the sea; A voice that wakes to life again An age-long slumbering melody." --GEORGE GORDON McCRAE. "Ah! who has ever journeyed, on a glorious summer night, Through the weird Australian bushland, without feelings of delight? The dense untrodden forest, in the moonlight cold and pale, Brings before our wondering eyes again the dreams of fairy tale." --A. PATCHETT MARTIN. "The genius of Australia now uprears Her youthful form, like hope without hope's fears; While o'er her head our Cross, with loveliest rays, Heralds the brightness of her future years." --R.H. HORNE. CONTENTS. AN INTRODUCTORY MEDLEY. MR. FROUDE'S "OCEANA". NEW ZEALAND. UNITY OF THE EMPIRE. EARLY PORT PHILLIP. MY FIRST NIGHT ASHORE. INDIGENOUS FEATURES AROUND MELBOURNE. THE ABORIGINAL NATIVES IN AND ABOUT TOWN. EARLY CIVILIZING DIFFICULTIES. "THE BEACH" (NOW PORT MELBOURNE). EARLY MELBOURNE, ITS UPS AND DOWNS--1840-1851. THE MELBOURNE CORPORATION, 1842. EARLY SUBURBAN MELBOURNE. THE EARLY SQUATTING TIMES. EARLY WESTERN VICTORIA ("AUSTRALIA FELIX"). SOME NAMES OF MARK IN THE EARLY YEARS. THE HENTY FAMILY, AND THE FOUNDATION OF VICTORIA. SOME INTERJECTA IN RE BATMAN, PIONEER OF THE PORT PHILLIP SETTLEMENT. JOHN PASCOE FAWKNER, FATHER OF MELBOURNE. JAMES SIMPSON, FIRST MAGISTRATE OF "THE SETTLEMENT". DAVID CHARTERIS McARTHUR, FATHER OF VICTORIAN BANKING. CHARLES JOSEPH LA TROBE, C.B. SIR JOHN O'SHANASSY. WILLIAM KERR, FOUNDER OF "THE ARGUS". WILLIAM NICHOLSON. CHARLES HOTSON EBDEN, ESQUIRE. EDWARD WILSON, CHIEF PROPRIETOR OF "THE ARGUS", "THE TIMES" OF THE SOUTH. EARLY SOCIETY: WAYS, MEANS, AND MANNERS. "GOVERNMENT HOUSE". CHEAP LIVING. RELIGIOUS INTERESTS. THE GERMAN IMMIGRATION. THE GERMAN PRINCE. BLACK THURSDAY. EARLY VICTORIA, FROM 1851. EARLY BALLARAT. MOUNT ALEXANDER AND BENDIGO. EARLY VICTORIAN LEGISLATION. POSTCRIPT. MELBOURNE IN 1888. ALBURY. SYDNEY. BRISBANE. PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY MELBOURNE AND VICTORIA. AN INTRODUCTORY MEDLEY. "Pleasure and action make the hours seem short."--Othello. I had long looked forward to one more visit to Victoria, perhaps the last I should expect to make, and the opportunity of the opening of the great Centenary Exhibition at Melbourne on 1st August of this year was too good to be lost. Accordingly, having been able to arrange business matters for so long a holiday, I took passage, with my wife and daughter, by the good steamship "Coptic" of the "Shaw, Savill New Zealand Line," as it is curtly put. She was to land us at Hobart about 27th July, in good time, we hoped, to get across by the Launceston boat for the Exhibition opening, and she bids fair, at this moment, to keep her engagement. We would have taken the directer route, with its greater number and variety of objects, via Suez and Colombo, but we feared the sun-blaze of the ill-omened Red Sea in summer. We purpose, however, to return that way towards the coming winter. More than thirty-one years have elapsed since I left Melbourne, after a residence there of seventeen years, broken, however, by two intermediate visits "Home." I think with wondering enjoyment of what I am to see in the colony and its capital after such an interval. Previously, when I returned after only a year or two's absence, I was wont to mark with astonishment all that had been done in that comparatively brief time. I am thankful to Mr. Froude, whose delightful work, "Oceana," I could read to all full enjoyment during the leisure and quiet of the voyage, for somewhat preparing me for what I have to see, for I must infer from his graphic accounts, especially of interior progress--while already three more years have since elapsed--that even my most sanguine anticipations will be exceeded. Our great Scottish poet and novelist has finely said:-- "Lives there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said-- This is my own, my native land?" But is there not a formidable rival to the force of this sentiment in that with which one clings to the land where so many of the most vigorous years of life have been actively spent? And a land, besides, of surpassing sunny beauty and of rare romance. Business calls are usually held to be imperative, even if they send us, willing or unwilling, to "Ultima Thule or the Pole." Accordingly, my later lot has been to return to the older, and not to continue in the newer, part of the common empire. But, at any rate, that rather enhances the enjoyment of this re-visit. According to the usual custom, I now write my introduction last of all. I have most pleasantly occupied several hours of the complete leisure of each day in writing these "Recollections," and now, as we get within almost hours of our destination, I am putting this last hand to my labours. I cannot hope that their light sketchiness can go for much, save with those who, familiar with the great Melbourne and Victoria of to-day, may enjoy the comparison of the small things of a retrospect extending to almost half a century, and all but to the birth of the colony. The voyage has been extremely pleasant, with a good and well-found vessel, fairly fast as the briskly competitive speed of these days goes, and above all with a head in Captain Burton who has proved first-class in every requirement. He has just complimented us by saying that we are the best behaved lot of passengers he ever took. That was due very greatly to himself; and I think that all of us are well able to reciprocate his compliment by regarding him as the best of captains. Officers and crew also have been, to our view at least, faultless; but then, again, all that so much depends upon the captain. Touching the important matter of speed, let me say a little. All important it is, indeed, in this age of fast progress. When I first sailed for Australia, in 1840, we were, I think, 141 days on the way. Nor was that a very inordinate passage then. This time I expect, within that interval, to go and return, besides having nearly two and a half months to spare--a space of time which now, with rails and fast steamers everywhere, will enable me to visit all South-Eastern Australasia, including even New Zealand. Of course, that means hardly more than "to see," but still that is better than not to see at all, those wonderful parts of our empire. But yet again, on this point of speed, our "Coptic's" daily run averaged rather under 300 nautical miles. In justice to the good ship, we should credit her with rather more, for during the latter half of the voyage she was meeting or anticipating the sun by six or seven degrees of longitude daily, and thus clipping about half an hour off each day. But turn now to the latest like exploit between Liverpool and New York--the case, I think, of the s.s. "Umbria", whose unprecedented record is of 455 to 503 miles daily. Granting this to be subject to abatement for running this time away from the sun, and thus prolonging the day, there is enough of difference to give us, at this speed, the hope of a three weeks' Australian service by the straightest available line. It has already been effected to Adelaide in 29 days. We Australians must hope that ere long Melbourne and Sydney, together with all about them, will weigh, with ourselves at least, as heavily as New York. The coal question is, of course, an awful difficulty for three weeks instead of five to six days, but not, we hope, insuperable. Our "Coptic" burns but fifty tons a day, but the New York liners require three hundred. When a man has passed seventy-three, as I have done, he may be excused in doubting his chance of yet another Australian visit. But while he has been waiting these many years, he has seen such vast improvement in inter-communication facilities of every kind, as to establish, he might say, a complete counterbalance to the increasing infirmities of years. Imagine, therefore, the Australian liner of the next few years to be a great and comfortable hotel, as though one went for three weeks' fresh sea air to Brighton or Bournemouth, with the additional charm that, on quitting your pleasant marine apartments, you stepped out upon Australia. This brings up yet another subject. When attending, four years ago, the very successful and most interesting meeting of the British Association at Montreal, I was very curious as to the possible prospect, now that this body had made so good a first outside step, of a like meeting in Australia. But, not very long after, an invitation to the Association was actually sent from Melbourne. The year asked for had been pre-engaged for Home. My distinguished friend, Mr. Service, told me, when on his late Home visit, that no doubt the invitation would go again. I may usefully mention here that the Association is usually engaged, or as good as engaged, two clear years in advance, so that the third year, at least, in advance should be dealt with for Melbourne. This besides would afford sufficient notice for the busy men of all classes and all vocations at Home to arrange conveniently for the necessarily long absence. I do not doubt of complete success. Indeed, it is such a further chance as that which might tempt even the oldest of us into visiting the far-off but bright and sunny South. MR. FROUDE'S "OCEANA." I feel that my introductory medley would still be incomplete if I did not allude, somewhat more than I have already done, to Mr. Froude's recently published "Oceana," a work which, in its vigour and high literary style, marks quite an era in its Australian field. I had regretted before embarking that, from the pressure of other things, my acquaintance with it had been limited to the reading of many reviews and the hearing of much criticism. But I have been well compensated by a perusal during the peace and ample leisure of this long voyage. I must confine my remarks to two points only, which, however, are amongst the most prominent in the book. These are--first, the terms in which he has alluded to the present condition of New Zealand; and, second, his ardently loyal remarks, so often repeated, upon that rising question of the day, the political unity of the empire--a subject which had been advanced at the time into a most significant importance to the Australian colonies by the apparent imminence of war with Russia. NEW ZEALAND. I am not inclined to repeat the scolding which, it is understood, my zealous friend, Sir Francis Bell, Agent-General for New Zealand, under his high sense of duty, administered to the brilliant author of "Oceana" for this sole dark spot of his book. I see no sufficient cause. On the contrary, he has given us such a charming account of the aspects and prospects of this, the most magnificent of our colonies--for I agree with him in believing that it is to be "the future home of the greatest nation of the Pacific"--that certain loose or inaccurate words addressed to him about the finances, and which he had deemed worth recording, may well be expected to have in comparison the most evanescent effect. "One gentleman," he says, "amused me considerably with his views," the said views being to the effect that New Zealand would be ready, when the final pressure came, to repudiate her heavy public debt. Another equally vivacious informant stated that, besides the 32 million pounds of colonial borrowing, "the municipal debts were at least as much more as the national debt." Now this is six times overstated for municipal and harbour debts together. No doubt the actual case is bad enough, for New Zealand has far over-borrowed. But as to repudiation, there is not a hint or notion of it in any responsible quarter whatever, any more than with regard to our British Consols, although the colony is, for the time, in the extremity of a depression, ever recurrent in such young, fast-going societies, caused by a continuous subsiding of previous too-speculative values. To this I may add, in reference to the smaller issues of colonial municipalities, that of the very great number of these, New Zealand's included, brought for many years past upon the London market, there is not, in my recollection, as a matter of my own business, one single instance of default, as to either principal or interest, if we except the sole and quite special and temporary case, above thirty years ago, of the city of Hamilton, in Upper Canada. UNITY OF THE EMPIRE. This question has been in a course of rapid clearing during the last few years, and the successful establishment of the Imperial Federation League has given an orderly procedure in every way promising. The object aimed at is, that the empire shall have that political binding which will give to it the maximum of power and influence possible under all its circumstances. Above fifteen years ago some few of us--very few they then were--first seriously raised this question at Home in the Royal Colonial Institute. We had the smallest of audiences then. It is marvellous to look back now upon that indifference. I recollect that about ten years ago, when the movement was just beginning to look serious to those outside of us, a leading Paris paper devoted an article to the subject, remarking that if Great Britain persevered so as to unite her empire as sought, the balance of the world's power would be so seriously disturbed as to call for an international reconsideration of that subject. The progress as yet has been chiefly negative, but it has been great. Modes entertained at first have been discarded. This may be said of superseding the present Imperial Parliament by a pro re nata Federal Assembly; and it may be equally said of an influx of proportionate colonial representatives into the Home House. Councils of colonial ambassadors, agents-general, and so on, have, I think, definitely gone the same way. These are chiefly Home views, for Home is at length aroused as well as the colonies to their common question; and the summons by the Secretary for the Colonies of the Colonial Conference which sat in London two years ago marks alike the most prominent and most promising feature in the movement. Mr. Froude has given, most usefully, the views of the colonists. Let us take Mr. Dalley's, which is also that of most others, namely, that the nascent but increasing colonial navies should be all under one imperial command--that is, be a part of the British navy. There is one more step--namely, to dispose of all colonial military force in the same common-sense way, and then we have a politically united empire. But we are "constitutional" or representative in our polity, so that something else is still wanted. In short, the unity of the empire requires two things. First, that all its force be under one executive, and, next, that the colonies be proportionately represented in that executive. The Cabinet seems to me the adaptable body we can operate upon to this end. That body would then be actually, as well as legally, the empire's executive. Nothing should--nothing need--prevent the attainment of this grand end. The tariff bugbear concerns only commerce, and need not arrest nor even interfere with the empire's political unity. All other matters of the common interest can be leisurely settled by mutual consent, as the empire, in its united state, sails along the great ocean of the future. The mother will then, in emergency, have the sure call of her children; while every colony, even to the very smallest, will know that in case of need the whole empire is at its back. When the rest of the world knows that fact, it will thenceforth probably not trouble our empire either about international rearrangements or anything else. EARLY PORT PHILLIP. "Should auld acquaintance be forgot And the days o' lang syne." --Burns. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." --Haynes Bayly. Entering Port Phillip on the morning of the 13th December, 1840, we were wafted quickly up to the anchorage of Hobson's Bay on the wings of a strong southerly breeze, whose cool, and even cold, temperature was to most of us an unexpected enjoyment in the middle of an Australian summer. A small boat came to us at the anchorage containing Mr. and Mrs. D.C. McArthur and others who had friends or relations on board, and who told us that for some days there had been excessive heat and a hot wind, which had now reacted in this southerly blast, to go on probably into heavy rain, the country being excessively dry. MY FIRST NIGHT ASHORE. "The Hut on the Flat." --James Henry. "How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude." --Cowper. The rain did follow at night to the full as predicted. I had engaged to accompany a young friend that evening to spend the next day, Sunday, at his "country seat" on Richmond Flat, where he had constructed, mostly with his own hands, a sort of hut or wigwam, under an unchallenged squattage. Being engaged in a store for long hours on Saturday night, it was past eleven ere we started. The rain had begun to pour, and the night was pitch dark. We got into Collins-street, but had much difficulty in keeping its lines where there were not post-and-rail fences round the vacant allotments. Only three years had elapsed since Melbourne had been named and officially laid out, and, excepting the very centre, there were still wide intervals between the houses on either side even of Collins-street. After floundering helplessly about in the foundation-cutting of a new house, which was already full of water, but happily only a few inches deep, we at length emerged upon the open of the present Fitzroy Gardens, where for a little time we could keep to the bush track only by trying the ground with our feet or our fingers. But in spite of all care we soon lost the road, and wandered about in the pouring rain for the rest of the night. We were young and strong, and as the rain did not chill us, we were in but little discomfort. A beauteous sunny morning broke upon us, with a delicious fragrance from the refreshed ground. We found ourselves near the Yarra, between the present busy Hawthorn and Studley Park. Solitude and quiet reigned around us, excepting the enchanting "ting ting" of the bell bird. We stripped ourselves, wrung our drenched clothes, and spread them to dry in the sun, and then plunged into the dark, deep still Yarra for our morning bath, afterwards duly reaching my friend's country seat. INDIGENOUS FEATURES AROUND MELBOURNE. "There are more things in heaven and earth Than are dreamt of in our philosophy." --Hamlet These features form an interesting retrospect of early Melbourne. They have nearly all disappeared since with the growth of town and population. Some who preceded me saw the kangaroo sporting over the site of Melbourne--a pleasure I never enjoyed, as the timid creatures fled almost at once with the first colonizing inroad. I have spoken of the little bell bird, which, piping its pretty monotone, flitted in those earlier years amongst the acacias on the banks of the Yarra close to Melbourne, but which has taken its departure to far distances many a year ago. The gorgeous black cockatoo was another of our early company, now also long since departed. For a very few years after my arrival they still hovered about Melbourne, and I recollect gazing in admiration at a cluster of six of them perched upon a large gum-tree near the town, upon the Flemington-road. The platypus, also, was quite plentiful, especially in the Merri Creek. Visiting, about 1843, my friend Dr. Drummond, who had a house and garden at the nearest angle of the creek, about two miles from town, we adjourned to a "waterhole" at the foot of the garden, on the chance of seeing a platypus, and sure enough, after a very few minutes, one rose before us in the middle of the pool. THE ABORIGINAL NATIVES IN AND ABOUT TOWN. "Oh I see the monstrousness of man When he looks out in an ungrateful shape." --Timon of Athens. The natives still strolled into Melbourne at the time of my arrival, and for a couple of years or so after; but they were prohibited about the time of the institution of the corporation, as their non-conformity in attire--to speak in a decent way--their temptations from offers of drink by thoughtless colonists, and their inveterate begging, began soon to make them a public nuisance. But aboriginal ways did not die at once. The virtues or integrity of native life, as Strzelecki would phrase it, struggled and survived for some few further years the strong upsetting tide of colonial life. Returning one night, about 1843, from dining with Mr. William Locke, an old colonial merchant, at his pretty cottage and gardens on the Merri Creek, between four and five miles out by the Sydney-road, I diverged westwards from the purely bush track which as yet constituted that main highway of the future Victoria. My object was to escape the swampy vicinities of Brunswick, a village about three miles out of town, consisting for a number of years of three small brick cottages, adventurously rather than profitably built by an early speculator. With firm footing and under a bright moon, I had a pleasant walk through what is now the beautiful Royal Park, when, judging that I must be nearing Melbourne, I perceived quite a number of lights ahead. There were as yet no public lights to scattered little Melbourne in those early days, although the new corporation, elected the year before, had got to work by this time. So, what could it all be? I was not long in suspense. It could only be a native encampment, and I was soon in its midst. The natives at a distance, especially in the far western direction, were still at times hostile, but all those who lived near town were already quite peaceful, so that I had no hesitation in now entering their encampment. I was most cordially received and shown over the different wigwams, each of which had its fire burning. I was taken specially to one occupied by a poor fellow who, under native war laws, had had his kidney-fat wrenched out and eaten by his foes. He showed me the wound, which, however, had now healed up. But he himself had never recovered, being sadly weak and death-like, as one who had but little more to do with this busy world. The last great native demonstration near Melbourne, and, indeed, so far as I can recollect, the last of its kind within the colony, took place about a mile north-east of the town, in the middle of 1844. This was a grand corrobboree, arranged for amongst themselves by surrounding tribes, including the still considerable tribe of the River Goulburn. This was, as it were, one last aboriginal defiance, hurled in despair from the expiring native cause against the too-victorious colonial invasion. We of the town had heard of the proposed exhibition, and many, including myself, went out to see it. There were present seven hundred aborigines of all ages and both sexes. The performances were chiefly by the younger men, in bands of fifties, for the respective tribes, while the females, in lines by themselves, beat the time, and gave what they no doubt considered to be music. EARLY CIVILIZING DIFFICULTIES. "He loves his own barn better Than he loves our house." --First Part Henry IV. Up to that time, and for some time longer, the religious conversion of these natives was regarded as hopeless, so deeply "bred in blood and bone" was aboriginal character. Consequently all the earlier missions were abandoned in utter despair, with only one exception, that of the Moravians, which, in faith and duty continuing the work, was at length rewarded with success. Naturally some few, especially amongst the young, were less severely "native" than the rest, and these were more or less gained. But the change came with the next generation, "born in the purple" of surrounding colonial life. The blood and bone had been partially neutralized, and this is still more the result of yet another generation that has followed, so that, in spite of the black skin, the missionary now deals with natures much more amenable to his teachings. A remarkable illustration of aboriginal tenacity, which, however, I am quoting only from memory, occurred in South Australia. Two aboriginal children, separated from babyhood from aboriginal life, were trained and educated like colonists. For the earlier years little difference was noticed, but as they advanced into boyhood some restlessness became evident. When, on one occasion, a native tribe, presumably their own, happened to be near Adelaide, these children, who had either seen them or heard of them, made their escape at the earliest opportunity, and, having reached the native camp, at once threw off the habiliments of civilization, and never after showed any disposition to return to the conditions they had so summarily rejected. "THE BEACH" (NOW PORT MELBOURNE). "Thinking of the days that are no more." --Tennyson. At the time of my arrival, all Melbourne-bound passengers were put out by their respective ships' boats upon that part of the northern beach of Port Phillip that was nearest to Melbourne, whence, in straggling lines, as they best could in hot winds, they trod a bush track of their own making, which, about a mile and a half long, brought them to a punt or little boat just above "The Falls," where the owner made a good living at 3 pence a head for the half-minute's passage. This debarkation place got to be called, par excellence, "The Beach." It consisted already of two public-houses, kept respectively by Liardet and Lingham. Both were respectable people in their way, but the first was also a character. Of good family connection, he had enjoyed a life of endless adventure, which, however, had never seemed any more to elevate him by fortune than to depress him by its reverse. He was a kind of roving Garibaldi, minus, indeed, the hero's war-paint and the Italian unity, but with all his frankness and indomitable resource. Having a family of active young sons, he secured the boating of "the Beach" as well as the other thing. But his untold riches of experience seemed never to condescend to develop into riches of mere money--and perhaps without one pang of regret to his versatile and resourceful mind. This Beach was a sterile spot, afterwards fittingly called Sandridge, and presented so little inducement to occupancy that these two public-houses were the whole of it till well on to the days of gold. Then The Beach awoke to its destinies. When the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay railway was projected, in 1852, there were already a good few houses, mostly wooden, straggling along either side of the original bush track. Then arose the respectable suburb of Sandridge, to be finally superseded by the municipality of Port Melbourne, which, with its mayor and corporation, can now enter the London market with its own loan issues. The only other indigenous feature of this somewhat featureless Beach which I recollect was a little virulently salt lagoon, situated in complete isolation near the Bay, and only some hundred yards on the right-hand side of the track to Melbourne. We all knew it was there, but it had extremely few visitors, owing to its unapproachable surrounding of bushes, and its bad repute from a countless guard of huge and ferocious mosquitos. Without outlet for its extra-briny waters, and in its desolate solitude, it might have aspired to be a sort of tiny Dead Sea. With the advance of Sandridge this evil-omened southern Avernus came in for better consideration, and by 1854, with a cutting into the Bay, it had become a ready-made boat haven. The Melbourne maps now show me that it must have reached still higher destinies. EARLY MELBOURNE, ITS UPS AND DOWNS--1840-51. "Will Fortune never come with both hands full?" --Second Part Henry IV. "The weakest go to the wall." --Romeo and Juliet. But "it's better to scheme than to slumber." --J. Brunton Stephens, Queensland. "Sweet are the uses of adversity." --As You Like It. When Fawkner, in August, 1835, following Batman's example of the previous May, organized and sent forth his party from Launceston to explore and colonize Port Phillip, his instruction was that they should squat down for a home only where there was adequate fresh water. When, in their cruising about to that end, the party entered the Yarra at the Bay's head, ascended its roundabout course, and found ample water to drink above "the Falls," they at once disembarked there, and there in consequence arose Melbourne. Fawkner, following in October, confirmed the choice, and with his characteristic energy commenced the work of colonization. The immediate needs decide many things "for better, for worse." A good many have since thought that this has been a costly and inconvenient site for the colony's capital, and that that of Williamstown, with its healthful level, like New York, might have been better, and, still better than either, Geelong, with its beautiful ready-made harbour, its immediate background of rich soil, and its direct access to all the superior capabilities of the west and north-west. But there Melbourne is, and in spite of all obstacles it is already the prominent city of the Southern Hemisphere, and Fawkner is justly its father. When Melbourne's father died, now a good many years ago, and with not a few of the admitted honours and merits of a long, laborious, and useful life, I sent authority to friends there to subscribe for me to the inevitable monument. But my offered money was never demanded, and therefore I fear that the living busy tide of such a host of sons has crowded out the memory of the dead parent. A vision of earliest Melbourne rises before me. Allotment speculators were bound, within moderate time, to construct a "dwelling" on their purchase, and in some cases these were made with honest intention, as in the two adjacent half-acres of Mr. James Smith and Mr. Skene Craig in west Collins-street. But in most cases these coerced structures were only shams, which disappeared right early. The only "buildings" on a good many sections, that are now central and almost priceless, were post-and-rail fences, somewhat dilapidated at places by our license of jumping over them for a short diagonal to adjacent streets. Let me try to recall the Melbourne of 1840, as it looked in that year, the year of my arrival. In the first place I must protest against the meagre view given some years ago in the "Illustrated London News", from a sketch by Mossman, an early colonist of my acquaintance, and copied into the lively and pleasant volume of my esteemed friend, Miss Isabella Bird (now Mrs. Bishop). It may be true as far as it goes, but it is only the Western Market square, which had hardly one-thirtieth part of that year's Melbourne. At the close of 1840 there were between three and four thousand of population, although perhaps one-fourth of these, who had been recently shot out of emigrant ships, were merely waiting for employment or settlement. The whole District had about nine thousand. Curiously enough, Melbourne (including suburbs) has always had about one-third of the total colonial population, while Sydney and Adelaide respectively have been much the same. But this naturally comes of a vast interior behind, which has practically only the one outlet. In New Zealand, on the other hand, the long strip of land, with the sea near to every part, calls into being a number of small capitals. The latter are the immediate facilities; but, in the other case, the ultimate creation of a surpassingly great city, with all its powerful concentration of resource, seems on the whole the more promising for a country's advance in all the interests of human life. The latest returns for the end of last year (1887) give 392,000 people to Melbourne, in a total for the colony of 1,033,000. Taking central Collins-street, which was then, and I suppose is still, the chief seat of business, and beginning with "The Shakespeare," at the market corner, where originally Fawkner opened the first public-house, and proceeding eastwards to Swanston-street, there was a good sprinkling of brick-built offices, stores, and shops, including Kerr and Holmes, in stationery; Drummond's grocery (wooden), Turnbull, Orr and Co., Forsyth's druggery, the Imperial Inn, Pittman, Dinwoodie's saddlery, Townend's corner (wooden), George James's wine office and house, and the ill-fortuned Port Phillip Bank. Returning by the other side were Hood, chemist; Cashmore, draper; Carson, shoemaker; J.M. Chisholm and the Benjamins, soft goods; the hardware shop of William Witton, a leading Wesleyan, his Wesleyan Church, and the Bank of Australasia, which towered up, prince of the small squad. To the far east, on the south side, was our worthy Dr. Howitt's good house and garden. On the other side were some few small brick dwellings. One was occupied by Deputy-Assistant Commissary General Erskine. In another was Dr. Hobson, whose untimely death was an early grief to our small society, unable to spare such lives. He was the friend and correspondent of Professor Owen, and supplied the Prince of Science with curious data of the strange, and then but scantily known, Australian fauna, from the platypus, at the head of modern wonders, back to the earliest marsupialdom of the fossil world. The Reverend Alexander Morison's Independent Church and adjacent manse came next. The Scots Church, lower down, of which the Reverend James Forbes was minister, was then being built. Not till the next year was the creditably large Mechanics' Institute begun. A good story is told of it, characteristic of the earlier flourish of the times. Mr. P.W. Welsh, then the leading merchant, had offered to subscribe so largely that the committee took offence at such vain presumption, and limited subscriptions to more modest sums. Returning to the market place, and taking its eastern side, was a small nest of early merchants--E.M. Sayers, whose stores my firm bought eight years later; Watson and Wight; Were Brothers, whose senior, the well-known Mr. Jonathan Binns Were, was always, under all fortunes, a prominent and influential merchant and citizen; W. and H. Barnes and Co., and perhaps one or two more. But as the buildings are not given in Mossman's sketch, they probably belong to the end of the year, or possibly tide over into 1841. Towards the foot of the market slope the first Custom House was being built, and of that dismal, dark-brown indurated sandstone, of which other places--St. James's Church, the old gaol, etc.--were also built, because it was so near at hand. Sweeping now round to the west side we come to the good store and residence belonging to J.F. Strachan, of Geelong, and managed by F. Nodin, who was quite a character of the time, with his bustling form, and face ever full of business, whether business were full or not. He would always accept his bills in red ink, and, as the joke goes, the bills being good, the Nodin manner was supposed to help even the non-Nodin bills through at the "Australasia." At the corner opposite the Shakespeare was the Melbourne Auction Company, where I first met my most worthy old friend, George Sinclair Brodie, so well known for ten years after as the leading Melbourne auctioneer, or rather "broker," for that is nearer the home equivalent. He was the salesman, while a genial and amusing good fellow, John Carey, from Guernsey, was manager. The company had just paid 20 per cent dividend--the first as well as the last in that way. In the jolly days up to that time every buyer got credit, and there was plenty of business; but when the times changed the credit bills were not met, and so the poor M.A.C., which had as usual guaranteed them, got cleaned out. Down Collins-street once more, we pass the primitive wooden cottage residence of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, whose family of fine daughters were already all married--Mrs. D.S. Campbell, Mrs. R. Russell, Mrs. Martin, Mrs. Hutton--excepting the youngest, then a school-girl, afterwards married to Nantes, of Geelong, D.S. Campbell's partner. Then came Craig and Broadfoot's stores, and Alison and Knight's flour mills. At the end was pretty green Batman's Hill, which has since been remorselessly sacrificed for the great railway terminus. Batman's original wooden house on the southern slope was, after his early death, occupied as the Government offices by Mr. La Trobe, and this homely tenement did such high duties for no small subsequent term. Down hereabout was also a conspicuous line of five little wooden cottages, called Roach-terrace, after Captain Roach, another very early colonist, which were each let at 5 pounds a week, although they would not have brought half that money by the year at home. Returning on the other side was St. James's Church, in charge of the Reverend Mr. Thomson, of most sociable memory, within its ample open area, and, further on, the notorious Lamb Inn. For the rest of Melbourne of 1840 I must be content with one general sketch. Manton's Mills had arisen at the lower end of "the wharf," such as it then was. Flinders-street had as yet but little in it. James Jackson, afterwards Jackson, Rae and Company, was already there. About the middle was the cottage of P.W. Welsh, prior to his removing to South Yarra; and there, as the story goes again, Mrs. Welsh gave her "Five Hundred Pound Party," but having unfortunately omitted Arden, the editor of the "Gazette", in the invitations, he was left free to denounce so bad an example of extravagance. Bourke-street had an incongruous grouping, including the well-known Kirk's Bazaar, and the superb cottage, for its time, of Mr. Carrington, the solicitor; and in Little Bourke-street was Mr. Condell's brewery. At the far east end was Mr. Porter's good cottage, and further on, Mr. La Trobe's bijou residence, in its pretty grounds, which, although only of wood and of the smallest dimensions, he stuck to until his final leave in 1854. The lanes, or Little Flinders and Collins streets, were already fairly filled, as the land there was much cheaper. In the former were Heap and Grice's offices, and the Adelphi Hotel, approaching the Lamb Inn in noisy repute. The latter had Bells and Buchanan, the Post-Office under D. Kelsh, and, where Elizabeth-street crossed, G. Lovell and Company and Campbell and Woolley. The Catholic Church in Lonsdale-street was under construction, and on the western brow was Mr. Abrahams's good house, with his two pretty girl children, one of whom was in succession Mrs. Pike, Mrs. Gray, and Mrs. Williams, and is still alive, with a creditable total of family. Beyond was the trackless bush, excepting the bush tracks to Sydney, and in the Flemington and Keilor direction. But outside the town were already several suburbs, of which Collingwood was the largest, having the residences of John Hunter Patterson and other leading early colonists. I used to traverse not a few dreary empty allotments in the hot summer sun to reach the stores of my friend the Honourable James Graham, whose dwelling and business place in Russell, by Bourke street, seemed then quite far out of the village, but is since in the very heart of the great city. The course of values in the colony, early and late, is well illustrated by this example. The allotment originally belonged to our friend in common, S.A. Donaldson, of Sydney, who had bought for some nominal price at the Government sale in 1837. He bought many other lots thereabout, and towards Collingwood, further east and north; and after the gold discoveries, he told me pathetically, oftener than once, that his impatience to sell had lost him the status and happiness--whatever the latter might be--of a millionaire. Donaldson had let this place, with its house, stores, etc., good as these things went then, to Graham, at 500 pounds a year. This was about 1838-9, when everything in business ways was rolling jollily upwards. But some few years afterwards the landlord's attorneys, William Ryrie and myself, had to reduce the rent to either 100 or 50 pounds--I think the latter. Some years later, Graham purchased at 2,000 pounds, and it is understood has lately resold at something approaching a quarter of a million. As these matters are all locally so well known, I feel that, as with wills at Doctor's Commons, I tread upon no toes in such useful illustrations. I arrived just to witness the last glories of the famous champagne lunches, which prefaced the auction sales of these early days, and repeatedly I saw in his element Charles Williams, the earliest of his trade. If such lunches cost 40 pounds, which was given me as a moderate average, who suffered, argued their justifiers, if the exhilaration they produced gave 400 pounds more to the net proceeds? The brisk liquor appreciably blew up the prices, as the same lots, cut up and rearranged, would come again and yet again under the hammer. Many a bullock-drover would pull up on passing the auction room or tent, and quaff off half a bottle to the good health of all concerned in such liberality. One respectable old colonist was said to have almost lived on those lunches in the dear early times, so regularly did he encourage and patronize them. The bidding public were regaled before the sale, but the auctioneer and his clients after--a plan which made very much the better business, as might have been seen by the effects in either case. Williams began with 4,000 pounds a year profits, which I dare say went on to the rate of 10,000 pounds for the brief term. He was just finishing what, for those times, was a fine villa on the Yarra-bank, beyond Richmond, when the rapidly receding tide left him, as well as many others, stranded. Great gum-tree stumps were grievously prevalent, alike in Melbourne streets and allotments. Swanston-street was special in this way, and they long flourished upon allotments about where the city hall at first stood. One huge stump, just touching the Collins-street line where the Criterion Hotel was afterwards built, long held defiant existence, the wooden building of the time having deviated to go round it. When at length the lot came to be sold by Mr. James Purves, a well-known early allotment-monger, whom I recollect on this occasion descanting on the future prospects of so central a site, the buyer had the too long-endured enemy attacked and extirpated. THE MELBOURNE CORPORATION, 1842. "When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy winter's field." --Shakespeare, Sonnet 2. The corporation arose towards the end of 1842, and then the anti-stump warfare began. My friend Henry Condell, like so many other early birds a Tasmanian (a Vandemonian was the ill-omened name at that time), was the first mayor. The times were bad, and the shilling rating caused a growl, but the new body held its way. John Charles King, an Ulster man, and of good abilities, was the first town clerk. His successor, William Kerr, had greater abilities, but not equal method and activity. Both were strong Orangemen--a feeling, however, for which this colonial ground was not favourable. The bane and bottomless deep for the corporation's narrow budget was Elizabeth-street, where a little "casual" called "The Williams," of a mile's length, from the hardly perceptible hollows of the present Royal Park, played sad havoc at times with the unmade street. It had scooped out a course throughout, almost warranting the title of a gully, and at Townend's corner we needed a good long plank by way of a bridge. At the upper end of the street was a nest of deep channels which damaged daily for years the springs and vehicles of the citizens. The more knowing of us who lived northwards dodged these evils by a particular roundabout via Swanston-street. Up almost to gold diggings and Victorian Parliaments did the great Sydney-road begin thus inauspiciously, and hardly less pertinaciously disconcerting was the Brunswick swamp, three miles further on. Melbourne missed a great chance in filling up with a street this troublesome, and, as a street, unhealthy hollow. Dr. Howitt used to tell me he never could cure a patient, resident there, who had become seriously unwell. A reservation of the natural grass and gum-trees between Queen and Swanston streets would have redeemed Melbourne up to the first rank of urban scenic effect, and the riotous Williams might, with entire usefulness, have subsided into a succession of ornamental lakes and fish ponds. EARLY SUBURBAN MELBOURNE. "Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness." --Cowper. "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife." -Gray. In 1844 I lived in a little cottage at South Yarra, on the Dandenong or Gardiner's Creek-road, then only a bush track, although considerably trodden. I had not many neighbours. Mr. Jackson, at the far end, had bought Toorak, but not yet built upon it; and the near end was graced by Mr. R.H. Browne's pretty villa, in its ample grounds, sold shortly before to Major Davidson, and constituting the palace of its time along the road. There was a trackless forest opposite us, and more than once I missed my way in trying to make a straight cut to the present St. Kilda. One Sunday morning I made a discovery--a small sheet of water, glittering in the sunshine, and I long gazed admiringly on the countless insects and plants about its edges. It was confessedly neither broad nor deep, and a certain tag-rag indefiniteness of outline gave occasion afterwards to envious anti-Prahraners all about to make it out as only a swamp. The little thing had much badgering to endure in this way in Prahran's early progress. Later on, I saw it as a sort of central reserve of the ever-rising Prahran. But still later it was drained off and turned about its business, as either a profitless nuisance, or a too costly ornamentation: sic transit, etc. The following year, 1845, in which my worthy old friend Alfred Ross joined me in business in the Market-square, then a place of the very smallest pretensions compared to now, I rented, with him, the allotment next beyond the Major's. It had been vacant since its previous occupancy three years before by Mr. P.W. Welsh, already spoken of--one of the earliest and largest, best known, and least fortunate of Melbourne's early merchants. That the bad times that had brought many of us to the ground had then not quite passed, although they had by this time evidently "bottomed," may be judged by the fact that we got a fairly habitable large cottage, with twenty-five picturesque acres, and the remains, such as they were, of a garden, for 30 pounds a year. Five years earlier some thousands a year would have been needed to live in such a place. Eight years later it was worth, for mere site value, probably 30,000 pounds. I am afraid to say what it may now be worth. Probably most of it is long ago "cut up" into streets and town lots, like "Major Davidson's paddock" alongside, which, consisting of some twelve acres next the Dandenong-road, realized in 1854, under gold discovery stimulus, no less than 17,000 pounds. Such are a few specimens of colonial ups and downs! Here, too, we made acquaintance, pleasant and long protracted, with our neighbours, the gallant Major--since Colonel--Davidson, his quiet and amiable wife, and "Missie," as she was called, their only child, then of seven years, but in due time a surpassingly accomplished young lady, who was married to the son of Colonel Anderson, and still survives in London. She has confessed to me since that she used then to look up to me with great awe and regard--not merely, I hope, because I was so much the senior. Only one other incident here. One dark night, towards the fall of summer, detained by business longer than usual, we lost our way as we walked home, distance hardly two miles. After some "dandering" about, in order to strike the corner of Major Davidson's fence, which was as good to us as at home, we caught glimpse of a light, which in that place we knew must be a stranger. Then, as we approached, there were figures and voices. Who should this be but old Liardet from The Beach, with a section of his family, who, having an outing in Melbourne, had, like ourselves, stayed too late, and were now hopelessly at sea, and far out of their track in groping their way back. They offered us a share of quarters, as it seemed useless to try the pathless forest any longer. But we were too sure of our whereabouts to give up the game so easily, and after some more perambulating we struck the fence. In spite of the attractions and economies of Tempe--for that, I think, was the name it ambitiously held--we quitted South Yarra within the same year for a still greater bargain and temptation in the opposite direction, where I had just then the chance of picking up, "at an old song," the pretty cottage previously occupied by Mr. Locke, on the Merri Creek, four miles north by the Sydney-road. Besides the presentable cottage, there was a large, well-stocked garden, at enacre cultivation field, and a small natural park (vulgarly, paddock), in all 46 acres, for 50 pounds, plus 300 pounds of inevitable mortgage. I called it Maryfield, after my parental home in Edinburgh, and revelled in grapes, plums, and peaches, and much other country happiness. When a host of visitors, on a bright summer day, would rather strain the narrow larder, I used to divert the party into the garden, where they could complete their meal, although at times with inconvenient demand, from the male section at least, upon the brandy. When, in 1854, I re-sold "the lot" to Mr. David Moore, under the heavy temptation of 6,000 pounds, he took the warrantable liberty of a slight nominal alteration to Moorefield, while at the same time he erased the poor old cottage for something more accordant with great golden Victoria. In this case I had a rather striking illustration of the old land-transfer and other law costs incubus from which my late friend Sir R.R. Torrens has so effectually relieved these colonies; and that, too, as I believe, owing to the multiplied transactions, without any real detriment to our many legal friends. Pounds were pounds in those economy-needing times, and as the Savings Bank had, after a thorough overhaul, accepted the title before giving its loan, I declared myself perfectly satisfied to proceed at once to the conveyance. But no, that was impossible. The courtesies, the practice, the established rights, in short, of ancient custom required all to be done over again, in attested copies of title, draughts of title as to defects for counsel's opinion, and so on, even if all the paper and verbiage were to go straight to the waste-basket; and thus a not over convenient bill of about 70 pounds was rolled up. But I must at the same time bear in mind that this heavy drag applied to all landed property, restricting business in it and reducing its value. Had Torrens's Act been then in action, I could not possibly, with the resulting higher value of land, have secured my bargain at the fifty pounds, probably not even at fifty plus the seventy. THE EARLY SQUATTING TIMES. "Our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything." --As You Like It. The title "Victoria" did not come to us until, on 1st July, 1851, we bloomed into an independent colony, having succeeded, after a good deal of struggle and contention, in getting separated from our mother, New South Wales, who complimented us by being very loath, and even angry, that so very promising a child should be detached from her. We had begun as the Southern or Port Phillip District of that spacious colony, which had already dropped South Australia, and eight years afterwards was to lose yet another arm in Queensland. I recall with interest and pleasure some early trips into the interior, when it was in a very different condition from now, when the indigenous reigned almost uninvaded throughout, and when aboriginal natives were in many places as plentiful as colonists. For some years squatting life was the predominant or rather all but the sole feature of the interior beyond Melbourne. The little capital was at first always called "the settlement"--a distinctive title, however, which was just expiring when I arrived. But, for some years after, the term "settler" always meant a squatter, and not a farmer, as might be supposed, with his "settled" or fee-simple home. My first trip to the interior was, towards the end of 1841, to the sheep station of my old friend Sam Jackson, situated on the Deep Creek, seventeen miles northward from Melbourne. There I first tasted damper and saw the novelties of squatting life. Samuel, and his brother William, nicknamed for some reason "The General," were of the very earliest from "over the straits," William having been one of the party organized and sent over in August, 1835, by Fawkner. Sam followed soon after, and they "took up" this station on the Deep Creek, under the natural impression that to be so near "the settlement" must be an advantage. They soon found it otherwise for more than one reason. The constant tramp of sheep passing over their "run" to go beyond them exposed their ground to infection, especially from scab. And they were exposed in another way hardly less costly and far more annoying; for every "traveller," whether bond fide or not, claimed quarters at the Jacksons', and made the sheep disappear of a hungry morning with marvellous rapidity, and at a time when, with the demand for live stock to fill up the empty country, their value had risen to 40 shillings each and upwards. "The General" had mainly to sustain this attack, as his brother was generally in Melbourne practising professionally as an architect, and was engaged at that very time in building the Scots' Church in Collins-street. Naturally enough, he would fain have turned somewhat the flank of this invading host; but, without being successful, his efforts only got him the name of "Hungry Jackson." Later on, I met further variety of early squatting life in a trip to the Werribee Plains, where some friends, the Pinkertons from Glasgow, and Mr. James Sceales, late merchant and Chief Magistrate of Leith, had their respective stations. On those vast plains, extending westwards 30 to 40 miles, from Melbourne to the Anakies, or Station Peak, the slight and scattered squatting invasion had hardly disturbed anywhere the indigenous features. Thus over a vast solitude we revelled in much of specially Australian scenery, particularly that of tortuous and deeply excavated "creeks," with their chains of ponds or waterholes, the running stream mostly dried up--indeed sometimes for whole years together--but all characterized, more or less, by irresistible rushes after heavy rains, sweeping all before them, including not seldom the sheep, and even the homestead, of the incautious or inexperienced settler. I have a striking contrast in store when I revisit those plains, which now resound to the traffic of road and railway, and to the busy hum of many towns and villages and of farming and gardening life. As early as 1842, I paid a pleasant visit to pretty little Geelong, and thence on to beautiful and diversified, but then almost empty, Colac, meeting, at either one or other place, Mr. Duncan Hoyle and his two sisters; the Messrs. Hardie, of Leith, who were then or after the husbands respectively of these ladies; Messrs. Hugh and Andrew Murray, and Mr. Augustus Morris, of Colac, who entertained us hospitably at "the huts"--as station homesteads were then humbly designated--and who poured out upon us interminable colonial experiences in a clear, penetrating voice from which there was no escape. But we did not wish to escape, and so we enjoyed everything. Mr. Morris, who is now a prominent and useful man in Sydney, came early from "across the Straits" with the tide, and settled here, and after some few years, passed through rather trying times, which were not perhaps quite so profitable as he expected, he was induced to "sell out" to the famous Mr. Benjamin Boyd, who, arriving unexpectedly just before this time from London in his fine yacht, had descended upon quiet, plodding Melbourne like a Dives of unfathomable wealth. He had made a hasty run up to Colac, seen and appreciated Morris, bought him out, and left him in charge of this first of many purchases of the great "Australian Wool Company," or whatever other title was to suit the great schemes of this busy head which had turned up amongst us. Mr. Boyd's main idea of buying up squatting property during the reaction sure to follow the early speculation excitement of 1837 to 1840 was no bad business project, or at all unskilfully formed. He gave Morris 7 shillings a head for his sheep. But the fall went on continuously into 1844, so that Boyd effected large purchases at rates as low, in some cases, in the Sydney district, as even one shilling a head, besides cattle and horses at relatively the same. The result, however, was sad and terrible. It was confusion and failure, and mainly for this simple reason--that human nature, left practically uncontrolled, will never give the due care and attention to interests which are only those of other people. He had got up a bank specially for the supply of all the needed funds for his grand schemes, thus securing, as he put it, an independently large business for that institution. The chief shareholders knew, or might have known, the character of their prospects. They all expected unusual profits under the circumstances, and might possibly have got them. Under this pleasant result they would have credited chiefly their own sagacious courage. But instead they realized most severe loss, and then, with angry unanimity, they condemned, and would have prosecuted, Boyd. Wrath fell upon the younger brother, Mark, who had stayed at home, and who, I think, had honestly but vainly striven to keep an intelligible reckoning out of the confusing advices of his senior's various and huge money-absorbing speculations. There was a sad uncertainty about Mr. Boyd's ending. The local representatives, for the time, of the Royal Bank of Australia had closed accounts with him in the best way they could, allowing him to leave Sydney with his yacht and several friends. He visited the Californian diggings, and afterwards took a cruise among the Pacific Islands. He landed on one of them, as though for some shooting, but was never either seen or heard of more. Another pleasant trip about this time was to Yering, the Ryries' station, situated nearly half-way up to the cool mountainous sources of the River Yarra. This had already been made a charming home to any contented mind, satisfied to fall back upon country resources. It was a cattle station, for, in the thickly wooded hills, hollows, and flats about sheep could not live--at least, to any purpose--and the homestead had the importance of a little straggling street, with the main dwelling at the top, as the end of a cul-de-sac, and the dairy and what not in marshalled line below. We revelled in pastoral abundance. I wandered into the adjacent woods, experiencing the sense of overpowering grandeur amidst their vast solitudes, with the gum-trees rising straight above me with colossal stems, not seldom 300 feet and more in height, and 100 feet, or even much more, from the ground without a branch. When this "redgum" has elbow room, it expands in all variety of form, attaining in favouring circumstances vast dimensions, as in one example met with in the Dandenong Ranges, which measured 480 feet in height. But in this Yering case, crowded as they were impoverishingly together upon flats of the river, they did not bulk out into such dimensions, but they shot up side by side, straight as arrows, rivals en route to the clouds. Sad changes came to Yering's happy and hospitable owners since, for, like many others, they had to "realize" in the bad times, and to quit a most pleasant home. But Yering itself has thriven, and has since advanced into a great wine-producing district, whose wines Mr. De Castella, its later owner, has made to carry prizes even at European Exhibitions. EARLY WESTERN VICTORIA ("AUSTRALIA FELIX"). "Oh! 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine." --Love's Labour Lost. "He makes a July day short as December." --Winter's Tale. But my chief excursions, which have left a pleasantly vivid recollection of early colonizing life, were made to the far west--the one in 1844, right through to the Glenelg; the other the year after, to the newly-founded township of Warrnambool. The first of these was undertaken partly on business in the interests of the Boyd stations lately formed about Eumerella, a place of evil repute then as to the native hostility. I had previously chanced to "chum" with Boyd's Port Phillip manager, Mr. Robert Fennell, a young fellow as well-looked, gentlemanly, and pleasant as anyone could meet with, and with whom I both officed and housed to mutual satisfaction for two years, until his marriage with a daughter of John Batman. And thus I came in for some few of the many Boyd commissions that were flying freely about in those years, and which were not at all unacceptable to any of us in that time of small things. I afterwards, as I have pleasure in recording, received the hospitalities of the great commission-maker in his generously open house at Sydney. Once more, in passing westwards, I was at Colac. It was the month of June (midwinter), but the country, with its lake, was not the less beautiful in the universal green. Excepting the partial post-and-rail barricade of my friend William Robertson's 5,000 acres of purchased land, there was nothing all around but free and open squatting. On every side was the hardly yet disturbed indigenous aspect. Pelicans flew aloft, tall "adjutants" stalked about here and there, and cockatoos screeched everywhere. One of the curious green knolls, so common there, was so thickly covered with the yellow-crested white cockatoo as to give the look of a cap of snow. Leaving Morris's huts, I made for another Boyd station, in the famous far west Eumerella district. There were many beauties around, for I had entered Mitchell's "Australia Felix"--its extreme borders, to be sure, but the most beautiful of it all. My nag was more than ever "in clover," and we wandered on through marvels upon marvels of remarkable and richly fertile country. The country was all but empty as I now coursed through it, but no amount of colonization could much alter its most striking scenery, geological and general. I had some sense of awe and mystery as I gazed down into a sort of "Dead Sea" depths at the southern end of salt, salt Korangamite, and then up at the abruptly towering "Stony Rises," capped by volcanic Porndon in my near vicinity. I passed the Manifolds', where a sprinkling of fat cattle left hardly an impression on the superabounding grass. Eumerella, or rather the Boyd fragment of that large, rich, and varied cattle area, was in charge of a versatile youth of the name of Craufurd, of a good Scotch family, whom, to the great amusement of my friend Fennell, I re-christened as Squire Hopeless, owing to his utter nonconformability to the monotonies of civilized life. I was sufficiently versed in geology to be aware of the wonders around me, so we were soon off over the Stony Rises to Mount Eeles, only a few miles away, which, like another Porndon, raised its not lofty but mysterious-looking head to arouse our curiosity. We were guided latterly by a well-beaten native track, for this seemed a favourite walk of the aborigines. Our trip was not without danger, for the aboriginal relations had been anything but of that peacefulness which characterized the Melbourne vicinities; but we made up a station detachment under a remarkably fine strong young fellow called Wells, of Tasmanian birth, and equal, in an emergency, to six or a dozen natives for his own share. We saw nothing of natives, however, and were rewarded with wonders of geology. The little Mount Eeles cone surmounted, we looked far down into a vast crater of miles in circuit, whose sharp-ridged, angry, unsettled-looking sides could barely convince us that we looked upon an extinct volcano. Hardly did its aspect reach the solid quiet of the Vesuvian interior, as described by some scanty classic records, prior to the grand, sudden, entirely unexpected outburst of the Pompeiian eruption. Let the crowds of the future Pompeiis and Herculaneums of Victoria look out, for their Vesuvius may some day play havoc, with similar treachery. We were introduced early to old Gorrie and his nephew McGregor, two doughty Scots, famous--and too famous--in the native hostilities of the last year or two--indeed, ever since these fine runs were taken up. The aboriginal of so fine a country was, at any rate, a primus inter pares of his race, and no way to be despised. The white invaders suffered heavily, in property at least, if not much in their own lives, at the hands of the invaded. Which side was in fault would have been a hard knot to unravel, and probably few on either side troubled themselves much to undo it. Old Gorrie was ever in the thick of war, and duty and inclination went cordially together. He was a cool and terrible shot, and had a terribly long and forcibly arguing rifle. The story goes that, when a couple of pursued marauders had escaped from one covert, and in wild terror were making for another, he quietly waited till they chanced to come in line, and then sent one bullet through both. But he had his cautious and adroit way of telling his doings, as he described to us how, in the turmoil of pursuit, "the gun gaed aff" and "some puir craturs fell." He had good need, for the authorities had been thoroughly aroused by the occasional atrocities that were sure to arise out of the strong mutual antipathies of the case; and on one occasion, for what seemed a signal case of this kind, involving the massacre of unresisting women as well as men, five colonists were arrested and brought to trial, and would certainly have "swung for it" had there not been some inadequacy of direct evidence. The next station, Dunmore, was already quite famed for its pattern homestead. I entered its hospitable doorway with a sense of comfort and of the climax of possible squatting attainments such as had never been approached before. "Campbell, McKnight, and Irvine," "brither Scots" all, and all of them at home at the time, were of the best company, classic or otherwise, alike to one another and to all visitors. Janet, from the kitchen, too, sent us the best oatcakes and other Scotch fare. I always fancy now that such cooks must be called Janet, from lively remembrance of the savoury hotch-potch and sheeps' head of another Janet at old Robert Sutherland's, at Egham. Thence I reached "Burchetts', of the Emus," less finished, indeed, but hardly less attractive. They were business clients of my pleasant old friend Charles Barnes, whose name I gave as my pass, with, however, but little need in those open-door days. This was a sheep station, as it was a drier locality, the other stations having been more suited for cattle. We sat joyously chatting in the bright midwinter sunshine. The air was redolent of humour, for which the Burchetts had a name. One of them was rather deaf--indeed very deaf, but when he did pick up the current subject, he seldom failed to contribute good sauce. With regret I remounted next morning, for with business finished in this direction, I was resolved to push on to the Glenelg, as I wished to see through Victoria westwards while I had the opportunity. So I turned my steed north for the Wannon. I struck a little southern tributary of that pretty grass-banked river, and saw a noteworthy as well as a quite Australian sight. Some recent slight rains had just set the tiny creek in motion, and it was now in the act of filling up a previously quite dry waterhole. I watched the tiny stream till it filled up this hole, and then saw it duly into the next, only a couple of hundred yards off. There was a long succession of these holes before it, generally so precisely rounded and scooped out as to give the idea of human intervention, only that the human beings were nowhere visible there as yet. Then I came down upon the Wannon, in continuous admiration of the rolling hills on either side, grass-covered to the very tops. One part of the Wannon vale here is remarkable for the deep, almost blood-redness of its rich soil, a hue which seemed to come from the similarly coloured stone and rock all about. Here I suddenly came upon a grand spectacle--the falls of the Wannon, which Chevalier's highly artistic brush has immortalized, along with almost countless other Australian beauty. The river plunges over a far-projecting floor direct into a volcanic crater, which, although very much less in its dimensions, was as unmistakable in its character as that of Mount Eeles. The only thing I had to regret as absent from the scene, but a most important factor, was water, for, as far as I recollect, not one drop was visible over the edge. At flood seasons the spectacle must be grand indeed. As evening drew on, causing me to be on the alert for quarters, I espied a rather pretentious homestead, cosily placed in a natural shelter half-way up the hillside. This proved to be Mr. Edward Henty's. He was not at home, but Mrs. Henty happily was. Young, ladylike, beautiful, she received me with that high courtesy which sets one at once at ease by the flattering impression that in these squatting solitudes it is rather the visited than the visitors who are the obliged parties. Ten years later I, with my wife, called upon her in Melbourne to renew this early acquaintance. She was then, of course, ten years older, but hardly less charming. Thirty-four more years have since elapsed, and yet I must still hope to meet her once more in that country which has become so great, and which is, in so special a sense, her own. I reached the Glenelg, which, however, I found to be, at or near the Wannon junction, hardly better than a big, irregular, ugly ditch. How curious!--for not far off, above or below, I might have found great deep waterholes and picturesque water stretches as sketched by Mitchell. I took all for granted, and turned back homewards. I struck a little north towards Victoria Range, and passed one of my nights with a solitary shepherd in an out-hut, so far and away from all companionable life but that of his sheep that I could well realize, in this extreme case, the dolorous side of squatting. My breakfast was a tin of tea without milk, and a hunch of damper of my host's own baking--not altogether rejectable in the keen fresh air when one had nothing else. A sheep could not be killed for two, even if the business could afford it. On I went, merrily withal, for it was the heyday of youth and strength, making steadily eastwards for the southern extremity of the Grampians, which rose in grand outline before me, forty miles away. Neither station nor human being came in my road afterwards till I reached and was rounding Mount Sturgeon, upon whose rocky summit the setting sun already glinted. I was now upon a good, broad bush track, which must lead to some station. But when? This small side-track to the left looks as though a hut at least were nearer, and so I diverged into it. Mile after mile I trotted, as well as the rough track would permit, and when night fell, and for long after, I still pegged away. A dozen miles right up, within the outer sierra, towards Mount William, brought me at last to an open glade, where some small piles of "split stuff" showed me at once my mistake. Dodging about till day, thus giving rest to my horse, I soon regained my road, and after an hour's further ride, reached Dr. Martin's sheep station, where a pleasant young fellow, Byass by name, who had lost an arm in wars of some kind, and was then in charge, ministered to my wants, and allowed me to take well-nigh the largest breakfast on record in those parts. I must not continue in such detail with the rest of my western tours' incidents, especially as the second was mostly over the same ground as the first. I dilly reached my last Boyd station, in the pretty and varied Pyrenees district--a sheep station, then under charge of my friend James M. Hamilton. Here the hospitalities were equal, but all the rest sadly below The Gums, and an infinity underneath Dunmore. But Hamilton promised us compensation in a visit to the more comfortable residence of a squatting neighbour, Mr. John Allen. The master was not at home, but the mistress received us with squatting welcome. She was a young South Australian wife, charming alike in person and manners, and surrounded by a little troop of children, some with the stamp of her own beauty. She died not long afterwards, prematurely cut down, alas! like many another bright flower in the world's great garden. Next year, 1845, I reached Warrnambool, just then commencing its urban life with a few straggling small white houses, along the edge of its pretty semicircular bay. I had passed Mounts Noorat and Shadwell, occupied respectively by Mr. Neil Black and Captain Webster, both early colonists, and was once more in raptures with the spectacle of almost continuously rich soil. I also came upon several round, deep, and mysterious-looking lakes, one of which, with its waters far below me, I descended to examine with no slight sensation of awe. I was told of beautiful and grand coast scenes towards the east and Cape Otway; but the ways were of Nature's uninviting hardness, and I apprehended a main difficulty of the Glenmutchkin Railway kind, from want of house or human being to help dependent humanity. I turned, however, the opposite way, to rising Belfast and Port Fairy, and wandered about through the Alison and Knight, and Rutledge and other acres; amongst cockatoos, as the small farmers were there called, observing a soil of unsurpassable richness, the potatoes and other products, the former particularly, being the finest in the world. The striking new feature of this journey seemed to me the picturesque and beautiful River Hopkins--beautiful in all but its name! Why give such starched, hard, dot-and-go-one names, when there are Eumerella, Wannon, Doutagalla, Modewarra, Yarra Yarra, and countless other such natural and genial modulations to be had of the natives for the asking? The year following, when my dear old friends, Mr. and Mrs. A.M. McCrae, had betaken themselves from hard lines of law to the pleasant variety of an Arthur Seat cattle station--pleasant to their town visitors at least--I oftener than once looked in upon them from Melbourne. They had the life and adornment of a large family of pretty curly-headed young boys and girls, some of them with the aristocratic fine black hair and cream-white skin of their accomplished mother. McCrae and I galloped the thirty miles interval, and while crossing and watering at the ever-running Cannonook half way, and admiring the varied, almost park-like vistas among the three gentle hill rises of the bay's eastern coast, we would marvel at the stupidity of Collins in 1803 in abandoning such a country. To be sure he chanced to squat on the least inviting of its varied areas, and this benevolent excuse we confirmed by a ride across country one day to inspect the spot. All we could see was what seemed the remnant of a small fireplace. The "cups and saucers" country we passed over on the way might be interesting geologically, and even artistically; but on any dry, hot summer day the look around might not be enlivening to a new arrival. None the less, Sorrento has since arisen there--a considerable, lively, and pretty watering-place, as I hear, for which the colony's good friend, Mr. George Coppin, has provided, amongst other benefits to it, a regular steam communication. This steam route includes another like wonder of progress, Queenscliff, which, at the time I speak of, only possessed a lighthouse, but is now a breezy and lively crowded and fashionable retreat from the great dusty city of business and cares to the north. SOME NAMES OF MARK IN THE EARLY YEARS. "Some are born great; some achieve greatness, And some have greatness thrust upon them." --Twelfth Night. Before endeavouring to give a sketch of our early society and its ways and means, I am fain to pick out a few prominent persons as they flitted before me at the time and have stuck to my recollection since. Although they might not all have been in an equal degree interesting, good or great in themselves, they were yet men of mark, closely associated in various ways with our early colonial life, and, like a busy dentist, much in the mouth of their public. By all right and reason, the first of these prominent personages is the brotherhood group of the Messrs. Henty. THE HENTY FAMILY, AND THE FOUNDATION OF VICTORIA. "Let the end try the man." --2nd Part Henry IV. "Great world! Victoria brings thee meat and corn and wine, With richly veined woods, and glittering gold from mine, Fairy web of silken thread, soft thick snowy fleece; Wide room for smiling homes of industry and peace." --Mrs. H.N. Baker. The founder of to-day's great colony of Victoria was Mr. Edward Henty, who landed at Portland Bay from Launceston, with live stock and stores, for the purpose of settlement, on the 19th November, 1834. But in regard to that notable event I prefer to speak of "The Henty Family," because, in their colonizing efforts they seem to have acted so much with mutual family purpose and in mutual help, and because there was a preparatory work in which the family were all more or less engaged, all leading up to this settlement at Portland, a site which had been selected after more than two years of previous adventurous excursions and observations along the coasts of Western Victoria and of South Australia. The successful settlement of the noble Port Phillip Harbour the following year by Batman and Fawkner caused such general attention and such a tide of colonization, that remote Portland was comparatively overlooked. For many years, therefore, much less was heard of the Hentys than of those who had merely followed their steps. In fact, there can be but little doubt that these latter were first aroused to the colonizing of the vast areas, the all but terra incognita, across the Straits by the vigorous example set by the Henty family almost from the moment of their arrival in Launceston in 1831, and by the reports which they brought back from time to time of the lands of promise they were opening to public notice in South-Eastern Australia. But now that rail and telegraph have virtually abolished distance, and familiarized the central colonists with the value and beauty of the earliest occupied Western areas--the Australia Felix of Mitchell--the Messrs. Henty's position has passed more to the front, and their priority been universally acknowledged. I was not personally very intimate with any of the Henty family, otherwise I might have had more to say in this sketch. But I have met most of the brothers repeatedly, and frequently I met James, the Melbourne merchant, who was the eldest, and also William, the lawyer and ex-Premier of Tasmania, a most amiable and gentlemanly man, who latterly resided at Home, where he died, and who often attended the lectures and discussions at the Royal Colonial Institute of London. Both of these brothers were rather grave and quiet, while Edward and Stephen were energetic and lively even beyond most colonists. Francis, now the only survivor of the large family, I met only once, about forty-three years ago, in the Western District. He was then a handsome and rather slim young man, not of the Henty mould, which was rather of the full John Bull kind, as "Punch" gives him, minus the obesity. But if I may credit the Melbourne "Illustrateds" in a recent likeness of the last of the Victorian founders, he must have consented, in later life, to drop more into the family mould. They were a family of eight sons and one daughter. Seven of the sons emigrated with their father. They were all men of mark, above average in mind and physique--men of a presence, who would have been prominent in any society; altogether, in numbers, in appearance, in circumstances, and in events, quite a remarkable family. As I am not writing for history, so as to study completeness in my account, but only of personal observations and recollections, I shall not do more than give a very slight sketch of the emigratory particulars of this family, and my excuse is that these data are so far personal as having been told me direct by one or other of the family. The story is striking, and our descendants may look back with surpassing interest to the Romulus and Remus of a future Rome which, in the possibilities of modern progress, may exceed that of the past. The father, Mr. Thomas Henty, of Sussex, England, took the resolution to emigrate, with his family, to the "Swan River," as the present Western Australia was then called. In 1829 he sent his eldest and two younger sons there, with suitable servants and supplies, intending to follow with the rest. These pioneers declared against the Swan, and advised their father to go to Launceston instead, to which place they themselves also went. Arrived all there in 1831, a new disappointment awaited the family. No grant of land could be had, as in the case of the Swan, where they had 84,000 acres. This grant system had been abolished only a fortnight before their arrival. They had now to rent their farms, and the prospects, therefore, were discouraging. They were unable even to effect an exchange for their Swan River grant. This disappointment led to a search, begun in 1832, under the lead of Edward, the second son, who twice traversed the seas between Portland and Spencer Gulf, examining the aspect and promise of the country. The result was always in favour of Portland, where he landed on one occasion, confirming all impressions by actual inspection ashore. He, therefore, resolved on a settlement here. In his second expedition he took his father with him, as the latter had expressed the wish to see for himself the Swan River grant before finally abandoning it. The party, having reached the Swan, found that what they had got was "sand, not land," and so it was finally given up. Edward, who was the prime adventurer of the party, now got ready to settle at Portland Bay. He chartered a small schooner, "The Thistle", loading her with stores and live stock, and with selections of seed, fruit trees, vegetables, etc., part of them bought from Fawkner, who had then a market garden on Windmill Hill, near Launceston, besides keeping the Cornwall Hotel there; and with these he sailed in October, 1834. In two days they were within twenty-five miles of their destination, when a storm drove them back to King's Island. Six times successively they were thus driven back, losing a good many of their live stock, and it was only after thirty-four days that they effected their landing. The work of colonization began at once. "The Thistle" returned to Launceston for fresh supplies and additional colonists, and returned this second time with Francis Henty, the youngest of the family, who landed at Portland on 13th December, within twenty-four days of his brother. Edward was then twenty-four years of age, and his brother only eighteen. This is the brief but momentous story of the founding of Victoria. Mr. Francis Henty has given a most amusing account of the meeting between his party and that of Major (afterwards Sir Thomas) Mitchell, who, in exploring "Australia Felix," in 1836, came, in great surprise, upon the Henty settlement at Portland. The story reads now like the highest romance of adventurous exploration. The Mitchell intruders, five in number, were at once regarded as bushrangers, and a defence promptly organized. The fire-arms were limited to an old musket, which was loaded to the very muzzle, to be ready for a grand discharge. Then as to the Mitchell party, even after they were relieved of their first fears, for they too had taken the others to be "no better than they should be," they exercised a measure of reserve, as though doubtful of their new friends' respectability. Mutual suspicions, however, being at last dismissed, the travellers were supplied with the stores they much wanted, and, in return, they gave such a favourable account of the pastures of the Wannon Valley as to induce Mr. Edward Henty subsequently to remove a part of the flocks there, and to establish the homestead where, as I have already stated, I enjoyed in my Western Victorian travels the squatting hospitalities. Let me add just one more incident of the Henty family, one personal to myself, but in quite a different direction from the above. Once, on a special occasion, I met the banker, Charles, who had stuck to his profession at Launceston, instead of adventuring across the Straits with his brothers. Besides his quiet banking vocation, he was, I think, the portliest of the family, which may be the explanation. The occasion was a public dinner to the Anti-Transportation League delegation, sent from Melbourne, in 1852, to stir up the cause at the Van Diemen's Land fountain head of the common evil, and of which delegation my lately deceased old friend Lauchlan Mackinnon and myself were regarded as the heads. Mackinnon, like many another such vigorous Highlander, as he then was, could never take a subject of deep interest to himself quietly. We had had a sample of him already at Hobart, where the feeling as to our mission was by no means clear, both from the natural touchiness of convict connection or descent, and from that still considerable section of colonial employers and traders who thought that the ledger and its profit and loss account had at least an equal right to be heard in the question as any other so-called higher interest. The ground, slippery enough at Hobart, was supposed to be still more treacherous at Launceston. Had not Edward Wilson, of the thoroughly Mackinnonized Melbourne "Argus", been but a little before nearly mobbed by the furious Anti-Antis of this place, to his utter surprise and astonishment at his own importance, and been only saved, in life or limb perhaps, by old Jock Sinclair, who was timely on the spot, and who dexterously led him, by a roundabout, to safety within the departing steamer for Melbourne? In short, a row was more than half expected from the Mackinnon speech, and as this was undesirable, for good reasons to all sides of Launceston society, Mr. Henty resolved to prevent it, and did so most successfully by a very adroit but not unworthy trick. He took occasion to speak just before the Mackinnon avalanche was to come on. Introducing Mackinnon and commending his straightforward honesty in this matter, and so on, he said that some such people could not take even a good cause in moderation; but that these defects, if he might so call them, were more easily seen than remedied, and that all kindly consideration must be made in the case. I fear I am not literal as to the identical words, although I heard them, but I have given the purport. Poor Mackinnon, as he afterwards laughingly pleaded, what could he do under the cold douche of such a wet blanket? He made the smallest and quietest speech of his life upon a great and stirring subject. SOME INTERJECTA IN RE BATMAN, PIONEER OF THE PORT PHILLIP SETTLEMENT. Mr. Edward Henty, from Launceston, first entered the future Victoria in 1834 by her remote portal, Portland Bay, and thus became the founder of the colony. In the following year, John Batman, of Hobart, sailing from the same stirring little Launceston, entered by the central and grander portal of the Port Phillip Heads, and was thus the pioneer of Port Phillip settlement; for we must really turn blundering Collins, with his abortive doings in 1803-4, out of the running. I never saw Batman, as he died the year before my arrival, so that, according to my rule, I have nothing to say of him. But I must mention an incident occurring shortly before my date, and characteristic of the times, namely, the raffling for Batman's old and well smoke-begrimed pipe. This was at the famous Lamb Inn, a little wooden edifice on the north side of West Collins-street, opposite the Market-square, and fronting a small cliff which the street levelling there had left for future disposal. There were thirty tickets at a pound each, and the fortunate winner was to compensate the disappointed by standing champagne all round. I was once in the Lamb Inn ere its glories had quite expired, as might be inferred from a charge of 4 shillings for a bottle of cider, for which I had called in support of the house, and to while away time in waiting for a friend. I had to share it with two others who happened to be in the room, the waiter having promptly filled the three tumblers he had brought, without even "Robert's" professional stereotype of "by your leave," the tumblers, too, being as promptly emptied without any ceremonious bother about acknowledgment. The Lamb Inn lived a brief space longer, but utterly bereft of its old position in the revels and extravagance of every kind of the young settlement, and was finally levelled out of existence in company with the "cliff" at its back. But I have to do also with nearer and dearer connections of Batman than his tobacco pipe. I have to record the marriage, during 1844, of two of his daughters, the elder, already a widow, Mrs. McKinney, to my pleasant friend Fennell, as I have previously mentioned, and, happily, resulting in a family of descendants to the Port Phillip founder, and the younger to one of the two squatter brothers Collyer. The latter event, which came off at the hospitable and comfortable homestead of old John Aitken of that ilk (I mean of Mount Aitken), was a grand gala time to a very wide circle. Guests, by the score together, trooped up from town and country, headed, in the former direction, by Andrew Russell, then second mayor of Melbourne, in succession to my friend Condell, and in the latter by his cheery and ever-smiling uncle, Peter Inglis, of Ingliston, a great station homestead in the comparisons of those early times, and once, as Peter liked to tell, taken for a town, perhaps in the gloaming hours, by a bush traveller when he inquired of one of the domestics, to her great amusement, the name of the street he had confusingly got into. Mrs. Aitken, as literally as by courtesy the good wife of the house, and then in the full charm of her beauty and strong youth (now Mrs. Kaye, and sadly changed in both respects), went busily about, her young family at her skirts, administering plenty and preserving order, while, towards genial eve, her good man occupied a quiet corner, indisputable king for the nonce of the toddy race. The night accommodations were a difficulty, although not a few, like the host himself, were in no great want. I and a score or two of others turned into a wool loft, where a number of little mattresses, mostly of a pro re nata kind, were provided, into one of which I was soon ensconced and fast asleep. But well on, as I guessed, in the small hours we were all awoke by loud and burly noise in the loft, proceeding, as we soon recognized, from two Anakims of the party, Isaac Buchanan and John Porter, who seemed on the eve of a struggle for a Mace or Nolan belt. Porter had retired peacefully with me, but Buchanan had been vieing in the toddy corner with his host, and when inevitably knocked under--for the other had not yet been limited by his doctor to that woman's wash, as he called it, sparkling moselle--he had contrived to find the common loft. It is said, of unpractised topers at any rate, that, after an extra indulgence, they either see nothing or see double. Whichever it was with Buchanan, he insisted on berthing for the night in Porter's occupied nest, while the latter, after standing the all-round chaff for a little, got savage and threatened war. Buchanan's sight getting by-and-by clearer, the remainder of the night was, happily, peace. But it was not for long, as almost with the dawn our host, alive as if nothing out of the usual had happened, woke us up with the invitation to finish the champagne by way of refresher after all the toils and toddy we had gone through. DR. THOMSON, OF GEELONG. This earliest amongst the early of Port Phillip, whose active form flitted about its shores ere the memorable year 1835 had expired, might have come in for a full separate sketch had I been thrown more with him, so as to have sufficient personal data. But, although I met him at times, he lived at Geelong, fifty miles away from Melbourne. I have put him under this sub-heading, in the Batman interjecta, because, as his daughter, Mrs. Henry Creswick, told me, it was Batman's representations to him of the land of promise to the north that induced him to follow the early tide with his flocks and his family--the latter consisting of his wife and one only child, the daughter above alluded to. She still survives, in her pleasant residence, situated in the fitly named Creswick-street, Hawthorn. The doctor was one of the most active of the colonists, both politically and generally. He was chiefly concerned in establishing the Geelong Corporation, of which he was several times Mayor, and he was most actively interested in the early representation of the district in the Sydney Assembly. He sat there as one of the district members prior to the "separation" session of 1851, and it was at his instance that the House made an exhaustive inquiry into the condition of the aboriginal natives. In the separation session elections his party was outvoted by the squatting or anti-democratic element; but none the less the former in Geelong deputed the doctor to accompany the elected members, in order to keep a watch upon their doings. The case had its comic aspect, but as the doctor and I were on the same side of the politics of the day, he was most useful to me in our common effort to secure a due share of representation for the mass of the people, as intended by the Imperial Government. The aim of the reigning regime was to continue their power by means of an electoral distribution which was to secure a majority of Crown nominees and Crown tenants in the two future sections of the old colony. The doctor, as I said, went over with the earliest from the Hobart side of the island, quitting his land grant, which was the last under that system, and was got for him by his friend Governor Arthur--a privilege for which, as I have said, the Henty family arrived just too late. Amongst the live stock he took over was Miss Thomson's pony, which was the first of the equines landed at Port Phillip. Its owner was then a very young girl. She and her mother landed towards the end of 1835, and were the first ladies of "the settlement." The family pitched a tent almost under a magnificent gum tree, whose stump, covered with ivy, still exists close to the Cathedral at Prince's Bridge. But shortly after several of the young men of the settlement, in order to provide them better accommodation, collected some boards and built them a hut lower down the river bank. With the two places the Thomsons were able to dispense hospitalities, their guests including Messrs. Gellibrand and Hesse, Mr. James Smith, and Mr. Mackillop. It used to be said that "the settlement" was in the habit of going to tea with Mrs. Thomson. This brings us into 1836. The next year came the officials in charge from Sydney, who included Mr. R.S. Webb, as Collector of Customs, whose daughter, Annie, was the first white child born in the settlement (with, however, some dispute as to a blacksmith's child having been the first), and who was afterwards married to my late friend, Colin Mackinnon, younger brother of the better known Lauchlan. Dr. Thomson used to read prayers to the little settlement in a rude structure upon the ground now occupied by St. James's Church. Afterwards he removed to Kardinia, Geelong, as his live stock had been landed there, and this place he finally made his home. From these lively and mixed events of our early society, let me now turn to another subject, which is neither less lively nor less mixed than its predecessors--the subject, namely, of: JOHN PASCOE FAWKNER, FATHER OF MELBOURNE. "The force of his own merit makes his way." --Henry VIII. "Well, I am, not fair; and therefore I pray the gods to make me honest." --As You Like It. "He's honest, on mine honour." --Henry VIII. "He hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks." --Much Ado About Nothing. "For now he lives in fame, though not in life." --Richard III. If circumstances won't make a poet, as genius contemptuously asserts, nor make up for blood in a horse, as even the stable boy swears to, they are at times marvellously effective in making, and, for the matter of that, also in unmaking men. So might we say with regard to the well-known subject of this sketch, who, arriving amongst us with the earliest, and within the repellent surrounding of an evil repute, yet under different surroundings and favouring circumstances outlived all traducements, whether true or otherwise, and after a long, practical, and singularly useful career, died in the full regard of his adopted country. The unanimity of dislike and moral depreciation with which he was regarded by his Tasmanian fellows was not indeed without a certain share of reason or excuse. That he was the son of a convict ought not, of course, to prejudice him in these Christian days, when the sins of the fathers are not to be visited upon the sons even to the first generation. His father arrived with Collins's prisoner party, and the boy, John Pascoe, then eleven years old, was sent with his parent--for not seldom were wives or children thus sent with the convicts, to ameliorate by such a touch of nature the hard features of a society of adult vice, much as Hogarth, in some of his masterpieces of the human woes or vices of his time, gives, in striking contrast, a foreground of maternal affection, or of children at play in the artless innocence of their looks and ways. But he was probably neither a pretty nor an interesting boy; for as a man he was of the very plainest, with a short figure, always negligently "put on," a rough, mannerless way, and a voice husky and hoarse, although redeemed at times into an approach to commanding an audience, when he was strongly stirred in some exciting cause. Some people have no patience to subdue natural antipathies in such cases, and these people would, as well-known scripture (with some transposition of the idea) tells us, be apt to be most plentiful "in his own country." But, again, Fawkner was himself a convict. Yes, but for what? Certainly if a man so notorious in after life had committed any very disparaging crime it must have been as notorious as his name. But I never heard anything distinctive beyond that he had, for something or other, passed under the Caudine Forks of the Van Diemen's Land Criminal Courts. Inevitably his early upbringing was in low associations, where, probably, ties of friendly feeling survived, as to which he might have said with the bard of Avon--"I am not of that feather to shake off my friend when he must need me" (Timon of Athens). My impression was that he had been convicted of harbouring, or aiding to escape, some who had broken the law, whatever more that may have meant, for, with his pluck, he was probably little troubled about niceties of fine feeling, and, thus accoutred, Providence dropped the man amongst altogether different circumstances and associations in his new location. I had much to do with Fawkner, especially after he and I met in our young colony's first Legislature, and after I sufficiently knew him, so as to allow for the rough exterior of his nature, I never had but one opinion of the man. That opinion was, that throughout every condition of the considerable space of his later life, whether in health or sickness, strength or weakness, prosperity or adversity--for, at first at least, he, like many others, was not prosperous in golden-fleeced and golden Victoria--he toiled, late and early, for what, in his honest judgment, was for the good of his colony; and with a singleness of purpose which was not excelled--was not, I think, equalled, to my knowledge at least--by any other in that colony. He seemed to make an ascent under the exhilarating circumstances of his new and increasingly responsible position, and to have the consciousness of a great mission, which nerved him to surmount all that was dubious in his earlier career. Nor was he behind in less pretentious ways. I never once heard of any mean or over-reaching act of his, even in the smallest matters. He once told me, in his prosperous days, with much becoming feeling, and as an incident he could never forget, that when quite broken in fortune, he had received, as unasked as unexpected, a most timely pecuniary help from Mr. Henry Moor, the well-known solicitor. The two were, I think, at hearty variance across the political hedge; the more honour to both. We have seen that he showed pluck in his earlier life, even in bad associations; and he displayed the same under better auspices later on. His action with a certain gravely suspected Commissioner of Crown Lands was a good illustration. This high functionary, who, in those pre-constitutional times, was practically an irresponsible Caesar over a vast estate of dependent Crown tenants, whose interests might in any case be seriously jeopardized by any unfairness, and who, therefore, like the wife of his prototype, should be even above suspicion, was accused by rumours, of no slight noise or breadth, of unfaithfulness to his charge, and in the grossest and most mercenary of forms. Even with the clearest case it was anything but assuring to attack such a man in those days of authority. But Fawkner's bite was too deep for any laissez faire cure, and so, nolens volens, the Commissioner had to defend or retrieve his character. The verdict of a farthing damages, at which amount the jury estimated that character in the case, was complete justification to Fawkner, and laid the whole Province under lasting obligation to him for a most important public service. Another of his more prominent services was upon the first Gold Commission, 1854-5, summoned hastily together by the Governor, Sir Charles Hotham, under the surprise, not unmixed with consternation, caused by the Ballarat riot, an incident which, in some of its aspects, such as the stockade structure, deserved rather the graver name of rebellion. Already in his 63rd year, in broken health, and certainly the weakest physically of the membership, he was the most active of all, ever running full tilt into every abuse or fault or complaint that might help to explain this unwonted, and, indeed, utterly purposeless and stupid incident of a British community. In my capacity as chairman, I appreciated Fawkner's untiring, or more properly, unyielding spirit, and under travelling fatigues, too, of no mean trial even to younger men. For the Colossus of Rhodes, as my energetic friend, Dr. (now Sir Francis) Murphy, was humorously called, on accepting, recently before, the charge of the rutty and miry ways of golden Victoria, had as yet made but feeble progress in his most urgent mission. We learned enough to explain, at least, if not to excuse the miners; and were thus guided to a reconstruction of goldfields administration. This was chiefly in that national element, hitherto utterly absent there, of local representative institutions; and the change has since assured the future from even John Bull's proverbial growling. General McArthur, with a few troops, promptly, but not without considerable bloodshed, ended the sad farce. In view of the very exceptional features of an incident extremely unlikely to occur again, Fawkner and most others of the commission were most decided for a general condonance; and this was agreed to in the report by all except the Official Commissioner, Mr. Wright, who, excusably enough, sided with his official superiors for a treason trial. But the jury, as might have been anticipated, acquitted the prisoners. One of their leaders, Mr. Peter Lalor, who lost one of his arms in the cause, has since been for many years Speaker of the Victorian Assembly, and as loyal to his Queen as he is genial to his many friends. When we wound up the Commission's inquiry at Castlemaine, and on the morning of a hot midsummer day embarked upon one of the springless "Cobb and Co's" of the time, with the prospect of ten or twelve hours of terrible jolting before us, poor old Fawkner seemed so much enfeebled that I was in some doubt as to his being landed alive at Melbourne. But, game to the last, he rode uncomplainingly through all; and he lived even a goodly number of years after, but only to do more and more work. Old General Anderson, of early colonial memory, had a habit, quite his own, of saying to the face of anyone whose conduct gave him satisfaction, and in his blunt soldierly way, "Sir, I have a great respect for you." Such an accrediting and not unacceptable declaration he addressed, times more, I think, than once, to Fawkner. Indeed, all classes of the colony, from the highest, in which the gallant colonel moved, to the humblest, now alike recognized the veteran who had so long and so well fought for them all. When at last the spirit quitted the worn-out frame, and its well-known form, possibly, even to the last, keeping up still, amongst some few, the lingering dislike of the long past, was to be no more seen amongst us, there seemed but one impulse for the occasion, which fittingly expressed itself in a funeral procession entirely unprecedented in its every aspect. This was not less to the colony's honour than to that of Fawkner. He died on 4th September, 1869. Not the least impressive feature of the funeral, perhaps the most, was the remarkable prayer offered up at the grave by the Reverend Dr. Cairns. Victoria's most eloquent preacher, in giving the true setting to the life and character of the man, thanked God, in the name of the colony, for such a life, the influence and example of which could not but be for good to all who were to follow. He has fought bravely for the R.I.P. of the tomb. He rests from his labours, and his works do follow him. JAMES SIMPSON, FIRST MAGISTRATE OF "THE SETTLEMENT." "He hath an excellent good name." --Much Ado About Nothing. When "The Settlement" began, and when, like the pre-Judges time in Israel, every man did as he pleased, the inevitable inconvenience of that ultra-radical paradise led the small community to seek out a male Deborah, and, with one accord, they made choice of James Simpson, their early fellow-emigrant in the tide from Launceston. Had there been even a much larger society, the choice would probably have been as surely the same, for it would have been difficult indeed to find anyone, who, in the grace and command of natural presence, exceeded this inaugurator of authority in Victoria. His figure, rather tall, shapely, well-developed, surmounted by a noble head, bald with age, just touching the venerable, and with a genial expression of face, which, however, never descended to levity, although times without number to a smile or slight laugh, he sat erect upon the bench, facile princeps, as though institutions were to bend to him, and not he to them. When we entered the little hut-like structure in the middle of the Western Market area, so long Melbourne's only police-office, James Simpson seemed to us as much a part of its fittings as the rude little bench itself; and it was a disappointment not to find him there, as the indispensable complement to the scene, even although better conduct in the community was to be inferred. How so striking, so influence-wielding a man did not get or take a still more leading position than he had was due, perhaps, to some indolence of nature, to a rare and enviable contentment, or to a mixture of both. He took what fell in his way--magistracies, bank directorships, or what else, and lived unambitiously on his moderate but sufficient means, always in the front social position, and, of course, in universal respect. And how, again, so quiet a spirit adventured across amongst the tag-rags of the earlier Launceston tide, unless indeed under some benevolent inspiration and prescience about the magisterial needs, is a mystery which, although I often conversed with him, I never happened to hear him explain. DAVID CHARTERIS McARTHUR, FATHER OF VICTORIAN BANKING. "A man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation." --Love's Labour Lost. Almost as early a colonist as Simpson, his intimate friend, his colleague in the Melbourne branch of the Bank of Australasia, of which he was himself general manager, with Simpson as director, McArthur fitly follows the other in this list of early colonial prominents. To the day of his death he held the first position, active or honorary, in Victorian banking. But he was even better known, or at least better regarded, as, par excellence, "mine host" of the early community. During a long life, of which the later and much the larger half was spent in Victoria, there was none who entered more readily, constantly, or acceptably into the varied life of the community. His leisure, such as he had, his means, his fellowship, were at their command. He was geniality personified. But he was a banker, and a banker has duties, and in the ups and downs of colonial business life, he was but too often reminded to that effect. It was quite a sight if you happened to witness the scene with a bank customer, to whom, as to "the state of his account," it was necessary to administer what Mac's countrymen call a "hearing." Often he had to pity victims of circumstances in the sudden changes of colonial commerce; but "the gods aboon can only ken" to discriminate impartially in such cases, and duty to the bank must be done. First, the humorous twinkle in the eye sensibly abated, but it still lingered there, unless there must be still stronger stages of the ordeal, to bring the business culprit to reason. But when the last gleam went out, a storm was certainly imminent. The storm, however, swept past on the instant with the provocation. When that eye finally closed, a veritable sunbeam of the colony went out with it. Mrs. McArthur, who still survives, went hand in hand with her husband. That they were an attached couple has the complementary illustration of his making her his full heir. As they had no family to divide cares and means, we must blame the less the surpassing hospitalities that distinguished them. McArthur had really no other fault, unless indeed we must fall back on the general limitation which Adam Smith had to admit even in the excellence of his departed friend Hume; for, after all, a man can be good or perfect only "so far as the nature of human frailty will permit." CHARLES JOSEPH LA TROBE, C.B., SUPERINTENDENT OF PORT PHILLIP, AND FIRST LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF VICTORIA. "However God or fortune cast my lot, There lives or dies... A loyal, just, and upright gentleman." --Richard II. The more I saw of the subject of this sketch, over nearly all the fifteen years of his unusually prolonged and varied officiate, the more I explained his case by the excusing consideration that he was where he was without his own consent. He was naturally a quiet, amiable, unambitious man, full of official activity and ability, in a prescribed line, or under the instructions of superiors. Thus commended at Sydney, he accepted, as matter of course, or of duty, his appointment by the Governor, in 1839, to the Superintendency of the Port Phillip community, a small body as yet, although making an ominously loud noise upon the far southern skirts of the vast colonial expanse of which Sydney was then the official and business centre. The charge did not then seem to threaten to be an anxiously large one, and in any case his inauguratory office might hardly remove him from the accustomed instruction of superiors. What he did not bargain for was that the child he went to nurse was to rush almost from the cradle into manhood; and the little "settlement" he began his reign with to be, ere he had done with it, the most notable, if not indeed actually the most important, colony of the empire. He was a Moravian Christian, of a well-known name in that excellent body, and possessed of all its virtues; he was, besides, a well-educated gentleman. The pure and happy home which he transferred to the new scene was of priceless value to its society, and all the more so at a time when such virtuous homes, in such high quarters, were by no means over common thereabout. But with a natural shyness, and, in a socio-political sense, timidity of character, which in ordinary circumstances are feelings leaning to the better side, he exemplified how a good man may not always be a good ruler of men. The diffidence is often mistaken by the ruled, and always disappointing; and in public affairs it is apt, as Mr. La Trobe but too well illustrated, to take the inconvenient and injurious form of personal indecision. He had not a particle of pride or selfishness, hardly even of the commoner infirmity of vanity. He would, whenever possible, take a roundabout to escape observation, but if even the humblest colonist persisted to address him, unrepelled by the evident tendency to "move on," he would be as frank and unceremonious as our Queen in a Highland cottage. We regret that so righteously-stored a man should make a bad Governor; but so it was, none the less. There was comparatively little damage during the day of smaller things, prior to the gold. Still, even then, the characteristics told, in the reluctance to resolve upon action in any departure from the red tape of the beaten track, in a young settlement of men nearly all in the exuberant prime of life, and almost daily called upon, amongst Australian peculiarities, to confront their novel circumstances. For instance, upon rumours, oft repeated, that there was good workable coal at Western Port, a party is formed, with capital in readiness, to give the case a thorough testing; and they, as of course, apply to the Government to give them all those aids and concessions, or, at least, a sufficiency of them, which could most easily have been given in that quarter, for Mr. La Trobe was practically the Government. He referred the matter to Mr. Crown-Solicitor Croke, to ascertain what might be the legal impediments. Impediments, obstacles, difficulties! But who had asked for them? The application had been for facilities. Of course, Mr. C.S. Croke, as instructed, and with all the facility of any lawyer worth his salt, duly found the required impediments; and so the disturbing enemy was defeated, and the Government left at rest. But when the goldfields' grand drama of progress opened, when thousands promptly flowed into Victoria from neighbouring colonies, and, a little later on, ten thousands from Home, this chariness of action, this resolute irresolution, or, in Ollivier's description of his master Napoleon, before he, in an unlucky moment, swayed over to his side, this "obstinate indecision," proved sadly damaging to the colony, although indeed, under all the circumstances, it was hardly possible for any obstacle whatever to arrest materially its marvellous growth. Of course, the interest of a colony, thus enviably favoured, was to settle as best it could this throng of enterprising humanity over its vast and all but empty areas, and that could only have been done by prompt and adequate access to the land. But some current differences as to the bearing or rights of squatting leases gave the Governor--the Superintendent being now in that higher position--the too ready excuse for his infirmity of indecision. Even the squatting difficulty, which could have been easily removed by a reserve of compensation for whatever of it might have been real, was only one part, perhaps not even the chief part, of the wretched case. Acres by the million, on either side, along the busy highways, and around the many goldfield outbreaks, small and great, from which the live stock, where there had been any, were now all driven away, might have been brought to market at once without real injury to any interest. The squatters, naturally enough, sided with the Governor, giving him an encouraging semblance of public principle; for did not the one-third of united Crown Officials and Crown Nominateds, plus the Crown Tenants, in our first so-called representative Legislature, show, on this question, a small majority for "the Crown?" At last, when the public scandal of so grievous a spectacle made longer inaction impossible, when the disappointed and shiftless immigrants began to beat a retreat from the inhospitable colony, the balance streaming by thousands into "Canvastown," or wandering helpless elsewhere, and mostly ruined by the cost of living--for a cabbage had risen to 5 shillings at the goldfields, and to 2 shillings and 6 pence in Melbourne--the Governor, by an adroit move, in the despair of the position, referred the case "Home." There common sense decided it at once, or at least as quickly as might have been expected from the leisurely ways of the Colonial Office of those far-back times. But the decision came, in very great measure, much too late. There had been in the meantime a blazing fire of land speculation, which, unlike other fires, had blazed all the more intensely from the want of fuel. The small supply of land, and the fury of multitudinous demands, had driven up prices to such absurd, and, the utilities considered, such impossible heights, that the inevitable reaction had already begun, involving numbers of families in most sudden and unexpected loss, and not a few in ruin. But Victoria easily recovered from and forgot this preliminary and bad physicking, and was soon to be seen galloping on its road of progress as if nothing to its damage could ever have happened. Full of work for the day, full of hope for the morrow, the busy colonists saluted cordially the departing Governor. For my part I do not grudge it to him, for his motives and conduct were of the purest, and he was ever withal a right good Christian gentleman. SIR JOHN O'SHANASSY, PREMIER, AND FOREMOST PUBLIC MAN OF VICTORIA. "Altogether directed by an Irishman; a very valiant gentleman, i' faith." --Henry V. One of O'Shanassy's oft-repeated jokes, told with the humorous twinkle of his eye, was that "All men are born free and equal, AND MUST REMAIN SO." He was wide as the poles asunder from the radical leveller, as this joke of his might help to show. Indeed, he was decidedly conservative, in a general socio-political sense of the word. While in strong sympathy with the mass of his countrymen, he might have limped at times alongside even of Parnell, to say nothing of Davitt and O'Donovan Rossa. He had more than O'Connell's dread to pass irretrievably outside the law, although he might not have scrupled to drive the proverbial carriage and six through law's usual dubieties of expression, particularly in certain sections of the Victorian Education Acts. As one of the earliest Irish colonists from the old country, he soon rose to the leading position amongst his fellow-colonist Irishmen. His qualities, alike in physique and mind, easily gave him that position. His tall, massive form, with the imperturbable good-humored smile that, even when annoyed by an opponent, he could hardly dismiss from his face, except, perchance, by a blend of the sarcastic; his deliberate manner in speaking, and his sonorous voice, gave him this surpassing influence. But in colonial public life, where he had to encounter greater competition and sharper criticism than in his own smaller Irish world, he lay under some disadvantages. Like his friend and occasional opponent, Fawkner, he had an ungainly gait and rather mannerless address; he had, too, a rich Clonmel brogue, and certainly he had not enjoyed an education at all commensurate with his great natural endowments. But, all defects notwithstanding, he steadily rose in political estimation, and for the simple reason that his views of public affairs were characteristic of the statesman more perhaps than those of any others associated with him. He first entered public life in 1851, as one of the three representatives for Melbourne in Victoria's first Parliament. But, doubtful perhaps, with his anti-radical temperament as to the fickleness of large town populations, as well, possibly, as the dread of his liability to get compromised by the over-zeal of supporters, he changed the venue to the small semi-Irish town of Kilmore, where his seat was always secure, until, in his advancing years, he condescended to the less laborious sphere of the Upper House. I saw much of O'Shanassy at the outset of Victorian legislation, when he and I, in 1851-3, sat together as colleagues for Melbourne in the single chamber of that inaugurative time, and afterwards when we were associated in the Goldfields Commission, 1854-5. Often I noticed the unerring bent of his mind towards the statesman's broad view of subjects of political controversy. As a sincere Catholic he was sometimes trammelled as he ran with liberal Protestant majorities. In the education question, for instance, as already hinted, seeing that Victoria stands amongst the most advanced in the rigid secularity of its teaching, to the extent, at least, of what of instruction is provided--and gratuitously provided--by public money. But in general he was anxious to be reasonably accordant with public opinion--so much so, indeed, in that "profane" direction (as Gibbon might have phrased it) as not to be quite reckonable with the extreme of the Jesuit or Ultramontane section of his church. I recollect and record with pleasure one of the Goldfields Commission incidents illustrative of O'Shanassy's high public qualities. We had completed at Castlemaine, near the original Mount Alexander, our considerable tour of goldflelds inspection; and as we sat round the table of the only public room of the small hotel or public-house of the place, the evidence completed, and all the proposed changes decided on, there remained yet one question. Our proposed chief pecuniary change abolished the indiscriminate, and, to the many unsuccessful, most oppressive charge of 30 shillings monthly license fee, and substituted a yearly fee or fine of only 20 shillings. And what was this, or the documentary receipt that represented it, to be called? Reduced as the amount was, it was still a tax, and any ingenuity that could dignify or otherwise reconcile a tax, was worthy of the best statecraft. As chairman, and not having at the moment a suggestion of my own, I had to knock at the heads of my co-members. I turned to one, then another, and yet another, but without response. Even the original brain of Fawkner sent forth no sign. At length I came to O'Shanassy, who happened to be at the far end of the table. He had been waiting his turn, and the answer came promptly, "Call it the Miner's Right." It was but one out of many instances of his statesmanlike turn. The Miner's Right, of course, it was called. The name passed on to many other goldflelds. I noticed it in British Columbia shortly after, with its new gold discoveries; for the Commission's report had attracted much attention, owing to the forefront position which golden Victoria had already assumed in the world. WILLIAM KERR, FOUNDER OF "THE ARGUS," AND TOWN CLERK OF MELBOURNE. "I am in the place where I am demanded of conscience to speak the truth, and therefore the truth I speak, impugn it whoso list." --"The Argus" motto. Another of O'Shanassy's oft-repeated jokes was a good story about Kerr, and always told with that stereotyped good temper which I fear the latter, with his strong Orange antipathies, would, upon opportunity, have but grudgingly reciprocated. Two "brither Scots," happening to meet one day in Melbourne, one of them, presumably not long arrived, "speered" of the other, "Did ye ken ane Weelum Kerr here aboot?" "Weelum Kerr!" replied the other, in reproachful astonishment; "No ken Weelum Kerr, the greatest man in a' the toon!" That a hard-headed, liberal-minded commonsense Scot, as Kerr was in most things, should have had the Orange infirmity, may be excused, or at least explained, by the fact of his being of Stranraer, a Scotch town almost within hail of Ulster. That small, and not overmuch known place, has not been the least among the cities of Scotia in contributing heads and hands to the colony's progress, including, besides Kerr and others, James Hunter Ross, a leading Melbourne solicitor, and my good old friend Hugh Lewis Taylor, who, ere well out of his teens, was made manager at Geelong, and is now manager in London, of the prosperous Bank of Victoria. Kerr had a high order of abilities in certain literary directions, which might have given him a much better position than he ever secured but for his indolence and negligent want of method. He had also a bad physical constitution, which had probably much to do with the other defects. Perhaps it was his literary turn that led him first, in his new home, to try a stationery business, which, under the style of Kerr and Holmes, afterwards Kerr and Thompson, in Collins-street west, was, I think, the precursor of that particular trade in little early Melbourne. But that had to be given up, and after some looking about, with not overloaded means, he established the Melbourne "Argus". The preceding press efforts had, at my arrival, established three papers, which, by tolerant mutual arrangement in a bi-weekly issue respectively, gave the small public the almost indispensable food of a daily paper. Almost at the beginning, Fawkner's practical hand supplied "The Patriot," hand-written for the first eight or ten numbers, until type came from Launceston. This was soon followed by "The Gazette" of George Arden, and that again by "The Herald" of George Cavenagh. All three had, I think, the common prefix of "Port Phillip". "The Gazette", after a brief career, under its very able but rather erratic owner, went to the wall. "The Patriot", under Boursiquot, who had succeeded the overworked Fawkner, was, somewhat later, bought up by the "Argus", under Wilson and Johnston, in succession to Kerr. The Herald, when quitted after an excellent and timely sale by its founder early in the gold times, was soon after shipwrecked in the storm of vicissitude that characterized some of the first years of gold-digging. With the editorial pen Kerr was in his element, and his naturally combative tendencies found their fitting expression in the motto he adopted, and which still heads the paper, "I am in the place where I am demanded of conscience to speak the truth, and therefore the truth I speak, impugn it whoso list." But even the little "Argus" required management, and Kerr was no manager. He was induced to sell it, and for no great sum--pounds going a long way in those times--to Mr. Edward Wilson, who thus laid the foundation of his subsequent great position and fortunes. Kerr was fortunate after this in securing the town-clerkship of Melbourne, in succession to Mr. John Charles King, the first clerk. The Corporation was still hardly beyond infancy, and Kerr's natural legal acuteness was of great service at his new post, where reigned he practically master, and was an authority far outside his official sphere, and even in legislative difficulties of the young Parliament, for we are now entering into Victorian life, and the importance that was fast being developed with the gold. But after a time the old besetting infirmity turned up here also, and in a rather serious form, as connected with irregularities in Corporation moneys and accounts, which might have been compromising to any other than Kerr, with his well-known indifference to such vulgar good things. He had a remarkable resemblance, in more than one point of character and circumstances, to his brother Scotchman, and fast friend till death, the Reverend Dr. Lang, of Sydney; and had he possessed the physical vigour, not to say the stately proportions, of that most combatant of members of the church militant, he might have been his Victorian rival in a far more prosperous and protracted career. In each there was a very combative mind behind the mildest of manner. Besides the pulpit, Lang sought successfully also the Legislature, where, somehow, clergymen are not favourites. He was, in fact, in the first instance, one of our members for Port Phillip, and it was chiefly to his efforts and abilities that separation from New South Wales was eventually conceded from Home. In the elective contests we saw some of the peculiar talent with which Lang fought his many political foes, when, with an inimitable blandness of address, and the softest of mellifluous language, he would build up a many-sided argument, patiently and leisurely, and at last, as with the bitterly biting end of a stockman's long whip, flay the Wentworths of opposition, who, with more noise than effect, were ever snapping at his heels. But, alas for the cause of human perfection! The Doctor, being on a mission Home, and by no means for the first time, for the promotion of the emigration of Scotch Presbyterians to Australia (his great and not unworthy hobby), and being short of funds after raising in one direction all he could upon his bill of lading, horrible dictu! pledged elsewhere for the balance of his account a spare copy of the set, left with him in trust and confidence. Now was the day of vengeance for his foes, and they duly essayed to take it. But the imperturbable Doctor was not troubled with too thin a skin, especially in a matter which was totally devoid of personal pecuniary advantage. The overdraft was, as he expected, readily made up by the public. Nor did he sustain any great moral damage, even with his foes, as his indifference about money was too well known--first his own money, and after that other people's. Kerr was in a like plight, but a great deal more helplessly. If he escaped as to character with the many who knew him, yet of necessity he lost his good post. He was succeeded by Mr. Fitzgibbon, who, more fitly, I doubt not, than Kerr, has held this important office ever since, a period of no less than thirty-two years. This serious loss of means and position completed a breakdown that had probably begun before, so that Kerr was no longer able for first-class work. We may envy this opportunity to his old opponent, O'Shanassy, who, in power at the time, generously found him a small appointment--a station upon one of the railways--which gave him, at least, a comfortable, and, in a social way, by no means ungenial home for the short remainder of his life. It was mainly at my good friend Kerr's urgent instance that I entered public life, which was in 1850, for the representation of Melbourne at Sydney. Doubtless he had his own aims quite as much as my interests in view, as he wanted the supposed good card, a Melbourne merchant, Scotch and Presbyterian like himself into the bargain, to play against the anti-Orange and Irish-cum-O'Shanassy party. I fear that his expected henchman was too cosmopolitan at times. But Kerr rendered me a more direct service at the subsequent election for Melbourne in Victoria's first Parliament, by bringing me in at the head of the poll, which happened in this way:--At the first count the poll stood thus: O'Shanassy, Westgarth, Johnston, Nicholson, the latter being out, much to his own and his friends' astonishment, as there were only three seats. Kerr, who was resolved O'Shanassy should not be declared first if he could help it, called for a scrutiny prior to declaration. He had knowledge of a goodly scale of false voting on the Irish side, where, in fact, there was a legion of busy Kerrs to my one, many of them having voted double, or, as with Sheridan's proposed yearly Parliaments, "oftener if need be." One had voted nine times in succession at different polling places. I fear Kerr was wrong, and that scrutiny should have been applied for after declaration. But Kerr was the most dogged of mortals when he had a mind and an object, was then in the zenith of his influence, and, best of all for his side, he was king of the position as town clerk. So he secured his purpose, and O'Shanassy and I changed positions. I have a better service than this, and of much more general interest, with which to conclude my present sketch. A year later, the second year of the gold, during which it was estimated that fifteen millions of gold had been washed out of the drifts, chiefly of Ballarat and Bendigo, the colony was already flooded, and no wonder, by the convict element from Tasmania. To intensify this evil beyond all bearing, that colony's Government, in view of relief from accumulating prisoners, had lately enacted a "conditional pardon" system, the condition being that the criminal was at liberty for all the world except to return Home, and forthwith, Her Majesty's pass in hand, he crossed to golden Victoria. A cry of despair arose there, for almost immediately the towns, goldfields, highways, and everywhere else where havoc was to be made, were the almost daily scenes of the most atrocious outrage. One forenoon word reached town that five ruffians, taking position on the St. Kilda-road, had stuck up and robbed some twenty of the merchants and traders on their way to Melbourne, including my friend John G. Foxton. The Anti-Transportation League, then some years in existence, held a great meeting, at which a large committee was appointed, and was enjoined to find an effective mode of dealing with this novel form of evil. I think that it was at my suggestion that each of the committee was to write out his thoughts and bring the paper with him, so as to have a basis for arriving at a prompt conclusion. Kerr was made convener, and he was not long in convening us. Only Kerr and myself responded! We may take a mitigated view of the others, for everyone was busy over something in those days, many embarrassingly so for want of servants, who had "bolted" to the diggings, while most of the committee had had legislation and incessant deputations and public meetings to look after besides. As to myself, I had vainly tried to find fifteen consecutive minutes for the subject. When Mr. Kerr asked me for my paper, I excused myself by pleading that it was so meagre that I would rather first hear his. Thereupon, in his deliberate way, he drew forth a sheet of foolscap, and read to me "The Convicts Prevention Act." Such it was, for, with a few comparatively unimportant mitigations, secured by the ability and influence of Attorney-General Stawell, the impatient Assembly, highly appreciating and determined to have the measure, promptly passed it by a large majority. This was Kerr's culminating public service, and I am the more pleased to have this opportunity to say so, as my name was rather unduly attached to the bill, from its having been committed to my charge. His prompt remedy, I doubt not, saved many a colonist, not only as to life, limb, and property, but from outrage in some cases worse than death. His scathing measure introduced, indeed, a new principle, for we unceremoniously clapped people into prison who held up to our courts the Queen's pardon. Her Majesty's representatives at Home did not at all like it. The Home Government, indeed, refused to confirm the temporarily enacted measure; but by that happy safety-valve understanding, which has perhaps saved some explosions, it was renewed and re-renewed as long as required. The letter of imperial law was doubtless violated; but Her Majesty's Government first violated the spirit, by authorizing men unfit for England to go to Victoria. WILLIAM NICHOLSON, MAYOR OF MELBOURNE, AND PREMIER OF THE COLONY. "An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not." --As You Like It. In one of our colonial municipalities, which of them I have forgotten, as I heard my story so long ago, a working furniture-maker, who had secured an order from the Mayor for his official chair, was observed to be at particular pains over its construction, and, on being asked the reason, replied that he intended some day to occupy it himself. If the subject of this sketch had been of that particular trade, this would have been a very likely story to fix upon him. Not that he was of inordinate ambition; for, on the contrary, he looked quiet and contented beyond most around him. But he was always ready and willing to respond to the many opportunities of a new colony, and from his great natural gifts usually able to do them justice. Nature had given him all she could to make him a good and useful colonist; but there was one thing he had not had from her, because not within her power, and that was the school. He was probably not altogether uneducated; but he could not have had many chances in that direction, otherwise the facility with which he educated himself in life's practical work after he had reached manhood would have told for him as a schoolboy as well. In business, in public speaking and debating, and in public life in general, he took successfully a first part; but when he had to condescend to such schooling products as writing and spelling, he made confessedly only a bad second. But, again, a defect of this kind is much less of an obstacle in new colonies than in old societies, because for generations in the former the hand is relatively more important to progress than the head, and the man of work than the man of thought. In colonies men of great natural parts, if ambitious, can usually take good positions even if but little educated. At Home this is hardly possible, and the consequent social distemper is there a danger to the State--a danger, however, which our Education Acts since 1870 must be steadily removing. I happened, on one occasion, to meet Nicholson's home employer in Liverpool. He had been foreman, if indeed so high as that, in a warehouse. When he told his employer that he had made up his mind to go to Port Phillip with his family, there was regret to part with so quiet and trustworthy a servant, but, as he said to me, not the least idea that the unpretending individual before him would, within a few years, take a position considerably in advance of his own. He set up a grocery shop in Melbourne, and was soon on the road to success. Then he stood for the municipality, which was hardly yet out of infancy, was duly elected councillor, and in a very few years became Mayor of Melbourne. Then, gliding easily onwards and upwards, he entered the young colonial Legislature of 1851, as member for the Metropolitan County, North Bourke. He had previously, as I have told, tried unsuccessfully for the capital itself, getting some compensation, however, in the "next first." But with all this rising importance he was ever the plain, unassuming William Nicholson, and when Mayor or M.L.C. both he and his wife would be found in their shop as usual--so far, at least, as the other crowding duties would permit. When he formed his first and very brief Ministry, under Constitutional Government, prior to my definitely leaving the colony in 1857, he did me the honour to invite me to a place in his "Cabinet," if our young colonies may use that grand Imperial term, as his Commissioner of Customs. With regret I was compelled to decline; for, from experience a few years before, I had found that if a man has business of his own which he must attend to he cannot possibly at the same time attend to that of everybody else. Premiers came in thick and fast succession in those days, for there was no small doing and undoing, and no little of general upturning when an exclusively representative Assembly took the place of the "Crown" system, in its preceding complete or subsequently still partial condition. The Land Question was ever the chief difficulty, for, whereas in previous times the people had been directed to conform themselves to land laws, now the new fancy all was that the land laws should conform to the needs of the people. Ministries rose and fell mainly on this question. When the second time Premier, I think in 1860, Nicholson left his name to a Land Act, as did O'Shanassy, Gavan Duffy, and others, and there is a ringing of the changes even yet upon that fertile subject. William Nicholson has passed to his rest, and Burns might have fitly awarded him his high palm, "An honest man's the noblest work of God." CHARLES HOTSON EBDEN, ESQUIRE. "But I thought there was more in him than I could think." --Coriolanus. "Methinks there is much reason in his sayings." --Julius Caesar. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." The subject of this sketch might put in a claim for at least something towards redeeming Jack's dulness, for he had a few odd ways, and a fertile turn for epigrammatics, some of them not bad. He boasted of having Beau Brummell's antipathy to certain vegetables. During the early but brief allotment mania he said that he feared he was to become "disgustingly rich," one of his epi's which became a by-word, and scored him a decided success. When some colonist, hearing him called by the name of Ebden, asked him if he was related to "the great Mr. Ebden," his humorously-delivered response, to the effect that he was himself that happy individual, scored him another, perhaps smaller, success. I have often seen him score yet another, which, perhaps, in his own view, was not at all the least of that sort of thing, when, after writing in a rather neat and most distinct hand, the pen seemed suddenly under paralysis, and a sadly dilapidated signature was the result. He always signed his name in that fanciful way. Ebden's name was so well known in the earlier years--indeed his gait and ways, his sayings and doings were so marked throughout--that to omit him from my list would leave a decided blank. But if the man had consisted of these little oddnesses just alluded to, whether first class or second, little would have survived of him, as business-like John Bull fails to appreciate people who have no more solid backing than that. Underneath all this very gauzy surface, Ebden, as all who had his intimacy were aware, was withal a man of ability and good common sense, and, what was practically more, he was reputed to rank high in the role of success in the early allotment rig. Indeed, in the rapid fortune-making of that time, he contemplated a palatial residence for himself upon an ample frontage to Collins-street, next above the Bank of Australasia. Two back offices had been built towards the full idea, but the allotment game had already turned ere he got further, and there the incomplete work stood. The "offices" were readily sold or let, and from intended sculleries or what not, rose to be the places of business of two early firms of solicitors--Meek and Clarke on the one side, and Montgomery and McCrae on the other. The spacious frontage remained long unbuilt upon, but it has since been taken as part of a "Temple"--not, however, of the gods, but of very different people--the lawyers. He and I were on opposite sides of the political hedge, at least in the times when we were together in public life, both in Sydney and Melbourne, during the pre-constitutional era. He belonged, almost beyond any others--the exceptions being perhaps limited to William Forlong and my friend A.R. Cruikshank--to the anti-popular and pro-squatting party; although, subsequently, when there was the "fact accomplished," and no help for it, he accepted "fully and cheerfully," as his election addresses put it, the reigning democratic platform. But he was not unkindly withal, and he helped my comparative legislative inexperience at Sydney, when we were both there to represent Melbourne and Port Phillip. He had done me a great favour also in making himself most serviceable with the German immigration which I had started from Hamburg in 1849. He was quite a German scholar, having finished his education at Carlsruhe, a name which he transferred to his pastoral station in the Port Phillip District. Ebden, like most others in it, did not bring much out from the allotment mob. When returned afterwards to represent the district along with me in Sydney, I heard that a draft of cattle from the station was needed for expenses. These were still the reactionary times of such small things for all of us. But in after years he went on and prospered, and he left behind him what might have been called a large fortune in any place where there were not a W.J.T. Clarke and a Henry Miller, and perhaps some few others besides, in the rival category. EDWARD WILSON, CHIEF PROPRIETOR OF "THE ARGUS," "THE TIMES" OF THE SOUTH. "The good I stand on is my truth and honesty; I fear nothing What can be said against me. --Henry VIII. I was long and intimately acquainted with Wilson. He was a man of high qualities and noble longings, and scorned meanness of all kinds; and he had, like his predecessor Kerr, some good and pungent literary pretensions, although he could not be placed on a level with Kerr while the latter enjoyed adequate health. But, on the other hand, he greatly marred his influence by what might be called impetuous intemperateness in his early press career. Indeed, "The Argus", in its later stages, must needs emerge, as in fact it did, from its chief owner's editing, if it was to take the position of "The Times" of the South. He had a great antipathy to indecision in public men, and he entered upon a furious crusade against the Superintendent and his surroundings, as the prime causes in the delay in "the unlocking of the lands." Mr. La Trobe was dubbed "the Hat and Feathers," as though these trappings were the most of him; and this vulgarity, excusable only under small "Eatanswill" conditions, passed into the great developments of the golden age. Some of us, who were doing our best in the same general direction, often had to wish, with reference to Wilson, to be saved from our friends, while Mr. La Trobe, if affected at all, was only encouraged or scared into still more decided indecision. Wilson was not much of a man of practical business. He was not successful in his early life at home, where business is a harder ordeal, and with fewer of the "flukes" that cross the path in young colonies. Arriving in Melbourne shortly after myself, and in company with a friend, one of the brothers Kilburn, he squatted upon a small cattle run to the south-east, towards Dandenong. But as this did little beyond merely keeping soul and body together, as things were all now subsiding from the riot of the earlier years, it was given up. Foregathering next with Mr. J.S. Johnston, they between them bought "The Argus" from Kerr for a very small sum--I think under 300 pounds--and the paper then started upon its successful career under the increased vigour and improved method of its management. Although, as I have said, not a business man himself, Wilson was fortunate in business partners--first Mr. Johnston, as above said, succeeded by my old friend James Gill, who, retiring, was replaced by Lauchlan Mackinnon whose energy and application piloted the paper financially into its later grand position. He had latterly, besides, a surpassing business agent in my old friend James Rae, whose firm of Jackson, Rae and Co. had retired comparatively early, after attaining the mercantile headship of the colony; thus leaving the colonial field open to other early friends, Fred. G. Dalgety and Fred. A. Du Croz, who have since, as Dalgety, Du Croz and Co., and Dalgety and Co. Limited, taken the first position in Australasian commerce. For some years Wilson took full charge of the editorial and general literary work, which, after the gold discoveries, was labour second to none. In the sudden expansion of all colonial interests, there was constant fear for years together of falling short of adequate supply. Now it was type, again it would be paper, and, worst of all, it would at times be the inadequacy of staff. The Australian press had at times to be content with such dress of paper as could on emergency be had, and for some time, as I recollect, one of the Sydney issues came out on tea paper from China. Wilson, as I have repeatedly seen him, would occupy his corner in the comparatively large room into which the narrow old premises in Collins-street east had been latterly expanded. There most of the work was done, he receiving, during nearly the whole night, news and messages, correcting proofs, and passing instructions in his quiet off-hand, and, when needful, peremptory or commanding way, and, amidst the ceaseless noise, writing or correcting leaders when possible. With the gold tide came at first such heavy expenses, much of them quite unforeseen and unprepared for, that the press interest was run, of necessity, into heavy debt, where there was no adequate capital. It was either this or to give up the game in those changing times; and those who had not the money or the credit went to the wall, to make room for others less embarrassed. "The Argus" thus got heavily into debt to its agents and bankers; but after 1854, which had been a most trying year of inevitable reaction, there was gradual recovery, and eventually a due reward in commissions and interest to its supporters. The prosperity of "The Argus" about this time was unprecedented in the antipodes, and for a considerable interval the paper stood unrivalled, not only in Victoria but in Australasia, having at last surpassed, both in circulation and in the profits of business contents, even the long-established and highly respectable "Sydney Morning Herald", it was allowed, and not unfairly, to be "The Times" of the Southern Hemisphere, for Wilson had retired in favour of more temperate editorship; and in supporting, and being supported by, the mercantile interests, and in the adoption generally of the Freetrade policy of the parent state, the paper followed its northern prototype. But the clearing of the ground had left room for other and better accoutred rivals, and "The Age" arose to enter the lists with "The Argus". The latter had taken up Freetrade and the "classes;" the former took up Protection and the "masses;" so far, at least as these terms might, as to either application, distinguish democratic Victoria's condition. Protection had been quite in abeyance under the old regime, beyond at least, an occasional sigh from agricultural Geelong for higher prices for the farmer, "the mainstay of every country." Even during the interregnum of semi-constitutionalism, 1851-55, the tendency had been effectually checked, chiefly by the energy of the Collector of Customs, Mr. Cassell, then one of the Official Legislative Members, who, supported by the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, was bent upon a tariff of the Home kind, of half-a-dozen leading articles, with perfect freedom of exchange over the world for all products of the colony's labour. But Mr. Cassell, to universal regret, on general as on commercial grounds, died in November, 1853, leaving the colony a less obstructed road to those restrictions which it has since seen fit to impose upon its own industry. "The Age", with remarkable ability and as remarkable success, has always advocated Protection. But at first, as my recollection goes, it was in that qualified way which is not necessarily against trading freedom, reasonably considered. I perfectly recall the late Mr. Syme's main argument, or excuse, to the effect that the Western United States, for instance, should, on social considerations, restrict universal wheat-growing, even at economic loss. But if one may judge from some recent Freetrade and Protection controversy as between Victoria and New South Wales (see "Age" for April-May, 1887), all qualification seems now dropped, and even direct economic advantage expected from Protection. None the less "The Age" gained upon "The Argus", and has, I understand, long surpassed it in that most prominent of all tests, the circulation. Perhaps in profits also. When I inquired lately of one of "The Argus" chiefs upon those delicate points, the reply was, that "The Argus" was not up to "The Age's" circulation, "but, further, deponent sayeth not." This does not mean, however, the loss of position as the Southern "Times", for "the leading journal" is by no means at the head of the London press in point of circulation. Where it may be, however, when it comes down from the aristocratic threepence to the common penny of its brethren remains to be seen; and I am told that all has long been in readiness for the change when the fitting times arrives. And so, as "The Argus" is still twopence to "The Age's" penny, inverted relations as to circulation may some day not be impossible there also. The circulation of the daily "Age", by my last account, is close upon 70,000, which is not "a poor show for Kilmarnock," in that sense of the joke. In 1858, Wilson quitted the colony "for good," as the phrase is, followed by Mackinnon, and later on by their third and only other partner, Mr. Allan Spowers. "The Argus" was now an established principle of Victoria, and prosperity was assured. After a few more years of economizing, until the business debt was finally cleared off, the partners could enjoy to the full their great and well-merited fortunes. Wilson and Mackinnon took up palatial country residences--the one at first at Addington, ten miles from London, and later at the pleasant and classic Hayes Place, the favourite abode of the great Chatham; the other at Elfordleigh, in Devonshire; while Spowers lived chiefly in London, where, as the common favourite of both, he, with his genial temper, kept the peace between his seniors, who, with an infirmity too common to human nature, were prone to disagree, for want, let us suppose, of anything else to think about. Mackinnon, with his energetic mind, had been the most concerned in building up the later stages of the "Argus" fortunes. Both Wilson and I had a high opinion of his qualities, as the following incident may show. He and I, as I have said in my sketch of the Henty family, were anti-transportation delegates to Tasmania in 1852, and, proceeding by steamer to Launceston, we had for fellow-passengers a considerable body of returned diggers, most of them with their bags of gold, and a good proportion of them with expressions of face one would rather not meet if beyond call of the police. In short, a good sprinkling of returned convicts were of the number, with their "piles," acquired possibly quite as much by robbing as by digging. After a few hours at sea, a rumour reached the cabin that there had been a robbery, one of these ruffians having seized a bag of gold from one of the other digger passengers. The thief had at once disappeared below and secured himself within a surrounding of his own chums, so that it was feared he might escape with his booty, as no one seemed "game" to descend the fore companion ladder and encounter this sinister crowd below. Mackinnon at once took the cause in hand. Telling the robbed man to follow him, so as to help identification, he, without an instant's hesitation, descended the ladder. A few of us followed, to support our gallant leader. "I want the thief," he said; "he must restore the gold. You honest diggers are not to lose your earnings in this way." So saying, he pressed forward into the crowd, followed by his guide; and when at last the latter pointed out the culprit, he seized his arm and dragged him back to the ladder's foot, where he peremptorily ordered him to restore the stolen gold. All this was done in less time than I have taken to tell it. The thief, overwhelmed by the suddenness of the action, and still more, perhaps, by the want of expected support from his "pals," promptly brought out the gold; and thus ended a little drama highly illustrative of those stirring times. On my return I mentioned this circumstance to Wilson, and we both agreed that Mackinnon was just the man we were all looking for at that critical period for the headship of the colony's police. Wilson was in full power as owner and editor of the rising "Argus", while I was senior member for Melbourne; and between us we reckoned upon influencing the Government to make at once this appointment, and in that view we went straight to Captain Lonsdale, our Chief Secretary. We were just too late, for the appointment, as we learnt, had already been decided in favour of Mr., afterwards Sir William, Mitchell. I do not doubt that this incident had something to do with Wilson's subsequent invitation to Mackinnon to join him in the "Argus" interest. And here he worked so effectively as to make Wilson just a trifle sensitive as to people thinking that the new hand did even more for the common cause than the old one. But, as the saying has it, "Comparisons are odious." They are, besides, quite unnecessary, for both have proved themselves most worthy men, fighting their life's course valiantly and well, and that, too, with a rare success. There can, I hope, be no betrayal of confidence in repeating what rumour gave as to "Argus" fortunes. The net profits about this time--that is to say, towards 1878, when Wilson died--were put at between 22,000 and 24,000 pounds; but this, I believe, must have since very considerably increased. Wilson had the larger moiety; Spowers, who was the later importation, having a comparatively small interest. Wilson was now the country gentleman, able to live in almost princely style. With his amiable and highly-cultured sister, who lived latterly with him, he kept a hospitable house, inviting the old colonists of his acquaintance, as they came and went to and from the old country. He was not without faults of temper and impatience, increased probably by a feeling of physical weakness which denied him activities of mind and body to the extent his ambition for life's utility would have preferred. His tall, well-developed form and commanding presence, backed by his ample means, placed him easily in a leading position. Now he would be pacing Hayes Place grounds with the frank and genial Archbishop Tait, who, on a visit to the parish, had dropped in with the Vicar, Mr. Reid. Again he would be a well-known and welcome figure at dinners, "at homes," picnics, and what not, with the Darwins, Lubbocks, Farrs, and the rest of the neighbourhood, scientific and otherwise, but the former by preference. His chief trouble was a weak action of the heart, which for the last year or two kept him constantly in view of death. He calmly regarded the prospect of the great change, put his affairs in order as he wished, and awaited "the call of God." He passed away with but slight suffering in the beginning of 1878, before completing his 64th year. His remains were, by his own request, returned to the colony which, as he always insisted, he had served so long and so faithfully. His large means were left chiefly to various charitable and other useful institutions in the colony. Besides larger legacies to his relations, twenty-six of his oldest colonial friends enjoy for life a bequest of 100 pounds each per annum, and as these were the friends of the early and small times of Port Phillip, few of whom had prospered at all like himself, the help is not unneeded in most cases. That all of these legatees were of the other sex is explained by the fact that, having been always a bachelor, he had an intense, although only a general admiration for the sex. Very many others will, over an indefinite future, have reason to bless the name of Edward Wilson. EARLY SOCIETY: WAYS, MEANS, AND MANNERS. "When rather from our acts we them derive Than our fore-goers." --All's Well that Ends Well. The salient defect, for more or less interval at first, in all commencing colonial societies, is the disproportion of the female element; and thus, in the sparseness of homes and families, we have that hardness of social feature, which illustrates how much better is the one sex with the "helpmeet" provided in the other. Early Port Phillip was no exception to this rule. Ladies and children were comparatively rare objects. From Tasmania and elsewhere there were a good many "choice spirits" in more than one meaning of the words. There was a marvellous consumption of brandy, among such unusual proportions of strong, venturous, rowdy adults; of tea and sugar, and butcher's meat also; giving altogether a statistical category worse than useless for accurate purposes. Manners were rough, to use a mild term. The town was bad, and the bush was worse. When a pious missionary of those early times, prior to adventuring into the interior, inquired of a squatter if the Sabbath were observed in the bush, "Oh, yes," was the prompt reply, "a clean shirt and a shave." In such times a large family of ladies might have trodden the soil somewhat as goddesses come down to the desolate habitations of men. Four such families of the earliest times, in particular, rise to my recollection. They were those of Mr. Grylls and Mr. Clow, both clergymen, the one of the Anglican, the other of the Presbyterian communion; of Mrs. Williamson, a widow lady from near Edinburgh; and of Mr. James Smith, Magistrate and Savings Bank manager, whose bustling form, ever hurrying through our streets, was perhaps the best known of the place, and who, along with his friend and co-magistrate, Mr. Simpson, was as the coping stone of local respectability. That all of these fair young maidens, most of them remarkably attractive and pleasing, as I have reason to remember, were duly married, need hardly, under all the circumstances, be told, besides being attested to-day by whole generations of consequences. Another feature of those early times, a lively and bright feature in many respects, was the considerable number of young men, the younger sons of good families--and, for that matter, the elder sometimes along with the younger--who flocked out, in unusual proportion, I might say, and who infused into the somewhat rough social scene the charm of high culture and manners. Wild they doubtless were in instances not a few; but even that may not be without its side of charm, at least amongst the younger votaries. Some few eventually returned "Home," mostly those who had been shipwrecked in the troubled sea of early-time speculation. But most of them have remained to take their various and full part in colonial society, not a few taking the very highest positions. Thus we had the Stawells and Barrys, the Leslie Fosters, Sladens, Rusdens, of town and neighbourhood, and the Campbells, McKnights, Irvines, of surrounding squatterdom. Most of these are long since the fathers of families, native Australians, including sons who not unfrequently finished their education in the mother country--a dutiful deference which Australia may surely not yet quarrel with. This habit is still strong, even to the third generation in Victoria, amongst her well-to-do colonists. The youths may not expect better training than from a Hearn or a McCoy, an Irving or a Pearson, on the colonial floor; but such diversion from rule will, in its occasional way, the better help to keep the great scattering family united to their venerable mother--to keep together the elder and the younger Britain. Oxford and Cambridge in particular have, indeed, been quite run upon from Victoria, and those two venerable mothers of English university life can already command in and of that colony quite a small legion of their alumni--the Clarkes and "Loddon" Campbells, the Finlays and "Colac" Robertsons, the Websters and Westbys and Wilsons, who are now the young or the still vigorous life of their colony. If some few of these have remained permanently at Home, or if they pleasantly alternate their domicile by such facile means as the marvels of modern inter-communication afford them, yet all of them help, in more or less degree, to strengthen that tie between the mother and her adventurous colonial offspring which we must hope is never to be broken. I have the less need to expand further this inspiring section of my subject, seeing that I have been anticipated to some extent by a brother author, who, under the pseudonym of "Rolf Boldrewood," has presented to us, in lively and fitting style, a most charming picture of early colonial life, its pleasant hospitalities, plus the Attic salt of no small proportion of the bounteous tables. The disguise of name is not difficult to penetrate. The author's father, residing in his pretty place at Heidelberg, whose genial sun-browned face I pleasantly recall, was well known to me, as well, indeed, as to every other early colonist. His son's book has been my pleasant companion as I write up daily my "Recollections" in the little cabin of the good s.s. "Coptic", more especially as we both traversed much the same ground, and during the same interesting early time, in Western Victoria. "GOVERNMENT HOUSE." "Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice To change true rules for odd inventions." --Taming of the Shrew. But perfection is never to be expected in human nature, and accordingly some decided drawbacks were, reasonably I think, chargeable to this "good society" which, as I have just said, had beneficially helped the dawning colony. There was a tendency to separate from, and rather hold in undue depreciation, the trading and toiling masses who mainly made the country. This tendency was fostered in the pre-representative days, when there were no political institutions to bring the mass of plain but prosperous society to the front. Of course, when these times came, the game was soon up. But, while the preceding era lasted, a somewhat invidious "aristocracy" gathered around the authorities, the mutual instincts, born of the situation, inclining them to each other. This united party got the name of "Government House." It included most of the highly educated, to whom it was a tempting status, and most of the squatting Crown tenants, whether highly educated or otherwise; and it was cordially open to "presentable" colonists in general, who, holding its views--of course a sine qua non--were willing to enter it. The views were decidedly "pronounced," and took practically the form of a decided preference for the status quo, or, at least, modified by the slightest possible of political concession to those noisy, restless masses, who, with the local press generally on their side, ceaselessly kicked at all authority. The political timidity and indecision of Mr. La Trobe, worthy man as he otherwise was, gave practically life and soul to this anti-popular party, which laboured, more secretly perhaps than openly, to avert or modify, for the time being at least, the political concession expected from the Imperial Parliament. Mr. La Trobe's view evidently was, that if the colonials kicked so strongly when under bonds, how much more furiously must they kick when the bonds were removed. But, as reasonable persons might have predicted, and as was promptly experienced, the colonists kicked because they were bound, and when unbound they did not kick at all. The same political feature, and even in more resolute form, had then developed also at Sydney, where Mr. Wentworth led the "upper ten," for the protection of authority against levelling radicalism. He and his party, out-Heroding Herod, and being more governmental than the Government, seriously contemplated a limitation of the franchise to a 50 pounds rental, and the institution of a Colonial Peerage, as a permanent slap in the face to the ugly Democracy. Had he carried his views, or even some considerable approach to them, his influence with the party, and his bull-dog courage, would soon have put his colony into an uproar, and possibly even into civil war. But, thanks for once to his political extremes, the question was happily settled rather by being laughed out of court than by time-wasting argument. "Government House," however, did secure, in both colonies, a certain measure of triumph. Authority in esse having the whip hand of authority in posse, the one-third of nominees as against two-thirds elective were, by a disproportionately large representation purposely given to the squatting districts, converted into a permanent majority of Crown nominees and Crown tenants. This was clearly an evasion of the intention of the Imperial Parliament, which was that, by giving a decided majority to the popular side, the colonies might be graduated into complete constitutionalism. But, after all, this evasion lasted only for a very few years. These early wranglings are now all but forgotten. But they are so only because the narrow views which gave them birth have been entirely defeated, and are all but exploded. In the progress of the colonies since, "the merits" have occupied the front, and the useful has taken the precedence of the ornamental. The latter is not to be despised when in company with the former; nor has it been, for not a few who were once on the anti-popular side have entered public life, and even secured the highest prizes. This necessitated a descent from cloudland to the solid ground of colonial society. The alternative was extinction, and wisely, in most cases, the latter was not preferred. Another feature of this Sydney ultra party--a curious feature, indeed, to look back upon to-day--was its undisguised antipathy to the anti-transportation feeling then gathering force throughout South-Eastern Australia, and even in Tasmania. The movement was highly unfashionable, say even deeply vulgar, in the leading circle surrounding Government House. For those who had the infirmity of such puritanical leanings there was an approach to the antipathy, plus contempt, of the southern slaver of the States for his northern abolitionist countryman. When my friend, Mr. (afterwards Sir) S.A. Donaldson introduced me, for my temporary stay, at the Australian Club, then the high quarters of the party, he passed me a friendly hint to steer clear, at least when on the floor of that "house," of that delicate subject. This feeling was further and rather amusingly illustrated on one occasion during the "Separation Session," at which I was the member for Melbourne, and present at the time. Mr. Henry Moor, the well-known solicitor, and one of the five district members, in replying to the charge urged against us of the unfilial indifference or ingratitude of Port Phillip in thus seeking separation, instanced for the contrary the recent event of the arrival from Melbourne of a deputation from the Anti-Transportation League, in order to help Sydney in promoting its good cause. The instant his drift was detected, the Speaker, Dr. (Sir Charles) Nicholson, apprehensive, doubtless, of some undesirable scene on that too sensational subject, rose to call peremptorily the honourable member to order, and to the non-transgression of his proper subject. But all this injuriously exclusive faction had entirely disappeared from that open and genial society of Sydney which welcomed Mr. Froude three years ago, and which he describes so pleasantly. CHEAP LIVING. "All cheering Plenty, with his flowing horn, Led yellow Autumn, wreathed with nodding corn." --Burns. After the first few years of disturbing land speculation, and a too general extravagance of living, we settled down into a frugal folk, of moderate but steady prosperity, which lasted up to the general unsettlement of everything by the gold. The general moderation, and the cheap and plenty time that characterized it, culminated in 1844, when bread was 4 pence the 4-pound loaf, rich fresh butter 3 pence a pound, and beef and mutton 1 penny. A good managing lady, with whom I lodged in that year, told me one day at dinner that a savoury dish we were enjoying was a bullock's head, got for nothing from her butcher, and with which she hoped to keep the house for yet two more days. Shortly before this, when my friend Fennell and I housed together at the west end of the town, we sent one day to the neighbouring slaughtering-place, where the custom was to sell by retail to the public the legs of mutton at 5 pence each, as they had comparatively so little of tallow for boiling down. We duly got one, cooked it, and found it very good. No doubt it was in very great measure because money was scarce and dear that nearly everything was thus cheap. I recollect the sale by auction at that time of a vacant half-acre allotment in central Collins-street, next to that on which Mr. George James, wine merchant, had very early erected his surpassing brick office and dwelling. After some slight competition, the allotment, put up, I think, at the upset price of 300 pounds, was bought by Mr. Edmund Westby for 344 pounds. The amount is impressed upon me, because I wondered at the time that anyone should thus throw away so much good money. But my friend Westby reckoned the future more accurately than I did, for within nine years after, this price was hardly the 500th part of the value. To cap the whole tale, the lot was, I think, in the hands of Government from having been abandoned by the original buyer, who had forfeited his deposit rather than complete his supposed bad bargain. According to my recollection, the first of our sober community to set up a carriage and pair was Mr. Henry Moor, above alluded to. Even His Honour the Superintendent had no such luxury at that time. I remember looking upon that vehicle with a sense of awe, possibly not without envy at what was to most of us the entirely unattainable. I speak of the real Hyde Park Corner article, and not the old "shandrydan" with which some remote squatter might at times have galloped into town, poising himself with practised and needed adroitness on nature's bush track, behind a pair or more of the hundreds of nags on his run. I must except also those said anomalous early years, for I recollect sallying forth in 1841 from my little lodging in Lonsdale-street, opposite the old gaol, then being erected, to see Mr. John Hunter Patterson, a spirited colonist of the earliest times, drive his splendid four-in-hand through the trackless bush into town from the direction of the Moonee Ponds. RELIGIOUS INTERESTS. Our small society, in its upward struggle, received a distinctly great impetus for good by the accession in 1848 of the first Lord Bishop of the colony, Dr. Charles Perry. He exhibited a rare energy in the cause of his Divine Master, and he frankly and genially sought and recognized that Master's Church far beyond the pale of the Bishop's own section of it, so far at least as the rules of that section would permit. But the good Bishop, liberal as he was in one direction, yet failed to reach the full width of colonial sentiment in that respect, when he refused to reciprocate the courtesy visit of his Roman Catholic brother. He is credited with having given his reason, namely, that, in his view, the Roman Church belonged to "the synagogue of Satan"--surely a very venturesome assertion of so vast a part of Christianity and of the power and civilization of the world. We might say at times of bishops, as is so often said of judges, that when they have to make any unusual or unexpected decision they had best not give the reasons. I witnessed a very different sense of duty, and one to which I must confess a preference when we were at Lugano, an inland town of Teneriffe, situated a few miles from Santa Cruz, where our good "Coptic" halted for six hours to replenish her coal, thus permitting her passengers a shore excursion. A polite elderly gentleman, apparently the sole occupant of the Lugano hotel, whose decidedly clerical aspect, together with that simple white neckband which Catholics claim as solely their own, made us at once set him down as Roman, invited us to look through the inevitable cathedral, the only sight of the place. But we found our mistake when he took occasion to allude to "our dear Roman Catholic brethren." We then adjudged him to be a broad-minded Anglican, which was correct, for, as he afterwards told us, he was an ex-navy chaplain. THE GERMAN IMMIGRATION. "Go then forth, and fortune play upon Thy prosperous helm." --2nd part Henry IV. When I made my first Home trip, in 1847, I resolved to open, if I possibly could, German emigration to Port Phillip. Quite a number had already been settled, some from the earliest years, in South Australia, where their industry, frugality, sobriety, and general good conduct had made them excellent colonists. This favourable testimony was confirmed to me by correspondence on the subject with my late much-lamented friend, Alexander L. Elder, one of South Australia's earliest, most esteemed, and most successful colonists. My first step on arrival was to write to the "Commissioners of Emigration," an officiate since dispensed with, pointing out this South Australian success, and suggesting that a certain charge upon the Colonial Land Fund, authorized in special cases of emigrants--an aid of 18 pounds a head, I think--might be made applicable to German vinedressers emigrating to Port Phillip. In due course, I received a most cordial reply from the secretary, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Stephen Walcot, to the effect that Lord Grey, then Colonial Secretary, highly approved of the project, and that the aid asked for would be forthcoming for properly qualified German vinedressers. Armed with this letter, I went to Hamburg with introductions to Messrs. John Caesar Godeffroy and Son, at that time the chief shipowners of the city. They were evidently well disposed, and had been, I think, concerned in the previous out-flow to Adelaide, as they referred me to Mr. Edward Delius, of Bremen, who had been an agent in the work. My visit to Delius resulted in my proceeding at once to Silesia, where I got as far as Liegnitz, whose gilded or tin-covered minarets reminded me that I was approaching the fanciful or gorgeous East. Here I met a number of the peasantry, all eager to hear about Australia, friends of some of them being already there. Hearing that a Moravian headquarters was also there, I introduced myself, stating that I was a subject of, and personally acquainted with, their brother Moravian, Mr. La Trobe, our Superintendent. I found other La Trobes there, his relatives or namesakes. Several of the body spoke good English, and so I got fairly on with the peasantry, explaining as to the class entitled to the assistance in emigrating, and that to vinedressers only would the aid apply, so as to enable the Messrs. Godeffroy to give them a free passage. I left them with the understanding that they would make up a party and communicate with Delius. About six months later I went again to Hamburg, this time to see the first party away. They were in a good deal of trouble, for most of them, in spite of all advice, had clung to old family lumber, things mostly quite unsuited to Australia, and the carriage-cost of which drained their narrow means at every stage. But, worst of all, the cholera was then raging in Hamburg, and it attacked several of the party during some few days, while they waited, under such shelter as they could improvise, until the ship could take them. Delius and I visited them, to cheer them with the near prospect of the sunshine and plenty of Australia. A rather motley crew was this first German party landed at Melbourne. I fear they were not all vinedressers. But the difficulty was to get them to describe themselves as such, even when they were so. This was almost as hard upon them as for an Indian Brahmin to write himself down a low-caste Hindoo. Upon any pretence they would class themselves as of some trade, and one, who doubtless expected great things from it, entered himself, to the serious damage of our case, as "Doctor of Philosophy." There was considerable difficulty and delay in getting the grant. Mr. La Trobe helped us as much as he conscientiously could. Of course, the said doctor had to be excluded, and others with him. But eventually a substantial sum was handed to the shippers, sufficient to encourage them to continue the business. Several expeditions, larger or smaller, followed. I have no record of their total. One of their great delights was the superabundance of fresh beef and mutton. Our ever-active colonist, Dr. Thomson, of Geelong, who took great interest in Germans, invited a party of them, just arrived, to Geelong, where he gave them a supper upon the grass around his pretty residence, killing and roasting a large fat sheep, and serving out chops, and all the rest of it, ad libitum. One man was noticed to have eaten a couple of pounds' weight right off, and no doubt he felt, in consequence, like the boy in "Punch", just as though his jacket were buttoned. My late esteemed friend, Mr. Otto Neuhauss, himself one of the emigrating throng, although not of the very first party, gave me, from his complete mastery of English, most material help in managing their affairs. I had afterwards the pleasant duty of recommending him to our first Colonial Secretary, Captain Lonsdale, for a Justiceship of the Peace, to the great satisfaction and convenience of his co-emigrant countrymen. I am under much like obligation also to Mr. Brahe, who long acted, and I hope still acts, as a solicitor amongst the Germans. But the grand prize for these Germans was the acquisition of land. Accordingly Captain Stanley Carr (then on a visit with the German Prince of Schleswig-Holstein) and myself took up, in trust for such Germans as desired it, and had the means of payment, one of the square miles of surveyed land, as yet unapplied for, about twelve miles north of Melbourne, which was divided amongst them in lots as agreed upon. And there they are to this day, a thriving community. When, in company with Neuhauss, my wife and I visited them in 1857, just before finally quitting the colony, we found considerable progress in the form of a scattered village, with a little Lutheran church, and some show of gardening and cultivation. They seemed delighted to stick to their German speaking, and would not even try to speak English. One amusing feature in the scramble as to allotments was that each tried, in most cases, to get trees, stones, and rocks in preference to clear ground, as if so much additional wealth. The trees might have had value for firewood, but in the other items they had probably more than they bargained for. We secured the land for them at a pound an acre, and the fact of their being so largely settled upon it raised its value at once considerably. All the land thereabout has now risen to many times this first cost. Many more Germans have since, as I understand, settled upon other land. The exact value of the German immigration to Australia may be to us a differing estimate, but I think we mostly give it a decided welcome. Lord Grey, as I recollect, was attacked in Parliament by the political opposition for thus spending money on foreigners which might have better gone to our own destitute, etc., etc. And I myself was repeatedly so attacked, but always in a like merely political opposition way, when anything is let fly at an opponent that will serve the momentary purpose. In the heat of the O'Shanassy contest for Melbourne, for instance, I was accused of having told the Silesian peasants that they were wanted to set an example of sobriety to the drunken Irish. But I easily escaped from that noose by the rejoinder that, if I did say anything of the kind, it must have been of my own countrymen, as an Irishman can never stand to a Highlander at whisky. The true point of the question is the denationalizing of our race, which is so seriously threatened, for example, by the import of Chinese. We know that something of French, Flemish, Dutch, and Danish-Norse, along with a leading dash of German, all grafted on the old British stock, have evolved the modern Englishman. Substantially, therefore, we are only reopening this useful manufacture, which was effectively begun for England fifteen centuries back. THE GERMAN PRINCE. "Come of a gentle, kind, and noble stock." --Pericles. One of the pleasant incidents to vary our social life was the arrival in 1850 of the young Prince of Schleswig-Holstein, to whom there occurred, during the German dynastic confusion that followed the revolutionary year 1848, an opportunity to see the world. Accompanied by his guardian, Captain Stanley Carr, he arrived by one of the Messrs. Godeffroy's ships from Hamburg, having been swayed to some extent in selection of travel route by the fact of German emigration to Port Phillip having commenced the year before through the same firm. The Prince, who was then only of the age of nineteen, and of most amiable and ingenuous look, had that charm of the true politeness of his years, which left you the impression that he thought that everyone was to be preferred to himself. If unfortunate, in the chances of the struggle, in being dropped out of his principality, he was afterwards compensated in another direction, for not only is his younger brother our Queen's son-in-law, but one of his daughters is to-day Empress of Germany. What a reminder are such changes of the swift passing of time and of the crowd of portentous events in these quick-speeding years. The Prince and his guardian landed, as it were, in my arms, by virtue both of introductions from the Godeffroys, and of my position as virtual parental head of the German flock which had begun to stream into Port Phillip. Unacquainted myself with the language, I was ably and untiringly helped, as I have said, by my late friend Mr. Neuhauss. The Prince took the thin disguise of Lieutenant Groenwald, but I never heard that name, except in Captain Carr's official intimation. We all called him the Prince, but he was equally courteous and unassuming whatever way we addressed him. It was quite touching to see the harmony that existed between ward and guardian, the one looking up to his sage Mentor with the trustful tractability of a child, the other reciprocating high regard out of the depths of that ultra-Tory sentiment with which long residence within German Court vicinities, and perhaps a natural turn of mind, had imbued him. We have been apprised of this still lingering German high sentiment by hearing at times of the late Emperor Frederick's habit, when Crown Prince, of calling the Princess "wife," and of asking, when looking for her, where his "wife" was--a transgression of court etiquette so appalling as well nigh to send the queried parties off into a fit. There was another amusing illustration from Captain Carr. He came to me once very considerably disconcerted by the report of a public meeting the day before, at which he, oblivious for the moment of the inevitable omnipresent English free press, had offered some remarks. The "Argus", under the undiscriminating democratic pen of Kerr, its editor, had reported that "Captain Stanley Carr had told the meeting that the King of Prussia had told him" so and so; whereas, as Carr sorrowfully complained, the proper expression should have been that "an exalted personage in Prussia had led him to understand" so and so. But, added my friend, with manifest comfort, the departure from propriety was so flagrant that, if the report did happen to reach the king's eyes, he would never believe it of him. Both distinguished visitors honoured me and two of my sisters, who had by this time followed their brother to the land of promise, with a few days' residence at our cottage, with its garden so full of fruit, upon the Merri Creek. When so many other invitations pressed, we were in honour bound to this time-limitation. They were easily entertained with such few elegancies as we could then boast of. But we were bound also, even in mere good feeling to surrounding ambitious maidens, to get up a ball in the Prince's honour. I had my task in discriminating the comparative few of the fair hands that could possibly be placed in that of the guest, for even a prince could not dance for ever, so as to overtake all. On the Prince's part every successive hand was accepted with equal readiness, and every favoured maiden was duly encouraged, or discouraged, by faultlessly impartial courtesy. BLACK THURSDAY. "Whirlwinds of tempestuous fire." --Milton. The year 1851 had for us three memorable events: first, "Black Thursday," on 6th February; second, the elevation of Port Phillip district into the colony of Victoria, on 1st July; third, the discovery of gold, which was practically and substantially that of Ballarat, during the third week of September. Black Thursday has been so much written about by others that I had best confine myself to my own experiences. I rode in to business, as usual, from my Merri Creek residence, 4 1/2 miles north of the city. The weather had been unusually dry for some days with the hot wind from the north-west, or the direction of what we called Sturt's Desert, where hot winds in summer, and almost as distinctly cold winds in midwinter, were manufactured for us. The heat had been increasing daily, and this, as we comforted ourselves, was surely the climax which was to bring the inevitable reversion of the southerly blast and the restoring rain, for it was felt as the hottest day in my recollection. In town we did not hear of much that day, although reports came from time to time of sinister-looking signs from the surrounding interior, whence an unusual haze or thick mist seemed to rise towards the cloudless sky. Some few, however, who were more active than others in their trading or gossiping movements, became aware in the afternoon, or perhaps were favoured with the news as a secret, that Dr. Thomson had ridden posthaste from Geelong to Alison and Knight, our early and leading millers and flour factors, to warn them that the whole country was in flames, with incalculable destruction of cereals and other products; whereupon the said firm at once raised the price of flour thirty per cent. The Doctor had certainly earned a good fee on that occasion, and we must hope that he got it. I returned home as usual after the day's work. Nothing to alarm us had even made a near approach to Melbourne, as our trees were too park-like in their wide scatter, and our grass too much cropped off by hungry quadrupeds, to expose us to any danger. But feeling unusual oppression from the singularly close heat, for I was attired in woollen clothing, not greatly under the winter woollen standard, and which, by the way, serves to confirm that our dry Australian clime is not to be measured in effect, like most others, by mere height of the thermometer, I proceeded to indulge myself, for the first time in my life, I think, with a second "refresher" of my shower-bath. Next morning accounts began to pour in from all quarters of an awful havoc, in which, sad to say, life to no small extent was lost, as well as very much property. There has never been, throughout Australia, either before or since, such a day as Victoria's Black Thursday, and most likely, or rather most certainly, it will never, to its frightful extent, occur again; for every year, with the spread of occupation, brings its step in the accumulation of protectives. Still these fires are a terrible and frequent evil, and even if the towns and settlements are safe, the destruction of the grand old forests is deplorable, and ere very many years will be, indeed, most sadly deplored. What between the unchecked clearances of the fires, and the unchecked clearances on the part of the colonists, I fear that those noble gum trees, the greatest and loftiest trees probably in the world, so graphically described by Mr. Froude in his recent Australian tour, will have but a poor chance. He describes also, with equal life, those dangerous forest fires, which are so especially frequent during the ever-recurring ordeals of drought, of which he had a fair sample at the time of his visit. Only think of eight miles of forest burnt in one fire which he witnessed, and such fires frequent occurrences! Let us in time take warning by the example of the States and Canada, where, in and around the more settled parts, the magnificent primeval forest has entirely disappeared, alike from areas still unused as from those brought into use. When I travelled by rail from Montreal to Toronto, during the British Association's Session at the former in 1884, a very large part of the way was through the monotonous and utterly wearisome scene of a second growth of miscellaneous small trees and underwood that had succeeded to the grand original. We were told of one small town which had become famous by its good taste or good fortune in having preserved in its midst one of the ancient monarchs. Well, what could be done to preserve Australian forests? We must not deprive the people of the use of these forests, for there they are for the purpose, as part of the country's wealth, and in quantity enough for all, discreetly dealt with. I would parcel out the forests, into great clumps, marking off adequate passages between each, and only permitting for the present the latter to be dealt with. With the gradual clearing of these intervals, the reserved portions, and the colony generally, might be freed, in great measure, from the risk of fires. EARLY VICTORIA, FROM 1851. "Gold! gold! gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold." --Hood. I am drawing near the end of what may be fairly considered as "Early Melbourne and Victoria." Indeed, I might be challenged in going beyond the memorable 1851, a year which ushers such momentous new features into the colony. But considerably more than a generation has since passed; and, writing as I do for those who occupy to-day the old scene, I may plead as my excuse their own view of the subject; for already they regard the time I have come to as the real beginning of early Victoria, while the dim distances preceding are to them a kind of age before the deluge, which ordinary memories fail to fathom. In keeping to personal recollections I cannot, at the worst, be very protracted, for I quitted public life in 1853, and regretfully, under the calls of business, the colony itself four years later. I must confine myself to some few recollections of the former brief but busy period--1851-3--of which, in its multifarious rush of political and general business, I might say in the well-known words of the Roman poet, which have survived my classic rust "quorum pars magna fui," provided I were allowed to greatly abate, or rather perhaps, in becoming modesty, altogether to delete, the third factor of Virgil's sentence. The goldfields came upon us with almost the suddenness of the changes of dreamland. We had had a slight graduation by the news, in the May preceding, from the sister colony, of a shepherd on Dr. Kerr's station, near Bathurst, having come upon a round hundredweight of nearly pure gold. This luck, I presume, was mainly the result of the habit most of us had begun to acquire of keeping our eyes upon the ground beneath us, in consequence of Hargreaves, on his return from California about this time, having predicted gold, and subsequently fulfilled his prophecy by washing out some of the precious metal in the Bathurst vicinities. Passing over trifling intermediate finds of gold, as at Anderson's Creek in August, Ballarat came suddenly upon us. The news reached town, I think, on 21st September. A week later a small knot of us merchants, who had offices on the east side of the Market-square--including our next door neighbours, Messrs. Watson and Wight--were discussing what was to come of it all; for while part of our employees were off to visit the diggings on leave, the rest threatened to follow--leave or no leave. The situation had a certain convenience in the fact that almost all business was for the time at an end, excepting that of buying up spades and shovels, pitchers and pannikins, and anything to answer for a cradle. Instead of rising with the gold, houses and lands in Melbourne actually fell, and considerably too, in the first confusion, when multitudes were selling off or letting at anything they could get, in order to be off to the diggings. There came, however, a rapid recovery a few months after. My friend Mr. Henry Miller, sitting next me in the Legislature, told me one day that two owners of cottages, to whom he had lent 80 pounds each, upon their respective security, had begged him six months ago to take over the said property in payment, and let them be off at once to the common goal of the day; that he had charitably done so, and that he had just resold these houses for 1,000 pounds each. When the tide began its upward turn, a Mr. O'Farrell, a quiet unpretending house agent and rent collector (one of whose sons afterwards came to so bad an end), made promptly a large fortune by buying up leases or fee-simples, and in an incredibly short time re-disposing of them at a great advance. EARLY BALLARAT. "All that glisters is not gold." --Merchant of Venice. Let me begin upon early Ballarat by stating, what many may now have forgotten, namely, that the original and native name was Balaarat, or Ballaarat, which was the pronunciation then, and for some years after. But our English way is to put the emphasis on the first part of a polysyllabic word. I have long remarked this practice, comparing it with that of races of inferior, or more or less barbarous condition, who, as in countless other examples in Australia, and still more strikingly in New Zealand, and generally, I think, over the world, lay the emphasis on or towards the end of the word. What does it mean? I arrived at my solution. The emphatic ending best preserves the whole word. The barbarous, with few ideas, give surpassing importance to words; while the civilized, under the crowd of ideas, disregard words except as mere vehicles, and traverse them easiest by the early emphasis, to say nothing of dropping the after part entirely when troublesomely long. The Turanian, or lowest class of language, as Professor Max Muller tells us, preserves its root-words for ever, tacking one to another, but never losing the full sound of each; while all sorts of word "jerry mandering" liberties go on in the highest class. I ventured to propound my theory to my linguistic friend, Mr. Hyde Clarke; but he found so many divergencies in Latin and Greek and Hebrew, and what not, that I was driven to a partial reconstruction. It was the busy as well as civilized race that scamped the words. The Greeks and Romans--that portion of them that made society or the public opinion, and that consequently governed the language--abhorred the vulgar hurry of business life, and thus gave their words a better chance of unmutilated life. I have not yet been driven out of this final theory. With hardly anything else to do, it was as hardly possible to resist a visit, with nearly everybody else, to Ballarat. So I appeared there on the 3rd October, and, as senior member for Melbourne in the colony's first Parliament, and first President of the recently established Chamber of Commerce, I was, of course, "a man in authority." So, mounting a gum-tree stump, as the only available chair or pulpit, I harangued the diggers, first upon the grand fortunes that had overtaken the colony, and next upon their sadly wasteful ways with the little stream that ran through the Ballarat valley. I fear I did not much impress my hearers on the latter point, for everyone did what was most for his immediate needs, whether or not he thus sacrificed his neighbour below him. Next I was conducted to Gold Point, which was just developing its quality in the "blue clay," which had been struck at no great depth below the surface. I was let down into a big hole, the early parent of shaft-sinking, given a spade, and directed to apply it to a place where a digger's quick eye had detected one speck of gold. There was probably, he said, a string of gold behind it. And so it proved, for out of about a pound weight of matrix which I removed on the corner of the spade, I picked out 7 shillings and 6 pence worth of gold. Then I retired from the crowd and the incessant noise of cradles, and ascending from the valley to the high level plain, I came upon a small lake, whose waters glittered peacefully in the warm sunshine of a bright spring day. A tiny streamlet was still running from the lake, and trickling down the small semi-precipice towards the main rivulet, now sadly muddy, which I had just left. So near was this edge to the lake that I increased the stream by deepening its bed with my foot; but I repented of this waste, and restored the block, because the approaching summer must be thought for, and this natural reservoir was by no means deep. I waded into the pleasantly and invitingly cool water, but had promptly to retreat from swarms of leeches which attacked my feet. The scene was striking. Although the hum of busy humanity arose from beneath, not an object was visible on the higher level, as I glanced around to the far west and north, excepting the country's indigenous features. There was not a human being, not even a sheep in sight. Around this spot has since arisen the city of Ballarat, with fifty thousand people, with streets, buildings, institutions, business (including an extra busy Stock Exchange), equal to those of, at least, twice its population at Home; while the lovely lake of that time has long been fringed with residences and gardens, and its waters been the scene of the regattas and other diversions of the leisure of the prosperous citizens. As I rode back on my horse to town--for Cobb and Co. had not yet established their leather-hung stage drags, for which, in the impossibility of others upon the unmade roads, we had reason to be thankful--I mused over all I had seen, and long ere reaching home had concluded that 10,000 pounds a day was being taken out of Ballarat. Sundays excepted, that meant a product at the rate of over three millions a year, into which, as one of its export items, the young colony was already "precipitated" from a total export product of only a trifle above a million the year before. No one was prepared to credit such a statement. Indeed, unbelief on the point was prevalent until well on into 1852, when Bendigo had been added to Ballarat, and when Melbourne was seen to be full of gold, which the newly-instituted "gold broker" was already practised, with critical eye as to quality, in weighing out by the hundred or the thousand ounces, and which diggers by hundreds were carrying away in their pockets, in most cases entirely unrecorded, to Tasmania, Sydney, and Adelaide. There was hardly any Customs record at the first, and only a very partial one for a while after, until the diggers ceased thus to carry off the gold, upon finding that the rival brokers gave them fair and full value. The yield of 1852 was estimated at no less than fifteen millions. How the diggers, utterly inexperienced as they mostly then were, came so suddenly upon such surpassingly rich drifts has never been, to my mind at least, satisfactorily explained, unless the case be summarily affiliated to those possibilities of throwing "sixes" in dozen successions, and such like. In no one year, since 1852, have the Victorian goldfields, although comparatively the most productive, yielded even a near approach to fifteen millions. MOUNT ALEXANDER AND BENDIGO. "Our fortune lies upon this jump." --Antony and Cleopatra. The following year, about the same pleasant spring season, I made out a second goldfields visit, in company with my late friend, Mr. W.M. Bell, senior partner of the early firm of Bells and Buchanan. This time I went further inland, and in the more northerly direction of Mount Alexander and Bendigo, as considerable regions around were then loosely called, and which are now represented respectively by the large municipalities of Castlemaine and Sandhurst. Vast changes had taken place in the colony since my Ballarat visit. There had been, in the first place, arrivals in multitudes, first from the surrounding colonies, and then from Home, and, in a lesser influx, from the Cape, America, and parts of Europe. The tide of such threatening dimensions from China was later on. The roads, such as they were, were crowded with passengers; and with traffic, chiefly in flour, to the starving diggers, the carriage of which to Bendigo ran up to 100 pounds a ton. Indeed, such was the cost of carriage that some of us estimated that a single year's total would equal the cost of making a railway. Of course the railway, draining the labour market, could only itself have been at proportionate cost. Nevertheless, Mr. Trenchard, a Melbourne solicitor, projected "The Melbourne, Mount Alexander and Murray River Railway," an enterprise which, after some months' flutter of chequered life, expired for want of support from the over-busy colonists, who had other far more immediately pressing needs and chances for their money. The "gold escort" had been established by this time, with an armed guard, which at times included "native police," a force which had been the best, if not the only, success as yet in our "civilizing" efforts with the aborigines. The art of digging had greatly advanced since my Ballarat visit. At Bendigo I inspected the "White Hills," where there was already regular shaft-sinking to depths approaching 100 feet. The White Hills were so-called from a large ejection, piled up in white mounds of a light-coloured thick bed of the auriferous drifts, in which unprecedented quantities of gold had been found. Descending one of the shafts, I was shown the chief source of this gold, namely, a thin seam of small quartz grit, hardly two inches in thickness, and of the white quartz hue, excepting the lowest half inch, which was browned with iron. This lowest half inch had almost all the gold, and the very lowest part of it, where the iron-brown darkened almost to black, was literally crowded with gold particles. The diggers now always looked for the most gold where the quartz drift showed most of iron browning. Mr. Selwyn had not yet explained to us our Australian gold features and those gold "constants" of Murchison, which had to sustain so severe a shaking in Australia. I scraped out gold grains with my nails, and a good many with a knife within a minute. When I told the claim owners, that here was unlimited gold, and asked what they intended to do with it all, they pointed to the superincumbent mass of white stuff, which was either absolutely sterile, or, what was practically the same, had insufficient gold to pay even a run through the wash when ejected. The case seemed not unlike that of the thin seams of flint nodules (say nuggets) which characterize the thick chalk strata of South England, within which most or all the silicious matter of the entire bed has been somehow brought together. I understood that this remarkable gold seam gave out not long after, and that, thereupon, the marvellous yield of Bendigo was seriously diminished. As we approached this already great and busy goldfield, when the hum of its business life was just breaking upon our ears, but without any other disturbing intrusion to interfere with the universally indigenous scene, a large kangaroo--the "old man," or largest species--started up amongst the gum-tree underwood a little ahead of us, and bounded away in magnificent style. But a day or two afterwards, as we were leaving Bendigo, another feature of the colony, not indigenous and by no means so pleasant was brought up to our minds to their considerable discomfort for the moment. We were just clear of goldfields sounds and company, and involved in the utter solitude of the primeval bush, when we espied a party approaching us on the road. They numbered five, all on horseback. Somehow, the circumstances considered, we had all, independently, concluded that there was no small chance of their being bushrangers; for already the towns and goldfields--the latter, of course, mostly--swarmed with these unmitigated ruffians, arrived chiefly from Tasmania. We discussed the chances--three, four, possibly even five to one in our favour--and considered what we should do in case even five to one failed us in the lot. What we COULD do was the practical question. We had also, I think, five of a party, and Bell was a huge, strong fellow, able for a couple of ordinary mortals; but what availed all that against desperadoes each doubly armed with revolver and rifle. We calmed ourselves as best we could as we mutually approached; our salute was cordially returned, and then we found that we owed an ample apology for having for once so grievously mistaken honest men. Another goldfields feature was of the most pleasing and inspiring character. In no goldfield we had then visited did we ever meet with so much as one drunken person. With most laudable prescience, our authorities had prohibited the ingress of and the dealing in any intoxicating drink on all proclaimed goldfields. The good order in consequence was quite marvellous, and we seemed as if in some earthly paradise, where mankind had, as with one consent, dropped the worst of human vices and passions. But this was only so far as drink and drunkenness were concerned; for rude circumstances made rude men, to say no more of the pervading convict element. Nor were the goldfields free from "sly grog selling," as it is called. Still, the difficulties put in the way kept them thus sober. Of course, outside the goldfields' limits there was drunken riot enough, intensified, no doubt, by the enforced sobriety within. Troops of diggers, or their employees, with their pockets full of gold, would start for town, or for the nearest "public," there to run up a score till the whole "pile" had vanished. We were told of one country hotel called "The Porcupine," whose keeper was making 40,000 pounds a year of net profit. These riotous crowds, at each public-house, indulged in such shocking excesses of language and conduct as to make mere drunkenness the very innocence of the case. But withal I confess to a greatly disappointed feeling when, having left the colony on a Home visit early in 1853, and returned late in 1854, I found that the influence of the great "spirit interest" had succeeded in removing all restriction from the goldfields. By this time, however, the police and other authority were better organized, so that there was a very considerable mitigation of bad effects. EARLY VICTORIAN LEGISLATION. "They that stand high have many blasts to shake them." --Richard III. "Hear ye not the hum of mighty workings." --Keats. "Stay, you imperfect speakers." --Macbeth. We commenced with an unpretending budget, although memorable 1853, with all its gold and its progress, in what Wentworth happily called the precipitation into a nation, had dawned upon us. The Speaker of our then single Chamber system--one-third nominees--had but 400 pounds a year, which is guide sufficient to indicate the scale and style of other things. Our first choice for Speaker fell upon Dr. Palmer, an early colonist of the medical profession, and of good culture and bearing, but who had not previously taken any prominent social position. His ambition was probably stimulated by the fact that amongst the busy colonists, who perhaps foresaw more work than either honour or pay, there was no candidate but himself. The rest of us speculated, not without expected amusement, as to the official attire our new dignitary would appear in. Probably any other of the elected members, as Speaker, would have decided on simple evening dress, as most consistent with the modern tendency to make a gentleman plain, and the waiter and footman dressily conspicuous; and this would perhaps have decided as to "the Chair" in that respect for all the future. But Palmer we all knew to be too much of the old Tory for any surrender of that kind, and there was, besides, just a trace of the oddly positive in him, although otherwise a genial good fellow, which held out promise of sport. We were only half gratified. He appeared in a plain quaker-like but much braided coat, which was understood to have gone for dress in the good old times of Charles II.--a time when kings were really kings. Three prominent subjects came before us for legislation. First, that fundamental topic of interminable difference, the Land Question. Second, the Goldfields Question, which was even more important then, seeing that the Government, under pretence of old English law, to the effect that all "treasure trove" was the Crown's, claimed the whole goldfields as Crown territory, whose population had thus no rights, political or fiscal, except the Crown chose to give such. Third, the Transportation Question, which, under the startling emergencies of the moment, was perhaps second to no other before us. It was rather amusing to see how business went at first, for nearly all of us were quite inexperienced in public life. But Mr. Barker, our first Clerk of the Council, took bravely to his duties, and soon became a useful referee. There was much looking up for authority, and O'Shanassy indulged in many a profane joke at "May" having taken definitive possession of Speaker Palmer's brain. One most decided obstacle to our legislative progress was the fact that the vast incessant tide of business thrust upon the colony made it hardly possible to spare any time for other than each one's own private concerns. In my own case, the only "leisure" I ever had then in the six days was half-an-hour for a walk and a thought in the early morn. The entire remainder of the day, and great part of the night also, were one succession of private business, public meetings, and deputations, Council Committees and Council sittings. The unprepared speeches were in due accordance. Dr. (now Sir Charles) Nicholson, the Sydney Speaker, happened to pay us a visit during these early legislative throes of baby Victoria; and as I sat by him in the privileged place near the Speaker's chair, he remarked that, prepared as he was to find a crude spectacle, he had never imagined an assemblage of such helpless incompetency. But, in defence, I took Bulwer Lytton's view, that genius being mainly labour, and labour mainly time, the want of the last might be merely preventing the first. And so it has turned out long ago; so that if Sir Charles, who, I am glad to say, is still to the fore, were to pay another visit, and try conclusions with Mr. Service, and possibly a hundred others besides, he might reach a different verdict. We were all, confessedly, terribly raw in all matters of Parliamentary form. One day, while we were more than usually puzzled in that respect, Town Clerk Kerr, who happened to be present, was continually sending to myself and others written slips, suggesting the proper or common-sense course. I could not help thinking that, if he had been but a trifle less of a party man, there was no one in the colony who would have made a better Speaker, with his sufficiently portly person and commanding presence, his imperturbable gravity, and his well-filled head in everything required from that quarter for the position. But this was an utter non possimus with the nominees and squatting members, most of whom, with Ebden at their head, would almost rather have endured a presentable Vandemonian expiree in the chair than the ultra-democratic Town Clerk and caustic ex-editor of the anti-squatter and anti-government "Argus". Some of the officials, however, were fairly up to their mark, notably our Attorney-General Stawell (now Sir William, the ex-Chief Justice), who, both then and since, has ever held the first position in ability. At an interval came Auditor-General Ebden, and one or two others, official or unofficial. My worthy friend Cassell, Collector of Customs (or Commissioner thereof, as I think he was then called), was brimful of information for us all, but not much of a speaker. The other side of the House, that of the two-thirds elected, was, in my memory, raw throughout. O'Shanassy's strong brogue, and ungainly delivery and manner, had not yet been overbalanced by the solidity of his arguments. Johnson, our third metropolitan, had early descended, or else condescended, to pungent snapping at the heels of the nominees, as though these sacred persons had been ordinary mortals like the ruck of membership on his own side of the table. By far our most vivacious member was William Rutledge, of Port Fairy, who, with an earnestness of manner, contrasting with a merry twinkle of the eye, and with a ready but utterly negligent tongue, gave us many a laugh. He was highly indignant on one occasion, as I remember, on hearing that a bet had been taken that, on a particular Committee day, he would rise and speak more than thirty different times; and he was still more angry when his informant went on to tell him that the bet had been won. One of the country members, whose name I am now not quite sure of, set us all in a roar, on one occasion, by taking as a personal affront, and very tartly too, as though quite intended, the interruption to his speech by the arrival of a "royal" message from the Governor. Another curiosity was the way in which the House adjusted itself for legislative action. Almost as matter of course, under the instincts of the position, the elected members were, in fact and in principle alike, opposed to the nominated; and that, by consequent instincts, ever meant simply the Government. The press, with similar unanimity, was on the elected side, for both were in the fight for the full "constitutional" concession, which came a few years later. In anything that touched squatting, however, the squatting representatives, led by another old friend, W.F. Splatt, of the Wimmera, went over bodily, thus giving the Government a small majority, which, as I have shown in my sketch of Mr. La Trobe, blocked us seriously in dealing with the waste or Crown lands for the benefit of the inpouring tens of thousands of people. Sometimes, by the force of our case, we stole a vote from the Ministerial side, as when Mr. (afterwards Judge) Pohlman defected upon my anti-transportation motion for transmission to the Home Government. There was one sole exception on our elective side (another old personal friend), William Campbell, of the Loddon, who, uncongenial towards the disturbing democratic prospect, voted steadily for the Government. On this account, Edward Wilson, then editing "The Argus", found for him the designation of "the lost sheep of the Loddon," which, as from the enemy's side, was no bad piece of humour; and it took its place in the colony's category accordingly; alongside of Ebden's "disgustingly rich," and possibly other like humour which I have forgotten. One of the nominee members, Mr. Dunlop, took me roundly to task for asserting that, through a mere "accident of law" about "treasure trove" being, as of old, the property of the Crown, the Government claimed to confiscate the constitutional rights of one-half of the colonists. I "explained." But the situation really explained itself. The common-sense, as well as the political attainment of the day, could not possibly tolerate such an application of "Old Black Letter" to the entirely novel and unanticipated circumstances of these great and populous goldfields. The elected members were compelled to threaten the only course which appeared legally open to them--namely, that of not voting the supplies, if the goldfields regulations, and receipts and expenditure, all of which the Government had claimed as entirely their own independent matter, were not of reasonable and suitable character, and in accordance with the colonial representatives' views. At the last, however, there was happily mutual agreement. The "Protection Question" was early brought on, of course from Geelong, by my worthy old friend J.F. Strachan, its member, and both its income and, for that time, its exit, were amusing. "Why lose so much revenue in order to set up colonial brandy-making?" he was asked; "was the domestic article we were to make such sacrifice for to be superior to the imported?" "On the contrary," he replied; "it was because it would be inferior, and must therefore be thus bonused against the superiority of the rival import." So then we were to lose revenue, and pay a higher price, in order to substitute bad liquor for good. Let us still keep to the better quality at the lower price. So the proposal was laughed out, Strachan himself, with his usual good humour, joining in the laugh. It would be "supererogation" to go into our early legislation, which is familiar to the colony in a hundred publications, besides the fact that I have touched already on some of the prominent subjects or questions in which I myself took a part, such as the movement against transportation, the new and rather startling course in "The Convicts Prevention Act," and the first Gold Commission. I have therefore exhausted my subject, so far as it is properly my own, and must hasten to take my leave. When I first thought of this work for the delightfully complete leisure and repose of a long voyage, I feared that I might find but little to say of matters of a retrospect approaching two generations. But seated at last with pen in hand, and with memory stirred up, I had ere long to exercise mercy towards my expected readers, in sifting the surging crowd of recollections, so as to keep to such as might have general interest. I hope I have reasonably succeeded; and if I have also contributed, in however small a degree, to the information, interest, or amusement of my old friends and fellow-colonists, I shall be abundantly repaid. WILLIAM WESTGARTH. S.S. "Coptic", at sea, latitude 45 degrees south, longitude 142 degrees east, 25th July, 1888. "And this is my conclusion." --Much Ado About Nothing. POSTSCRIPT. MELBOURNE IN 1888. "Here, fifty winters since, by Yarra's stream, A scattered hamlet found its modest place: What mind would venture then in wildest dream Its wondrous growth and eminence to trace? What seer predict a stripling in the race Would, swift as Atalanta, win the prize Of progress, 'neath the world's astonished eyes?" --J. F. DANIELL, "The Jubilee of Melbourne." "And, behold, one half of the greatness was not told me." --2 Chronicles 9:6. My intended postscript on Melbourne as I found it in 1888 has been delayed until I have seen Sydney also, so that I have a few words of comparison on the two great capitals of the southern section of our empire. ARRIVAL AT HOBART. Allow me first to complete the outward passage. I concluded my "Recollections" when still at sea, within about a day of our ship's destination, Hobart. The Tasmanian shores gave us a salutation not usually associated with Australia, that, namely, of the snow, thickly sprinkled over the southern slopes of the island. I welcomed the scene, both as recalling that of Home, and as giving the promise of the highest of civilization, which, as Mr. Froude reminds us, belongs to the countries where the snow remains on the ground. We shortened our course by a few miles in taking D'Entrecasteaux Channel, and were, as I understood, the first of the large vessels from the other hemisphere to do so. We cast anchor off Hobart after nightfall, the many bright lights of the city gladdening our eyes, while the babble of English tongues from the boats around us reminded us once more that, after so many thousands of additional miles since at Cape Town, we were still within the British Empire. WESTELLA HOTEL. My first salutation came from an exact namesake of mine, Mr. William Westgarth, whom I had known at Melbourne thirty-five years ago, and who, after varying fortunes, had for the last dozen years been conducting a superior class of boarding house or family hotel. It was called Westella, and was situated in Elizabeth-street, the chief thoroughfare of Hobart. The house I recollected as that of Mr. Henry Hopkins, a very early merchant of the city, whom I had met more than once between forty and fifty years ago. It was the undisputed palace of the city of its day; nor was it disposed, even now, to bend its head to any second position. As my friend conducted our party over the pretty scene of garden and cliff behind the house, we found it all wrapped in frost, except where the bright morning sun had struck, and we broke the ice, quite quarter of an inch thick, on a fishpond of the grounds. Thus Tasmanian ascendancy in the civilized world is secured. PROGRESS OF THE ANTIPODES. Already we began in Hobart, and we continued as we went further north, to meet with indications of the progress of the age, quite abreast of, and indeed rather ahead of, all that we have been used to at Home. For instance, we were hardly settled comfortably within Westella, when the waiter announced that. Mr. Fysh, the Tasmanian Premier, wished to see me. I had met Mr. Fysh in London, and I quite expected that he wished to have a talk with me about Tasmanian Finance and Loans. "Is he waiting?" I asked, jumping up at once to go to him. "No, sir," was the reply, "but he is speaking to you through the telephone." I passed to the telephone room, and the signal being sent that I was in attendance, I was given two ear-caps and told to listen. A clear, but also "a still, small voice" came up as from the "vasty deep." Whether from the smallness of it, or from my being unaccustomed to that mysterious sort of thing, I did not catch the words, and had to relinquish the business to our hostess, Miss Westgarth, and thus a meeting was conveniently arranged. AUSTRALIAN FEATURES. Fortunately for us, we had arrived in a leisure season in the hotel way, so that our host was free to devote himself to us in sightseeing, and thus, with hardly a day and a half to spare, we got a fair idea of Hobart, including a drive along the Huon-road, in whose shaded valleys we found as much snow and ice as though we perambulated the Scotch Highlands in January. This had been, however, an exceptionally severe winter. On the way to Government House, my eyes were once more regaled with the gum trees, in the well-accustomed form of open forest, the ground being covered with grass, on which sheep were depasturing. This is the pleasing characteristic of much of Australian scenery. THE TASMANIAN MAIN LINE. The next day, Sunday, we had to leave for Launceston, by a special train of the Tasmanian Main Line, so as to be in time for the boat to Melbourne, on which we depended for arrival prior to the opening of the great Exhibition on 1st August. We formed a large and important party, including the Governor and lady, the Premier, Treasurer, and Attorney-General, while the Auditor-General and others were to follow a few days after. We understood there was to be a general concourse from all the surrounding colonies, and so far as regarded the official contribution to the concourse Tasmania had done its duty. While we ran along this, the chief railway of Tasmania, I recalled something of the endless contentions between its proprietors or agents and the Tasmanian Government. The question requires some study, for the "literature" thereof has already swollen to most inconvenient dimensions. Any way of it, the Government would have done best for the colony if they had themselves built the line. As matters now stand, the company cannot be made to maintain the line in due efficiency, because, unfortunately, it has neither capital nor credit to do so. Nor can the amount needed for that purpose be permitted to be taken out of earnings, because that only increases the guaranteed interest properly payable on the bonded debt of the line by the Government. Nor can the Government keep back any of this latter amount, because the "innocent and helpless bond-holders," or the company as their advocate, are at once down upon them for such atrocity. Nor, lastly, can the colony buy up the line and thus be extricated from the mess, because the company utterly scouts the idea of a sale at mere valuation. THE RIVER TAMAR. Next day we were steaming down the Tamar, famous for its beauty as a narrow inlet of the sea from Launceston downwards, rather than properly a river. A small boat took us the first twelve miles, and we were then transferred to the larger vessel in which we were to cross the Straits. In the former we were rather crowded, for some twenty-five youths of Geelong were returning from a football contest with some Tasmanian young folks. They kept us lively with songs and recitations, in which the praises of Geelong were dutifully mingled. I was delighted to see the small Geelong of my early memory turning out in such strength; and recalling in a parental way this said small past of the place, I might have maundered in the "bless you, my children," sort of vein, had I not been kept in check by the frolicsome humour of the boys. PORT PHILLIP HARBOUR. Two disappointments awaited me on entering the Heads of Port Phillip: first, it was early morn, just before daybreak, and next, when the day did develop upon us half-way up the Bay, it was in such mist and rain as all but deprived us of any view. But the mist and cloud lifted somewhat as we approached Hobson's Bay, and thence I was rushed into the multitudinous shipping of Williamstown and Port Melbourne, the great harbour works going on all around, the New Cut, the crowded wharves, and all the other marvels of modern Melbourne. MELBOURNE. Here apartments had been provided for us at Scott's Hotel, as Menzies', in its near neighbourhood, the more usual place for families, was quite full with Exhibition visitors. But although our hotel had the noise of ceaseless business below, we on the floor above were so quiet, with the best of attendance and cooking, and with every other comfort, that we are, by choice, to return to it after visiting the other colonies. Here, then, we opened our campaign amongst old scenes and old friends, separated for more than a generation. I had to ascertain who were dead and who still alive. A glance over the city soon revealed to me that one old friend--the oldest, I might say, upon the ground--had entirely passed away, and that was the old Melbourne itself which I had left behind me more than thirty-one years before. But happily the old street names remained, and thus I began to feel again at home. OLD COLONIST HONOURS. Labours and honours opened at once. The day of my arrival I was to be the guest of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce for the honour of a dinner to their first President. My friend Mr. Cowderoy, the secretary, had telegraphed me to Hobart, in the hope that I might arrive in time to secure the dinner taking place prior to the Exhibition opening, with all its proposed engrossing after festivities. Mr. Robert Reid, whose acquaintance I had made at the grand Colonial Exhibition two years before, was now President of the Chamber, and received me most cordially. For the following day again there was the opening of the Exhibition, at which I was to march in the procession through the Avenue of Nations alongside of Mr. Francis Henty, now the sole survivor of the illustrious brotherhood who founded Victoria fifty-four years before. So far from anticipating such honours, I had been preparing myself to plead, on any public occasion that might offer, the cause of the early pioneers; for although, as I proposed to put it, we were but the babes, and have since been succeeded by the men, we were surely to count for something, as without the baby there could never have been the man. But all fears on that head were promptly dispersed, and at every turn honours were poured out upon the "old pioneers" of the days of small things. I had repeatedly to confess, for myself as one of them, that it was a most pleasant and fortunate ACCIDENT to have been an early colonist. But one disadvantage of these honours and attentions is that they are apt to excite the envy of your fellow-mortals. Human nature, even the very best, can never be perfect. My old friend James Stewart Johnston challenged my right to appear in the grand procession, where he and a good half-dozen other "old colonists" had equal rights. I replied soothingly, regretting that so glorious a band of early warriors, who had borne nobly all the rough battle of early progress (how eloquent people can be in their own praise!) should not have been super-added to honour and adorn the procession. But this not satisfying him, I was driven to bay, and fired my reserved shot, to the effect that I was the only old colonist who had come twelve thousand miles on purpose to attend the opening. That shut him up. THE SUBURBS. A busy time of public entertainments followed, during the intervals of which I visited energetically persons and places of old association. The Melbourne suburbs were quite as surprising as the city itself. Almost countless miles of streets had taken the place of the country roads or mere bush tracks of my recollection. While I stood wondering at these changes, I had to regret that the old features had so completely disappeared that I was at home nowhere, save that in an otherwise entirely unrecognizable area there would still appear the old name, such as the Sydney, the Richmond, or the Toorak Road. I had to be content with this scant remnant of the past, and to begin acquaintance with an entirely new set of occupant streets and dwellings. OLD FRIENDS AND OLD TIMES. Then I turned to the old and early friends of the past. Some of them kindly called; others, less able, I had myself to seek out. Thus I met, besides Mr. J.S. Johnston, already mentioned, Mr. J.A. Marsden, Mr. Alfred Woolley, Mr. E.B. Wight, Mr. Damyon, Mr. Brahe, Mr. John Barker, Mr. R.W. Shadforth, the Messrs. Ham, and Dr. Black. Mr. Germain Nicholson, another old and worthy friend, was in Sydney, where he called for us, but we have not yet met. I found time to reach Sir William Stawell at his pleasant suburban residence at Kew, and was most agreeably disappointed to find the veteran head of the law very much more like his former self than report had accredited him. Another old friend, Sir Francis Murphy, I have as yet failed to meet, and also Mr. David Moore. Mr. Francis Henty drove us to the St. Kilda-road to pay our respects to Mrs. Edward Henty, who pleasantly surprised us with as yet hardly the marks of age, and as though fully intending to see at least one generation more of the progress of the great colony which her departed husband had founded. Mrs. D.C. McArthur was still residing at Heidelberg along with her nieces, Miss Wright and Mrs. Were, the widow of my late old and intimate friend, Mr. J.B. Were. I saluted the former as the venerable mother of Melbourne society, and being thus one of her sons I claimed and exacted the full salutation of sonship. I claimed the same privilege from my other dear old friend, Mrs. A.M. McCrae, whom I found hardly changed, in vigour of mind at least, although now eighty-five years of age. Almost next door was Mrs. Henry Creswick, daughter of my old friend Dr. Thomson, of Geelong, of whom, as one of the very earliest, and only a few months behind Batman himself, I have already spoken. We enjoyed a chat over the very oldest Victorian times. THE BENEVOLENT ASYLUM. I had one opportunity of taking "old friends and fellow-colonists" in a wholesale fashion. The committee of the Benevolent Asylum complimented me by so pressing an invitation to visit an institution which I remembered and was interested in from its first commencement, that it was imperative on me to find the time to do so. The spectacle was alike most edifying and most interesting. The institution had enormously extended since my time, both in its accommodation and the number of its inmates. There were nearly 700 men and women, all of them helpless and destitute, and nearly all passed into old age. Some who were paralyzed in their lower limbs, and unable to move about, were put out in a sheltered place in the sunshine, to busy themselves in various ways of their own choosing, and we particularly noted two rather pretty young women, whose lively expression of face indicated no lack of happiness, and whose neat and nimble fingers turned out quantities of daily work. There was a considerable section of the blind, who were systematically treated, and had a library of their own. In one of the rooms were two dying men, one already past consciousness, the other still observant and even lively, but not expected to survive the night. Amongst so many and such aged people this sight was too familiar to greatly disturb the others. One of these was understood to be related to an English nobleman, and had passed through much adversity of colonial life. His face was still singularly indicative of the gentleman. Such cases are by no means rare in Australian experience. Our inspection was completed by a view of the kitchen and larder, and the interesting spectacle of about 300 of the men engaged together under one roof at dinner, every one of whom revelled in solid beef to his heart's content. Included in their number were twelve Chinamen, who seemed as comfortably at home as any of the others, and whose presence, perhaps, helped to impress a Chinese Commissioner, who had lately visited the Asylum, and who had left his record in the visitors' book to the effect that such an institution was an honour to mankind. THE OLD MELBOURNE CEMETERY. The old Flagstaff Hill and the old cemetery were two objects which I sought for on the earliest opportunity, and as the business day-time was so full of work, I took the early morning. The Flagstaff Hill I had soon to give up as quite unrecognizable under new plantations and roadways, but the cemetery, in its close vicinity, was much as I had left it, and there the old friends, albeit voiceless now, cropped up at every turn. Let me select a few, commenting as I go along, and beginning with the earliest in date. 1841. A series of the well-known early family of the Langhornes, some of whose members I often met. Let me begin with "The wife of William Langhorne," who died in this far back year, and end with Alfred, who used to amuse us all with interminable stories, who had a strikingly beautiful wife, and who died in 1874. 1846. "The beloved wife of Joseph Raleigh, aged 32 years," whose funeral I attended, to be witness to the profound grief of the husband thus prematurely bereft of a wife who was, as I recollect, a rarely fine woman. Even Carlyle's indifference to "tombstone literature" might tolerate these lines, recorded on her monument, both for their own high quality, and as the eloquent expression of the heart of the bereaved husband:-- "Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee, For God was thy ransom, thy guardian and guide; He gave thee, He took thee, and He will restore thee, And death hath no sting, for the Saviour hath died." 1846. "Allan K. Renny, of Dundee, Scotland, aged 24." A remarkably fine young man, who died thus early, to the grief of all his friends. He was one of the staff of the Union Bank of Australia. Although the favourite of everyone, he retained his unaffected simplicity of manner and character to the last. He died of consumption, in the house of Mr. Cassell, who had invited him there when he took ill, in order that he might be better attended to. Cassell, James Gill, Alfred Ross, and myself took the last night of the dying lad in relays of three or four hours each; and when the last breath passed from the fine young face, Mrs. Cassell, who stood by with the rest of us, and who had nursed him with the fondest mother's care, broke out into loud sobs of irrepressible grief. We decided upon a broken column as his monument--fit emblem of the life so early broken--and we settled his brief, simple epitaph, which Mr. Cassell drew up:--"Erected by his friends in this colony in testimony of esteem and regard." 1848. "Edmund Charles Hobson, M.D., born 1814, died in his 34th year." The monument, erected by public subscription, commemorates also two sons and one daughter--all the family save one thus early carried off, for, alas! the father, although of large and well-filled mind, was a man of poor health and feeble physique. Mrs. Hobson, our old friend, still survives, but is at present in England. I have already alluded to the Doctor and his high qualities. 1850. "James Jackson, of Toorak, who died at sea, aged 47." This was Melbourne's greatest merchant of his early time, although he died at so early an age. His house at Toorak, or rather the second house which he, with his enlarging fortune, built there, but which he did not live to enjoy, was long the finest of the place, and served for some years as the Governor's residence. It supplies a striking illustration of the sudden needs of the advancing colony after its golden era. A prominent Melbourne trader had leased it at 300 pounds a year, but in the mid-term of the lease, a demand suddenly arising in 1854 for a Government House for Sir Charles Hotham, Toorak was sublet at 10,000 pounds a year. I recall the early, happy, Toorak home, where personal beauty in mother and young children lost its edge by being so common. The remaining family are now all in the old country. Mrs. Jackson still lives, the honoured head of a surrounding of descendants, which, to me at least, have been long past counting. 1850. "Isabella, widow of James Williamson, solicitor, Edinburgh, aged 70." This is the lady of whom I have already spoken, who gave up six fair daughters to the young settlement in its direst need, and who in turn have given to it multiplied sons and daughters. 1850. "Edward Curr, aged 52. In your charity, pray for the soul of Edward Curr, of St. Heliers." This is my old friend, the "Father of Separation" (from New South Wales), with whom I marched for years towards attaining that object. He was a proud man, who, with his vigour of mind and body, grasped his world with a firm hand, and was not, perhaps, of the humour to ask the help or prayers of anyone. But his church, by enjoining the above formula over its dead, had its own way of humbling even the proudest, whether the great or the small, the prince or the peasant. I was surprised to find that one who held so commanding a position in our young community should have been, at death, only 52. He took the chief charge of the separation movement, if, indeed, it did not originate with him; but, sad to say, he died, at this too early age, just the year before the great object of his later life had been attained. In considering this question practically as a merchant, my view of the determining principle as to the mutual boundary line was that the natural tendency of the trading, whether it took the Sydney or the Melbourne direction, should decide. Thus the hoofs of the bullocks, whether they indicated the northerly or the southerly direction, would decide the contentious question. When I mentioned this point to Curr, who, curiously enough, had wholly omitted it from a very long list of "my reasons for separation," he saw at once its importance, and, in incorporating it in his list, remarked that it was worth all the rest put together. Whenever we sat together afterwards at a separation meeting, he would pass me the joke about the "hoofs of the bullocks" deciding the boundary. Sir John Robertson has since told us that Melbourne missed its destiny in this fatal separation movement, for, had she remained within New South Wales, she would have been the capital of Eastern Australia. Well, that slap in the face to us is not altogether uncleverly or unfoundedly directed. The eventuality thus predicted for us might, indeed, have happened. And we, too, might have hesitated in our divisive course if we could but have foreseen two things: first, that the very next year Victoria should produce as much as fifteen millions of gold, and for some twenty years after between six and twelve millions yearly; and second, that our mother, Sydney, who had completely the whip-hand over us at the time, would have permitted us to use all our great resources in order to place ourselves, at her expense, the first in the race. 1853. "The Honourable James Horatio Nelson Cassell, H.M. Commissioner of Customs, Member of the Executive Council of Victoria, born 1814. 39 years of age." I have already had to mention repeatedly one of my very best and most intimate friends. He died in November, 1853, while I was upon a Home visit. He left a message for me that he looked forward to resuming our most pleasant friendship in Heaven. What a reality of voice has this hope when it comes thus from the brink of the grave! What a strength of resistance to that tendency of modern science, which, as interpreted by some even of its greatest chiefs, is to abolish the hope of the life beyond the grave, and to class us all with "the beasts that perish." THE MELBOURNE RACES. Those who delight in contrasts may follow me now to the Melbourne Races. Although not, in any sense or degree, "a racing man," I could not forego this spectacle, so illustrative of the socialities and general progress of the colonists. This was a considerable occasion, as there were about 70,000 present; but it was not the grand "Cup Day," an occasion which can muster 150,000. The grand stand here seemed to me, from my recollection, equal to Epsom and Ascot together. The racing was in admirable style, the horses generally taking hurdles and steeples without visible hitch in their pace. I used to have a racing theory which was confirmed here--namely, that the horse should never be allowed ahead, or at least for more than a yard or two, till close on the finish, because he thus loses the highest of the excitement, and is more amenable to fatigue. In one splendid race, of a dozen or more, on this occasion, one man, who came in far ahead at the first round, I predicted was to lose the race; and so it proved, for at the second and final round he came in only sixth or seventh. THE HONOUR OF THE RAILWAY FREE PASS. Sixteen days of Melbourne life had pleasantly glided away, and we must needs be off, because we had the rest of Australasia to see, and a very brief term for accomplishing so great a business. Honours had been heaped upon us. How we are to take it when we tumble once more to the common level at Home I hardly know or like to think about. One of the most gratifying of these honours was the railway free pass, which Tasmania first sent us, followed by Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland. Later on I was accorded, through Mr. Labertouche's kind agency, the golden key or pass over the Victorian lines for life, which I was assured was my due as one of the original members of the first Victorian Parliament. From my old friend of nearly forty years standing, Sir Henry Parkes, I had a courteous note to the effect that our railway comfort should be looked after so soon as we crossed the frontier. The honour of these things is, by infinity, greater than the mere saving of money. This is to be literally the case, for our daughter is already counting up these savings, with the intention of claiming them for kangaroo and opossum cloaks and rugs. ALBURY. We took the day train to Albury instead of the through night mail, so as to see Victoria, and have a few hours to spare to see Albury and its great wine business. We paid our respects to the Mayor of Albury, Mr. Mate, who, with Mr. Thompson, his son-in-law, showed us much attention; and we also inspected Mr. Fallon's great wine vaults, and tasted some excellent wine, including the pale, delicate tokay. Albury, with its population of 8,000, reminded me of Melbourne about 1845. There was an air of comfort and prosperity all about, and a leisurely way of it, which contrasted pleasantly with the hurry and bustle of larger places. THE BRACING COLD ONCE MORE. Transferring ourselves now to the night mail, and awaking with the broad daylight of a sunny morning between Yass and Goulburn, we looked out upon a country all white with hoar frost, while our carriage windows had an inside coating of ice. This recalled an inspiring discussion at the Chamber of Commerce dinner a fortnight before, on my introducing the question of the snow and the highest civilization it symbolized. I had said that Victoria as well as Tasmania presented the significant snow. Mr. Service, the leader of the federation movement, alike intercolonial and imperial, corrected me by substituting Australian for Victorian snow. But Mr. Macdonald Patterson, of Queensland, extended the snow line well over even northern New South Wales, as he told us of a heavy snowstorm he had encountered when travelling south from Brisbane, and which lay so thickly upon the ground as to tempt the passengers to a vigorous snowballing, which latterly concentrated upon the railway guard for his grudging attempt to end the sport by ringing his signal bell. But this snow and cold, however favourable to ultimate civilization, were by no means a pleasure just at the moment, and I had to put on the very warmest clothing I ever heaped upon me in an English or Scotch winter. Nor did I escape a severe cold withal, which is only now disappearing under the genial influence of the balmy air of Queensland, which, now as I write, comes to us off the land towards the end of our voyage from Sydney to Brisbane (19th-21st August). We are just passing the South Queensland boundary of 30 degrees latitude, and as a few more hours will land us amidst troops of new friends at Brisbane, I expedite my work, fearing that, as at Melbourne, our brief space of time will be otherwise occupied. MELBOURNE AND SYDNEY. Having just seen Sydney as well as Melbourne, I feel bound to give my impressions of both, which will, I think, be best and most briefly done in the form of a comparative sketch. I must premise with the remark that the great extent of both cities, the great and solid basis of trade on which they appear to rest, and above all the quick and ready step with which they apply to practical purposes the progress, mechanical or scientific, of our age, are beyond anything I had expected to meet with, well prepared as I had previously been upon the subject. Thus the electric light, electric bells, and other electric uses, the telephone, and the lift system, all seem to me in more general use than in London and our larger Home cities. The lift, for instance, is, as the rule, in every bank or other large institution for the use of the staff or customers or visitors. It is certainly as yet the rare exception in such cases in London. THE SYDNEY PRESS. In Sydney I was first met by my old and esteemed friend the Honourable George Alfred Lloyd, who, besides many other attentions, took me to Sir Henry Parkes, with whom I enjoyed some interesting political and financial conversation. I afterwards met the Honourable Mr. Burns, the Treasurer, and discussed with him the prospects for consolidated Australasian three per cents--a prospect which, as he said, he feared might be still far off; owing to the perverse fancy of the other colonies to enter upon special protective systems of their own, which, after being established, they, or the interests protected, might not be disposed to give up even for the sake of a federated Australasia; next we called for one of our fellow-passengers per "Coptic", Mr. Sidman, at the grand offices of the "Evening News" and the "Town and Country Journal", for one or other of which he had been editorially engaged. This happily led to our introduction to the proprietor, Mr. Bennett, and to our being shown the wonders of the Press of our Southern Empire. And, here, again, I had to notice that all the latest steps of progress are taken up so promptly and so thoroughly. The time of our visit was between one and two o'clock, and the work of throwing off the "Evening News" of that day had begun. The machines, we were told, embodied the very latest improvements, and when we alluded to that of "The Argus", just then being fitted up, with every latest appliance, at the Melbourne Exhibition, Mr. Bennett assured us that the machinery before us comprised them all. We saw first the stereotyping process, by which copies of the one type-setting of the paper can be multiplied indefinitely. Then three machines were set in action, delivering 10,000 copies each per hour. A fourth machine was added shortly after, which delivered somewhat more; and this latter appeared to us the exact counterpart of "The Argus" machine, as already seen by us in London. I recall a joke of many years back when mechanical contrivance was attracting much general attention, and arousing great hopes, to the effect that a sheep would some day enter the machine of the future at one end, and be delivered at the other as ready cooked food and broad cloth. What we saw was not a whit less wonderful. The great roll of paper unrolled itself into one end of the machine, and, even more quickly than one could walk the half-dozen yards of distance, it emerged in separate papers, dropped, as I said, at ten to twelve thousand an hour, printed, folded, cut, and numbered to the dispersing hand which received them. The circulation of the "Evening News" is 60,000 daily. That of "The Age", as I learnt on arrival at Melbourne, has now advanced in its inspiring career to 76,000. These are the papers of greatest circulation in the Southern Hemisphere. Such is already the Press of the infant Hercules of Australasia. Another stirring sight next greeted our eyes ere we quitted the "Evening News" office, namely, the crowd of eager little newsboys waiting for their trade stock. Pressing to the small open window, where their tiny sums were paid to the cashier, they received their check, and forthwith proceeded to the fountains which were dropping out their supplies at the rate of four copies per second, all ready for delivery. They received twelve of the penny papers for ninepence. These poor little fellows would begin, perhaps, with ninepence as all their capital. They get their dozen papers, and, if smart, sell them possibly in not many more minutes. Then they are back with their increased capital, and so by quick degrees they get to be quite large dealers. We saw one little fellow, already a great capitalist in his way, with a load of papers which one would have thought he could hardly carry, but which, nevertheless, he managed with well-practised adroitness. COMPARISON OF THE TWO CAPITALS. If comparisons are proverbially odious, they must be specially so if drawn out upon insufficient data. I must not, therefore, on such a flying inspection, go very deeply into my comparative analysis. And yet, under all the circumstances, the subject is one for which I feel not altogether incompetent. To begin with, I had not, perhaps, sufficient time in failing to note any material difference of physique due to the difference of latitude, Melbourne having the cooler temperature by 4 to 5 degrees of Fahrenheit. Tasmania and Southern New Zealand give notably the ruddy plumpness of the English face. Conversing with a young friend, who was interested in football, he remarked that latitude is important in a game which was mainly one of muscular strength. Thus, speaking generally, Hobart will beat Melbourne, Melbourne Sydney, and Sydney Brisbane. "But what as to New Zealand?" I said. "New Zealand," he replied, "will square with England, and the Southern Island may beat her." The tide of general business in either city seemed to me equal, but the streets and the public and business buildings of Sydney were scarcely equal, either in number or style, to those of Melbourne, at least if the great edifices and other works of the latter, either just being finished or in progress of erection, be considered. The Melbourne Harbour is conspicuously one of these, and will surpass alike that of Sydney and those of most of the rest of the world. On the other hand, however, the grand natural harbourage of Port Jackson, not to dwell upon its surpassing scenic beauty, gives to Sydney a most decided economic advantage for all time. Melbourne has two obvious superiorities--first in the systematic laying out of the streets, and second in the more conveniently level site. Thus no Sydney street can compare with Collins-street, where even the moderate rise of the eastern and western hills still adds to the commanding effect of the whole line. The Melbourne street tram system is also greatly superior to that of Sydney, and seems, indeed, to have attained to all that is possible in that direction. In point of population, Melbourne continues ahead, having, with the suburbs, about 400,000, while Sydney has about 350,000. On the other hand, New South Wales has rather the advantage over Victoria in the total population, as well as in the amount of external commerce, having lately, in these respects, overtaken her younger sister, after the latter had clean distanced her senior for a whole generation by help of the surpassing gold production. The populations are now about 1,050,000 respectively. THE RIVAL RACE. In estimating the future of these two great colonies and their respective capitals, I will endeavour to mark some distinctive considerations. Unquestionably the climatic difference, although it may not be serious, is in favour of Victoria, for the English race of both colonies and for English industries. Then, again, we have this ever-recurring Australian drought, from which Victoria does not indeed always or altogether escape, but to which, with her cooler sea-girt shores, she is certainly less liable than her sister colonies, including New South Wales. Even now, as I sail along the northern shores of the latter and along Southern Queensland, the severe drought which has prevailed for the past six months is indicated by the ascending smoke of bush fires in every direction, while Victoria, as I left it, was in universal green from the sufficiency of rain. Lastly, there is the disputable question as to how the much wider area of New South Wales than Victoria bears upon the question. Is that a help to her or a drag? With the present scant population to either, the advantage seems to me with Victoria, compact as she is, and full of fertile land. Fifty years hence, when the population of each has passed from one million to ten millions, and when a system of irrigation has fertilized the large proportion of now sterile areas of the larger colony, the latter will assert her precedence and, perhaps, easily pass her rival. But for the present she is rather handicapped than otherwise by her distances. Granting that she has throughout as many rich acres as Victoria, still she is, for the time being, under the disadvantage of having to draw her resources from greater distances--from an average, say, of more than 300 miles to Victoria's 100. Against this collective relative handicapping in her race, New South Wales has happily still to oppose her good fortune in having adhered as yet to the impartial freedom of exchange for the labour products of all her workers, while Victoria has restricted that freedom, and has, consequently, by so much, reduced that product, by her protective enactments. Let me try to estimate this most important matter. Victoria has seen fit to protect certain interests, agricultural and manufacturing, at the expense of the whole of her public. Happily for her the agricultural protection is probably almost, if not indeed altogether, inoperative, as the climate and the soil of the country, and the vigour of her people, give to her, independently, the natural lead in agricultural products. But the manufacturing protection is confessedly effective, so that the manufactures would not be forthcoming without the extra price of protection. Let us average this protection at 25 per cent, and let us further suppose that one-fifth of all the people's requirements are thus extra-charged. This means that the Victorian public are made to pay in the proportion of 125 pounds for a class of their daily requisites which the New South Wales public, by virtue of their freedom of exchange for all the products of their labour, can secure for 100 pounds; and that this very considerably enhanced cost affects as much as the one-fifth part of all those requisites. Victoria, and the vigorous life which peoples her, will in any case ever present a spectacle of surprising progress. But if she is mated in a race in which, while the two rivals are otherwise equal, she is thus restricted in labour output by protection, while the other keeps herself free, she is as surely to be beaten in that race as if, on her grand Flemington racecourse, she were the seriously handicapped horse of a noble pair admitted to be otherwise equal. POST POSTSCRIPT. BRISBANE, 22ND AUGUST. My publisher affords me just time to record my arrival yesterday, at the capital of the youthful but already great Queensland, and to give some opinions of the place after a glance, which is, however, of necessity so cursory. Brisbane is to me not less astonishing than either Sydney or Melbourne. From the adjacent heights of Mount Coot-tha, I looked over several square miles, mostly of thickly compacted streets and dwellings, comprising a town and connected suburbs of 75,000 busy people. While the suburban houses are chiefly of wood, the town proper already, in some respects, fairly rivals its senior sisters of the South. Thus Queen-street, in its general architectural aspect, and in the tide of business life which it presents, is but little short of the chief streets of these other cities; while the structures of two of the Queensland Banks, the Queensland National and the London Chartered of Australia, together with those of the Australian Mutual Provident Society and of the stores of Messrs. D.L. Brown and Co., Messrs. Stewart and Hemmant, and Messrs. Scott, Dawson and Stewart, seemed to me quite equal to anything of the kind, respectively, which I had met with since my arrival. Indeed, I am prepared to congratulate my friend, Mr. Drury, at the head of the former of these banks, upon an edifice which, in graces of structure, as well as in mere dimensions, seems to me to surpass all rivalry. The Bank of England--the highly conservative "old lady of Threadneedle-street"--on the recent occasion of negotiating yet one more large Queensland loan, broadly hinted to her go-ahead client that her borrowing must, for a time at least, be more restricted. I do not deny the wisdom of this advice, for truly all Australasian borrowing has been utterly outside of all principle and precedent. But while the Home public is preoccupied with these colonies' great debts, my visit here has diverted the leading idea rather to the solid and expansive basis of trade and prosperity which I see around me. I have not yet seen South Australia or New Zealand, but, from what already reaches my ears, I have no reason to expect that my account of either colony is to differ materially, if at all, from that of the others. The ready facility to incur debt on behalf of colonial progress is due, as it seems to me, rather to consciousness of strength than to indifference about financial obligation. Each colony will "pay" with equal certainty and promptitude, although a New South Wales or a Victoria may do so with less strain than their sisters.