THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 TALLANGETTA, 
 
 THE SQUATTEE'S HOME. 
 
 A STORY OF AUSTRALIAN LIF1-. 
 
 WILLIAM HOWITT, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "TWO YEARS IN VICTORIA,' 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, & ROBERTS 
 
 1857.
 
 London : 
 
 i'rinted by Spottiswoode & Co. 
 
 New-street Square.
 
 R 
 
 v. I 
 
 PRE PACE. 
 
 In these volumes it has been my object to depict 
 the various phases of Australian life and character 
 more fully than could be done in my " Two Years in 
 Victoria." Perhaps the reader will be surprised to 
 find in the Bush and in the competitive hurry of the 
 new colonial city some of the personages who figure 
 here. But it requires only a brief sojourn in a 
 colony like that of Victoria to remind you that its 
 population is made up of the overflowings of England 
 and manv other countries, and that these overflow- 
 ings have carried with them every possible theory 
 and practice, every idea, feeling, passion, speculation, 
 pursuit, amusement, and imagination which are fer- 
 mentinsj in the old countries. 
 
 When the reader comes upon a certain personage 
 in these pages, Dr. Spenser Grayson, I beg him not 
 
 A 2 
 
 492380 
 
 LIB SETS
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 to treat him as an imaginary one. If he will turn 
 to a file of the Times newspaper of 1853 he will find 
 a letter of Sir William a Becket's, late Chief Justice 
 of Victoria, giving an account of this very man, 
 under one of his aliases, as he came before him ; 
 and in the Melbourne Argus he would find an ad- 
 ditional account, on reprinting Sir William's letter, 
 of the remarkable poetical genius of this man, who, 
 the editor says, sent them by far the best poetry 
 they ever received. 
 
 But perhaps no character would be less expected 
 in the gold colony than that of the spiritualist, 
 Dr. Woolstan, or Mr. Flavel, the seer, whom I have 
 introduced here. Yet it was in the far bush that 
 I was first surprised by an exhibition of table- 
 turning, and, what is more curious, we have now, at 
 this moment, an Australian spiritualist in London, 
 astonishing daily circles of the most intelligent and 
 unsuperstitious classes by demonstrations far more 
 surprising than those I have assigned to Dr. Woolstan 
 at Tallangetta. 
 
 When that psychological phenomenon — which 
 may now be truly termed a new yet decided feature
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 of social life — had only advanced to the stage of 
 table-turning, Mr. Faraday thought he had com- 
 pletely laid the ghost of the question by attributing 
 the rotatory motion of a table to the muscular action 
 of the persons putting the tips of their fingers upon 
 it. But a man cannot well have gone much amongst 
 the inquiring classes of society — and I mean private 
 and select society, not public and promiscuous as- 
 semblies, where some professional Medium exhibits 
 — who has not seen phenomena which will require 
 not only something beyond Mr. Faraday's theory, 
 but beyond any theorising upon any yet known phy- 
 sical principles, to explain. We are told by numbers 
 of people of first-rate education and talents, people 
 perfectly sane, perfectly honourable, wide-awake as 
 any of us, who hate a lie and despise humbug, that 
 tables do not now merely turn round by the impo- 
 sition of hands, but heavy ones rise from the floor to 
 the ceiling, leaving everyone's hands below and out of 
 reach, turn over and descend sometimes to the floor, 
 legs uppermost : and these, we are assured, are but 
 of the lowest class of the physical demonstrations of 
 the kind. In numbers of families the daily conversa- 
 
 A 3
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 tion with the spirits of their departed friends, as they 
 believe, goes on as regularly as with those still 
 incarnate ; painting, writing, speaking by spiritual 
 influence, are freely exercised, and that in the families 
 of men of good status in church, in state, in army, 
 in navy, in literature and science. All round us 
 this state of things prevails, to an extent which few 
 have any full conception of; and I have myself 
 seen, in most trustworthy and distinguished quarters, 
 things which I have no hesitation in pronouncing 
 to be deserving not of sneering, not of huffing off 
 without inquiry, but of a calm yet serious and 
 careful observation, as of a social and psychological 
 phenomenon of singular and impressive features, of 
 wide extent, and rapidly-advancing development. 
 Such careful and philosophical investigation would 
 detect the error if such error exists, lead to explana- 
 tion if explanation be possible, whilst, if there be a 
 truth in it, however disguised or undeveloped, turn- 
 ing a cold shoulder to the sun does not put it out — 
 it only leaves the sun shining on your backs. 
 
 Sir David Brewster and Lord Brougham have 
 dipped their toes in the rising ocean of inquiry ; we
 
 PREFACE. Vil 
 
 yet want those who, with philosophical genius, will 
 apply a philosophical spirit and patience to the 
 subject. In all ages spiritualism has been exhibit- 
 ing itself in one form or another ; and there is a 
 very old adage that where there is smoke there is 
 pretty certainly fire. In the long ages of the sacred 
 history, in the remarkable centuries which succeeded 
 the first spread of Christianity, in the mythic struc- 
 tures and creeds of ancient nations, in India, China 
 (familiar with rapping and table-turning these 
 thousand years), Egypt, Greece, and Rome, under 
 all the distortions and concealments of magic, witch- 
 craft, the Rosicrucian philosophy, and the occult 
 sciences of the middle ages, spiritual agency has 
 been working, according to the firmest convictions 
 of the greatest minds of those countries and times. 
 As Socrates had his " familiar spirit," Numa his 
 Egeria, as the Arabs had their genii, Friar Bacon his 
 brazen head, and Paracelsus his inward illumination, 
 his " Einhauchende Geister," so Jacob Bohme and 
 George Fox, in recent, and Zschokke in our times, 
 astonished their cotemporaries by their revelations. 
 
 A 4
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 Certainly, in all ages, there has been a very great 
 smoke in that quarter. 
 
 But my business with it here is only artistic. 
 Spiritualism has produced, in America, not merely 
 rapping, but the poems of Harris, one volume of 
 which only I have read, — "The Legend of the 
 Golden Age," — and which I do not hesitate to 
 pronounce amongst the finest poetry since Shelley 
 and Byron ; finest in all the great essentials of poetry, 
 in the power, vividness, boundless sweep and entire 
 originality of imagination, in its plastic energy and 
 affluence of language, and in its bold and uncon- 
 ventional, yet sublime philosophy. The smoke of 
 spiritualism, therefore, is now visible enough ; the 
 fire is burning near enough to us to warrant that 
 use of it in imaginative literature which our great 
 dramatists and fictionists, which Shakspeare, Horace 
 Walpole, Mrs. Radcliffe, Scott, Beckford, Bulwer, 
 which Goethe in Germany and Poe and Hawthorne 
 in America, have made of the mysteries and the 
 popular excitements of the times in which their 
 fictions are laid. Where I found it I have used it — 
 in the Bush ; and that not in the person of a humbug
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 or a charlatan, but in men educated, scientific, 
 serious, acute in all their relations, profoundly reli- 
 gious, and admittedly honest. I have seized Time 
 by that old forelock of his, at which he has had 
 many a lusty tug, and been one of the first to plant 
 a new element in prose fiction. The philosophy of 
 the question belongs to the philosophers. As for 
 the poets, they have in all times settled the affair in 
 their own way. Milton will have it that — 
 
 " Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, 
 Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep." 
 
 Philip Bailey, one of the most spiritual and 
 
 philosophical poets of the age, contends, in "Festus," 
 
 that by us of to day — 
 
 " The most material, immaterial 
 Departments of pure wisdom are despised. 
 For well we know that, properly prepared, 
 Soul's self-adapted knowledge to receive, 
 Are by the truth desired, illumined ; man's 
 Spirit, extolled, dilated, clarified, 
 By holy meditation and divine 
 Lore, fits him to convene with purer forms 
 Which do unseen surround us aye and gladden 
 In human good and exaltation. Thus, 
 The face of heaven is not more clear to one 
 Than to another, outwardly; but one,
 
 X TREFACE. 
 
 By strong intention of his soul perceives, 
 Attracts, unites himself to essences 
 And elemental spirits of wider range 
 And more beneficent nature, by whose aid 
 Occasion, circumstance, futurity, 
 Impress on him their image, and impart 
 Their secrets to his soul. Thus, chance and lot 
 Are sacred things; thus, dreams are verities. 
 But oh ! alas ! for all earth's loftier lore, 
 And spiritual sympathy of worlds!" 
 
 I must now state, that a few of the episodical 
 sketches in these pages have already appeared in 
 the " Household Words;" and Mr. Dickens has 
 sent me a letter from Mr, John Fawkner, who has 
 so long occupied a very distinguished position in 
 Victoria, not only as the oldest settler, the " Father 
 of the Colony," as he is styled, but as a patriotic 
 and able member of the Legislature, expressing his 
 unqualified pleasure in their perusal. I may also 
 present the reader with an amusing bit of colonial 
 criticism upon those " Squatter Papers," as the 
 Melbourne Argus calls them : — 
 
 " These capital sketches are evidently the work of 
 two hands. The stories have been written in Australia 
 by some one knowing the place well, but not brilliant as 
 a writer, and some very first-class writer, probably
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 Dickens himself, has breathed into them the breath of 
 genius. In some places phrases occur that could not 
 have been written by any one who had ever been in 
 Australia, but which are wonderfully conducive to lite- 
 rary effect ; and in others we can perceive unmistakable 
 trices of local knowledge. The polishing process is, 
 however, so skilfully performed, and the general effect is 
 so good, that it is only by close observation that we are 
 enabled here and there to detect the tool-marks." — 
 Journal of Australasia. 
 
 Let Australasia cherish that critic; he has seen 
 all the way through the millstone, and no man can 
 see further. It is needless to say that no ''two 
 hands" have touched a syllable of those papers in 
 the " Household Words " but my OAvn two. 
 
 In all that relates to the history, natural history, 
 life, character, and actual personages of the colony 
 which chiefly figure in these volumes, I have adhered 
 as faithfully to the fact as in my " Two Years in 
 Victoria," of which a distinguished officer there said : 
 " Mr. Howitt's volumes are not like the colony, — 
 they are the colony itself." But a still more remark- 
 able testimony to the impression of verisimilitude in 
 the " Two Years in Victoria" is to be found in the
 
 XU PREFACE. 
 
 following letter from the popular author of " It is 
 Never Too Late to Mend!" which 1 print by his 
 permission : — 
 
 " 6, Bolton Kow, Mayfair : March 2. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — Should you ever fall in with a matter- 
 of-fact romance called ' It is Never Too Late to Mend,' — 
 and should you wade as far in it as the Australian 
 scenes, you will not be surprised at this letter from me. 
 
 " To avoid describing Hyde Park, and calling it 
 Australia, I read some thirty books about that country ; 
 but yours was infinitely the best. In reading you I 
 found I was in the hands of a man who had really been 
 there, and bad seen things with his own eyes, and j udged 
 them with his own judgment, and, rarer art still, could 
 paint them to the life. Your vivid scenes took hold of 
 me ; and your colours are the charm of many of my best 
 pages. I could not tell you all my obligations ; but 
 some of them I can. You restored my faith in nature. 
 A pack of noodles had been out there, and came home, 
 and told us the air had no perfume, and the birds no 
 song. 
 
 " The real fact is, that there have not yet been in 
 Australia two centuries of poets to tell people what to 
 hear and what to smell. You extinguished that piece 
 of cant. You smelt the land like cowslips ninety miles 
 off; and you not only heard the birds, but described the 
 song and note of each with a precision of detail that 
 were invaluable. That passage of yours was a nugget. 
 
 " I made use of it in a full description of the rising
 
 PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 smi; and it i?, to my fancy, the light of my whole 
 picture. I had from yon, too, the snow-storm, — the 
 flakes as lai'ge as the palm of your hand, and the great 
 branches of trees rent from the stems with reports like 
 cannon, by the weight of superincumbent snow. 
 
 " Then, in the details of digging, it was you who told 
 me the furtive diggers were discovered by the stream 
 coming down discoloured. 
 
 "Item — the diggers steeped in cold water from the 
 waist downwards, yet steaming with perspiration from 
 the waist upwards. Two out of three comic advertise- 
 ments in the mine are also from you. 
 
 " Adde hue — the thunder of the cradles, the bottles 
 sown broad-cast over the land, with other happy touches 
 of the sort, and one divinely felicitous phrase, — ' the 
 sentences measled with oaths and indelicate expressions.' 
 In short, I have taken from you far more than I could 
 have taken with decency if our two works had not been 
 heterogeneous. As it is, I hope you are too candid and 
 too good-natured to grudge me, who can never hope to 
 see that wonderful land, a few colours from your palette. 
 A traveller with a painter's eye is a rarity. He must 
 make up his mind to teach the artists of the pen as well 
 as the public. 
 
 " But though it is not in Nature to refrain from 
 profiting by you, there is one casualty it is my duty to 
 guard you against. 
 
 " You are, I hear, about to bring out a cheap edition 
 of ' Land, Labour, and Gold.' Many will make their 
 first acquaintance with your volumes after reading mine.
 
 XIV PREFACE. 
 
 There must be no doubt as to who is the original where 
 you and 1 are found in amiable but suspicious harmony. 
 " To conclude : I wish, my dear Sir, I could make you 
 some return by sending all my readers to your two rich 
 volumes. I can assure them the pearls I have strung from 
 them on my string are surrounded by hundreds of others 
 of equal intrinsic value. 
 
 " May you visit many countries, and may I sit by the 
 fire and see them on your glowing pages. 
 " I am, dear Sir, 
 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 " Charles Reade." 
 "William Howitt, Esq." 
 
 Perhaps I may save the reader some trouble if I 
 tell him that there are two or three Tallangettas in 
 Victoria; but our Tallangetta is sufficiently deter- 
 mined by the locality ; and should any one be unable 
 to recollect the house on that spot, let him under- 
 stand that I built it since he Avas there. 
 
 A new edition of the " Two Years in Victoria " is 
 in preparation, complete in one volume, which will 
 include the most recent information regarding the 
 colony. 
 
 London: June \ltli, 1857.
 
 C N T E N T S 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Page 
 
 Going up to the Station ..... 1 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 Settling Down . . . • . .31 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 Neighbours . .... 51 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 Wonderful Tidings . . . . .75 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 The Bad Year. — Black Thursday . . .92 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 The Bush Fire at Tallangetta. — The Quest for 
 
 Bell Metcalfe . . . . .128
 
 XVI CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 Page 
 
 An Unexpected Neighbour . 150 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 The Ride across the River 
 
 178 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 The Storm Breaks . . 235 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 Digging Adventures . . . 254 
 
 CHAP. XI. 
 A Sample, not of Gold, but of Gold Commissioners . 282
 
 TALLAXGETTA, 
 
 OR 
 
 THE SQUATTEE'S HOME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ■r 
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 
 
 It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. The sun 
 of early summer, that is, of November in its first 
 days, was descending over the Australian woods after 
 his glowing career of the day, and now had percep- 
 tibly abated its fire. Clear and genially it still shone 
 in the cloudless sky, but to the spectator traversing 
 the forest, it appeared at no great height above the 
 lofty trees, and no longer pursued him with its 
 consuming fire. The silence which had lain in the 
 woods through the day, was now broken by the 
 merry cicadas, and the mole cricket in the warm 
 VOL. I. b
 
 2 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 earth seeming to mock those sonorous insects by a 
 reverberation of their own notes. The warbling 
 crow piped its melodious chant from the topmost 
 twigs of the fragrant peppermint tree, and the lusty 
 laughter of the dacelo, or jolly winged-jackass, was 
 meant for an encore. The breeze awoke and gave 
 still more life and refreshment to the scene ; and the 
 cattle, which had hidden themselves in the darkest 
 shade of the wattles, or stood knee-deep in the forest 
 stream, now came out, and grazed tranquilly through 
 the bush. 
 
 At this moment two young people might have 
 been seen, had any one been there to see them, 
 cantering briskly along a sort of natural avenue in 
 the woods. The one was a young man of middle 
 height and handsome features, and the other a young 
 lady bearing a striking likeness to him. They were 
 evidently brother and sister. Which was the eldest, 
 it would have been difficult to say ; they appeared 
 about one or tvvo-and-twenty. The young man was 
 clad in a light linen coat and trowsers, without any 
 waistcoat, and only a bright blue handkerchief of the 
 finest and slightest fabric, tied loosely about his neck. 
 A handsome straw hat, and light boots of fashionable 
 make, having an unmistakable look of Bond Street 
 or Pall Mall, rather than of the colony about them,
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 3 
 
 and a handsome revolver at his waist, were clear 
 indications that he was fresh to the antipodes. 
 
 The young lady had the same aristocratic well- 
 defined style of features, but of course more delicate. 
 They were at once beautiful, feminine, and spirited ; 
 and the young man's handsome, but far from strong 
 brown beard, gave the greatest point of contrast to 
 their faces. She was as lightly clad as her brother ; 
 a simple skirt of dark French merino being merely 
 slipped over a muslin morning dress, instead of a 
 riding habit, and a broad white straw hat with a blue 
 veil on it, defending her head from the sun. A mass 
 of rich brown hair was tastefully disposed at the back 
 of her head, and had evidently been shaken by her 
 ride, so as to fall in a rather loose, but beautiful 
 manner on her neck. 
 
 The two young people came cantering on, followed 
 by a grand black and white Newfoundland dog, and an 
 active, sinewy-looking, tawny bull-terrier. The woods 
 opened more and more on their left as they advanced, 
 the trees not being altogether absent, but more widely 
 scattered. On the right and again ahead of them the 
 forest continued, to the eye at least, dense and un- 
 broken. But here in the opener part they came at 
 once to a charming little lake, or what in this country 
 we should merely style a large pond or reservoir. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 It was partly square, partly circular in shape. The 
 ground all round was high above it, and descended 
 in sudden steep banks to the water. Tine old trees 
 grew here and there in full freedom and picturesque 
 effect on its further banks, and on this which they 
 had reached there stood only one or two, but of 
 gigantic proportions. Extensive masses of reeds and 
 flags occupied portions of the lake nearly all round, 
 except on this side, and the sportsman would at once 
 decide that plenty of water-fowl were concealed 
 there, but at this moment not a sound or motion 
 betrayed their presence. All was profoundly silent, 
 not a ripple stirred the surface of the sunlit water, 
 for it lay too deep below its banks to be touched by 
 the breeze. 
 
 " Bravo ! This is the very spot for our night's 
 camp," said the young man. " Water, wood, grass, 
 and, if I am not mistaken, fish and wild ducks to 
 boot," running his eye rapidly over the water and 
 the reed-beds. 
 
 " Beautiful !" exclaimed the young lady. " What 
 a charming camping place!" 
 
 The dogs were already swimming in the water, 
 lapping occasionally as they swam, and seeming to 
 luxuriate immensely after their hot, dusty run, in 
 the pure, deep flood. The two young people led their
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 5 
 
 horses down a convenient slope, for it is wonderful 
 how nature has prepared these accessible places by 
 her wilderness pools and streams for her approaching 
 family, often with as much care and forethought as 
 man could have exercised, and frequently more than 
 he does exercise after he comes into possession. They 
 then leaped lightly from their horses, the youth 
 giving a hand to his sister, and then proceeding to 
 take the saddles and bridles from the warm steeds, 
 and placing these at the foot of a tree, hobbled the 
 noble creatures, and let them graze at large. 
 
 While he was doing this, the young lady, throwing 
 her whip upon the saddles, slipped off her riding 
 skirt, and proceeded in her unencumbered state to 
 collect sticks and dry leaves for a fire. " Where 
 shall we have the domestic hearth, Charles ? " said 
 the handsome girl, as she stood a moment with the 
 bundle of sticks in her hands. 
 
 " Oh ! just far enough from that fallen log, Geordy, 
 so that it may serve for a seat," and as he spoke he 
 came forward, and took out a lucifer box to give her 
 a light. There was soon a famous blaze on a clean, 
 green sort of table-land near the lake, and this 
 served for a directing signal to a carriage which 
 now T was seen coming at a good rate down the forest 
 opening. It was a sort of American waggon, long 
 
 B 3
 
 6 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 and light, on springs, drawn by a pair of excellent, 
 strong carriage horses, and furnished with a circular 
 awning of white canvass. 
 
 " Well done," cried a tall, gentlemanly-looking 
 man, who sate on the low front of the waggon, 
 driving. " This is a prime place, indeed, for a halt. 
 "Why, youngsters, you must have ordered it before- 
 hand." 
 
 " Of course," said the young man, " the last time 
 I travelled this road;" and he looked very merry. 
 
 " And as the road is so very much frequented, 
 papa," said the laughing girl, " it was quite as well 
 to drop a line by post, to secure lodgings." 
 
 " Quite right ! quite right ! " shouted a couple of 
 female voices from beneath the awning of the 
 waggon. " And so now, perhaps, you will let us out 
 that we may survey our quarters." 
 
 At this there was seen a man tumbling out be- 
 hind the waggon, and in great haste to turn back 
 its canvass curtains and let down a ladder, down 
 which presently descended three of womankind, 
 whom we must more particularly introduce to the 
 reader. The first was a tall, slender figure, whom, 
 at the first glance, you perceived to be a lady by the 
 quiet elegance of her manner, and the cultivated ex- 
 pression of a still handsome face, though she was 
 evidently approaching middle age. Next followed a
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 7 
 
 little plump round body, with a very round, rosy, good- 
 natured countenance, and of apparently the same age, 
 who advanced towards the two young people who 
 were still busy at the fire, the young man having run 
 for a kettle of water, and set it close to the fire to 
 boil, while the young lady was folding up her riding- 
 shirt and laying it aside in more orderly fashion 
 under the great tree. This little cosy body, we 
 may inform the reader, was aunt to the young 
 people, and went in the family by the familiar 
 name of Aunt Judith ; and we suppose the sagacious 
 reader has already divined that the tall gentleman 
 and tall lady were the father and mother of the 
 young ones. The third woman was no other than 
 Peggy Wilks, who, in England, had occupied for 
 many years the post of laundry woman to the 
 family, and was here as maid of all-work, in her 
 fortieth year, accompanied, nevertheless, by her 
 husband, the quondam gardener, but now miscel- 
 laneous man — Abner Wilks, the same strong fellow 
 who was just seen tumbling so precipitately out of 
 the waggon. 
 
 Here you have the whole group, and let me tell 
 you such a group as you do not light upon every day 
 in the Australian bush. If you had been told that 
 this was the governor and his family taking an ex- 
 
 B 4
 
 8 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 cursion up the country, you would have said, "just 
 so, I see it, it can be nobody else," for neither squatter, 
 merchant, commissioner, nor digger carry about with 
 them that unassuming prestige of rank and station. 
 Gentlemen you would find amongst these classes, real 
 gentlemen and many, and amongst commissioners a 
 great deal of pretence, and a morbid love of gold lace 
 and parade dreadfully demonstrative of the parvenu. 
 But in this family you saw no pretence; you felt that 
 there was the reality, and only wondered what had 
 brought them here. 
 
 Listen, and I will drop a word or two into your 
 ear. Sir Thomas Fitzpatrick was heir to a noble 
 property in the north and midland counties of Eng- 
 land. Like many another country gentleman, he 
 had his tastes for horses, racing, and sporting in 
 various ways. His property became embarrassed, and 
 when he was in difficulty up started a kind cousin, 
 Sir Patrick Fitzpatrick, and laid claim to the estate. 
 Astonishing as was the fact, totally till that moment 
 undreamt of, yet Sir Patrick commenced a suit for 
 the recovery of the hereditary family estates, and 
 won it. What was most strange of all too, he won it 
 by proving, to the satisfaction of a jury at least, that 
 Sir Thomas was illegitimate. Illegitimate ! Why 
 nobody, not Sir Thomas by any means, had ever
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 9 
 
 thought of such a thing. However, odd enough, 
 when Sir Patrick asserted and proved, on the evi- 
 dence of letters and an old servant of the family long 
 ago dismissed by Sir Thomas's father, that Sir 
 Thomas's father and mother never were married, Sir 
 Thomas found himself totally unable to prove the 
 marriage. It had been a hasty one, contracted 
 abroad at Florence, unknown to the relations of the 
 family on either side, at the ambassador's. But the 
 ambassador was long dead ; and being then a single 
 man, at the time this took place his family could 
 produce no record of such a transaction. The chap- 
 lain, too, had gone afterwards to India, and no 
 inquiries could trace him beyond a certain point. 
 
 Here was a dilemma ! No certificate of her 
 marriage could be found amongst the papers of Sir 
 Thomas's mother, nor yet amongst those of his 
 father; yet during their lives, and for years after- 
 wards, not a doubt had ever been whispered by 
 any party whatever of the bond fide marriage of 
 these most respectable and honourable people. What 
 had put Sir Patrick on this scent ? How had 
 he stumbled all at once on such a discovery? — 
 for such it must have been, and a late one, or he 
 would not have suffered Sir Thomas to enjoy the 
 estates for a single day — he was not that man.
 
 10 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 But he asserted his claims and he made them good, 
 ay, again and again. Sir Thomas, for want of further 
 means, had been compelled to yield to his adversary 
 and retire from the field. His lot was such as is 
 common on all such occasions ; he found not a single 
 friend to stand by him. On the contrary, he saw all 
 his once numerous clan of friends, so called, and 
 acquaintances who had feasted and fluttered round 
 him, suddenly flock over to the enemy, and feast and 
 flutter round him in the same hall and rooms ; the 
 same worthy people who had at first expressed their 
 unbounded astonishment at the audacity of Sir Peter 
 setting up so burlesque a claim, now, in the same 
 sympathising zeal, expressing their equally un- 
 bounded astonishment at the rascality of the pretended 
 Sir Thomas so long coolly keeping Sir Patrick out of 
 his own. 
 
 Yes, there was one friend who stuck bv them, and 
 that was Aunt Judith. But then Aunt Judith, Sir 
 Thomas's sister, was included in the same category 
 and branded with the same stigma. Poor Aunt 
 Judith, who was generally good humour itself, had 
 been violently indignant at the aspersion on her 
 mother, and on her brother and his family ; but as to 
 her mother's marriage, she said they might just as 
 well tell her that Durham Cathedral was a pickled
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 11 
 
 onion as tliat her mother was not married. Why, 
 she had heard her mother talk of the marriage a 
 hundred times; and all the hurry and fright and 
 strange accompaniments of it. And how they had 
 lived in a little cottage at Capri, and afterwards at 
 Naples ; and of their climbing Vesuvius, and of their 
 happy but uneasy life till they had news and full for- 
 giveness from England. Not married, indeed ! If 
 ever there was a pure-hearted and happy-minded 
 woman, as far as her own position went, it was her 
 revered mother. No cloud, no obscurity, no mystery 
 ever hovered for a moment over her name or her 
 angelic brow. She was the soul of piety and 
 domestic love. Luckily for Aunt Judith and Sir 
 Thomas, the virtuous and triumphant Sir Patrick 
 could not touch her property, and it was handsome. 
 It had not come by inheritance, but had been be- 
 queathed. With this she had supported Sir Thomas 
 in his struggles against the new claimant as much as 
 she could without leaving the family without re- 
 sources ; and to withdraw them all for a time from 
 the scene of defeat and mortification, she had pro- 
 posed to spend a few years in Australia, where, with 
 her sufficient remaining means, they could secure a 
 station, and live a new life till things took a turn. 
 " And they will take a turn," Aunt Judith con-
 
 12 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 tended most undauntedly. " The whole thing," she 
 protested, " is a hoax, a lie, a villany. That wretch 
 of a lady's maid must, by some means, have got hold 
 of her mother's marriage certificate, and carried it off 
 to make a trade of, but, as to the letters produced on 
 the trial, they were forgeries, infamous, diabolical, 
 detestable forgeries. Ah, well ! " she would add, 
 " wait awhile, wait awhile, we shall see. These 
 things do n't go on for ever. There is a righteous 
 God yet, and He will find them out. That fiend of 
 a maid one of these days will most likely be terrified 
 at the approach of death, or something of the kind, 
 for a bad conscience is worse than a bad cancer, 
 and when it gives an awful pang some day the 
 wretch will cry out unawares. Yes, mark me, that 
 will be it — does she think God can't find her 
 base, shallow tricks out ? Poor foolish thing ! as if 
 she could cheat the Almighty ! Only wait ; all will 
 be right ! " 
 
 We shall only here say further, that these strange 
 circumstances had not passed over the present party 
 without extreme and violent suffering. Sir Thomas's 
 hair had grown very grey, and the stamp of fierce 
 alternations of passion and unlooked-for affliction 
 had left their traces on his fine countenance, in a 
 recpiently clouded and often dejected expression,
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 13 
 
 though he, at times, now again wore his former 
 cheerful and even sportive manner ; for he had 
 always been of a frank, mirthful, though unfortu- 
 nately ardent and headstrong temperament. Lady 
 Fitzpatrick had suffered severely in health and 
 spirits, hut now she was much restored by the 
 pleasant affection and indefatigable endeavours of all 
 around her to contribute to her consolation. As for 
 Aunt Judith, if she could be satisfied for her dear 
 relatives, she would be as perfectly happy here as at 
 home in their most prosperous days. Her life was 
 so centred in the lives of those her dearly beloved 
 relatives, their happiness was so completely hers, 
 that she had refused all offers of marriage, as want- 
 ing nothing more than her independence and their 
 society. The children seemed quite as much her 
 children as anybody's, and everything pleasant in 
 the family seemed especially hers. Lady fitzpatrick 
 was not merely her sister-in-law, but her very clearest 
 friend, who relied on her judgment more than on all 
 the female world besides. And then she had such a 
 love of the country, of trees, plants, flowers, birds, 
 insects, all sorts of living things, that to be wandering 
 here through those boundless forests, and seeing 
 and hearing something new continually, were to her 
 a perfect dream of delight. She entered into all the
 
 14 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 spirit of this vagabond life, and helped to cook, and 
 make beds, and do a hundred things that, from their 
 novelty and from the utter impossibility of their ever 
 doinc them at home, produced a constant succession 
 of fun and laughter which made her almost, and some- 
 times altogether, forget the past and its troubles. 
 
 And so I think that is enough of knowledge of our 
 travellers for the present, except that they had re- 
 solved to drop all title while in this colony. " I will 
 be no pretender," said Sir Thomas ; " if I cannot win 
 my old title I will not wear it. Therefore, they were 
 plain Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpatrick and no more, except 
 in the eyes and mouths of Abner and Peggy Wilks, 
 who continued to treat them with the same marked 
 deference, and to blunder out continually their old 
 titles. They had been now several days on their 
 journey to their station, and found it quite delightful. 
 Out of this tilted waggon came speedily a variety of 
 articles and apparatus for the evening's meal and the 
 night's accommodation. First a tent, which Charles 
 Fitzpatrick and his father very soon had erected, 
 while Abner unharnessed the horses and turned them 
 out, hanging the harness on the waggon-pole, and 
 throwing over it a rug to defend it from the night 
 dew. Then came out four pointed stakes and a 
 board, and the four stakes being driven firmly into
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 15 
 
 the ground, and the hoard laid upon them, hehold the 
 supper tahle. 
 
 That done, there was Georgina, or, as she was more 
 commonly called, Geordy, with a fine white table- 
 cloth to spread upon it, while Aunt Judith was 
 progging in a basket for the necessary cups, saucers, 
 and plates. " La ! " exclaimed Aunt Judith, holding 
 up sundry fragments of crockery, " another smash 
 I declare. It is all through those dreadful gullies, 
 they are enough to break anything. I am sure I 
 think they have broken my back a dozen times to- 
 day. Why don't they make bridges, I wonder?" 
 
 " For the same reason, I suppose," said Mr. Fitz- 
 patrick, " that they do n't make earthenware here- 
 abouts, or we might buy some. That is, because 
 there is nobody to make them." 
 
 " They would not be a very good investment, I 
 expect," said Georgina, "just yet." 
 
 " They would be quite as profitable," said Aunt 
 Judith, pulling out a cream jug without a handle, 
 and with only half a spout, and saying parenthetically, 
 " Lord bless us ! another. They would be quite as 
 profitable as that investment of jolts in my backbone 
 that I've got. But goodness ! what's that ?" — Turning 
 suddenly at a great rushing and pother at the fire. 
 
 " Heavens ! " exclaimed Georgina, " it is the kettle
 
 16 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 boiling over. Peggy, Peggy, bring the tea." 
 Whereupon Peggy, looking very broiled, appeared 
 from the tent, and diving into a box of sundries by 
 the waggon, approached with a packet of tea. 
 
 " You look hot, Peggy," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick. 
 
 " Hot, my lady ! yes ma'am, I mean ; its these flies, 
 drat 'em. They're at me just as they've bin since I 
 set foot in this fly-blown country. It's no Christian 
 country, anybody may see by that. Why do n't they 
 christen it, my lady, ma'am ? well, its no manner of 
 use, my lady, it must out. But if they 'd only 
 christen the country and drive the flies into the Red 
 Sea, it would be a blessing. I hit here and there, 
 and it's of no use ; I only hit my own nose and mouth ; 
 and as for Abner, he has got all the skin burnt off his 
 nose with wearing that silly bit of a cap instead of a 
 good rational hat ; but he says he does not like to do 
 that, because it 's making himself even with Sir, that 
 is, Master and Mr. Charles." 
 
 " Oh, by all means let him wear a hat if he have 
 one," said all the ladies together. 
 
 " Thank you, my ladies," said Peggy, " it will be 
 a comfort. As for me, I have got one fly down my 
 throat, and two up my nose, and one acchully into 
 one of my ears, and its going boo-woo-woo, just like a 
 mill wheel, contindjally, the mischief on it ! "
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 17 
 
 ei 
 
 Poor Peggy!" said Aunt Judith, " if it 's not 
 out after tea we '11 try to drown it by pouring some 
 water into the ear. But see, tea is ready. Pray 
 call the gentlemen!" 
 
 The gentlemen meantime had been very busy carry- 
 ing beds and bedclothes into the tent, which was the 
 sleeping apartment of the ladies and Peggy; while 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick and Charles had mattresses laid in 
 the waggon, and Abner one spread under it, where 
 the dogs took up their quarters near him. 
 
 All now was arranged, and on the tea-table ap- 
 peared a substantial meal of a cold parrot pie and 
 various cakes ; the pie being a present at a station 
 where they dined that day, and Peggy was at the 
 same time busy over a panful of energetically 
 frizzing and crackling beef stakes ; and Abner 
 coming from the lake with some of the coolest water 
 he could procure, by dipping with a weighted dipper 
 into its deepest and shadiest part, to put the butter 
 in, which manifested a strong tendency to run into 
 oil. The tea-table was surrounded by a number of 
 folding chairs, which our party now took possession 
 of, and the table, with its snowy cloth and neat 
 apparatus and rich provision, surrounded by the 
 travellers, presented in that pleasant wilderness a 
 very unique and pleasant spectacle. 
 vol. i. c
 
 18 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 As they sate at their tea-supper, our travellers 
 looked about and expressed to each other their enjoy- 
 ment of the scene. Two laughing-jackasses came, 
 and settling on a tree near them, face to face, and 
 raising their heads as high as they could, laughed 
 into each other's faces, in the most obstreporous, 
 chuckling, rattling, hoo, hoo-ing laughter imagin- 
 able. You would have said they had just seen 
 something most prodigiously ludicrous, but it was 
 merely their way of saying good night to each other, 
 for they were about to go to roost, as they saw the sun 
 was setting. Then flew past a number of those beau- 
 tiful black-and-white dove-like birds, called magpie 
 larks, crying " chain, chain ;" and the next moment 
 Aunt Judith cried out, " Oh, look ! look, what a 
 beauty !" and all eyes following saw a little bird with 
 a most glowing scarlet breast and brilliant blue back, 
 sitting on the pole of the carriage. It was the 
 Australian robin, which, much more magnificent than 
 ours, yet has all the same quiet manner, and love of 
 haunting human neighbourhood. 
 
 A far more striking spectacle, however, drew the 
 eyes of the party another way. On their left hand a 
 grand-looking fellow of a wild bull advanced through 
 the forest at the head of a noble herd of cattle, and 
 arrested by the sight of the party and their fire, the
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 19 
 
 stupendous fellow stood and surveyed them for some 
 minutes with a solemn look, as questioning whether 
 they meant any mischief to himself or company, 
 and then stalked calmly on, followed by the whole 
 herd. 
 
 " How grand ! " exclaimed Aunt Judith. " Do n't 
 the proud creatures seem to enjoy themselves in these 
 wilds ? They clearly feel their natural rights and 
 independence here. They are the sovereigns of the 
 wilderness, and we are only intruders." 
 
 " And, by the bye," said Mr. Fitzpatrick, starting 
 up, " let us intrude, Charles, on the wild-fowl in the 
 water here, before it is dark." 
 
 They snatched up their guns, taking each a side of 
 the little lake. Bounce, the great Newfoundland, 
 and Club, the little tawny bull-terrier, were speedily 
 swimming eagerly in the water, and disappearing 
 amongst the flags and reeds. At once there were 
 sundry startled quackings of wild ducks, and up rose 
 a cloud of them with a stunning noise of their wings. 
 Charles and his father knocked down about half-a- 
 dozen of them with each a single shot, and waited for 
 fresh appearances. They did not wait long ; two or 
 three blue herons, and what was more attractive, a 
 flock of large wild geese, rose from the reeds, and 
 two of these last were brought down. While the 
 
 c 2
 
 20 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 gentlemen re-loaded, Abner Wilks encoui*aged the 
 dogs to bring out the fallen game, pointing them in 
 the risht directions, and ever and anon throwing 
 a stick to where there lay some one of the dead birds. 
 When these were secured, they set the dogs to explore 
 the reeds afresh, but no further fowl arose ; a wounded 
 duck, however, was driven out, and continued for 
 some time to dive and scuffle about, till a shot finished 
 it, and little Club brought it to land. 
 
 Here was rich provision for to-morrow's larder, 
 and the company now all betook themselves to their 
 several beds, for it was growing rapidly dark, and 
 they meant to be stirring with the earliest dawn. 
 
 With that dawn the travellers were all on foot. 
 Abner had hunted up the horses, and Peggy was busy 
 frying a couple of wild ducks, already cut to pieces, 
 for there was no time to cook them whole, and soon 
 the breakfast table was covered by the ladies with 
 ample provision of tea, coffee, and cakes and bread 
 from their stores. The horses came and looked on as 
 expectingly as the dogs, and Mr. Fitzpatrick carved 
 up a good large loaf, and gave them each repeated 
 slices, which they devoured with manifest satisfaction, 
 while Bounce and Club were as liberally supplied 
 with bones and other morsels from the table. Break- 
 fast over, amid abundance of pleasant chat, the tent
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 21 
 
 was struck, the table and beds packed in the waggon, 
 the horses put into harness and saddle, and the ground 
 being carefully hunted over to see that nothing; was 
 left, the party once more set forward. 
 
 The day soon grew very warm, but the journey 
 through the woods was delightful. Charles and 
 Georgina rode on in advance, still, however, keeping 
 generally within sight ; and the party in the waggon 
 came on as the ground permitted them. Sometimes 
 they rode for miles through the woods, the ground 
 being level, and a simple track of wheels being their 
 guide. All around them the earth was strewn with 
 huge fallen trees and dead branches, and masses of 
 the evergreen gum-tree leaves dried on their boughs 
 in their greenness, ready kindling matter for the 
 travellers' fire. Sometimes they passed over very 
 sterile ground, where yet grew huge trees, and under 
 their shade various acacias, some in bloom and some 
 gone out, and often the golden wattle, showing its 
 last yellow flowers, and lumps of transparent gum- 
 arabic sticking on its crimson branches. Sometimes 
 their way led them over dry stony hills, where the 
 whole ground seemed formerly to have been on fire, 
 and still retained a reddish hue, the stones grinding 
 up under the wheels into the appearance of brick-dust. 
 On these barren ranges the lofty iron-bark trees, 
 
 c 3
 
 22 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 with their great black boles deeply ploughed into 
 furrows, gave a peculiar character to the scene. 
 Then they travelled along green valleys with beautiful 
 slopes on each side, thinly sprinkled with trees, and 
 offering abundant grass to their horses. Up many a 
 hill, and through miles of forest, the travellers de- 
 scended and walked, ever and anon attracted by some 
 new and beautiful flower, by the singular grass-tree, 
 with its tall flowering rod, or by the volumes of golden 
 mistletoes which hung from the trees, resembling 
 lions' skins at a distance. The gay flocks of parrots 
 and paroquets, the snowy flocks of white cockatoos, 
 the rush and clatter of a vast crowd of black magpies, 
 or the quaint notes of lesser birds, conspicuous above 
 them all being the droll mimicries of the leatherhead, 
 kept them continually amused. 
 
 In the afternoon they came suddenly out upon a 
 great plain, and its appearance called forth instant 
 exclamations of delight and astonishment from the 
 ladies. The plain was many miles in length, and 
 three or four miles across ; but the whole surface of 
 it was one blaze of gold. It was like a billowy sea 
 of gold, as the breeze rolled over the splendid flowers 
 of which it was composed, and sent towards the 
 travellers a rich fragrance. All round the aureate 
 plain was hemmed in by the dark forests, and over
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 23 
 
 them, in various directions, showed airily the blue 
 summits of distant mountains. 
 
 " We thought you would be rather amazed here," 
 said Mr. Fitzpatrick and Charles, who had themselves 
 been up to the station ; and indeed their amazement 
 and delight were unbounded. They all descended, 
 both from carriage and horseback, and ran into the 
 prodigal flower ocean. The scene was in truth re- 
 markable ; the flowers consisting principally of two 
 kinds, — a fine large and fragrant hawkweed, and a 
 plant which sent up a dozen or more clean straw- 
 like stems of a yard high from each root, on the summit 
 of each of which was a solid globe of vegetable gold, 
 an inch or more in diameter. Interspersed amongst 
 these were large purple vetches, or Swainsonias, 
 of a most delicious vanilla scent, and various kinds 
 of white and yellow everlastings. The whole were 
 planted by nature on raised beds of a loamy mould, 
 kept as clear from other plants or grass by the same 
 wonderful power, as if it had been done by an army 
 of gardeners; and between these innumerable beds 
 were walks of solid turf, but half hidden bv the 
 luxuriant billows of the golden efflorescence. 
 
 " Wonderful ! wonderful!" exclaimed the ladies, 
 who walked enraptured about in this glorious garden 
 of nature np to their very waists in the fragrant sea, 
 
 C 4
 
 24 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 and gathering handfuls of the superb blossoms as if 
 they could never have enough. 
 
 " But you do not see the grandest thing of all," said 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick. " What is that ?" asked the ladies. 
 " What can be more enchanting than this scene ?" 
 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick pointed, with a face full of signi- 
 ficant pleasure, to a hill on the opposite side of the 
 plain, and said, " Tallangetta ! " 
 
 " Tallangetta!" exclaimed the ladies in one breath, 
 and in the liveliest tone; and they stood in silent 
 delight, as riveted to the spot. The scene, indeed, 
 was well calculated to call forth their admiration. 
 They beheld a range of bold hills, — bold in altitude, 
 but soft and delicate in their outlines. They were 
 covered with grass, and dotted over with trees of a 
 peculiar character — the Casuarinasor Shiacks — part 
 of which, with their more rigid and outstretched 
 branches, resemble pine trees, and others, with theirs 
 drooping gracefully, resembling large trees of broom. 
 None of the ordinary gum-trees grew on the slopes of 
 the hill, but their thick masses appeared here and 
 there peeping from their summits. By places stony 
 crags shot up on these summits, varying the softness 
 of the scene ; and to the right swelled up a more 
 lofty hill, the upper parts of which were already 
 scorched by the sun to the pale hue of sere grass.
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 25 
 
 Half way up this hill stood a white house, consisting 
 of two ranges of buildings, united by a colonnade, 
 and around it extended a considerable space of gardens 
 and vineyards, enclosed in a ring fence. 
 
 " That is Tallangetta ; that is the Squatter's home," 
 said Mr. Fitzpatrick, evidently delighted with it him- 
 self, and seeming at the moment to forget his once far 
 nobler house at the foot of the Cheviots, or the 
 pleasant old brick manor-house on the banks of the 
 Trent. 
 
 " Beautiful ! beautiful ! " again ejaculated the ladies, 
 but in a softer tone, and with tears in their eyes. 
 " Thank God ! " said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, " for such a 
 home in such a place." " Yes, thank God indeed," 
 said Aunt Judith ; " and you too, dear brother, and 
 my dear Charley, for having chosen such a one. 
 But where is the lake ?" 
 
 " There I" said Mr. Fitzpatrick, turning and point- 
 ing in a direction opposite to the house ; and there, 
 at some miles' distance, they saw the waters glittering 
 in the sun over the golden wilderness, and a row of 
 dark trees, seeming to grow in the water as man- 
 groves grow in the sea. 
 
 " Let us mount and get on," said Mr. Fitzpatrick, 
 " for you will see from the house not only the whole 
 of the lake, but all this wonderful panorama of golden
 
 26 TALLAXGETTA. 
 
 prairie, boundless breadth of surrounding forests, and 
 mountain summits in the far distance." The whole 
 party were in haste to proceed, their eyes still, how- 
 ever, on the opposite hills, which they perused feature 
 by feature, with all their hollows and projections, 
 their dark green trees, and sprinklings of cattle and 
 of flocks. Still more did their gaze rest on that 
 home which was to be the scene of their pains and 
 pleasures for years to come. But they had not pro- 
 ceeded far when they caught sight of a long train of 
 loaded drays, drawn by teams of many bullocks. 
 
 " Upon my word," exclaimed Mr. Fitzpatrick, with 
 an air of indignant vexation, " those lazy bullock- 
 drivers have not yet reached the station. A whole 
 fortnight have thev been in making a hundred miles, 
 at this time of the year, and the roads so good." 
 
 All heads were stretched from the waggon, and 
 eyes directed from horseback, and there indeed they 
 saw six great drays loaded with their furniture, effects, 
 and stores. These they confidently expected had 
 arrived some days ago, and been unpacked; but 
 as they approached the train they began to see cause 
 for the slow progress. Here were these heavily- 
 laden waggons moving, or attempting to move, over 
 the deep, soft, volcanic ground. The wheels sunk 
 almost to the axles, and ploughed up the ground as
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 27 
 
 the j went in wondrous furrows. Most of the drays 
 appeared stuck fast, defying all the efforts of the cattle 
 to move them, though there were from eight to twelve 
 huge strong beasts to every dray, defying them, 
 and all the swearing, and bawling, and hallooaing 
 of the drivers, and that amounted to a most Pande- 
 monean din. The only way of making any progress 
 w r as by uniting two or three teams, and tearing along 
 by main force for a short distance ; then another 
 waggon was brought forward in like manner, and so 
 on in succession. Thus were the men progressing at 
 a tortoise pace, and with a most astonishing labour. 
 As the party drew near, Mr. Fitzpatrick, who was 
 prepared to be very angry, became cooler and cooler 
 the more he saw. He merely remarked, stopping a 
 moment, " that he hoped to have seen them on their 
 return." 
 
 " Return!" said the fellow whom he addressed, 
 with true Australian bluntness, " return ! but it is n't 
 hopes as draws over ground like this. It is next to 
 more than bullocks can do, let alone hopes. D'ye 
 hear that, mates? The gentleman talks of hopes 
 dragging these tarnation loads of goods through 
 these bloody bogs. Why, if we had much more of 
 this, we should never be there these next hundred 
 years. But, thank Goodness, there is but a little
 
 28 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 more ; but then there's the hill, and so we must 
 camp at the foot to-night." 
 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick drove on, and soon they wound 
 up the hill. " Not a soul is to look round/' he said, 
 " till we are at the house, and you will see the whole 
 at once." Charles and Georgina hastened on, and 
 when they arrived they were on the terrace in front 
 of the house to receive them, accompanied by two or 
 three men and a maid-servant. One of the men 
 was the overseer, and another the cook. When the 
 ladies got out of the carriage, they were more than 
 ever enraptured with the view. Below at some distance 
 in front lay the lake, several miles in extent, every- 
 where surrounded by green, mound-like swells, and 
 then by the wide golden-flowered plains. Few trees 
 grew about the lake, except a row on this side, 
 growing, as they had appeared to do at a distance, in 
 the water, showing that they had sprung there when 
 the lake was less full than at present, and probably 
 marking the course of a stream which issued at the 
 near right-hand corner of the lake, and ran down 
 the valley in a broad shallow expanse amongst trees 
 and bushes. All round showed the vast forests and 
 the distant mountain ranges. 
 
 The house itself looked more akin to the bush 
 than it did at a distance. There it had a com-
 
 GOING UP TO THE STATION. 29 
 
 manding aspect. Here it showed rather homelike 
 than grand. It was white, with stuccoed walls and 
 shingled roofs. The two oblong, square blocks of 
 which it consisted were connected in front, as we 
 have said, by a colonnade, but the pillars on which 
 this rested were merely of white gum-trees, cut just 
 when they had shed their outward bark, and there- 
 fore were as round, clean, and white as marble. 
 The roof of the colonnade was also of shingles, and 
 the whole pile was rustic, though ample and com- 
 fortable. The buildings with their colonnade en- 
 closed a court which, at the back, was terminated 
 by a lower range of building, forming the kitchen 
 and servants' apartments. There was a small quantity 
 of furniture still in the house, which was intended to 
 supply the overseer's hut, which stood with other 
 huts of stockmen, &c. below, near the lake ; and it 
 was only by contrivance that the family could manage 
 to get tea and pass the night. But their goods were 
 at hand, and, with the chairs and mattresses which 
 they had brought with them, they might have been 
 far worse off for the first night in the bush. 
 
 The house faced the south-west, and as they sate 
 in a large room at their evening meal they saw the 
 lake, lying with its unruffled but now sombre surface, 
 beneath them, and the sun, huge and red, descend
 
 30 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 upon the misty ridge of distant mountains, giving a 
 feeling of wonderful solitude to the whole scene. A 
 deep silence fell over the party. It seemed as if 
 that spectacle, sublime as it was, of the ensanguined 
 luminary disappearing over all that world of lonely 
 woods, had brought with it a sense of their real dis- 
 tance from their past life and haunts ; as if it called 
 up the memories of those things, brilliant and dear, 
 and sorrowful, between which and themselves a world 
 had interposed itself, and made them feel, as it were, 
 for the first time in its full extent, their vast sacrifices 
 and their utter isolation. With a deep sigh each 
 arose and withdrew, fearing to tell his fellow the 
 sadness which oppressed him, yet summoning as 
 much of cheerfulness as they could command into 
 the wished good-night.
 
 31 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 SETTLING DOWN. 
 
 Our friends at Tallangetta rose early in the morning, 
 refreshed and full of new spirits. The sadness of the 
 previous evening was gone with it, and the beauty of 
 the place in which they found themselves inspired 
 them with lively thankfulness for so sweet a home in 
 so superb a scene. The sun, as they almost simul- 
 taneously issued from their rooms, had not yet risen 
 over the eastern shoulder of the hill on whose slope 
 their house stood. The braes around, as the Scotch 
 would call them, lay in shadow, and sprinkled with 
 cool dews. But far away they could see the tops of 
 the mountains bright with the sunshine, and the wide 
 woodlands illumined like a sea by it. The lake below 
 lay partly in shadow, and partly dazzling in radiance, 
 and the smoke was curling up greyly from the huts 
 at the stockyard or village, as it might be termed, at 
 the right-hand corner of the lake. They could see 
 two or three large flocks proceeding in different
 
 32 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 directions from it, appearing to roll over the plain 
 like a white mist, followed by the shepherds, and 
 accompanied by their dogs, whose gladsome barking 
 reached them clearly. Large flocks of wild-fowl 
 were travelling towards the lake from their different 
 nocturnal feeding-places, and ever and anon they 
 could see the flash of the water as they dashed down 
 into it. Below to the right extended that magnificent 
 prairie whose golden-hued surface was now sobered 
 down by the absence of the sun, and around stood 
 the primeval forest, dark and solemn. 
 
 From this splendid prospect the delighted group 
 turned to take a more near survey of their dwelling. 
 A sort of natural terrace had been seized upon for the 
 standing of the house. In front this level left ample 
 space for walking, and this was occupied by grass, 
 and the outskirts of it with beds of mingled shrubs 
 and flowers. The hill then descended at its regular 
 declination, and a considerable piece of ground was 
 enclosed as a vineyard by a hedge of cytissus, looking 
 most agreeable to the eye, with its light green foliage 
 and yellow racimes of flowers. The vineyard was 
 descended by a sort of broad steps, three or four 
 feet wide each ; and the vines occupied terraces, 
 all neatly stocked and trimmed as by a French or 
 German vinedresser. At the bottom was a broad
 
 SETTLING DOWN. 33 
 
 grass walk, at each end of which was placed a bench, 
 overshadowed by the silvery grey foliage of quince 
 trees richly hung with young fruit. 
 
 As the party returned towards the house they 
 were again struck by the fitness of the building, 
 which, while it was capacious and handsome, cer- 
 tainly was Australian, and not English. It was but 
 of one storey, yet tolerably high, and the end rooms 
 had broad bay windows, as if to catch every possible 
 portion of the noble view they commanded. That 
 open colonnade, with its shingled roof and deep 
 eaves, and its clear, straight, and beautifully cylin- 
 dric stems, white and smooth as marble, stood out 
 well against the court, lying deep in shadow. An 
 archway at the back of the court led them into a sort 
 of back court or yard, having on each side sheds 
 under which horses and carriages could stand occa- 
 sionally, though the true place for such things was 
 down at the huts. Separated by a light pallisade 
 from this yard appeared a young orchard, extending 
 some distance up the hill, in which not only many 
 kinds of European apples, pears, and plums were 
 flourishing, but peaches, nectarines, and apricots, 
 as standard trees, showed the most vigorous growth, 
 and were amazingly hung with green fruit. " Here," 
 said Aunt Judith, " is promise indeed for autumn, 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 Why, what preserving there will be ! I hope the 
 sugar wo n't fail." 
 
 " Well, I hope not," said Mr. Fitzpatrick. " I 
 think there is a ton coming just now, and perhaps 
 that may serve your conservatory passion, Judy." 
 
 " Well, perhaps it may," said Aunt Judith ; " but 
 really, if we eat, and preserve, and bake, and do all 
 sorts of things with these peaches and apricots, I 
 do n't see the end of them, except we do as the 
 Americans, feed the pigs on them. But Demby 
 and Gremby, you'll help us all you can, won't 
 you?" 
 
 Demby and Gremby promised most merrily ; and 
 it may be as well to let the reader know that the 
 personages thus addressed were no other than Charles 
 and Georgina. Our friends were a family who, 
 in their familiar intercourse amongst themselves, 
 were greatly given to dubbing each other with nick- 
 names, and not an individual amongst them but had 
 one. Aunt Judith was very naturally called Judy, 
 and as Mrs. Fitzpatrick and she were almost in- 
 separable, they were soon named Punch and Judy ; 
 and Aunt Judith, being once pestered by the two 
 children for some of her preserves and marmalades, 
 told them they were as bad as Demby and Gremby, 
 two very troublesome people of their acquaintance ;
 
 SETTLING DOWN. 35 
 
 and Demby and Gremby were voted by acclamation 
 as their pet titles. There wanted but a by-name foi 
 the paterfamilias, and that soon was Nimrod, from 
 his hunting habits, and cut down by degrees to 
 Nim. 
 
 " Oh, mercy on us ! what have we here?" shrieked 
 Aunt Judith ; and at the same moment, half gal- 
 lopping, half flying, two stupendous birds, whose 
 heads, set on long necks, seemed quite as high as 
 Aunt Judith's, and, opening enormously long beaks, 
 and making the most uncouth cries, came rushino- 
 upon them, spreading and flapping their wings with 
 an expansion enough to enclose the whole party. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! my old fellows ! ha ! ha ! Gog and 
 Magog!" said Charles, catching the gigantic birds 
 each by the neck, and rubbing their long beaks 
 together. " Ha ! ha ! old fellows ! Why, Judy, these 
 are the native companions I told you of. They wo n't 
 hurt you. They are as gentle and as good as Des- 
 demona herself. They only want to make your ac- 
 quaintance." 
 
 The ladies had shrunk together in alarm at this 
 sudden onset, but they now recovered their composure, 
 and admired the noble birds. They were of the crane 
 species, with bodies in which black, azure, and grey 
 prevailed, and on the back part of their heads they 
 
 D 2
 
 36 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 had a bright crimson patch like a cap. They followed 
 the party with their long, active legs, and every now 
 and then made a leap and a flap of their large wings, 
 as in delight. You might see that they would soon 
 be great favourites, especially with Aunt Judith. 
 
 There was now a call to breakfast, and the birds 
 followed them, and took their stations under the 
 breakfast-room window, where, evidently, they had 
 been fed. " Oh ! let me have some bread ; I must 
 feed the brave Gog and Magog," said Aunt Judith ; 
 but, on opening the window, she started back in 
 amazement. " La ! what is that? Those are not the 
 birds ! " Instead of the long-beaked companions, there 
 stood two still larger creatures, with small heads, 
 short beaks, but very large dark, intelligent eyes, 
 and broad backs clothed with dark, lustrous feathers. 
 Charles burst into hearty laughter at Aunt Judith's 
 wonder ; for, as Aunt Judith entered the house, he 
 had enticed Gog and Magog into the hall, and shut 
 them in, while he ran and lured these superb crea- 
 tures with a piece of bread from the other side of the 
 house. 
 
 "Oh! beautiful, beautiful things!" exclaimed 
 Georgina. " Why, they are ostriches ! " 
 
 " Emus, Geordy, emus, Australian cassuaries ! " 
 said Charles. " Are they not glorious fellows ? "
 
 SETTLING DOWN. 37 
 
 The whole party were in raptures with the posses- 
 sion of these grand fowls of the Australian wilderness, 
 and showered out a plentiful supply of bread for 
 them. 
 
 " If the companions are Gog and Magog," said 
 Mrs. Fitzpatrick, " pray what are these?" 
 
 " Oh ! these are Brob and Naga ; that is, Brob- 
 dignag and Brobignaga," said Charles ; " but you 
 will find them always about ; so now let us have 
 some breakfast." 
 
 At breakfast Charles told the ladies that they 
 must make a visit with him down to the huts; there 
 they would see a plentiful family of fowls, ducks, 
 geese, turkeys, and pea-fowls. He wanted to show 
 them the huts and their inhabitants, Purely the hut- 
 keeper, and Barks the drayman, and their wives, 
 and the great wool-shed, and the great kitchen 
 garden down by the creek, and a near view of the 
 lake with all its wild ducks, geese, teal, widgeon, 
 ibises, shags, and black swans. 
 
 "Black swans!" 
 
 " Yes, black swans, plenty of them ; and in the 
 plains wild turkeys, and in abundance." Charles 
 was running on in delight about all the game, kan- 
 garoos in the hills, and wombats, and a w T orld of 
 birds, when a thundering succession of cracking 
 
 D 3
 
 38 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 whips and shouting men announced that the drays 
 had mounted the hill, and the goods were arrived. 
 Out rushed the whole party, and breakfast was left 
 unfinished. 
 
 We may imagine the bustle and the pleasure of 
 many days to come — the unloading and unpacking 
 of furniture. There was soon a perfect confusion on 
 the terrace of men and pieces of furniture, and mats, 
 and cords, and straw which had enveloped them ; of 
 great chests of linen, and books, and china, and all 
 sorts of things. Then there was a great unrolling 
 and laying down and fitting of carpets, and carrying 
 of furniture, and admiring it, piece after piece, as 
 each took its place. The room in which they had 
 breakfasted was fitted up half as library, half as 
 drawing-room, and the corresponding room in the 
 other wing as the principal drawing-room ; so that 
 they could use each as it was coolest from the 
 absence of the morning or evening sun upon it. 
 Behind the library lay the dining-room, with a cross 
 passage between them opening out into a broad 
 verandah on the east side of the house, affording a 
 pleasant shade from many hours of forenoon sun. 
 Under the shingle roof of this verandah were clus- 
 tered scores of nests of swallows, stuck compactly 
 side by side, and each having a projecting circular
 
 SETTLING DOWN. 39 
 
 entrance like the neck of a bottle. Aunt Judith 
 contemplated this populous swallow city with vast 
 delight, especially as she could watch their proceed- 
 ings from the library window, though they soon 
 found out that she was no enemy to them, and came 
 flying in and out just as freely when she sat in the 
 verandah. 
 
 But we must not stay talking about swallows 
 while all the furniture has to be got in. In the w r est 
 wing, but backward in the court, was a large store- 
 room, into which the numerous packages, and bags, 
 and tubs of stores were carried, to be arranged at 
 leisure. All the best rooms were on the ground 
 floor, as there was no other floor; and therefore, 
 after all, there was not too much room in the house 
 for the family and occasional visitors. But there 
 was a large room adjoining the store-room which 
 after-experience occasioned them to call the barracks. 
 This was fitted up as a smoking-room ; and there were 
 arranged all the guns and apparatus of the chase, 
 including pistols, revolvers, rifles, bullet-moulds, 
 wad-cutters, and all sorts of implements for cleaning 
 and rectifying these arms, as well as a good supply of 
 ammunition under lock and key. This room, how- 
 ever, no long time demonstrated, was required as a 
 general sleeping-room for gentlemen visitors, who 
 
 D 4
 
 40 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 could not be accommodated with separate apart- 
 ments ; and here at any time a whole array of folding 
 iron bedsteads, with mattresses and requisite bed- 
 clothes, could be carried in at shortest notice. 
 
 In a few days the house at Tallangetta displayed 
 an internal beauty and richness, if not splendour, 
 which certainly no squatting station in the colony 
 could at all approach. Handsome cabinets and 
 wardrobes, tasteful chairs, tables, cheval and pier- 
 glasses, a superb collection of books, no inconsiderable 
 number of fine engravings, and several excellent 
 though small pictures on the walls, with all sorts of 
 drawing-room and other room embellishments, cur- 
 tains and sofas, presented a scene which would have 
 been termed elegant in a country residence in Eng- 
 land, and certainly stood quite sui generis in the 
 Australian bush. 
 
 Any one seeing the completeness of this house 
 internally, and the grandeur of the scene without, 
 the resources for sport through wood and plain, 
 river and lake, and the almost boundless nature of 
 the estate, stocked with sheep, cattle, and horses, 
 would have found it difficult to conceive that any 
 man of healthy tastes could desire anything more or 
 regret anything different. But the Fitzpatricks had 
 in their own bosoms cruel remembrances and the
 
 SETTLING DOWN. 41 
 
 consciousness of rude and wrenching privations of 
 property, and environments become to them as part 
 and parcel of their existence. Yet even they, when 
 they looked round them, could not but feel a sensible 
 pleasure and pride in their present abode and estate, 
 and a new spirit of enjoyment evidently took posses- 
 sion of them. 
 
 Abner and Peggy Wilks were located down at the 
 huts. Abner was to resume his old employment as gar- 
 dener, and Peggy as laundry woman. They had a com- 
 fortable slab hut in the garden, which was ample, and 
 abounding with growing crops of all kinds of vegetables, 
 pumpkins in numerous variety, melons and water- 
 melons, with abundance of fig, and medlar and quince 
 trees, cherries, loquots, quondongs, gooseberry, straw- 
 berry, and raspberry trees, as fine as any garden could 
 show, including sundry productions which Abner sur- 
 veyed with wondering queries in his own mind what 
 they could be intended for. Purdy the hut-keeper, 
 and Barks the drayman, — especially the latter, whose 
 bullock-driving services were only now and then 
 required, — were to help Abner in digging and hoe- 
 ing when necessary ; and their wives were to equally 
 assist Peggy in the laundry labours. There was an 
 excellent and spacious wooden laundry just outside 
 the garden, and capital drying-ground. The water
 
 S / A^\ 
 
 
 42 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 of the lake was of that soft, detergent quality, that the 
 washing was done with singular ease, and the sun 
 there made still more expeditious work of the 
 drying. 
 
 A grand discovery that the Wilkses, the Purdys,and 
 the Barkses were all from the neighbouring counties 
 of Derby and Nottingham, in which latter shire the 
 Fitzpatricks had had an estate, created a great league 
 amongst these worthies, and a common zeal in serv- 
 ing their employers, then a too rare circumstance. 
 
 The settling down in the house being complete, 
 one morning after breakfast the whole family set out 
 down to the huts, for a regular survey of this wooden 
 hamlet. It was a curious-looking place to eyes new 
 to the colony. A good half dozen of wooden huts, 
 roofed in with huge sheets of stringy bark, and some 
 of these roofs secured by stout poles lashed down 
 upon them, stood here and there in most independent 
 defiance of plan. Each of these had a broad, low 
 chimney, tapering considerably upwards, and from 
 several of which rose actively-aspiring smoke. Small 
 windows peeped out of them, generally two, like two 
 little eyes out of a heavy head. Besides these huts 
 there were wooden erections of greater extent, which 
 turned out to be stables and cowsheds, and one very 
 large building, evidently erected with more care, and
 
 SETTLING DOWN. 43 
 
 ■with much greater symmetry, though only consisting 
 of one immense quadrangle. Its walls, however, 
 were of clapboard, so as to prevent the entrance of 
 driving rain, and its roof of compact shingles. This 
 was the wool-shed, a most important item in the 
 buildings of a station. Here there was a pallisadoed 
 enclosure, into which the sheep were brought at 
 shearing time, or at any other time, to examine and 
 dress them for foot-rot or scab. There was a capa- 
 cious apartment at the end opening into this en- 
 closure, where the shearers clipped the sheep, and 
 then the larn;e wool-shed or warehouse itself, in which 
 the wool was pressed into huge canvass bags by a 
 hydraulic press, and piled up till conveyed away 
 down to Melbourne for shipment. 
 
 The whole of this building was floored with stout 
 planks raised on sleepers, and with sufficient inter- 
 stices to admit plenty of air, and the space under 
 this floor was a grand retreat of wild cats, as Club 
 very speedily discovered, and grew outrageous to be 
 at them. Whenever Charles was desirous of a good 
 wild cat hunt, he had only to bring hither Club, and 
 Purdy, and Barks, and taking up a plank here and 
 there, all of which were loose, there was instantly 
 a grand rush of those spotted and bushy-tailed crea- 
 tures from the building on all sides. But that in
 
 44 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 after clays ; at present the party were too much 
 interested in their visits to the huts. They found 
 them very simple affairs, with mud floors and huge 
 wide fire-places, the most rudimental chairs and 
 tables, and just an extra room for sleeping in. 
 There was Jack Barks, a tall, powerful fellow, in a 
 pair of linen trowsers of a stupendously large check 
 pattern, and long hair hanging from beneath his 
 cabbage-tree hat; and Sam Purdy the hutkeeper, 
 who prepared the meals and kept in order the huts 
 of two shepherds who brought their flocks nightly 
 to the head station, a lean, brown-complexioned 
 fellow, with a treble voice, and closely-cropped dark 
 brown hair. Barks seemed a bold, jovial, off-hand 
 sort of fellow, with considerable of the dare-devil 
 and rhodomontade in him; and Purdy had a twinkle 
 in his eye which bespoke no little sly humour and 
 love of fun. Their wives and children we may speak 
 of more hereafter. The exploring party went on to 
 the overseer's hut, which was much larger, and con- 
 tained no less than four rooms ; for there came 
 numbers of people travelling to and fro, and freely 
 took up their cmarters for the night, or longer if it 
 pleased them, for there were no inns, and everybody 
 gave and took in this way on their journeys through 
 the bush. Mr. David Rannock the overseer, a grave,
 
 SETTLING DOWN. 45 
 
 middle-aged Scotchman, unmarried, and devoted to 
 business, was not there, for he was constantly riding to 
 the different outlying huts of the shepherds and stock- 
 men ; but there was the cook, a queer sort of Irishman, 
 Dennis O'Foggaty, and a great number of dogs, chiefly 
 of the colly species, lying about. There were tribes 
 of fowls of all kinds, and clouds of pigeons, all 
 objects of plenty and agreeable cares that delighted 
 Aunt Judith. 
 
 But what called forth more admiration almost than 
 anything else was a pair of magnificent kangaroo 
 dogs ; that is, Highland staghounds naturalised in 
 this country, and invaluable in the chase after the 
 kangaroo. Mr. Fitzpatrick and Charles promised 
 themselves many a gallop after these superb creatures, 
 these gigantic greyhounds, through the woods ; and 
 horses, too, there were in the paddocks at hand to 
 supply any number of equestrians. There were, 
 indeed, hundreds running wild on the estate, as fine 
 creatures as ever carried tails. 
 
 From the huts they took their way to the oat and 
 barley paddocks, where fine green crops were grow- 
 ing, strolled under the trees of the immense grass 
 paddock, where fed the milch cows and horses, and 
 then directed their course to the margin of the lake. 
 From the smooth, down-like swells on the banks of
 
 46 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 this fine sheet of water they could clearly see on the 
 short turf of the plains at a considerable distance 
 numbers of the wild turkeys or rather bustards of the 
 country, which, however, are difficult to approach. 
 Large flocks of wild ducks of different kinds rose up 
 and removed far away on the waters ; and here and 
 there, but at a safe distance, the native black swans 
 seemed to drift carelessly before the breeze, while 
 the large snowy pelican flew along the reedy shores 
 with strange clanging sounds, with a lustrous white- 
 ness in the bright sunshine. 
 
 A boat lay moored to a post ; Barks said there 
 were three on the lake, and he asked whether he 
 should give them a pull out, but they deferred that 
 pleasure to another day, and they now took their 
 way homewards, highly satisfied with what they had 
 seen ; the kangaroo hounds showing a desire to 
 follow them, but Barks called them back, saying they 
 were yet new to the place, and therefore not safe 
 company for the emus. A light wooden foot-bridge 
 led them across the creek where it issued from the 
 lake; all carriages and cattle passing through the 
 creek itself by a shallow ford. 
 
 Such was the first survey of our settlers of the 
 portion of their new domain immediately under their 
 eye, and from day to day they extended their re-
 
 SETTLING DOWN. 47 
 
 searches with augmenting avidity. At one time they 
 took a leisurely stroll up the hill ; saw with increased 
 amazement the still vaster views thence of woods and 
 distant mountains. On the open slopes they lingered 
 with pleasure, examining the various flowers, or 
 listening to the wind singing wildly in the long, wiry 
 tresses of the shiacks. On the hills themselves they 
 found one unbroken forest runnino; in varied swells 
 and valleys, but all solitary and woodland, where 
 prostrate trees lay in various stages of decay, where 
 the kangaroo rat and the bandicoot rushed away from 
 beneath some fallen log or protecting thicket, and 
 parrots and paroquets glanced and twittered on the 
 tree-tops, or the noisy wattle-bird cried, " Karaka- 
 rock!" 
 
 At other times Charles and Georgina, often accom- 
 panied by their father and the kangaroo hounds, and 
 the indefatigable Club, who would not be left behind, 
 finding continual objects of chase in the woods, made 
 long rides, exploring the bearings of the neighbour- 
 hood, sometimes starting a grand boomah, or great 
 red kangaroo, and dashing after the dogs till they 
 would have been inevitably lost in the trackless 
 waste but for the sure instinct of their horses and 
 hounds. 
 
 The whole family soon found that there was no lack
 
 48 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 of pleasant employment in this, as they had feared, 
 solitary place. They were yet utter strangers ; they 
 knew not a soul of their neighbours ; there was no 
 daily paper arriving by railroad mail, bringing every 
 morning from London all the doings of the world. 
 There were no neighbouring towns or villages ; the 
 very hills and valleys, for the most part, had no 
 names yet ; but the ladies had their books, their music, 
 their needlework, and their garden. There was 
 always something for them to attend to within or 
 without. Barks and Purdy brought in two broods 
 of young paroquets, the green leeks, and the lovely 
 speckled budgregores, which afforded Aunt Judith and 
 Georgina especial pleasure to feed and watch in their 
 large cages under the verandah. Seeing that this 
 gave great pleasure, they soon also brought in two or 
 three of the strange animals, half pig, half bear in 
 appearance, which live in huge burrows in the woods, 
 the wombats. These they placed within an enclosure 
 in the orchard, where they soon made burrows 
 to their hearts' content, and grew very tame; and 
 not long after they added to this native menagerie a 
 couple of uncouth animals called sun-bears, which 
 they placed in wooden cages or kennels on the branch 
 of a great tree, and fed upon the leaves of the pepper- 
 mint gum. All these things, with visits down to
 
 SETTLING DOWN. 49 
 
 the huts, the women and children there, and the 
 fowls and garden, filled up wonderfully their time, 
 and which, indeed, was not long left so free from 
 human visits as they expected. 
 
 As for Charles and his father, they were enthusi- 
 astic sportsmen, and they found Barks and Purdy as 
 eager as themselves in this chase whenever they were 
 at liberty to accompany them. The lake and creek 
 gave them the most exciting exercise in pursuit of the 
 wild-fowl, for, from the scarcity of cover, they were 
 not approachable except by the nicest stratagem and 
 caution. Sometimes they might be seen creeping on 
 all fours, or progressing like serpents at their full 
 length on the ground, by means of their hands, 
 behind some swell or bank, so as to get a fair shot at 
 their game, or they were cautiously drifting with the 
 wind over Purrumbang, the lake, with a thicket of 
 boughs concealing them in the boat till thev were 
 fairly in the midst of the flocks of geese, ducks, or 
 black swans ; at others they were stalking, under 
 cover of their horses' shoulders, across the deep, 
 grassy prairies, in order to come near the wild turkeys, 
 which were often wild indeed, and wonderfully 
 cautious of the approach of man. Charles delighted, 
 too, in nothing more than in driving occasionally with 
 the buoyant-hearted and talkative Barks, on his 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 weekly rounds to carry the rations to the different 
 shepherds' huts. These lay some of them many 
 miles distant in the unpeopled woods ; and Barks had 
 endless stories of bushrangers and blacks in past days, 
 when they were hostile and made fierce attacks on 
 the squatters and travellers. There were lovely 
 creeks, and pools, and forest solitudes, where there 
 were extraordinary game, or extraordinary fish, or 
 stupendous trees, and other wonders which he had to 
 show, — the fern-tree, the grass-tree, the fragrant 
 myal wood, or the wild quondong fruit. Their guns 
 were constantly in requisition to fetch down a bronze- 
 wing, or secure a platypus ; and as they lit their 
 fire on some pleasant stream-bank and eat their dinner, 
 or as they sate and chatted with the solitary shepherd 
 in his hut, Charles felt a fast growing attachment to 
 this species of free, fresh, and primitive existence. 
 It is one which seizes forcibly on the imagination of 
 youth, so forcibly that at no period and in no country 
 have the hunting races been ever induced to abandon 
 their limitless haunts for the more brilliant or more 
 boasted attractions of towns. How much more fasci- 
 nating must the free range of untrodden nature, the 
 solemn wood, the airy mountain, the widely rolling 
 lake, and the sounding shore, with all their living 
 things, become to those who carry with them all the 
 domestic and intellectual resources of civilised life !
 
 51 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 
 
 Notwithstanding the generally auspicious appear- 
 ance of affairs on the station at Tallangetta, yet, as 
 things are never wholly right anywhere in this world, 
 so neither were they there. You cannot transplant 
 full-grown people any more than full-grown trees, 
 and make them take to the new ground at once. 
 It happened, therefore, that both at the house and at 
 the huts on the same evening conversations were 
 going on that betrayed the fact that certain persons 
 had not yet reached that terra incognita, — heaven 
 upon earth. 
 
 Peggy Wilks and her husband had, indeed, dis- 
 covered a great deal more than they had rational 
 reason to expect in their new world ; they had not 
 only a comfortable hut, and plenty to do, and good 
 pay, but they had immediate neighbours out of their 
 own old neighbourhood in England. The Barkses 
 and the Purdys knew all and every thing and person 
 that they knew at home, and often they spent very 
 
 E 2
 
 52 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 delightful hours in talking all those old familiar 
 matters over. In an evening, when all work was 
 done, and the cool night air made a little fire pleasant, 
 they would assemble in each other's huts, and have a 
 most refreshing gossip. Any one who has ever 
 entered a country inn in England, when the villagers 
 are congregated there at the regular levee of the host 
 within the large settee before the winter fire, will 
 have long ago discovered how all the affairs of the 
 gentry in the neighbourhood are there canvassed and 
 discussed most minutely. There is not a family, 
 however high or great, whose most intimate concerns 
 are not as thoroughly known to the smith, and wheel- 
 wright, and gamekeeper, and mine host himself, as 
 they are to the families and persons treated of. 
 There you hear who and what they are in all their 
 family branches and ancestry ; how this great man 
 made his fortune, and how that great man lost it; 
 how this estate came to be bought and sold ; what it 
 is worth to a farthing ; what mortgages are upon it ; 
 what flaws there are in the title ; and what flaws in 
 the pedigree and parentage of the possessors. Many 
 a nod and wink, and most grave and knowing look, 
 reveal mysteries of mishaps in people who lift their 
 heads very high, and ill-founded claims to legitimacy 
 if the truth was known to the world as it is to these
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 53 
 
 village magi. Every run to Gretna Green is again 
 galloped over, with all its particulars; — how Sir 
 Thomas overtook his daughter, and she was smuggled 
 again out of a chamber window while the old gentle- 
 man was overtaken himself by his after dinner nap, 
 as he sat with the key of her chamber door in his 
 pocket. How Squire Grub had grown out of a dis- 
 honest steward into a right honourable gentleman ; 
 how Squire Canter had turned himself out of a land 
 surveyor into a land proprietor, by running off with 
 old Slowman's only daughter ; how this lord's grand- 
 father was a grocer, and that lord's father was a 
 clever mixer of physic, if the " parson as is gone " 
 was to be believed about a certain death-bed. There 
 you could learn why such a fair estate was forsaken ; 
 why that fine old hall was falling to ruin ; who it 
 was that walked in the great picture-gallery at 
 Lonesome Lodge, and that rung the only bell at 
 midnight in Drearywood Chapel. All this you could 
 learn, with the exact dates, names, places, and causes, 
 and receive totally new ideas on such fractions of 
 aristocratic society as you happened to know. Little 
 do the great families in the country think how they 
 and their totality are dissected, seen through, and 
 weighed out in parcels, and labelled with very 
 different names and characters to those which they 
 
 E 3
 
 54 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 felicitate themselves on possessing ; and little are the 
 reverential bows and touching of hats as they pass 
 likely to let them know anything of this ; or how 
 John the groom, or Prim the valet, or Bombazina the 
 lady's maid, carry out and carefully sow in the very 
 thirsty and absorbent minds of the villagers all the 
 mixed seed of this knowledge, this grotesque medley 
 of truth and romance. 
 
 Well, a world of such talk enlivened the evenings 
 of the huts at Tallangetta, where it could do little 
 harm to the unconscious subjects of it at the other 
 end of this or other worlds. There was nothing 
 that could be started that Purdy, in particular, did 
 not know everything and more than that about it. 
 Mention a man, no matter who, — " Oh, yes ! he 
 knew him, — who his father was, his mother, his 
 grandmother ; how he came to be lame, how he 
 jumped into his present birth." Name a place, at 
 once he knew all about the squire and the rector, and 
 how he came to get the living by taking the fancy of 
 a certain lady at Bath, and all about the duel in 
 which there was trickery in the weapons, and of 
 course murder, nothing else. He knew where that 
 child was born that certain people declared never was 
 born ; where it was carried to in a butter maund, 
 and who it was now, though that child that ought to
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 55 
 
 have been a duke knew nothing of this, and was 
 only a coal merchant. Peggy Wilks and Hannah 
 Barks had no lack of such histories by the end, and 
 no sooner was this end out than Purdy would seize 
 it, and pull it out like a man at a fair pulling out 
 whole yards of ribbons from his throat, and illustrate 
 and verify every point of it. 
 
 Could there be any more charming luck than to 
 have dropped into such a congenial society, and to 
 enjoy such precious evenings at home ? Yet Peggy 
 Wilks was not contented. She was an odd woman 
 was Peggy. She liked to grumble ; she could not 
 live without it, and yet she hated to hear anybody 
 else grumble. " What are the thankless folks wer- 
 ritting about?" she was sure to say, if they were re- 
 pining at anything. " Have n't they enough to be 
 thankful for ? Is n't it shameful, now, to hear them 
 going on so, and so much as they 've had done for 
 them ? But there 's no thanks nor gratitude in this 
 world : the more a body does, the more they 're pecked 
 at. I hate your black-hearted, double-faced, un- 
 contented gentrv, I do ! " 
 
 Yet Peggy was not altogether contented herself. 
 She had plenty, " thank the Lord for it." She had 
 health, " thank Goodness for that too." Abner had 
 lost his rheumatiz, " saints be praised ! " — and had 
 
 E 4
 
 56 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 an uncommon fine garden to rule in. And as for the 
 family, Peggy would really have gone through fire 
 and water for them all and sundry ; but yet she liked 
 to grumble now and then at them herself, mind; 
 nobody else was to do it, at the peril of her fiercest 
 anger. But the things which chafed Peggy here 
 were the heat and the " varmint." 
 
 " Drat these flies !" she would sav, as Abner came 
 in at noon to his dinner. "I think I'll e'en gie up 
 cooking, and you may bring us raw lettices and 
 ingins to our bread. What with the heat, — we 
 might just as well live in an oven, — and what with 
 these lingons of outrageousest flies, I tell thee what, 
 Abner, my life's a plague to me. There's the mutton 
 that was killed just an hour sin, it's full of maggots 
 half an inch long, it swarms wi 'em." 
 
 " No matter for that," said Abner, " the meat is 
 sweet enough." 
 
 " Sweet enough, is it ? And creeping with maggots ? 
 Sweet enough for them as cares nothing for what 
 they swallow. Sweet enough for you, perhaps." 
 
 "For anybody," says Abner ; "just scrape them 
 off, and pop the steaks into the frying-pan." 
 
 "Ay, just and just, man ; that is soon said; but 
 just you now try it yourself, and see how you'll hold 
 the pan and fry with twenty thousand flies darting
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 57 
 
 at your eyes, nose, and mouth at once, and never a 
 hand at liberty to fight with 'em." 
 
 " But I never do fight 'em," said Abner. 
 
 " Oh lors, no ! that's true," retorted Peggy ; " you 
 let them crawl all over your face, and fill your very 
 eye-holes, till they are black as my shoe, with the 
 creeping, crawling varmint — ugh ! it makes my flesh 
 creep to see it." 
 
 " But my flesh does n't creep," said Abner. 
 
 " No, it only should," exclaimed Peggy, indig- 
 nantly ; "but you've no more feeling in your skin 
 than a rhinoceros. Your skin is just leather. 
 Stringy bark is more of a skin by half. I wouldn't 
 own such a skin, I wouldn't. And to-day I've done 
 nothing but get tanged (stung) with those nasty 
 prismires as is crawling over every mander of thing. 
 Sets my clothes-basket on the grass, jump! comes 
 something, and tang ! goes something into my hand, 
 just like a needle. Leans my hand in my fright 
 against a tree, tang ! goes another villain in my neck. 
 Shakes my neckhandkerchief, and, Lord above us ! 
 jumps half a score of the nasty stinging wretches 
 down my back. Runs in to pull off my clothes, the 
 little devils tanging and tormenting all the way, and 
 just as I sits down on the bed there I sees a hugous 
 ugly sentrypid curled up with all its legs in my best
 
 58 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 cap. Out I throws him into the garden, and runs 
 out to stamp on him, and there he isn't to be found, 
 the filthy reptile ; but I potters amongst the wood 
 heap, and stead of him nearly sets my thumb on a 
 horrid scorpion! Sky above us ! who's safe here a 
 blessed minute ? " 
 
 " Why, you, Peggy," said Abner, smiling ; " you're 
 safe enough yet." 
 
 " Safe enough, am I ? And that's all you care for 
 a good wife like me, is it? But you mayn't just 
 have me, one of these days. Safe, am I? That's 
 because you don't know nothing about it. Safe, am 
 I ? And you 'd ha' said so if you had been down at 
 the creek when I went for a bucket o' water to-day. 
 Sets down my bucket, and is just going to swing it 
 into the water by the rope, and flop ! goes something 
 into the water; and what was it? Just a great, 
 ugly, deadly, omfabulous, venomous snake, as black 
 as black can be, and above a yard long. My heart 
 jumped into my mouth, and I should have given 
 such a screech, but I lost my voice, and I was just 
 tumbling into the water in my start, only my fright 
 made me turn and run. Let the monster have just 
 bitten me, as was a narrow miss, and then I should 
 have been safe enough, you may take my word 
 for it."
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 59 
 
 This was at noon. At evening, when Abner came 
 in, he found Peggy cleaned up, with her bettermost 
 gownd on, as she called it, and sitting at the tea-table 
 waiting for him. " All safe yet, Peggy?" said 
 Abner, rather daringly. " No more flies, ants, snakes, 
 or triantelopes ?" 
 
 " Get your tea, man," said Peggy, " and be thankful 
 that nothing hurts you ; only that you do n't know 
 summer from winter, nor spring from autumn. It is 
 a pretty country where they call December June, 
 and June December." 
 
 "But they don't," said Abner. 
 
 " Do n't they?" said Peggy. " Then why do you 
 set your potatoes in September, and gather your 
 gooseberries in January ? I thought you were crack- 
 ing your poor skull to know one time from another, 
 and thought that the months had all run backwards, 
 and that your north aspect for sun, and south aspect 
 for shade, rather bothered you." 
 
 " Well, they did," said Abner, " but I 've found a 
 remedy for that. I 've just altered all the names in 
 my ' Gardener's Calendar' with a pen, and written 
 June for December, and April for October, and so on ; 
 and all comes as clever as a pod after a pea-blossom. 
 I never stop to think about it now ; autumn's autumn, 
 and spring's spring again, as I've written it."
 
 60 TALLAXGETTA. 
 
 " Well, then, as you 're so sharp," said Peggy, 
 " I wish you'd just turn the world round as you've 
 turned the seasons, and set us down at Thrumpton 
 again, out of reach of these flies and sentrypids. 
 I wonder what we must be doing to come to such a 
 country as this, just to please a parcel of broken-down 
 gentry." 
 
 " Broken-down gentry ! " said Abner ; " pray who 
 may they be ? I 've followed none, though I would 
 have clone it, had it been so. But you do n't call 
 Sir Thomas a broken-down gentleman, I hope ? 
 You do n't call an estate like this a broken-down man's 
 estate, I hope?" 
 
 " Who are you setting up, you simpleton ? " said 
 Peggy. "Who are you Sir Thomasing? I don't 
 know any such man ; and if these here ar n't broken- 
 down gentry, who is? If they arn't, man, where 's 
 Thrumpton Hall and Heathercote Hall ? And what 's 
 that Sir Patrick doing there, as grand as my lord ? 
 More fools we for coming all this way after nothing 
 but flies and water-snakes ! " 
 
 Abner sat down to his tea, stirred his cup with a 
 very upright spoon, which seemed to grind surlily 
 against the bottom, and was silent, as if in anger. 
 But he knew his ciie ; and all at once taking a large 
 slice of brown bread and butter, and doubling it up,
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 61 
 
 he said, " Well, Peggy, it is a pitty we've come, just as 
 you say, to please a parcel of broken-down gentry ; 
 but I thought nothing would stop you, or I could 
 have staid well enough. Sir Patrick offered me high 
 wanes." 
 
 Peggy looked fire and daggers. 
 
 " And you 'd have been mean enough to have taken 
 the dirty money of that dirty? designing, thieving 
 body, that has dropped himself like a cuckoo into 
 another's nest? "Well, that becomes you now, it 
 does ; but," added Peggy, growing very red, " I 'd 
 ha' cut off my hand first before I 'd ha' moved a 
 knuckle-bone for such a wretch ! An upstart, a base 
 impostor, a ! " 
 
 " Gentlemen of property, however," said Abner, 
 taking another slice of bread and butter, " and not a 
 broken-down gentry." 
 
 " Who are you calling broken-down gentry ? " said 
 Peggy, firing up. 
 
 " Who ? " said Abner ; " why, the same that you 
 called so." 
 
 " Well, and if I called them so, have not I a right 
 to call them so? I who saw them married, and 
 nursed the children, and the blessed boy that died, 
 and helped to cheer them up when they were in 
 trouble. I 've a right, if anybody has ; I should
 
 62 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 think so ! And when I sav it, I do n't mean it : its 
 only because I feel savage innerly, and must say 
 something ; and when I know that I mean no harm, 
 why there 's no harm in it ; but as to you, Abner, 
 oh, fie ! fie on you, to foul your lips with such words ! 
 I 'd rather sew them up, I would ! " 
 
 Abner very gravely said he gave in, as he had 
 done scores of times before, and said Peggy was 
 epiite right. He admired her spirit, and all the time 
 he laughed in his sleeve and enjoyed the fun. 
 
 Up at the house, just as this dialogue was taking 
 place, and they knowing nothing of it of course, 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick, after a long, solitary ride over the 
 plains, threw himself on the sofa after dinner, and 
 said, " After all, this is rather a slow affair, this bush 
 life. If one had but a pleasant neighbour or two to 
 exchange a word with now and then, we might do." 
 
 "Neighbours!" said Aunt Judith. "But where 
 are we to look for them ? " 
 
 " Well, there are such people ; but they do n't seem 
 very neighbourly," said Mr. Fitzpatrick. " There 
 is Captain Ponceford down the valley on the Monalka, 
 over our creek, not more than five miles off; but you 
 see nothing of him." 
 
 "Don't you know why, Nim?" said Charles. 
 
 "No, Demby," replied his father.
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 63 
 
 " It is because he has been in Melbourne till 
 yesterday; and now they are beginning sheep-washing 
 and shearing, and I guess you won't see many 
 squatters till that is over." 
 
 " Well, no," added his father ; " and as we are 
 going to begin too, we shall not have much visiting 
 time, I expect." 
 
 " But," said Charles, " I have made out that we 
 have no less than four families of neighbours within 
 a circle of fifteen or twenty miles. There are the 
 Metcalfes on the Campaspe, and the Quarriers on the 
 Goulburn; Captain Ponceford just below here." 
 
 "Just below!" said Georgina, laughing. "Five 
 miles off ! " 
 
 " Yes, just below, Gremby," continued Charles ; 
 " and there is Dr. Woolstan's at Mount Corballa, 
 over the hills there." 
 
 " What ! is he a medical man?" asked Aunt Judith. 
 " That is good hearing, if he be a clever man." 
 
 " A very clever man, they tell me," said Charles, 
 " and only seventeen miles off ! " 
 
 "For our comfort," said Mr. Fitzpatrick, laughing, 
 " we need not be dead above once or twice over 
 before we could have him, if he did not happen to be 
 making a medical visit away on the Billebong, or the
 
 64 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 Yanko over the Murray, some hundred or two of 
 miles in the other direction." 
 
 All laughed, and yet said it was no laughing 
 matter ; and from that dav for a month the whole 
 place was astir with sheep-washing, shearing, and 
 packing of wool. The gentlemen were as busy and 
 as interested in it as if it was the most delightful 
 occupation in the world, and no more was thought of 
 want of company. Then, one day, as they were 
 just sitting at their noon dinner, they saw a stoutish 
 man, with a full, ruddy face, ride up at a brisk rate 
 into the court, and presently he was announced as 
 Mr. Quarrier. Without waiting to be invited in, the 
 squatter walked in with as brisk a pace as he had 
 ridden up, and with a face full of smiles he passed 
 from one person to another in a quick, familiar style, 
 shook both ladies and gentlemen heartily by the hand, 
 bade them welcome to the bush, apologised for not 
 being able to call before, but pleaded business, and 
 said he supposed they had found there was no great 
 ceremony used in the bush, but he hoped they would 
 not be long before they discovered much warm- 
 heartedness. 
 
 Scarcely waiting for invitation, he seated himself 
 at table and fell into the use of his knife and fork as 
 naturally as possible ; congratulated the ladies on
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 65 
 
 their fine situation, only feared they found it a bore 
 to get water up from the lake so far ; congratulated 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick on the good clip and good price of 
 wool ; hoped they had not much grass seed in their 
 fleeces. 
 
 "Grass seeds in wool!" said Aunt Judith. 
 
 Mr. Quarrier laughed loud and heartily. " Ah ! 
 I am glad, ma'am, to hear you ask that, for it shows 
 you have not got them. Depend upon it, you would 
 have heard of them if they had been on the run. 
 Your washers and shearers would have cursed them 
 cordially as they ran into their fingers. Why, 
 ma'am, they are sharp as needles, and run through 
 the sheep-skins as they would through a pat of 
 butter." 
 
 "How dreadful !" exclaimed the ladies. But Mr. 
 Quarrier Avent on to ask Mr. Fitzpatrick how they 
 were for scab and foot-rot ; said he heard there was 
 catarrh in the Upper Goulburn, and then turning 
 suddenly to Mrs. Fitzpatrick, said Mrs. Quarrier 
 and her mother and the girls meant to drive over 
 and see them soon ; pulled out his watch just as 
 the cloth was drawn ; said he would just take a cigar 
 and a glass of toddy while his horse ate a little corn, 
 and would be off, for he must be at home by daylight. 
 
 With that he jumped up and went out to see his 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 horse, came in, and sate with Mr. Fitzpatrick and 
 Charles as he smoked his cigar; talked at a wonderful 
 rate of the colony, the squatting interests, the abomi- 
 nable attempts of the radicals in Melbourne to invade 
 their rights ; drew out a long printed memorial that 
 he had sent to the home government on the subject ; 
 hoped Mr. Fitzpatrick would stand up for the poor 
 squatters and the great wool trade; and then, hurrying 
 to say good bye to the ladies, was seen cantering off 
 down the very steepest of the hills, splashing through 
 the water of the creek, stopping a moment to shake 
 hands with Mr. Rannock the overseer at the door of 
 his hut, and then off again at full speed into the woods. 
 " Do you call that a squatter ? " said Aunt Judith, 
 with a droll expression of countenance, as they saw 
 Mr. Quarrier vanish into the bush. " I should call 
 him a rusher, a careerer; I feel exactly as if a 
 whirlwind or a torrent had gone through the house, 
 don't you? Are those your squatters, your quiet 
 men of the woods, whose name gives one an idea of 
 people sitting in profoundest composure like hares on 
 their forms ? Why, they are all mercury and 
 locomotion! What in the world can have made 
 them so rapid, fierce, fidgety, and full of bustle ? 
 Bless me ! it upsets all my notions. I expected 
 nothing in a hurry but a frightened kangaroo,
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 67 
 
 or a bush fire. Ah ! that's it, Mr. Quarrier is a 
 bush fire." 
 
 " But, Judy, you are judging a whole race by the 
 very first specimen," said Mr. Fitzpatrick. 
 
 " So you are, Judy," said Charles. ' ' Neither Weir 
 nor Wallthorpe are at all like this Mr. Quarrier." 
 
 " Why, who are they ? Who are Weir and 
 Wallthorpe, Demby?" asked all the family at once. 
 
 " They are the overseers of Captain Ponceford," 
 said Charles ; " I met them down the creek the other 
 day, and two very nice young fellows they seemed." 
 
 " There now," said Mr. Fitzpatrick ; " how these 
 young fellows do find one another out! But who 
 comes here?" 
 
 A lady and gentleman rode at the same moment 
 into the court. They were young, and in dress and 
 bearing would not have been distinguished from any 
 of the aristocratic class of England. 
 
 " Captain and Mrs. Ponceford," said the servant. 
 The persons announced entered. The captain was a 
 tall, thin, gentlemanly-looking man with a moustache, 
 and wearing a riding suit of grey merino. There 
 was a quiet seriousness in his manner, accompanied 
 by an expression that evinced good sense and a 
 kindly disposition. Mrs. Ponceford was also tall, 
 and remarkably handsome both in figure and face. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 All thought that in her riding dress they had never 
 seen a more graceful woman ; but it was the cordial, 
 happy, frank expression of her face that drew and 
 wholly engrossed the attention of the spectators. It 
 was soon learnt that Captain Ponceford had served in 
 India, but had determined to settle here on account 
 of his health, which failed there. He had gone to 
 England and married the object of a long attachment. 
 They were neither of them yet more than thirty, and 
 had only two children of about seven and eight years 
 old. All quickly felt that they should greatly like 
 them. Captain Ponceford, in the quietest contrast to 
 their late visitor, showed so much knowledge of the 
 colony and its statistics, placed the life of a squatter 
 in so pleasant a point of view, and Mrs. Ponceford 
 spoke with so much heart and feeling of the beauties 
 of the country round, of the pleasures that were to 
 be found even in the bush, which she preferred 
 infinitely to town life, and evinced such a natural, 
 warm, affectionate interest about all the productions 
 of the neighbourhood, animate and inanimate, as 
 charmed every one. They mutually congratulated 
 each other on becoming neighbours, and the Ponce- 
 fords said they were to use that freedom, and ride 
 over at any time without ceremony. Aunt Judith 
 declared that it would be quite a luxury to come
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 69 
 
 to them, if it were only' to ride over those golden 
 prairies. 
 
 " Are they not glorious?" exclaimed Mrs. Ponce- 
 ford. " But do you know what our vivacious neigh- 
 bour Quarrier said when I first saw and expressed 
 my admiration of them? — 'Yes, madam, and the 
 beauty of it is that the sheep are very fond of them, 
 and will eat them all down when the grass gets 
 scarce ! ' " 
 
 " A strange man, that, I should think," said Mr. 
 Fitzpatrick. 
 
 " A good fellow," replied Captain Ponceford, 
 " but too much of a fire-eater ; too much excited 
 about what are called squatters' rights, which, after 
 all, must, between us, be limited by the public rights ; 
 but a well-educated and really warm-hearted man." 
 
 " And you must wait and see his family," said 
 Mrs. Ponceford. " You will love Mrs. Quarrier, a 
 gentle, good creature as ever lived, and a very fine 
 woman, too ; a superb woman, and a most favourable 
 specimen of the native-born white population. And 
 the children, such a family ! I think there are eight 
 or nine, running up as they stand in a row as regular 
 as a flight of stairs, head above head, or, as you may 
 say, step above step. I think you will say you never 
 saw anywhere a more beautiful set of children, and 
 
 F 3
 
 70 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 the homes of England can show a finer race of them 
 than any homes in the world. Then there is old 
 Mrs. Quarrier ; but I must not tell you all ; she will 
 soon speak for herself, and when you hear her free 
 and independent notions — the energetic old lady — 
 you will wonder where Mr. Quarrier got his exclu- 
 sive ones." 
 
 The visitors took their leave, but with such a 
 lively feeling in their favour, that though it was 
 getting towards evening, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Charles, 
 and Georgina could not resist the pleasure of riding 
 some distance with them. The sun was sinking over 
 the vast woods ; and as they rode on Captain and 
 Mrs. Ponceford pointed out the most striking ranges 
 of mountains, and named them, including the Buffalo 
 mountains, the Plenty Ranges, Mounts Alexander 
 and Korong, afterwards so famous. The whole family 
 of Tallangetta were delighted at the discovery of such 
 neighbours, luckily, far their nearest ones, and all 
 sense of solitude fled away. 
 
 In a few days a couple of rather tall but very shy 
 youths made their appearance at David Rannock's, 
 and said they wanted him to go with them up to the 
 great house, as they called it, for their father and 
 mother were coming to spend the night there, and 
 had sent them on before to become acquainted with
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 71 
 
 the young people of the family. They were Bell and 
 Brady Metcalfe. It was in vain that Mr. Rannock 
 told them that they needed no introduction from him, 
 they would be made heartily welcome ; they only 
 blushed, shrugged their shoulders, said they knew 
 the new-comers were very fine folks, and showed no 
 disposition to move; so David Rannock at length 
 walked up with them. The two blushing youths, 
 looking very big and very awkward in their bush 
 costume of jack-boots and short, coarse coatees with 
 metal buttons, bowed stiffly to all round, seated them- 
 selves on chairs near the door, and smiled and said 
 " yes " and " no " in reply to the words addressed to 
 them, but appeared very little at their ease, and did 
 not get out of a very uncomfortable silence, only 
 blushing and smiling whenever they were addressed 
 afresh. Charles, who perceived their embarrassment, 
 said he would like to show them about the garden, 
 and once out of the room they regained their nerves 
 and faculties, and said their father and mother were 
 coming, and asked Charles how he liked the bush, 
 and very soon were in full and eloquent talk of great 
 cod-fish in the Campaspe, and shooting of black swans 
 and wild turkeys, and kangaroo hunting. They 
 wonderfully admired the two kangaroo hounds at the 
 
 f 4
 
 72 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 huts, and invited Charles to come and spend a fort- 
 night with them. 
 
 Charles soon saw that they were two very good- 
 natured fellows, and deep in all the mysteries of the 
 bush, but totally unused to any society more distin- 
 guished than that of the squatters around them. They 
 told him they were born in the bush, had had won- 
 derful adventures in taking and fetching cattle from 
 distant parts of the country ; had only been to 
 school a short time at Melbourne, for they hated the 
 town, and soon came back ; that they had had a 
 tutor up there to read with them, but instead of 
 teaching them anything they had taught him all sorts 
 of things belonging to bush life, and that he had 
 become desperately in love with it, and was now gone 
 to the Edwards river as an overseer. "Ah! you'll 
 like it, Mr. Fitzpatrick," they said. "You'll soon 
 like it better than everything; you'll never want to 
 go into those dry brick towns to be cooped up like 
 rabbits in a hutch. Ah!" said Bell, "that's the 
 life, to be up in the morning when the sun just reddens 
 the tree tops, as if they were all roses and gold, get 
 your breakfast, catch your horse, and away through 
 the woods, the dews glittering, the peppermint-trees 
 scenting all the air, the crows warbling, the jackasses 
 laughing, the wattle-birds crying ' Tackamahac ! ' on
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 73 
 
 the honeysuckle-trees, and the kangaroo rats brush- 
 ing off right and left as if their legs were of whale- 
 bone. Is n't that jolly ? Away you go, through 
 miles of woods, down deep valleys, up great hills, 
 dashing through the deep rivers ; my word, though, 
 but I had a swim for it across the Goulburn the other 
 day where it is twenty fathoms deep, and the stream 
 was rushing round a bend like mad. But bonny 
 Bess did it bravely. The blacks are coming here 
 in a week or two from the Goulburn and the Cam- 
 paspe, and all about. They'll play old Harry with the 
 game, I can tell you ; but it is best to be civil to them. 
 You've noticed their ovens all about here, haven't 
 you?" 
 
 " No ; what are they ? " asked Charles. 
 
 " Why, great mounds of wood cinders ; charcoal, 
 in fact." 
 
 "Oh! yes, yes!" said Charles. "I have often 
 wondered what they were. They look like Druidical 
 barrows at home." 
 
 " They are where the tribes used to congregate, 
 and make their common fire and cook all their victuals 
 while they staid. They never stay long in one 
 place, for they soon eat up all the fish and game. 
 But here they used to be very numerous ; and this 
 part of the country is famous for game, and so you
 
 74 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 find hundreds of these old charcoal mounds, or ovens. 
 It's very odd you do n't find them anywhere else for 
 hundreds of miles round, and the natives now all 
 cook at separate fires for each family." 
 
 While talking thus, they saw two gigs come 
 driving up the hill, and the speaker, pausing, said : 
 " And there comes the governor." 
 
 " What governor ? " asked Charles. 
 
 " Oh, our governor, our worthy daddy," said Bell, 
 "and mother; and I declare there comes the Doctor 
 and Mrs. Woolstan." 
 
 The youths all hurried to receive the approaching 
 guests, and the station of Tallangetta bade fair to lack 
 no company for the night. We must, however, 
 introduce our new acquaintance in a new chapter.
 
 75 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 WONDERFUL TIDINGS. 
 
 When our new guests were duly introduced and 
 had taken their places at the tea-table, which was 
 just prepared for that agreeable stance, they presented 
 as remarkable a variety as you could easily meet 
 with in a far more populous region. Mr. Metcalfe 
 was a quaint-looking, thin Scotchman, with sharp, 
 well-defined features, and hair of grizzled black and 
 grey. He was a man who had had great reverses and 
 troubles in his time, which had given him a still and 
 subdued manner, but had neither been able to acidify 
 his temper, nor to prevent him recovering his social 
 position and a good property. You were surprised, 
 when you came to converse with him, to find what 
 a much superior taste and amount of general informa- 
 tion he possessed than you would expect in the bush, 
 and in a man who had had to struggle his way up 
 again out of deep and discouraging circumstances. 
 But he had a great knowledge of books, and managed
 
 76 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 to keep up an acquaintance with what was going on 
 in Europe, and in literature in a remarkable degree. 
 
 Mrs. Metcalfe was a large woman, of a full and 
 fresh-looking person, and with a countenance of much 
 gravity and dignity, displaying unquestionable evi- 
 dences of beauty not yet past, and of strong sense 
 never more present. She was what is called a very 
 commanding and imposing lady, and yet never was 
 there a woman less disposed to impose in any sense, 
 or to command. Nature did that for her, and for 
 herself she was a truly kind-hearted woman, of the 
 strongest sympathies, but having a high sense of the 
 proprieties and moralities of life. The world gave 
 her credit for having furnished the sagacity and 
 spirit which reconstructed their fortunes, but she 
 never on any occasion gave the least warrant to this 
 opinion, but universally spoke of Mr. Metcalfe's plans 
 and exertions, and self-merited success. On all oc- 
 casions she sought her husband's views, and deferred 
 to them before company in the most natural manner, 
 which did not, however, convince very penetrating 
 people, those who can see all the way through a 
 millstone, and who let it be understood that it was all 
 very well, but did not deceive them ; it was quite 
 right of Mrs. Metcalfe, and quite accordant with her 
 depth of character, to maintain the honour of her
 
 WONDERFUL TIDINGS. 77 
 
 husband. One thing, however, was certain; there 
 was no happier or more estimable couple in the 
 colony. They were famed for their hospitality ; Mr. 
 Metcalfe being ready to aid the views of his neigh- 
 bours in any possible way ; and Mrs. Metcalfe for her 
 tenderness in cases of illness or trouble, and for her 
 intense love of her flower-garden. 
 
 Dr. and Mrs. Woolstan were a very different pair. 
 The doctor was a leanish, tallish man, with an aquiline 
 nose of considerable dimensions, a look of great sim- 
 plicity and friendliness, and a voice at once homely 
 and rather dialectic ; but there was that about him 
 which pronounced him very soon to be no ordinary 
 character. The first thing which struck you in his 
 conversation was a certain old-fashionedness. His 
 words and tone carried you back to past days and 
 country places, but this was very soon forgotten in the 
 subjects which he was sure to bring into play. You 
 were pleased with the pleasure which he discovered 
 in the country ; you were surprised at the feeling of 
 poetry which flowed after his conversation ; you were 
 drawn by a primitiveness of faith and sentiment, 
 mingled with a degree of real science which revealed 
 themselves as he went on ; and very soon you found 
 him leading you forward to the discussion of social 
 or intellectual questions which were bound up with
 
 78 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 the progress of society and the profoundest interests 
 of spiritual life. The doctor was a great mesmerist, 
 and surprised the Tallangetta family by the most 
 entire belief in it ; for they had always entertained 
 the settled idea that it was a piece of sheer humbug, 
 and its advocates either dupes or charlatans. They 
 were, therefore, astonished to see a medical man of 
 mature years and great experience so coolly confessing 
 to his faith in it. But he told them that he was open 
 to conviction ; it was only by such a disposition that 
 science and philosophy had been enabled to triumph 
 over ignorance and its shadow, prejudice, and to 
 place us where we are. 
 
 But Mrs. Woolstan went further. Both she and 
 the doctor were born and educated in the Society of 
 Friends, and she was a mild, gentle-looking woman, 
 very like a Friend still, of a placid and fair coun- 
 tenance, and very quiet in her manner, and she 
 averred a belief in spiritual agencies and appearances 
 with a calm frankness which amazed the Fitzpatricks. 
 
 " Why surely," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "you don't 
 believe in being able to communicate with spirits 
 while we are in the body ? " 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Woolstan, addressing her hus- 
 band, " our friends here doubt of spiritual communica- 
 tions ; would you object to endeavour to satisfy them?"
 
 WONDERFUL TIDINGS. 79 
 
 " By no means/' replied the doctor, as speaking of 
 a matter of course. " But all these things hang 
 together by a natural series of affinities, and I had 
 therefore better show you, first, a fact or two on the 
 more physical and so more convincing side of this 
 great question. They will demonstrate that there are 
 powers lying on the very surface of nature too won- 
 derful for belief if they were not actually seen. 
 Come here Bell, my boy," he continued, addressing 
 Bell Metcalfe ; " let us see whether you or Mr. 
 Fitzpatrick are the strongest. ' 
 
 Bell looked sheepish, and hung back. He was 
 unwilling, from mere shyness, to exhibit himself before 
 these superior strangers ; but the doctor advanced to 
 him, and seizing him by the arm, drew him into the 
 middle of the room, the servant having just taken 
 away the tea. 
 
 " Now," said the doctor, " you, Mr. Fitzpatrick, 
 should be immensely stronger than this youth ; you 
 are twice his size ; you are strongly knit, and your 
 whole frame is solidified by mature years. Bell is 
 slender, not yet fully grown, and therefore rather 
 loosely hung ; yet I will venture to say that he shall 
 overcome all your strength in the trial which I shall 
 institute." 
 
 " If he do," said Mr. Fitzpatrick, with an air
 
 80 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 of self-confidence, " I will admit it to be most won- 
 derful." 
 
 " Place your left hand, thus, behind his shoulder, 
 and take his right hand in your right; hold his arm at 
 full length, thus ; and now see whether, you resisting 
 his efforts, he can in this position bend his arm for- 
 ward." 
 
 " That will very soon be settled, I think," said 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick, holding Bell as desired, and the 
 young man making the most determined efforts 
 possible, but being totally unable to bend his arm in 
 the least. 
 
 " As I said, doctor," observed Mr. Fitzpatrick, 
 " that is very soon settled," smiling in triumph ; " your 
 stripling has not overcome me, as you promised." 
 
 "You are quite satisfied of that?" remarked the 
 doctor. 
 
 " Why, every one must be satisfied of it," added 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick. 
 
 " Now then," said the doctor, making some passes 
 down the front of Bell's arm, which Mr. Fitzpatrick 
 continued to hold out as in a vice, "try all your 
 strength, sir, to keep his arm straight." 
 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick felt some new power now in Bell's 
 arm which evidently astonished him. His face flushed, 
 he put forth all his strength, but Bell bent forward
 
 WONDERFUL TIDINGS. 81 
 
 his arm with the utmost apparent ease till his fingers 
 touched his breast. Mr. Fitzpatrick stood astonished ; 
 and the astonishment was universal in the members 
 of his family. 
 
 " That is the most surprising thing," said Mr. 
 Fitzpatrick, " that I ever saw in the whole course of 
 my life. That is wonderful ! How can it be done ? " 
 
 " Simply by that power of which we only yet 
 know a little," said the doctor ; " but that one fact 
 should prove to you that there is no deception in it." 
 
 " Deception ! " cried Mr. Fitzpatrick. " How can 
 there be deception ? How can this boy overpower 
 all my force under one circumstance, and not under 
 another ? " 
 
 " Under precisely the same circumstances," added 
 the doctor, " except in the addition of the mesmeric 
 force in the second experiment. But, indeed, you 
 might try the experiment between any parties that 
 you pleased ; between a giant and a dwarf, a giant 
 and this slender maiden, your daughter." 
 
 " That is marvellous," said the astonished spec- 
 tators. " And yet," said Brady Metcalfe, laughing, 
 "you never could mesmerise me, doctor." 
 
 *' No, that is true," replied the doctor; " the power 
 is not to be exerted on every subject by any one 
 operator ; but really, Brady, I think I can master 
 
 vol. I. G
 
 82 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 you now. Here, take hold of that bit of paper." 
 The doctor took up an envelope of a letter from a 
 side-table. Brady held it in his fingers ; the doctor 
 made a pass or two over his hand and then cried, 
 " Throw it down ! " The young man tried to drop 
 it, but his fingers remained closed ; a look of sur- 
 prise and confusion passed over his features, while 
 a flush of triumph lit up the doctor's cheek, and 
 flashed in his eye. 
 
 " Ha ! there you are at last, Brady, my man ; 
 throw it down. I will give you five pounds to throw 
 it down! — five pounds!" Brady strained his hand, 
 shook it, grew very red, made more violent efforts to 
 get rid of the paper, but his fingers refused absolutely 
 to unclose, and the doctor continued to exclaim, 
 " Five pounds ! Brady, ten pounds, twenty pounds to 
 throw it down!" And Brady struggled, writhed, 
 dashed his hand up and down, this way and that, 
 grew redder and redder, burst into profuse perspi- 
 ration, and then suddenly gave it up, saying he was 
 beaten, it was all up with him. 
 
 " Not so," said the doctor. " Come, the paper may 
 be set loose, there !" He made a reverse pass or two, 
 and cried, " Now I give you five pounds to retain 
 possession of that paper ! — five pounds !" — as he saw 
 Brady make a desperate effort to keep his finger and
 
 WONDERFUL TIDINGS. 83 
 
 thumb compressed — " ten pounds ! I will give you 
 twenty pounds to hold it." In vain ! Brady strove, 
 struggled, stamped, ground his teeth, doubled up his 
 body, and sent all the blood into his face in desperate 
 efforts to keep the paper ; but his quivering fingers 
 relaxed, opened, and the paper dropped in spite 
 of him. 
 
 The whole of the party, not excepting the parents of 
 the youth, were lost in astonishment, for they had never 
 seen that experiment before ; it was a sudden fancy of 
 the doctor, and all efforts before to produce any effect 
 on Brady had been ineffectual, and Brady's triumph 
 and pretended scepticism had been not small. 
 
 " But what of clairvoyance, doctor?" asked Mrs. 
 Fitzpatrick. " Do you go all the lengths with that ? 
 Do you believe the Poughkeepsie seer in America 
 can see what is doing in Saturn and Jupiter?" 
 
 Dr. Wool stan laughed. " He is quite safe there, 
 madam. He may say what he pleases ; we can 
 none of us contradict him. But after what we have 
 just experienced, we may as well suspend our opinions 
 on clairvoyance till we have seen more. These few 
 examples of what lies concealed, even in our physical 
 nature, may prevent us dogmatising too confidently 
 on the spiritual phenomena which also exist in and 
 around us. Much of what is called clairvoyance 
 
 G 2
 
 84 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 is clearly a mere reflex of what is passing in the 
 mind of the person with whom the mesmeric subject 
 is in rapport. "What goes further, demands capability 
 of proof. Without such proof we are certainly at 
 liberty to suspend our belief; but as it regards 
 actual science, we are, in my opinion, just now on 
 the verge of great discoveries, both physical and 
 psychological ; on the frontiers of a wonderful region 
 of life which the Almighty in the grand progress of 
 his plans has prepared us to enter upon. What it is, 
 we yet know not ; we are only thus far admitted to 
 catch the first gleams of splendour which burst 
 through the slowly expanding gates of reality upon 
 us. Even by these gleams we are dazzled, and 
 stumble about in the c darkness of excessive light.' We 
 are near some great truth, some mighty and substantial 
 revelation, as the alchemists formerly were almost 
 within touch of the great world of chemistry, and 
 all its revolutions of our mechanic and social life; 
 and as the astrologers were conscious of powers and 
 prizes, which eluded them, but which have made the 
 triumph of astronomy under the guidance of ad- 
 vancing art." 
 
 " What I have shown you to-night," said the 
 doctor, " are facts, regarded as perfectly threadbare 
 in Europe and America; but the experiment of
 
 WONDERFUL TIDINGS. 85 
 
 strength is such as you may try between any parties 
 that you please, if you have a mesmeric medium pre- 
 sent; as I have said, between a giant and a dwarf; a 
 giant and this slender maiden, your daughter." 
 
 The whole Tallangetta family were extremely ex- 
 cited by what they had for the first time seen. At 
 supper the doctor sate by Aunt Judith, who said, 
 from what she had witnessed, she felt greatly tempted 
 to ask the doctor after supper to try whether he could 
 communicate with the spirit of a deceased friend. 
 The doctor promised, and, on the return to the 
 drawing-room, a circle was formed at a round table, 
 in which Aunt Judith, Charles, and Georgina took 
 part. Very soon there was evidence of some spirit 
 being present, and the doctor requested it to spell its 
 name. All now seemed to wait with a breathless 
 awe the result of the experiment. It stood thus 
 — written on paper by Charles, at the request of the 
 doctor, as the letters were indicated by raps upon the 
 table — Horace Fitzpatrick ! 
 
 "Horace! my brother Horace!" exclaimed Mr. 
 Fitzpatrick. " What do you know of him ? Who 
 told you of him ? " 
 
 " I know nothing," replied the doctor, calmly. " I 
 have never heard of him — I only know what he 
 pleases to tell me. Shall I go on?" 
 
 G 3
 
 86 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 The doctor went on ; and soon there stood written 
 out by Charles, at the dictation of the spirit, — " The 
 old enemy is still at ivork — his spies have followed you 
 — be on your guard." 
 
 At this revelation Mr. Fitzpatrick seemed actually 
 paralysed; his face exhibited intense wonder and 
 feeling. 
 
 " Is this not going too far?" said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, 
 very seriously. " Is it not meddling with things better 
 let alone ? " 
 
 " The moment you think so I will desist," said the 
 doctor ; but Mr. Fitzpatrick, gasping as it were for 
 breath, signed to him to go on ; in the next moment, 
 with a strange, wild look, he staggered from the room, 
 followed by his wife. 
 
 " More ! — let us know more !" cried Aunt Judith, 
 frantically, but keeping her hands firm in the circle 
 on the table. " Is there no hope — no comfort ? " 
 
 The doctor continued his inquiries; and Charles 
 wrote on, — " Yes ; friends, true, staunch friends are 
 on the watch — trust in God, and all will go well ! " 
 
 " All will go well ! " exclaimed, impetuously, Aunt 
 Judith ; and, springing from the table, rushed after 
 her brother and Mrs. Fitzpatrick. The rest of the 
 company were left in a state of utmost wonder and 
 confusion. Presently Aunt Judith returned, called
 
 WONDERFUL TIDINGS. 87 
 
 the doctor, and led him into the dining-room. There 
 he found Mr. Fitzpatrick in the strangest excite- 
 ment. 
 
 " What is all this, Dr. Woolstan ? What do you 
 know of my history — of my brother? What means 
 all this?" 
 
 " It means nothing more," replied the doctor, 
 " than that the spirit of your brother, of whose ex- 
 istence I did not even know till now, has warned you 
 of some evil intended, and also that it will be surely 
 defeated by God's providence." 
 
 " And you believe all this ? There is no juggle, 
 no trick? My brother Horace, my only brother, 
 died as a mere youth ; and yet you, here at the anti- 
 podes, know of him, and tell me from him what is 
 more frightful to me than death. Will you swear 
 that you knew nothing of my brother's existence 
 before?" 
 
 " I never swear," replied the doctor ; " but I will 
 tell you, on the word of a Christian and in the pre- 
 sence of God, that I know nothing whatever of your 
 family history, and that what thus surprises and 
 agitates you is nothing whatever surprising to me. 
 Depend upon it, it is God's truth revealed by his own 
 permission for your good. Let it satisfy you that it 
 
 G 4
 
 88 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 is declared that you have only to trust in God, and 
 all will be well." 
 
 a Yes, yes ! believe that ; rest on that, dear 
 brother," said Aunt Judith, taking his hand, and 
 looking earnestly and affectionately in his pale, agi- 
 tated face. " Oh, that is such a comfort!" 
 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick sate as if lost in thought. At 
 length he said, " It is wonderful ! most wonderful ! 
 I must believe it altogether, or disbelieve it altogether. 
 To think that that villain, Patrick, has pursued 
 me here — destroyed my quiet here. Oh, that is 
 terrible!" 
 
 " But then," said the doctor, " if the message as to 
 the evil be true, it is also equally true as to the good. 
 But how natural it is," he continued, " to believe 
 what we fear rather than what we hope ! Yet the 
 message says all shall be well ; and that is good." 
 
 " Oh, very good!" said Aunt Judith. " Oh, ex- 
 cellent ; if God be for us, who can be against us ? " 
 
 " But who are those spies?" continued Mr. Fitz- 
 patrick, still harping upon the dark side of the mes- 
 sage. " And who are the friends ? Have we any ? 
 Are there really such things as friends ? Ah ! that 
 is the most difficult to believe after all." 
 
 " And yet believe it," said Dr. Woolstan, with an 
 open, kindly face, which seemed to impart a wonderful
 
 WONDERFUL TIDINGS. 89 
 
 confidence. " Believe it as firmly as your own life. 
 Friends and foes God will reveal in His own good 
 time ; and only one thing is it worth while to let your 
 mind dwell upon : — He has promised, whose promises 
 cannot fail, that if you trust in Him all shall be well." 
 
 " I will trust in Him," said Mr. Fitzpatrick, solemnly. 
 " God, I believe; help thou my unbelief;" and, with 
 a voice as solemn as in prayer, he grasped the hand 
 of the doctor. 
 
 " Then all is right ; all is safe," said the doctor ; 
 " and you are as free from real cause of anxiety or 
 of danger as if you wore a mail of adamant." 
 
 " I believe it," said Mr. Fitzpatrick ; " but the 
 shock of surprise has been too much for immediate 
 return to composure." He withdrew to his bed- 
 room. 
 
 Aunt Judith continued to talk to the doctor on the 
 subject. Her mind was wonderfully affected by this 
 startling event; and the message and the circum- 
 stances attending it had so much of marvellous reality 
 in them, that she knew not how to disbelieve them. 
 The doctor related many singular facts in relation to 
 spiritual life with a simplicity and distinctness which 
 produced a singular sensation in Aunt Judith's mind. 
 He said he was bred in the faith of George Fox, and, 
 like him, he entirely believed that, if we did but live
 
 90 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 near to the inner life, we should have free enjoyment 
 and experience of it. He told her that she must 
 prepare to hear him and his wife, called mystics and 
 enthusiasts ; but, if she would come to Mount Cor- 
 balla, she would find them as matter-of-fact in all 
 matters of fact and daily life as any people in the 
 colony. They were not dreamers, but workers ; and 
 she would find his wife as clever a woman, as sound 
 and shrewd a manager, as any she could meet with, 
 and as cheerful as the light, because she felt that she 
 was existing in the great spiritual life of all time and 
 space, so that death and change were to her mind 
 but the mere throwing off of worn-out garments. 
 
 The result of the evening had been far different to 
 anything expected, especially as the visit was one of 
 introduction to people yet strangers to each other. 
 All more or less felt the startling effect of the dis- 
 closures, and retired their several ways for the night, 
 deeply impressed by it. In the morning at breakfast 
 nothing was said of the evening's occurrence, yet 
 there was a solemn tone in the whole company. 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick appeared as if endeavouring to be 
 cheerful, but was constantly falling into thoughtful 
 silence, and, when the guests departed, he mounted 
 his horse and accompanied Dr. and Mrs. Woolstan 
 some miles on their way through the woods. What
 
 WONDERFUL TIDINGS. 91 
 
 passed in the interview we know not ; but he returned 
 far more cheerful, and never reverted to the subject, 
 though his family felt assured, from his manner, that 
 the thought of it was, nevertheless, continually with 
 him.
 
 92 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 THE BAD TEAR. BLACK THURSDAT. 
 
 After the remarkable evening narrated in the last 
 chapter, there was a great exchange of visits between 
 these few neighbours and the Poncefords ; and fresh 
 characters appeared upon the scene. There was Mrs. 
 Quarrier, with her mother-in-law and three or four 
 daughters. Mrs. Quarrier was a remarkably fine 
 woman, who, though she was born in the colonies and 
 had never quitted them, had all the quiet grace and 
 tact of a lady accustomed to good society, and her kind- 
 liness of heart justified all that had been said of her. The 
 girls were splendid specimens of Australian beauty ; 
 but the charade was Mrs. Quarrier, senior. The old 
 lady was to the Fitzpatricks a curious study. She 
 was not less than seventy, yet she seemed to possess 
 energies for half a century to come. Captain Ponce- 
 ford called her the galvanic battery. She was a 
 most original and independent woman. All her ideas 
 of all sorts of government were of the freest kind. 
 She hated what she called domination and humbug.
 
 THE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 93 
 
 She was for all the rights of the human race. Cer- 
 tainly the bush was the place for her ; and she was 
 so enthusiastic an admirer of nature, that she was 
 ready any time still to climb a mountain with her 
 long staff in her hand, or to wade a stream. " Give 
 me," she often said, " a Bible and a Shakspeare, and 
 I can live in a desert, and all the better, because I 
 should not be bored with those good-natured people 
 who are always wanting to put you into their own 
 mould for your salvation." 
 
 And in truth Mrs. Q,uarrier, senior, had made 
 good use of her energies ; through them her daughters 
 were married to the chief men in the colony, and her 
 son Avas one of the most affluent of its squatter lords. 
 The best of it was, that Mr. Quarrier was as en- 
 thusiastic in conferring kindnesses as she was in 
 asserting her independence ; and all the colony ac- 
 knowledged her wonderful faculty of seeing things a 
 long way off. " That is," she said, " because I look 
 well at the things that are near ; " and of this she 
 gave a striking proof on the spot. 
 
 " You are new here," said the lively old Mrs. 
 Quarrier, senior, as they were at breakfast the morn- 
 ing after her arrival at Tallangetta ; " and you cannot, 
 therefore, judge of what is coming by what is past. 
 But let me tell you one thing : I believe we are going
 
 94 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 to have one of the terrifically dry seasons which 
 occur every now and then. There are crises in this 
 country of drought and floods which can only be con- 
 ceived by those who have witnessed them. Traces 
 of the drought in such years vanish with the season, 
 except in the evidence of the burnt trees ; but those 
 of the floods you must have already observed in the 
 neighbourhood of the rivers and creeks. After the 
 drought generally come the floods, and now for the 
 drought. The season so far reminds me of those 
 pre-eminently dry and consuming summers which 
 are the direst calamities of this colony. It is now 
 February, and the country is just one sheet of tinder. 
 The rivers are low; the creeks are dry, or but a 
 mere string of water-holes ; and many a plentiful 
 pool is now a basin baked as hard as a dish. The 
 sound of the frog has given way to that of the grass- 
 hopper. The grass is drier than hay, the leaves on 
 the trees you may crumble to powder between your 
 fingers, and there lacks but a hot wind and the whole 
 country may be in flames." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Quarrier," said the ladies, " you are 
 joking now ; you are amusing yourself with fright- 
 ening us." 
 
 But the old lady said : " Nothing of the sort. I 
 never was more serious; as I said, you are new to the
 
 THE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 95 
 
 colony, and therefore do not comprehend the peril 
 you and the whole country are in. Come, now, I will 
 tell you what happened to us but last year ; it is a 
 thing never to be forgotten in Victoria, and as I 
 don't wish to weary you with dry details, I will tell 
 you what occurred to some families that I knew well 
 in the countiy west of Melbourne ; and I will give 
 my narrative the title of Black Thursday, a name 
 which will always remain an ominous word in this 
 colony : — 
 
 " BLACK THURSDAY. 
 
 " As the voyager approaches the shores of Victoria, 
 the first welcome land which greets him is the bold 
 promontory of Cape Otway. If it be at night, the 
 blaze from the lighthouse on its southern point sends 
 him its cheering welcome for many a league across 
 the ocean which he has so long traversed in expecta- 
 tion, and calls forth rapturous hurrahs from the 
 throng of passengers who crowd to the forecastle. 
 If it be day, the eye rests on its lofty forest hills 
 with a quiet and singular delight. These heights 
 fully respond to the ideal of a new land only recently 
 peopled. Clothed with forests from the margin of 
 the sea to their very summits, they realise vividly
 
 96 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 the approach to a vast region of primaeval nature. 
 The tall white stems of the gum-trees stand thickly 
 side by side like so many hoary columns ; and here 
 and there amongst them descend dark ravines ; while 
 piles of rocks on the heights, alternating with jagged 
 chines and projecting spurs of the mountains, present 
 their solitary masses to the breeze of ocean. 
 
 " Amongst the rocks of this wild shore there are 
 sea-caves of vast extent and solemn aspect, which 
 have never yet been thoroughly explored. The 
 forest, extending fifty miles or more in all directions, 
 is one of the most dense and savage in the whole 
 colony. Until lately it was almost impassable from 
 the density of the scrub, and from the thick masses 
 of vines (that is, lianas, or climbing cord-like plants, 
 chiefly parasitical), which, as in the forests of South 
 America, climb from tree to tree, knitting the woods 
 into an obscure and impenetrable shade. Excepting 
 along the track from Mr. Roadknight's station, near 
 the sources of the Barwon, through the heart of the 
 forest to Apollo Bay, a distance of forty miles, you 
 might cut your way with an axe ; but would find 
 it difficult to make progress otherwise. The greater 
 part of the promontory — consisting of steep hills 
 covered with gigantic trees intersected by shelving 
 valleys, and dark with congregated fern-trees, beetling
 
 THE BAD YEAR. BLACK THURSDAY. 97 
 
 precipices, and stony declivities — affords no food for 
 cattle. In one day, however, known to the colonists 
 as Black Thursday, a hurricane of flame opened its 
 rude and impracticable wildernesses to the foot of 
 man : but presented him, at the same time, with a 
 black and blasted chaos of charred trees, and gigantic 
 fallen trunks and branches. 
 
 "It was in this forest, in the early morning of this 
 memorable day, the sixth of February, eighteen 
 hundred and fifty-one, that a young man opened his 
 eyes and sate up to look about him. He had, the 
 day before, driven a herd of fifty bullocks from the 
 station of Mr. Roadknight thus far on his way 
 towards his own residence in the country between 
 Lake Corano;amite and Mount Gellibrand. He had 
 reached at evening a small grassy valley in the 
 outskirts of the forest watered by a creek falling 
 into the western Barwon ; and had there paused 
 for the night. His mob of cattle, tired and hungry, 
 were not inclined to stray from the rich pastu- 
 rage before them ; and, hobbling out his splendid 
 black horse Sorcerer, he prepared to pass the night 
 in the simple fashion of the settler on such journeys. 
 A fallen log supplied him with a convenient seat, a 
 fire was quickly lit from the dead boughs which lay 
 plentifully around, and his quart-pot, replenished at 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 the creek, was soon hissing and bubbling with its side 
 thrust into the glowing fire. He had a good store of 
 kangaroo-sandwiches, and there he sate with his cup 
 of strong bush-tea ; looking alternately at the grazing 
 cattle, and into the solemn, gloomy, and soundless 
 woods, in which even the laughing-jackass failed to 
 shout his clamorous adieu to the falling day. Only 
 the distant monotone of the morepork — the noc- 
 turnal cuckoo of the Australian wilds — reached his 
 ear ; making the profound solitude still more solitary. 
 He very soon rolled himself in his travelling-rug, 
 and flung himself down before the fire — having 
 previously piled a fresh supply of timber upon it — 
 near which his trusty dogs lay, and where Sorcerer, 
 in the favourite fashion of the bush-horse, slept as 
 he stood. 
 
 " The morning was hushed and breathless. Instead 
 of that bracing chill, with which the Australian 
 lodger out of doors generally wakes up, Robert 
 Patterson found the perspiration standing thick on 
 his face, and he felt a strange longing for a deep 
 breath of fresh air. But motion there was none, 
 except in the little creek which trickled with a fresh 
 and inviting aspect at a few yards from him. He 
 arose, and stripping, plunged into the deepest spot of 
 it that he could find ; and thus refreshed, rekindled
 
 THE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 99 
 
 his fire, and made his solitary breakfast. But all 
 around him living, as it were, a leaden and death-like 
 heaviness. Not a bough nor a blade of grass 
 was moved by the air. The trees stood inanimately 
 moody and sullen. He cast his eyes through the 
 gloomy shadow beneath them, and a sultry, suffoca- 
 ting density seemed to charge the atmosphere. The 
 sky above him was dimmed by a grey haze. 
 
 "' There is something in the wind to-day, old 
 fellow,' he said, addressing his horse in his usual 
 way ; for he had long looked on him as a companion, 
 and firmly believed that he understood all that he 
 said to him. ' There is something in the wind : yet, 
 where is the wind?' 
 
 " The perspiration streamed from him with the mere 
 exertion of saddling his horse, and with the act of 
 mounting him to rouse up his cattle. Horse, dogs, and 
 cattle, manifested a listlessness that only an extra- 
 ordinary condition of the atmosphere could produce. If 
 you had seen the tall, handsome young man seated on 
 his tall and noble horse, you would have felt that they 
 were together formed for any exploit of strength and 
 speed. But the whole troop — cattle, man, and horse 
 — went slowly and soberly along, as if they were 
 oppressed by a great fatigue or the extreme exhaustion 
 of famine. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 " The forest closed in upon them again, and they 
 proceeded along a narrow track, flanked on each side 
 by tall and densely-growing trees ; the creeping vines 
 making of the whole forest one intricate, impene- 
 trable scene. All was hushed as at midnight. No 
 bird enlivened the solitude by its cries, and they had 
 left the little stream. Suddenly there came a puff of 
 air ; but it was like the air from the jaws of a 
 furnace, hot, dry, withering in its very touch. The 
 young settler looked quickly in the direction from 
 which it came, and instantly shouted to the cattle 
 before him, in a wild, abrupt, startling shout ; swung 
 aloft the stock-whip which he held in his hand, and 
 brought it down with the report of a pistol, and the 
 sharp cut as with a knife, on the rear of a huge 
 bullock just before him. The stock-whip, with a 
 handle about half a yard long and a thong of three 
 yards long, of plaited bullock-hide, is a terrible 
 instrument in the hands of a practised stockman. 
 Its sound is the note of terror to the cattle ; it is like 
 the report of a blunderbuss, and the stockman at full 
 gallop will hit any given spot on the beast that he is 
 within reach of, and cut the piece clean away through 
 the thickest hide that bull or bison ever wore. He 
 will strike a fly or a spot of mud on a hillock at full 
 speed, and take away the skin with it, making the
 
 THE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 101 
 
 rosy blood spring into the wound, and the astonished 
 animal dart forward as if mad. 
 
 " Louder and louder, wilder and more fiercely 
 shouted the squatter, and dashed his horse forward 
 over fallen trees ; through crashing thickets, first on 
 one side of the road, and then on the other. Crack, 
 crack, went the stinging, slashing whip ; loud was the 
 bark of dogs ; and the mob of cattle rushed forwards 
 at headlong speed. The young man gazed upward ; 
 and, through the only narrow opening of the forest, 
 saw strange volumes of smoke rolling southward. 
 Hotter, hotter, stronger and more steadily came the 
 wind. He suddenly checked his horse, and listening 
 grew pale at the sound which reached him. It was 
 a low deep roar, as of a wind in the tree-tops, or of 
 a heavy water-fall, distant and smothered in some 
 deep ravine. 
 
 "'God have mercy I' he exclaimed, *a bush-fire! 
 and in this thick forest!' Once more he sprang 
 forward, shouting, thundering with his whip. He 
 and the herd were galloping along the narrow wood- 
 track. But, as he had turned westward in the 
 direction of his home, the woods — of which he had 
 before seen the boundary — now closed for some 
 miles upon him ; and, as he could not turn right or 
 left for the chaos of vines and scrub that obstructed 
 
 b 3
 
 102 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 the forest, the idea of being overtaken there by the 
 bush-fire was horrible. Such an event would be 
 death, and death only. 
 
 " Therefore, he urged on his flying herd with 
 desperation. Crack upon crack from his long whip, 
 resounded through the hollow wood. The cattle 
 themselves seemed to hear the ominous sound, and 
 sniff the now strongly perceptible smell of burning. 
 
 " The roar of the fire came louder, and ever and 
 anon seemed to swell and surge, as if urged on by a 
 rough rising blast. The heat was fierce and suffoca- 
 ting. The young squatter's clothes clung to him 
 with streaming perspiration. The horse and cattle 
 steamed and smoked with boiling heat. Yet onward, 
 onward they dashed with lolling tongues. Sorcerer, 
 specked with patches of foam on his dark shining 
 body, seemed to grow furiously impatient of the 
 obstruction offered by the bullocks in his path. As 
 his master's whip exploded on their flanks, he laid 
 back his ears ; and, with flaming eyeballs and bared 
 teeth, strove to tear them in his rage. 
 
 " Robert Patterson knew that the extraordinary 
 heat and drought of the summer had scorched up the 
 grass ; the very ground ; had licked up the water 
 from crab-hole, pool, and many a creek; had withered 
 the herbage into crisp hay, and so dried the foliage,
 
 THE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 103 
 
 that you might crumble it between your fingers. The 
 country seemed thoroughly prepared for a conflagra- 
 tion, and only required this fiery wind to send a 
 blaze of extermination over the whole land. For 
 weeks, nay months, the shepherds and sawyers had 
 spoken of fires burning in the hills ; and, in the fern- 
 tree breaks of this very forest, he had been recently 
 told that flames had been observed in various direc- 
 tions burning redly by night. 
 
 " If the fire reached him and his herd before they 
 escaped into the open plains, they must be consumed 
 like stubble. The cattle began to show signs of 
 exhaustion, hanging out their parched tongues, and 
 panting heavily ; the perspiration on himself and 
 horse was dried up by the awful heat, and the dogs 
 ran silently, or only whining lowly to themselves, as 
 they hunted every hollow on their way for water. 
 Suddenly, they were out in an open plain, yet with 
 the forest on either hand, but at a considerable 
 distance. 
 
 " What a scene ! The woods were flaming and 
 crackling in one illimitable conflagration. The wind, 
 dashincr from the north in gusts of inconceivable 
 heat, seemed to sear the very face and shrivel up the 
 lungs. The fire leaped from tree to tree, flashing and 
 roaring along, with the speed and the destructiveness 
 
 H 4
 
 104 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 of lightning. The sere foliage seemed to snatch the 
 fire, and to perish in it in a riot of demoniacal 
 revelry. On it flew, fast as the fleetest horse could 
 gallop ; and consuming acres of leaves in a moment, 
 still remained to rage and roar amongst the branches 
 and in the hollow stems of ancient trees. The whole 
 wood on the left was an enormous region of intensest 
 flame ; and that on the right, sent forth the sounds 
 of the same ravaging fires ; but being to windward, 
 the flames could not be seen for the vast clouds of 
 smoke, mingled with fiery sparks, which were rolled 
 on the air. There was a sound as of thunder, 
 mingled with the crash of falling trees, and the wild 
 cries of legions of birds of all kinds ; which fell 
 scorched, and blackened, and dead to the ground. 
 
 " Once out on this open plain, the cattle were 
 speedily lost in the blinding ocean of smoke, and the 
 young settler, obliged to abandon them, made a dash 
 onward for his life. Now the flames came racing 
 along the grass with the speed of the wind, and 
 mowing all smooth as a pavement ; now they tore 
 furiously through some near point in the forest, and 
 flung burning ashes and tangles of blazing bark 
 upon the galloping rider. But Sorcerer, with an 
 instinct more infallible than human sagacity, sped on, 
 over thicket, and stone, and fallen tree, snorting in
 
 TIIE BAD YEAR. BLACK THURSDAY. 105 
 
 the thick masses of smoke, .and stretching forward 
 his gaping jaws to catch every breath of air to sus- 
 tain impeded respiration. 
 
 " When the wind veered, the reek, driven back- 
 ward, revealed a most amazing scene. The blazing 
 skirts of the forests ; huge isolated trees, glaring red 
 — standing columns of fire; here a vast troop of 
 wild horses with flying manes and tails, rushing with 
 thundering hoofs over the plain ; there herds of cattle 
 running with bloodshot eyes and hanging tongues, 
 they knew not whither, from the fire; troops of 
 kangaroos leaping frantically across the rider's path, 
 their hair singed and giving out strongly the stench 
 of fire ; birds of all kinds and colours shrieking 
 piteously as they drove wildly by, and yet seeing no 
 spot of safety ; thousands of sheep standing huddled 
 in terror on the scorched flats, with singed wool, 
 deserted by their shepherds, who had fled for their 
 lives. 
 
 " But onward flew the intrepid Sorcerer, on- 
 ward stretched his rider, thinking lightning-winged 
 thoughts of home, and of his helpless, paralysed 
 mother there. 
 
 " With a caution inspired by former outbreaks of 
 bush-fires, he had made at some distance round his 
 homestead a bare circle. He had felled the forest
 
 106 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 trees, leaving only one here and there, at such 
 distances that there was little fear of ignition. As 
 the summer dried the grass, he had set fire to it on 
 days when the wind was gentle enough to leave the 
 flame at command; watching, branch in hand, to beat 
 out any blaze that might have travelled into the 
 forest. By this means, he had hitherto prevented 
 the fire from reaching his homestead ; and he had 
 strongly recommended the same plan to his neigh- 
 bours, though generally with little effect. Now, the 
 fire was so terrible, and sparks flew so wide on the 
 wind, that he feared they might kindle the grass 
 round his homestead, and that he might find every- 
 thing and every person there consumed. 
 
 " But, behold ! the gleaming, welcome waters of 
 Lake Colac ! Sorcerer rushed headlong towards it ; 
 and wading hastily up to his sides in its cooling flood, 
 thrust his head to the eyes into it, and drank as if he 
 could never be satisfied with less than the whole lake. 
 Englishmen, new to the scene, would have trembled 
 for the horse ; but the bush steed knows well what he 
 needs, eats and drinks as likes him best, and flourishes 
 on it. Smoking hot, the rider lets him drink his 
 fill, and all goes well. The heat produces perspira- 
 tion, and the evaporation cools and soothes him. 
 Robert Patterson did not lose a moment in following
 
 THE BAD YEAR. BLACK THURSDAY. 107 
 
 Sorcerer's example. He flung himself headlong from 
 the saddle, dressed as he was, dived, and splashed, 
 and drank exuberantly. He held again and again 
 his smarting face and singed hands in the delicious 
 water, then threw it over the steed that now, satiated, 
 stood panting in the flood. He laved and rubbed 
 down the grateful animal with wave after wave, 
 cleaning the dried perspiration from every hair, 
 giving him refreshment at every pore. Then up 
 and away again. 
 
 " He had not ridden two hundred yards, before he 
 saw, lying on the plain, a horse that had fallen in 
 saddle and bridle, and lay with his legs under him, 
 and head stretched stiffly forward, with glaring eye- 
 balls ; but dead. Near him was a man, alive, but 
 sunk in exhaustion. His eyes turned wildly on the 
 young squatter, and his parched lips moved, but 
 without a sound. Robert Patterson comprehended 
 his need ; and, running to the lake, brought his pan- 
 nikin full of water, and put it to his mouth. It was 
 the water of life to him. His voice and some degree 
 of strength came quickly back. He had come from 
 the north, and had ridden a race with the fire, till 
 horse and man had dropped here, the horse never to 
 rise again. But Patterson's need was too urgent for 
 delay. He found the man had no lack of provisions ;
 
 ] 08 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 he carried him in his arms to the margin of the lake, 
 mounted, and rode on. 
 
 "As he galloped forward, it was still fire — fire 
 everywhere. He felt convinced that the conflagra- 
 tion — fanned by the strong wind, and acting upon 
 fires in a hundred quarters — extended over the whole 
 sun-dried colony. 
 
 " It was still early noon, when, with straining eyes, 
 and a heart which seemed almost to stand still with 
 a terrible anxiety, he came near his own home. He 
 darted over the brow of a hill — there it lay safe ! 
 The circle within his cleared boundary was untouched 
 by the fire. There were his paddocks, his cattle, his 
 huts, and home. With a lightning thought his thanks 
 flew up to heaven, and he was the next moment at 
 his door, in his house, in his mother's arms. 
 
 " Robert's anxiety had been great for the safety of 
 his mother, her anxiety was tripled for him. Terror 
 occasioned by a former conflagration had paralysed 
 her lower extremities ; and now, the idea of her only 
 son, her only remaining relative in the colony, being 
 met by this unexampled fire in the dense defiles of 
 the terrible Otway Forest, kept her in a state of the 
 most fearful tension of mind. Mrs. Patterson, though 
 confined to her wheeled chair, was a woman of pre- 
 eminent energy and ability. Left with her boy a
 
 THE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 109 
 
 mere infant, she had managed all her affairs with a 
 skill and discretion that had produced great pros- 
 perity. Though her heart was kind, her word was 
 law ; and there was no man on her run who dared in 
 the slightest to disobey her ; nor one within the whole 
 country round who did not respect and revere her. 
 She had been a remarkably handsome woman. The 
 whole of the floors of the station being built upon 
 one level, in her wheeled chair she could be at any 
 instant in any part of her house or premises. 
 
 " The moment the first joy of mother and son was 
 over, what a scene presented itself! The station was 
 like a fair. From the whole country round people 
 had fled from the fire, and had instinctively fled 
 thither. There was a feeling that the Patterson pre- 
 cautions, which they themselves had neglected, were 
 the guarantees of safety. Thither shepherds had 
 driven their flocks, stockmen their herds, and whole 
 families, compelled to fly from their burning houses, 
 had hurried thither with the few effects that they 
 could snatch up, and bear with them. Patterson's 
 paddocks were crowded with horses and cattle ; the 
 bush round his station was literally hidden beneath 
 his own and his neighbour's flocks. Stockmen, shep- 
 herds, substantial squatters, now houseless men, were 
 in thrones. Families, with troops of children, had
 
 110 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 encamped on the open ground near his house, beneath 
 temporary tents of sheets and blankets. His house 
 was crammed with fugitives, and was one scene of 
 crowding, confusion, and sorrow. Luckily the Pat- 
 terson store-room was well stocked with flour, and 
 there could be no want of meat with all those flocks 
 and herds about them. But for the cattle themselves 
 there must soon be a famine ; and the moment that 
 the fire abated, scouts must be sent off in all di- 
 rections — but especially to the high plains around 
 Lake Corangamite — in search of temporary pasture. 
 Meantime fires were lighted in a dozen places ; and 
 frying-pans and kettles fully employed ; for, spite 
 of flight, and loss, and grief, hunger, as Homer thou- 
 sands of years ago asserted, is impudent, and will 
 be fed. 
 
 " The stories that the people had to tell were most 
 melancholy. Houses burnt down, flocks destroyed, 
 children suffocated in the smoke or lost in the rapid 
 flight; shepherds and bullock-drivers consumed with 
 their cattle. Numbers had fled to creeks and pools, 
 and yet had been severely burnt ; the flames driving 
 over the surface of the water with devouring force. 
 Some had lain in shallow brooks, turning over and 
 over, till finally forced to get up and fly. Still, as 
 the day went on, numbers came pouring in with fresh
 
 THE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. Ill 
 
 tales of horror and devastation. The whole country 
 appeared to be the prey of the flames ; and men who 
 were, a few hours before, out of the reach of poverty 
 or calamity, were now homeless paupers. 
 
 " ' The Maxwells, mother,' Patterson asked — ' is 
 there any news of them?' 
 
 " ' None, my dear Robert, none,' replied his mother. 
 * I hope and believe that they are quite safe. They 
 have long ago adopted your own plan of a clearance 
 ring, and I doubt not are just now as much a centre 
 of refuse as we are.' 
 
 " 'But I should like to be sure,' said Robert, 
 seriouslv. ( I must ride over and see.' 
 
 " ' Must you ? I think you need not,' said Mrs. 
 Patterson. ' But if you cannot be satisfied, let some 
 one of the men go ; there are plenty at hand, and 
 you are already worn out with fatigue and excite- 
 ment.' 
 
 " ' No, I am quite well and fresh — I had rather go 
 myself,' said Robert; ' it is not far.' And he strode 
 out, his mother saying — 
 
 " 'If you find all right, don't come back to-night.' 
 
 " Robert Patterson was soon mounted on a fresh 
 and powerful horse, and cantered off towards Mount 
 Ilesse. It was only seven miles off. The hot north 
 wind had ceased to blow ; the air was cooler, and the
 
 112 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 fires in the forest were burning more tamely. Yet 
 he had to ride over a track which showed him the 
 ravages which the flames had made in his pleasant 
 woods. The whole of the grass was annihilated ; the 
 dead timber lying on the ground was still burning ; 
 and huge hollow trees stood like great chimneys, with 
 flames issuing from their tops as from a furnace, and 
 a red intense fire burning within their trunks below ; 
 and from them burning earthy matter came tumbling 
 out smoking and rolling on the ground. He was 
 about crossing a small creek, when he saw an Irish- 
 man — a shepherd of the Maxwells — sitting on its 
 banks ; his clothes were nearly all consumed from his 
 back, his hat was the merest remaining fragment, 
 scorched and shrivelled. The man was rocking him- 
 self to and fro and groaning. 
 
 " ' Fehan !' exclaimed Patterson. ' What has hap- 
 pened to you ? ' 
 
 " The man turned upon him a visage that startled 
 him with terror. It was, indeed, no longer a human 
 visage ; but a scorched and swollen mass of deformity. 
 The beard and hair were burnt away. Eyes were 
 net visible ; the whole face being a confused heap of 
 red flesh and hanging blisters. The poor fellow 
 raised a pair of hands that displayed equally the 
 dreadful work of the fire.
 
 TIIE BAD YEAE. BLACK THURSDAY. 113 
 
 " The young squatter exclaimed, ' How dreadful ! 
 Let me help you, Felian — let me take you home.' 
 
 " The man groaned again ; and, opening his dis- 
 torted mouth with difficulty and with agony, said, — 
 
 " ' I have no home — it is burnt.' 
 
 ' i ' And your family ? ' 
 
 " < Dead — all dead ! ' 
 
 "'But are you sure — are you quite sure?' said 
 Robert, excitedly. 
 
 " e I saw one — my eldest boy : he was lying burnt 
 near the house. I lifted him, to cany him away ; 
 but he said, " Lay me down, father — lay me down; 
 I cannot bear it." I laid him down, and asked, 
 Where are the rest ? " All fled into the bush," he 
 said ; and then he died. They are all burnt.' 
 
 " Robert Patterson flung the wretched man a linen 
 handkerchief, bidding him dip it in the creek and 
 lay it on his face to keep the air from it, and turned 
 his horse, saying he would look for the family. He 
 soon found the place where the hut had stood. It 
 was burnt to ashes. On the ground, not far from 
 it, lay the body of the dead little boy. Patterson 
 hastened along the track of the old road to the Max- 
 wells' station, tracing it as well as he could in the 
 fire and the fallen flaming branches. He felt sure 
 the flying family would take that way. In a few 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 1 14 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 minutes it brought him again upon the creek by 
 which the poor man sate, but lower down. 
 
 " There stood a hut in a damp swamp, which had 
 been used years ago for the sheep washing, but had 
 long been deserted. It was surrounded by thick 
 wattles, still burning. The hut was on fire ; but its 
 rotten timbers sent out far more smoke than flame. 
 As he approached, he heard low cries and lamenta- 
 tions. ' The family is fled thither,' he said to him- 
 self, ' and are perishing of suffocation.' He sprang 
 to the ground, and dashed forward through columns 
 of heavy smoke. It was hopeless to breathe in it, 
 for its pungent and stinging strength seemed to close 
 his lungs, and water rushed from his eyes in tor- 
 rents. 
 
 " But, pushing in, he seized the first living thing 
 that he laid his hands on, and bore it away. It was 
 a child. Again and again he made the desperate 
 essay, and succeeded in bringing out no less than 
 four children and the mother, who was sunk on the 
 floor as dead, but who soon gave signs of life as she 
 came into the air. 
 
 " The young man was now in the utmost per- 
 plexity with his charge. It was a heart-rending sight. 
 The whole group were more or less burnt ; but, as it 
 seemed to him, not so much burnt as to affect their
 
 THE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 115 
 
 lives. Their station was three miles distant, and he 
 had no alternative but to leave them here till he rode 
 on and sent a cart for them. With much labour, 
 carrying the children one after another in his arms, 
 he conveyed the woful group to the father. 
 
 " As the young man stood bewildered by the cries 
 and lamentations of the family on meeting the father, 
 a horse ridden by a lady approached at a gallop. 
 This apparition contrasted strangely with the lament- 
 able group of sufferers. The young lady was tall, 
 of a most beautiful figure, and was mounted on 
 a fine bay horse. A light skirt and broad felt hat 
 were all the deviations from her home costume that 
 haste had led her to assume. Her face, fresh and 
 roseate, full of youth, loveliness, and feeling, was at 
 the same time grave and anxious, as she gazed in 
 speechless wonder on the scene. 
 
 " « Miss Maxwell 1 ' Patterson exclaimed, * in the 
 name of Heaven, what news ? How is all at the 
 Mount ? Yet, on this dreadful day, what but ill can 
 happen ! ' 
 
 " « Nothing is amiss, that I know of, ' said the young 
 lady. ' We are safe at home. The fire has not come 
 near us.' 
 
 " ' Thank God ! ' said Robert. ' I was going to 
 
 I 2
 
 116 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 your house, when I fell in with this unfortunate 
 family. Will you ride back and send us a cart ? ' 
 
 " ( But I beg you will come with me, for I, too, was 
 going to you.' 
 
 " ' To me ! ' cried the young man, in the utmost 
 astonishment. ' Then all is not right. Is George 
 well?' 
 
 " e I hope so,' replied Miss Maxwell ; but the tears 
 started into her eyes at the same moment, and Robert 
 Patterson gave a groan of apprehension. 
 
 " ' I hope so,' added the young lady, recovering her 
 self-possession ; * but that is the point I want to 
 ascertain. Yesterday, he went with Tuncen into the 
 hills to bring in cattle, and this morning; the fire sur- 
 prised them when they had taken two different sweeps 
 along the side of a range. Tuncen could not find 
 George again, but made his way home ; hoping his 
 master had done the same. George has not yet come, 
 and the fire is raging so fiercely in the hills, that I 
 could think of nothing but coming to you for your 
 advice and assistance.' 
 
 " ' Thank you, Ellen ! ' said Robert, with a sad 
 emotion. c I will find him if he be alive.' He 
 sprang upon his horse ; and, telling the unhappy 
 family that he would send them immediate assistance, 
 both he and Miss Maxwell galloped away.
 
 THE BAD YEAR. —BLACK THURSDAY. 117 
 
 " I will not attempt to divulge their conversation 
 on the way ; but will let you a little into the mutual 
 relations of these two families and these young- 
 people. Miss Ellen Maxwell and her brother George 
 were the sole remaining members of their family. 
 As the nearest neighbours of the Pattersons, they had 
 grown into intimate friends. George and Robert had 
 been play-fellows in Van Diemen's Land ; and here, 
 where they had come in their boyhood, they were 
 school-fellows. Since then they had gradually grown, 
 from a similarity of tastes and modes of life, the most 
 intimate friends. It was not likely that Robert 
 Patterson and Ellen Maxwell could avoid liking one 
 another. They possessed everything in mind, person, 
 and estate, which made such an attachment the most 
 natural thing in the world. Ellen was extremely 
 attached to Mrs. Patterson, for whom she had the 
 highest veneration. Ellen had received an excellent 
 education in Edinburgh, whither she had been sent to 
 her friends. In her nature she was frank, joyous, 
 and affectionate ; but not without a keen sense of 
 womanly pride, which gave a certain dignity to her 
 manner, and a reputation for high spirit. 
 
 " All had gone well between herself and Robert 
 till some six months ago. But, since then, there had 
 sprung up a misunderstanding. Nobody could tell 
 
 I 3
 
 118 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 how it had arisen ; nobody except Ellen knew ; and 
 whatever was the secret cause, she locked it impene- 
 trably within her own bosom. All at once she had 
 assumed a distant and haughty manner towards 
 Robert Patterson. From him she did not conceal 
 that she felt she had cause for dissatisfaction, but she 
 refused to explain. When, confounded at the cir- 
 cumstance, he sought for an explanation, she bade 
 him search his own memory and his heart, and they 
 would instruct him. She insisted that they should 
 cease to regard themselves as affianced, and only con- 
 sented that nothing as yet should be said on the 
 subject to her brother or Mrs. Patterson, on the 
 ground that it would most painfully afflict them. 
 
 " Ellen, who used to be continually riding over to 
 see Mrs. Patterson with her brother, now rarely 
 appeared, and proudly declined to give her reasons 
 for the change ; adding that she must absent her- 
 self altogether, if the subject were renewed. To 
 her brother she was equally reserved ; and he attri- 
 buted her conduct to caprice, bidding Robert take no 
 notice of it. Ellen was not without other admirers ; 
 but that was nothing new. One young man, who had 
 lately come into the neighbourhood, paid her assi- 
 duous attention, and gossip did not fail to attribute 
 the cause of Robert Patterson's decline of favour to
 
 HE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 119 
 
 his influence. But Ellen gave no countenance to 
 such a supposition. She was evidently under no 
 desire to pique her old lover by any marked predilec- 
 tion for a new one. Her nature was too noble for 
 the pettiness of coquetry, and any desire to add 
 poignancy to coldness. On the other hand, it was 
 clear to the quietly watchful eye of her brother, that 
 she was herself even more unhappy than Robert. 
 Her eyes often betrayed the effects of secret weeping, 
 and the paleness of her cheek belied the assumed air 
 of cheerfulness that she wore. 
 
 " Things were in this uncomfortable state at the 
 outbreak of the fire. It was, therefore, a most cheering 
 thought to Patterson that, in her distress, she had 
 flown first, and at once, to him. This demonstrated 
 confidence in his friendship. True, on all occasions, 
 she had protested that her sense of his high moral 
 character was not an iota abated ; but, in this spon- 
 taneous act, Robert's heart persuaded himself that 
 there lay something more. 
 
 " No sooner did he reach the Mount, than, leaving 
 Ellen to send off assistance to the Fehans, he took 
 Tuncen the stockman, and rode into the forest hills. 
 It was soon dark, and they had to halt, but not far 
 from the spot where Tuncen had lost sight of his 
 
 I 4
 
 120 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 master. They tethered their horses in a space clear 
 of trees and of fire, and gave them corn that they 
 had brought with them. When the moon rose, they 
 went on to some distance, uttering loud cooees to 
 attract the ear of the lost man ; but all in vain. The 
 fire had left the ground hot and covered with ashes, 
 and here and there huge trees burning like columns 
 of red-hot iron. 
 
 "Finding all their efforts for the night fruitless, they 
 flung themselves down beside their horses, and, with 
 the earliest peep of dawn, were up and off higher 
 into the hills. Their way presented at every step 
 the most shocking effects of the fire. Ever and anon 
 they came upon bullocks which had perished in it. 
 Here and there, too, they descried the remains of 
 kangaroos, opossums, and hundreds of birds, seared 
 and shrivelled into sable masses of cinder. 
 
 " They came at length to the spot where Tuncen 
 and George Maxwell had parted ; and the experienced 
 bushman carefully sought out the tracks of his horse's 
 feet, and followed them. These were either oblite- 
 rated by the fire, or failed from the rocky hardness 
 of the ground ; but, by indefatigable search, they re- 
 gained them, and were led at length to the edge of a 
 deep and precipitous ravine. In the ravine itself the 
 trees and grass remained unscathed; the torrent of
 
 THE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 121 
 
 fire had leapt over it, sweeping away, however, 
 every shrub and blade of herb from the heights. 
 
 " ' God defend us ! ' exclaimed Robert, ' the smoke 
 must have blinded him, and concealed this frightful 
 place. Man and horse are doubtless dashed to 
 pieces.' 
 
 *' He raised a loud and clear cooee ; instantly 
 answered by the wild and clamorous barking of a 
 dog, which, in the next instant, was seen leaping 
 and springing about in the bottom of the dell, as if 
 frantic with delight. 
 
 u ' That is Snirrup ! ' exclaimed Tuncen ; and the 
 two men began to descend the steep side of the ravine. 
 Robert Patterson outstripped his older and heavier 
 companion. He seemed to fly down the sheer and 
 craggy descent. Here he seized a bough, there a 
 point of the rock, and, in the next instant, was as 
 rapidly traversing the bottom of the glen. Snirrup, 
 the cattle-dog, rushed barking and whining upon 
 him, as in a fit of ecstatic madness, and then bounded 
 on before him. Robert followed in breathless anxiety, 
 stopped in the next moment by the sight of George 
 Maxwell's horse, lying crushed and dead. Robert 
 cast a rapid glance around, expecting every moment 
 to see his friend stretched equally lifeless. But 
 presently he heard the faint sound of a human voice.
 
 122 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 " There lay George stretched In the midst of a 
 grassy thicket, with a face expressing agony and 
 exhaustion. Robert seized his offered hand, and 
 George called first for water. His friend started up 
 and ran down the valley at full speed. He was soon 
 back with a panikin of water, which the sufferer 
 drank with avidity. 
 
 " He now learned that, as had been supposed, in the 
 thick smoke, the horse had gone over the precipice, 
 and was killed in an instant. George had escaped, 
 his fall being broken by his steed ; and he was flung 
 into the thicket, which again softened the shock of 
 his descent. But he had a broken leg, and was, 
 besides, extremely bruised and torn. Life, however, 
 was strong within him ; and Tuncen and Robert lost 
 no time in having a litter of poles bound together 
 with stringy bark, made soft with grass and leaves 
 laid in a sheet of the same bark. They had three 
 miles to bear the shattered patient ; to whom every 
 motion produced excruciating agonies. It was not 
 long before they heard people in different parts of 
 the wood loudly cooeeing; and their answers soon 
 brought not only a number of men, who had been sent 
 out in quest of them, but also Miss Maxwell herself. 
 
 " We shall not attempt to describe the sad and yet 
 rejoicing interview of the brother and sister, nor the
 
 THE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 123 
 
 rapidity with which the different men were sent off 
 upon the horses tied in the hills for the surgeon ; who 
 lived ten miles off. 
 
 " In a few days George Maxwell — his leg having 
 been set and his wounds dressed — had become easy 
 enough to relate all that had happened to him ; the 
 dreadful night which he had passed in extreme agony 
 in the glen, and the excitement which the loud ring- 
 ing cooees of Robert, which had reached him, but to 
 which he was unable to reply, had occasioned both 
 him and the faithful and sympathising dog, who 
 barked vehemently, but, as it proved, in vain. 
 
 " From the moment of this tragic occurrence Robert 
 Patterson was constantly in attendance at the Mount 
 on his friend. He slept in the same room with him, 
 and attended with Ellen as his nurse in the day-time. 
 From this moment the cloud which so long hung over 
 the spirit of Ellen Maxwell had vanished. She was 
 herself again ; always kind and open, yet with a 
 mournful tone in her bearing towards Robert, which 
 surprised and yet pleased him. It looked like regret 
 for past unkindness. As they sate one evening over 
 their tea, while George was in a profound sleep in 
 the next room, Ellen, looking with emotion at him, 
 said, in a low, tremulous voice, ' Robert, I owe 
 much to you.'
 
 124 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 " ' To me ? ' said Robert, hastily. { Isn't George 
 as much a brother to me as to you ? ' 
 
 " ' It is not that which I mean,' added Ellen, 
 colouring deeply, yet speaking more firmly ; ' it is 
 that I have done you great wrong. I believed that 
 you had said a most ungenerous thing, and I acted 
 upon my belief with too much pride and resentment. 
 I was told that you had jested at me as the daughter 
 of a convict.' 
 
 " Robert sprang up. ' It is false ! I never said it,' 
 he exclaimed. c Who could tell you such a mali- 
 cious falsehood ? ' 
 
 " ' Calm yourself,' added Ellen, taking the young 
 man's hand. ' I shall tell you all.' 
 
 " ( Hear me patiently ; for I must impress first on 
 you the strange likelihood of what was reported to 
 me. You were driven to a stockman's hut, it was 
 said, by a storm — you and a young friend. You 
 were very merry, and this friend congratulated you 
 in a sportive style on having won what he was 
 pleased to call the richest young woman in the 
 colony. And with a merry laugh you were made to 
 add, ' and the daughter of the most illustrious of 
 lags ! ' 
 
 " Robert Patterson, with a calmness of concentrated
 
 TIIE BAD TEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 125 
 
 wrath, asked, in a low measured tone : ' Who said 
 that ? ' 
 
 " ' The woman whom you lately saved with all her 
 family. It was Nelly Fehan.' 
 
 " « Nelly Fehan ! ' said Robert, in amazement. 
 * What have I ever done to her that deserved such a 
 stab ? ' 
 
 " ' You threatened to send Fehan to prison for bush- 
 ranging. You reminded him of his former life and 
 unexpired sentence.' 
 
 " ' That is true,' said Robert, after a pause of 
 astonishment. 'And this was the deadly revenge — 
 the serpents ! But, O Ellen ! why could you not 
 speak? One word, and all would have been ex- 
 plained.' 
 
 " * I could not speak, Robert. Wounded pride si- 
 lenced me. But I have suffered severely ; have been 
 fearfully punished. I can only say — forgive me ! ' 
 
 " One long embrace obliterated the past. 
 
 " The late Mr. Maxwell had been transported for 
 the expression of his liberal political principles in 
 hard and bigoted times. There was not a man in 
 the penal settlement who did not honour his political 
 integrity and foresight, and who did not reverence 
 his character. But the convicts as a body were
 
 126 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 proud to claim him as of their own class, though 
 sent thither only for the crime of a Hampden or a 
 Sidney. Whenever reproach was thrown on the 
 convict section of society, the insulted party pointed 
 to the venerable exile, and triumphantly hailed him 
 as their chief. No endeavours, though they were 
 many, and conducted by powerful hands, had ever 
 been able to procure a reversal of his sentence. The 
 injuries of a man of his high talents and noble nature 
 might be comparatively buried at the antipodes; at 
 home they would be a present, a perpetual, and a 
 damaging reproach. He had lived and died a 
 banished, but a highly-honoured man. Still, as he 
 rose to a higher estimation and an unusual affluence, 
 there were little minds who delighted occasionally to 
 whisper — ' After all, he is but a lag.' And it was 
 on this tender point that the minds of his children, 
 whose ears such remarks had reached and wounded, 
 had become morbidly sensitive. 
 
 " Amid the general calamity, this reconciliation was 
 like a song of thanksgiving in the generous heart of 
 Robert Patterson, and quickened it to tenfold exer- 
 tions in alleviating the sufferings of his neighbours. 
 His joy was made boundless and overflowing by a 
 circumstance which appeared to be little short of a 
 miracle. When Robert rode up to his own station,
 
 THE BAD YEAR. — BLACK THURSDAY. 127 
 
 he beheld his mother, — not seated in her wheeled 
 chair, but on foot, — light, active, and alert, going 
 to and fro amongst the people whose destitution still 
 kept them near his house. The mass of misery that 
 she saw around her and the exertion which it stimu- 
 lated burst the paralytic bonds which had enchained 
 her for years. The same cause which had disabled 
 her limbs had restored them. 
 
 " The conflagration had extended over a space of 
 three hundred miles by a hundred and fifty, and far 
 away beyond the Goulburn, the Broken River, and the 
 Ovens, may still be witnessed the remaining traces 
 of its desolation. Over all this space, flocks and 
 herds in thousands had perished. Houses, ricks, 
 fences and bridges had been annihilated. Whole 
 families had been destroyed. Solitary travellers, 
 flying through the boundless woods before the surg- 
 ing flame, had fallen and perished. For weeks and 
 months, till the kindly rains of autumn had renewed 
 the grass, people journeying through the bush beheld 
 lean and famishing cattle, unable to rise from the 
 ground, and which by faint bellowings seemed to 
 claim the pity and aid of man. Perhaps no such 
 vast devastation ever fell on any nation ; and the 
 memory of Black Thursday is an indelible retrospect 
 in Victoria."
 
 128 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 THE BUSH FIRE AT TALLANGETTA. THE QUEST FOR 
 
 BELL METCALFE. 
 
 Long before Mrs. Quarrier had concluded her ter- 
 rible narrative, the whole Fitzpatrick family were 
 filled with consternation as well as sympathy. They 
 no longer wondered at the earnestness of the warning 
 that she gave them, and eagerly demanded if there 
 were no preventive means, if there was nothing that 
 they could do to avoid the threatened clangers? 
 "Yes," said the practical old lady; "first clear a 
 space all round your huts by burning the grass, when 
 the wind is still or so gentle that you can command 
 the flame and beat it out at will with a few bushes. 
 Then you have a place of retreat for yourselves and 
 cattle. Then your buildings and ricks are safe. 
 Do the same at all your out-stations, where your 
 sheep camp at night, and let the camping places be 
 quite away from trees. You are admirably off on 
 this station ; for you have low grounds, moiras, those 
 lands on the level of the rivers which are overflowed
 
 THE BUSH FIRE AT TALLANGETTA. 129 
 
 in flood-times. They are now grassy and green on 
 your run by the Goulburn. Let your cattle be 
 herded down near these, and your flocks too as much 
 as possible, that, in case of fire, they may flee thither 
 and find both safety and feed. In every quarter 
 of your run keep these things in view, that your 
 shepherds and stock may not be taken by surprise ; 
 for when the wind comes it comes in a moment, and 
 the fire travels with it more fleetly than the fleetest 
 race-horse." 
 
 Scarcely had the old lady left the place when all 
 her words were verified. Mr. Fitzpatrick, as he bade 
 the Quarriers good-bye, hastened down to the huts, 
 and asked the overseer what he thought of Mrs. 
 Quarrier's prediction. " If she has said it," replied 
 David Rannock, in evident consternation, " it will be 
 so. I would not lose a moment; in truth, the drought 
 is ominous of the greatest peril." 
 
 "Then away !" exclaimed Mr. Fitzpatrick, The 
 overseer mounted his horse, and galloped off. Barks, 
 Purdy, the cook, were sent in like speed to different 
 sheep-runs. Mr. Fitzpatrick and Charles galloped 
 away in other directions ; and the event showed that 
 they had not a moment too much. Bush fires broke 
 out in all directions. They saw from their own 
 windows those glorious prairies swept by a flame 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 ] 30 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 which went like intensest lightning across them, and 
 changed their billowy gold into one black, smoking 
 expanse. It was not without the most extraordinary 
 exertions that their shepherds were able, from the 
 more distant tracts of the run, to reach the spots of 
 safety which Mrs. Quarrier had mentioned. The 
 cattle on the hills, at sight of the flames below, 
 appeared to take the way towards the Goulburn by 
 instinct, and were, therefore, driven with the greater 
 ease towards the swamps and moiras on its banks by 
 the stockmen and David Rannock. 
 
 Soon there came the awful tidings of the devasta- 
 tions of the fires extending far and wide over the 
 neighbouring districts ; of grass, corn, cattle, and 
 sheep destroyed. Black Thursday seemed come 
 back again in all its horrors, — and they saw what 
 Mrs. Quarrier had so vividly described still more 
 vividly acting under their own eyes. Our friends at 
 Tallangetta had been felicitating themselves on the 
 abundance and the splendid appearance of the fruit 
 fast ripening in vineyard and orchards. It was a 
 scene of affluence and beauty in peaches, grapes, figs, 
 melons, and the like, such as previously they had no 
 conception of. In one day the greater portion of this 
 glorious promise was destroyed. The wind came 
 from the blazing forest like the breath of a furnace
 
 THE BUSH FIRE AT TALLANGETTA. 131 
 
 seven times heated ; and the leaves of the fruit trees 
 shrivelled up as in actual contact with fire ; and the 
 fruit Avas withered, shrunk, parboiled as it were, on 
 the trees, and vast quantities of it soon began to fall 
 to the ground and perish. 
 
 It was a woful and melancholy spectacle ; a heavy- 
 sense of calamity fell on the minds of every one. 
 Peggy Wilks was particularly eloquent on the 
 madness of coming to such a country as this. 
 It would have saved them all the trouble, she said, 
 if they had gone and jumped into the nearest 
 red-hot lime-kiln at home, or into the furnace at 
 B utterly Works. Every one went about silent, 
 awe-struck, and dejected. 
 
 But our friends had escaped far better than many 
 of their neighbours, thanks to the foresight of Mrs. 
 Quarrier. The Poncefords had every quarter of 
 their station, which lay altogether on the plains, 
 ravaged by the fire, and were compelled to cut down 
 the shiock and wattle trees wherever they could, to 
 keep their flocks and cattle alive. It was beautiful 
 to see how well they bore it. Captain Ponceford 
 was out all day long, hunting out proper trees, and 
 helping to cut them down. His hands were blistered 
 by wielding the axe, and the heat was still intense ; 
 but he rode here and there, and continued to wield
 
 132 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 the axe with all his vigour, to supply the necessary 
 comfort for their stock. Mrs. Ponceford shed tears 
 for the sufferings of the poor dumb creatures depend- 
 ent upon them, and for those of their fellow-men 
 which were continually coining to his ears, but she 
 shed none for their own losses. She was on horse- 
 back many hours in each day, searching the woods 
 for suitable trees to fell, and during the rest was as 
 busy seeing that the shepherds were supplied with 
 their necessary rations under the extraordinary 
 circumstances. Mr. Fitzpatrick gave them leave to 
 fell a vast number of shiocks on his station, espe- 
 cially on the hills above ; and thousands of beautiful 
 trees, with all their green flowing locks, like those 
 fabled of the mermaid, were laid prostrate, which 
 at any other time he would have witnessed with the 
 profoundest regret. 
 
 The Woolstans at Corballa, though further from 
 the rivers, had escaped wonderfully. They lay high, 
 and though the wind had driven the flames up to the 
 tops of the loftiest hills in many parts of the country, 
 the fire had not been able to touch them. They 
 declared that they had had a strong impression upon 
 them that some great calamity was at hand. The 
 drought suggested very naturally fire and dearth. 
 They had, therefore, burnt the places at the feet of
 
 THE BUSH FIKE AT TALLANGETTA. 133 
 
 the hills where the fire could find access to them, 
 and had just completed their arrangements when 
 the conflagration came. Their stock was somewhat 
 pinched for pasture, but not in any alarming degree ; 
 and they were able to think and act for their 
 neighbours. 
 
 Dr. Woolstan rode over to Tallangetta ; and 
 finding all safe there, returned and took the way to 
 the Metcalfe's, at Moolap on the Campaspe. Nothing 
 had been heard of them ; but, being on the banks of 
 a never-failing stream, less anxiety was felt on their 
 account. The worthy doctor rode along through 
 parts that had been swept by the flames, and were 
 black, desolate, and appalling. He rode on again 
 over low grounds which had escaped, and through 
 some pleasant ranges where, though the intense 
 drought had scorched the grass into the crispest hay, 
 the fires had not reached. His mind was greatly 
 relieved, and he was even singing aloud a favourite 
 thanksgiving hymn when, as he said, on passing over 
 a certain ridge, a heavy cloud fell on his heart. A 
 heavy black cloud settled also on his brain, and a 
 confused sense of evil bewildered and confounded 
 him. It was as if tons of distress, as he expressed it, 
 had fallen on him. He sat like a stone on his horse, 
 which, as if of its own will, stood still as a statue. 
 
 K 3
 
 134 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 For a time all thought was annihilated in him ; his 
 soul was paralysed, yet there lay on it a deep, dead 
 sense of a strange and immense woe. He felt as if 
 he were really in the land of the shadow of death. 
 When his mind began to recover from this vague 
 sense of evil, this stupor of affliction, he felt himself 
 relieved in some degree by a deep sigh ; and he 
 looked round for any object or image which might 
 have thus affrighted his spirit. There was nothing 
 of that kind. The afternoon sun lay with a beautiful 
 golden calm on the slopes of the hills around him ; 
 the grass was sere, but bent in the light air with a 
 soothing whisper. The very trees which time had 
 prostrated around him lay in a certain beauty of their 
 own, a picturesque and deep tranquillity. He saw a 
 small herd of kangaroos on the slopes, which stood 
 up and listened, but did not take to flight ; and the 
 blue mountain parrots in the tree-tops glanced their 
 gorgeous plumage in the sun, and uttered their 
 peculiarly soft and melodious notes. It was a picture 
 of nature's sweetest repose and beauty. 
 
 He looked onward, and all wore the same tranquil 
 smile. He could see the broad valley of the Cam- 
 paspe unscathed by fire, and in the distance the 
 rising smoke of the station of Moolap. But the 
 cloud would not disperse within. There was a cry
 
 THE BUSH FIRE AT TALLANGETTA. 135 
 
 in his brain of woe! woe! woe! He put on his horse, 
 in a feeling of impatience to reach the station, and 
 learn what could justify this rending, as he termed 
 it, of his very vitals. The nearer he drew, a more 
 terrible anxiety hung on his heart. When he was 
 just upon the station, he cast a rapid glance over it: — 
 all was profoundly calm ; but ah ! why only one smoke 
 from all those chimneys? At this hour — when flocks 
 return to the camping grounds, and the shepherds to 
 their huts ; when all is usually full of life ; when the 
 smoke streams up actively from the different huts ; 
 when the bleat of sheep and occasional low of cattle, 
 the bark of dogs and the passing of people from one 
 hut to another show that all are at home — whv this 
 stillness ? why this solitary smoke ? 
 
 The doctor rode up, full of wonder and surprise ; 
 no dog announced his approach, no single person 
 peered from the door of a hut. The hoofs of his 
 horse sounded hollow in the silence as he cantered up 
 to the door of the chief hut. He cried, " Hillo!" 
 and cracked his whip. In the next moment an old 
 man, very old, and wrinkled, and grey, half bent 
 double, appeared at the door ; and at the sight of the 
 doctor he turned round and retreated into the hut, 
 as if he had seen something terrible. Again, in a 
 moment, he reappeared, his head shaking as with 
 
 K 4
 
 136 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 palsy, and every limb trembling violently. Large 
 tears rolled down his withered face; and as the 
 doctor demanded what was amiss, he again shook his 
 head from side to side as in an agony, appeared 
 struggling to speak, but in vain, and, dashing his 
 sleeve across his eyes, he again suddenly retreated 
 into the hut 
 
 The doctor dismounted, and found the old man, a 
 faithful servant of many, many years, weeping vio- 
 lently in a chair into which he had sunk. The 
 doctor placed his hand kindly on the old man's 
 shoulder, and said a few kind words to console him ; 
 but it was some time before he could find composure 
 enough to tell his story. He was the only person at 
 the station. Every one besides, including Mrs. 
 Metcalfe, were gone off in search of Bell, who had 
 been tending a flock on the banks of the river a long 
 way off. Three days had now elapsed since the 
 flock had been found wandering without him. 
 
 " Where was that ? Where was the flock found, 
 Barzillai?" asked the doctor. 
 
 " Near the Wild-doc hollow on the Yan-Yan 
 creek, doctor." 
 
 " It is well," said the doctor; " let me have some 
 tea, and give my horse a good feed of corn. I must 
 go there to-night." 
 
 

 
 THE QUEST FOR BELL METCALFE. 137 
 
 " The Lord bless you for it, doctor," said the old 
 man, tears again streaming down his withered face. 
 " If God wills that he shall be found, there is no man 
 that is so likely as you, doctor, and you love poor 
 Bell, I know, almost as much as foolish old Barzillai. 
 Oh Lord ! Oh Lord ! that I should live to see this ! 
 Me, such an old, tottering, useless thing, and poor 
 Bell such a fine strong young fellow, who can leap 
 like a kangaroo ! Could, I mean, — could,— could, — 
 pray the Lord he may now ! " and the old man 
 bustled off to get tea ready. 
 
 Dr. Woolstan sate sunk in deep thought while tea 
 was preparing ; once or twice he rose and strode 
 across the hut, and then sate down again. Old Bar- 
 zillai brought in tea, and a smoking chop. The 
 doctor ate and drank, without uttering a word. " My 
 horse," he said at length, rising and going to the 
 door. 
 
 " It is there," said Barzillai ; and as the doctor 
 mounted, he drew close to him, and said, " Do you 
 think you shall find him, doctor ? If you could just 
 say so, I know it would prove true." 
 
 He squeezed the old man's hand, as he put his 
 horse in motion, and said, « That is as it may please 
 God, but, my good old friend, I feel a hope." 
 
 " God bless you for that," said the old man, gazing
 
 138 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 after the doctor, who disappeared at a rapid canter 
 into the dusky forest. On he went, over hill and 
 down dale, through the depth of most solitary forests, 
 leaping fallen trees, pushing on through scrub and 
 jungle, as if the way were tracked, and the light were 
 on the earth. About midnight he saw a fire blazing 
 before him in the valley, and on reaching it saw a 
 party seated partly on the trunk of a fallen tree, and 
 partly lying on the ground round it. The dogs barked 
 at his approach, and the silent people looking up 
 showed him Mr. and Mrs. Metcalfe, Brady, and a 
 couple of shepherds. 
 
 There was no need to ask if they had been suc- 
 cessful ; their wearied and dejected looks showed 
 plainly that they were in the depth of trouble. They 
 arose as the doctor alighted, and grasped his hand one 
 after another without uttering a word. The doctor 
 sate down, and all resumed their seats in silence. 
 Thus they sate for at least a quarter of an hour, 
 when the doctor said, " My dear friends, we must 
 not despair. The moon will rise in two hours : I will 
 then set out." The father and mother shook their 
 heads, as if in despair. " I shall set out then," re- 
 peated the doctor ; " and till then let me lie down, 
 and let no one come near or speak to me." He 
 wrapped himself in a rug which lay at hand, with-
 
 THE QUEST FOR BELL METCALFE. 139 
 
 drew to a tree near, and flung himself down on his 
 face. 
 
 Still and motionless he lay through those two long 
 hours. The fire flared and snapped ; the tuons or 
 flying opossums came forth and shrieked in the tall 
 blue gums over head ; the flying squirrel made its 
 chattering cry ; the opossum uttered its snoring 
 sound, and gambolled like a kitten over the long 
 dependent boughs of great red gum-trees; and through 
 all, the woful parents sate and gazed into the fire. 
 They refused to lie down, though worn out with 
 fatigue and trouble ; they still were heavily drowsy, 
 and frequently nodded, started, looked round, and 
 said, " Is it morning yet? " 
 
 At the end of the two hours the moon was seen 
 above the horizon, and the doctor was observed to be 
 on foot ; and fetching up his horse he came leading it 
 towards the fire, where Brady was busy putting on 
 the kettle, and getting out some breakfast. 
 
 " I hope you have slept, doctor," said Mrs. Met- 
 calfe, her noble countenance exhibiting; the stonv 
 expression of her natural fortitude struggling with 
 deep affliction. 
 
 " No," said the doctor, K I have not slept. I have 
 striven to get above all the distracting agitations of 
 the natural mind, into that region of pure freedom
 
 140 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 where the spirit communes with its maker, and is 
 still. It is hard wrestling with one's own flesh and 
 blood, but I have found peace in it. My way lies 
 over yon hill," pointing eastward. Mrs. Metcalfe 
 solemnly shook her head, saying, — 
 
 " Alas ! we have sought all over that quarter for 
 these two days. I fear me it is useless. The whole 
 of those hills and valleys have rung with the loud 
 cooees of our men." 
 
 "Nevertheless, that is my way, and I believe I 
 have no time to lose," replied the simple-hearted man. 
 He took some of the damper from the log on which 
 it was laid, and put it in his pocket, drank off a 
 panikin of tea, took the hands of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Metcalfe affectionately, saying, " Do n't be cast down ; 
 I have faith that all will yet be well." Tears 
 gushed into the eyes of his sorrowing friends, as he 
 said this ; and, turning, he mounted his horse. At 
 the same moment, he saw Brady also mounted, and 
 ready to accompany him. " That is kind, my dear 
 Brady," said the doctor; "you can greatly comfort 
 and assist me." 
 
 " Keep my dog secure in his chain," said Brady, 
 turning to his father, " and should you wish to follow, 
 he will bring you direct to me." 
 
 The two friends rode away. The doctor rode on
 
 THE QUEST FOR BELL METCALFE. 141 
 
 without speaking. The moon was bright, and almost 
 perpendicular over head. The forest was nearly as 
 light as day, and the stems of the trees, white as 
 marble in their new bark, had a ghostly radiance in 
 its beams. The doctor rode on ; — he asked no 
 questions of Brady as to where they had already 
 searched, but followed solely the promptings of his own 
 mind. Morning broke, day grew, and the sun 
 began to pour down upon them his burning rays. 
 Still the doctor rode on, and looked neither to right 
 nor left. Brady occasionally made a divergence, 
 cantering off to explore some thicket, or take a 
 survey from the brow of a hill ; but the doctor, 
 without seeking to check or encourage these little 
 detours, still went on his wav. 
 
 It was near noon that, as they were traversing 
 the side of a considerable hill, Brady observed a sort 
 of still but excited attention in the doctor's face. It 
 was set with a direct onward look. His eyes seemed 
 fixed on some particular spot, and the expression of 
 his countenance was singularly solemn and expressive. 
 Brady thought that the old prophets must have worn 
 such a sacred and ennobled look. He felt a strange 
 reverence for the man with whom he had so often 
 joked and played in the most boyish freedom. Anon, 
 they beheld a hollow in the hill side, filled with
 
 142 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 dense masses of bushes and dark wattles. On some 
 tall trees above this jungle sate a number of the 
 Australian carrion crows, and raised loudly their 
 strange, bleating, and piteous cries. 
 
 " That means something, Brady." They were the 
 first words the doctor had spoken since they set out. 
 
 " Then I fear it means no good," said Brady ; 
 " for where they haunt there is generally death." 
 
 " Let us see," said the doctor. They were on the 
 edge of the jungle, the hollow in which it grew being 
 evidently the consequence of a landslip at some 
 former period. The doctor dismounted, and tied his 
 horse. Brady still kept his saddle, and said, " This 
 is a whip-stick scrub, doctor ; you cannot penetrate it 
 without the axe, and besides, we have searched it 
 all round." 
 
 " We must search it again, Brady ; give me the 
 axe," said the doctor. But Brady sprang at once 
 from his horse, drew his small axe from his belt, 
 and said, " Where shall I hew a way, doctor ? " 
 The doctor pointed out the direction, and Brady 
 went vigorously to work. The scrub consisted of 
 dwarf gum-trees, of about fifteen feet high, growing 
 up closely, side by side, like so many wands of 
 sufficient size to make the long handles of bullock- 
 whips ; hence the name. These rods were woven
 
 THE QUEST FOR BELL METCALFE. 143 
 
 together with lianas, or vines, as they are called, — 
 long, tough, rope-like plants, — till the whole was an 
 impenetrable mass, except to fire and the axe. 
 Brady's steel soon cleared a way into the centre of 
 the jungle, throwing down the rods, and treading 
 over them as he went on. At once he came to a 
 little stream trickling down from the hill side. 
 " Follow me," said the doctor, taking his way up the 
 stream, stooping under the boughs of the jungle. 
 
 " Beware, doctor !" said Brady, as he saw them- 
 selves coming into an open place wildly grown with 
 tall clumps of sedge, wild grass, and watery shrubs. 
 " This is the very place for the black snake." The 
 doctor went on, rising as he got out of the dense mass 
 of the whip-stick gums, and directing his way through 
 the boggy soil still up the stream. At once Brady, 
 uttering a wild cry, dashed past him, and the next 
 moment was seen on his knees beside what appeared 
 to be a corpse. He was wringing his hands in dis- 
 tress, and convulsed with a violent passion of tears, 
 when the doctor's calm face was bent down to the 
 body — clearly that of poor Bell. 
 
 "He is dead, doctor! he is dead!" said Brady, 
 dropping showers of tears, and frantically driving 
 away the flies with his handkerchief. Poor Bell lay 
 on his back close to the spring which gushed out of
 
 144 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 the hill side. His eyes were closed, his face pale as 
 marble, his hat rolled into the water, and his black 
 hair wildly strewn about his thin and ashen fea- 
 tures. 
 
 The doctor stooped, put his hand upon his mouth, 
 and then laid it for a considerable space on the region 
 of the heart. 
 
 " He is not dead!" said the doctor. " There has 
 been fever and probably delirium here, but these are 
 over ; the ebbing force of life needs rallying." He 
 took his panikin from his belt, dipped it in the spring, 
 and then showed that he had come prepared by 
 drawing a small wicker-guarded flask of brandy from 
 his pocket. He poured some into the water, and 
 applied some of it to the parched lips of poor Bell. 
 After one or two repetitions of the restorative the 
 poor lad moved his lips, and sought to reach the fluid 
 with his tongue. 
 
 " He lives ! he lives ! " exclaimed Brady, starting 
 up, and as suddenly flinging himself down again by 
 his brother, crying, " Bell ! Bell ! my dear Bell 1" 
 
 " Gently, Brady ; command yourself," said the 
 doctor. " We must be very cautious ; " and he gently 
 poured a little of the liquid into the sufferer's mouth. 
 He leaned anxiously over his face; watched the 
 effect of the stimulant with a fixed intensity. Then
 
 THE QUEST FOR BELL METCALFE. 145 
 
 he gave him a little more, and, when Brady attempted 
 to speak, putting out his hand towards him warn- 
 ingly. In a little time Bell gave an audible sigh, a 
 slight tinge of colour came into his cheek, and there 
 was a motion in his fingers. The doctor saw all this 
 with the liveliest attention, and continued to repeat 
 the stimulant at intervals. At length Bell raised his 
 right hand and laid it on his own breast. There was 
 a trembling in the eyelids, and the eyes for a moment 
 opened, and closed again. 
 
 " He is going ! " exclaimed Brady. " We are too 
 late — too late !" 
 
 " Be patient, my dear Brady," said the doctor. 
 " Give us time. And now go out of the jungle, make 
 a fire, and get some tea." " Will he live, though?" 
 said Brady, as he started up to go. " We will hope 
 it," said the doctor; "for what else were we sent?" 
 And Brady dashed away. He had scarcely scrambled 
 together some dry leaves and branches and set fire 
 to them, and was running for water, when he saw the 
 doctor coming, carrying Bell in his arms. He laid 
 him down on his rug near the fire, and bade Brady 
 make all haste with the tea. Brady pushed the quart 
 pot into the fire, opened his little bags of sugar and 
 tea, but with trembling hands ; and at every moment 
 casting a glance from these to Bell, who lay with his 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 eyes now open, but dreaming, and as directed to no 
 particular object. The doctor seized the tea and 
 sugar and threw them into the boiling water. Very 
 soon the panikin of tea was ready ; and the doctor, 
 cooling it by pouring it repeatedly from the quart to 
 the panikin and back, knelt down to give some of it 
 to the half-conscious patient. But Bell now received 
 the nourishment almost greedily; and presently 
 he attempted to speak, and they thought he said, 
 but so faintly as to be almost inaudible, " Where 
 ami?" 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! my dear Bell," said the doctor, 
 " don't be anxious, you are amongst your friends ; all 
 is right." And they saw with wonder and delight 
 that he became every minute more conscious, and 
 strong. In a few hours he was so well as to be able to 
 say that he had been very ill, and had lost all sense 
 of life. The doctor nursed him, gave him from time 
 to time yet a little nourishment, and he at length fell 
 asleep. During this time Brady's dog came rushing 
 up to them, and would have barked for joy, but 
 Brady seized him by the muzzle, and carried him to 
 a distance, where he made him, in obedience to his 
 perfect discipline, lie down, and remain by his saddle. 
 The dog was the herald of the approach of the party, 
 and Dr. Woolstan hastened to meet them, and to
 
 THE QUEST FOR BELL METCALFE. 147 
 
 give them the joyful intelligence of the life of their 
 son, and to enjoin the utmost caution upon them. 
 
 But no power could restrain them from hurrying 
 forward to where the young man lay. There the 
 rejoiced and yet trembling parents fell on their knees 
 by the side of their recovered son, and with silent 
 tears poured out their prayerful thanks to God. 
 
 Towards evening Bell was sufficiently restored by 
 the judicious nursing of the doctor and his mother, 
 to tell them that he had been seized by a strange 
 dizziness and fever after several days' hard watching 
 and toiling after the flock in the intense heat; that he 
 had got down to this spring, telling his dog to mind 
 the flock, and this command the poor dog had so 
 faithfully obeyed that he was found almost dead 
 with hunger, yet still crawling after his charge. By 
 this, however, he lost all trace of his master, and 
 had proved of no use in attempting to find him. 
 Bell said, that reaching the water he had drunk 
 copiously, and immediately afterwards the world 
 seemed to go round with him, the earth seemed to 
 heave and sink under him, and soon he lost all sense 
 but that of a strange, urging, inextricable confusion 
 in his brain. When this left him he had found him- 
 self too feeble to raise even his hand, and he saw 
 several huge black snakes come and play and splash 
 
 L 2
 
 148 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 in the water near him. When they glid rapidly 
 away it was only at the approach of several wild dogs, 
 which snuffed, started, and ran back at sight of him, 
 and at their retreat the snakes returned again and re- 
 sumed their gambols, while the crows over head looked 
 down with their black, glistening, fiend-like eyes, and 
 uttered their lamentable, but, to him, horrible notes. 
 He had lain in the terrible conviction that he should 
 soon perish of exhaustion, till happily at length sense 
 and feeling passed away. 
 
 We could ndt express, if we would attempt it, the re- 
 joicings over the son who had been lost and was found. 
 Brady galloped off to the station for a light spring 
 cart with a bed in it, and one of the men mounted the 
 doctor's horse to convey the happy intelligence to 
 Mount Corballa. It was two days before the party 
 could reach their station with their patient. Fre- 
 quently they had to take him from the cart, and carry 
 him on a litter constructed of branches, over stony 
 ranges, and abrupt gullies. At length, however, they 
 reached home : at length poor old Barzillai had the 
 delight, a weeping and trembling one, of seeing his 
 dear lad, as he called him, safe and wholly convalescent. 
 The doctor took his leave amid the blessings of the 
 grateful and once more happy family, and with a 
 wonderfully augmented sense of veneration for his
 
 THE QUEST FOR BELL METCALFE. 149 
 
 deep but unaffected piety, and the almost prophetic 
 character of his mind. 
 
 The bad year rolled on its way ; from all quarters 
 came melancholy details of dearth, loss of cattle, and 
 suffering of families ; but amongst these tidings were 
 mingled strange reports of the discoveries of gold; of 
 people running, as if struck with insanity, up the coun- 
 try ; of deserted towns, highways crowded with wildly 
 hastening throngs, drays, stores, tents, and tools ; and 
 of marvellous riches snatched up from the scarcely 
 covering; soil. On the heels of a terrible crisis came 
 thus one more wondrous than any fable, and the whole 
 colony was in a chaos of excitement, joy, fear, doubt, 
 and extravagant rumour, before which all description 
 is annihilated. 
 
 L 3
 
 1 50 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 
 
 " This is heart-breaking work," said Abner Wilks 
 one evening, as he came in to tea, with a number of 
 nectarines in his hand, shrivelled up into little lumps, 
 resembling leather more than anything else ; " cruel, 
 woful work it is, to see such fine fruit ruinated a 
 thissens. It makes me quite malancholy to go about 
 the garden, and see nothing but scorched leaves, all 
 curled up into cockle-shells, and grapes, and melons, 
 and apples, and plums, and all sorts of fruit, coddled 
 on th' trees. The 'taters are all dried in th'tops to 
 nothing, and they tell me they will grow no more 
 till rain comes, and then they '11 put out new tops and 
 new 'taters, so we must get them before they dun 
 that, half grown as they are." 
 
 Abner looked quite cast down and out of heart, 
 for he loved his garden as every good gardener does, 
 and had walked about with extraordinary pride amid 
 such a show of fruit as he ha^d never before seen 
 growing in the open air.
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 151 
 
 K Ay, a nice country, is n't it ? " said Peggy, " a 
 very nice country. Do n't you think it would have 
 been fine gardening in old Sprittlecake's oven ? The 
 old baker could have sown your seed for you as 
 soon as his fao-ffots had burnt down to hot ashes, and 
 
 CO * 
 
 that 's the sort of stuff you 've been trying to grow 
 your ingins and your reddiges in. And so you 
 thought, did you, that you were going to grow 
 peaches, and apricocks, and melons, and all such 
 grand things out of doors, eh ? Without walls, or 
 glass, or green-houses, or any mander of thing, eh ? 
 And wuff ! comes the fire out of old Sprittlecake's 
 oven, and just settles them ! A nice country indeed! 
 A very nice country ! I hope you enjoy it, Abner." 
 
 (< Well," said Abner, " if I do, it 's more nor you 
 seemen' to do, Peggy. You seemen' to tak a delight iu 
 making bad worse, and if you can find a raw, iu 
 hitting your hardest on it. Now is n't it enough to 
 drive any man out of his senses to see such a world 
 of beautiful fruits cut off in their prime, as one may 
 say, and all the beans, peas, and the very parsley, 
 shrivelled up into curl-papers ? And yet you can jibe 
 one about it. Prithee, hold thy tongue, wench." 
 
 "But I thought," said Peggy, pouring out the 
 tea, " that you had hit on such a famous scheme 
 for making all the months come right. Did you put 
 
 L 4
 
 152 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 clown any note about sowing parsnips and growing 
 grapes in old Sprittlecake's oven? But I think 
 that 's a touch above you, Abner." 
 
 " But," said Abner, " such a hot wind and such a 
 conflagoration, they tell'n me, do n't mayhap come 
 more than once in a man's life." 
 
 "Nay, they had n't need," said Peggy; "once is 
 enough for me ; but Milly Barks says these hot 
 winds blow every few days in summer." 
 
 " But not such a wind as this," replied Abner ; 
 " and such a bush fire was never known." 
 
 " I reckon it waited of us," said Peggy ; " it was 
 very good of it ; we generally come in for a boon if 
 there be one. Fall ! I just went out at the door, and 
 slash comes the heat like a blast-furnace into my face. 
 I thought I was killed outright. My breath was 
 gone, my throat was burnt, the water gushed out of 
 my eyes, and my face acchully seemed skinned. 
 And this is a Christian country, is it ? I wish I had 
 'em as first came and found it out ; a nuisance it ! 
 And but for these wandering, helliraky vagabonds 
 as can 't be quiet at home, nobody need ha' come 
 here to be grilled alive, a plague on them !" 
 
 " But what are our troubles, Peggy, to those of 
 thousands ? They have lost all they have, and some 
 on 'em their lives. It is enough to melt the heart of
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 153 
 
 a stone to hear of all the suffering there is. See 
 what a state our necbor Captain Ponceforcl's run is 
 in. All burnt out, and their cattle perishing, and 
 the Captain and the Missis running about in the 
 woods, and working like slaves to keep the poor 
 creturs alive." 
 
 " Well, and they should e'en have had more sense 
 than ha' come to such a country," said Peggy. " If 
 people will run into the fire with their eyes open, 
 who 's to hinder 'em ? Not me, I 'm sure." 
 
 " And there 's poor Bell Metcalfe has nearly lost 
 his life," said Abner; "it was a narrow miss, and 
 would have been but for Dr. Woolstan, who traced 
 him fifty miles through the bush by negromancy, 
 they say, and recovered him at the last gasp." 
 
 "Ay, that's somethin' of a man now," said Peggy; 
 "he's up like a gentleman and's off, and saves his 
 feller-creturs, and you sitten here, whimpering and 
 simpering over a lot o' coddled apples, as if that 
 would do you or anybody any good. What art good to, 
 Abner, I should like to know; what art good to, I 
 wonder ? " 
 
 " Bravo, Peggy ! " cried Abner, clapping his hands, 
 jumping up, and tossing off the last of his third cup 
 of tea. " Those are the sensiblest words you 've said 
 these three months. That 's the truth, Peggy mine ;
 
 154 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 and so just hear, master has told me to go and help the 
 Poncefords all I can ; the garden can't be no worser, 
 and wo n't be no better till rain comes, and I 'm off." 
 
 He took down his capital American axe, ran up 
 stairs for a night-cap, and came down again with a 
 face radiant with pleasure. His warm heart bounded 
 with joy at the thought of lending a helping hand to 
 neighbours in distress. 
 
 " Are you really going, Abner ? " asked Peggy 
 Wilks, as she stood with tears in her eyes, and the 
 corner of her apron in her hand. " Now, directly ? 
 and how long for ? " 
 
 " Oh ! for a week or so, just as they may want 
 me," said Abner, shouldering his axe. 
 
 " Well, God bless thee, my lad," said Peggy, com- 
 ing up and kissing him ; " and think no more of my 
 nonsense ; thou knows I mean no harm, but I can't 
 help raffling a bit, now and then. My mother was so 
 before me, and yet the old man and her lived to 
 be ninety. Her raffling broke no bones, thou sees." 
 
 " Not it," said Abner, giving her a good smack, 
 and striding out of the hut ; " only mustard to the 
 old man's beef." And with a hand laid on it, he leaped 
 lightly over the post-and-rail fence, and strode swiftly 
 down the valley. 
 
 Peggy stood watching him till he waved his hand in
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 155 
 
 passing behind a tall thicket, and said : " Um ! if I M 
 knowed that he was going off at once, I 'd a' kept my 
 tongue within my teeth. And it took me at such a 
 nonplush, that I never thought to tell him to take care 
 the burnt trees do n't tumble upon him." She turned, 
 and went in. 
 
 Summer passed on with all its drought, dearth, and 
 suffering. Autumn came, with rushing winds and 
 driving rains. The refreshed ground very soon gave 
 evidence of new life, and the kangaroo-grass in the 
 woods be^an to make them verdant with its tufts of 
 delicate green, and the cattle and sheep to devour it 
 eagerly. Soon there was grass short but delicious to 
 the cropping flocks on the plains, and water running 
 in a thousand channels, and pools and rivers once 
 more swelling with their welcome supplies. Once 
 more the countless swarms of frogs, which had saved 
 themselves in the earth, made the air resound with 
 their many strange notes. The flocks and herds 
 ranged once more in leisurely plenty ; the forest, and 
 all nature, seemed relieved and restored. 
 
 But the floods as well as the drought, which Mrs. 
 Quarrier had predicted, came. The rains, so long- 
 delayed, once let loose, appeared as if they would 
 never cease. For a whole fortnight they continued 
 to pour down, day and night. Occasionally fierce
 
 156 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 winds raged through the woods, and it was hoped 
 that they would cany away the rain ; but soon the 
 clouds reassembled, and the still, steady, soaking rain 
 continued to fall. Soon the brooks and rivers began 
 to shine out above their banks, and on low grounds 
 spread wide sheets of water like lakes. 
 
 Amid all this the most wonderful rumours flew 
 to and fro of the discovery and the gathering of 
 gold. All Melbourne and Geelong were said to 
 have deserted their homes, and to have crowded up 
 to Ballarat and Mount Alexander. If you had 
 believed everything that was said, that mount must 
 be a mount of solid gold. People were shovelling 
 gold into sacks like potatoes, and huge nuggets lay 
 about like boulder-stones. Of all the marvels the 
 most marvellous was that neither natives, nor 
 squatters, nor shepherds, had seen these glittering 
 treasures ; had never run their toes against them ; 
 had never picked them up to pelt restive sheep or ox. 
 Young men had come out of England, and gathered 
 such sacks of gold that they had returned millionaires 
 in the very same ship that brought them out. The 
 lawyer, the merchant, the clergyman, all were armed 
 with spade and pick, and were making far prettier 
 pickings on the gold-fields than they had ever done 
 before. Officials of all ranks threw up their posts,
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 157 
 
 and posted away to these wonderful regions. Sydney 
 was rushing overland and by steamer with all its 
 scamps. Not a lag would lag behind either there or 
 in Van Diemen's Land. It came with all its demons. 
 Not a creek but ran with gold, not a sod but covered 
 it, not a tent there but had a lad in, to whom the 
 Aladdin of Arabia was a mere goose. The governor 
 rode up and poked away the moss from the roots of 
 trees, and picked up nuggets. He sate on his horse, 
 and saw rude fellows shovelling up gold like sand. 
 
 At such news the very earth under people's feet 
 seemed to creep and tremble. Shepherds, stockmen, 
 hut-keepers, all ran helter-skelter away ; every man 
 afraid of being too late in the scramble. Flocks, 
 herds, horses, everything alive or dead, were left to 
 take care of themselves. Who would stay in the 
 woods amongst the shadows when he might in a few 
 days be a man of untold substance ? It was every 
 one for himself, and the devil take the hindermost. 
 The squatters rode about in consternation ; the flocks 
 were all astray in the bush, with only the wild dogs 
 watching them. Not a man was to be had for love 
 or money. Love ! What love ever withstood gold ? 
 Money ! What of that when here was the stuff it is 
 made of, to be had in any quantity for the stooping? 
 
 Women and little children, and a few old super-
 
 158 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 animated fellows who had been set in the corner as 
 only fit to keep the fire in and the dogs out, were 
 called hastily into the bush and set a shepherding. 
 The squatter often looked after one of his own flocks, 
 and his wife and daughters brought round the rations. 
 Young ladies mounted and scoured the forest hills 
 and glens reconnoitring bullocks. There went a 
 wild cry through the whole land that the end of the 
 squatter world was come, and that wool should be no 
 more ! How could such a thing as squatting exist, 
 when all the world was running at full speed ? 
 Where could the wool soon be but hanging on the 
 thorns, and the mutton but in the stomachs of the 
 dingoes? The prospect was, in truth, frightful, and 
 never were men fuller of fright than the squatters. 
 Oh ! out of what a blessed and bountiful rest they 
 were at once thrown by the stupendous occurrence ! 
 And they stood fixed in despair. Ruin, ruin, in- 
 evitable ruin, seemed their portion ; and yet why not 
 run too to the diggings, where, if half were true, 
 they could secure instant recompense? 
 
 But the poor squatters clung with a convulsive 
 love to their pleasant wilds, their flocks and herds. 
 Some strained every nerve, and put every woman 
 and child on the stretch to keep their stock safe; 
 others in their panic sold or offered to sell their runs
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 159 
 
 for an old song. Mr. Quarrier rode over to Tallan- 
 getta, like a man frantic. Every shepherd, every 
 man of every kind had run off. His wife was 
 cooking ; the girls running for water, peeling po- 
 tatoes, and making the beds. His mother was on 
 horseback hunting up the cattle ; and as for himself, 
 he appeared to be galloping from station to station 
 like the man in the siege of Jerusalem, crying woe ! 
 woe ! woe ! to himself and the whole colony. 
 
 At Tallangetta things were far better. Though 
 the shepherds and stockmen had run off, yet Barks, 
 Purdy, Abner, and David Rannock stood true. 
 They declared, one and all, that they longed to have 
 a race for the diggings too, but they would wait 
 awhile and see how the stock was to be cared for. 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick thanked them heartily, tripled their 
 wages, and declared at the very first opportunity 
 they should have their adventure. The women at 
 the huts cooked, and Charles drove round with 
 rations ; so all was wonderfully well under the cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 But still a heavy load lay on the minds of the 
 Tallangetta family. They could not see how this 
 state of things could be maintained. If there were 
 no men to be had, the squatting interest must go 
 down, and all the stock must perish. It was a
 
 160 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 melancholy prospect. If they attempted to sell, who 
 would buy ? what could they get for their property ? 
 And to return to England poorer than they came 
 out was not to be thought of. Tallangetta in all its 
 beauty, with that glorious view of woods, and waters, 
 and mountains, was a house of woe. 
 
 The Poncefords, the Woolstans, the Metcalfes, 
 were all in the like condition ; they were all strenu- 
 ously employed in preserving their property, and 
 could not, therefore, make visits to sympathise or 
 counsel with one another; but they showed, when 
 Charles or his father rode over to them, wonderful 
 patience, and the doctor, whom they found baking a 
 damper while his flock rested at noon, away in the 
 bush quite cheerful, and the first man to pronounce 
 all this a fleeting state of things. " An earthquake," 
 he said, " does not last very long. Nothing very 
 violent is lasting, and nothing ever was so violent 
 as this crisis, and therefore it must be proportionately 
 short. I bide my time," said he, taking up his 
 damper, now baked, and bidding his visitor smell 
 how delicious it was. 
 
 But Mr. Quarrier kept galloping about, offering 
 his run at any price, saying the colony was ruined ; 
 it might be a place for navvies, but was so no longer 
 for gentlemen. One day, in the midst of a violent
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGIIROUR. 1(11 
 
 tirade on the subject, he pulled out a letter from his 
 mother and threw it on the table. The next moment 
 he was gone, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick, taking up the 
 letter, read, to the whole family's astonishment, as 
 follows : — 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Fitzpatrick, — Do n't let my son 
 persuade Mr. Fitzpatrick to sell his station. The 
 colony ruined by the gold ! It will be made by it. 
 Wait a few weeks, and you shall have shepherds at 
 pleasure. All is not gold that glitters at the diggings, 
 any more than anywhere else. Thousands, I hear, 
 are already disappointed or disgusted. Those are 
 your men. They will be shepherds and stockmen 
 for good wages. And then, only think what a price 
 meat will be ! What a price everything will be ; 
 hundreds of thousands pouring in to get the gold, 
 and, thanks to good old mother Nature and her laws, 
 as surely to eat and drink. Hurrah for the gold 
 fields ! Hurrah for the squatters ! Theirs will be 
 the chief digging. The Golden Age is at last come 
 to the bush ! Yours affectionately, 
 
 "Ann Quarrier. 
 
 " Gurragong, April, 1853." 
 
 " And she is right again ! " said Mr. Fitzpatrick, 
 starting up. " How is it that this old lady can always 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 see, and all of us beside are blind ? I will pledge my 
 existence that she is right, and yet her own son has 
 been riding about like a maniac, and might have 
 mined us all. Hurrah for the gold-fields ! Hurrah for 
 the squatters ! Hurrah, three times three, and nine 
 times nine, for Mrs. Quarrier the wise!" 
 
 Charles flung up his cap, and the ladies all joined 
 in the hurrah, clapping their hands in delight. 
 
 "But there is one thing," said Mr. Fitzpatrick, 
 " that should not be neglected," as if struck with a 
 sudden idea. " That stretch of land on the Goul- 
 bourn, so indispensable for our sheep-washing and 
 summer pasturage, which was made over to us by 
 Mr. Farbrother, is only transferred verbally. If the 
 value of stations rises greatly, as it will, he may be 
 disposed to draw back. We must have this looked to 
 before the panic is over. What is to be done ? " 
 
 " I will ride off at once to him," said Charles, " and 
 take the agreement to sign." 
 
 " But he lives now beyond the Campaspe, and I 
 fear the waters are out, in which case it will be im- 
 possible to reach him." 
 
 The ladies were all terrified at the danger, and 
 begged that Charles might not go ; they were all too 
 well acquainted with his ardent, daring temperament. 
 
 " No, no ! " said Charles. " I will run into no dan- 
 ger. I will ride to the Metcalfes'. They have a boat,
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 163 
 
 and live on high ground above the river. I have no 
 doubt they can put me across. Trust to me," said 
 Charles, " I '11 take good care of my precious self." 
 
 Early in the morning he mounted a splendid brown 
 mare, with the buoyant and delightful feeling of 
 youth backing a noble steed, and bound for new views, 
 and perhaps adventures. He rolled up behind him 
 his oil-skin overalls and coat, with a hood, so that in 
 case of rain he could defy it all, and with the neces- 
 sary supply of matches, a rug, and some provision in 
 case of being obliged to lie out in the woods by any 
 accident, he dashed away with his favourite tawny 
 bull-terrier, Club, rushing on before him, barking in 
 obstreperous delight at the prospect of a run into the 
 bush. 
 
 Charles had to pass over the hill above the house, 
 and then he plunged into the boundless forests. For 
 an hour or two he cantered along, occasionally called 
 out of his way by the barking of Club, who had 
 a wild cat, or an opossum, or a bandicoot, or some- 
 thing of the sort in a hollow tree, or under the fallen 
 logs ; and Charles stayed to assist the dog by a few 
 strokes of his small axe at his girdle. But soon he 
 began to think he was wasting time, and calling 
 Club to keep with him, rode on briskly through the 
 forest. Towards noon the wind rose, and masses of 
 
 m 2
 
 164 TALLAXGETTA. 
 
 thick, dark clouds were poured over the woods. He 
 perceived a storm coming, and prepared for it by 
 dismounting and putting on his oil-skin suit. It was 
 not too soon ; the squally rain came down in torrents, 
 and though it could touch no other part of him it 
 drove directly into his face and prevented his seeing 
 the way before him. What was worse, it also baffled 
 his horse and impeded his speed. Charles, therefore, 
 drew up under the side of a light-wood tree, whose 
 olive-like foliage presented the only shelter amongst 
 the trees of the forest. Long and furiously beat down 
 the dashing, splashing rain, and mingled with it came 
 several cracks of intense thunder, late as it was in 
 the season. Charles looked round from time to time 
 to see if any break in the clouds promised a discon- 
 tinuance of the tempest, but all was one thick misty 
 obscurity in the atmosphere. Club sate, and whined 
 at the foot of the tree; the horse pawed the ground 
 impatiently, its shoulders and flanks smoking from 
 the evaporating rain, and he now inwardly regretted 
 the delay occasioned by Club's hunting propensities. 
 But he could not, he thought, be far from Moolap, 
 and he resolved to go on. His mare was glad to pro- 
 ceed, and spite of the tempest still driving right into 
 her eyes, she trotted on. But presently Charles saw 
 with astonishment that the track had disappeared.
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 165 
 
 How was that? Had he left the true one? He 
 became alarmed, and took out his compass. North 
 was his true direction, and he now saw that for some 
 time he must have been riding precisely north-east. 
 
 What was to be done ? He must cut across west- 
 ward to regain the true path to Moolap ; but 
 confounded by the driving, obscuring tempest, it 
 would be difficult, perhaps, to strike the path again. 
 He might come upon it where it was too faint to 
 perceive it. He might even now be so far that by 
 taking that course he should strike the river lower 
 down. There was nothing else, however, for it, 
 except going back, which his pride forbade. He 
 would not willingly confess, at home, that lie was 
 " bushed," as the term is, between Tallangetta and 
 Moolap. He rode on eagerly, anxiously, looking 
 right and left for some object of recognition. Now 
 he was involved amongst a chaos of fallen trees ; anon 
 his horse was wading to the sides through deep 
 scrub, dripping with the wet. Now he came out 
 into a wide, flat solitude, where beneath the shadow 
 of the trees grew nothing but dense clumps of the 
 thorny acacia, resembling masses of our black-thorn. 
 Now, again, he passed over miles of forest, beneath 
 the trees of which grew myrtle-like shrubs as high 
 as his horse, making all look monotonously green. 
 
 M 3
 
 166 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 All was new to him. Finally, he found himself down 
 in a low situation on the banks of a stream, whence 
 extended great swamps, and where a thick growth 
 of the black acacia gave to the place a most gloomy 
 and lonely aspect. 
 
 " How is this ? Where in the world can I be ? 
 This cannot be the Campaspe, and yet what other 
 stream can there be ? I am fairly bushed, and no 
 mistake." Such were the thoughts of Charles as he 
 stopped and looked round him on that desolate, 
 disheartening scene. To cross the stream he found 
 impossible, from the extensive marshes ; and, though 
 reluctantly, he turned his horse once more somewhat 
 to the right, to gain higher ground. 
 
 Here arrived, and the rain clearing off, he dis- 
 mounted, and determined to let his horse rest and 
 feed, and to get some tea himself, for he was cold. 
 But any one who has attempted to make a fire in the 
 bush, when everything is soaked with rain, may under- 
 stand that he had no easy task before him. He made 
 many attempts to kindle the driest leaves he could 
 find. It was useless ; they only gave out volumes 
 of smoke, and expired. He therefore sought the 
 boles of the trees, to discover some loose-hanging 
 bark on the lee side of the trunk which might have 
 escaped the rain, and in this he at length succeeded, 
 a nd raised a fire. Over this, as he sate warming
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 167 
 
 his chilled fingers, he pondered on the probability of 
 his situation, — how he had got wrong, — on which 
 side Moolap really could lie. But the more he 
 thought, the more he was confused. Not a yard 
 that he had passed ever since the rain commenced 
 did he recognise. The whole country looked to him 
 perfectly strange. What could be this stream? He 
 was bewildered beyond extrication; and once flurried, 
 all is over in such cases. North, south, east, and 
 west, are all one. Still, come the worst ; his horse 
 and dog would carry him home again ; but no ! not 
 so while a chance was left. He sprang up in despe- 
 ration, and ran to the neighbouring slope of the hill, 
 hoping that he might thence gain a view of the 
 Campaspe valley. Not a glimpse of it; but only one 
 wild forest without particular feature, one solitary, 
 savage scene. He listened for a cock-crowing, an 
 axe, the shout of bullock-driver to his team, or 
 of doo- barkino; at a flock. Not a sound, except of 
 a tree-creeper near, ascending the bole of the tree 
 with its unceasing note of " pee-pee-pee-pee." 
 
 Dispirited immensely by this view, he sighed 
 deeply, and gave himself up for a night in the wet 
 forest. The day was now fast declining, and which 
 way he should turn he could not decide. At length 
 he determined to remount, and cross this hill again 
 
 M 4
 
 168 TALLAXGETTA. 
 
 to the right hand, for he could not cross the stream 
 on his left, and take the first track he found. He 
 did so, but for a long time in vain. His horse conti- 
 nually turned southward, in which direction Charles 
 believed lay his home ; and on all such occasions Club 
 grew sprightly, and with a toss of head began to run 
 before. But Charles still resolutely turned his steed 
 the other way, and at length he struck a track going 
 off to the north. He looked ; he thought he recog- 
 nised the trees by the way-side ; this must be the 
 track, after all ; and away he cantered once more. 
 But it went on, and on, and on. He must have 
 ridden five miles, and no house, no Moolap ! Night 
 was setting in, and once more the tempest came 
 growling and roaring up. Presently it was pitch 
 dark around him, not from absolute night, but from 
 the black enveloping clouds of the rain storm. It 
 was impossible to see his way ; he left it to his horse, 
 and his horse reluctantly went forward. All at once 
 the forest was lit up by a tremendous blaze ; there 
 was a crash as if the welkin above his head was rent 
 in sunder, a thundering, stunning explosion, and a 
 large tree in an open space before him was at once 
 dashed into a thousand pieces by a vivid blue shaft 
 of lightning. The next moment, all was still and 
 dark as a tomb. His horse had wheeled round at
 
 AX UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 169 
 
 the flash and terrible concussion, and dashed away 
 hap-hazard through the woods. Probably it was a 
 happy circumstance for him, for the splinters of the 
 shivered tree flew on all sides with the fury of an 
 exploded shell. He was nearly swept from the 
 saddle by a depending branch, before he could stop 
 the frightened mare ; when he once more stood still, 
 and gave himself up for the night. But what a night ! 
 The rain, after the discharge of the electric fluid, 
 came drenching down in torrents. It was not rain, 
 it was a deluge ; one heavy, solid, drowning descent 
 of water. Shelter from the thinly-foliaged gum-trees 
 there was none ; way there was none, for all was 
 Egyptian darkness, and roaring, dashing, inundating 
 water. The horse drooped its head to its knees, 
 and seemed to give itself up to its miserable lot. The 
 dog cowed under its stomach, and whined pitifully. 
 Never was there a more wretched situation. " What 
 would they think if they could know," thought Charles 
 to himself, " at home ? But they think me snug at 
 Moolap. Heigho ! I wish I were." 
 
 But at once the clouds broke, the wind swelled 
 again, but blew more temperately. And what is that? 
 A light ! Yes ; he caught the steady gleam of a light, 
 be it what it might, a station, or a mere night camp 
 in the forest ; there were human beings there, and the
 
 170 TALLAXGETTA. 
 
 means of learning where he was ; he rode on towards 
 it. His horse evidently saw it too, and increased its 
 speed. As he drew nearer he saw that it was no 
 open fire, but the light from a window, steady and 
 unmoved by the wind. " Hurrah ! " thought he. 
 " Moolap after all ! I thought 1 could not be so far off." 
 
 He cantered joyfully onwards. Yes ; the same old 
 slab huts. He gave a loud cooee, and a crack of his 
 whip, and at the same instant was at the door of the 
 hut whence the light came, and a man stepped out of 
 it. " Take my horse, mate," said Charles, " for I 
 am nearly perished ; " and leaping down, he was 
 entering the hut. " The other way, master," said the 
 man, " round the corner." Charles thought he was 
 still bewildered. He neither recognised the man's 
 voice nor the place, but he went round the corner, 
 saw the chief building, also of wood, and the light 
 streaming from its two windows. 
 
 " How is this ? " he said. " It is odd, I do 'nt seem 
 to know the place ; my head must be turned." He 
 entered, and stood amazed. Round a noble blazing 
 fire of logs sate a gentleman, two ladies, and two 
 boys ; but they were not the Metcalfes. They were 
 utter strangers. At the sight of him, they all rose to 
 receive him. The gentleman was a stoutish man, of 
 apparently fifty. He was dressed in a drab coat and
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 171 
 
 trousers, and a figured silk waistcoat, with turquoise 
 buttons. His hair was still quite dark, no tinge of 
 grey ; his face marked by strong features, and a 
 look of cleverness and decision. 
 
 " Come in, sir, come in ; what a night for you ! 
 Why, you must be literally drowned. Let me pull 
 away your outer garments." 
 
 " But first," said Charles, in some confusion : 
 " pray tell me where I am ; I thought I was at 
 Moolap." 
 
 " At Moolap ! That's a dozen miles up the river ! 
 But no wonder you missed your way in such a storm. 
 Give me hold of your waterproof." 
 
 Charles stripped off his oil-skin and his dripping 
 hat, and stood there a handsome and gentlemanly 
 youth, but still with a puzzled look. Freed from 
 his outer garments, and a seat placed for him by the 
 fire, he saw that the ladies were mother and daugh- 
 ter, the mother a very* kind-looking woman, and 
 the daughter a very fine, handsome girl. The two 
 boys, of apparently twelve and fourteen, stood and 
 looked at their guest in silence. 
 
 " But where, then, am I," asked Charles, " if I 
 may ask ? " 
 
 " Why," said the gentleman, " you are at Bon- 
 gubine, at Peter Martin's, and j y welcome there,
 
 172 TALL ANG ETTA. 
 
 too. Sara, my dear, get tea, and let us have some 
 good steaks; I have no doubt this gentleman will 
 be ready for them after his ride." 
 
 But as lie spoke Charles started up. The stran- 
 gest astonishment was in his face. He coloured 
 scarlet, looked at one, and then at the other. Mr. 
 Peter Martin ! Mr. Peter Martin in this country ! 
 Mr. Peter Martin ! — the man of all others that his 
 father detested; the man whom Charles from his 
 birth had been brought up to regard as the greatest 
 and most persevering enemy of his family ; the man 
 whom to leave behind was the one reconciling idea 
 of his father in quitting England for this far-off 
 country ! And he here ! Come like a ghost to haunt 
 their steps, to trouble their repose, to destroy the 
 whole charm of this southland life ! 
 
 "Excuse me," said Charles, stammering, and 
 hardly knowing what he did. " Excuse me, I can- 
 not stay. I beg pardon, I could not have imagined 
 it possible." He turned to seize his wet waterproof 
 clothes ; they were gone out. 
 
 " What 's amiss ?" said Mr. Peter Martin. « What 
 ails you, young man ? You cannot go out ; there is 
 no need, indeed, you are perfectly welcome." 
 
 " No, no," said Charles. " Good God ! How un- 
 fortunate ! I must go. At once ! at once ! "
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 173 
 
 (( 
 
 Good gracious !" said the gentleman. "Why, 
 you have lost your wits in the storm. Go out to- 
 night ! Not for worlds. It is madness ! " 
 
 " No matter ; Oh ! Heaven above us ! Give me 
 my coat ; I must go." 
 
 " But why, man ? But why ? " exclaimed the 
 squatter vehemently, and as if at once astonished 
 and insulted. 
 
 " Why?" said Charles. " O Lord ! Why ? Because 
 you are Mr. Peter Martin, and I am Charles Fitz- 
 patrick ! " 
 
 "So — o!" said the squatter, stepping back in 
 astonishment, and gazing fixedly at Charles. " So — o, 
 that is it?" 
 
 Charles saw the ladies at once rise, colour ex- 
 cessively, and tremble with agitation as they gazed 
 at him. They looked confounded with surprise. 
 
 "Charles Fitzpatrick !" again exclaimed Mr. 
 Martin. " That is extraordinary. I can understand 
 your feelings ; but, a word ! You look on me as the 
 enemy of your house. I am its firmest friend; I 
 always have been ; I always will be, and that one 
 day, and not a distant day now, both you and your 
 father will acknowledge. And now, mark ! I am 
 a positive man ; your father knows that, and you 
 must now know it. You will sit down quietly
 
 174 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 to-night. If you were my enemy, or I yours, I 
 would set open the door and say, ' Go, and perish ! ' 
 But, as your friend, I say you shall stay here till 
 morning; I admit of no contradiction. Charles 
 Fitzpatrick ! Look on those two ladies ; do they look 
 like enemies, like bad people? They are your 
 truest, kindest friends ; and, whatever I look like, I 
 am the same. You stay." 
 
 Charles looked at the ladies. They were both 
 greatly agitated, but two more amiable-looking 
 women no eye could fall upon. " God forbid!" said 
 Charles, "that I should think so." 
 
 " Then shake hands, like a sensible lad." Charles 
 took the proffered hands, and shook them cordially. 
 
 " There, there," said Mr. Peter Martin. " Now 
 for tea, Sara. We shall know one another by morn- 
 ing." 
 
 Charles sate down, but silent, agitated by the 
 strongest feelings. To have thus stumbled into the 
 dwelling of a man that he had always heard named 
 as the steady enemy of his father. To find him 
 here, when he believed him in England. Not a 
 word of his arrival in the colony to have reached 
 them. And why here ? For what object thus 
 planted down near them ? 
 
 The most painful feelings filled his whole mind ;
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 175 
 
 and yet, when he looked about him, what more open 
 and kindly aspects could he behold? There appeared 
 nothing sinister, nothing to create a suspicious or a 
 distrustful feeling. Could these be wicked or hostile 
 people ? Never did he see persons who had a more 
 attractive, trustworthy appearance. The very place 
 seemed to have a kindly, genuine, domestic spirit 
 about it. True, Mr. Peter Martin had a short, 
 quick, confident manner ; a prompt, decided sort of 
 speech ; but could he be a bad man ? He did not 
 look it. How could it be? 
 
 Whilst Charles was running; over these thoughts in 
 his mind, the squatter had gone out, and the daughter 
 returned, followed by a servant with the tea-tray. 
 Mrs. Martin asked Charles if he had been intending 
 to reach Moolap ; and, on his replying in the affirm- 
 ative, he was astonished to perceive that she was 
 perfectly acquainted with the Metcalfes, and the 
 Woolstans too. Here was fresh cause for wonder : 
 why had they never mentioned the Martins ? 
 
 During tea, Mr. Martin, in the most friendly 
 manner, asked Charles the particulars of his ride 
 through the bush. He quickly cleared up the 
 mystery of his deviation from the proper track ; 
 told him he had had a lucky escape; that he had 
 been going off gradually north-eastward, and would
 
 176 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 have come down into the immense plains leading to 
 the Murray, and might have ridden for days without 
 seeing a soul. He appeared to take such an honest, 
 undisguised pleasure in Charles's escape, yet without 
 any fussiness or overdone empressement, that Charles 
 was still more amazed. He cleared up the mystery 
 of the creek to the left, which, he said, was a 
 sluggish, boggy stream that fell into the river. He 
 offei'ed, in the morning, to put him into the w T ay to 
 Moolap ; but Charles said " he was bound for Mr. 
 Farbrother's, beyond the Campaspe in reality, and 
 perhaps might," he added, " be able to proceed thither 
 from this place." 
 
 "Oh, my dear fellow!" said Mr. Peter Martin. 
 " Why, you are all right. You are in the very way 
 here. I will see you over the river to-morrow, if it 
 can be crossed, which is doubtful, however, after 
 these heavy rains." 
 
 Charles was still more in wonder at the ready, 
 friendly spirit of the man, at this prompt offer of 
 assistance ; he could not reconcile it with all he had 
 heard of the man's enmity ; and yet his father, he 
 recollected, had always angrily denounced his busy 
 offers of advice, his poking his nose, as he called 
 it, into other people's affairs. Again Charles looked 
 at him and at the ladies ; he was more mystified
 
 AN UNEXPECTED NEIGHBOUR. 177 
 
 than ever. All was so kind, so open, and affec- 
 tionate amongst themselves. Could wickedness and 
 malice put on such a truthful, home-like, beautiful 
 aspect ? It was totally beyond his comprehension. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 THE RIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 
 
 During the evening Charles Fitzpatrick had leisure, 
 notwithstanding the excited state of his mind, to 
 notice some of the circumstances about him, He 
 perceived that the room in which they were was as 
 humbly furnished as it was built. The bare slabs, 
 indeed, which in such stations are most commonly 
 bare, and presenting ample interstices, were here 
 clothed with a remarkable paper, consisting of 
 nothing less than a collection of the Illustrated 
 London News, varied by a considerable sprinkling 
 of Punch. These had been disposed so as to display 
 to the eye the largest possible amount of pictures; 
 so that the squatter's sitting-room was at once a 
 library and a picture-gallery. There was a most 
 amusing assemblage of scenes, some serious, some 
 comic, always before the eye of the spectator, and 
 no one need suffer ennui there ; for, even if left alone, 
 he had only to approach the walls, and look into 
 almost every country of the known world, as well
 
 THE RIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 179 
 
 as into the interior of the society of the most cele- 
 brated cities. There, at the antipodes, he could 
 travel his own country, and laugh with his country- 
 men at public and private follies; having all the 
 time innumerable columns of letterpress at his com- 
 mand to enlighten and amuse his mind. 
 
 Had he turned his attention to the floor, he would 
 have seen its stout planks covered with a mat com- 
 posed of sugar-bags which had been slit open and 
 well scoured in the river. The fire-place — as uni- 
 versal in the bush, being constructed for the burning 
 of wood and for not being burnt itself, for it was 
 of wood too, like all the rest of the house — was at 
 least four feet square, and lined for the same height 
 with slabs of granite. On the hearth, instead of a 
 dog for the burning logs to rest on, lay the great 
 bush or box of a dray-wheel, and opposite to it a 
 considerable oblong stone, and across these supports 
 lay the fire. 
 
 There was a plain table, a wooden couch with a 
 mattress upon it, by way of sofa, and a few very 
 rude chairs. That was the furniture of the room, 
 very much on a par with the state of other wealthy 
 squatters, and quite magnificent compared with the 
 abodes of many. 
 
 Mr. Peter Martin and his family, accustomed in
 
 180 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 England to the comforts and elegancies of a great 
 estate, yet appeared to have settled down here with 
 all the composure of the most regular squatters in 
 the rude simplicity of this bush-life. What could it 
 mean ? How had it come to pass ? 
 
 When Charles was shown to his bed-room he was 
 irresistibly impelled to renew his studies and ob- 
 servations there. This room opened by a very rude 
 door from the sitting-room. It was small, and was 
 papered in a much soberer style ; that is to say, with 
 Chambers' 1 Edinburgh Journals, and these having 
 fallen short, the deficiency was supplied by the leaves 
 of copy-books, where pot-hooks and fish-hooks were 
 leaning in all their school-boy degrees of obliquity, 
 and were identified by the subscription of " Thomas 
 Martin is my name, England is my nation," and by 
 a grand display of pugnacious genius on the part of 
 the other brother : — 
 
 " This is Peter Martin's ; let no one steal it, 
 Or he will get a blow, and no doctor to heal it." 
 
 " Pretty well, that," said Charles, as he read it. 
 (< Chip of the old block, I reckon." There was a 
 small bed at the end of the room, covered with a 
 handsome, dark opossum rug ; the bedside carpet was 
 composed of about four yellow wild dog skins ; the
 
 THE HIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 181 
 
 dressing-table was an article in two parts, that is, it 
 consisted of two lar^e boxes set one on the other. 
 The only seat was a* kind of ottoman, which, on 
 examination, proved to be a tea-chest, but softened 
 by a cushion, and disguised by a valence. On the 
 dressing-table, or dressing-boxes, stood a small look- 
 ing-glass and two or three books, a small bible, a 
 prayer-book, and a selection of poetry. But what 
 revealed to Charles that he had been installed in 
 Miss Martin's own quarters were a handsome new 
 lady's sadle and bridle and riding-whip, which hung 
 on the wall, presenting an odd mixture of bed-room 
 and harness-room, but quite in keeping with bush- 
 life. Where Miss Martin had bestowed herself re- 
 mains unknown ; but Charles felt that his sudden 
 appearance had in some degree disturbed the domestic 
 arrangements of the Bongubine station. 
 
 Charles turned into bed, but lay tossing for a long 
 time from one side to another, still disturbed by the 
 strange discovery he had so strangely made, and con- 
 sidering how he was to break the matter to his father. 
 He pictured to himself his father's rage at learning 
 that his most antagonistic aversion was here coolly 
 and completely residing in his neighbourhood, and he 
 hardly dared ask himself how he would accost him 
 for staying all night with this detested family. At 
 
 n 3
 
 182 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 length he dropped asleep, and was only awoke when it 
 was broad daylight by a sound of laughter and strug- 
 gling and romping, so close to him that the riot ap- 
 peared to be in the very room. It was, however, be- 
 hind a slender partition wall of wood, with the usual airy 
 interstices, and the dramatis persona consisted of the 
 identical Peter and Thomas whom he had seen overnight, 
 and whose pot-hooks helped to paper his own chamber. 
 
 The sounds that did not catch his ear, but which 
 came plunging and rushing and gushing upon it were 
 these : — " Yoe, hoe, hoe, ho ! I say Peet I Peet ! oh ! 
 dash your wig, Peet ! Peet, I say ! oh ! oh ! You 
 are squeezing all the breath out of me !" Slap ! bang I 
 a tremendous cuffing and dusting of each other with 
 pillars and bolsters. "Oh! oh! ha! ha! ha! bravo 
 Tom ! bravo ! yo hoe, hoe, yo hoe, he ! he ! he ! " — a 
 regular, continuous, half-suifocated giggle, ending in a 
 downright screech. Then slap, bang, cuff, dust, 
 dash, tuzzle. " Aha ! oho ! there ! there ! Tom ! Tom, 
 I say, ha! ha! oho! oho! ho-o-o-o, ee-e-e ! hoe," — 
 ending in another regular screech. 
 
 Then "Peet ! Peet ! I say, hush ! hush ! don't you 
 remember that young Fitzpatrick 's sleeping in Sara's 
 room ? We shall wake him, if we don 't mind." 
 
 "Whew," a long significant whistle from Peet. 
 " By jingo, Tom ! I never thought of that ; whist, we
 
 TIIE RIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 183 
 
 did 'nt make much noise, did we? But I say, what 
 an odd thing that he should stumble in here, eh ? 
 How deuced queer ! And was 'nt he in a pretty 
 taking; my eye, he was in a fluster! And did'nt 
 the governor stare a bit when he said who he was ! 
 Bravo ! it 's regular fun. I 'd give a farthing to see 
 old Fitzpatrick when he tells him where he 's been." 
 
 " Ay, indeed, there '11 be the dibble — dibble, as 
 the black fellows say, to pay. I wouldn't be in 
 his shoes for a trifle." 
 
 " But, I say, Tom, the young fellow 's not bad- 
 looking." 
 
 "Bad-looking, Peet ! No; why should he? They're 
 a very handsome family, the Fitzpatricks, as you may 
 judge from their cousins, that is, us, Peety, my boy." 
 
 " Oh nonsense ! I don 't mean bad that way, but 
 wild and wicked. You know very well what I 
 mean." 
 
 " Oh yes ! It is a pity old Fitzpatrick should 
 have always been so wild, and so spent all his pro- 
 perty. But that's what the governor here always 
 told him would come of it ; and that 's why he hates 
 father so." 
 
 " The more fool he. Well, he 's suffered for it ; 
 so don 't let us blame him ; the governor does n't ; he 
 only says he 's very sorry, but that it will all come 
 
 N 4
 
 184 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 right yet, and the old baronet will get all his pro- 
 perty back ; and that rascally Sir Peter may go to 
 
 . I can't say where, though the governor 
 
 slaps it out so flatly." 
 
 " Well, I 'm glad all will come right, Peet ; and 
 father knows, so it 's sure ; he says, as sure as he 
 lives, as sure as we're in Australia, and that he's 
 here to bring it about. My word ! I wish we were 
 old enough to be let into the secret. Why the 
 governor should take all this trouble, and why old 
 Fitzpatrick should still go on hating him as he does, 
 is a rum go, that 's all I can say." 
 
 A sudden rap at an opposite side of the boys' room, 
 and the sharp, quick voice of Mr. Peter Martin, call- 
 ing out to them — "What are you monkeys gabbling 
 at there ? Dress, and come away !" — broke off this 
 interesting conversation. There was a sudden silence, 
 a quick drawing on of clothes, and the interlocutors 
 were gone. 
 
 But what a world of strange sensations rushed over 
 the mind of the listener. So ! This was the view 
 here taken of the family hostility. This was a very 
 different version and view of the affair. Mr. Peter 
 Martin, not the enemy, but the fast friend of the 
 Fitzpatricks. Not disliked by his father for any im- 
 pertinences or unkind actions, but for a faithful and
 
 THE HIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 185 
 
 wise counselling. His father ruined by a constant 
 opposition to the advice of Mr. Peter Martin ; and, 
 more wonderful still, all the losses of his property 
 were yet to be done away with. His restoration to 
 title and estate were certain. And Mr. Peter Martin 
 was not only the confident prophet, but the agent, 
 the active, friendly agent in it. This was mar- 
 vellous ! — how all his father's property could have 
 been wrested from him by Sir Peter, and why no 
 evidence could be procured from any quarter to stem 
 the ruinous course of trial after trial ; and yet Mr. 
 Peter Martin, who then lay still as a mouse, should now 
 be here and acting for a certain restoration of every- 
 thing. These were problems upon problems which, 
 so far from Charles's brain being able to solve them, 
 only threw it into a greater whirl. He sate down on 
 the bed, and sunk into a series of thoughts so deep 
 that they deprived his body of all motion — almost 
 of breath. Thus sate he long, and at length started 
 up, and said to himself, " It must be true ! There 
 must be something in it! But what? My father 
 shall have his own again ! What can this man know? 
 But he knows something; and it is good. He says 
 he is our fast friend, and we shall know it too ere long. 
 His boys say it ! Ay ! That is confirmation tenfold 
 strong. That is plainly the daily established familiar
 
 186 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 talk of the house. That was not meant for me. 
 That was the spontaneous language of children, who 
 listen and hoard up the household topics of their 
 parents. God be praised ! I have not come here 
 for nothing. I believe it all. I feel that it is true. 
 I thought I could not be mistaken in my impressions 
 of these people. I shall give them my confidence. 
 True, my father has been expensive, and fond of that 
 fatal turf. He is strong-willed, and bears strong re- 
 sentment. A fair, plain-spoken opposition on the 
 part of this his relative, who appears a frank, shrewd 
 sort of man, would very likely excite a vehement 
 dislike to him in my father. Yes; it must be so. 
 I feel it." 
 
 " Breakfast, my young Mend, if you are ready for 
 it," said the quick voice of Mr. Peter Martin, with 
 an accompanying rap on the door. 
 
 " Thank you ! quite ready," replied Charles. And 
 pausing a moment to compose himself, he opened the 
 door, and stepped out. There stood the breakfast 
 table, near the front window, spread plentifully, and 
 Mr. Martin and the two ladies advanced to bid him 
 good morning. Charles took their offered hands with 
 a cordiality which evidently highly gratified them. 
 An expression of great pleasure appeared on their 
 countenances. The cheeks of the ladies flushed with
 
 THE RIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 187 
 
 a warm bloom, their eyes brightened, and they said 
 they trusted he had slept well, and was no worse for 
 his exposure to the rain. 
 
 Mr. Peter Martin rubbed his hands, seated himself 
 at table, and began to deal about the steaks and 
 cutlets, accompanied by a variety of chatty talk. 
 Club came bounding into the room with the two 
 boys, who declared that he was a most wonderful 
 dog; that he had run ever so high up a slanting- 
 tree, and dragged a wild cat out, and had been down 
 at the bottom of the river, and fetched up a parti- 
 cular stone they had thrown in. Mr. Peter Martin 
 told Charles that his mare seemed all right, and had 
 been well fed, and asked if he was still bent on his 
 attempt to cross the river. " Certainly," said Charles, 
 " if possible." " Then," said the squatter, " Tom, 
 tell Jerridot to saddle me Blue-Beard; we will lose 
 not an hour." 
 
 Charles begged that Mr. Martin would not think 
 
 "of incommoding himself by accompanying him. If 
 
 he would send a man or one of his boys to show him 
 
 the ford, that was all he desired. He entreated that 
 
 he would do no more. 
 
 " Now, cousin Charles," said Mr. Martin, « if I 
 may call you so, just say no more. You know I have 
 the repute in your family of being a very pig-headed
 
 - 5 5 TALLAXGETTA. 
 
 man. You 11 find me so. Words are all lost upon 
 me. I am going.*' This Mr. Martin accompanied 
 bv laving his hand on Charles's wrist firmlv. Break- 
 fast was soon over, amongst verv kind and agreeable 
 talk. Charles felt everv moment more and more 
 the wonder that his fainilv and this should ever have 
 been enemies. He looked at Mrs. Martin. — never 
 did he see a matronly lady so motherly and agreeable; 
 at Miss Martin, — never did he see a voung ladv at 
 once so handsome, so sensible-looking, and so agree- 
 able as she took part in the conversation, and joked 
 with her brothers. She had a fine figure, vigorously 
 yet not heavily built, above the middle height, a 
 face in which a verv beautiful and high-toned like- 
 ness to her father was visible. Charles felt as 
 though he had been at home amongst these relatives 
 for years, and thought how proud he should be to see 
 the division of the families swept away, and Georgina 
 and Sara love each other as sisters. 
 
 The horses were at the door. Thev mounted, and," 
 amid cordial adieus, rode off. Mr. Martin was 
 mounted on a powerful bay horse, and the two boys, 
 on active ponies, accompanied them for some miles 
 down the valley. On their return, Charles and Mr. 
 Martin put their horses to their speed, and soon 
 came down into the valley of the Campaspe. It
 
 TIIE RIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 
 
 was amongst bold, steep slopes, covered with growth 
 of large, old trees. Craggy precipices overhung the 
 river, crowned also with noble trees, and the river 
 itself wound along in a very circuitous course : here 
 sweeping round a green forest promontory or bluff, 
 and here encircled by high, hollow, solitary coombs. 
 It was a region of much majesty and silence. All 
 at once came the roar of water, and the turn of a hill 
 showed them the river dashing over a natural weir, 
 and enclosed bv high cliffs, looking above the weir like 
 a long, narrow lake, in which hundreds of water- 
 fowl were swimming and sporting. Charles was trans- 
 ported at the scene ; but Mr. Martin rode briskly on, 
 and very soon the scene was totally changed. They 
 came to where a water-mill stood bv the river-side, 
 with fowls and vehicles about it, and on a mound 
 containing several acres stood a good brick house, 
 in the midst of gardens and vineyards. Mr. Martin 
 rode a little past this, and then paused on a rising 
 ground to observe Charles's impression of the place. 
 That was one of wonder and delight. All below 
 this beautiful mound on which the house stood so 
 deliciously, with the lofty wooded slopes, presenting 
 around it a variety of changing aspects, opened a 
 valley of the most soft and Elysian beauty. The 
 hills on either hand, and others which rose up from
 
 190 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 the bottom of the vale, were of the softest and most 
 fairy-land forms. They were green as the emerald, 
 and soft as velvet. A double row of bold red-gum- 
 trees marked the tortuous course of the river along 
 the vale, and the autumnal sun shone with an impa- 
 radising lustre over the whole, as if emulous to 
 present this Eden of the wilderness in its most at- 
 tractive loveliness. 
 
 " Why, this is a heavenly spot," said Charles. 
 " Whose station is this ? " 
 
 " It belongs to mine," replied Mr. Martin. " This is 
 called Lahni Mill ; but more of that anon. At present 
 we must push forward." They rode still for some 
 miles, when, turning towards the river, they found 
 themselves in a forest track which appeared to lead 
 direct to it. 
 
 In a gloomy and rough scene, in strange contrast 
 to the gentle beauty above, where rude mounds of 
 earth overgrown with long grass and jungle were 
 again overshadowed with large trees, they at once 
 caught sight of the river, and a solitary tent stuck 
 down amongst the bushes close to its approach. Mr. 
 Martin appeared greatly surprised at the sight of this 
 tent ; checked his horse for a moment, and surveyed 
 it in silence. Charles also looked closely at it, induced 
 by the manner of his companion, but could perceive
 
 THE RIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 191 
 
 nothing but a scarlet jacket with gilt basket buttons, 
 hanging under a sort of canopy in front of the tent 
 as if it had been wet through by the rains of the 
 preceding evening, and a white horse singularly 
 spotted with red grazing near. He could see or 
 hear no person whatever. But Mr. Martin now rode 
 quickly but carefully, keeping his horse cautiously on 
 the grass, and the moment they were passed turning 
 with a very meaning look, putting his fingers to his 
 lips, as enjoining silence, and then riding rapidly for- 
 ward. Charles, as he followed, could not help casting 
 another backward glance, and was startled to per- 
 ceive a huge figure and very hairy face protruded 
 between the trees in front of the tent, and eagerly 
 gazing after them. But he was obliged to bestow his 
 immediate attention on his horse, as they were 
 already riding in the water; yet he looked round 
 once more, — there was nothing to see but a huge 
 mass of bushes. Mr. Martin let him come along- 
 side of him, and said, " That tent and dress and horse 
 belong to a man that I would not for the world see 
 us riding together. I '11 tell you why some time ; 
 now let us get off as fast as we can." The river, 
 however, now brought them to a stand ; and what a 
 scene ! 
 
 It here spread itself over the wide flat of the val-
 
 192 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 ley to the breadth of two hundred yards. All around 
 was bushy, and shagged, and wild. The wintry 
 torrents had brought down hither whole mountains 
 of gravel and great stones mingled with the trunks 
 of trees, and trees with enormous heads. These had 
 intercepted fresh accessions of gravel, huge stones, 
 beams, and carcasses of cattle. All amongst this 
 chaos of debris rushed the headlong torrent, turbid 
 and foaming, and roaring as it tore through these 
 heaps of rugged obstructions. It was a wild and 
 awe-inspiring scene. About three parts across it 
 showed a clearer channel, where the current was 
 swift as an arrow, and covered with foam. 
 
 Mr. Peter Martin stood with his horse nearly up 
 to his shoulders in the flood, and said to Charles, 
 " This is our crossing-place. What do you think 
 of it ? " 
 
 " This ! " said Charles. " Is it possible that we can 
 do it ? Yon current looks as though it could sweep 
 everything away." 
 
 " Of that I think least of all," replied his com- 
 panion ; " but in the flood amongst the gravel-heaps 
 I dread the sunken logs and pieces of rock, which 
 may throw down our horses where they may get 
 so entangled in boughs as never to be able to rise 
 again, or only to be washed away with us altogether.
 
 THE RIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 193 
 
 But say the word ! If your business is urgent we 
 will try it." 
 
 " It is urgent," said Charles ; " but I will not risk 
 your safety." 
 
 " If that be all," said Mr. Peter Martin, " here 
 goes." And he rode on boldly into the stream. Here 
 he carefully held up his horse, encouraging him. 
 Soon the stout horse lost footing, and swam visor- 
 ously ; then again he caught ground, and struggled 
 and floundered forward over roughest bottom. Thev 
 were soon far in, Charles following carefully in his 
 leader's track. As they approached the main current, 
 Mr. Martin reined in his horse on a shoal, and stood 
 a moment to survey the scene. It was enough to 
 appal the stoutest heart. Nothing could be more 
 wild, nothing more formidable in appearance. All 
 round them stretched one great wide deluge, looking 
 gigantic and merciless in its might. The muddy 
 headlong waters rushed and roared along, working 
 themselves against the huge heads of prostrate trees, 
 which appeared "partially above the flood with masses 
 of yellow and dingy foam of a foot high. The waters 
 of the main channel swept past in a heavy, careering 
 torrent, which appeared capable of bearing anything 
 to destruction. 
 
 " It won 't do to look long on this," said Mr. 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 Martin ; " we shall grow dizzy." He put on his 
 horse, crying in the same instant, " Take heed ! " And 
 at once his horse stumbled over some trunk or rock 
 beneath the water, and plunged headlong into the 
 flood. Man and horse totally disappeared ; and 
 Charles's mare, startled at the sight, wheeled round 
 and became restive. Horrified at what he had seen, 
 Charles pulled round her head fiercely, and dug the 
 spurs into her sides. With a furious bound she 
 sprung forward, dashing the waters like a fountain 
 high up all around him, and the next moment was 
 also in the roaring, boiling gulph, battling with the 
 waters with all her force. But her force ! Against 
 the immense weight of the furious stream it was as 
 the force of a midge on the forehead of a tornado ! 
 Charles found himself swept down the raving torrent 
 with the wild velocity of a frightful dream, the water 
 washing over his very arms, while he strained his 
 eyes in horror to discover his compa-ion. He saw 
 only the raging flood whirling and tearing onward 
 through the half-submerged trees. It was an age of 
 strange agony to his feelings ; though but an instant 
 of time, when lo ! the head of his companion's steed 
 emerged, snorting powerfully, and driving the spray 
 like steam from his nostrils. The next instant the 
 stooping but still resolutely seated form of the
 
 THE HIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 195 
 
 rider rose also from the flood, dripping with the de- 
 luge, and man and horse swept onward. The firm- 
 hearted man had let go neither bridle-rein nor whip. 
 Giving himself a vigorous shake, and blowing the 
 water from his mouth and nose, he looked round, and 
 perceiving Charles labouring to direct his horse 
 athwart the current, he cried out clear and strong : 
 " Heigh ! let her go ! " Charles dropped the rein on 
 the mare's neck, and both the horses and the riders 
 swept along with the mighty mass of waters. 
 
 Anon, Mr. Martin turned again, and pointing to a 
 high shoal of gravel backed by a gigantic tree, he 
 directed his horse thitherward in an oblique course. 
 Bravo ! They approach it easily. The first horse 
 strikes the bottom. Another step, and he stands 
 firm, but with distended nostrils and labouring flank, 
 demonstrating that a little more and his immense 
 strength would have been exhausted, and then adieu 
 to both horse and rider. Charles felt his mare touch 
 the shoal with a thrill of inexpressible joy, and the 
 next moment the two travellers sate side by side, their 
 hands grasped almost convulsively, and gazing on 
 each other in speechless eloquence. 
 
 At length Mr. Peter Martin with a strong effort 
 said : " Thank God for this. It is worse than I ima- 
 gined : a narrow escape, indeed ! " 
 
 o 2
 
 196 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 " And that you should have risked your life for 
 me ! " said Charles. 
 
 " Pooh ! No matter ; I did n't mean to risk it, of 
 course. It is an accident, or I should not have 
 risked yours. My God ! if you had been drowned, 
 what would your father have said then ? That I had 
 drowned you on purpose ! Oh Lord above ! but 
 never mind, all is right ! " And with that he led the 
 way over the gravel heaps, and through a few pools 
 of shallow water to dry land. 
 
 " But now you will take your death in your wet 
 clothes," said Charles. 
 
 " No ; away with us now. Farbrother's station is 
 only some quarter of a mile off." And he dashed 
 forward at full gallop. Charles followed as fast, and 
 in a very little time they were at the station, supplied 
 with dry garments, and relating over a good dinner 
 and a blazing fire the adventure of their passage of 
 the river. 
 
 The travellers passed a pleasant evening at the 
 station. The business which had brought them there 
 was done at once. The document was signed and 
 witnessed by Mr. Peter Martin ; a fact the effect of 
 which on his father, on first seeing it, Charles rather 
 startled at on reflection, but which, after his experience
 
 TIIE RIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 197 
 
 of this gentleman's devoted daring at the river, he 
 resolved to justify and defend, if necessary. 
 
 But his thoughts were prevented from dwelling 
 long on his own reflections ; for Mr. Martin and Mr. 
 Farbrother were soon afloat in a world of talk which 
 immediately seized on the whole sympathy and ima- 
 gination of Charles. Mr. Farbrother was, it soon 
 appeared, a great traveller and an enthusiastic natu- 
 ralist. He had his hut covered with cases of birds, 
 beasts, and insects, all preserved and prepared by 
 himself; and no sooner had Mr. Farbrother given 
 them an excellent supper, and sent off three or four 
 rosy children to bed, than he showed them splendid 
 specimens of birds and beasts, and winged and creeping 
 things which he had collected in every known part 
 of Australia and Tasmania. Plants and stones in 
 crowded cabinets and piled-up portfolios there were 
 enough to detain them there for a month. In that wild 
 corner of the bush he drew out Gould's magnificent 
 work on the " Birds of Australia," and the parts, as 
 far as they had reached the colony, of his equally fine 
 engravings of the animals, and gave them such a suc- 
 cession of stories, the adventures in which he had been 
 engaged in pursuit of his own treasures of natural 
 history, as made Charles long to set out with him, and 
 amid the trackless woods and mountains yet unnamed 
 
 o 3
 
 198 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 hail all new additions to that family of extraordinary 
 creatures. But time flew, the hour of midnight had 
 arrived ; and as the three friends, for friends they were 
 grown in this brief space by the discussion of objects 
 which deeply interested them all, sate enjoying a final 
 pipe, Mr. Farbrother, who was just returned from an 
 expedition in Tasmania, gave them a few reminis- 
 cences of some naturalist friends whom he had met 
 there. To Dr. Muller, the accomplished botanist, he 
 said he was indebted for the following account of the 
 
 " LAND-SHARK. 
 
 " In that wild region of mountains in Van Diemen's 
 Land, called the Western Tier, which stretches north 
 and south, over a large portion of that side of the 
 island, and terminates only on the western coast, in 
 high black precipices lashed by the booming billows 
 of the ocean, two young men were travelling in the 
 month of May, and lamenting that the fall of the 
 year was about to put an end to their delightful 
 wanderings. Through the long, light summer they 
 had lived the life of nature and of freedom, which is 
 the heaven of the hunter; and hunters they were, 
 being naturalists — hunters of plants and of animals,
 
 THE LAND-SHARK. 199 
 
 not for the mere pleasure of destroying or devour- 
 ing them j but to widen the realm, and enrich the 
 life, of science. The spirit of the chase was their 
 soul and their life's blood. To pursue their object 
 over sea, and moor, and mountain ; to seek out, 
 discover, and make prize of something new and 
 curious, was the dream of their existence. To rush 
 impetuously upon some unknown thing, as the hunter 
 rushes upon his noblest game, and to stand on moun- 
 tain peak or in forest glen with waving caps, and 
 exulting 'juchhel'as they stood before some beau- 
 tiful object that never before gladdened the eye of 
 naturalist, which yet had never found its name 
 or its place in the books of the learned, — that 
 was their glory and their reward. Young as they 
 were, they had traversed many lands, in the frozen 
 North, in the flowery South, in the vast and wonder- 
 fraught realms of America; they had sailed on the 
 Mississippi, the Amazon, and the Plate, and revelled 
 in the exhaustless forests of Brazil. But here, at the 
 antipodes, a Flora and a Fauna existed, exhibiting 
 singular laws and modes of being, hitherto unknown 
 to them. They had visited every quarter of the 
 island, climbed the mountains, traced its shores, 
 dived into the densest obscurity of its forests, and 
 stretched themselves, when wearied, on the green 
 
 o 4
 
 200 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 banks of its streams, counting up and putting in order 
 their acquisitions. 
 
 " From day to day they drove their faithful pack- 
 horse before them, burdened with bundles of their 
 gatherings and their supplies, or left him in some 
 luxurious nook, while they ascended hills, or explored 
 woods. With the lowering sun they lit their fire at 
 the foot of some tree or crag, raised a screen of 
 boughs from the night-dew and the wind, and over 
 their homely supper sung the songs of the Fatherland 
 — for they were Teutons — and slept. From time 
 to time, they found warmest welcome in country- 
 homes, where manly men and fair women had brought 
 the refined tastes and intelligence of European life, to 
 blend them with the peace and freshness of a gracious 
 southland nature. These happy and hospitable people 
 almost invariably became their guides to new dis- 
 coveries. With eagerest enthusiasm, men and women 
 mounted their horses, and led the way to distant 
 rock, river, mountain, or morass, where were to be 
 found the peculiar productions of the district. And, 
 for many a long year yet, will come back on their 
 memories, snatches of romantic country, bits of soli- 
 tary forest, the sounding shores of the ocean, the 
 scalp of the naked hill overlooking worlds of woods, 
 and illimitable sea, where the feathered hat and flying
 
 TIIE LAND-SIIAIIK. 201 
 
 veil led the way, — or some bewitching face flushed 
 like a rose at the representation of some glorious new 
 thing; or the manly form of the Tasmanian gentle- 
 man on his sure-footed steed, pioneered the track 
 down the shelving declivity or across the rushing 
 stream. 
 
 " But now their travel drew to a close, for the year 
 drew to a close. The myriad flowers had disappeared, 
 except the crimson epacris, and a few other natives 
 of sheltered glades; and they were on their way 
 homewards, warned by rains, and winds, and sharp 
 nights. 
 
 "The scene in which they found themselves was 
 wild and remote from life. They had made their 
 way up profoundly silent and spectral forests, along 
 the banks of the Mersey, rank with most luxuriant 
 vegetation, over steepest rocks, and through the 
 grimmest outlets of precipitous ravines, and to the 
 lofty table-lands of the Tier. 
 
 " Their way was still through dreary forests, in 
 the glades of which already lay patches of snow, 
 where stringy bark-trees of such bulk and altitude 
 still met their view as even, after all they had seen, 
 awoke fresh astonishment. They were in search, as 
 the evening came on wild and stormy, of a resting- 
 place which they had occupied on a former occasion.
 
 202 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 It was a rude hut erected of boughs and bark, pro- 
 bably by bushrangers or convicts who had fled hither 
 at some time when government was keen in its pur- 
 suit of them. It was raised against the face of a rock 
 in a little green glen which bordered a mountain 
 lake, whose dark deep waters increased the awe- 
 inspiring gloom of the scene. Having reached it, 
 they turned out their tired horse, and proceeded to 
 kindle a fire in their hut. Fritz, the younger, ob- 
 tained a bright blaze of dead leaves and twigs in the 
 chimney, which dazzled their eyes by its sudden 
 lustre, and then fetched the tears into them by filling 
 the place with smoke. But presently the flame bore 
 the damp air upwards in the chimney, and all became 
 clear ; and the active Fritz was not long in cultivating 
 the fire into a generous glow. Around the wretched 
 tenement were seats formed of posts driven into the 
 ground, supporting a rude framework of branches. 
 These, covered with a mass of boughs and leaves of 
 the gum-tree, were to constitute the beds of the 
 travellers, as they had done those of their unknown 
 predecessors. 
 
 " While Fritz was collecting this luxury, the pro- 
 fessor, his companion, forgetting his learning and his 
 early-won fame in the scientific world, drew from 
 their baggage a small frying-pan, and a tin pan bear-
 
 TIIE LAND-SIIARK. 203 
 
 ing the familiar name of a billy, and proceeded to 
 slice a solid piece of ham into the frying-pan. Anon, 
 there commenced a lusty frying and crackling over 
 the fire. Fritz brought in the billy full of water, and 
 set it to boil ; and the place with its two cheerful faces, 
 and a very savoury smell floating through it, assumed 
 a wondrously home-like aspect. Fritz, humming 
 some favourite Studenten Lied, threw a handful of 
 tea into the billy as it began to boil, set, on the near- 
 est bed, tin pannikins and sugar, and the two comrades 
 sate down to tea. 
 
 " The wind roared, as if it would carry the strug- 
 gling trees all away together. Fritz declared it was 
 dark even now, and they mutually congratulated 
 themselves on having reached this shelter while it 
 could be seen. But hark ! at the moment that they 
 were setting about to enjoy themselves, the sound of 
 a horse's hoofs on the rocky ground caught their ear. 
 At the same instant came the thump of a heavy whip 
 or stick on the rude door, and a loud ' Hillo ! there, 
 within ! ' Fritz started up, and as he plucked open 
 the hurdle, in stepped a tall man, stooping, as was 
 needful, from the humility of the portal. 
 
 « f What ! Fritz ? what, mein lieber Herr Profes- 
 sor ? ' exclaimed a tall gentlemanly man, in dark 
 green riding-coat and handsome jack-boots, vehe-
 
 204 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 mently, shaking the hands of the strangers. ' Well, 
 this is a surprise ; though one ought not to be sur- 
 prised to meet you in any savage spot. I saw a 
 light here, to my great wonder, and determined to 
 take refuge from the storm, though it were with bush- 
 ranger or devil. Oh! what a night — dark as the 
 lowest pit of Erebus, and with a suffocating wind, 
 that sends the dead branches down about vour ears 
 in most perilous style. Had it not been for my 
 faithful Jack, I must have given it up; but he tum- 
 bled along, courageously, over stock and stone.' 
 
 " ' But what in the world,' said the two natu- 
 ralists, ' leads you here, Doctor, in such a night ? 
 Sit down and tell us all about it, over a pannikin of 
 tea.' 
 
 " ' But, first, my horse ! my poor Jack ! ' exclaimed 
 the doctor, who was the medical man from a town- 
 ship, some twenty miles distant ; and, stepping out, he 
 brought up his horse to the light of the door, took 
 off his saddle, girthed his own rug round his smoking 
 body, and hung to his nose a little bag of oats that he 
 had carried with him. This done, the three friends 
 sat down, and commenced an animated conversation 
 which ran through the recent adventures of the two 
 friends and the doctor's too ; who, it turned out, had 
 been over the mountains to a new settlement, at a
 
 THE LAND-SHARK. 205 
 
 most urgent call to a sick man, and a proportionate 
 fee. 
 
 " ' A case of life and death,' said he, ' and really 
 almost of the same to the doctor. May the settle- 
 ment flourish and set up its own surgeon ; for I never 
 wish to go there again. Fifty miles through these 
 terrible ranges, on the edge of winter, is no trifle ; 
 one ought to make one's will before attempting it.' 
 
 " Here the doctor, seeing his horse had finished his 
 oats, jumped up, and little Fritz, with a flaming 
 brand, took the animal to be company for the natu- 
 ralist's horse, in the little sheltered glen just by. 
 Returned to the blazing fire, they once more blessed 
 their stars for so opportune a shelter, drank pan- 
 nikin after pannikin of tea, digested many a good 
 slice of ham, and basked in luxuriant content in the 
 glow of the ample fire. 
 
 " e This has been some robber's den, take my word 
 for it, ' said the doctor. * Some desperate convict 
 skulked here till he found means to get over to the 
 other side, and the gold-fields. But what times these 
 are to those of our fathers in the island ! Then Mus- 
 quito came down upon them with the enraged natives, 
 and Michael Howe and his gang spread terror from 
 the Tamar to the Derwent. There is a story — a 
 wonderful one — told of those times, which few who
 
 206 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 hear it will believe ; yet, it is quite true, and has 
 been mentioned by West in his history of the 
 colony. 
 
 " ' At the time when a heavv sum was offered for 
 the capture of Howe, alive or dead, and when the 
 desperate fellow was so hunted and laid wait for, 
 that he was irritated to a state of deadly ferocity, — 
 a convict happened to make his escape. He bolted 
 to the woods in nothing but the bright yellow suit 
 which the so-called canary-birds, the convicts, wear. 
 He had made his way up the country, by venturing 
 to approach shepherds and solitary stockmen, who 
 were often of the class, and actuated by the fellow- 
 feeling which makes " wondrous kind." From them 
 he had procured damper enough to carry him on, 
 and at length, arriving in the mountains, he encoun- 
 tered the celebrated bandit, at the head of a gang of 
 his desperate followers. 
 
 " ' " Eh, mate ! " said Howe, <( whither away ? " 
 
 « e «: To join the bushrangers," said the man ; " I 
 have made my escape." 
 
 " ' " That won 't pass, my friend," said Howe, 
 pouncing savagely on the man. " This is a stale 
 dodge; — won't do here; it has been tried too often. 
 Rather tempting, eh? — that price on my head? 
 But we 've settled all that. The man that comes
 
 TIIE LAND-SHARK. 207 
 
 here, dies ; and so all's safe. Mate, here's a choice 
 for you ; — we don 't wish to be too arbitrary. The 
 cutlass, the pistol, or the contents of this little vial ; " 
 producing one from his waistcoat-pocket. 
 
 " ' The poor fellow, thunderstruck with astonish- 
 ment and terror, begged piteously for his life, pro- 
 tested over and over his innocence of any treason, 
 and his desire to join them. In vain. The savage 
 outlaw bade him cease his whining, and make his 
 choice, or they would at once choose for him. The 
 poor wretch selected the poison as the least appalling. 
 They saw him swallow it off, wished him a com- 
 fortable doze, and disappeared in the wood. The 
 potion began to take instantaneous effect. The man 
 sank down, overcome with drowsiness, on a stump, 
 and felt himself falling into an overpowering stupor. 
 But the dose was too strong; it produced violent 
 sickness, and the man, relieved, arose in a while, and 
 marched on. 
 
 " ' After travelling some hours, taking, as well as 
 he knew, a direction widely different from that of the 
 bushrangers, to his own and their astonishment, he 
 found himself once more crossing their path. 
 
 tt((t Wh a t J » exclaimed they, " are you not 
 dead?" 
 
 " ' The man fell on his knees, and prayed vehe-
 
 208 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 inently for his life. It was useless. The choice of 
 sword or pistol was again offered him, and as he 
 continued to implore for mercy, crack went Howe's 
 pistol, and the victim fell motionless on the ground. 
 
 " i But he was not yet killed. After a time he 
 recovered consciousness, felt the top of his head 
 smarting and burning terrifically, and his eyes 
 blinded by blood. But his bodily strength and 
 feeling of soundness were wholly undiminished. He 
 rose, wiped the blood from his eyes, washed his 
 head at a pool, and found that the ball had merely 
 grazed his skull. Binding up his head with his 
 handkerchief, he once more set forward, trusting this 
 this time to steer clear of the merciless crew of bush- 
 rangers. But no such good fortune attended him. 
 After marching some miles through a most laborious 
 mountain-track in a deep inland valley, he again saw, 
 to his horror, the robber troop approaching. It was 
 too late to conceal himself; they already saw him ; 
 and he heard distinctlv the shout of wonder that 
 they raised on perceiving him. 
 
 " < « What ! " exclaimed the terrible Howe, " still 
 alive ? Will neither poison nor bullet destroy thee ? 
 Why, thou art a cat-o'-mountain, with not nine, but 
 any number of lives at the devil's need. Art thou 
 man, or ghost, or fiend ? "
 
 THE LAND-SHARK. 209 
 
 " ' The poor wretch once more, and still more 
 movingly, pleaded for his life. 
 
 " « " What had he done ? " he asked. " He wanted 
 only to join them, and he would be their slave, their 
 fag, their pack-horse, their forlorn hope in any des- 
 perate cases — anything, so that they only let him 
 live." 
 
 " ' " Live!" exclaimed the barbarous leader; " live! 
 "Why, thou livest in spite of me ! Neither fire nor 
 physic harm thee ! Nay, I would kill thee, if it were 
 only to see what it takes to do it. I have a curiosity 
 to know whether thou canst be killed, or whether 
 thou art not the Wandering Jew, or Old Nick 
 himself." With these words, listening no more to 
 the tears and entreaties of the man than if he had 
 been a hyena, he devoted him to the infernal powers 
 in familiar language, and, stabbing him with his 
 cutlass, said, " Take that ! " 
 
 " ' The man struggled violently on the ground for 
 a few seconds, and then lay still on the sand. 
 
 " ( " That 's a settler, I think," said the outlaw, 
 whose hand had executed worse horrors than even 
 that, since he had been hunted and bidden for by go- 
 vernment ; burning secluded families in their own 
 huts at midnight, and making solitary travellers run 
 a race for their lives as a mark for the rifles of his 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 men. " Jf the fellow comes to life again," he said, 
 coolly, " I must get his secret, for it is very likely to 
 be useful to me." "Wiping his cutlass, first on some 
 long grass that he pulled up, and then on his coat- 
 sleeve, he coolly marched away with his crew.' 
 
 " ' And that certainly must have been a settler,' 
 said the professor. 
 
 " ' By no means,' added the doctor. ' After a 
 time the convict returned to consciousness. Fearfully 
 weak, he was tormented with a burning thirst ; but 
 was still alive. With much effort, and various 
 faintings, he managed to crawl in the direction of a 
 stream that ran riotously and sonorously down the 
 rocky valley, and there quenched his burning thirst 
 in the deliciously cold water. Again exhausted, he 
 sank back on the bank ; and would no doubt have 
 perished, had not a stockman come in quest of stray 
 cattle. He removed him to his hut, having first 
 bound up the wound in his chest ; and, after a long 
 period of illness and debility, the man was once more 
 well, and determined to return, and deliver himself 
 up to the authorities at Hobart Town, where, you 
 may be sure, his story, and the confirmatory scars 
 upon him, excited an immense sensation.' 
 
 " l But how could the man survive a thrust through 
 the body ? ' said the professor in amazement.
 
 THE LAND-SnARK. 211 
 
 " ' It was a mere case of loss of blood,' replied 
 the doctor ; ' the weapon had luckily passed between 
 the ribs without touching any vital part, and the man 
 had swooned from agony and haemorrhage.' 
 
 " c Horrid times ! ' ejaculated Fritz. « In those 
 days of unnatural history, natural history, of course, 
 was not. Only think of stumbling on Musquito or 
 Howe, who may be called the Tasmanian Alexander 
 the Great ; for, literally — 
 
 « ' " Thrice he fought his battles o'er, 
 And thrice he slew the slain." * 
 
 " f Fie, Fritz ! ' said the doctor, laughing. ' Yet, 
 even in my early days, here I botanised and entomo- 
 logised. And that was the sole cause of my encoun- 
 tering any danger, or being compelled to shed blood.' 
 
 " * To shed blood ! ' simultaneously exclaimed his 
 hearers. 
 
 " A serious cloud passed over the worthy doctor's 
 features, and in a different tone he added : s Yes ! 
 In all my rough and solitary rides in this insular 
 depot of excited ruffians ; in all my night wanderings, 
 when called, as must be the case, to often distant 
 abodes, in the very worst parts of the island ; I have 
 always found my profession and my errand an infal- 
 lible safeguard. Whenever I have been stopped by 
 
 p 2
 
 212 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 outlawed fellows, whose very name and fame all over 
 the island were a horror, to their demand of " Who 
 goes there ?" my reply, " The Doctor," brought the 
 instant rejoinder — " All right! Go, in God's name, 
 doctor ! " Nay, these very fellows have, on many an 
 occasion, been my guides, conducting me by ways 
 known only to themselves, confident that I would 
 never betray them. To them I owe a knowledge of 
 passes and short cuts through these hills that no man 
 besides is acquainted with. I have often received 
 refreshments from these fierce outcasts of humanity, 
 when I was ready to faint with exhaustion ; more 
 than once I have even slept all night in their rude 
 huts in the mountains, feeling the profoundest secu- 
 rity in guards who had the repute of being destitute 
 of all feelings but the most diabolical. I have 
 attended them in their sickness or their wounds, and 
 I have seen and heard revelations by the death-beds 
 of robbers and murderers that would draw tears from 
 a stone. Oh ! if the world did but know what 
 glorious faculties and feelings might be cultivated in 
 youth, in the poorest and most abject of our popu- 
 lation — toads and deformed reptiles as they after- 
 wards appear to us, yet in whose heads and hearts 
 God has originally deposited the precious jewel of a 
 great and capable nature — many a man who has
 
 TIIE LAND-SHARK. 213 
 
 come hither leprous with crime, and venomous as a 
 trodden serpent, would have remained at home to 
 adorn society, and to accelerate its progress towards 
 higher knowledge and a nobler standard of opinion.' 
 
 " ' But what was the exception ?' 
 
 " ' This: I had but little to do, and I made lon<r 
 rambles, devoting those attentions to insects which 
 were not required by patients. In one of these, I 
 entered a new township in a remote situation, and 
 stopped for the night at an inn still but partly fur- 
 nished. I observed that my bedroom had no lock, 
 but that was too common to give me any concern. 
 But, having deposited in this room when I had gone 
 up, on entering, to wash my hands, a brace of pistols, 
 and a small morocco case in which I carried my 
 insects, I observed that these articles had been re- 
 moved and replaced in a very different manner. I 
 examined the pistols, and found, to my surprise, that 
 they had been both unloaded, and that water had 
 been poured into them. This gave me a strange 
 sensation, and it occurred to me that my insect case 
 had been supposed to contain money, and that there 
 was a design to rob me. It was too late to quit the 
 house without notice, and without running greater 
 risk outside than in the room itself. I carefully 
 wiped dry and reloaded the pistols, drew with as 
 
 P 3
 
 214 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 little noise as possible a heavy chest of drawers 
 against the door, and threw myself down in my 
 clothes, anxiously waiting for the anticipated attack. 
 It came. About midnight, I heard something at the 
 door — force applied to push back the obstruction. 
 My candle had burnt out; but I exclaimed, "Who's 
 there ? " 
 
 " e " Oh ! are you awake?" said a man's voice, 
 which I supposed that of the landlord ; " I want to 
 come in for some bed linen in the drawers — a guest 
 has just arrived, and we can 't do without it." 
 
 " 1 1 told him nobody should come in on any account 
 till morning. The man swore that he must and 
 would, and proceeded to push violently at the door. 
 On this I started up and cried, " Desist ! or take the 
 consequences ; whoever comes in here is a dead man ! " 
 But the man — and he was a huge, brawny fellow — 
 swore dreadful oaths that he would come in ; and, as 
 he furiously thrust open the door, I fired.' 
 
 " ' Mein Gott!' exclaimed the two German gen- 
 tlemen, recurring in their excitement to their native 
 tongue, though they usually spoke English like 
 Englishmen. 
 
 " ' Yes,' continued the doctor ; ' he fell, I heard a 
 groan. I could see nothing, but I heard a great 
 running on the stairs, and low, suppressed exclama-
 
 THE LAND-SHA11K. 215 
 
 tions of horror, and whisperings. Then all was still, 
 and I remained in a condition which you may ima- 
 gine till morning. No one came near the chamber. 
 At daybreak I pushed away the drawers, looked out, 
 expecting to see a frightful stain of blood, but all was 
 clean — the floor had been carefully scoured. 
 
 " s I descended. There was no one to be seen but 
 a girl, who looked at me with a sort of stupid wonder. 
 I asked what I owed, paid it to her, and walked 
 away. No one appeared to oppose or to question me. 
 It seemed all like a horrible dream. As I ascended 
 the village, a man began tolling a bell which hung in 
 a tree by a new wooden chapel. I asked what that 
 meant.' 
 
 " ' " It is the passing-bell," said the man, " for the 
 landlord down yonder, who died suddenly in the 
 night." 
 
 " ' The words struck me like an actual blow ; I 
 went on — no one pursued me — no one ever after- 
 wards spoke or seemed to know of the affair. A 
 short time ago I was in that neighbourhood. The 
 place is become a great town ; a new family is in the 
 inn, which is one of extensive business. I ventured 
 to ask if such a tradition did not exist ? No one had 
 heard a syllable about it.' 
 
 p 4
 
 216 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 " ' You had a narrow escape, doctor,' said his won- 
 dering friends. 
 
 " ' Ay ; and what would I now give if I had but 
 told that dishonest landlord that I had discovered his 
 trick, and that my pistols were once more loaded ? It 
 was his conviction that they were empty which made 
 him secure.' 
 
 " ' No doubt of it,' replied the professor, ' and en- 
 abled you to rid the country of a monster who would 
 have victimised others if he even failed with you.' 
 
 " ' That is my only comfort,' said the doctor, 
 musingly ; ' but we must soon to bed, and before I 
 can do that, I must relieve my mind of another scene, 
 which I can only effect by giving it words, and thus 
 insure my sleep. I have just witnessed the end of 
 one of those extraordinary animals which it requires 
 the air of Europe, and that of new colonies combined, 
 to produce.' 
 
 " e What animal can that be ?' asked the naturalists, 
 their attention excited by the expectation of some 
 novelty in their own region of inquiry. 
 " e It is the land-shark,' said the doctor. 
 "'The land-shark!' said the eager expectants, 
 laughing ; c that must be a htsus natures, a nonde- 
 script, indeed.' 
 
 " ' No,' replied the doctor; f it is a creature well
 
 THE LAND-SHARK. 217 
 
 known, accurately described and classified ; no sport 
 of nature, but the offspring of colonial life and of the 
 spirit of modern Europe. You have seen the Tas- 
 manian devil — a furious beast that will devour its 
 own species when wounded. The land-shark is even 
 a worse devourer of his kind. You have seen how 
 horses here will paw up and devour earth on which 
 salt has been spilled ? ' 
 
 " c Yes/ said Fritz, merrily ; e I know that to my 
 cost ; for many a time have I had to rise and rush 
 forth in the night, and, undressed, chase away into 
 the bush wretched horses who were champing, and 
 pawing, and snorting close to our tent, where we 
 had poured out the salt water from pickled beef.' 
 
 " ' Well,' continued the doctor, ' the land-shark 
 swallows up earth by acres and leagues ; the wehr- 
 wolf of Scandinavian legends never had such a capa- 
 city for the marvellous in deglutition. Australia has 
 produced no lion, tiger, grizzly bear, or such ferocious 
 monsters, but it has produced the land-shark, and 
 that is a monstrum horrendum worse than all of them 
 put together. It is worse, because it wears the shape 
 of a man; and, with a face as innocent, as meek, 
 and placid as a manticora or a syren, takes shelter 
 under human laws. In a word, a land-shark is a 
 thing which combines all the attributes of the incubus,
 
 218 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 the cannibal, the vampire, and the choke-damp. 
 Where it lives nobody else can live. It is the upas- 
 tree become animated, and, walking over the southern 
 world like a new Frankenstein, producing stagnation, 
 distortion, death-in-life, and desolation wherever it 
 arrives. It is the regrater and forestaller of the 
 old world, against whose inhuman practice so many 
 statutes have been enacted, thus turned up as the 
 opponent of Providence in a new sphere. It is the 
 meal-worm of the shop converted by what it feeds on 
 into the hungry caterpillar of these lands. 
 
 " f I have to-day stood by the death-bed of a pri- 
 mate of this class. Peter Stonecrop was one of the 
 earliest inhabitants of this colony, and his death will 
 make a sensation. Of his beginning, which must 
 have been tolerably obscure, I know nothing ; but he 
 was an illiterate man, and sordid from the first known 
 of him. He got a large grant of land here, when 
 grants were going as freely as the winds or the 
 clouds. He never cultivated it. He bought more 
 land — cheap, dog cheap — but he never cultivated it. 
 What he got he kept, for he spent nothing. A hut 
 scarcely fit for a labourer was his sole abode. He 
 never could afford to marry. He was in this respect 
 more penurious than Long Clarke, a congener, and 
 the prince of land-sharks.
 
 THE LAND-SHARK. 219 
 
 « « Peter Stonecrop is little behind his celebrated 
 chief, I mean in accumulation of lands. Though to- 
 day he possesses but some six feet of earth, yesterday 
 he was lord of fifty thousand acres. In one re- 
 spect his influence has been more mischievous than 
 Clarke's; for he has contrived to pitch, with a sin- 
 gular foresight, on a whole host of places that must, 
 in the nature of things, become populous and influ- 
 ential. Where a port was needed, they had to re- 
 purchase the site from Stonecrop, at cent, per cent, 
 cost. Where a town should spring up, the purchases 
 of Stonecrop stood in the way, and turned the tide of 
 building into a far worse position. Where families 
 longed to settle, and saw in imagination fertile farms, 
 and happy homes, Stonecrop had put his hand on the 
 waste, and a waste it remained. Thus have this man 
 and his congeners gone on obstructing settlement, 
 distorting progress, pushing back from the warm 
 sunshine of existence thousands of human creatures, 
 because there was no place for them in the new and 
 beautiful lands which God has revealed to the destitute 
 masses of crowded Europe. Imagine Battery Point, 
 in Hobart Town, with its magnificent situation on the 
 estuary, and in the very centre of the new metro- 
 polis, being bought by the father of the present ex- 
 cellent Kermode for eight hundred pounds. Imagine
 
 220 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 what it is worth now, with its sites, its buildings, its 
 capabilities, nay, its necessities — every foot of earth 
 precious as so much gold-dust. It is such startling, 
 prominent, exciting spectacles, that have created the 
 tribe of voracious, yet indigesting land-sharks. But 
 it is in Victoria that the race and the mischief have 
 at length culminated. There the in-rushino- torrents 
 of gold-seekers have found the squatter and the land- 
 shark in a coalition terrible as an antarctic frost. 
 What the one was reluctantly compelled to let go, 
 the other seized. The land- shark was before the 
 population, but certain of its arrival, purchasing up 
 large tracts when they were to be had. Wherever 
 the government offered modicums of land to the 
 clamorous public, the land- shark was there, and out- 
 bid them, because he could wait, and knew that the 
 higher the pressure of population the higher the price. 
 You are no strangers to the outcries on that side the 
 Straits for land ; the indignant remonstrance and the 
 reflux of despairing emigrants from those fair and 
 fertile shores, where the squatter and the land-shark 
 reign — the lords of a monopoly that amazes all wise 
 men, and fills the valleys and prairies of America 
 with millions on millions of people meant by Pro- 
 vidence for the planters and forefathers of a glorious 
 England of the south. You will yet hear, if this un-
 
 THE LAND-SHARK. 221 
 
 holy alliance be not speedily cancelled, of woful tem- 
 pests of vainly-repressed passion, and melancholy 
 chronicles of bloodshed. 
 
 " l Adelaide is the only Australian colony which, 
 warned by the vicinity of the prowling monster, has 
 guarded against him, and has offered to the small 
 capitalist the opportunity of securing small farms ; 
 and it has seen its reward in a numerous, increasino- 
 thriving, and happy rural population, capable already 
 of sending out surplus produce to the incubus-ridden 
 Victoria. But to my man. 
 
 " l Peter Stonecrop was one of my very first 
 patients, and he taught me one of my earliest lessons 
 of caution. He came to me with a violent inflamma- 
 tion of the pleura. He doubtless selected me, as a 
 young, and, as he hoped, a cheap practitioner. He 
 actually passed on his way a much nearer and very 
 able medical man, and, in agonies which nothing but 
 the intensest avarice could have enabled him to 
 endure, arrived at my door. Any other individual 
 would have sent for a medical man to come to him, 
 but his penurious soul would not allow him such a 
 luxury. I opened my door, and saw him seated on 
 a white, bony steed. I involuntarily thought of 
 Death upon the pale horse ; such was his ghastly and 
 tortured aspect.
 
 222 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 " \ I took him in, doctored, nursed, and kept him 
 for a month. As he grew nearly well, he began to 
 talk to me of my practice and prospects ; said he 
 knew it was anxious and up-hill work for a young 
 man in a new place. I candidly confessed it was, 
 and he sympathised — -as I thought, feelingly — with 
 me. He frequently shook his head seriously, mut- 
 tered, " Yes ; hard work, very hard work : but we 
 must help one another. My good doctor, let me 
 know what I owe you. You 've been very kind to 
 me, and I hope I shall show myself sensible of it." 
 
 " l My impression was that he meant to make me 
 some handsome present — something correspondent to 
 his ample fortune, and the services I had rendered 
 him. I therefore was careful to charge him as mode- 
 rately as possible. I felt bound to rely on his gene- 
 rosity. He took his bill, paid me exactly to the 
 farthing, called for his horse, and rode off. The land- 
 shark and the miser are one. 
 
 " ' Twenty years have flown since then. Old age 
 has only bent his iron frame nearer to the earth which 
 held his soul. If ever there was a thing of the earth, 
 earthy, it was Stonecrop. Like Mammon, — 
 
 " ' " The least erected spirit that fell, 
 
 From Heaven, for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts 
 Were always downward bent " —
 
 TIIE LAND-SnARK. 223 
 
 Stonecrop seemed only to see the earth, and be con- 
 scious of its existence. Whether he ever saw the 
 sky, with its translucent and inspiring universe of 
 suns and worlds, is doubtful, but certainly it never 
 suggested to him vast colonies of spiritual life, and 
 all the sublime thoughts that claim for us kinship 
 with the Infinite. From time to time sad stories of 
 hard dealings and oppressive acts towards widows 
 and orphans, over whose property he had extended 
 his mortgage-net, reached the public, and of won- 
 drous sums of money, of no more real use to him 
 than so many oyster-shells. From the day that I 
 restored him to a worthless life, he never came 
 again under my hands, and never did me the slightest 
 kindness. 
 
 " ' Yet, the other day came a messenger with hot 
 haste to call me to him. Stonecrop, he said, was 
 dying, or feared so. A new settlement was laid out 
 on the western coast, the vultures of speculation had 
 already flocked there, and Stonecrop was first in the 
 field. He had pounced on various lots just where an 
 acute surveyor should have reserved them for the 
 public. He had possessed himself of the only sites 
 for quays and wharves, for the erection of a church, 
 and for the supply of spring water. He had managed 
 to monopolise woodlands, just where their magnifi-
 
 224 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 cent timber was at hand for exportation. If they 
 wanted a market they must re-buy it of him. 
 
 " e From what the man could tell me, I perceived 
 that the very complaint of which I had formerly 
 relieved him, had seized him once more in his old age. 
 I believed his time was come, but I did not feel justi- 
 fied in refusing his call under such solemn circum- 
 stances, where no other aid was to be got ; I resolved, 
 however, to make a stand for some fair remuneration 
 this time. When the messenger saw I hesitated to 
 undertake the journey, he pulled from his pocket an 
 open note. It was in Stonecrop's own scraggy, 
 scrambling hand, now almost illegible from feebleness; 
 but it offered large terms, which showed that he 
 doubted of my coming. I wrote at the foot of the 
 note that I accepted them, and made the messenger 
 witness it. We went. 
 
 " ' When we descended into this new township it 
 was evening, almost dark, and there was a fog so 
 thick that, as my guide said, " you might almost hang 
 your hat up on it." We made our way through 
 roods of mire a yard deep, ploughed up by bullock- 
 teams ; and piles of sawn timber, and trunks of 
 felled trees, amongst blazing fires that blinded us, 
 when near, and which gave us no help at a distanee 
 for the dense haze. In the midst of all the indescrib-
 
 THE LAND-SHARK. 225 
 
 able confusion, discomfort, and ugliness of such a na- 
 scent settlement, we found our great man, domiciled in 
 a mere shed, which had been erected by some sawyers. 
 There he had cooked for himself; and, if one might 
 jest on such a subject, had literally taken in and done 
 for himself. The dampness of that low, hollow spot, 
 and the incessant rains, had again produced a pleurisy. 
 
 " e A kind-hearted woman, the wife of a drayman 
 just by, had gone in at his cries, and nursed him to 
 the best of her ability. She described his agonies 
 and moans as having been terrible ; and when I said, 
 " but he is still now," she gave a look full of mean- 
 ing, and said : 
 
 tt < (( Yes, and to my thinking will soon be stiller." 
 
 " ' I went in. A candle burnt on a deal box, 
 besides the bedstead, the only furniture of the hut. 
 The wretched man lay wide awake, watching with a 
 keen look the doorway, and as I advanced, he lifted 
 up his right hand, and said : 
 
 tt ( a That 's you, doctor ; but I 'm better ; we were 
 in too great a hurry. You '11 consider that, eh ? " 
 
 " ' " You are better, you think ? " 
 
 " ' " O, much better ! my pains are gone. They 
 were shocking, shocking. If I could but move my 
 legs — but they seem to be lead. Yet what can ail 
 them ? I am better, much better." 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 " ' During this time I was feeling his pulse. He 
 watched me with a look which betrayed a far deeper 
 anxiety than his words would indicate. I put down 
 his arm quietly, and sate in solemn silence on a rude 
 stool, which the woman brought me to his bedside. 
 
 '""Yon think me better, doctor, don't you?" 
 said the wasted old man, with a ghastly and eager 
 look. " You must think so, I am so easy now." 
 
 tt i « ]y[ r Stonecrop," I said, in a tone to prepare 
 him as well as I could for the truth, " you are now 
 an old man, and no circumstance should take you by 
 surprise, especially where it concerns your most im- 
 portant affairs. You are easy ; thank God for it ; 
 but do n't calculate upon that as delaying the crisis at 
 which we must all arrive. I cannot flatter you with 
 hopes of recovery." 
 
 " ' The thin, prominent features of the dying man, 
 which looked wan and bloodless before, at these 
 words grew livid. His eyes glared on me with a 
 fearful expression, their white gleaming with a strange 
 largeness and glaziness. He clutched me by the 
 sleeve with his big, bony hand, which yet seemed to 
 retain an iron grasp, 
 
 " « " But you do n't think I shall die soon? Not 
 for some days, weeks, months ? No, no, I cannot die, 
 I have so much to do."
 
 THE LAND-SHARK. 227 
 
 " ' " Let me speak plainly to you," I added. " If 
 you have so much to do, you have little time to do it 
 in. Your hours, nay, your minutes, are numbered." 
 
 " ' At these words, he lay for a few moments, as if 
 stunned. Then, dragging hard at my sleeve, he 
 exclaimed, in a fearful, gasping voice, between a 
 screech and a whisper : 
 
 st i <( n<^ n0j doctor, you must not say that ! You 
 won't say that ! Save me ! Save me ! and take half 
 my land." 
 
 " c " Not all the land on earth," I said, " could save 
 you for a second beyond the two short hours that the 
 progress of your disease has marked out for you." 
 
 " ' " But you must save me, doctor. You can do it; 
 you did it before. Think what I have to do; what 
 affairs I have unsettled. And that Widow Tredgold, 
 who prayed that I might never see her mortgaged 
 fields again — what won't she say ? A judgment 
 she '11 call it. No, no, doctor, save me ! Say but 
 the word, and I '11 forgive the widow all. And those 
 Hexham's children — them, too — them, too ! O 
 Lord ! O Lord ! who would have to do with widows 
 and orphans ? A man has no chance. There is no 
 driving a bargain with them with any comfort — only 
 trouble, — trouble, — trouble ! But let them do just as 
 they like. Doctor, say the word, and I '11 build a 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 church here. They '11 want one. Say it at once, 
 doctor. I can't die, for I have so much — so very 
 much to do ! " 
 
 " ' '* Have you made your will ? " 
 
 « e ci -§ — y eSj j once ^id. j ] e ft m j nephew the 
 
 land, and my two nieces the houses and the money. 
 But it would not do. When I looked on my lands 
 they seemed no longer mine. These, I said, are 
 Tom's ; and when I looked at the houses and securi- 
 ties, these, I said, are Mary's and Jane's. No, no ; 
 they were no longer mine. I could not feel them 
 mine, and I tore up the will." 
 
 " ( u You must make another." 
 
 ""'Yes, yes, doctor — you'll give me time for 
 that? Oh, I have much — so very much to do ! " 
 
 " ' I gave the woman instructions to fetch in pen 
 and paper, quickly ; but such things are not soon 
 procured in such a spot. When she was gone, I 
 added : " And your Maker, who has crowned you 
 with so much of his wealth, how stand your prepara- 
 tions with him ? " 
 
 a e <i Time enough for that, doctor. Let us make 
 the will first. That's the first thing — that must be 
 done first." 
 
 " ' He endeavoured to turn himself, as if to be 
 ready to dictate ; but sudden spasms seized him ; he
 
 THE LAND-SHARK. 229 
 
 gasped for breath ; clutched convulsively my sleeve ; 
 groaned, his head fell back, and with a deep sigh, 
 saying half audibly, " I have so much to do ! " the 
 days of the great owner of many lands were over. 
 The shrewd foreseer of events, the sagacious specu- 
 lator, the keen safe bargainer, died, with his chief 
 work unaccomplished — the grand bargain of exist- 
 ence unsecured ! 
 
 " * It has required the sharp ride of to-day, over 
 rock, and stone, and fallen trunk, up steep jagged 
 acclivities, and over many a mile of dark mountain 
 forest, amid the moaning winds and the snapping 
 boughs, to dissipate the black impression of that 
 death-bed. But now for a sleep ! ' 
 
 " The three friends threw themselves on their hard 
 couches ; and, at break of day, were travelling 
 through a region of magnificent mountains, with a 
 bright sun beaming above them amid flying clouds, 
 towards the hospitable home of the accomplished and 
 popular ^Esculapius." 
 
 It was late when our travellers turned into bed, and 
 Charles awoke in the morning with the strangest con- 
 fusion of half-remembered dreams of more and odder 
 creatures than ever took refuge in Noah's ark, min- 
 gled with ever-recurring bands of bush-rangers, and 
 
 Q 3
 
 230 TALLANGETTA. " 
 
 doctors traversing the wildest mountains to carry aid, 
 if possible, to moribund land-sharks. 
 
 Towards noon the river was considerably fallen, 
 and the squatter conducted his guests to a ford higher 
 up, which was much easier to those who knew it. In 
 good time that afternoon they were once more safe at 
 Bongubine. One more night Charles was compelled 
 to pass there ; and the following morning he left the 
 house of Mr. Peter Martin, the reputed enemy of his 
 family, with the warm and deeply-rooted conviction 
 that he and his were amongst the most sterling and 
 loveable people on the earth. But he was not suffered 
 to proceed alone. Once more Mr. Martin mounted 
 and set out with him. They rode on till they reached 
 the height above Tallangetta, and the conversation 
 had been such as had enchained the ear of the 
 younger man to the voice of the elder one, as if there 
 had been a more than human fascination in it. Mr. 
 Martin went over the grounds of difference between 
 himself and his father. He reminded Charles that 
 he and Thomas Fitzpatrick his father were sisters' 
 sons ; that his own mother had died early, leaving him 
 in charge of Lady Fitzpatrick ; his father had been 
 long deceased. The sisters had been bound to each 
 other with a most tender and devoted attachment. 
 Lady Fitzpatrick had regarded him with an affection
 
 TIIE RIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 231 
 
 little short of that which she entertained for her own 
 children. He and Thomas Fitzpatrick had been at 
 school and college together ; they had been the best 
 of friends till near manhood, when Mr. Fitzpatrick's 
 fatal passion for the turf had displayed itself, to the 
 deep grief and alarm of his parents and relatives. 
 Then they took diverse ways. For himself, he de- 
 tested everything belonging to gambling, but the 
 gambling of the course above all other. He recoiled 
 in disgust from the society of that class. He took 
 especial delight in the cultivation of his estate, and 
 the enjoyment of his library. His Homer, his 
 Xenophon, and his Cicero were his favourite com- 
 panions. Mr. Fitzpatrick came very young into 
 possession of his large property and title, and the 
 result was too well known. His mother sought 
 sympathy in his, Mr. Martin's, society, for he 
 loved her as a mother. To him she confided her 
 sorrows and fears, and to the day of her death she 
 was firm and unshaken in her friendship for him. 
 Meantime the most hostile feelings had grown up 
 towards him in Sir Thomas. Perhaps he himself had 
 not been destitute of blame in evincing too much anger 
 and indignation in his warnings and entreaties to Sir 
 Thomas, both as commissioned by his mother, or as 
 proffered by himself. But before Lady Fitzpatrick 
 
 Q 4
 
 232 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 died, she foretold extraordinary ruin and misery to her 
 son, and took a solemn pledge from him, her nephew, 
 never to forsake him, and to spare no pains or sacri- 
 fices finally to save him. 
 
 " And yet," Charles ventured to say, " when my 
 father was attacked and borne down by the pre- 
 tender, Sir Patrick, you never came forward with 
 any tender of evidence or funds. That is what em- 
 bitters my father especially, and which none of us can 
 understand." 
 
 " There," continued Mr. Peter Martin, " appear- 
 ances are clearly against me. But evidence I had 
 none, and funds your father would, under our then 
 relations, have rejected with scorn. Besides, I was 
 pledged by his own mother, who, with all her unques- 
 tionable affection, was one of the most firm and far- 
 seeing women that ever lived, not to move in any 
 way up to a certain crisis." 
 
 " And what crisis was that ? " asked Charles. 
 
 " The crisis of utter loss of fortune, and the reaction 
 of mind which should follow it. Your noble-hearted 
 grandmother, while she mourned bitterly over her 
 son, and went sorrowfully towards the grave on his 
 account, believed that nothing short of such a crisis 
 could effectually root the dominant, absorbing pas-
 
 TIIE RIDE ACROSS THE RIVER. 233 
 
 sion from his soul, and give free play to the exalted 
 qualities which there withered in its shade." 
 
 " But the marriage certificate," said Charles, " can 
 you say where that is? For without that I can see 
 no ground for the hopes of my father's restoration to 
 his rights, which I believe you entertain." 
 
 " No ! God knows where that can be ! Yet some- 
 times I have my thoughts about that ; but you forget, 
 there is yet a chance besides that — a chance of the 
 discovery of the chaplain who celebrated the mar- 
 riage." 
 
 Charles sighed. " A poor chance, indeed, I fear. 
 Every effort to trace him has failed, and we are not 
 very likely to discover him in these woods." 
 
 " I would not even say that," added Mr. Martin ; 
 " there is a strange gathering of all the ends of the 
 earth here." 
 
 Charles shook his head ; and after a considerable 
 pause, he said : " And may I ask what induced 
 you to come out here ? " 
 
 " That is a point I wished to come to," added Mr. 
 Peter Martin. " It was in obedience to the pledge 
 which I gave to your grandmother. It was to secure 
 your safety and return." 
 
 " Safety ! " said Charles. " I imagine we are safe
 
 234 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 enough here, at all events. Sir Patrick will not 
 trouble himself to follow us hither." 
 
 " You are safe while I am here," said Mr. Martin, 
 solemnly ; " if I said you would not be so were I 
 away, would you believe me ? " 
 
 Charles paused a moment ; the remembrance of 
 this strange man putting his life in peril in the flood 
 came over his mind, and he said, " Certainly ; I 
 would believe you as I would believe my own 
 senses." 
 
 " Then believe that I watch over you, and that 
 the time comes on amain which will show that, and 
 will clear up everything." 
 
 He put out his hand, grasped the young man's 
 vigorously, wheeled round his horse, and dashed 
 away through the woods.
 
 235 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 
 THE STORM BREAKS. 
 
 Charles Fitzpatrick rode down the hill towards 
 his gloriously-situated home, not as if he was return- 
 ing joyfully from a successfully executed mission, 
 but as if some heavy tidings retarded his reluctant 
 course. The words of his extraordinary companion 
 were still sounding in his ears. The strange past, 
 the strangely-predicted and fast-approaching future, 
 engrossed his whole mind. What a mystery there 
 was about this man; and yet what a truth he felt 
 was in him. How his very words — that he was 
 watching over them — tallied with the words of the 
 mysterious message. And what could be this danger 
 which he intimated, and which he was here to con- 
 trol? It was all unreal as a dream, and yet to him 
 more real than any other reality. So completely 
 was he living in the heart of this mystery, that the 
 beautiful lake, the wide woods and hazy peaks of 
 mountains rising far distant out of them, the smoking 
 huts below, and the white walls of his own home,
 
 236 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 were unseen and unthought of by him ; and it was 
 only when coming near that the apprehension of his 
 father's anger, on the discovery of the proximity of this 
 his old antagonist, fell over him. He put his mare 
 into a canter, and came up to the door with the live- 
 liest air that he could assume. 
 
 At the sound of his horse's hoofs there were eager 
 faces at the window ; and in another moment his 
 father, mother, and sister were all at the door with 
 words of most affectionate welcome. " What luck ? " 
 exclaimed his father. " All right," Charles replied, 
 dismounting, and flinging his bridle to the groom. 
 Speedily he was seated in the midst of his family 
 circle, who were full of inquiries regarding his jour- 
 ney ; and, to put off the evil hour, Charles related 
 the occurrence of the storm, and the difficulty of 
 crossing the river. He added that Mr. Farbrother 
 signed the agreement at once, and he then handed it 
 in an off-hand way to his father. Mr. Fitzpatrick 
 took it, just opened it, saw the signature of Mr. 
 Farbrother, rose, put the document into his desk, and 
 sate down again to listen to his son's story. Dinner 
 came in, and they all sate down to it in great joy. 
 There appeared every prospect of a delightful even- 
 ing ; all were so deeply interested in Charles's dan- 
 gers in the woods and floods. But such prospect
 
 THE STORM BREAKS. 237 
 
 was fallacious, it could not endure. They began to 
 inquire after the Metcalfes, and how Bell was, and 
 whether Brady had accompanied him across the 
 Campaspe. Alas ! at every fresh question Charles's 
 countenance fell, cloud followed on cloud, and he 
 was obliged to confess that lie had not reached 
 Moolap, but a strange station. 
 
 " A strange station ! What could that be?" 
 
 " Oh, a station called Bongubine." 
 
 " Bongubine ! A good name — native they sup- 
 posed. And who lived there?" 
 
 " A family of the name of Martin — a very decent 
 family." 
 
 " Martin ! how odd ! What sort of people were 
 they ? — cultivated people ? " 
 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick started up, went to the desk, took 
 out the agreement, unfolded it, and stood for some 
 time as if he were in a dream. 
 
 Then, holding out the paper towards Charles, he 
 said, in a stern sort of voice, " Who is the man who 
 witnessed this? Was this the squatter of Bongu- 
 bine?" 
 
 " The same," said Charles, unable to conceal a 
 tremor which shook every limb. 
 
 " The same !" exclaimed his father. " What kind 
 of man was he ? Peter Martin ! Who is he ?
 
 238 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 There was a sudden shock at the name which 
 went through the ladies like that from a galvanic 
 battery, and a short exclamation as of terror. All 
 turned pale, while Mr. Fitzpatrick, on the contrary, 
 grew scarlet, as with passion. 
 
 " Speak, Charles, at once. Who is this man who 
 bears so devilish a name, and bears it so near us ?" 
 
 Charles felt that he was on the edge of a crater ; 
 but there was no escaping. He manned himself for 
 the explosion, and said, as deprecatingly as possible, 
 " Dear father, I am sorry, for your sake, to say that 
 it is the very man who has always borne that 
 name." 
 
 There was a wild shriek now from the ladies, 
 simultaneously. They all sprang up in horror, and 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick stood convulsed with rage in a 
 manner that was most frightful to witness. His 
 hand clutched the paper in spasmodic fury. His 
 face was swollen and distorted. His eyes rolled and 
 blazed with frenzy ; his mouth worked with the most 
 hideous action ; he ground his teeth, but uttered not 
 a word. 
 
 His wife and sister rushed towards him in terror, 
 every moment expecting that he would fall in a fit, 
 crying, " Oh, Sir Thomas ! Sir Thomas ! speak, for 
 God's sake, speak ! " Charles stood pale as a ghost,
 
 THE STORM BREAKS. 239 
 
 and trembling violently ; and Georgina clung to her 
 father, and burst into a passion of tears. 
 
 But at once the demoniac spasm of dumb rage 
 gave way. Sir Thomas, as we may just now with 
 his family call him, pushed back the ladies fiercely, 
 and, addressing Charles in a terrible voice, exclaimed, 
 "The devil here! the devil of devils! And you 
 have been with him? — you, my son — you — have 
 been with him? Been under his roof? eaten his 
 bread ? accepted his company ? put yourself under 
 obligations to him ? Death and confusion ! My own 
 flesh and blood, my own son, thus to turn traitor to 
 me ! And, after this, can you thus show your face 
 before me ? Speak, villain, speak ! how dare you ? 
 how " 
 
 His voice failed him ; his lips quivered ; his whole 
 frame trembled ; his face was livid, and almost black 
 with anger. At once he dashed down the paper 
 which he held in his hand, stamped on it with his 
 foot, and went like a tempest from the room. 
 
 Charles picked up the important though unlucky 
 paper, and sate with a feeling of inexpressible horror 
 upon him. His mother, aunt, sister, all were sunk 
 down on their seats, weeping and sobbing violently. 
 There was a Ions; continuance of this miserable scene, 
 when Charles ventured to say, " What have I done
 
 240 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 to deserve all this? I was driven by a terrible 
 storm and night to this man's house. He would not 
 let me go ; he insisted on accompanying me. He 
 risked his life to effect my object. And I will say it, 
 however you may think of it, that both he and his 
 family have behaved throughout like anything but 
 enemies to us." 
 
 " Oh, my dearest Charles ! " said all the ladies at 
 once, his sister rushing to him, and embracing him 
 passionately. " What a misfortune ! What is to 
 become of us?" And again they gave way to 
 excessive grief. Suddenly, Mrs. Fitzpatrick hastened 
 from the room after her husband ; Aunt Judith 
 followed ; and Georgina, coming and clasping 
 Charles's arm, and weeping profusely, said, " Oh, 
 dearest Charles, how unfortunate that you fell in 
 with these people ! How unfortunate that they 
 have followed us ! All is over now ; all our quiet 
 happiness here ! Plow inveterate must this man's 
 enmity be to induce him to pursue us across the 
 globe." 
 
 " Geordy, I do n't believe it ! " said Charles. " I 
 do n't believe in his enmity. If you had seen what I 
 have, you would not believe it. Do people risk 
 their lives out of enmity ? " 
 
 " But at all events, then," said Georgina, " what
 
 TIIE STORM BREAKS. 241 
 
 a pity Papa should know ; that this man should have 
 signed that paper." 
 
 "But, Geordy, the man, as you call him, being 
 here, Papa must soon know ; and if he had not signed 
 the agreement, and it came out, as it would, that I 
 had been there, that would have looked like a con- 
 cealment, which my father would have resented in 
 me still more. No, no ; Martin being here, my 
 father must know : and, though I was startled when 
 I saw he had signed the paper, I immediately felt it 
 was all for the best : and, if Papa would only listen 
 to reason, he would soon see that there is no danger, 
 but good, awaiting us." 
 
 " Good ! " exclaimed Georgina, " good ! oh, 
 Charles ! never, never. All this sweet peace, this 
 quiet life, it is all over ; we shall have to leave." 
 
 " Do n't believe it, Geordy," said Charles, throwing 
 his arm round her ; " do n't believe it. I know my 
 father; he will defy the devil, as he calls him, but 
 he is too proud to budge a step." 
 
 " Then, what a miserable life for us here, Charley ! 
 What a miserable life ! All that old misery ; those 
 terrible outbreaks of fury, that fear of apoplexy, of 
 the rupture of some fatal vessel, that prostration in 
 which poor dear father used to lie after those frightful 
 paroxysms. Oh ! sad, sad : what shall we do ? " 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 " But listen, Geordy," said Charles, and he began 
 to tell her all that had passed. How amiable the 
 Martins appeared ; what the boys had said ; what 
 Mr. Martin had said on the road of his endeavours 
 for their good. Georgina for some time listened 
 with incredulous ears, shook her head, and shed 
 fresh tears. When, however, Charles had told her 
 all, she said, " Well ; at least, it is very strange, very 
 unaccountable. I do n't know what to think : I wish 
 I could believe it all true." The unhappy brother 
 and sister sat, with their arms about each other, in 
 the utmost sorrow. Meantime, in his own bedroom, 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick had exhibited all that violence of 
 rage which had made his family so miserable during 
 the years that his trials with Sir Patrick were going 
 on. Oh, those miserable times ! how they came 
 back like a black night over the house, It was like 
 the crack of doom bursting again on this fated family 
 which, after years of the most awful unhappiness, 
 had seemed to have escaped far away from all the 
 old wretchedness into a new life of peace, beauty, 
 and hope. 
 
 Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Aunt Judith could only sit 
 and listen to the outburst of the dreadful storm of 
 passion ; any attempts on their part to soothe Mr. 
 Fitzpatrick only the more irritated him, and they sat
 
 TIIE STORM BREAKS. 243 
 
 and trembled and wept, while lie cursed his fate and 
 denounced vengeance and death on the villain who 
 dared thus to dog him to the world's end. For hours 
 he marched to and fro across the room, sometimes 
 wrapped in gloomy thought, sometimes striking his 
 forehead and clenching his hands, and with fearful 
 groans again bursting forth in imprecations on his 
 own fortune and on the detested pursuer of his steps. 
 Towards midnight he staggered in his walk, caught 
 at the bed-post, sat down in a sullen lowering mood, 
 and gradually fell into that state of prostration which 
 always followed these paroxysms, and which, perhaps 
 fortunately for him, would sometimes continue for 
 days. His family had always expected that in some 
 one of these outbreaks he would die by apoplexy or 
 rupture of a vessel ; and the two ladies saw with a 
 certain degree of satisfaction his subsidence into this 
 state of exhaustion. Aunt Judith then stole quietly 
 out, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick sat down and watched by 
 his side. 
 
 When Aunt Judith joined the two young people, 
 she found them still sitting with their arms round 
 each other, silent and miserable. They rose and 
 asked her how their father was. ' ' He is quiet now," 
 said Aunt Judith ; " but what an ending to our beau- 
 tiful new life ! " 
 
 R 2
 
 244 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 Charles endeavoured to impress Aunt Judith with 
 the ideas which he had been communicating to his 
 sister, but to all that he urged she only replied by 
 shaking her head, and saying : " It won't do ! it 
 won't do ! the thing is bad, bad, bad, past redemption. 
 We are now ruined for ever ! " When Charles spoke 
 of the amiable appearance of the Martin family, of 
 the straightforward character of the man, Aunt Judith 
 replied : " Yes ! there is the mischief of it. If the 
 family had the character of a bad family, if the man 
 had bad habits, the world would see and understand 
 it ; but there is the mischief. The family conducts 
 itself admirably, the man is in all but his inextinguish- 
 able enmity to my brother, a correct, an honourable, 
 a domestic, and most respectable man. That is his 
 art. That is his tower of strength. It is out of this 
 tower that he can fling his poisoned darts with tenfold 
 effect. If he were confessedly bad, he were at once 
 powerless." 
 
 When Charles related what he had accidentally 
 heard from the boys — " Ha ! cunning ! " said Aunt 
 Judith ; " that was meant for you ! " When he 
 reminded her of Peter Martin's bold fording of the 
 river to serve him, and his risking his very life — 
 " But," said Aunt Judith, " he told you it was an 
 accident ; he did not mean to risk anything ! Oh ! "
 
 THE STORM BREAKS. 245 
 
 continued she, clasping lier hands and looking up- 
 wards, " if he had hut drowned himself, what a 
 blessing ! " Such was the feeling with which a most 
 deplorable family feud could inspire the kind heart of 
 even Aunt Judith. But when Charles told her that Mr. 
 Martin had hinted at dangers that threatened them 
 here, and that he was on the watch to defeat those 
 dangers, Aunt Judith exclaimed : " Oh ! the consum- 
 mate hypocrite ! He defend us from dangers ! What 
 dangers can there be here except from himself? 
 Charles ! Charles ! are you so blind, so easily imposed 
 on? Oh! you do not know the craft, the subtlety of this 
 man ! He threw out that hint to unsettle us. He had 
 heard that we are happy here, and he has resolved to 
 chase us away, or make us wretched on the spot. 
 Oh, the Judas ! Oh, the fiend ! " 
 
 Charles reflected for a moment. Could these 
 things be so ? Were they a part of this man's art ? 
 But he speedily cast the suspicion from him. He 
 felt that it was not so. He was as sure as of his 
 life, that what he had seen and heard was genuine. 
 " Dearest Aunt," he said, " if you and my father 
 would listen to reason, I am sure you would soon 
 think differently." 
 
 " Reason ! " said Aunt Judith, vehemently ; " rea- 
 son ! there is no reason about Mr. Peter Martin ; there 
 
 B 3
 
 246 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 cannot be. Never ! never ! will your father con- 
 descend to speak concerning him. Do n't attempt it, 
 or you may cost him his life." 
 
 " Very well, dear Aunt, very well," said Charles ; 
 " be it so ; we will leave it to time." They all 
 withdrew to bed, miserable and silent. 
 
 When Charles entered the breakfast-room the 
 next morning, he found Dr. Woolstan seated at table 
 with Aunt Judith and Georgina. He had been sent 
 for in the night. There was a gloomy expression on 
 the faces of the ladies. They looked very pale and ill. 
 The doctor rose kindly, pressed Charles's hand, and 
 in reply to his inquiry, said his father was now quiet, 
 and getting some good sleep. When, after breakfast, 
 the doctor rose to depart, Charles accompanied him 
 up the hill. He asked him what he knew and 
 thought of the Martins. He replied, that he thought 
 them very excellent people, and Mr. Martin as real 
 and kind-hearted as he was certainly a profoundly 
 informed and clever man. 
 
 Charles said he wished that he could make his 
 family believe that. " Yes," said the doctor, " that 
 were a work indeed ! That were to remove mountains. 
 I know all that has taken place; but time, my dear 
 young friend, time, that will do it : keep quiet, let the 
 storm blow over, things are working, and will work
 
 THE STORM BREAKS. 247 
 
 without yoUi Be passive, and above all things do not 
 contest these matters with your father, as you wish to 
 keep him." 
 
 Charles saw that the doctor knew all ; he felt the 
 full wisdom of his words, he pressed his hand cordially, 
 thanked him, and went home consoled. But not the 
 more was that home restored to peace. Comfort, 
 happiness, had fled. For a week the paroxysms of his 
 father returned with returning strength. He was 
 continually haunted with the idea of being pursued 
 and beset by his unwearied, unappeasable foe. That 
 his life was doomed to be embittered by him to its 
 close, and that no spot of earth, however remote, was 
 secure from his pursuit. Sometimes he worked him- 
 self up to a persuasion that it would be justifiable to 
 rid himself of him as he would of a wolf or a serpent. 
 At others he shuddered at the possibility of staining his 
 hands with human and kindred blood. His mind turned 
 and preyed upon itself for want of a proper outlet for 
 its anguish. Now he would flee once more, now he 
 would not move a step for the world ; and when he 
 looked out of his window and saw the magnificent 
 scenes around, he groaned in bitter pain at the 
 thought that all this was spoiled for ever, that Satan 
 was in his paradise. 
 
 It was a full week before he sent for Charles into 
 
 B 4
 
 248 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 his room. Charles was shocked to see how much he 
 was changed. His face was sunken from its rosy 
 plumpness to a withered yellow ; his form was re- 
 duced in substance ; his hair appeared gray, and hung 
 wild and lank. There was the languor of sickness in 
 his whole appearance ; and his eyes, generally so clear 
 and bright, were dull, and the once clear white, yellow 
 and streaked with a fine network of sanguine veins. 
 
 As his son approached he clasped him in his arms, 
 and sobbed heavily. He remembered the bitter 
 words he had spoken in his anger, and especially the 
 word " villain," and his noble heart was wrung with 
 remorse. After a time, and still with his arm laid 
 on Charles's neck, he said, " You meant no harm, 
 Demby; but avoid that man — promise me. You 
 don't know him, and I trust never will. Why should 
 we let him break our domestic harmony ? No ; you 
 will have nothing to do with him." 
 
 " I will do whatever you please, papa," said Charles, 
 kissing his father's hand, and the tears starting to his 
 eyes. 
 
 "That's right, my boy — I believe you — so no 
 more about it." The father and son walked out 
 together into the sitting-room. 
 
 But the brightness of that home could not come 
 back thus. " The glory and the joy " were gone
 
 THE STORM BREAKS. 249 
 
 from Tallangetta. The enemy was in the vicinity : 
 the storm which had burst upon its roof had left 
 deep and lasting traces. Deep were the traces in 
 every heart and on every brow in that lately so 
 happy family ; but deepest far on those of its master. 
 The terrible shock which had gone through his whole 
 system left its wounds and its weakness in the entire 
 frame. He still looked ill, and had lost his elasticitv. 
 His rides were never far from home, and always in 
 the company of his son, and often of his daughter, or, 
 in their absence, of David Rannock. Mirth and 
 spirit were no longer found in the mood even of the 
 young people. He himself rode sad and silent. Thus 
 time went on : no event took place : the hated per- 
 sonage never appeared upon the scene. Nothing was 
 heard of the Martins or of Bongubine more than if 
 they had been altogether the creations of a dismal 
 dream. The other neighbours came sociably and 
 partook the hospitalities of Tallangetta, and shared 
 in its sports. Captain and Mrs. Ponceford were, 
 from their nearness, constantly riding up, and, from 
 their pleasant and cheerful natures, became regarded 
 with warm affection, and their presence brought cer- 
 tain cheerfulness. The Woolstans, the Metcalfes, 
 the Quarriers, were all most friendly and welcome 
 neighbours. Charles and Captain Ponceford found
 
 250 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 abundance of sporting together. Sometimes stalking 
 wild turkeys on the plains ; sometimes hunting up 
 the wild ducks and swans on the Monalka and the 
 lake ; and sometimes chasing the kangaroo in the 
 hill forests with their noble brace of hounds. The 
 natives came to fish and hunt there, and afforded the 
 Fitzpatricks a new object of study. They watched 
 their modes of securing their game, visited them at 
 their camps, and saw with wonder their wretched 
 mode of life, and received plenty of visits from them 
 in return to beg tea, bread, mutton, and, above all, 
 if they could get it, brandy. But this they steadily 
 refused, giving them, instead of it, blankets for the 
 winter, and now and then a sheep or a piece of beef 
 in exchange for fish, which they caught plentifully. 
 
 Charles and Georgina paid a visit to the Quarriers 
 at their station on the Goulburn, and greatly enjoyed 
 the change of scenery. The Quarriers' station was 
 situated on a swelling ground just above the river. 
 On three sides rose the forest, dignified with noble 
 trees so thinlv disseminated as to allow of a inch turf 
 beneath them, and giving a park-like appearance. 
 On the other rolled the noble river, deep between its 
 banks ; and the opposite side also crowned with fine 
 woods. When we say the river lay deep between 
 its banks, we convey no just idea to an English 

 
 THE STORM BREAKS. 251 
 
 reader. The river might be sixty yards or more 
 wide, and its waters looked very deep. The banks 
 were almost perpendicular, cut through a sandstone 
 stratum, and dark with the coating of moist mud 
 from the wintry floods. Just below the Quarriers' 
 house the river made a fine sweep, and then its deep 
 abundant waters flowed on in stately grandeur, making 
 a tempting surface for a boat. But no one could 
 descend those steep slippery banks, of twenty or 
 thirty feet descent, overhung with gigantic trees. 
 It required the aid of art, which had been afforded ; 
 steps were cut down to the water's edge, and a boat 
 was there always chained in readiness for crossing or 
 fishing. The fishing here was a great delight to 
 Charles, from the grandeur of the fish, — the cod of 
 the river often running to sixty or seventy pounds 
 weight. Sometimes they ascended the river amongst 
 the most beautiful and solitary hills, and at others 
 descended into the silence of the low lands, where 
 on either hand extended immense swamps, dark with 
 wattles or solemn with the endless, huge, bluish 
 columns of the vast red gum-trees, growing in the 
 lively green of nature's ever verdant water-meadows. 
 Time had thus passed till July, when Mr. Fitz- 
 patrick, as if to recompense Charles for his momentary 
 severity, told him that as they had now sufficient
 
 252 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 shepherds and stockmen, and as there were said to 
 be fresh discoveries at Bendigo, he would give him 
 leave to take Barks and Purdy and make an expedi- 
 tion to the diggings. 
 
 This was joyful news for all parties. There was 
 an immediate bustle to get ready. The tent which 
 they brought up with them was hauled out; an 
 awning fitted to a light cart ; and new mattresses and 
 blankets, an oilcloth to lay on the ground at night 
 to receive their beds, and the necessary cooking- 
 apparatus, and tea and hams and other provisions, 
 were quickly stowed in. Club was selected to ac- 
 company them as companion, and a savage, brindled 
 bulldog, called Fright, to chain under the cart as 
 guard. Charles appeared in a pair of fustian trowsers, 
 plunged into a pair of water-proof jack-boots, a stout 
 cabbage-tree hat with light-blue veil, and a scarlet 
 blouse bound by a belt in which appeared his re- 
 volver, and a large knife or dagger in a leathern 
 case. Purdy and Barks bore at their belts each a 
 panikin and a brace of pistols ; and they had, more- 
 over, a plentiful supply of rifle, gun, and ammunition. 
 Tools they were to buy on the ground. 
 
 Never was there more delight and enthusiasm 
 manifested in starting on any adventure. Charles 
 was all life and activity. He was in a constant
 
 THE STORM BREAKS. 253 
 
 worry lest he had left any of his many indispensable 
 articles : his bullet-moulds ; his instruments for 
 cleaning his guns and clearing nipples ; his caps and 
 cases. Then Club's chain had nearly been left ; and 
 his own tobacco-case. At length all was ready, and 
 the cart and brown cob were put into motion from the 
 door, all the family being assembled, and all the 
 families down at the huts being out watching, and 
 ready to wave handkerchiefs and hats, and send up 
 an hurrah. Never since the direful advent of Peter 
 Martin had so many smiles and jokes appeared on 
 the faces and in the mouths of the Tallangetta family ; 
 one prophesying heaps of nuggets and insisting on 
 having the largest, and another auguring a speedy 
 return and " glad to be back." 
 
 So away went the cart, and our embryo diggers, 
 a dozen voices crying " good bye ! good bye ! " a loud 
 hurrah mingled with the shrill voices of children 
 coming up from the huts below, Club barking in 
 delight, and Fright trudging on under the cart in 
 sober wonder. In a very short time, the little party 
 had ascended the hill, given a parting cheer before 
 going over the ridge, which was returned vigorously 
 from the huts, and they disappeared.
 
 254 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 
 
 Our digging adventurers went on their way with all 
 the jollity of schoolboys. They had but two easy 
 day's journeys before them to Bendigo, and the feeling 
 of free life in the woods has something in it which 
 puts the most sluggish blood in motion, and awakes 
 the imagination to exercise all its enchantments. 
 Barks stalked along with great strides, his long 
 brown hair playing freely on his shoulders, and the 
 spirit of rhodomontade, so strong in him, inciting 
 him to continual sallies of fun. He swung his axe 
 in his hand, and inflicted sundry gashes on the boles 
 of the trees which grew on the road- side, in mere 
 wantonness of spirits, leading Club continually to 
 expect that there was an opossum to be cut out. 
 Purdy went along more quietly, but with many a 
 quiet joke, and sly humour twinkling in his eyes. 
 
 About four o'clock in the afternoon, they encamped 
 by the Campaspe. The evening was beautiful and
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 2,.] 
 
 sunny, and Charles had been attracted to the river 
 by the active movements of a number of platypuses. 
 He had managed to shoot two with his pea-rifle, 
 and Club to bring them out ; and they were sitting 
 at their tea, admiring the pleasant hollow in which 
 their tent was pitched, near Robertson's station, with 
 the green meadows and sloping woods on the other 
 side of the stream, when a man appeared, approaching 
 their tent. He was a little fellow, dressed in a 
 coarse blue woollen shirt, stuffed into a pair of ribbed 
 cotton velvet trowsers, which again w r ere stuffed into 
 a pair of dirty boots. This was the whole of his 
 dress, except a very shabby straw hat. But the 
 most remarkable feature of the fellow was a bushy, 
 intense black beard, which seemed to usurp the 
 whole of his face, and to leave only sufficient space 
 for a pair of small, keen, black eyes to peer forth, 
 Club snarled and growled outrageously at the man, 
 and Fright grinned his sullen displeasure from beneath 
 the cart. 
 
 " Good evening, mates ! " said the man ; and before 
 the salutation was well returned, he coolly threw 
 away a bucket of water, which Purdy had just 
 fetched from the river for tea, turned the bucket 
 bottom upwards, and seated himself upon it, in 
 wonderfully close contact to the fire,
 
 256 TALL ANG ETTA. 
 
 " Well, that's cool, mate, anyhow," said Purdy, 
 who was lying on the ground near the fire. 
 
 " What! the water, do you mean ? " said the man, 
 proceeding, as he sat, to pick up and fling upon the 
 flame sundry little bits of stick, which had been 
 burnt off from the mass. 
 
 " The water ! " said Purdy, eying the fellow 
 curiously; "no, something cooler than it. Do you 
 know, mate, 1 'd just had the trouble of fetching it 
 from the river ? " 
 
 " Trouble ! do you call that trouble ? You do n't 
 know what trouble is, I see. A new life, this, for 
 you, gents," looking at Charles and Barks. 
 
 " Not very new, after California," said Barks, in 
 his strong, jolly sort of voice. 
 
 " Pshaw ! California ! " said the man, picking his 
 teeth with a twig ; " you never were there." 
 
 " How do you know?" asked Barks. 
 
 " By the cut of your jib," said the black-looking 
 fellow dryly. 
 
 " Or the cut of our bibs," said Purdy. " You 
 think we are new rigged, eh? Many an old vessel 
 is that." 
 
 " Well, old man, you 're right enough there," con- 
 tinued the fellow ; " and so you are for the new rush 
 at the Back Creek, I reckon. A good tent," said
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 257 
 
 lie, looking hard at it, " and a pretty sort of cob 
 there," letting his eye ramble round till it fell on the 
 horse grazing in hobbles near. " Take care of him 
 at Bendigo ; there are clever fellows in want of such 
 there." 
 
 " Your sharp fellows will find sharp practice with 
 us, if they attempt to make too free," said Purdy ; 
 " lead 's heavy, but flies fast out of a good minie." 
 
 " Um ! well stocked with fire-arms, eh ? " said the 
 fellow, peering carelessly into the tent. " But the 
 bird is often flown before the gunner is ready. 
 You 've not done much, young master, in California," 
 said he, pointing to Charles's hands. " Plenty of 
 room for a good crop of blisters on that tender skin, 
 before you get down to the gold." 
 
 " There are no thieves about here, are there, do you 
 think ? " said Purdy, rather jeeringly. 
 
 The fellow pointed to the station just below. 
 " Too near that, mate ; besides, the government 
 strings the knights of the highway up too unceremo- 
 niously now-a-days." 
 
 " It 's no catch me, no have me, though," said 
 Purdy ; " there are a few of your honest thieves 
 about yet, I fancy." 
 
 " Maybe," said the man, lighting his short pipe 
 with an ember from the fire, rising, turning his back 
 
 vol. i. s
 
 258 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 on the blaze for a moment, and then saying, " Good 
 night, men," walked off. As the eyes of the travellers 
 followed him, they caught sight of a fire at a little 
 distance up the valley, towards which the swarthy 
 fellow directed his steps. 
 
 " By the mass ! an arrant thief that ! " said Purdy, 
 jumping up. " I could swear it was the Black 
 Douglas, by all I 've heard of him ; and little as he 
 looks, he is the devil for cunning and daring. Neither 
 lock nor wall can hold him. These half dozen times 
 the government has had him in quod, and con- 
 demned him to the gallows, but he is always away 
 when wanted, and does some fresh horror that makes 
 the hair of the whole colony stand on end. By 
 dogsmeat ! we must keep a sharp look out to-night." 
 
 " What ! " said Charles, " a mean-looking fellow 
 like that, the notorious Black Douglas." 
 
 "Just so," said Purdy, "we'll have the horse 
 tethered near the tent to-night, however, and then I 
 think we may trust to Fright and Club for warning. 
 Better still, let us keep watch by turns." 
 
 Purdy 's advice was deemed good, and so soon as 
 the black-bearded stranger had disappeared, he and 
 Barks took a stroll through the bush to get a sight of 
 the party camping so near them, while Charles 
 stayed to skin his platypuses. When they returned,
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 259 
 
 they reported that there were half a dozen as sturdy, 
 scoundrel-looking rogues, drinking brandy, round a 
 great fire, as they ever set eyes on. They had no 
 tent or cart, but every man a good horse, hobbled 
 out near them. There could be no question what 
 profession the fellows belonged to. Our party felt 
 considerable anxiety. They resolved to sit up all 
 together for the night ; and made up such a blaze, 
 as at once drove off the night cold, and enabled them 
 to see their horse clearly. As the evening advanced, 
 they caught sounds of riot, singing, and, as it seemed, 
 quarrelling from their neighbours ; but by midnight 
 all was still, and Purdy, who stole round and took a 
 survey of them as near as he dared go, for fear of 
 alarming their dogs, reported that they were all 
 sleeping round the fire. This quieted their appre- 
 hensions, and Charles and Barks flung themselves 
 down in their blankets, to be called in their turns to 
 watch. When Barks was called, he said, " Where is 
 the horse?" "There, lying down," said Purdy, 
 pointing. " All right," replied Barks ; and wrapping 
 himself in his blanket, seated himself on a W, and 
 began to hum a tune. He called Purdy again, 
 instead of Charles, wishing to spare him. At day- 
 break, or near it, Charles woke up, and going out, 
 said to Purdy on the watch, " All right ? " " All 
 
 s 2
 
 2 GO TALLANGETTA. 
 
 right," replied Purely ; "we have escaped the rogues 
 for once." " Then I will give the cob some oats," 
 said Charles. He took some in a tin dish, and went 
 to the horse, but in a moment he shouted, " Purely ! 
 Barks ! here ! here this instant ! " The two men ran 
 in alarm, and found Charles standing in astonish- 
 ment, gazing, not at the cob, but a miserable creature 
 of a horse, blind, lame, covered with sores, and in 
 the last stage of its misery. The clever rogues had 
 contrived, unheard, unseen, to substitute this ghost 
 of a horse for their prime one. 
 
 The astonishment and consternation may be sup- 
 posed. " What could we be about ? " exclaimed 
 Barks. " What could these scoundrel dogs be 
 about?" "Nay," said Purely, "don't throw the 
 blame on the dogs ; the poor beasts trusted to us. 
 If we hael left the watching to them, they would have 
 done it." And with that, followed bv Charles and 
 Barks, he ran off at full speed towarels the camping 
 place of the thieves. The fire was still burning — 
 the fellows were gone. 
 
 The three adventurers were beside themselves 
 with indignation. They returned, and traced the 
 horse by its well-known shoe-marks to the high-road, 
 and thence to the thieves' fire, where the cob had 
 clearly gone off with the rest of the horses towards
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 261 
 
 Bendigo. What was to be done ? "I know," said 
 Charles ; " I will ask Robertson to lend us a couple 
 of horses to pursue them." Said and done. Robert- 
 son knew the name of Mr. Fitzpatrick. He had two 
 horses caught at once. They mounted, and away. 
 Still along the road they could follow the troop of 
 horsemen by the traces of their steeds. They seemed 
 to make no attempt at concealment. Soon our pur- 
 suers overtook some drays loaded with hay. They 
 inquired of the drivers if they had seen the thieves. 
 
 " To be sure, mates," said they, " large as life ; 
 and a regular rakehelly set they are ; gallows-birds 
 all. You may soon catch them ; they are in no 
 hurry ; but take care, or they may treat you to a few 
 oances of lead in no time. The Black Douglas is 
 among 'em, or we 've no eyes." 
 
 Away went Charles and Barks. They rode at full 
 speed, but kept a sharp look out a-head. For several 
 miles they dashed on, now through fine grassy lands, 
 now through barren, hard, stony woods. At length 
 they saw the troop very leisurely trotting along the 
 way. At the sight, our friends cautiously cut into 
 the bush, and rode through the woods at some little 
 distance from the track, that the thieves might not 
 look back and see them. Thus they went on till 
 noon, when the thieves turned aside, and took a 
 
 s 3
 
 252 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 course through the woods, to the left, for three or four 
 miles. Here they dismounted, and made their fire, 
 and hobbled out their horses. Charles and Barks 
 dismounted too, and hobbled out their horses, but 
 made no fire. All afternoon they kept upon the 
 watch. Barks, who knew the country, having come 
 out here to the diggings with hay, said they were on 
 the Sheepwash, not more than three miles from Ben- 
 digo, and within a mile of a district pound. What a 
 triumph if they could drive off the rascals' horses, 
 and impound them. Charles shook his head at the 
 idea — a most dangerous attempt ! — but Barks gloried 
 in it, and vowed he would essay it. All day, there- 
 fore, they lay close. The robbers, secure in their 
 own estimation, sent off to the nearest part of the 
 Back Creek for brandy, and set to for a regular 
 carouse. By the time that evening arrived, they were 
 all dead drunk on the ground. Barks, who had his 
 eyes upon them as a cat watching mice, then rose, 
 sprang upon his horse, followed by Charles; and 
 moving stealthily through the wood, was soon where 
 the horses fed. In a few seconds he had their 
 hobbles all off, including those of their own cob, and 
 gently drove them before him. Not a dog barked — 
 not a man awoke. Barks laughed quietly to himself, 
 and looked full of merriment at Charles, but without
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 263 
 
 making any noise, and still driving the horses on. 
 Soon he put them into a quick trot, and then a gallop, 
 and away they went till they reached the pound- 
 keeper's. 
 
 " Hillo there ! " shouted Barks. Out came the 
 pound-keeper. " A few stray horses "for you, mate," 
 said Barks ; " all but that cob ; that is ours." 
 
 The man stood and gazed. " By the blazes ! " he 
 exclaimed, " why, every one of these is a stolen 
 horse. Where did you find them?" They told him. 
 " The zounds ! why that is the Black Douglas ! We 
 must have him. Thank you, my good fellows." 
 
 He drove the horses into the pound. There was a 
 reward of ten pounds for the finding of each of them 
 advertised — that he kept to himself. There was a 
 reward of 200/. for the apprehension of the Black 
 Douglas — of that he was prudently silent. Away 
 he rode for the police, and back cantered our friends, 
 highly satisfied with their success. Whether the 
 pound-keeper secured the Black Douglas we may 
 naturally doubt ; for as Charles, a week or two after, 
 appeared at a store in the diggings upon the cob, this 
 very fellow was there at the time, and gave an odd 
 look at the horse, but said nothing, and walked away. 
 
 Our party reached the diggings in safety ; planted 
 their tent down in the Back Creek, in a pleasant green 
 
 S 4
 
 264 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 valley, near a village of Chinese, and fell to work 
 amongst the bustling, miscellaneous throng who were 
 delving away, amidst dirt and mud and noise, in a 
 scene of the rudest disorder. Charles soon had all the 
 blisters that Black Douglas promised him, and in the 
 first hole they sunk, they had a fine haul of gold ! 
 The second was a failure, and the third. The rush 
 on the Back Creek was dying away, and they gave 
 themselves a day to stroll through the diggings and 
 look out for some richer spot. They closed their 
 tent, and left it to the care of Providence, as hundreds 
 of others did. Their cob they had sent to a station, 
 and now they rambled through many miles of dig- 
 gings, all scattered with tents, felled trees, butchers' 
 shops, and sheep's heads ; cast-off clothes, sardine-tins, 
 and goats. Towards evening they found themselves 
 at what are called the White Hills, near the Bendigo 
 Creek, the waters of which were thick as paste, and 
 yellow as gold itself with the washing out of thousands 
 of tons of gold-containing clay and gravel. They here 
 turned into a large tent, dignified with the name of 
 " Crystal Palace," though it was simply of dirty 
 canvass. Within were a number of rude tables 
 at which sat rows of diggers in their gravel- stained 
 shirts and trowsers, drinking and smoking. Some 
 were singing, some loud in talk, a dozen at a time ;
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 265 
 
 and towards the farther end sat a slender, tawdry- 
 looking young woman, strumming away on a most 
 dissonant piano, but singing to it a song which 
 strongly excited Charles's attention, called Mary 
 Massey. 
 
 MARY MASSEY ; 
 
 THE SQUATTER'S SONG. 
 
 Stream forth, ye white flocks, in the morning ; 
 
 Ye are ten thousand and more ; 
 And ye range from the banks of the Murray 
 
 To the hills of Durradaghnore. 
 
 When I was a boy in Old England, 
 
 A boy very young and small, — 
 I lived on the farm of Squire Massey, 
 
 Below Squire Massey's old hall. 
 
 And oh ! what a man did I think him ! 
 
 A man with that ample estate ; 
 With his hounds and the old yellow carriage, — 
 
 No mortal was ever so great. 
 
 I thought so : but now old Squire Massey 
 
 Is dead, and to utter decay 
 Has fallen his fortune, and Mary, 
 
 His daughter, is gone quite away. 
 
 She is gone to the rising Australia, 
 
 To the land of white flocks and of gold ; 
 
 For the boy from the farm of Squire Massey 
 Kemembered her goodness of old.
 
 266 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 And the boy from the farm of Squire Massey 
 Is the squatter of Durradaghnore, — 
 
 With his plains, his woods, and his mountains, 
 And flocks of ten thousand and more. 
 
 And the lady of Durradaghnore, 
 
 Mary Massey, the last of her line, 
 Has her hall and her new yellow carriage, 
 
 In a land and a climate divine, 
 
 Where the flocks o'er the plains in the morning 
 Stream onward, ten thousand and more ; 
 
 And range from the banks of the Murray 
 To the hills of Durradaghnore. 
 
 And often she thinks of Squire Massey, 
 Of the stately old hall of her race; — 
 
 She sighs ; but she smiles as she glances 
 Around on this summer-bright place, 
 
 Where the flocks o'er the plains in the morning 
 Stream onward, ten thousand and more ; 
 
 And range from the banks of the Murray 
 To the hills of Durradaghnore. 
 
 Our friends called for each a nobbier, a good hot 
 mess of steaks and potatoes ; and refreshed by their 
 dinner, drew forth their pipes and patriotically 
 blended their smoke with that of their fellow diggers. 
 During this time they were entertained with various 
 other songs, one of which appeared particularly 
 popular.
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 2G7 
 
 THE DIGGER'S SONG OF THE BUSHRANGER 
 
 They'll hang him, if they catch him, 
 
 Like a dog in a string ; 
 And I see the blue boys watch him — 
 
 They mean him to swing. 
 
 For it's hard on the digger, 
 
 Who goes pick-a-pick 
 Through the hard quartz and gravel, 
 
 To be played such a trick ; 
 
 While the sun melts his marrow, 
 
 As he grubs for the gold, 
 To find when he's got it 
 
 That he 's regularly sold : 
 
 With his pile in his pocket, 
 
 Setting out on his tramp 
 To his ship down at Melbourne, — 
 
 Bailed up by this scamp. 
 
 They'll hang him, if they catch him, 
 
 Like a dog in a string ; 
 And I see the blue boys watch him — 
 
 They mean him to swing. 
 
 And sarve him right, the villain ! 
 
 There a-lurking with his gun, 
 With his knife and his revolver, 
 
 And thinking it good fun. 
 
 Robin Hood he was good 
 
 'Neath the old forest oak ; 
 But we want here no Robins 
 
 A-robbing honest folk.
 
 268 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 Why, it's not very pleasant, 
 
 In the dark whipstick bush, 
 To be shot down like a pheasant, 
 
 Or pulled up like a rush. 
 
 Oh ! they'll hang him, if they catch him, 
 =., Like a dog in a string ; 
 
 And I see the blue boys watch him — 
 They mean him to swing. 
 
 And let him swing, the villain ! 
 
 Where the diggers all march by ; 
 Like Black Douglas and smooth Melville, 
 
 Let him hang high and dry. 
 
 Yes, they'll hang him, if they catch him, 
 
 Like a dog in a string ; 
 And I see the blue boys watch him — 
 
 They mean him to swing. 
 
 Presently two men came in, looked round, and 
 then seated themselves at the adjoining table. The 
 one was a big, tall, burly fellow, with a curly black 
 head of hair, a full pudding-featured face, but red 
 with good eating and drinking. He wore a black 
 ordinary hat, looking very odd with its tall square 
 crown amid that generation of wide-awakes, and 
 shallow-crowned cabbage-trees ; a pair of close black 
 breeches, jack-boots, and a check shirt. His com- 
 panion was a meek-looking fellow, not particular in 
 costume, but with a smiling, sociable, scrape-acquaint-
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 269 
 
 ance sort of face. The two called for their nobblers, 
 lit their short pipes with lucifer matches that with 
 their brimstone almost took the breath of our friends ; 
 and then the big man in the black hat and breeches 
 fell into discourse with them. He made very free 
 inquiries as to the time of their arrival, their luck, the 
 best quarter of the field now for gold, but was equally 
 communicative of his own experience. At everv 
 fresh piece of information he appealed to his com- 
 panion, who certified all his intelligence with a very 
 placid smile, and " Oh yes ! you know, mate ; you 
 know." 
 
 When our friends said they had not yet been so suc- 
 sessful as they expected, he observed that he could 
 not complain ; in fact, he had been singularly lucky. 
 He had now, he said, a heap of washing-stuff con- 
 taining several cart-loads, lying by the creek, ready 
 for washing out. There was three hundred pounds' 
 worth of gold in it if there were a penny. " Is n't it 
 so, mate ? " said he to the meek, smiling man. " To 
 be sure, mate ; why ask me, you know, mate ; you 
 know." 
 
 " Now," said the big man, " I should think it might 
 answer your purpose to wash out that pile. I'd make 
 you a good bargain. I 'm not fond of working in the 
 water, unless there 's brandy in it," said he, smiling,
 
 270 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 and lifting his glass, with a nod to our party. " I 'd 
 sell it, at least, I would not mind doing it, though you 
 know, Joe, I 've never offered it to any one yet." 
 
 " Of course not," said the meek man, " or you 'd 
 have been pulled all to pieces for it ; of course you 
 know that, Ben, you know it well enough." 
 
 " Three hundred pounds' worth and sell it for one," 
 said Purdy ; " that 's all my eye." 
 
 " You can try it, mate, you can try it," said the 
 big man ; " only let me say the word, and it 's gone to 
 a hundred customers ; but no compulsion ; you can 
 try it if you like." 
 
 " Let us try it, then," said our party, and out went 
 they all together. The big man in the black hat and 
 black breeches, and his meek companion, smiling 
 kindly on all, led the way down to the creek. There 
 stood a very small tent, amongst a number of others, 
 and close to it, and to the creek, lay the heap of 
 washing-stuff, enclosed by a sort of rude fence of 
 boughs. 
 
 " What," said Charles, " do you leave stuff of that 
 value here, unprotected ? " 
 
 "It is protected, mate, said the big man ; " we 
 can see it from the Crystal Palace; no fear." 
 
 " No, no fear ; trust you, Ben, for that," said the 
 smiling, placid man.
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 271 
 
 (t 
 
 You could wash it out here," said the big man, 
 pointing to a little dam and sluice in the creek ; 
 " that Tom's mine, — you could use it. So now try 
 it, try it anywhere. Here are a spade and a 
 dish." 
 
 Charles, who was become expert at the dish, took 
 it, and Barks struck the shovel into the heap, and 
 filled the dish. Charles washed out. There was 
 gold, and plenty too. 
 
 " Did not I say ? " said the big man : " but try it 
 again, — try it anywhere." 
 
 " To be sure," said the meek man ; " try it, try it, 
 no treachery in Ben. All serene." 
 
 They tried the heap ; here and there, it was all 
 alike : very clear that at that rate there must be at 
 least three hundred pounds' worth in the heap. The 
 bargain was struck, the money paid, and they 
 hurried away to fetch their tent to the spot. They 
 hired a horse to draw their cart the few miles for a 
 pound, and by the break of day they were on the 
 spot. There was no room for their tent amid the 
 chaotic heaps of clay and gravel all around, though 
 the very little tent was struck and gone. They 
 crossed the creek, set up their tent on a green flat, 
 and came with shovels and dishes to commence 
 washing out. They turned the water of the dam
 
 272 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 into the Long Tom, or washing trough, and began 
 washing in good earnest. 
 
 "Hillo there, mates, how's that?" said a tall, 
 strong young fellow, coming up. "How's what?" 
 asked Charles, pausing as he was shovelling in the 
 washing-stuff. 
 
 " Why, that's my dam, that's all," said the young 
 man. 
 
 " Your dam ! the men that we bought this heap of 
 said it was theirs." 
 
 The young man gave a very significant smile. 
 "You've bought this heap?" "Yes." "Given 
 much for it? " " A good sum. It is very rich 
 stuff." 
 
 " Is it ? " said the young man. " You 've tried 
 it?" "Yes, we've tried it." "Try it again, dig 
 deep. There, give me the shovel." He struck the 
 shovel deep into the stuff, threw out what was on it, 
 and then plunged it still deeper. "There, try 
 that." 
 
 Charles washed and looked, washed and looked 
 more anxiously, — there was not a glimpse of gold. 
 A strange conviction began to flash over him that 
 they were duped. By this time a regular crowd of 
 diggers had gathered round, inquiring " what was 
 up." " Only Blessed Ben and Holy Joe again," said
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 273 
 
 the young man. " They have dipped into these new 
 ones here; sold them this plated heap for solid 
 washing-stuff, that's all ! " 
 
 " The devil they have," resounded on all sides. 
 There was a wonderful noise and talk and laughter. 
 Scores of great, rude, digger fellows, came and stared 
 and grinned enormously at the confounded trio. 
 " Lord ! " said they, " how greenhorns do abound ! 
 That Blessed Ben and Holy Joe should play that old 
 game over so often, and yet find fresh innocents." 
 
 " Blessed Ben and Holy Joe ! " exclaimed a man 
 who looked like a store-keeper ; " where are they ? " 
 
 " Ay, you may ask that, mate," said another ; 
 " of course they '11 make themselves scarce for a 
 bit." 
 
 " Scarce or not," said the man, " I '11 have 'em. 
 They 've stole a horse of mine, worth eighty guineas, 
 and here 's a warrant to seize them. Come along, 
 mates," said he, earnestly, to Charles and his com- 
 panions, " let us hunt them till we have them ; I '11 
 spend a thousand pounds to hang them, the canting 
 scoundrels." 
 
 Charles and Barks went off with him, leaving 
 Purely to guard what gold there was in the heap. 
 They applied at the police magistrate's for a warrant, 
 got it, and commenced their search. For a whole 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 week, they traversed the diggings, gully after 
 gully, one long mile of tents, one long wooded valley 
 after another. Grog-shops, gambling-shops, billiard- 
 tents, shampooing, and other sham resorts, but 
 in vain ; they could catch no glimpse of the blessed 
 and holy brethren. This time, they began to 
 fancy they had transferred their practice to some 
 other field. It was on Sunday morning, as our 
 party were in their beds, taking a needful rest 
 after the week's fatigue, that the indefatigable store- 
 keeper roused them, saying, he had got a new idea. 
 " The fellows pretend to be pious ; let us to-day have 
 a peep into the chapels." 
 
 The disturbed party did not think the idea a very 
 bright one: it was not likely, they thought, that they 
 would show themselves in such public places. " It 
 is not the public ones that I reckon on," said the 
 man, " but the outsiders, what we may call the odd 
 hole and corner saints, that cultivate queer faiths in 
 queer places. There are plenty of them, and they 
 seem of the sort of these fellows." 
 
 "I'm your man," said Purdy, jumping up, and 
 dressing quickly. He had soon breakfasted, and 
 they set out. They left the episcopal church, and 
 the Scotch church, and the Free Kirk, and what they 
 called the tip-top dissenters' chapels, and bore away
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 275 
 
 into obscure quarters, where religions, too numerous 
 to name, flourished in greater or less degrees of 
 eccentricity. But alas ! the result was the same : 
 amid all the strange and uncouth assemblies of the 
 gullies and the flats, no Blessed Ben or Holy Joe 
 became visible. It was as they were on their return, 
 wearied and dispirited, in the evening, that they 
 caught the sound of a man's voice, as if preaching, 
 in a large, dingy-looking tent. They looked in. It 
 was the chapel of the Mormons, or Latter-day 
 Saints. 
 
 The scene which presented itself was worth study- 
 ing. The place was lit by candles tied on the top of 
 long sticks stuck into the ground. The company 
 was seated on rude planks raised on logs. A more 
 hairy and bearded set of fellows than was there 
 assembled you would look for in vain. They were 
 all in their work-day dress, mere trowsers and shirts, 
 or woollen blouses, for the most part soiled with 
 stains that would not wash out. There was evidently 
 no lack of Californians, of those long, lean, gaunt 
 fellows who have ranged the wilds of America, always 
 too much go-a-head to gather flesh. There were 
 abundance of women, for the most part very neatly 
 clad, and modest and serious looking. On the faces 
 of the men there was an air of sanguine fanaticism, 
 
 T 2
 
 276 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 a glare of the eager, impatient, sensual eye, that gave 
 unmistakeable evidence that the only principle in 
 them was self, the only faith was the belief in the 
 greatest possible license. Mingled with these pil- 
 grims of the Sandy Desert and patriarchs of the Salt 
 Lake were heavy, dense English labourers, porters, 
 and navvies, who had never seen the inside of a 
 school, and few of them of a church or a chapel, 
 gross, ignorant, and brutish. These listened with 
 swinish eyes and watering mouths to the new gospel 
 of the place, the gospel of goats and satyrs. 
 
 A cart-body turned bottom upwards at the farther 
 end of the tent served for pulpit, or rather rostrum, 
 and on this was mounted a small, erect, formal man, 
 with a portentous brown beard reaching to his breast, 
 and spreading wide about his ears, and a head of 
 brown hair which hung in a wonderful luxuriance 
 of curl. He was a slim, black-faced sort of fellow, 
 with black twinkling eyes, which seemed set with a 
 small, eager stare as if he were always on the very 
 point of piercing into some wonderful mystery ; and 
 lie was holding forth in a strain which indicated that 
 he was already far gone in his sermon or harangue. 
 
 But what instantly caught the eye of Purdy and 
 the storekeeper were Blessed Ben and Holy Joe 
 seated to the left hand of the preacher ; Holy Joe
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 277 
 
 with his saintly smile raised most placidly and 
 unctuously towards the preacher, as if taking in 
 whole measures of sacred felicity and instruction. 
 Blessed Ben, with a more careful eye to the dangers 
 of this howling wilderness of earth, sate facing the 
 door, and evidently caught the very first glimpse of 
 Purdy's head. The storekeeper, however, did not 
 show himself, but, with a hint from his companion, 
 dextrously withdrew from the door and posted off for 
 a bevy of police. Meantime Purdy, watching his 
 prey, also listened to the preacher, the current frag- 
 ment of whose discourse was in this manner : — 
 
 " Well, my brethring, I have shown you that the 
 days are coming, the latter days, in which the saints 
 are to inherit the earth. There have been three dis- 
 pensations : first, that of Moses, the dispensation of 
 circumcision and rejection of swine's flesh. That is 
 done with; we reject the circumcision, and enjoy the 
 gammon. Then came the New Testament, with its 
 ordinances and subjection to the higher powers. "We 
 have walked out of all that, thanks to the beatified 
 Joseph and the golden tablets buried of angels. No 
 longer do we twaddle of restraint and dry morals and 
 obedience ; ours is the glorious liberty of the children 
 of God. The world is ours and all that is therein — 
 ours to enjoy at will and without condemnation. 
 
 T 3
 
 278 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 ' Others have laboured, and we have entered into 
 their labours.' The degenerate, out-of-date, second 
 revelationists, — they of the New Testament, but not 
 of the newest, not that of the great apostle of Nauvoo, 
 — conquer countries, and we enter and enjoy. Yes, 
 my brethren, the standard is raised, the hosts are on 
 the march. By the great Salt Lake rises the New 
 Jerusalem, and from it we are come forth to conquer 
 all the earth. Yes, in this land of gold, we are 
 growing, spreading like the morning, conquering like 
 the noon. ' Who is this who comes from Edom, 
 with dyed garments from Bozrah?' Even I, Orson 
 Excelsior Kid, the Apostle of the Diggings, the Prince 
 of the Gold of Ophir. I tread the wine-press alone ; 
 but soon you shall all tread it with me, and drink 
 of the new wine of the kingdom of the enfranchised 
 saints. Where now is condemnation — where now is 
 law — where now is sin ? All gone ; all swallowed 
 up in the glorious liberty of the sons of God. The 
 prophecies are fulfilled — 'And in that day seven 
 women shall take hold on one man, saying, We 
 will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel ; 
 only let us be called by thy name, to take away 
 our reproach.' Isaiah, fourth chapter, first verse. 
 This is the day, my bretlmng ; seven women did, I 
 say, nay, ten times seven have seized the glorified
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 279 
 
 skirts of our brother Brigham Young, and they ride 
 after him in chariots and omnibuses. Bless the 
 Lord for his mercies ! Arise, therefore, ye favoured 
 ones ; take and eat, and drink, and grow great in the 
 faith. All things are lawful for you. ' Who shall 
 lay anything to the charge of God's elect?' — eighth 
 chapter of Romans, thirty-third verse. All, I say — 
 yes, I, the great Orson Excelsior Kid, I say it — all 
 is ours, the earth and the fullness thereof ; and we are 
 called, as the children of Israel of old, to plunder the 
 Egyptians. For what says the great Apostle of the 
 Gentiles, that is, of the second revelation — 'Let no 
 man seek his own, but every man another's wealth.' 
 Corinthians, chapter ten, verse twenty-four. 
 
 " Well then, my friends, with this glorious charter 
 of perfect freedom, open your eyes, clear them from 
 every film of the old law, take the beam out of thine 
 own eye, as the blessed Scripture of the blessed Joe 
 Smith saith, and put it into thy brother's eye : and 
 fear no longer to use freedom of speech ; lying is no 
 longer lying, it is exploded, grown antiquated, gone 
 out like the snuff of a candle. ' For if the truth of 
 God hath more abounded through my lie unto his 
 glory ; yet why am I also judged as a sinner?' — third 
 of Romans, seventh verse. Arise, therefore, my 
 beloved brethring, and shine. Yea, shine ; dazzling 
 
 T 4
 
 280 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 the weak optics and timid minds of the outward 
 ones, and ye shall quickly take, conquer, possess, and 
 territorise over these vast lands of gold, and wool, 
 and oil, and corn, and wine. Here I see in the holy 
 visions of the elect that every man shall soon literally 
 
 sit under his own vine and his own fig " 
 
 At this instant, when the whole assembly was 
 wrought into a state of intensest excitement, a veri- 
 table holy agony; when Brother Orson Excelsior 
 Kid's visions of conquest and glory were spreading 
 marvellously over every brain ; when Blessed Ben 
 exclaimed, " Beautiful ! beautiful as a dream ! " and 
 Holy Joe smiled seraphically, and echoed, " Beautiful 
 indeed ! " when a lean, dry Yankee, cried aloud, 
 " Well, I calclate that 's kinder exilyorating ; " and a 
 little Frenchman broke out, " Mon Dieu ! tres grand, 
 magnifique, pretty veil!" — just then, in that sublime 
 moment, an unexpected miracle took place. That 
 grand head of hair of Brother Orson Excelsior Kid's 
 rose into the air, a flowing wig on a long stick, which 
 was thrust through a hole in the tent behind, and a 
 strange noise of " caw-waw-waw !" followed by a roar 
 of boyish laughter, filled the whole assembly of Latter- 
 day Saints with amazement. In the next moment 
 the wig dropped into the flame of a candle, and blazed 
 up portentously, and the great Orson Excelsior Kid
 
 DIGGING ADVENTURES. 281 
 
 stood with his bare poll and bushy beard a spectacle 
 unto men and angels. 
 
 There was a sudden rush of the indignant brethren 
 to seize the audacious perpetrators of this prank ; but 
 Purdy kept strict watch over Blessed Ben and Holy 
 Joe, who were soon in the hands of a strong body of 
 police.
 
 282 
 
 CHAP. XI. 
 
 A SAMPLE, NOT OF GOLD, BUT OF GOLD COMMISSIONERS. 
 
 Had the body of police who captured the two 
 Mormon saints, the Blessed Ben and Holy Joe, not 
 been numerous and strong, there might have been 
 mischief, for many a hand was laid on long knife and 
 revolver, and many a great, grim, bearded fellow, 
 only wanted a word from the great Orson Excelsior 
 Kid to plunge the steel and fire the ball with all 
 saintly freedom into the heads of the Philistines — in 
 ordinary phrase, police. But though the great Orson 
 had cried out enthusiastically in one part of his ora- 
 tion, " Ask, and ye shall receive ; knock, and it shall 
 be opened ; " which he interpreted to mean, " Yea, 
 if necessary, knock in a door or an unbeliever's 
 skull ; " yet, out of the pulpit, or rather the cart- 
 body, Orson Excelsior had the prudence or the weak- 
 ness of mortal flesh ; therefore, when the sanguinary 
 brethren looked to him for a sign, there was no sign 
 given, but that of the poor little man hurrying away
 
 GOLD COMMISSIONERS. 283 
 
 with a huge white hat dropped over his naked head, 
 even to his shoulders. 
 
 The two culprits were secured in the lock-up for 
 the night ; and as it was well known that such men 
 often miraculously had disappeared out of it when 
 wanted, strong though it seemed, the storekeeper's 
 friends set a watch over it. The next day, at eleven 
 o'clock, they were brought out before two commis- 
 sioners and magistrates, Messrs. Light and Shadow. 
 
 Now let no one deceive himself by his knowledge 
 of what magistrates are in England or anywhere else. 
 Let nobody imagine a couple of portly, sage, rubicund 
 old gentlemen, with very white hair and cunning 
 faces, sitting in the seat of judgment on this occasion. 
 The great country of colonies and colonisation, of 
 vast dependencies and vast interests, old Mother 
 England, to very young countries sends, in her 
 wisdom, very young magistrates. These youths, un- 
 learned in the law, — for they never knew till the 
 happy appointment came, whether their friends, 
 through a certain member of parliament, had got 
 them a clerkship, or a bishopric, or a magistracy, — 
 were, however, ready for anything, and, therefore, 
 by government logic, qualified for anything. These 
 two verdant justices of peace, and commissioners in 
 charge of Her Britannic Majesty's gold-nelds, were
 
 284 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 downy-chinned lads of a tall growth. They were clad 
 in a military costume of blue cloth, well covered with 
 gold lace, and cloth caps with a broad gold band. 
 Mr. Commissioner Light was a young man of hand- 
 some figure, and with a smooth pretty face, and a bust 
 worthy of a hairdresser's window, even though it 
 boasted plate glass. Mr. Commissioner Shadow was 
 also a tall, fair youth, with very light hair and very 
 quick motion, and a confident, boyish, empty air. 
 He was in everything the echo and fidus Achates of 
 Light. 
 
 Placed before this illustrious pair of representatives 
 of the majesty and the laws of England, they sur- 
 veyed Blessed Ben and Holy Joe with eyes which 
 seemed to have seen them before, and asked what 
 was the charge. Charles was the spokesman ; and 
 having been sworn, related the story of the plated 
 heap of washing-stuff. Before he had concluded, 
 Light and Shadow had gradually kindled up from 
 an assumed gravity into a smile, which culminated 
 in a downright burst of loud laughter. " Do you 
 hear that, Shadow?" asked Light, in a delicate 
 voice. " What a sell ! — the old dodge, and still 
 gudgeons." 
 
 " Green ! green ! uncommon green ! " exclaimed 
 Shadow, stamping about and rubbing his hands.
 
 COMMISSIONERS LIGHT AND SIIADOW. 285 
 
 " My young fellow," said Light, in great dignity, 
 " do you come here for us to furnish you with 
 brains ? " 
 
 " Deucedly taken in, if they do ! " said some one 
 behind the crowd. 
 
 " Who 's that ? Who said that ? " exclaimed 
 Shadow, turning round savagely. Of course nobody 
 knew. 
 
 " Why did you not try the washing-stuff? " asked 
 Light. 
 
 " So we did, but not deep enough," said Charles. 
 
 " No, certainly not deep enough by any means," 
 replied Light, again laughing at his own wit. 
 " Well, fellow," said he, addressing Blessed Ben, who 
 stood very humbly, and bowed low his bushy black 
 head at every word of the magistrate's ; " what have 
 you to say for yourself ? " 
 
 " Go it, Blessed Ben, you know how to convince 
 them," said the same voice behind. 
 
 "Who is that?" cried both the magisterial lads. 
 " Bring them forward. We '11 commit them for 
 contempt of court." But here again the wisdom of 
 Mrs. Glass became apparent, " First catch your hare, 
 and then — ." The police made active search, it was 
 " Vox et praterea nihil." 
 
 The insulted majesty of the English colonial bench
 
 286 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 again sat clown. " What have yon to say for your- 
 selves, you there ? " 
 
 " Oh ! Lord bless your honours," said Blessed 
 Ben, smiling quite graciously upon the bench. 
 " What can we say ? what need we say ? We im- 
 pose on anybody indeed ! It 's all fair, see here," 
 presenting a paper. " That is from Mr. Geld Krieger, 
 the German gold-buyer ; he wanted to buy the heap, 
 and examined it, and here is his certificate." 
 
 Ben handed the paper to Light with a most 
 gracious air, and Holy Joe smiled most serenely, 
 saying, " The idea ! we trick even the babe un- 
 born ! " Mr. Commissioner Light scanned the paper 
 a moment, and exclaimed, " Oh ! most satisfactory ! 
 most entirely satisfactory. I dismiss the charge, — 
 a most ridiculous and childish charge indeed." 
 
 But what was Charles's astonishment to see, for he 
 happened to stand just then a little in the rear of the 
 honest Commissioner, that within the paper was 
 simply spread a ten pound note ! Mr. Justice 
 Light coolly folded the paper, and put it in his 
 pocket, and Charles stood rooted to the spot in dumb 
 surprise. 
 
 The blessed brethren were comfortably moving 
 off towards the door, when the storekeeper said, 
 " Stop a bit ; it is my turn now."
 
 BLESSED BEN AND nOLY JOE. 287 
 
 " What do you say, sirrah ? " asked Light, 
 sharply. 
 
 " I am no sirrah," said the storekeeper, reddening, 
 " but a plain, substantial tradesman, who can have 
 law for his money. Those fellows stole my horse, 
 and there is my warrant." Light took the warrant, 
 just turned it over in his hand, and looking over his 
 shoulder to Shadow, said, " I think we must defer 
 this hearing till to-morrow. I feel greatly fatigued." 
 
 " And so do I, damnably," said Shadow; "these 
 tedious, silly affairs are confounded bores, and 
 luncheon has been waiting this hour. The kangaroo 
 steamer will be regularly devilled." 
 
 So away went the two brilliant specimens of the 
 young officials of a young colony, and Blessed Ben 
 and Holy Joe were conducted to the lock-up, where, 
 the next morning, there was no trace of them. 
 Another magical certificate from the all-potent gold- 
 buyer, Mr. Geld Krieger, had no doubt been as 
 efficacious with the turnkey as with the magistrates. 
 Messrs. Light and Shadow either were very irate 
 with the turnkey, or they acted it with all the genius 
 of Charles Kean ; but their attention was, fortunately 
 for the public treasury, immediately called to a score 
 of rude diggers in all their dirt, who were ushered 
 into the court with much bustle and officiousness.
 
 288 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 They were unlucky devils, who had been caught 
 without their licenses in their breeches-pockets, 
 though every man protested that he had one in his 
 tent, if he might fetch it under guard; but Light 
 simply said, " You are each fined five pounds, or 
 locked up till paid ; " and he and the inseparable 
 juvenile, Shadow, marched off, rather refreshed than 
 fatigued by this summary exercise of the laws, if 
 that name can be given to the caprices of two empty 
 boys, set to govern forty thousand people. 
 
 Charles Fitzpatrick was so disgusted by what he 
 had seen, that he left the tent, determined to quit 
 the Diggings forthwith. He was passing out, very 
 hot in his feelings, and with a desperate frown on his 
 features, when a knowing-looking digger, with bright, 
 sparkling, and clever eyes, accosted him in a voice 
 which he recognised as the one that had called out 
 in the crowd the day before. " Sold again, mate," 
 said he. " Keep a bright look-out, and have your 
 license constantly about you, or you '11 soon be 
 hauled up like these poor fellows. You are now a 
 marked man. And do n't stir out of nights after 
 dark, for the holy brethren have long knives, and 
 are good shots, and there are swarms of them. And 
 do n't ask me to come into your tent, for it is just as
 
 A WARNING. 289 
 
 likely to have half a dozen bullets through it, one of 
 these fine evenings, as that bribes are pleasant in the 
 palm here." 
 
 " Thank yon, sincerely," said Charles, as he walked 
 away, full of very strange reflections. But he was 
 not destined to clear the Diggings quite so adroitly 
 as he expected. He had arranged with Barks and 
 Purdy, who wished to try their luck a little longer, 
 to drive home the horse and cart, and leave them to 
 their chance, when, repassing near the justice-tent, 
 on his way from the post-office, his attention was 
 arrested by a crowd gathered round a young woman 
 who had fainted. He was informed that her husband 
 had been seized in company with the Black Douglas, 
 and a desperate band of bushrangers who had shot a 
 couple of policemen, in the attempt to secure them, 
 and that the whole gang, seven in number, were com- 
 mitted for trial, and were just sent off, guarded by a 
 band of troopers, to Castlemaine. As Charles des- 
 cended the steep hill from the government camp, 
 greatly excited by the distress of the young woman, 
 who appeared anything but like the wife of a bush- 
 ranger, he was overtaken by the same shrewd- 
 looking man, who had given him the friendly warn- 
 ings. " This is a bad case," said he ; "I do n't 
 believe that poor girl's husband is any more guilty 
 
 TOL. I. U
 
 290 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 or connected with these villains than you or I ; but, 
 nevertheless, they '11 hang him.'' 
 
 " Who is he, then ? " asked Charles ; " and what 
 was he doing amongst the bushrangers ? " 
 
 " The lad," said the digger, " is a young Popkins, 
 Abijah Popkins, he is called, a young storekeeper. 
 They tell me he 's the son of very decent parents, 
 religious, regularly religious people, but perhaps 
 they 've been a little too tight-laced with the lad ; and 
 then you know well enough, if a young fellow's 
 principles are only held together by lacing, when the 
 lace breaks, down go the principles. The young 
 fellow has been wild here. I do n't believe he has 
 any harm in him, but he 's weak, and he has got into 
 a habit of visiting a sly grog-shop, one of those that 
 government pretends to put down, and which its own 
 police wink at for a consideration. There he has met 
 with bad company, this Black Douglas, and Captain 
 Melville, the two most rascally, unhanged highway- 
 men in the colony, and just as clever at robbery by 
 cards and dice as by powder and ball. The young 
 fellow has lost his money, lost his character, and 
 would have lost his trade, if it had not been for this 
 poor girl, his wife. They 've only been married 
 these six months, and a better creature, poor thing, 
 never married to trouble. "Well, the lad, so far as I
 
 THE POPKINS FAMILY. 291 
 
 can learn, has had nothing in the world to do with 
 these rascally thieves, but to lose his money to them ; 
 did not, poor fool, know who they were even that he 
 gambled with ; but the police have long been on the 
 look-out for Douglas and Melville, and though they 
 did not want to turn attention to this grog-shop, 
 which was a profitable concern to them, yet the 
 reward for these rascals was become so great, that 
 they were afraid some one else might just drop upon 
 them, and whip off the prize. So all at once they 
 come down on the tent, out rush the thieves, revolver 
 in hand, shoot down two of the police, and off into 
 the bush. This poor lad runs too, for he knew the 
 place was unlawful, and did not know what they 
 might charge him with, and he 's been taken with 
 them, and, sure as fate, they '11 string him up." 
 
 Charles was greatly concerned for the unfortunate 
 youth, and his poor young wife, whose pale, ghastly 
 face still haunted him. When he reached the tent 
 and mentioned the circumstance, Purdy exclaimed, 
 — " Popkins ! Abijah Popkins ! Goodness, gracious ! 
 Why, the lad's no more a bushranger than I'm a 
 grandmother. It's poor old Matthew Popkins' son; 
 one of 'em, that is, for he has two or three. Oh, 
 lors ! oh, lors ! poor fellow ! Why, it will kill the old 
 man and woman as well as the wife, poor young cretur." 
 
 u 2
 
 292 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 "Do you know these Popkinses, then?" asked 
 Charles. 
 
 " Do I know them ? Do I know daylight when I 
 see it?" exclaimed Purely. "Why, old Matthew 
 Popkins has travelled with his pot-cart into Derby- 
 shire from Staffordshire these thirty years, to my 
 knowledge, and of late years has had one of these 
 quiet-looking lads with him. They tell me he made 
 money, and's come here to make more. By leddy ! 
 but this will cut him down, though ! He is a reli- 
 gious, very religious man, is old Matthew — belongs 
 to the New Methodies. Oh, gracious me ! the idea 
 of one of his lads being hanged ! " 
 
 "Where does the old man live?" asked Charles, 
 his sympathy continually augmenting. 
 
 " Live ! Why, warn't you, Mr. Charles, at Bon- 
 gubine the other day, and not know where Matthew 
 Popkins lives! He's just taken Lahni Mill, on the 
 Campaspe, from Mr. Martin, — you must have seen 
 it, — one of the beautifullest places in the colony." 
 
 Charles well remembered the place, — a perfect 
 paradise of a situation, — and such a blow as this to 
 fall on the inhabitants ! If trouble can fall there, — 
 so retired, so quiet, so smiling, — what spot of earth, 
 thought Charles, can escape the bolt of calamity? 
 
 " Something must be done," said Charles ; " we
 
 THE rOPKINS FAMILY. 293 
 
 must do something. This poor lad and this good 
 family must not be lost and ruined for ever without 
 a struggle. I have no faith in the justice here ; we 
 must move all means. Purdy, will you ride off and 
 let the old man know?" 
 
 " Ay, that I will," said Purdy, jumping up and 
 throwing on his jacket. " I will run to the station 
 for the cob, and I shall reach the mill to-night." He 
 was gone at once, and Charles again walked hurriedly 
 up to the Popkins's store to inquire after the poor 
 woman. He found that she was in a very sad con- 
 dition, having fainted time after time, and that on 
 recovering her consciousness her agony of distress 
 was something awful. There was a doctor with her, 
 and several of the neighbouring storekeepers' wives 
 were doing all they could for her. Charles waited 
 till the surgeon had told her that her father-in-law 
 was sent for, and that everything possible would be 
 done to clear her husband, and then walked seriously 
 to his own tent. He seemed to count the hours till 
 the old father Popkins could arrive as if it were his 
 own case. The sight of the young woman's face, and 
 the impression which the administration of justice 
 here had left on him, gave him an interest in the 
 affair such as he had never felt before. 
 
 It was yet early in the next afternoon when four 
 
 p £
 
 294 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 horsemen were seen coming at a great rate up the 
 green valley of the Bendigo near Charles's tent. As 
 they drew near he recognised Purdy and the cob. 
 Along with him was a tall old man in black of an 
 old country cut, who rode as if almost falling forward 
 from fatigue, and his strong features wearing a pallid 
 hue and solemn rigidity as of death. Near him rode 
 a boy of seventeen or so, looking equally woe-begone ; 
 — and who is that? The short figure, drab suit, and 
 bold, active features of Mr. Peter Martin. 
 
 Mr. Martin and Purdy turned directly towards 
 Charles's hut; and the two other riders went on, 
 without a turn of the head or a word spoken, up the 
 valley. 
 
 " My dear Charles," said Mr. Peter Martin, spring- 
 ing from his horse, and leaving it to Purdy, " this is 
 a sad affair. Now, a word : — I have heard all that 
 happened on your return home ; I am very sorry for 
 it, but it does not surprise me. Another time for 
 that. Now, there is a life to be saved — two — three 
 — perhaps half a dozen. I don't ask you to disobey 
 your father, and have anything to do with me. But 
 this lad must be saved ; and you and I cannot help 
 standing side by side, as we each help, any more 
 than two of these gum-trees. We must help — help 
 all we can — body and soul. You and I are no more
 
 MR. MARTIN AGAIN. 295 
 
 to each other than any two constables who may act 
 in it, or two lawyers who may plead on the two 
 sides — but we must go on, each helping. These 
 lives, and the happiness of a most excellent family, 
 are too far above all other considerations to allow us 
 to think of ourselves." 
 
 " Just so," said Charles ; " I do not seek you, nor 
 will you seek me, I am sure ; but we will go on in 
 the same group, doing all we can." 
 
 " Just so, just so !" said Mr. Martin. " And now 
 I must get something to eat. I won't enter your 
 tent, out of regard for your pledge to your father : 
 but let your man bring me something under the tree 
 there," — pointing to one at a little distance, — " and 
 then I will go forwards. It will be better to let the 
 relatives have their own talk first, too." 
 
 The active little man at once strode away to the 
 
 tree, where, flinging his hat and whip on the ground, 
 
 he seated himself; and was soon busily discussing 
 
 some cold beef and a bottle of pale ale, Barks acting 
 
 as butler. Charles entered his tent and sat down, 
 
 holding no further intercourse with him till he took 
 
 his leave. When ready he sprang up, his horse was 
 
 brought, and telling Barks to inform Charles that he 
 
 thought he had better follow to the Popkinses, he 
 
 rode off. Charles soon took the same way on foot ; 
 
 u 4
 
 296 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 and, on reaching the store, was ushered into the back 
 apartment of it. The scene which presented itself on 
 entering never again faded from his memory. 
 
 On a sort of sofa, or rather what is called in some 
 parts of England a squab — that is, a wooden couch 
 with a cushion upon it, — lay a young woman, the 
 same that Charles had seen in a swoon in the street. 
 She lay now in a state very similar. " Was she 
 really living ? " was the thought which passed over 
 Charles's mind as he saw her. She was very young, 
 a mere girl in appearance, and very fair. Her face 
 was round in its contour, her features delicate and 
 sweet ; and around them lay her hair of a beautiful 
 golden brown, giving her a sort of angelic look that 
 seemed out of place in the wife of a storekeeper at 
 the diggings. In circumstances of health and hap- 
 piness she must have presented a very interesting 
 appearance ; but now she lay pale as marble, motion- 
 less as the dead. Did she really live ? Yes ; for a 
 youngish-looking gentleman, a doctor, sat with his 
 hand upon her pale thin wrist, and his face fixed on 
 hers with a serious air. On a stool in the corner, 
 behind the doctor, sat the youth whom Charles had 
 seen riding up the valley with the old man, and the 
 old man was down on his knees by the side of the 
 still, corpse-like girl. Near the foot of the couch
 
 SCENE AT THE TOTKINS STORE. 297 
 
 stood Mr. Peter Martin, with a look fixed and 
 solemn, regarding the prostrate form — but a look 
 from which that bold, self-confident air which Charles 
 had hitherto always seen in it, had totally vanished, 
 and left an impression of feeling and sympathy 
 equally remarkable. The old man was in prayer. 
 His tall, dark figure was bowed as it were to the 
 earth with affliction, and his long white locks spread 
 on his broad shoulders like the snows of winter on 
 some hoary, storm-beaten mountain. His strongly- 
 developed features were sallow and rigid with grief; 
 and in his prayer he seemed to wrestle with heaven 
 under a feeling rather of the calamity and disgrace 
 fallen upon his whole family than of sympathy 
 concentrated on the phantom-like form before him 
 — in which the spirit was like some slight tissue 
 of cloud in a still evening sky, waiting only for 
 a breath or motion of the air to bear it away for 
 ever. 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! let this cup pass from me. Let it 
 pass, oh, thou good and merciful God ! Many and 
 long are the days in which thou hast crowned me 
 with mercy and blessing. Thou hast made me to go 
 on and prosper ; and, now, wilt thou crush me in the 
 latter end as with a millstone ? Let it pass, oh God ! 
 let it pass. Can it really be that such terrible things
 
 298 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 are in store for me? Oh, God! oh, Lord God! 
 arise, arise, and let the truth appear. Thou canst 
 do it ! What is it to thee, oh Lord ! who guidest 
 the world and liftest the mountains, what is it to thee 
 to make appear the innocence of this poor, weak, 
 misguided lad ? Weak, but not so very wicked ; no, 
 I will not believe it. No, he cannot have so forgotten 
 all the godly teachings from his youth upward, all 
 the warnings and the solemn ordainings of thy love. 
 Save him, oh Lord ! save him : snatch him as a 
 brand from the burning, and give consolation to his 
 afflicted mother and to this poor, down-smitten lamb. 
 Wilt thou slay the innocent for the erring ? Oh, Lord ! 
 wilt thou cut down this bruised reed, like the grass 
 before the mower ? Oh, no! that beseemeth thee not, 
 oh, Lord ! that is not like thee in thy ever-loving 
 kindness. Arise, arise, in thy might, and scatter all 
 delusions ; for, if this blow falls, we all fall together, 
 we are no better than dead men." 
 
 Here the agonised voice ceased ; but the tall, 
 strong frame was still trembling with a convulsive 
 spasm, and you could hear the passionate, heavy 
 breathing, and the cracking of his fingers as he 
 wrung, and, as it were, ground his hands together. 
 In the death-like stillness of the room, the stifled sobs 
 of the youth in the corner, who now sate with his
 
 SCENES AT THE STORE. 299 
 
 face between his knees and his hands clasped on the 
 back of his head as if he would crush it with them, 
 were painfully loud ; and, as Charles cast a glance 
 at Mr. Martin, he saw his lips quivering with 
 emotion, and large tears rolling rapidly down his 
 cheeks. If ever Charles had believed Mr. Martin a 
 bad man since he had first so lately met with him, 
 that belief fled from this moment. While the thought 
 went, lightning-like, through him, Mr. Martin leaned 
 eentlv forward and said to the doctor, " How is it, 
 doctor ? would not you give her a little more 
 stimulant?" 
 
 The doctor shook his head. " Let us try a little 
 longer : if she has had enough to keep her up, that 
 is all I want ; she has too many stimulants in herself 
 the moment she returns to consciousness ; we must 
 preserve a balance if we can — that is the great 
 matter. But the best of all medicines is hope. Give 
 her all the hope you can ; give it, even if you have 
 it not yourselves. Give her that, or all that I can 
 give her is useless. Without hope — and strong hope 
 — she dies." 
 
 "Good God!" exclaimed Mr. Martin, " what can 
 we do ? Poor thing ! poor thing ! and such a good, 
 dear, admirable creature, a perfect heroine ! ay, 
 better, better, a saint ! from all they tell me. We
 
 300 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 must save her, doctor. I would spend anything, 
 money or strength, to save her." 
 
 " What she wants is hope, comfort, faith that her 
 husband will be saved. She had that; but in the 
 inquiries of the old gentleman here, as to who could 
 prove his clearness of any connection with this despe- 
 rate gang, they vanished, and she sinks, sinks yet — 
 her pulse fades, fades — give me another spoonful from 
 that bottle." It was done ; and the death-like form 
 yet swallowed down the potion with pallid, motionless 
 lips. 
 
 " But is there no one who can prove an alibi? 
 You believe he is innocent ; where has he been ; with 
 whom of late ? " 
 
 " lie has been absent this month and more," said 
 the doctor. " He was wild, and frequented that 
 Gurwood's grogshop, a notorious haunt of gamblers. 
 His wife persuaded him to go away and leave the 
 concern to her, — yes, she has done too much at it ; 
 all the while suffering from her anxiety about him. 
 He comes back, goes again to the very same haunt, 
 and is surprised there in actual play with the noto- 
 rious Douglas and Melville. He rushes out with 
 them. Each of these incarnate fiends shoots down 
 his man, and escapes. Abijah and two others, too 
 well known to be subordinates of the gang, are taken.
 
 CONSULTING FOR THE BEST. 301 
 
 That is the case, and it looks as bad as bad can be,' 1 
 added the doctor, speaking low, as if afraid the appa- 
 rently unconscious sufferer should hear it. 
 
 " That looks bad indeed," said Mr. Martin ; " but 
 still you think he 's innocent, you say. If so, on 
 what grounds? Where, I ask, and with whom has 
 he been? " 
 
 " With a man of the name of Randall, a rough, 
 but not bad-looking man ; a verv excellent man in- 
 deed, this poor girl says. She says he has been with 
 him bringing over a mob of horses from Sydney to 
 Melbourne, and was going away with him to stay on 
 his station some time, to strengthen his good habits." 
 
 " But that is your man ! " exclaimed Mr. Martin ; 
 " that is your very man ! we must have him at any 
 price. Where is he? Why is he not sent for?" 
 
 " There lies the difficulty," replied the doctor ; 
 " nobody here knows the man but Mrs. Popkins, and 
 she has been too much agitated — too completely 
 prostrated, to enable us to get the information." 
 
 " Then send at once to Castlemaine ; we must get 
 it from the prisoner ; not a moment must be lost ; 
 there is but a week to the assizes." 
 
 The strong, excited voice of the speaker, appeared 
 to have roused the patient from her trance-like state. 
 The doctor raised his finger warningly. " She is
 
 302 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 coming to herself; her pulse beats agitatedly; she 
 breathes more strongly ; she sighs," He leaned over 
 her. The next moment a heavy, deep sigh escaped 
 from the bosom of the poor girl ; she opened her eyes 
 an instant, closed them again, and tears were seen 
 streaming from her closed eyelids. 
 
 " That is good," said the doctor ; "I am glad to 
 see those tears, my dear Mrs. Popkins, they will do 
 you good. They are the first I have seen since I was 
 called in," he added, addressing himself softly to the 
 spectators. " But, my dear Mrs. Popkins," he con- 
 tinued, again addressing her, " you must not distress 
 yourself — you have no need — here is good news." 
 At this word the poor girl's eyes flashed open eagerly ; 
 she started up as if endowed at once with all her 
 wonted strength ; and riveting her gaze on the doctor, 
 she exclaimed, " What news ! oh, Avhat news ! what 
 good news ! Is it cleared up ? Is he at liberty ? " 
 
 " Not at liberty yet, dear Mrs. Popkins," said Dr. 
 Roche, for that was the physician's name ; " no ! that 
 is too much to expect in such a case ; law is slow and 
 formal ; you know, it must be ; but he will be libe- 
 rated, take my word for it," smiling kindly at her. 
 
 The word law seemed to strike her like a heavy 
 blow or a sudden cold blast; and when the doctor 
 said " take my word for it," she seemed to collapse,
 
 CONSULTING FOR THE BEST. 303 
 
 as it were, before the phrase. A shudder passed 
 through her whole frame ; and fixing her clear, blue, 
 but anxious eyes upon him, she said faintly, " Is that 
 all ? I thought you said there was good news." Her 
 head sunk upon her bosom, her hands were clasped 
 rigidly together, and she appeared, pale and drooping 
 as a broken lily, to be actually sinking into death. 
 
 " But, my dear girl," said Mr. Martin, laying his 
 hand suddenly on her arm, and anticipating the 
 doctor's explanation, " there is good news." " Oh 
 where! — what is it? "again exclaimed the agitated 
 girl, at once moving, and turning her thin, pale face, 
 and clear, intensely eager eyes, upon him. " Oh tell 
 me quick, quick ; don't deceive me, for I cannot bear 
 it ; a word I feel now would kill me." 
 
 " But you must not be killed," said Mr. Martin, 
 " on any account ; it is you who must and can save 
 your husband." At every word the poor girl's hope 
 seemed to fade away: if it, after all, depended on 
 herself, all was lost, she thought. But Mr. Martin 
 added, rapidly, " I am a magistrate ; I am here to 
 serve you, and I will serve you, cost what it may. 
 Now listen ; you say your husband is innocent of any 
 connection with these bushrangers." 
 
 " Oh, innocent as I am ! " exclaimed the young 
 wife ; " innocent as the babe unborn ! "
 
 304 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 " Enough ! then all we have to do is to prove that 
 he was not, and could not have been with these bush- 
 rangers on any of the occasions of crime for which 
 they are in charge. I hear that all that is easy 
 as to any such charge till within the last month. 
 The people hereabout, plenty of them, can prove 
 that." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! yes ! scores can," exclaimed the young 
 woman. 
 
 " Very well ; all we want is to prove that he could 
 not have been with them during the last month, ex- 
 cept on the day they were taken here. Where was 
 he during that month ? " 
 
 " Oh, with Mr. Randall, with Mr. Randall every 
 day of the time." 
 
 " Good, and where is Mr. Randall to be found ? 
 once let us have him, and all is secure." 
 
 At these words, the poor girl gave a violent start, 
 seized her hair on each temple with convulsed hands, 
 drew her hand agitatedly across her forehead, and 
 appeared lost in extremest terror. 
 
 " Gently, my dear girl, gently ; why alarm your- 
 self so ? Tell us where this Randall is, and we will 
 have him, if it be from the south pole." 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed the poor girl, in the wildest, 
 most piercing accent, " he is gone ! gone ! gone !
 
 CONSULTING FOR THE BEST. 305 
 
 quite away. You will never find him in time." 
 And she shook with agitation, and writhed in agony. 
 '< But we will have him, my good girl," said Mr. 
 Martin, confidently ; " we will have him, and if not 
 in time for the day of trial, we will have that put off. 
 I know the governor well ; he is not the man to 
 deprive any human creature of the feeblest chance 
 for his life ; the trial shall be postponed if necessary, 
 so now, cheer up ; let us have the address of Mr. 
 Randall, and we will be after him this moment." 
 
 The confidence of these assurances, the air of au- 
 thority of the speaker, the kind, but positive tone in 
 which he spoke, acted like a charm on the terrified girl. 
 She looked at him with increasing wonder and calm- 
 ness, her hand involuntarily seized his, her blue eyes 
 became calmer, but full of intensest feeling, a slight 
 flush started into her pale face, and with a faint 
 smile she said, " Oh, sir! what comfort you give me ! 
 God bless you for ever and ever ! If you save my 
 poor Abijah, you will save us all. What shall we 
 do to thank you ? " 
 
 " Oh I " said Mr. Martin, " we '11 think of that ; 
 but this Mr. Randall, do n't you see how Jonas " (our 
 old friend Jonas of the " Adventures in the Wilds of 
 Australia"), and my friend, Charles Fitzpatrick, are 
 already on tiptoe to ride off for him." 
 vol. i. x
 
 306 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 The young woman glanced hastily at Charles, 
 whom she had not noticed, drew instinctively her 
 shawl more closely and orderly about her, and said, 
 " But what a ride they will have ! How very, very 
 good of this young gentleman. Mr. Randall is gone 
 to Bullarook, where he lives. It is a hundred and 
 fifty miles off, and the latter part of the journey is a 
 terrible one, as I have heard Mr. Randall describe it. 
 It is through the fearful Mallee scrub, and into a dry, 
 parched desert of sand, where it is next to impossible 
 to procure food or water for the horses, and if the 
 travellers get out of the track, they are very likely 
 to perish." 
 
 " What in the world," said Mr. Martin, impatiently, 
 " could induce the man to fix himself in such a spot? 
 But never mind, we '11 have him, or I '11 go myself. 
 Where is it, then ? " pulling out Ham's squatter's 
 map, and hastily unfolding it on his knee. 
 
 " It is Bullarook, — the desert of Bullarook, — the 
 last station in the habitable country, and actually in 
 the unsettled wilds itself." 
 
 " Good gracious ! ay, there it is," said Mr. 
 Martin, putting his finger on a certain number of the 
 map ; " there it is, north-east of the Lake Hindmarsh, 
 and all beyond marked, to the very Murray on the 
 borders of Adelaide, ' Impenetrable scrub.' Never
 
 RANDALL OF BULLAROOK. 307 
 
 mind ! we '11 have him out of his desert. But if he 
 were here when Mr. Popkins was taken, why did he 
 go away ? Was that like a friend ? " 
 
 " Oh, sir ! " said the poor girl, " Abijah was not 
 taken then. Mr. Randall came here with him, and 
 it was agreed that Abijah should go along with him 
 to Bullarook for some months. Abijah went out, 
 saying he had to pay some little accounts, and Mr. 
 Randall saw him, to his consternation, go into Gur- 
 wood's. He said at once, ' I will out with our horses, 
 and go to Gurwood's, and take off your husband at 
 once. I dare say he owes something there, but he 
 must not stay there a moment.' Away he went ; 
 but when he got to the tent, he heard that the police 
 had been, that the bushrangers had broke away, 
 after shooting two of them, and Abijah was gone too, 
 nobody knew where. The police attempted to seize 
 Mr. Randall, because they had seen him with Abijah, 
 but he galloped off. He sent a man over from 
 Happy Jack's Hut to learn news of Abijah, and to 
 tell me that he could not stay, or he should be seized 
 too on suspicion, and then could be of no use to 
 Abijah if he were taken, but that he hoped he would 
 escape, and that he had left a horse for him at 
 Fenton's station, and he must come after him : he 
 should ride home and wait for news." 
 
 x 2
 
 308 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 " All right then, so far," said Mr. Martin ; " and 
 you believe this Randall an honest fellow ? " 
 
 " Oh, sir ! a good man, a wonderfully good man ; 
 he has been more than a brother to Abijah." 
 
 " That will do," said Mr. Martin, and he looked 
 round for Charles and Jonas. They were gone out : 
 he followed instantly. In the next apartment, the 
 store in fact, he found Charles hastily putting up tea, 
 sugar, salt, and flour, for the journey. Jonas was 
 gone for the horses. A woman with a child under 
 her arm, which she held like a little bundle while 
 she reached down things for Charles, said, " Shall 
 you bring him off, think you, sir ? " 
 
 " Shall we ? " said Mr. Martin, " of course we 
 shall, make yourself sure of that, mate." He knew 
 this would go to the anxious wife. He then gave 
 Charles the squatter's map,, pointed out the stations 
 on their way upon it, where they could refresh and 
 lodge, and told them they must, colonial fashion, 
 take four horses, each one in hand, so as to change 
 them on the journey, and thus make vastly more 
 speed. Very soon he saw them off, Jonas riding one 
 of their own horses and leadino; the other, Charles 
 on Blue Beard, Mr. Martin's horse, and leading his 
 own cob. Away they went at full canter, meaning
 
 OLD MATTHEW POPKINS LECTURING. 309 
 
 to reach Fcnton's station that evening, though the 
 sun was p-ettinjr low. 
 
 As soon as they were off Mr. Martin turned into 
 the tent again, where he found old Matthew Popkins 
 seated by the side of the couch of his daughter-in- 
 law, with a very grave aspect, and their conversation 
 did not seem by any means to have consoled or com- 
 posed the poor afflicted girl. " A poor weak crea- 
 ture is Abijah," he was saying ; " but why did not 
 you let us know, Patty? I would soon have been 
 over and read him a lecture." 
 
 " Ah, dear father, lecturing does Abby no good. 
 He hates what he calls preaching, and gets out of 
 the way of it. I hoped to win him to stick to busi- 
 ness by kindness and by helping him. One does not 
 like running about telling tales of one's own hus- 
 band." 
 
 " But that won't do, Martha," said old Matthew, 
 sternly; "see what comes of it; what trouble, what 
 disgrace, what spotting of our good name. I have 
 always kept a tight hand on Abijah, and he 
 needs it." 
 
 The poor girl looked the picture of misery ; her 
 face had resumed the same expression of distress, and 
 was again of the same marble hue as when her 
 friends first arrived. The doctor was gone.
 
 310 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 a 
 
 Come, come, Mr. Popkins," said Mr. Martin, " I 
 can't have you lecturing my young friend for your 
 son's faults. It is quite enough that she has had 
 them to bear with and to suffer from. Lecture him 
 as much as you please when you get at him, but I 
 put a decided veto on any lecturing here. This dear, 
 good girl has been a wonder to the whole diggings. 
 She has come all the way out of England out of an 
 old affection, — there, I like to see you blush, my 
 dear madam, — and she has carried on this business, 
 with the help of a rough lad here, to admiration. 
 Early and late she has been at it, sometimes hunting 
 him, — well, well, ma'am — I won't fall into the sin I 
 was condemning, — she has sought up her husband, 
 and set him right again and again ; but, as you say, 
 the lad is weak, — well, now, don't be angry, my 
 dear friend, — I don't mean in intellect — he is clever 
 enough — but in resolution. And I'll tell you what 
 it is, Mr. Popkins, we must have this store sold, and 
 have Abijah and our friend here down to Lahni 
 Mill. The store is very valuable ; Mrs. Popkins has 
 kept it so, spite of — well, never mind what; I can't 
 have you frowning at me so, madam, — and it will 
 fetch a good sum." 
 
 " Well, there's my other son," said Matthew 
 Popkins.
 
 MR. martin's plans. 311 
 
 "What, Jonas!" exclaimed Mr. Martin. "No! 
 take my word for it, he'll never turn storekeeper; 
 ne's a lad of the bush, and will thrive there. I can't 
 agree to his coming here." 
 
 " No, no !" said the old man ; " I mean Abner." 
 "Oh, ay; just so! just so! — the very thing!" 
 exclaimed Mr. Martin. " Yes, yes ; he shall come 
 here; and Abijah and Patty, they shall come to the 
 mill. Well, now, you like that," said the vivacious 
 Mr. Martin, going up to the side of the young woman's 
 couch, and taking her hand. " I see you like that ; 
 and really it is a paradise of a place, that mill, and 
 that charming valley. There Abijah will be out of 
 the way of bad company, all except his father," he 
 said, laughing; "and if you go, sir, to lecture him 
 too much, you'll be the very worst company he can 
 have. No, no ; encourage him, I say ; encourage 
 him : I like encouragement. Plants, animals, every- 
 thing likes sunshine. I like it ; too much frost and 
 chill will kill anything. Yes, I see you think just as 
 I do," said he, tapping the young woman on the 
 shoulder, who was smiling, and had regained a won- 
 derful degree of animation, showing she liked both 
 the talk and the prospect of getting her husband 
 away to Lahni Mill. " I shall be delighted, we shall 
 all be delighted, to have you there," he continued, as
 
 312 TALLANGETTA. 
 
 if reading her thoughts, as no doubt he did. " We 
 shall all like you, and will have fine times of it. 
 
 But now " he paused a moment, and a cloud as 
 
 of apprehension fell on that young and most sensitive 
 countenance ; " but now, while these lads are away, 
 we must set about and get up all the evidence we can 
 prior to the last month ; and, that done, you must be 
 off, Mrs. Popkins, to Castlemaine, and comfort your 
 husband with your presence. I'll see that you have 
 free access to him. And so, Mr. Popkins, send off 
 for your son Abner, to commence store-keeping — 
 a capital chance for him — as soon as he can get 
 hither." 
 
 While Mr. Martin and old Matthew Popkins are 
 doing this, with the aid of Mr. Abijah Popkins's wife, 
 and with that of Barks and Purdy, who are despatched 
 as messengers in every direction, we will follow our 
 two young travellers on their journey. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 London: 
 Printed by Spottiswoode & Co. 
 
 New-street Square. 1/ 
 
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