Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/434



the later days of 1842 I paid my first visit to Macedon, beyond which mountain our sheep-station, Darlington, had been formed in 1838. The overseer, on a business visit to Melbourne, whether in recognition of personal merit, or as desiring to do the polite thing to his employer's son, invited me to return with him. I jumped at the proposal. The paternal permission being granted, the following day saw me mounted upon a clever cob named Budgeree, a survivor of the overland party from Sydney to Port Phillip in 1838, fully accoutred for my first journey into Bushland—the land of mystery, romance, and adventure, which I have well explored since that day—that Eldorado whence the once-eager traveller has returned war-worn and pecuniarily on a level with the majority of pilgrims and knights-errant.

We reached Howie's Flat, spending the night at the solitary stock-rider's hut near Woodend. I still recall the keenness of the frost, which came through the open slabs and interrupted my repose. Macedon was the first mountain I had encountered in real life, familiar as I was with his compeers in books. I regarded his shaggy sides, his towering summit, with wonder and admiration, as we rode along the straggling dray-track of the period.

Walls of dark-stemmed eucalypti bounded the narrow road; shallow runlets trickled across the rock ledges; while the breeze, strangely chill even at mid-day, but rippled the ocean