Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/454

 as the irascible old gentleman in the hunting-field made answer after a fall, when it was politely inquired of him 'whether he was hurt.'

fair yet fleeting in the very constitution of them; so an hour having quickly passed, much refreshed in sense and spirit, we tackle the twenty-six very long miles, in our estimation, which divide us from the fair Tumut Valley. Still lowers the day. The mists shut out the snow-crowned peaks. The forest is saturated with moisture, which ever and anon drops down like a shower-bath when the breeze stirs the leaves briskly. It is not a gala day, exactly. But oh, how good for the country!

What beneficent phenomena are the early and the latter rain! As we look downwards we can see thousands of tiny clover leaflets, none of your Medicago saliva, with its yellow flower and deadly burr, but the true, sweet-scented English meadow plant, fragrant in spring, harmless, fattening, and sustaining to a wonderful degree, whenever it can command the moisture which is its fundamental necessity of growth. In days to come, every yard of this grand primeval woodland will be matted with it and the best English grasses, not forgetting that prime exotic the prairie grass (Bromus unioloides).

We are not aware whether there has been an extensive forest reserve proclaimed hereabouts, but in the interests of the State there should be. These grand, pillar-like timber trees, straight as gun-barrels, a hundred feet to the lowest branch, the growth of centuries, should not be abandoned to the bark-stripper, the ring-barker, the indiscriminate feller of good and bad timber alike. There is material here—gum, messmate, mountain ash, every variety of eucalyptus—to serve for the sawpits, the railway bridges, and sleepers of centuries to come, if properly guarded and supervised. And it behoves the elected guardians of the public rights to permit no private monopoly or forestalling; to see to the matter in time. For many an unremembered year have these glorious groves been slowly maturing. The carelessness of a comparatively short period may permit their destruction.

The eucalypts, as a family, have been subjected to undeserved contumely and scorn as trees which produce leaves