Page:Old Melbourne Memories.djvu/248

 forest fringe was visible. So still was the night that even "the small ripple spilt upon the beach" fell distinctly upon the ear.

As the pale dawn cloud rose in the east, the slumbering ocean began to stir and moan. A land breeze came sighing forth from the dense forest like a reproachful dryad as we charged the steep side of Lookout Hill, and saw the roofs of Portland town before us. It was a longish stage—fifty miles—but our horses still pressed gaily forward as if the distance had been passed in a dream. We had no time to sentimentalise. Labour was scarce. We stabled our good steeds, and transferred ourselves to a waterman's boat. When the employers of Portland came on board in leisurely fashion some hours later, the flower of the farm labourers were under written agreement to proceed to Port Fairy. It rather opened the eyes of the Portlanders, whom, in the sauciness of youth, we of the rival township who called William Rutledge our mercantile chief were wont to hold cheap. They needed servants for farm and station, as did we, but there was no help for it; they had to content themselves with what were left.

Personally, I had done well. The brothers Michael and Patrick Horan—two fine upstanding Carlow men as one would wish to see—were indentured safely to me for a year. They served me well in the after-time. Their brother-in-law, with his wife, as a "married couple," and a smart "colleen" about sixteen, a younger sister, came with them. It was a "large order," but all our hands had cleared for Ballarat and Forest Creek; we had hardly a soul in the place but the overseer and myself. These