Page:Old Melbourne Memories.djvu/51

 quarry of limestone, a partially navigable river, and a harbour.

I slept ill that night, oppressed by my responsibilities. At midnight I heard the continuous lowing, or "roaring" in stock-riders' vernacular, which denoted the escape of my cattle from the yard. Dressing hastily, I stumbled in pitch darkness through the knee-deep mud. It was even as I feared—the rails were down, trampled in the mud; the cattle were out and away. My anxiety was great. The paddock was insecure. If they got out of it there was endless re-mustering, delay, and perhaps loss.

I could do nothing on foot. I heard the uneasy brutes trampling and bellowing in all directions. I went to bed sad at heart, and, like St. Paul's crew at Malta, "wished for the dawn."

With the earliest streak of light I caught my horse, and galloped round the paddock without a sight of the missing animals. In despair I turned towards the shore of the large salt-water lagoon which made one side of the enclosure. In the grey light I fancied I saw a dark mass at the end of a cape, which stretched far into it. I rode for it at full speed, and discovered my lost "stock-in-trade" all lying down in the long marshy grass. They had struck out straight for their last known place of abode, but had been blocked by the deep water and the unknown sea—as doubtless the lagoon appeared to them in the darkness.

Shortly after breakfast we resumed our journey, and made St. Kitts, a cattle station some ten or twelve miles on the western side of Belfast. The