Page:Old Melbourne Memories.djvu/55

 subject from my mind, I followed my chivalrous host to the guests' hut—a snug, separate building, where we made our simple toilettes with great comfort and satisfaction. After some cautious walking on a raised pathway we gained the "house," where I was introduced to Messrs. Campbell and Macknight—for the firm was a triumvirate.

Dwelling in a drought-afflicted district across the border, where for months the milk question had been in abeyance, or feebly propped up by the imported Swiss product, and where butter is not, how it refreshes one to recall the great jug of cream which graced that comfortable board, the pats of fresh butter, the alluring short-cake, the baronial sirloin. How we feasted first. How we talked round the glowing log-piled fire afterwards. How we slept under piles of blankets till sunrise.

Mrs. Teviot, the housekeeper, peerless old Scottish dame that she was (has not Henry Kingsley immortalised her?); for how many a year did she provide for the comforts of host and guest unapproachably, unimpeachably. How indelibly is that evening imprinted on my memory. Marked with a white stone in life's not all-cheerful record. On that evening was commenced a friendship that only closed with life, and which knew for the whole of its duration neither cloud nor misgiving. If a man's future is ever determined by the character of his associates and surroundings at a critical period of life, my vicinity to Dunmore must have powerfully influenced mine. In close, almost daily, association with men of high principle, great energy, early culture, and refined habits, I could not fail to gain