Page:Old Melbourne Memories.djvu/67

 THE EUMERALLA WAR

had been informed that the Eumeralla people, when that station was first taken up by Mr. Hunter for Hughes and Hoskins, of Sydney, always took their guns into the milking-yard with them, for fear of a surprise. The story went that one day a sudden attack "was" made. While the main body was engaged, a wing of the invading force made a flank movement, and bore down upon the apparently undefended homestead. There, however, they were confronted by Mr. William Carmichael, a neighbour of Falstaffian proportions, who stood in the doorway brandishing a rusty cutlass which he had discovered. Whether the blacks were demoralised by the appearance of the fattest man they had ever seen, or awe-stricken at the fierceness of his bearing, is not known, but they wheeled and fled just as their main army had concluded to fall back on Mount Eeles.

Of Messrs. Gorrie and M'Gregor (uncle and nephew), who were chief among the Eumeralla pioneers, having come down with the original herd of ITH cattle, with which the run was first occupied,