‘Oh, I must have him—Larrie, let me—see, he is so light—why, he is nothing to carry.’
[p 11]
]CHAPTER II
THE RED ROAD COUNTRY
In cool weather the Red Road was very pleasant walking. It wound up hill and down dale for many a mile till it reached Hornsby, and branched away into different country.
All the way there were gum trees—gum trees and fences; here and there were closer palings and garden shrubs indicating human residence, but they were far apart and the road was very lonely. Parallel to it and showing in places between the trees was the single line of the railway. It did not spoil the scenery at all, it rather gave a friendly look to it and reminded the pedestrian that in spite of the bush silences, the towering trees, the vista of blue hills and the mountain-like [p 12] ]freshness of the air, he could be in all the bustle and happy fellowship of town in half-an-hour.
Away to the left the ground dipped, then rose again, in a blue soft hill, dipped again, and the new rise was purple and beautiful. The third dip, just a line, white sometimes and again blue was the harbour. On clear days one could see the smoke of vessels. Beyond the hills and the water-line stretched Sydney city, white and shining in the distant sunlight. Further away, over near the sky, the grey blue hills and the light that meant sand-stretches was Botany.
Higher up, and between the first and second hill-rise, ran the river they call Lane Cove. A great white building, St Ignatius, made one land-mark and the Mortlake gas-works another; from those places the residents knew their geography. That was Eastwood away over there, nestling among hills; those blurred cottages indicated Ryde; just where the tree tops showed in a hollow, was the head of the river, and right away on the west [p 13] ]horizon a certain patch was the highest place in the blue mountains. In a few years the beautiful country-side will be commonplace suburbs; there will be stucco villas and terrace houses, shops and paved roads; the railway has broken its fastness and the change is inevitable.
The smooth grass slopes, the wooded stretches will live only in memory. The great red-and-black and silver-limbed gums will be hewn down to make way for spreading civilisation. The blue gracious hills will be thick with chimneys and advertisement boards. There will be a double line of railway, no longer picturesque, and big spreading stations instead of primitive sidings where one held up a ‘flag by day and a light at night’ to be picked up of the passing train.
Past St Leonard’s the railway is very new, a matter of months indeed.
Before it was opened there were obstacles in the way of reaching Sydney that made would-be residents shake their heads, and go to live at Paddington, and Forest Lodge, and such [p 14] ]crowded places that could be reached by tram with a certain degree of comfort.
But before the year of grace 1893, the train from the hills that only just escaped being mountains, used to empty out its passengers on the little St Leonard’s Station. There were two ways only after that of getting to Sydney.