Kilfera station was a comfortable bachelor homestead, and it struck me, as I saw it for the first time, that it had a distinctly "Galway" look about it. The hospitality was free and unstinted. I was not the only guest. As we rode up we came upon a match at quoits, the players at which wore the air of non-combatants. There was a fine upstanding son of Peter Fin, "Modderidderoo" by name, in the stables; on the next day I was shown the very panel where Mr. Jack Hunter had jumped "The Badger" over a three-railed fence, without bridle or saddle.
"We saw him coming up the paddock," said my host (he had gone down to catch his horse and taken no bridle with him), "at a swinging hand-gallop, and all turned out of the verandah to look. He had only a switch in his hand; when he came to the creek he took it at a fly, and then faced the three-railed fence at the stable. He went over here—over this very rail—and came down sitting as square as if he was riding in the park, holding his hat, too, in both hands." "How did he stop the horse?" "He jumped off on the straw heap here, and fell on his legs like a cat." I had a slight previous acquaintance with the gentleman referred to, whose whilom sobriquet of "Jack the Devil" was fully deserved, as far as feats of horsemanship were concerned. He rode equally well in a side-saddle, and once at least defied the minions of the law decorously attired in a lady's riding habit, with hat, gloves, and whip to match.
To complete the "wild sports of the West" flavour with which my fancy had invested Kilfera, entered to us that night, travelling with horses, one Mr. Crowe, evidently of kin to the "three Mr. Trenches of Tallybash," popularly known as "mad Crowe." Slightly eccentric to an unprejudiced observer he appeared to be. He was a tall, fair-haired, athletic fellow, and he had not been half an hour in the house before, after gifting all his horses with impossible qualities and improbable pedigrees, he offered to row, wrestle, ride, drink, or fight any one of the company for a liberal wager. He finished off the evening's entertainment by volunteering and going outside to execute an imitation of an Irish "keen" at a wake, a performance which was likely to have cost him dear, as it offended the sensibilities of several of the station hands, who were strongly minded to arise and "hammer" him (Crowe) for belittling their native land. "How happily the days of Thalaba went by" at Kilfera; indeed, I regarded with complacency the somewhat protracted muster of the Strathbogie herd. However, one fine day they were mustered and counted out to me, mixed with the Devil's River contingent; blacks and brindles, yellows and strawberries, snaileys and poleys, old and young, they were "a mixed herd" in every sense. But cattle were cattle in those days. So I bade farewell to my kind friend and pleasant acquaintances, and took the road for Port Fairy—four hundred miles or so. But an odd hundred leagues of a journey was nothing then. How the country must have altered since those days. No Beechworth diggings—Castlemaine, Sandhurst, and Ballarat all in the "forest primeval" stage, innocent of cradle and pick, windlass and bucket. Quartz indeed! The first time it was mentioned in my hearing was by James Irvine, who was chaffing Captain Bunbury about the quality of his run on the Grampians, and averring that the only chance of his cattle getting fat was in the event of their being able to live on quartz. Quartz, quotha! I hardly knew what it meant, save that it was a kind of rock. Heavens! Could I have foreseen how closely it was to be interwoven with my destiny—with all our destinies, for the matter of that!
It was the autumn season, and the way was pleasant enough, after we left the sunless glens and darksome mountain-sides of Strathbogie. We passed Seven Creeks homestead, then, or somewhat later, the property of Mr. William Forlonge. He, like the rest of us, did not know when he was well off, and must move northward evermore, towards the great Saltbush Desert, that false Eldorado, which, like the loadstone mountain in the Arabian tale, has attracted and ruined so many a life, swallowed how many a fortune! However, nil desperandum is his motto; and if fortune favours the brave, the plucky veteran of the pastoral army should come out well in the end.
By easy stages we fared on till we came to Kilmore. That flourishing city, as I suppose it calls itself now, was then chiefly noted for its mud, the depth and blackness of which were truly remarkable. A few potato-growing farms and the usual complement of public-houses made up the town. There I lost two horses, a serious and melancholy occurrence which was likely to interfere with our march. I left the cattle to come on, and resolved to ride to Melbourne to find them or get others. I knew they were likely to "make" in that direction, about the Upper Plenty.
At Kinlochewe I encountered the late Mr. Dalmahoy Campbell. He condoled with me. How pleasant is a sympathetic manner from an older man to a youngster! I have never forgotten those who, in my youth, were kindly and tolerant. He gave me the advice of an experienced overlander, and promised to write to a friend in the neighbourhood to look out for the runaways.
At the next stage I encountered my old friend Fred Burchett, late of "The Gums," another Port Fairy man, luckily also bound that way with a herd of cows and calves—the latter given in—which he had purchased from Mr. Shelley, at Tumut. His cattle were just ahead, and he proposed that we should join forces at Keilor, and journey together the rest of the way. Nothing could be nicer. I forgot my griefs. "Lost horses," like "lost sheep," produce acute suffering while they last; but the agony abates, as Macaulay said. I spent the evening with him, and next day went on to Melbourne.
Poor dear Fred! The kindest, the best-tempered, the most humorous of men! How many a laugh we had together! It has always been a grief to me that he died before the advent of Bret Harte or Mark Twain! How he would have revelled in their inimitable touches, their daring drolleries, their purest pathos. A well-read man and a fair scholar, his was a mind nearly related to that of Charles Lamb, of whose wondrous semitones of mirth and melancholy he had the fullest appreciation. He, though living fifty miles away, was one of the "Dunmore mob," and aided generally in the symposia which were there enjoyed. It was a great stroke of luck our being able to join forces, and I looked forward to the rest of the journey as quite a pleasant picnic party.
I did not get my truant horses (they were ultimately recaptured), but I foraged up other remounts and rejoined my cattle, with which I made a cut across country via Deep Creek, Woodlands, and Keilor, then the property of Mr. J. B. Watson, and exhibiting no foreshadowing of a railway station. Mr. Burchett was only one stage ahead, I was told. At the Little River I overtook him. This was his observation on that eccentric watercourse. Scanning with an eye of deepest contemplation its cavernous channel and apparently perfect freedom from the indispensable element, he thus delivered himself: "They call this the Little River. Well they may! It's the smallest blooming river I ever came across! Why, we had hard work to get water enough in it to boil our kettle with!"