CHAPTER XX YERING
When Mr. Lemuel Bolden and I rode to Yering from Heidelberg, about the year 1845, to pay a promised visit to Mr. William Ryrie, the Upper Yarra road and the place of our destination presented a different appearance.
We forded the Yarra below Mr. D. C. M'Arthur's orchard, and crossing a heavily-timbered river-flat, with deep reed-fringed lagoons, debouched on the up-river road. This particular locality was well known to me, inasmuch as, being formerly in our pastoral possession, it had constituted a species of "chase" in my early sporting days. The only denizens of that period were an occasional pair of sawyers, generally "Derwenters," as the Tasmanian expirees were called, thither attracted by the unusual size and straightness of the timber which grew in the flats and "bends" of the winding Yarra.
Owing to the sinuous shape of the lagoons on the south side of the river, coupled with the dense nature of the thickets, it was not an easy matter for a stranger to find his way through the maze. It naturally came to be, therefore, the happy hunting ground of my boyhood; many a grand day's sport and thrilling adventure did I have therein.
The largest lagoon was fringed with a wide border of reeds, growing in deep water. It had in the centre a clear lakelet or mere, upon the lonely waters of which disported the mountain duck, with his black and other congeners, the greater and lesser grebe; while among the reeds waded or flew the heron (Ardea australis), the sultana water-hen, a red-billed variety of the coot, the bittern, the land-rail, and in the season an occasional flock of pied geese or black swans.
To approach the wild-fowl in the open mere was a work of difficulty, if not of danger, inasmuch as the water was too deep for wading, and the entanglement with weeds—which then cost more than one strong swimmer his life—was not out of the reckoning. I did once struggle to the verge of total exhaustion within the green meshes of one of these weed nets, in a lonely pool in which I had to swim for a black duck. The thought uppermost in my mind was that it would be such a time before I should be found, in case of—an accident which didn't come off. I used to circumvent my feathered friends in the horse-shoe lagoon by climbing a tree upon the slope which lay opposite. From this coign of vantage I could see the birds swimming in fancied security, and lay plans accordingly. In order to open fire with effect, I had caused to be conveyed a light canoe, which one of my sawyer friends had neatly scooped out for me, into the outer mere among the reeds. It was in waist-deep water—carefully concealed, and I could, of course, gain it unseen. Paddling or pulling it through the outer reed-brake, I ensconced myself at the edge of the clear water, waiting patiently until the unsuspecting birds sailed past. Once I remember getting two couple of black duck. An occasional goose, or even the lordly swan, found its way into my bag.
Once, as I had planned a day's shooting, I was startled by seeing a flock of ducks wheeling around, and finally making straight for the South Pole, as if decided not to return for a year. Gazing angrily around to discern the cause of this untoward migration, I descried a man carefully got up in correct shooting rig emerge from the reeds. Half-paralysed by the audacity of the unknown—this was years before the free-selection discovery—I sat still in my saddle for one moment. Then, as the enormity of the offence—trespass on our run—rose before me, I dashed spurs into my horse and charged the offender.
"What's your name, and what do you mean by coming here to shoot and frighten the ducks?" I called out, stopping my frantic steed within a few feet of him. "Don't you know whose ground you're on?"