We crossed that way, I know, next day, and had a look at the Heifer Station, as the trans-Yarra run was then called. It was a sort of Yering in miniature, not so open, and much smaller. To it, however, our host was compelled to retire, when (upon how many good fellows has the same fate fallen?) he made a compulsory sale to Paul de Castella and his partner, another Swiss gentleman. Fortunately for him, pastoral property rose in value prodigiously "after the gold," so that he was enabled to sell the heifer station for five times as much as he got for Yering.
However, "unconscious of our doom," we took a long and pleasant ride through ferny dales, and darksome woods where the giant eucalypti reared their heads to heaven. We watched the sparkling streamlets dash down their course from alpine heights, praised the cattle and horses, and returned with appetites of the most superior description. Our chief adventure was in crossing a water-laden flat, when Mr. Elliot, jun., raised his long legs high on his horse's sides to escape splashing. That animal, being young and "touchy," immediately exhibited a fair imitation of that well-known Australian gambade known as "buck-jumping." For the honour of Scotia, however, our friend, new chum as he was, stuck to the pigskin, and was justly applauded at the end of the performance.
Live stock were cruelly low about that time—£1 a head for store bullocks, and so on. Fat cattle were never worth more than £3 each, often considerably under that modest price. The expense of stock-management bore hard upon receipts, particularly when the proprietor had not inherited the saving grace of "screwiness." Our host, gallant, generous, warm-hearted William Ryrie, was not in that line; far otherwise. As a matter of fact, Yering was sold to Messrs. de Castella and Co., within a year of our visit, for two or three thousand pounds—some such trifle, at any rate.
So Yering passed into the hands of another good fellow. Though "foreign," and not "to the manor born," he quickly demonstrated his ability to acquire the leading principles of stock-management. Of course, the gold came to his aid, causing the cattle he had purchased at £2 each to be worth £8 or £10, and in other ways making things easy for an enterprising pastoralist. Besides managing the herd satisfactorily, Mr. de Castella saw his way to developing the vineyard, enlarging it twenty or fifty fold, besides building cellars, wine-presses, and all the adjuncts of scientific vine-culture. He imported French or Swiss vignerons, and commenced to acquire that high reputation for "white and red Yering" Hermitage which remains unblemished to this day.
Years afterwards, when the tide of pastoral prosperity throughout the colonies was high and unwavering, I made another visit to the spot, under different circumstances and in far other company. A large party had been invited by Mr. and Mrs. de Castella to spend a week at Yering, when a picnic, a dance, and all sorts of al fresco entertainments were included in the programme.
We were to meet at Fairlie House, South Yarra, and the day being propitious, the gathering was successful; the cortège decidedly imposing. Charlie Lyon's four-in-hand drag led the way; Lloyd Jones's and Rawdon Greene's mail phaetons, with carriages and dog-carts, following in line—it was a small Derby day. The greater proportion of the ladies were accommodated in the vehicles. There were horsemen, too, of the party. The commissariat had been sent on at an early hour, accompanied by a German band, retained for the occasion, to a convenient halting place for luncheon. As we rattled along the broad, straight roads of Kew we saw hedges of roses, orchards in spring blossom, miles of villas and handsome houses, all the signs of a prosperous suburban population. How different from the signs of the past!
Early in the afternoon we sighted the dark-browed Titan on the hither side of which the homestead lay. Mending our pace, we entered a mile-long avenue, cleared with a bridegroom's munificence, as a fitting approach for so fair a bride, on the occasion of his marriage.
I don't think we danced that night—the fairer portion of the company being moderately travel-worn—but we made up for it on the succeeding ones. Each day's programme had been marked out, and arrangements made in regal style. Some of us had sent on our favourite hacks; side-saddle and other horses were provided by the host in any quantity. Riding parties, picnics to fern gullies, to Mount Juliet, and other places of romantic interest, were successfully carried out. Races were improvised. Shooting parties, fishing excursions, kangaroo and opossum battues—everything which could impress the idea that life was one perpetual round of mirth and revelry—had been provided for.
As we sat at mid-day on the velvet green sward, by fern-fringed streamlets, under giant gums or the towering patriarchs of the mountain ash, while merry jest and sparkling repartee went round, ardent vow and rippling laughter, we might have been taken—apart from the costume—for an acted chapter out of "Boccaccio." When we came dashing in before sunset, the sound of our approach was like that of a cavalry troop, or the rolling hoof-thunder of marauding Apachés. The Germans were musicians of taste; to the "Morgen-blatter" and the "Tausend-und-eine Nachte" valses we danced until the Southern Cross was low in the sky, while as we watched the moon rise, flooding with silver radiance the sombre Alp, and shedding a passing gleam on the rippling river, all might well have passed for an enchanted revel, where mirth, moon, and music would disappear at the waving of a wand.