CHAPTER EIGHT



Possum Gully Left Behind. Hurrah! Hurrah!


If a Sydney man has friends residing at Goulburn, he says they are up the
country. If a Goulburn man has friends at Yass, he says they are up the
country. If a Yass man has friends at Young, he says they are up the
country, and so on. Caddagat is "up the country".

Bound thither on the second Wednesday in August 1896, I bought a ticket
at the Goulburn railway station, and at some time about 1 a.m. took my
seat in a second class carriage of the mail-train on its way to
Melbourne. I had three or four hours to travel in this train when I would
have to change to a branch line for two hours longer. I was the only one
from Goulburn in that carriage; all the other passengers had been in some
time and were asleep. One or two opened their eyes strugglingly, stared
glumly at the intruder, and then went to sleep again. The motion of the
train was a joy to me, and sleep never entered my head. I stood up, and
pressing my forehead to the cold window-pane, vainly attempted, through
the inky blackness of the foggy night, to discern the objects which flew
by.

I was too full of pleasant anticipation of what was ahead of me to think
of those I had left behind. I did not regret leaving Possum Gully. Quite
the reverse; I felt inclined to wave my arms and yell for joy at being