seriously for an hour or more of going to Dursley to visit
its Omniferacious Agent, and, more particularly, perhaps to see his
wife; possibly even to settle in the neighbourhood of that pretty
little town. Then I reckoned up the years, and decided against this
step. The Omnigerentual One would be an old man, if alive; and his
wife--I recalled her fragile figure and hopeless invalidism, and
thought I would sooner cherish my recollections of five-and-twenty
years than put them to the test of inquiry.

On the fourth or fifth day I drove with my bags to the handsome new
railway station which had taken the place of the rambling old Redfern
terminal I remembered, and took train for the north. I found I had no
wish, at present, to visit Werrina, Myall Creek, or Livorno Bay, and
my journey came to an end a full fifty miles south of St. Peter's
Orphanage. Here, within five miles of the substantial township of
Peterborough, I came, with great ease, upon the very sort of place I
had in mind: a tiny cottage of two rooms, with a good deep verandah
before, and a little lean-to kitchen, or, in the local phrase,
skillion, behind; two rough slab sheds, a few fruit trees past their
prime, an acre of paddock, and beyond that illimitable bush.

I bought the tiny place for a hundred and five pounds, influenced
thereto in part by the fact that the daughter of its owner, a small
'cockatoo' farmer's wife, lived no more than a quarter of a mile away;
and was willing, for a modest consideration, to come in each day and
'do' for me, to the extent of cooking one hot meal, washing dishes,
and tidying my little gunyah. Thus, simply and swiftly, I became a
landed proprietor, and was able to send to Sydney for my heavy
chattels, knowing that, for the first time in my life, I actually
possessed in my own right a roof to shelter them withal, though it
were only of galvanised iron. (The use of stringy bark for the roofing
of small dwellings seemed to have ceased since my last sojourn in
these parts, the practical value of iron for rain-water catchment
having thrust aside the cooler and more picturesque material.)

In the township of Peterborough I secured, for the time being, the
services of a decent, elderly man named Fetch--Isaiah Fetch--and
together we set to work to make a garden before my little house; to
fence it in against the attacks of bandicoots and wandering cattle,
and to effect one or two small repairs, additions and improvements to
the p