e night, leaving
me there on the insignificant little platform, feeling how lonely and
unhappy, no one knew or cared.

Mr M'Swat shouldered most of my luggage, I took the remainder, and we
trudged off in the dark without a word on either side. The publican had
given M'Swat the key, so that we might enter without disturbing the
household, and he escorted me to a bedroom, where I tumbled into bed with
expedition.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

To Life

It is indelibly imprinted on my memory in a manner which royal joy, fame,
pleasure, and excitement beyond the dream of poets could never efface,
not though I should be cursed with a life of five-score years. I will
paint it truthfully--letter for letter as it was.

It was twenty-six miles from Yarnung to Barney's Gap, as M'Swat's place
was named. He had brought a light wagonette and pair to convey me
thither.

As we drove along, I quite liked my master. Of course, we were of calibre
too totally unlike ever to be congenial companions, but I appreciated his
sound common sense in the little matters within his range, and his
bluntly straightforward, fairly good-natured, manner. He was an utterly
ignorant man, with small ideas according to the sphere which he fitted,
and which fitted him; but he was "a man for a' that, an' a' that".

He and my father had been boys together. Years and years ago M'Swat's
father had been blacksmith on my father's station, and the little boys
had played together, and, in spite of their then difference in station,
had formed a friendship which lived and bore fruit at this hour. I wished
that their youthful relations had been inimical, not friendly.

We left the pub in Yarnung at nine, and arrived at our destination
somewhere about two o'clock in the afternoon.

I had waxed quite cheerful, and began to look upon the situation in a
sensible light. It was necessary that I should stand up to the guns of
life at one time or another, and why not now? M'Swat's might not be so
bad after all. Even if they were dirty, they would surely be willing to
improve if I exercised tact in introducing a few measures. I was not
afraid of work, and would do many things. But all these ideas were
knocked on the head, like a dairyman's surplus calves, when on entering
Barney's Gap we descended a rough road to the house, which was built in a
narrow gully between two steep stony hills, which, destitute of grass,
rose like grim walls of rock, imparting a desolate