On my way out and back--it was some four or five days' ride--I stayed at various stations. It was _de regle_ in those days, and I don't know a pleasanter ending to a day's ride than meeting a hospitable squatter in his own house. You have had just work enough to tire you reasonably, to make you enjoy a cheerful meal, some fresh unstudied talk (people are twice as confidential in the bush, even with strangers, as they are in town), a smoke in the verandah, and the sound, peaceful sleep that follows all. Then the awakening in the lovely fresh bush air, winter or summer, the feeling is ennobling, invigorating. As he fills his lungs and expands his breast therewith the wayfarer feels a better and wiser man. Old Mr. Robertson, a Scottish settler, had a lovely station on the Wannon. To his homestead travellers chiefly gravitated for reasons which he summarised somewhat plainly on one occasion. "Don't think I believe you come to see old Robertson," he said. "In the summer it's the fruit that fetches you, and in the winter Mary's jam." Now, Miss Robertson's preserves and conserves were the admiration of the whole district, while the orchard in the season was a marvel for fruit of every kind and sort. I wish I could show those good people and certain conceited gardeners who persist in pruning and cutting every lower limb of their fruit trees, the orchard at Wando Vale, as in those days. Great umbrageous apple trees with long lateral branches trailing on the ground, covered with fruit of the _finest size_ and _quality_. The remarkable thing about these apple trees was that they had never been grafted or pruned. They all came from the seed of a barrel of decayed apples, and which, being of many different varieties, were, as the old gentleman expressed it, "each better than the other." That such is not the general result I am aware, being a bit of a gardener myself, but it was the fact in this instance, as I saw and tasted the fruit, and have the word of the owner for it besides, who planted the trees with his own hands. Mr. Alfred Arden I remember visiting at Hilgay, as also the late John Coldham of Grassdale. What a lovely bit of country his was! And is not all the Wannon the "pick of creation"--Colac, perhaps, excepted? Low deep-swarded hills, rolling downs, and thickly-timbered slopes, all wheat land, and forty bushels to the acre at that. Too good for this wicked world almost! The men who took it up first had hardly sufficient inducement to exert themselves. There is such a thing as being too well off. I am aware it is not good for me, above all men, but I should like to have a try at bearing it again, and risk His dangerous wealth With all the woes it brings. CHAPTER XVIII THE CHRISTENING OF HEIDELBERG