CHAPTER XXII
YAMBUK
Once upon a time, in a "kingdom by the sea," known to men as Port Fairy, "Yambuk" was a choice and precious exemplar of the old-fashioned cattle station. What a haven of peace—what a restful elysium, would it be in these degenerate days of hurry and pressure and progress, and all that—could one but fall upon it! If one could only gallop up now to that garden gate, receive the old cordial welcome, and turn his horse into the paddock, what a fontaine de jouvence would bubble up! Should one ride forth and essay the deed? It could hardly be managed. We should not be able to find our way. There would be roads and fences, with obtrusive shingled cottages, and wheat -fields, barns, and threshing machines—in short, all the hostile emblems of agricultural settlement, as it is called.
I like it not; I would the plain
Lay in its tall old groves again.
Fronting the farther side of the Shaw River, down to a bank of which the garden sloped, were
