e fate of the house that was never
built. I wanted that house for a story.

However, while yarning with some old residents at Solong, I mentioned
the Brassingtons, and picked up a few first links in the story. The
young couple were married and went to Sydney for their honeymoon. The
story went that they intended to take a trip to the old country and
Paris, to be away a twelve-month, and the house was to be finished and
ready for them on their return. Young Brassington himself had a big
sheep-run round there. The railway wasn't thought of in those days, or
if it was, no Brassington could have dreamed that the line could have
been brought to Solong in any other direction than through the property
of the "Big Brassingtons," as they were called. Well, the young couple
went to Sydney, but whether they went farther the old residents did not
know. All they knew was that within a few weeks, and before the stone
foundations for the brick walls of the house were completed, the
building contract was cancelled, the workmen were dismissed, and the
place was left as I last saw it; only the ornamental pines had now grown
to trees. The Brassingtons and the bride's people were English families
and reserved. They kept the story, if there was a story, to themselves.
The girl's people left the district and squatted on new stations
up-country. The Big Brassingtons came down in the world and drifted to
the city, as many smaller people do, more and more every year. Neither
young Brassington nor his wife was ever again seen or heard of in the
district.

I attended my relative's funeral, and next day started back for Sydney.

Just as we reached Ilford, as it happened, the pin of the fore
under-carriage of the coach broke, and it took the blacksmith several
hours to set it right. The place was dull, the publican was not
communicative--or else he harped on the old local grievance of the
railway not having come that way--so about half an hour before I thought
the coach would be ready, I walked on along the road to stretch by legs.
I walked on and on until I came, almost unaware, to the site of the
house that was never built. The tent was still there, in fact, it was a
permanent camp, and I was rather surprised to see the man working with a
trowel on a corner of the unfinished foundations of the house. At first
I thought he was going to build a stone hut in the corner, but when I
got close to him I saw that he was working carefully on the origina