to drink this water.

I felt cramped on our new run. It was only three miles wide at its
broadest point. Was I always, always, always to live here, and never,
never, never to go back to Bruggabrong? That was the burden of the grief
with which I sobbed myself to sleep on the first night after our arrival.

Mother felt dubious of her husband's ability to make a living off a
thousand acres, half of which were fit to run nothing but wallabies, but
father was full of plans, and very sanguine concerning his future. He was
not going to squat henlike on his place as the cockies around him did. He
meant to deal in stock making of Possum Gully merely a depot on which
to run some of his bargains until reselling.

Dear, oh dear! It was terrible to think he had wasted the greater part of
his life among the hills where the mail came but once a week, and where
the nearest town, of 650 inhabitants, was forty-six miles distant. And
the road had been impassable for vehicles. Here, only seventeen miles
from a city like Goulburn, with splendid roads, mail thrice weekly, and a
railway platform only eight miles away, why, man, my fortune is made!
Such were the sentiments to which he gave birth out of the fullness of
his hopeful heart.

Ere the diggings had broken out on Bruggabrong, our nearest neighbour,
excepting, of course, boundary-riders, was seventeen miles distant.
Possum Gully was a thickly populated district, and here we were
surrounded by homes ranging from half a mile to two and three miles away.
This was a new experience for us, and it took us some time to become
accustomed to the advantage and disadvantage of the situation. Did we
require an article, we found it handy, but decidedly the reverse when
our neighbours borrowed from us, and, in the greater percentage of cases,
failed to return the loan.

CHAPTER THREE

A Lifeless Life

Possum Gully was stagnant--stagnant with the narrow stagnation prevalent
in all old country places.

Its residents were principally married folk and children under sixteen.
The boys, as they attained manhood, drifted outback to shear, drove, or
to take up land. They found it too slow at home, and besides there was
not room enough for them there when they passed childhood.

Nothing ever happened there. Time was no object, and the days slid
quietly into the river of years, distinguished one from another by name
alone. An occasional birth or death was a big event, and the biggest
e