pleasure that I would not have developed the spirit which torments me
now. Or had I a friend--one who knew, who had suffered and understood, one
in whom I could lose myself, one on whom I could lean--I might have grown
a nicer character. But in all the wide world there was not a soul to hold
out a hand to me, and I said bitterly, "There is no good in the world."
In softer moods I said, "Ah, the tangle of it! Those who have the heart
to help have not the power, and those who have the power have not the
heart."

Bad, like a too-strong opponent in a game of chess, is ever at the elbow
of good to checkmate it like a weakly managed king.

I am sadly lacking in self-reliance. I needed some one to help me over
the rough spots in life, and finding them not, at the age of sixteen I
was as rank a cynic and infidel as could be found in three days' march.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Possum Gully Left Behind. Hurrah! Hurrah!

If a Sydney man has friends residing at Goulburn, he says they are up the
country. If a Goulburn man has friends at Yass, he says they are up the
country. If a Yass man has friends at Young, he says they are up the
country, and so on. Caddagat is "up the country".

Bound thither on the second Wednesday in August 1896, I bought a ticket
at the Goulburn railway station, and at some time about 1 a.m. took my
seat in a second class carriage of the mail-train on its way to
Melbourne. I had three or four hours to travel in this train when I would
have to change to a branch line for two hours longer. I was the only one
from Goulburn in that carriage; all the other passengers had been in some
time and were asleep. One or two opened their eyes strugglingly, stared
glumly at the intruder, and then went to sleep again. The motion of the
train was a joy to me, and sleep never entered my head. I stood up, and
pressing my forehead to the cold window-pane, vainly attempted, through
the inky blackness of the foggy night, to discern the objects which flew
by.

I was too full of pleasant anticipation of what was ahead of me to think
of those I had left behind. I did not regret leaving Possum Gully. Quite
the reverse; I felt inclined to wave my arms and yell for joy at being
freed from it. Home! God forbid that my experiences at Possum Gully
should form the only food for my reminiscences of home. I had practically
grown up there, but my heart refused absolutely to regard it as home. I
hated it then, I hate it now, with it