AN UP-COUNTRY TOWNSHIP.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2284, 1 September 1870, Page 2

AN UP-COUNTRY TOWNSHIP.

The following, which appears in the A us(mhtsian of August 6, is by Marcus Clarke, the “Peripatetic Philosopher” Bullockstowu is situated, like all upcountry townships, on the banks of something that is a flood in winter and a mudhole in summer. For general purposes the inhabitants of the city called the something a river, and these intelligent land surveyors that mark “agricultural areas ” on the tops of lofty mountains, had given the river a very grand name indeed. The Pollywog Creek, or it was marked on the map, the Great Glimmers, took its rise somewhere about the Bowlby Gap, and after constructing a natural sheopwash for Bowlby, terminated in swamp, which was courteously termed Lake Landowne. No man had ever seen Lake Landowne but once, and that was during a flood ; but Lake Landowne th« place was called, and Lake Landowue it re.

mained ; reeds, tussocks, and brindled bullocks’ backs to the contrary, notwithstanding. There was a legend afloat in Bullockstown that an unhappy new comer from Little Britain had once purchased Lake Landowne from the Government, with the intention of building a summer residence on its banks, and becoming a landed proprietor. The first view of his estate, however, as seen from the hood of a partially submerged buggy, diverted his ambition to brandy and water, and having drunk hard for a week at the Three Posts, he returned into his original obscurity by the first Cobb’s coach driver that could be prevailed upon to receive him.

I do not vouch for the truth of the story, I only know that a peculiarly soapy spot on the edge of the “lake” was known as “Smuggins’ hole,” by reason of Smuggins, the landed proprietor, having been fished therefrom at an early period of his aforesaid landed-proprietorship. However, any impartial observer in the summer months could see Spot and Toby, Punch, and the rest of the station bullocks, feeding hard iu the middle of the lake, and if after that he chose to make observations nobody minded him. Mr Bapersole, the bootmaker and correspondent of the Quartz Crusher Advertiser, had a map in his back parlour, with Lake Landowne in the bigg'st of possible print on it, and that was quite enough for BuUocUotown. Impertinent strangers are—locally speaking—the rain of a township. There was a church in Bullockstown, and there were also three public-houses. It is not for me to make unpleasant comments, but I know for a fact that the minister vowed the place wasn’t worth buggy-hire, and that the publicans wera making fortunes. Perhaps this was owing to the unsettled state of the district—in up country townships most evils (including floods) arc said to arise from this cause—and could in time have been remedied. I am afraid that religion, as an art, was not cultivated much in Bullockstown. The seed sown there was a little mixed in character. One week you had a Primitive Methodist, and the next a Hardshell Baptist, and the next an Trvingite or a Southcotion. To do the inhabitants justice, they endeavoured very hard to learn the ins and outs of the business, but I do not believe that they ever succeeded. As old Wallaby observed one day, “ When you run a lot of paddockcd sheep into a race, what’s the good o’ sticken half-a-dozen fellers at_ the gate? The poor beggars don’t know which way to run. ” The township being on a main road, and not owning a resident parson, all sorts of strange preachers set up their tents there. It was considered a point of honour for all travelling cb rgyman (“ bush parsons,” the Bullockstownians called them) to give an evening at the “brick edifice.” Indeed, Tom Trowbridge, the publican (who owned the land on which the “edifice” was built), said that it was “only fair to take turn about, one went t’other come on, a clear stage and no favour,” but, then, Tom was a heathen, and had been a prizefighter. I think that of all the many “ preachments” the inhabitants suffered, the teetotal abstinence was received with the greatest favour. The “ edifice” was crowded, and Trowbridge, vowing that the teetotaler was a trump, ancf had during the two hours ho had been in his house drunk gingerbeerenough_ lohurst a gasometer, occupied the front powin alltbe heroic agony of a clean shirt and collar. The lec: ture was most impressive. Tom wept with mingled remorse and whiskey, ard they say that the carouse which took place in his backbar after the pledge ’was signed was the biggest that had been known in Bullocks: town since the diggings. The lecturer invited everybody to sign, and I believe that everybody did. “ Poll up, you poor lost lambs,” fhe cried, V‘and seal your blessed souls to abstinence !’’ He did not explain what “ abstinence” meant, and I have reason to believe that the major ty of his hearers thought it a peculiar sort of peppermint, invigorating and stimulating beyond the average of such concoctions. The effect, however, w r as immense. T1 g lambs signed to a w'ethcr, and where they could not sign, made their mark. The display of ignorance of the miserable art of writing nearly rivalled that shown at a general election. As the lecturer qaid afterwards, over a pint of warm orangewater in the harparlour, “ It was a blessed time,” and Mrs Mumford, of the Pound, volunteered to take her “dying oath” (whatever that might be) that Jerry had never been so “ loving drunk” in all his life before. > Billy, the hlackfellow, came up to the homestead two days afterwards, gaping like a black earthquake, and informed us that ho had taken “ big fellow pledge, big one square bottle that feller,” and felt “ berry bad. ” M'Killop, the overseer, gave him three packets of Epsom salts, and sent him down to the creek with a pannikin. Strange to say, he recovered.