Up the Country: A Saga of Pioneering Days

Saddened by the changed appearance of their firstborn, the senior Mazeres were anxious to have Charlotte and Philip settle at Three Rivers, in the actual homestead. Hugh was engaged to Jessie and Emily was likely to marry at any time so, anxious to fill the looming void, his father offered Philip his beloved mill and a farm. Philip, however, had other ideas. He did not trust his father's uncertain temper and wanted his inheritance to be safely separate, so that it could not be peremptorily recalled due to a difference of opinion or policy. Charlotte, likewise, wished to be independent. It was due to her efforts at Mount Alexander that they now had a comfortable nest egg. Philip had come to agree with her that the diggings were institutions from which a competence might be made, rather than a fortune.

There was land to be had between Mungee and Coolooluk, and here Philip meant to establish a mill, just on the fringe of the mining operations. Charlotte was to have cows, poultry and pigs, so that when the diggings were played out they would have a comfortable grazier's plant to fall back upon. On the diggings Philip had noted the need for heavy horses suitable for transport work, and now he proposed to breed such from Shire stock. His father supported him enthusiastically in this venture, for he had been preaching for some time that horses would be swifter, stronger and altogether more profitable for the great carrying trade, inevitably developing with the increase in population, than the slow and unwieldy bullock. Stock, both men prognosticated, must rise in price. The difficulty in securing shepherds and stockmen was being overcome by the continual arrival of immigrants in search of work, and also because a number of men who had had their fling on the goldfields were now anxious to settle down, either as workers or owners of land. As well, the advance of fencing was doing away with the need for so many shepherds and stockmen.