Gathered In by Catherine Helen Spence — Read

The old-accustomed passengers by railway to Castlehurst were a little amused at Kenneth's active curiosity as to the country he was travelling through; at his interest in the great gum trees and the various wattles with their different flowers; the townships they stopped at for passengers; the lay of the country; and the character of the buildings. Castlehurst, though not so busy a place as it used to be, was a much larger town than he could have supposed could exist out of Melbourne. In the town itself, there was little sign of digging, but out of it in all directions there were holds and quartz- crushing establishments, and in the town a Stock Exchange of a character peculiar to California or Australia, where claims and reefs and Quartz Companies occupied the foreground, and anything in the way of Bank stock, or Railway shares, or Joint-stock Companies of miscellaneous kinds was modestly kept in the background. As he heard the talk and the jabber, and noted the eager faces of buyers and sellers, he thought surely his fellow-passengers were mistaken about the pre-eminent importance of wool.

Kenneth felt somewhat disappointed that there had been no one sent to meet him, and leaving a message at the station that he had gone on the Exchange with a Castlehurst railway passenger, Kenneth took the opportunity of looking about a little.