The old station was on its last legs.

"The flags were flying half-mast high." A crowd of people were there.

Cart-horses with harness on, and a lot of tired-looking saddle-hacks, covered with dry sweat, were fastened to cart-wheels, and to every available post and place.

Heaps of old iron, broken-down drays and buggies and wheel-barrows, pumps and pieces of machinery, which Dad reckoned were worth a lot of money, were scattered about.

Dad yearned to gather them all up and cart them home.