It was possible to lead a sober, Godfearing life, no matter in what rude corner of the globe you were pitchforked.-- And in this mood he was even willing to grant the landscape a certain charm.

Since leaving Ballan the road had dipped up and down a succession of swelling rises, grass-grown and untimbered.

From the top of these ridges the view was a far one: you looked straight across undulating waves of country and intervening forest-land, to where, on the horizon, a long, low sprawling range of hills lay blue--cobalt-blue, and painted in with a sure brush--against the porcelain-blue of the sky.

What did the washed-out tints of the foliage matter, when, wherever you turned, you could count on getting these marvellous soft distances, on always finding a range of blue-veiled hills, lovely and intangible as a dream?
There was not much traffic to the diggings on a Sunday.

And having come to a level bit of ground, the riders followed a joint impulse and broke into a canter.