As night came on, after seeing their herd safe in a field, they naturally ate their supper at the adjacent inn.

Then sometimes, as a dainty treat with which to finish his meal, a drover would call for a biscuit, large and hard, as broad as his hand, and, taking the tallow candle, proceed to drip the grease on it till it was well larded and soaked with the melted fat.
At that date, before the Government stamp had been removed from newspapers, the roadside inn was the centre and focus of all intelligence.

When the first railway was constructed up in the North the Okebourne folk, like the rest of the world, were with good reason extremely curious about this wonderful invention, and questioned every passer-by eagerly for information.

But no one could describe it, till at last a man, born in the village, but who had been away for some years soldiering, returned to his native place.

He had been serving in Canada and came through Liverpool, and thus saw the marvel of the age.
At the Sun the folk in the evening crowded round him, and insisted upon knowing what a steam-engine was like.