THE BOY FROM THE SIR WALTER SCOTT.(remembering Bill Davidson)

FACED WITH the morning chore of making the bed, I often think of my father-in-law, Bill Davidson. It is many years since he died in his nineties. Why should his memory still spring so sharply and so frequently to mind at bed-making time in the mornings?

He was raised in the valley of East Gippsland's Tambo River, a sheep and cattle man on what one would call a modest-to-medium scale, and who also grew the odd crop of oats or other cereal from time to time. His place was called Tambo Crossing, from the stony, shallow spot where Mitchell's coach horses used to splash through the cold river, and begin their steep climb up the old Alpine Road to Omeo.

At night, the sound of the Tambo flowing down to the sea at faraway Lakes Entrance drifted one off to sleep, lying in bed in the comfortable wide-verandahed hotel. Hotel? Yes. Bill Davidson's forebears, like Doctor Johnson, understood that the throne of human felicity might well be found in a tavern, so they built one on the edge of their own grazing land, where the new road to Omeo ran by. It became famous as the Sir Walter Scott Hotel.

This was no mere pub. It was civilisation, with the Royal Mail delivered and picked up from the post office which stood at one end of the veranda. Later, when modernity stretched tentatively up the Tambo, this also was the site of the "exchange" of the newfangled telephone, of which a briskly turned handle might (if the lines were not down that day) cause a bell to ring in some distant homestead. When this happened, a whole hushed district would gather round their own phones, to enjoy the news in secret over the open party line.

What a table used to be spread before guests at the old Sir Walter Scott! Milk, cream and butter from its own dairy; cheese from Somerville's cheese factory just around a bend of the river; vegetables and fruit from the garden and the orchard near the riverside. The chops and the roast sirloins came from the paddocks all around. Certain reaches of the river offered fabulous fishing to visiting fly-fishermen.

On circuit, Mr Holmes, the police magistrate, would stage there overnight, handing over his tired saddlehorse to the groom, who would also collect and care for the obedient old packhorse who trailed along behind. Upon his back were transported the indispensable calf-bound volumes of the law, stowed in great leather packs, and tucked in with the magistrate's clean shirts and changes of underwear.

In the morning, riding boots brightly shined for him by the servants overnight, Mr Holmes would stand grandly by the front steps to receive the bridle reins from the groom. A white silk handkerchief would be whipped from the magisterial breast pocket and brushed lightly across the horse's rump. Provided that no visible speck of dust transferred itself to the silk, sixpence would drop into the groom's expectant hand. Mr Holmes would mount, and The Law would process up the rough road to Omeo, humble packhorse bringing up the rear.