For life was made up not of large events but of small details, and today’s receptions, the many speeches, though they may appear of vital importance at the time (otherwise why the rush to catch the midnight express last night, why all those aldermen up before dawn dressed in their finery, their wives yawning?), would not be remembered in a hundred years. There had been a referendum last year and when it had failed it had seemed nothing short of a catastrophe. But in the end it had not mattered, for here they all were, a year later, holding another one.

As he had boarded the express at Cootamundra an official had handed Alasdair a telegram. He had stuffed it in a pocket of his coat and boarded the train and overseen the stowing of his bags and gone to the Premier’s compartment to discuss some point of issue for the following day. He had bade the others of their party goodnight and retired to his compartment with the telegram still in his pocket just as though such telegrams came every day and did not mean very much.

He had sat on his bed and adjusted the light and pulled out the telegram—sent from Sydney a few hours ago in reply to the one he himself had dispatched earlier, and reaching him only due to the greatest good fortune, for he had been at Cootamundra no more than a few hours—and his hand shook.

It was from Greensmith. It said simply: PATIENT TRENT CONSCIOUS THOUGH STILL ILL STOP DOCTORS HOPEFUL OF RECOVERY STOP AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS STOP GREENSMITH.

The minister had folded the telegram in two and then closed his fists around it. He had slid off the bed and dropped to his knees and crouched with his forehead touching the floor. And when, a few hours later, the train had rattled into Goulburn, he had stood at the window and the dawn had glowed orange and a vast flock of white cockatoos had risen to the air and filled the sky.

The Tour of the South was completed. The party left Goulburn by the last train and would arrive in Sydney at midnight. They would sleep in their own beds that night.

As the train plunged northwards through the dark, the gentlemen sat facing one another, the mood at first loud and boisterous—for the tour had been a success—and later contemplative and silent as they were rocked by the motion of the carriage. They thought about the wives awaiting their return, the urgent papers requiring their attention, their beds and a pipe or a good cigar by the fire.

The Premier leaned across the small space and patted Alasdair’s knee and said, ‘Come on with us tomorrow to Bathurst, Dunlevy—there is space enough and it will be a big event. You shall be my opening speaker.’