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The surname Mazere was a corruption of de Mazières, a name borne originally by a branch of the great Huguenot family of d'Abzac. The family tree boasted such dignitaries as the Archbishop of Naronne and, later, when the family was driven out of France during the religious persecution of the seventeenth century, the Bishop of Canchester in England added to its distinction.

Philip Mazere Senior therefore considered himself something of an aristocrat and was outraged when he learned that Philip, his firstborn, had lost his heart to Charlotte Pool. She was a member of a wild brood that had a run on a slope of the Bogong Mountains, by the wide windy plains of Maneroo where the streams, snow-fed from old Kosciusko, sing their icy way with a music that is meet accompaniment to the poetry of their names.

It was generally felt that Charlotte's father, old Boko Pool, must have been "sent out" to the colonies, and further, that his offence could have been no mere trifle. He was well over six feet tall, with unkempt jet-black hair and beard, and only one eye, which lent a sinister expression to his wild, forbidding appearance. It was further rumoured by Larry Healey of Little River, who enjoyed nothing better than to put about scandal concerning his neighbours, that while transportation might have changed his place of residence, it had not altered his black heart. It was said that he preferred the society of blacks to white men, that he ate snakes and goannas with Aboriginal relish, and that his first child had just escaped being born out of wedlock. Rumour had its way with him unchallenged for he never set foot in his neighbours' houses nor asked them into his. In a day when the very blacks were extended hospitality in the kitchens of the homesteads, this alone would have rendered him conspicuous.

However, as Charlotte grew towards maturity, tall and comely, a brown-skinned, bright-eyed beauty, the opposite sex did not await invitation and, since they constituted the bulk of society, the Pools no longer lacked company. Men of various ages came in droves and, among them by chance one evening came young Philip Mazere, slender of form, blue-eyed, gentle of manner and enamoured of adventure. He came seeking his father's shorthorn bull, a celebrated beast sired by imported stock, which had escaped from Three Rivers and had been tracked as far as Billy-go-Billy up towards the head of the Jenningningahma River. Steering for Gowandale, Philip had gone astray and at dusk fetched up at the Pool homestead where he stayed the night. The next day old Pool and his eldest son, Bert, both intrepid bushmen, enthusiastically entered into the business of helping Philip recover the bull. They were the best-suited of all the Maneroo settlers for the undertaking and it occupied them for ten days, with Pool's Creek as their headquarters.

It was inevitable that the shy and untutored Charlotte should be intrigued by this genial young man's correctness, inculcated in a well-regulated home that was modelled on a squire's hall of the old country. He actually carried sleeping attire about with him and a toothbrush, accoutrements derided by the men but which earned him favour with Charlotte, who was astonished by such refinements in a man.

At the age of thirteen, Charlotte had taken charge of a family of six younger brothers and sisters. She had the comfort of her mother, though constantly suffering and virtually bed-ridden, for only two years more, when Mrs Pool was laid to rest, with her two last, prematurely born, near Pool's Creek. After that, Charlotte was without an adviser.

But her courage and ability, far in excess of her years, and astonishing in view of her lack of opportunities, earned her a respect that made the neighbours wonder if Healey's gossip about old Pool wasn't ill-founded. And in those days no young man would have had the strength to visit the sins of the father even on a hangman's daughter, had she youth and comely form. So it was that Pool's alleged past was let drop by the next generation.