From Squire to Squatter: A Tale of the Old Land and the New

Bob did not go away on any particular honeymoon. He told Sarah they would have their honeymoon out when they went to the Bush.

Meanwhile, day after day, for a week, the miner bridegroom kept open house for Archie’s friends; and every morning some delightful trip was arranged, which, faithfully carried out, brought everyone hungry and happy back to dinner.

There is more beauty of scenery to be seen around Sydney in winter than would take volumes to describe by pen, and acres of canvas to depict; and, after all, both author and artist would have to admit that they had not done justice to their subject.

Now that he had really found friends – humble though they might be considered in England – life to Archie, which before his accident was very grey and hopeless, became bright and clear again. He had a present, and he believed he had a future. He saw new beauties everywhere around him, even in the city; and the people themselves, who in his lonely days seemed to him so grasping, grim, and heartless, began to look pleasant in his eyes. This only proves that we have happiness within our reach if we only let it come to us, and it never will while we sit and sulk, or walk around and growl.

Bob, with his young wife and Archie and Harry, made many a pilgrimage all round the city, and up and through the sternly rugged and grand scenery among the Blue Mountains. Nor was it all wild and stern, for valleys were visited, whose beauty far excelled anything else Archie had ever seen on earth, or could have dreamt of even. Sky, wood, hill, water, and wild flowers all combined to form scenes of loveliness that were entrancing at this sweet season of the year.

Twenty times a day at least Archie was heard saying to himself, “Oh, how I wish sister and Rupert were here!”

Then there were delightful afternoons spent in rowing about the bay.

I really think Bob was taking the proper way to enjoy himself after all. He had made up his mind to spend a certain sum of money on seeing all that was worth seeing, and he set himself to do so in a thoroughly business way. Well, if a person has got to do nothing, the best plan is to do it pleasantly.

So he would hire one of the biggest, broadest-beamed boats he could find, with two men to row. They would land here and there in the course of the afternoon, and towards sunset get well out into the centre of the bay. This was the time for enjoyment. The lovely chain of houses, the woods, and mansions half hid in a cloudland of soft greens and hazy blues; the far-off hills, the red setting sun, the painted sky, and the water itself casting reflections of all above.

Then slowly homewards, the chains of lights springing up here, there, and everywhere as the gloaming began to deepen into night.

If seeing and enjoying such scenes as these with a contented mind, a good appetite, and the certainty of an excellent dinner on their return, did not constitute genuine happiness, then I do not know from personal experience what that feeling is.

But the time flew by. Preparations had to be made to leave this fascinating city, and one day Archie proposed that Bob and he should visit Winslow in his suburban villa.

Chapter Seventeen
Mr Winslow in a Different Light

“You’ll find him a rough stick,” said Archie.

“What, rougher than me or Harry?” said Bob.

“Well, as you’ve put the question I’ll answer you pat. I don’t consider either you or Harry particularly rough. If you’re rough you’re right, Bob, and it is really wonderful what a difference mixing with the world has done for both of you; and if you knew a little more of the rudiments of English grammar, you would pass at a pinch.”

“Thank ye,” said Bob.

“You’ve got a bit of the bur-r-r of Northumbria in your brogue, but I do believe people like it, and Harry isn’t half the Cockney he used to be. But, Bob, this man – I wish I could say gentleman – Winslow never was, and never could be, anything but a shell-back. He puts me in mind of the warty old lobsters one sees crawling in and out among the rocks away down at the point yonder.

“But, oh!” added Archie, “what a little angel the daughter is! Of course she is only a baby. And what a lovely name – Etheldene! Isn’t it sweet, Bob?”

“I don’t know about the sweetness; there is a good mouthful of it, anyhow.”

“Off you go, Bob, and dress. Have you darned those holes in your gloves?”

“No; bought a new pair.”

“Just like your extravagance. Be off!”

Bob Cooper took extra pains with his dressing to-day, and when he appeared at last before his little wife Sarah, she turned him round and round and round three times, partly for luck, and partly to look at him with genuine pride up and down.

“My eye,” she said at last, “you does look stunning! Not a pin in sight, nor a string sticking out anywheres. You’re going to see a young lady, I suppose; but Sarah ain’t jealous of her little man. She likes to see him admired.”

“Yes,” said Bob, laughing; “you’ve hit the nail straight on the head; I am going to see a young lady. She is fourteen year old, I think. But bless your little bobbing bit o’ a heart, lass, it isn’t for her I’m dressed. No; I’m going with t’ young Squire. He may be all the same as us out here, and lets me call him Archie. But what are they out here, after all? Why, only a set o’ whitewashed heathens. No, I must dress for the company I’m in.”

“And the very young lady – ?”

“Is a Miss Winslow. I think t’ young Squire is kind o’ gone on her, though she is only a baby. Well, good-bye, lass.”

“Good-bye, little man.”

Etheldene ran with smiles and outstretched arms to meet Archie, but drew back when she noticed the immense bearded stranger.

“It’s only Bob,” said Archie. “Is your father in?”

“Yes, and we’re all going to have tea out here under the trees.”

The “all” was not a very large number; only Etheldene’s governess and father, herself, and a girl playmate.

Poor Etheldene’s mother had died in the Bush when she was little more than a baby. The rough life had hardly suited her. And this child had been such a little bushranger from her earliest days that her present appearance, her extreme beauty and gentleness, made another of those wonderful puzzles for which Australia is notorious.

Probably Etheldene knew more about the blacks, with their strange customs and manners, their curious rites and superstitions, and more about the home life of wallabies, kangaroos, dingoes, birds, insects, and every thing that grew wild, than many a professed naturalist; but she had her own names, or names given by blacks, to the trees and to the wild flowers.

While Etheldene, somewhat timidly it must be confessed, was leading big Bob round the gardens and lawns by the hand as if he were a kind of exaggerated schoolboy, and showing him all her pets – animate and inanimate – her ferns and flowers and birds, Winslow himself came upon the scene with the Morning Herald in his hand. He was dressed – if dressing it could be called – in the same careless manner Archie had last seen him. It must be confessed, however, that this semi-negligent style seemed to suit him. Archie wondered if ever he had worn a necktie in his life, and how he would look in a dress suit. He lounged up with careless ease, and stuck out his great spade of a hand.

Archie remembered he was Etheldene’s father, and shook it.

“Well, youngster, how are you? Bobbish, eh? Ah, I see Ethie has got in tow with a new chum. Your friend? Is he now? Well, that’s the sort of man I like. He’s bound to do well in this country. You ain’t a bad sort yourself, lad; but nothing to that, no more than a young turkey is to an emu. Well, sit down.”

Mr Winslow flung himself on the grass. It might be rather damp, but he dared not trust his weight and bulk on a lawn-chair.

“So your friend’s going to the Bush, and going to take you with him, eh?”

Archie’s proud soul rebelled against this way of talking, but he said nothing. It was evident that Mr Winslow looked upon him as a boy.

“Well, I hope you’ll do right both of you. What prospects have you?”

Archie told him how high his hopes were, and how exalted his notions.

“Them’s your sentiments, eh? Then my advice is this: Pitch ’em all overboard – the whole jing-bang of them. Your high-flown notions sink you English greenhorns. Now, when I all but offered you a position under me – ”

“Under your gardener,” said Archie, smiling. “Well, it’s all the same. I didn’t mean to insult your father’s son. I wanted to know if you had the grit and the go in you.”

“I think I’ve both, sir. Father – Squire Broadbent – ”

“Squire Fiddlestick!”

“Sir!”

“Go on, lad, never mind me. Your father – ”

“My father brought me up to work.”

“Tossing hay, I suppose, raking flower-beds and such. Well, you’ll find all this different in Australian Bush-life; it is sink or swim there.”

“Well, I’m going to swim.”

“Bravo, boy!”

“And now, sir, do you mean to tell me that brains go for nothing in this land of contrariety?”

“No,” cried Winslow, “no, lad. Goodness forbid I should give you that impression. If I had only the gift of the gab, and were a good writer, I’d send stuff to this paper,” (here he struck the sheet that lay on the grass) “that would show men how I felt, and I’d be a member of the legislature in a year’s time. But this is what I say, lad, Brains without legs and arms, and a healthy stomach, are no good here, or very little. We want the two combined; but if either are to be left out, why leave out the brains. There is many an English youth of gentle birth and good education that would make wealth and honour too in this new land of ours, if he could pocket his pride, don a workman’s jacket, and put his shoulder to the wheel. That’s it, d’ye see?”

“I think I do.”

“That’s right. Now tell me about your uncle. Dear old man! We never had a cross word all the time I sailed with him.”

Archie did tell him all, everything, and even gave him his last letter to read.

By-and-by Etheldene came back, still leading her exaggerated schoolboy.

“Sit down, Mr Cooper, on the grass. That’s the style.”

“Well,” cried Archie, laughing, “if everybody is going to squat on the grass, so shall I.”

Even Etheldene laughed at this; and when the governess came, and servants with the tea, they found a very happy family indeed.

After due introductions, Winslow continued talking to Bob.

“That’s it, you see, Mr Cooper; and I’m right glad you’ve come to me for advice. What I don’t know about settling in Bushland isn’t worth knowing, though I say it myself. There are plenty long-headed fellows that have risen to riches very quickly, but I believe, lad, the same men would have made money in their own country. They are the geniuses of finance; fellows with four eyes in their head, and that can look two ways at once. But they are the exception, and the ordinary man needn’t expect such luck, because he won’t get it.

“Now there’s yourself, Mr Cooper, and your friend that I haven’t seen; you’ve made a lucky dive at the fields, and you’re tired of gold-digging. I don’t blame you. You want to turn farmer in earnest. On a small scale you are a capitalist. Well, mind, you’re going to play a game, in which the very first movement may settle you for good or evil.

“Go to Brisbane. Don’t believe the chaps here. Go straight away up, and take time a bit, and look round. Don’t buy a pig in a poke. Hundreds do. There’s a lot of people whose interest is to sell A1 claims, and a shoal of greenhorns with capital who want to buy. Now listen. Maybe not one of these have any experience. They see speculation in each other’s eyes; and if one makes a grab, the other will try to be before him, and very likely the one that lays hold is hoisted. Let me put it in another way. Hang a hook, with a nice piece of pork on it, overboard where there are sharks. Everyone would like the pork, but everyone is shy and suspicious. Suddenly a shark, with more speculation in his eye than the others, prepares for a rush, and rather than he shall have it all the rest do just the same, and the lucky one gets hoisted. It’s that way with catching capitalists. So I say again, Look before you leap. Don’t run after bargains. They may be good, but – This young fellow here has some knowledge of English farming. Well, that is good in its way, very good; and he has plenty of muscle, and is willing to work, that is better. If he were all alone, I’d tell him to go away to the Bush and shear sheep, build fences, and drive cattle for eighteen months, and keep his eyes wide open, and his ears too, and he’d get some insight into business. As it is, you’re all going together, and you’ll all have a look at things. You’ll see what sort of stock the country is suited for – sheep, or cattle, or both; if it is exposed, or wet, or day, or forest, or all together. And you’ll find out if it be healthy for men and stock, and not ‘sour’ for either; and also you’ll consider what markets are open to you. For there’d be small use in rearing stock you couldn’t sell. See?”

“Yes,” said Bob; “I see a lot of difficulties in the way I hadn’t thought of.”

“Go warily then, and the difficulties will vanish. I think I’ll go with you to Brisbane,” added Winslow, after a pause. “I’m getting sick already of civilised life.”

Etheldene threw her arms round her father’s neck.

“Well, birdie, what is it? ’Fraid I go and leave you too long?”

“You mustn’t leave me at all, father. I’m sometimes sick of civilised life. I’m going with you wherever you go.”

That same evening after dinner, while Etheldene was away somewhere with her new friend – showing him, I think, how to throw the boomerang – Winslow and Archie sat out in the verandah looking at the stars while they sipped their coffee.

Winslow had been silent for a time, suddenly he spoke.

“I’m going to ask you a strange question, youngster,” he said.

“Well, sir?” said Archie.

“Suppose I were in a difficulty, from what you have seen of me would you help me out if you could?”

“You needn’t ask, sir,” said Archie. “My uncle’s friend.”

“Well, a fifty-pound note would do it.”

Archie had his uncle’s draft still with him. He never said a word till he had handed it to Winslow, and till this eccentric individual had crumpled it up, and thrust it unceremoniously, and with only a grunt of thanks, into one of his capacious pockets.

“But,” said Archie, “I would rather you would not look upon it as a loan. In fact, I am doubting the evidence of my senses. You – with all the show of wealth I see around me – to be in temporary need of a poor, paltry fifty pounds! Verily, sir, this is the land of contrarieties.”

Winslow simply laughed.

“You have a lot to learn yet,” he said, “my young friend; but I admire your courage, and your generous-heartedness, though not your business habits.”

Archie and Bob paid many a visit to Wistaria Grove – the name of Winslow’s place – during the three weeks previous to the start from Sydney.

One day, when alone with Archie, Winslow thrust an envelope into his hands.

“That’s your fifty pounds,” he said. “Why, count it, lad; don’t stow it away like that. It ain’t business.”

“Why,” said Archie, “here are three hundred pounds, not fifty pounds!”

“It’s all yours, lad, every penny; and if you don’t put it up I’ll put it in the fire.”

“But explain.”

“Yes, nothing more easy. You mustn’t be angry. No? Well, then, I knew, from all accounts, you were a chip o’ the old block, and there was no use offending your silly pride by offering to lend you money to buy a morsel of claim, so I simply borrowed yours and put it out for you.”

“Put it out for me?”

“Yes, that’s it; and the money is honestly increased. Bless your innocence! I could double it in a week. It is making the first thousand pounds that is the difficulty in this country of contrarieties, as you call it.”

When Archie told Bob the story that evening, Bob’s answer was:

“Well, lad, I knew Winslow was a good-hearted fellow the very first day I saw him. Never you judge a man by his clothes, Archie.”

“First impressions certainly are deceiving,” said Archie; “and I’m learning something new every day of my life.”

“I am going round to Melbourne for a week or two, boys,” said Winslow one day. “Which of you will come with me?”

“I’ll stop here,” said Bob, “and stick to business. You had better go, Archie.”

“I would like to, if – if I could afford it.”

“Now, just look here, young man, you stick that eternal English pride of yours in your pocket. I ask you to come with me as a guest, and if you refuse I’ll throw you overboard. And if, during our journey, I catch you taking your pride, or your purse either, out of your pocket, I’ll never speak another word to you as long as I live.”

“All right,” said Archie, laughing; “that settles it. Is Etheldene going too?”

“Yes, the child is going. She won’t stay away from her old dad. She hasn’t a mother, poor thing.”

Regarding Archie’s visit to Victoria, we must let him speak himself another time; for the scene of our story must now shift.

Chapter Eighteen
Book III – In the Wild Interior
“In This New Land of Ours.”

There was something in the glorious lonesomeness of Bush-life that accorded most completely with Archie’s notions of true happiness and independence. His life now, and the lives of all the three, would be simply what they chose to make them. To use the figurative language of the New Testament, they had “taken hold of the plough,” and they certainly had no intention of “looking back.”

Archie felt (this too is figurative) as the mariner may be supposed to feel just leaving his native shore to sail away over the broad, the boundless ocean to far-off lands. His hand is on the tiller; the shore is receding; his eye is aloft, where the sails are bellying out before the wind. There is hardly a sound, save the creaking of the blocks, or rattle of the rudder chains, the joyous ripple of the water, and the screaming of the sea-birds, that seem to sing their farewells. Away ahead is the blue horizon and the heaving sea, but he has faith in his good barque, and faith in his own skill and judgment, and for the time being he is a Viking; he is “monarch of all he surveys.”

“Monarch of all he surveys?” Yes; these words are borrowed from the poem on Robinson Crusoe, you remember; that stirring story that so appeals to the heart of every genuine boy.

There was something of the Robinson Crusoe element in Archie’s present mode of living, for he and his friends had to rough it in the same delightfully primitive fashion. They had to know and to practise a little of almost every trade under the sun; and while life to the boy – he was really little more – was very real and very earnest, it felt all the time like playing at being a man.

But how am I to account for the happiness – nay, even joyfulness – that appeared to be infused in the young man’s very blood and soul? Nay, not appeared to be only, but that actually was – a joyfulness whose effects could at times be actually felt in his very frame and muscle like a proud thrill, that made his steps and tread elastic, and caused him to gaily sing to himself as he went about at his work. May I try to explain this by a little homely experiment, which you yourself may also perform? See, here then I have a small disc of zinc, no larger than a coat button, and I have also a shilling-piece. I place the former on my tongue, and the latter between my lower lip and gum, and lo! the moment I permit the two metallic edges to touch I feel a tingling thrill, and if my eyes be shut I perceive a flash as well. It is electricity passing through the bodily medium – my tongue. The one coin becomes en rapport, so to speak, with the other. So in like manner was Archie’s soul within him en rapport with all the light, the life, the love he saw around him, his body being but the wholesome, healthy, solid medium.

En rapport with the light. Why, by day this was everywhere – in the sky during its midday blue brightness; in the clouds so gorgeously painted that lay over the hills at early morning, or over the wooded horizon near eventide. En rapport with the light dancing and shimmering in the pool down yonder; playing among the wild flowers that grew everywhere in wanton luxuriance; flickering through the tree-tops, despite the trailing creepers; gleaming through the tender greens of fern fronds in cool places; sporting with the strange fantastic, but brightly-coloured orchids; turning greys to white, and browns to bronze; warming, wooing, beautifying all things – the light, the lovely light. En rapport with the life. Ay, there it was. Where was it not? In the air, where myriads of insects dance and buzz and sing and poise hawk-like above flowers, as if inhaling their sweetness, or dart hither and thither in their zigzag course, and almost with the speed of lightning; where monster beetles go droning lazily round, as if uncertain where to alight; where moths, like painted fans, hover in the sunshine, or fold their wings and go to sleep on flower-tops. In the forests, where birds, like animated blossoms, living chips of dazzling colours, hop from boughs, climb stems, run along silvery bark on trees, hopping, jumping, tapping, talking, chattering, screaming, with bills that move and throats that heave even when their voices cannot be heard in the feathered babel. Life on the ground, where thousands of busy beetles creep, or play hide-and-seek among the stems of tall grass, and where ants innumerable go in search of what they somehow never seem to find. Life on the water slowly sailing round, or in and out among the reeds, in the form of bonnie velvet ducks and pretty spangled teal. Life in the water, where shoals of fish dart hither and thither, or rest for a moment in shallows to bask in the sun, their bodies all a-quiver with enjoyment. Life in the sky itself, high up. Behold that splendid flock of wonga-wonga pigeons, with bronzen wings, that seem to shake the sunshine off them in showers of silver and gold, or, lower down, that mob of snowy-breasted cockatoos, going somewhere to do something, no doubt, and making a dreadful din about it, but quite a sight, if only from the glints of lily and rose that appear in the white of their outstretched wings and tails. Life everywhere.

En rapport with all the love around him. Yes, for it is spring here, though the autumn tints are on the trees in groves and woods at Burley. Deep down in the forest yonder, if you could penetrate without your clothes being torn from your back, you might listen to the soft murmur of the doves that stand by their nests in the green gloom of fig trees; you would linger long to note the love passages taking place among the cosy wee, bright, and bonnie parrakeets; you would observe the hawk flying silently, sullenly, home to his castle in the inaccessible heights of the gum trees, but you would go quickly past the forest dens of lively cockatoos. For everywhere it is spring with birds and beasts. They have dressed in their gayest; they have assumed their fondest notes and cries; they live and breathe and buzz in an atmosphere of happiness and love.

Well, it was spring with Nature, and it was spring in Archie’s heart.

Work was a pleasure to him.

That last sentence really deserves a line to itself. Without the ghost of an intention to moralise, I must be permitted to say, that the youth who finds an undoubted pleasure in working is sure to get on in Australia. There is that in the clear, pure, dry air of the back Bush which renders inactivity an impossibility to anyone except ne’er-do-wells and born idiots. This is putting it strongly, but it is also putting it truthfully.

Archie felt he had done with Sydney, for a time at all events, when he left. He was not sorry to shake the dust of the city from his half-wellingtons as he embarked on the Canny Scotia, bound for Brisbane.

If the Winslows had not been among the passengers he certainly would have given vent to a sigh or two.

All for the sake of sweet little Etheldene? Yes, for her sake. Was she not going to be Rupert’s wife, and his own second sister? Oh, he had it all nicely arranged, all cut and dry, I can assure you!

Here is a funny thing, but it is also a fact. The very day that the Canny Scotia was to sail, Archie took Harry with him, and the two started through the city, and bore up for the shop of Mr Glorie.

They entered. It was like entering a gloomy vault. Nothing was altered. There stood the rows on rows of dusty bottles, with their dingy gilt labels; the dusty mahogany drawers; the morsel of railinged desk with its curtain of dirty red; there were the murky windows with their bottles of crusted yellows and reds; and up there the identical spider still working away at his dismal web, still living in hopes apparently of some day being able to catch a fly.

The melancholy-looking new apprentice, who had doubtless paid the new premium, a long lantern-jawed lad with great eyes in hollow sockets, and a blue-grey face, stood looking at the pair of them.

“Where is your master, Mr – ?”

“Mr Myers, sir. Myers is my name.”

“Where is Mr Glorie, Mr Myers?”

“D’ye wish to see’m, sir?”

“Don’t it seem like it?” cried Harry, who for the life of him “could not help putting his oar in.”

“Master’s at the back, among – the soap.”

He droned out the last words in such a lugubrious tone that Archie felt sorry for him.

Just then, thinking perhaps he scented a customer, Mr Glorie himself entered, all apron from the jaws to the knees.

“Ah! Mr Glorie,” cried Archie. “I really couldn’t leave Sydney without saying ta-ta, and expressing my sorrow for breaking – ”

“Your indenture, young sir?”

“No; I’m glad I broke that. I mean the oil-jar. Here is a sovereign towards it, and I hope there’s no bad feeling.”

“Oh, no, not in the least, and thank you, sir, kindly!”

“Well, good-bye. Good-bye Mr Myers. If ever I return from the Bush I’ll come back and see you.”

And away they went, and away went Archie’s feeling of gloom as soon as he got to the sunny side of the street.

“I say,” said Harry, “that’s a lively coon behind the counter. Looks to me like a love-sick bandicoot, or a consumptive kangaroo. But don’t you know there is such a thing as being too honest? Now that old death-and-glory chap robbed you, and had it been me, and I’d called again, it would have been to kick him. But you’re still the old Johnnie.”

Now if I were writing all this tale from imagination, instead of sketching the life and struggles of a real live laddie, I should have ascended into the realms of romance, and made a kind of hero of him thus: he should have gone straight away to the bank when he received that 50 pounds from his uncle, and sent it back, and then gone off to the bush with twopence halfpenny in his pocket, engaged himself to a squatter as under-man, and worked his way right up to the pinnacle of fortune.

But Archie had not done that; and between you and me and the binnacle, not to let it go any further, I think he did an extremely sensible thing in sticking to the money.

Oh, but plenty of young men who do not have uncles to send them fifty-pound notes to help them over their first failures, do very well without such assistance! So let no intending emigrant be disheartened.

Again, as to Winslow’s wild way of borrowing said 50 pounds, and changing it into 300 pounds, that was another “fluke,” and a sort of thing that might never happen again in a hundred years.

Pride did come in again, however, with a jump – with a gay Northumbrian bound – when Bob and Harry seriously proposed that Johnnie, as the latter still called him, should put his money in the pool, and share and share alike with them.

“No, no, no,” said the young Squire, “don’t rile me; that would be so obviously unfair to you, that it would be unfair to myself.”

When asked to explain this seeming paradox, he added:

“Because it would rob me of my feeling of independence.”

So the matter ended.

But through the long-headed kindness and business tact of Winslow, all three succeeded in getting farms that adjoined, though Archie’s was but a patch compared to the united great farms of his chums, that stretched to a goodly two thousand acres and more, with land beyond to take up as pasture.

But then there was stock to buy, and tools, and all kinds of things, to say nothing of men’s and boys’ wages to be paid, and arms and ammunition to help to fill the larder.

At this time the railway did not go sweeping away so far west as it does now, the colony being very much younger, and considerably rougher; and the farms lay on the edge of the Darling Downs.

This was a great advantage, as it gave them the run of the markets without having to pay nearly as much in transit and freight as the stock was worth.

They had another advantage in their selection – thanks once more to Winslow – they had Bush still farther to the west of them. Not adjacent, to be sure, but near enough to make a shift of stock to grass lands, that could be had for an old song, as the saying is.

The selection was procured under better conditions than I believe it is to be had to-day; for the rent was only about ninepence an acre, and that for twenty years, the whole payable at any time in order to obtain complete possession.

(At present agricultural farms may be selected of not more than 1280 acres, and the rent is fixed by the Land Board, not being less than threepence per acre per annum. A licence is issued to the selector, who must, within five years, fence in the land or make permanent improvements of a value equal to the cost of the fence, and must also live on the selection. If at the end of that time he can prove that he has performed the above conditions, he will be entitled to a transferable lease for fifty years. The rent for the first ten years will be the amount as at first fixed, and the rent for every subsequent period of five years will be determined by the Land Board, but the greatest increase that can be made at any re-assessment is fifty per cent.)

It must not be imagined that this new home of theirs was a land flowing with milk and honey, or that they had nothing earthly to do but till the ground, sow seed, and live happy ever after. Indeed the work to be performed was all earthly, and the milk and honey had all to come.