"'You see, ma'am, my lady, I have only got on my own place these three years; having a long family, we found it best to disperse about where the best wages was to be got. We began saving the first year, and my daughters have married pretty well, and my boys got to know the ways of the country. There's three of them married, thanks to your ladyship; so we thought we could set up for ourselves. And we've done pretty tidy. So, as they were all busy at home, I went down for the first time to get a couple of mares, and see about hiring some lads out of the ships to help us. You see I have picked up two newish ones; I have docked their frocks to a useful length, and I think they'll do after a bit; they can't read, neither of them—no more could I when I first came—but our teacher (she's one my missis had from you) will soon fettle them; and I've got a power of things on the dray; I wish you could be there at unloading; for it being my first visit, I wanted something for all of them. But about this babby is a curious job. When I went aboard the ship to hire my shepherds, I looked out for some of my own country; and while I was asking, I heard of a poor woman whose husband had been drowned in a drunken fit on the voyage, that was lying very ill, with a young babby, and not likely to live.

"'Something made me go to see her; she had no friends on board, she knew no one in the colony. She started, like, at my voice; one word brought on another, when it came out she was the wife of the son of my greatest enemy.

"'She had been his father's servant, and married the son secretly. When it was found out, he had to leave the country; thinking that once in Australia, the father would be reconciled, and the business that put her husband in danger might be settled. For this son was a wild, wicked man, worse than the father, but with those looks and ways that take the hearts of poor lasses. Well, as we talked, and I questioned her—for she did not seem so ill as they had told me—she began to ask me who I was, and I did not want to tell; when I hesitated, she guessed, and cried out, 'What, John Bodger, is it thee!'—and with that she screamed, and screamed, and went off quite light-headed, and never came to her senses until she died.

"'So, as there was no one to care for the poor little babby, and as we had such a lot at home, what with my own children and my grandchildren, I thought one more would make no odds, so the gentleman let me take it, after I'd seen the mother decently buried.

"'You see this feeding's a very awkward job, ma'am—and I've been five days on the road. But I think my missis will be pleased as much as with the gown I've brought her.'

"'What,' said Mrs. C., 'are you the John Bodger that came over in the 'Cassandra,'—the John B.?'

"'Yes, ma'am.'

"'John, the Brute?'

"'Yes, ma'am. But I'm altered, sure-ly.'

"'Well,' continued John, 'the poor woman was old Joseph Lobbit's daughter-in-law. Her husband had been forging, or something, and would have been lagged if he'd staid in England. I don't know but I might have been as bad if I had not got out of the country when I did. But there's something here in always getting on; and not such a struggling and striving that softens a poor man's heart. And I trust what I've done for this poor babby and its mother may excuse my brutish behaviour. I could not help thinking when I was burying poor Jenny Lobbit, (I mind her well, a nice little lass, about ten years old,) I could not help thinking as she lay in a nice, cloth-covered coffin, and a beautiful stone cut with her name and age, and a text on her grave, how different it is even for poor people to be buried here. Oh, ma'am! a man like me, with a long family, can make ahead here, and do a bit of good for others worse off. We live while we live; when we die we are buried with decency. I remember, when my wife's mother died, the parish officers were so cross, and the boards of the coffin barely stuck together, and it was terrible cold weather, too. My Carry used to cry about it uncommonly all the winter. The swells may say what they like about it, but I'll be blessed if it be'ent worth all the voyage to die in it.'