“And how are you to make the land pay without the plough, and somebody to guide it?” said Fraser. “I am not one that holds with civilisation. Most land will pay that’s well solicited with a good spade and a good stout arm. We’ll take a pickle meal with us, or let’s say flour, and the time the corn’s growing we’ll build our houses and live on our porridge. I do not approve of the Government, but it makes a good offer, and land cannot run away. Make yourself sure of a slice of the land; that is what I’ll always say.”
“Land,” said Spears, with some scorn in his tone, “that may be in the middle of a marsh, or on the cold side of a hill. I put no faith in the Government offer for my part, and a little less than none in your new township, Short. Did you ever read about Eden in Mr. Dickens’s book? I object to be slaughtered with fever for the sake of a new land company. Here is my opinion: Take your money with you as you please—in your old stocking, or in bits of paper—I,” said the demagogue, “feel the superiority of a man that has no money to take. I’ve got my head and my hands, and I mean to get my farm out of them. But let’s see the place first and choose. Let’s try the forest primeval, as they call it; but let us take our choice for ourselves.”
Fraser, who had projected himself half across the table leaning upon his elbows, and with his emphatic, blunt forefinger extended in act to speak, here interposed, pointing that member at Paul, who said nothing. “What’s he going to do? Hasn’t he got an opinion on the subject! I’m keen to know what a lad will say that has the most money to spend, and the most to lose—and a young fellow forbye;” said the Scot, flashing the light of his eager eyes upon Paul, who sat half-interested, half-disgusted, holding his refined head, and white hands, and fine linen, a little apart from the group round the table. He started slightly when he heard himself appealed to.
“If it is a false position to possess more than one’s neighbours here,” he said, “I hold it a still more false position to take what ought to be valuable to the country out of the country. I have very little money either to spend or to lose, and I think with Spears.”
“Ah,” said the Scotsman, “my lad, it’s a frolic for you. You’ll go and you’ll play at what is life or death to us—and by the time you’re tired of the novelty you’ll mind upon your folk at home, and your duty to them. I’ve seen the like before. None like you for giving rash counsels: not that you mean harm: but you know well you’ve them behind you that will be too glad to have you back. That’s not our case—with us it’s life or death.”
“Hold your tongue, Fraser,” said Spears. “This young fellow,”—he laid his hand upon Paul as he spoke, with a kind, paternal air, which perhaps the young man might have liked at another time, but which made him wince now—“is in earnest—no sort of doubt that he’s in earnest. He is giving up a great deal more than any of us are doing. We—that’s the worst of it—are making no sacrifice—we’re going because it suits us; but, to show his principles, he is giving up—a great deal more than was ever within our reach.”
“A man cannot give up more than he has got,” said the clerk. “What we are sacrificing is every bit as much to us.”
Spears kept his hand on Paul’s arm. He meant it very kindly, but it was warm and heavy, and Paul had all the desire in the world to pitch it off. He did not care for the paternal character of his instructor’s kindness.
“I don’t know what you are giving up,” said Spears. “I have got nothing to sacrifice, except perhaps a little bit of a perverse liking for the old country, bad as she is. It takes away a good deal of my pride in myself, if the truth were known, to feel that after all the talk I’ve gone through in my life, it isn’t for principle that I’m going, but to better myself. I told this young fellow he oughtn’t to go—that is the truth. He has no reason to be discontented. As long as the present state of things holds out, it’s to his interest, and doubly to his interest, to stay where he is. But this isn’t the kind of fellow to stand on what’s pleasant to himself. He’s coming for the grand sake of the cause—eh, Paul?—or if there’s another little bit of motive alongside, why that’s nothing to anybody. We are not going to make a talk of that.”
To imagine anything more distasteful to Paul than this speech would be impossible. Only by the most strenuous exercise of self-control could he keep from thrusting off Spears’s hand, his intolerable approval, and still more intolerable pleasantry. He got up at last, unable to bear it any longer. “We didn’t come here to comment on each other’s motives,” he said. “Suppose you go on with the business we met for, Spears.”