“I thought they were favourable to the tenant.”
“Favourable in one sense, yes, sir,” (with a diplomatic air, as he fastens on me two little chocolate-coloured eyes) “but disastrous in the end, because they allow one to sell his tenant-right at a discount. You believe that it will set you up, and it is the very stone that makes you sink. The banks are our ruin, don’t you see? Once they have taken hold of their man they don’t let him out before they have skinned him” (a silence, then a sigh of mild envy). “It is, indeed, a good trade that of banking!”
He remains dreamy and seems to meditate the scheme of founding a bank in Canada.
Martin Mac Crea, 22 years old, a shepherd of Drumcunning. A Catholic. A tall, pale, thin fellow, decently dressed, with a wide-awake look. Goes to Queensland. Why? “Because there is no opening in Ireland. The most you can do is to earn your bare sustenance.” It appears that in Queensland it is quite a different affair. The profession of shepherd pays there. Let a man bring or save the money necessary to buy half-a-dozen sheep, and let them graze at their will. Seven or eight years later their name is legion, and the man is rich.
“But are you then quite free of ties here? Don’t you leave anybody, any relation, in Ireland?”
“I was obliged to live far from them, and where I go I shall be more able to help them. Besides, the post reaches there.”
“And the young ladies at Drumcunning. Do they allow you to go away without a protest?”
A broad smile lights up Martin Mac Crea’s countenance. A further conversation informs me that his betrothed has gone before him to Brisbane, where she is a servant. He is going to meet her, and they shall settle together in the bush, keeping sheep on their own account.
Let us hope she has waited for him. Queensland is far away!
Pat Coleman, twenty years old. A friend to the former. Son of a small farmer with six children. Nothing to do at home. Prefers going to the Antipodes, to see if there is a way there to avoid dying of starvation, as happened to his grandfather.