‘But,’ said Courtenay, rather disrespectfully, ‘why should I improve those classes, from which as a land-owner and very minor capitalist, I find it hard enough to defend my property as it is? Go and test a grocer in arithmetic, you will find him the more accurate man, and the readier. Try a labourer at his own cart, and see how he is at once your superior. Depend upon it, all this upheaval of lower social strata is bad. Some day we may find that we have freed internal fires and exploded social volcanoes.’
‘I shall make the attempt where I am going, however,’ said Ernest with decision. ‘It may be that there are peculiar advantages in a new land, and a sparse population, without the crushing vested interests which weigh one to the dust in the old world.’
‘Perhaps you may gather some of the dust of the new, which is gold, they say, if they don’t lie, as most probably they do. Then you can rear an Australian Neuchampstead, which will be the third, under such conditions, built by our family, if old records are true. I wish you were taking more capital with you, old fellow, though.’
Here the elder man slightly relaxed the cold undemonstrative regard which his aquiline features usually wore, as he gazed for a few moments upon the ardent expressive face of the cadet of his house. ‘It’s another of the family faults that we can neither stay decently together at home, nor fit out our knights-errant worthily for the crusade.’
‘My dear Courtenay,’ said the younger son, touched to the depth of a delicate and sensitive nature by the rare concession of the head of the house, ‘things are best as they are. You have enough which you require. I have not enough, which is an equal necessity of my nature. I should die here like a falcon in a corn-chandler’s shop, pining for the sweep of her long wings against the sea-cliff, where with wave and tempest she could scream in concert. Hope and adventure are my life, the breath of my nostrils, and forth I must go.’
‘Well, my blessing go with you, Ernest; I neither mistrust your courage nor capacity, and in any land you will probably hold your own. But I should have more confidence in your success if you had less of that infernal Neuchamp taste for managing other people’s affairs.’
‘But, my dear Courtenay, is it not the part of a true knight and a Christian man to lead others into the right path? We thankfully accept it from others. I think of the many needs of a new land, and of the rude dwellers therein.’
‘I hate to be put right—colonists may be of the same opinion. You never can be induced to do anything that is suggested by another, or any Neuchamp, that I ever heard of.’
‘Because we take particular care to be identified with the latest, and most successful practice in all respects.’
‘Because we are always right, I suppose. A comfortable theory, but of which the public cannot always be convinced. I never try to convince them—I merely wish to be left alone. That is where I differ from you.’