‘Australia was always a beastly hole,’ he continued; ‘but really, I think, when—even before—it comes to what I have outlined, it will cease to be fit for a gentleman to live in.’
‘You must pardon me for expressing a directly contrary opinion,’ replied Ernest, who had been gradually girding himself up to answer Mr. Croker according to his humour. ‘I hold that this is precisely the time, and these are the exact circumstances, which render it a point of honour for every gentleman who has past or present interest in the land to live in it, to stand by his colours and lead his regiment in the battle which is so imminent. Now is the time for those who have felt or asserted an interest in this glorious last-discovered Eldorado, far down in the list of English provinces which have a way of changing into nations, to uphold with all the manhood that is in them her righteous laws, her goodly customs, her pure yet untrammelled liberty. In my mind, he who takes advantage of the rise in prices to quit Australia for ever at this hour of her social need, deserts his duty, abandons his post, and confesses himself to be less a true colonist than a sordid huckster!’
As Mr. Neuchamp delivered himself of this perhaps slightly coloured estimate of the duty of a pastoral tenant, unheeding of the implied rebuke to the last speaker, he raised his head and confronted the company with the air of the captain of a sinking ship who has vowed to stand by her while a plank floats.
Jermyn Croker coloured, but did not immediately reply, while the host took occasion to interfere, as became his position of mediator between over-hasty disputants.
‘I think you are both a little beyond the mark,’ he said; ‘if you will allow me, who have lived here since Sydney was a small seaside village, to give you my ideas. No doubt, as Croker says, we shall have a queer crew, with every kind of lubber and every known sort of blackguard to deal with. But what of that? Discipline has always been kept up in old New South Wales,—in times, too, when matters looked black enough. The same men, or their sons, are here now who showed themselves equal to the occasion before. We have Old England at our backs; and though she doesn’t bother us with much advice or short leading strings, she has a ship or two and a regiment left which are at the service of any of her colonies when need is.’
‘Every country where gold has been discovered up to this time has gradually degenerated and come to grief,’ asserted Croker, recovering from his dissatisfied silence; ‘not that much degeneration is possible here.’
‘You are thinking of the Spaniards, the Mexicans, and so on,’ said Paul. ‘I’ve been among them, and know all about their ways. They are not so much worse than other people. But even so: English people have always managed to govern themselves under all circumstances, and will again, I venture to bet.’
‘I came out here thinking Australia a good place to make money. I always knew England was a good place to spend it in,’ averred Mr. Croker. ‘I’m a man of few ideas, I confess. But I have stuck to these few, and I think I see my way.’
‘I suppose we all do,’ said Mr. Frankston; ‘but some have more luck or better eyesight than others. Our friend Levison wouldn’t make a bad man at the “look-out” in dirty weather, eh, Ernest? What do you think of him, Croker?‘
‘Think? why, that he’s an immensely overrated man; he has made a few hits by straightforward blundering and kept what he has got. I give him credit for that. But who’s to know whether all this station property that stands in his name is really his? The banks may have the lion’s share for all anybody knows.’