Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/491

Rh twenty years' trade, and the balance the same to a pound as that I began with. Three thousand I started with, and three thousand is precisely my capital at this moment."

"Is that all?" said Mrs. Tattenhall, wonderfully relieved. "Be thankful, my dear Uriah, that you have three thousand pounds. You have your health wonderfully: we have all our health; we have children, as good and promising children as anybody is blessed with, and a happy home, and live as well and comfortably as any one need to do, or as I wish, I am sure. What do we want more?"

"What do we want more?" said Uriah, drawing up his legs suddenly, and clapping his hands in a positive sort of a way on his knees. "Why, I for one, want a great deal more. We've children, you say, and a home, and all that. Heaven be thanked, so we have! but I want our children to have a home after us. Three thousand pounds divided amongst four, leaves about seven hundred and fifty each. Is it worth while to fag a whole life, and leave them that and a like prospect? No," continued Uriah, in a considering manner, and shaking his head. "No, I want something more; more for myself; more for them; more room; more scope, a wider horizon, and a more proportionate result of a whole human existence. And do you know, Maria, what I have come to as the best conclusion? To go out to Australia."

"To go out to Australia!" said Mrs. Tattenhall, in astonishment. "My dear Uriah, you are joking. You mean no such thing."

"But that is just what I do mean," said Uriah, taking his wife's hand affectionately; "I have thought of it long, and the toad-in-the-wall balance has determined me. And now what I ask of you is to look at it calmly and earnestly. You know the Smiths, the Browns, and the Robinsons have gone out. They report the climate delicious, and that wonders are doing. A new country, if it be a good country, is the place to grow and thrive in, without doubt. Look at the trees in a wood. They grow up and look very fine in the mass. The wood, you say, is a very fine wood; but when you have looked at the individual trees, they are crowded and spindled up. They cannot put out a single bough beyond a certain distance; if they attempt it, their presuming twigs are poked back again by sturdy