Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/491

 eucalyptus saplings to interlace his 'drop' fence—an effective and not wholly unpicturesque road border.

From time to time amid the larger enclosures we came across a half-forlorn, half-picturesque patch 'where once a garden smiled.' A roofless cottage, a score of elms and poplars, with straggling rose-bushes abloom among the thistles, mark the abandoned homestead. In the 'distressful country' these would be the signs of an eviction. Here, when Michael or Patrick unhouses himself, he does so with a comfortable cheque in his pocket and the wherewithal to 'take up' a larger holding, perhaps six hundred and forty acres, or even in the central district, two thousand five hundred, by the payment in cash to the Crown—of how much does the reader unlearned in the New South Wales land laws believe? Two shillings per acre! The remaining balance of eighteen shillings per acre to be paid in twenty years, with interest at five per cent. or ninepence per acre annually! The neighbouring landholder has bought out honest Pat or Donald, or François or Wilhelm, as the case may be—several nationalities being here represented—giving him a handsome profit in cash for his labour and outlay. The fences are then pulled down, the roof falls in, the elms, the poplars, with a few peach-trees and roses, alone remain to tell the tale of the deserted homestead. As we pass one of these, a grand cloth-of-gold bush, six feet and more in height, hanging over a fence, tempts us with its fragrant clusters. We choose a lovely bud and an opening flower, with its curiously-blended shades of gold and faintest pink, and, much moralising, go our way.

In the good old days, when there was no salvation outside of vast pastoral holdings, when small freeholds were considered not only inexpedient but immoral, this was held to be a waterless region, unfit for the habitation of man, away from the river frontage. Now near every farm appears a dam or other successful method of conserving water. The homesteads, too, are well built, and substantial for the most part, standing in neatly-kept gardens and fruitful orchards. Milch kine graze in the fields or stroll about the grassy roadways, sleek-skinned, well-bred, and profitable-looking.

No indications save those of comfortable living and easygoing rural prosperity present themselves. Buggies or tax-carts with active horses, driven mostly by farmers' wives or