Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/126

. At last, on hearing my voice, he exclaimed, as he confronted me with a beaming countenance, 'Arrah, sure you're Master William.' 'That's my name, certainly,' I replied; 'have we ever met before?' 'Ah, thin, blud-anouns, how's every inch of you? Meet afore is it?—at Bomore, in ould Sligo, where you carried the day on Irishman.' 'So, you recollect me, I see,' said I, though that race came off some years ago.' 'Remimber you, indeed; why thin I'd be far gone wid sore eyes if I wouldn't know your skin on a bush. But there's no use in talkin',' he continued, 'come down wid me, sir, an' see the place an' family.'

"I went with him accordingly, and, in explanation, was enabled to bring to mind some home reminiscences of his family and neighbourhood, which delighted him beyond measure. His name was Carty; he lived in the town, but had a fine block of land of sixty acres in the suburbs, all under crop, and every inch his own. At home, a few years before, he was one of that poor spalpeen class who rented an acre of land and a mud cabin, and went over to reap the harvest in England in order to make up the rent; but on the occasion of our meeting, he owned a plot in the town, and built the house he inhabited by means of his earnings from the farm, which he purchased at the upset price of £1 per acre before the diggings commenced—rather a radical change in his condition in a very brief period. He explained to me the reason of the aggregation of Irish in the neighbourhood in a very simple and natural way—one that will be very easily understood by any person familiar with the invariable habits of the Irish emigrants on the American continent, where the first use an exile of Erin makes of his savings is to remit every penny beyond that required for