Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/192

182 ward; especially when she remembered the unfortunate condition in which her ordinarily sober husband returned from the ploughing-match! For Mr. Grogham was a public-spirited man. Inaugurated races, too, merely "for the good of the district"—in his paddock. He is now member of Parliament for the county, having defeated old Fenceoff by twenty votes. He could have bought two hundred with his nobblers had it been necessary.

Many selectors, other than Silas Sandbach, were attracted by the flow of water and of the milk of human kindness towards the already famed valley. Weary of carting water, they secured from the doctor terms whereby they could settle below the lake opposite Hygeia.

By degrees a new settlement was formed. Five thousand acres were set apart for the fugitives from the plains, fifty acres each. The deeds of their own land, rescued by the doctor for a bagatelle from the storekeepers of Gumford and Cockietown, were placed in Escrow in the local bank as against advances made to the new-comers for provisions, materials, &c. A figure was agreed to as representing value per acre of the old land and the new.

The waters were carried on to the new land. Those who had failed to exist on their three hundred and twenty acres worked singly, prospered upon the fifty acres each, operated upon in common.

The new settlers elected their own trustees, with the doctor as chairman, binding themselves by means of an agreement as to discipline and mode of working. Kokiana, as the new settlement came to be called, benefited by the organization already existing. It was charged merely the cost to the old settlement of services rendered. The Mimosa Vale people derived advantages proportionately.

Though the lakes had held out during the severe strain