told me such a tale of horror—a sick family,
and a gaol staring him in the face, that I gave
him my last money—my carefully hoarded
money, and of what use are those cattle to
me? None whatever: You may have them
for your land, if you like. I have nothing
else."

"I will have them," said the man. " On a
distant station I know where I could sell
them, if I could only leave my family. But
they have no flour, no tea, nothing but meat,
meat, meat."

"Leave them to me," said Uriah, feeling
the warm blood and the spirit of humanity
beginning to circulate in his bosom at the
sense of what was really suffering around
him. " Leave them to me. I will care for
them. Your wife and children shall have a
doctor. I will find you some provisions for
your journey, and if ever your land is worth
anything, you shall have it again. This
state of things makes monsters of us. It
turns our blood into gall, our hearts into
stones. We must resist it or we are ruined,
indeed!"

"Nay," said the man, "I won't impose
upon you. Take that piece of land in the
valley there; it will one day be valuable."

"That!" said Uriah, looking. "That!
"Why, that is a swamp! I will take that—
I shall not hurt you there! " And he laughed
outright, the first time for two years.

Years went on, and my brother Uriah lived
on, but as it were in the valley of the shadow
of death. It was a melancholy and dispiriting
time. The buoyancy of his soul was gone.
That jovial, sunny, ebullient spirit with
which he used to come home from the city,
in England, had fled, as a thing that had
never been. He maintained himself chiefly
out of his garden. His children were springing
up into long, lanky lads and lasses. He
educated them himself, as well as he could;
and as for clothes! Not a navvy—not a beg-
gar—in the streets of London, but could
have stood a comparison with them, to their
infinite disparagement. Ah! those good three
thousand pounds! How will the balance
stand in my brother Uriah's books at the end
of the next twenty years?

But anon there awoke a slight motion in
the atmosphere of life. It was a mere flutter
of the air, that died out again. Then again
it revived—it strengthened it—blew like a
breath of life over the whole landscape.
Uriah looked around him from the very place
where he had sat on the stump in despair.
It was bright and sunny. He heard a sound
of an axe and a hammer. He looked, and
saw a house, that had stood a mere skeleton,
once more in progress. There were people
passing to and fro with a more active air.
What is that? A cart of goods? A dray of
building materials. There was life and
motion again! The discovery of converting
sheep and oxen into tallow had raised the
value of stock. The shops and the merchants
were once more in action. The man to whom
he had sold the oxen came up smiling—

"Things mend, sir. We shall soon be all
right. And that piece of land in the swamp,
that you were so merry over, will you sell it?
It lies near the wharves, and is wanted for
warehouses."

"Bravo! " cried Uriah, and they descended
the hill together. Part of the land was sold;
and soon substantial warehouses, of the native
trapstone, were rising upon it. Uriah's old
attachment to a merchant's life came over him.
With the purchase-money he built a
warehouse too. Labour was extremely low, and
he built a large and commodious one.

Another year or two, and behold Uriah
busy in his warehouse; his two boys clerking
it gravely in the counting-house. Things
grew rapidly better. Uriah and his family
were once more handsomely clad, handsomely
housed, and Uriah's jolly humour was again
in the ascendant. Every now and then
Robinson came hurrying in, a very busy man
indeed he was now, in the town council, and
moreover, mayor; and saying, "Well, Mrs.
Tattenhall, didn't I say it, eh? Is not this
boy of a colony on a fine sturdy pair of legs
again? Not down? Not dead? Well, well,
Tattenhall did me a kindness, then—by ready
cash for my land—I don't forget it; but I
don't know how I am to make him amends,
unless I come and dine with him some day."
And he was off again.

Another year or two, and that wonderful
crisis, the gold discovery, came. Then, what
a sensation—what a stir—what a revolution!
what running, and buying and bidding for
land, for prime business situations!—what
rolling in of people—capital—goods. Heaven
and earth!—what a scene—what a place—
what a people.

Ten years to a day from the last balance at
the Old Jewry, Uriah Tattenhall balanced
again, and his three thousand pounds was
grown to seventy thousand pounds, and was
still rolling up and on like a snow-ball.

There were George and Bob grown into
really tall and handsome fellows. George
was the able merchant, Bob had got a
station out at the Dundenong-hills, and
told wonderful stories of riding after
kangaroos, and wild bulls, and shooting splendid
lyre-birds—all of which came of reading
Pringle's Life in South Africa. There were
Mary and Lucy, two handsome girls as any
in the colony, and wonderfully attractive
to a young Benson and a younger Robinson.
Wonders were the next year to bring
forth, and amongst them was to be a grand
pic-nic at Bob's station, at the Dundenong, in
which they were to live out in real tents in
the forest, and cook, and bake, and brew, and
the ladies were to join in a bull-hunt, and
shoot with revolvers, and nobody was to
be hurt, or thrown, or anything to happen,
but all sorts of merriment and wild-wood
life.