full hogshead from the acre;--very often more. The estate had
sometimes given four hundred hogsheads in the year. But in the days
of which we now speak the crop had fallen below fifty.

At this time Maurice Cumming was eight-and-twenty, and it is hardly
too much to say that misfortune had nearly crushed him. But
nevertheless it had not crushed him. He, and some few like him, had
still hoped against hope; had still persisted in looking forward to a
future for the island which once was so generous with its gifts.
When his father died he might still have had enough for the wants of
life had he sold his property for what it would fetch. There was
money in England, and the remains of large wealth. But he would not
sacrifice Mount Pleasant or abandon Jamaica; and now after ten years'
struggling he still kept Mount Pleasant, and the mill was still
going; but all other property had parted from his hands.

By nature Maurice Cumming would have been gay and lively, a man with
a happy spirit and easy temper; but struggling had made him silent if
not morose, and had saddened if not soured his temper. He had lived
alone at Mount Pleasant, or generally alone. Work or want of money,
and the constant difficulty of getting labour for his estate, had
left him but little time for a young man's ordinary amusements. Of
the charms of ladies' society he had known but little. Very many of
the estates around him had been absolutely abandoned, as was the case
with his own coffee plantation, and from others men had sent away
their wives and daughters. Nay, most of the proprietors had gone
themselves, leaving an overseer to extract what little might yet be
extracted out of the property. It too often happened that that
little was not sufficient to meet the demands of the overseer
himself.