declared that they had no doubt about staying on, now that they saw
what the young squire really was. It made a great impression on them
that, when in some farmyard arrangements there was a moment's danger
of a faggot pile falling, he put his shoulder against it and propped
the whole weight without effort. His manhood, strength, and
knowledge of work delighted them, and they declared already that he
would be a good friend to the poor.

I confess that here lay what alarmed me. He was always given to few
words, but I could see that he was shocked at the contrast between
our poor and the Australian settlers, where food and space were
plenty and the wages high. I was somewhat hurt at his way of viewing
what had always seemed to me perfection, at least all that could be
reasonably expected for the poor--our pet school, our old women, our
civil dependents in tidy cottages, our picturesque lodges; and I did
not half like his trenchant questions, which seemed to imply censure
on all that I had hitherto thought unquestionable, and perhaps I told
him somewhat impatiently that, when he had been a little longer here,
he would understand our ways and fall naturally into them.

"That's just what I don't want," he said.

"Not want?" I exclaimed.

"Yes; I want to see clearly before I get used to things."

And as, perhaps, I seemed to wonder at this way of beginning, he
opened a little, and said, "It is my father. He told me that if ever
I came here I was to mind and do his work."