om being a master
he found himself a servant. He does not complain, nor appeal for pity. His
back is a little more bowed, he feels the cold a little more, his step is
yet more spiritless. But all he says about it is that 'Hard work never
made any money yet.'

He has worked exceedingly hard all his lifetime. In his youth, though the
family were then well-to-do, he was not permitted to lounge about in
idleness, but had to work with the rest in the fields. He dragged his
heavy nailed shoes over the furrows with the plough; he reaped and loaded
in harvest time; in winter he trimmed the hedgerows, split logs, and
looked after the cattle. He enjoyed no luxurious education--luxurious in
the sense of scientifically arranged dormitories, ample meals, and
vacations to be spent on horseback, or with the breechloader. Trudging to
and fro the neighbouring country town, in wind, and wet, and snow, to
school, his letters were thrashed into him. In holiday time he went to
work--his holidays, in fact, were so arranged as to fall at the time when
the lad could be of most use in the field. If an occasion arose when a lad
was wanted, his lessons had to wait while he lent a hand. He had his play,
of course, as boys in all ages have had; but it was play of a rude
character with the plough lads, and the almost equally rough sons of
farmers, who worked like ploughmen.

In those days the strong made no pretence to protect the weak, or to
abnegate their natural power. The biggest lad used his thews and sinews to
knock over the lesser without mercy, till the lesser by degrees grew
strong enough to retaliate. To be thrashed, beaten, and kicked was so
universal an experience that no one ever imagined it was not correct, or
thought of complaining. They accepted it as a matter of course. As he grew
older his work simply grew harder, and in no respect differed from that of
the labourers, except that he directed what should be done next, but none
the less assisted to do it.

Thus the days went on, the weeks, and months, and years. He was close upon
forty years old before he had his own will for a single day. Up to almost
that age he worked on his father's farm as a labourer among the labourers,
as much under parental authority as when he was a boy of ten. When the old
man died it was not surprising that the son, so long held down in
bondage--bondage from which he had not the spirit to escape--gave way for
a short period to riotous living. There was h