tes Court, he had found himself with the merest pittance
on which to support them. With a small sum he had embarked for Canada,
and was now forming a home for those he loved so well. There were
numbers of men in similar positions, of whom he knew in the
neighbourhood and in different parts of the province--not all, however,
doing equally well--some were successful, and they were the sober,
industrious, and judicious; others were in a bad way, mostly for the
best of reasons, because they were idle, and had taken to drinking--not
hard drinking, perhaps.

"That is not necessary to ruin a fellow," said D'Arcy. "I know several
of the description I speak of,--gentlemen of birth and education. There
is one especially, who, probably, begins the day after breakfast by
smoking a pipe or two, then takes axe or spade in hand, and coming in to
an early dinner feels his solitude, and that he must have a talk with
somebody. Instead of continuing his work, he mounts his cob, after
taking a glass or two of rum or whiskey grog--the more out of spirits he
feels the stiffer it is--and rides off to knock up some neighbour,
perhaps his equal, or perhaps utterly unfit to be his companion, as far
as social intercourse is concerned. On the way he looks in at the
store-house; he has an account, and takes a glass or two more, desiring
that it may be put down to him. Of course he never recollects how many
glasses he has had, nor how his account is swelling. He finds his
friend, brings him in (probably not unwillingly) from his work, and the
two spend the rest of the day together. He may find his way home at
night, or he may take a shake-down, and, rising with a splitting
headache, find himself utterly unable to do anything. He is going to
the bad very rapidly. His friends in England send him out money
occasionally, under the belief that it is spent on the farm, but it all
goes to pay off the storekeeper's account. Had it not been for this
assistance he would have knocked up long ago. As it is, I expect that
he has already mortgaged his farm, for a small amount, may be; but it's
a beginning--a second will follow--it is so easy an operation, and the
end cannot be far off. Now poor Jack Mason will go back to England, his
friends helping him, and abuse Canada, and say that it is a country
totally unfit for a gentleman to live in--that hardy, rough fellows may
subsist, but that no one can do more--no one can make a fortune."

"A man must