CHAPTER 8.
The 'big squatter', as he was called on our side of the country, was Mr.
Falkland.

He was an Englishman that had come young to the colony, and worked his way up by degrees.

He had had no money when he first came, people said; indeed, he often said so himself.

He was not proud, at any rate in that way, for he was not above telling a young fellow that he should never be downhearted because he hadn't a coat to his back or a shilling in his pocket, because he, Herbert Falkland, had known what it was to be without either.

'This was the best country in the whole world,' he used to say, 'for a gentleman who was poor or a working man.' The first sort could always make an independence if they were moderately strong, liked work, and did not drink.