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CHAPTER VI.
THE DYING SQUATTER'S DREAM.
You have nothing else to do
But make others work for you;
And you never need to know
How the workers' children grow;
You need only shut your eyes
And be selfish, cold, and wise."—Holyoake.
Between the Dowlings on their little reserve, and the proprietor of the estates extending in all directions around them, a deadly feud existed. The latter owned more than he could ride round in a day, yet he coveted the little farm the decayed gentleman had set by the roadside. The atmosphere of content that surrounded it contrasted with his own feelings of unrest and dissatisfaction. Leicester impounded the poor man's cattle if they strayed, was suspected of setting his dogs on the daughter's "one ewe lamb" when it wandered, summoned the "genteel Cockey," as he termed him, to the Court at Gumford on the charge of "creating a nuisance," when the experimenting lawyer-farmer excavated a silo near the great man's fence. Leicester took his seat on the bench on that occasion and adjudicated on the case; the township Boniface and storekeeper deeming it politic to consent to the order for removal of the nuisance. Poor Bowling's cows yielded no milk that winter.
