‘Leave Europe behind you,’ said Mr. Adister warming, to advise him, and checking the trot of his horse.  ‘Try South America.’  The lordly gentleman plotted out a scheme of colonisation and conquest in that region with the coolness of a practised freebooter.  ’No young man is worth a job,’ he said, ’who does not mean to be a leader, and as leader to have dominion.  Here we are fettered by ancestry and antecedents.  Had I to recommence without those encumbrances, I would try my fortune yonder.  I stood condemned to waste my youth in idle parades, and hunting the bear and buffalo.  The estate you have inherited is not binding on you.  You can realise it, and begin by taking over two or three hundred picked Irish and English—­have both races capable of handling spade and musket; purchasing some thousands of acres to establish a legal footing there.

’You increase your colony from the mother country in the ratio of your prosperity, until your power is respected, and there is a necessity for the extension of your territory.  When you are feared you will be on your mettle.  They will favour you with provocation.  I should not doubt the result, supposing myself to have under my sole command a trained body of men of English blood—­and Irish.’

‘Owners of the soil,’ rejoined Patrick, much marvelling.

‘Undoubtedly, owners of the soil, but owing you service.’

‘They fight sir’

’It is hardly to be specified in the calculation, knowing them.  Soldiery who have served their term, particularly old artillerymen, would be my choice:  young fellows and boys among them.  Women would have to be taken.  Half-breeds are the ruin of colonists.  Our men are born for conquest.  We were conquerors here, and it is want of action and going physically forward that makes us a rusty people.  There are—­Mr. Adister’s intonation told of his proposing a wretched alternative,—­’the Pacific Islands, but they will soon be snapped up by the European and North American Governments, and a single one of them does not offer space.  It would require money and a navy.’  He mused.  ’South America is the quarter I should decide for, as a young man.  You are a judge of horses; you ride well; you would have splendid pastures over there; you might raise a famous breed.  The air is fine; it would suit our English stock.  We are on ground, Mr. O’Donnell, which my forefathers contested sharply and did not yield.’

‘The owners of the soil had to do that,’ said Patrick.  ’I can show the same in my country, with a difference.’

‘Considerably to your benefit.’

‘Everything has been crushed there barring the contrary opinion.’

‘I could expect such a remark from a rebel.’

‘I’m only interpreting the people, sir.’

‘Jump out of that tinder-box as soon as you can.’

’When I was in South America, it astonished me that no Englishman had cast an eye on so inviting a land.  Australia is not comparable with it.  And where colonisations have begun without system, and without hard fighting to teach the settlers to value good leadership and respect their chiefs, they tumble into Republics.’