



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




From Squire to Squatter
A Tale of the Old Land and the New
By Gordon Stables
Published by John F. Shaw and Co., 48 Paternoster Row, London.
This edition dated 1888.

CHAPTER ONE.

BOOK I--AT BURLEY OLD FARM.

"TEN TO-MORROW, ARCHIE."

"So you'll be ten years old to-morrow, Archie?"

"Yes, father; ten to-morrow.  Quite old, isn't it?  I'll soon be a man,
dad.  Won't it be fun, just?"

His father laughed, simply because Archie laughed.  "I don't know about
the fun of it," he said; "for, Archie lad, your growing a man will
result in my getting old.  Don't you see?"

Archie turned his handsome brown face towards the fire, and gazed at
it--or rather into it--for a few moments thoughtfully.  Then he gave his
head a little negative kind of a shake, and, still looking towards the
fire as if addressing it, replied:

"No, no, no; I don't see it.  Other boys' fathers _may_ grow old; mine
won't, mine couldn't, never, _never_."

"Dad," said a voice from the corner.  It was a very weary, rather
feeble, voice.  The owner of it occupied a kind of invalid couch, on
which he half sat and half reclined--a lad of only nine years, with a
thin, pale, old-fashioned face, and big, dark, dreamy eyes that seemed
to look you through and through as you talked to him.

"Dad."

"Yes, my dear."

"Wouldn't you like to be old really?"

"Wel--," the father was beginning.

"Oh," the boy went on, "I should dearly love to be old, very old, and
very wise, like one of these!"  Here his glance reverted to a story-book
he had been reading, and which now lay on his lap.

His father and mother were used to the boy's odd remarks.  Both parents
sat here to-night, and both looked at him with a sort of fond pity; but
the child's eyes had half closed, and presently he dropped out of the
