"Land was low enough in value all over the colony, at that time, and a block up this way was not thought much of, you may be sure, so that Karl only got enough, by mortgaging his whole six thousand acres, to pay off his two creditors and leave him a very small balance. Well, the prospect was good enough, as any one but a new-chum can see, but all hung upon the sheep. There did not seem a great risk, but still there always is a certain amount of that with sheep. Disease did not trouble Karl much; there need be no great fear on that account in this country, if a little care be taken. Drought, too, was no matter for anxiety, as the land was sufficiently well-watered. But it was out of the question to fence in the grass, so we had to take what chance there was of the sheep straying, or of the damage wild pigs might do to the young turf, or of dingoes.
"Ah! you may laugh, but dingoes were what we feared most then. It has been proved by this time that if ever dingoes or runaway curs did exist, they are practically a myth, as far as this part of the island is concerned. Still, that was not so sure in those days, and the suspicion that they were in the bush was always a source of trouble to sheep farmers. The pigs' ravages we could check by a thorough hunt once or twice a year; and there was not much to fear from the sheep's straying, as, except one or two particular breeds, they will not go far into the bush or away from the grass. But the wild dogs were a different matter, if they came, and no one could be quite sure that any night might not find them among the flock.
"Such was the position of affairs when I came to live with Karl. Stop! I am forgetting one circumstance, the most important, in fact; for, if it had not been for her, I don't believe Karl would have cared so much about his farm. He was just the sort of man who is perfectly indifferent to ruin if it comes, so far as he himself is concerned; but she made his views of the future entirely of another colour.
"When loitering about Auckland, while he was getting his mortgage arranged, Karl got introduced to one or two families. He was not what you would term a society man, but, for all that, he managed to make up to a certain young lady he met. They fell in love with one another and got engaged, with all the usual rapidity of such affairs out here. There was even some talk of an immediate marriage, but the lady's father would not hear of that when he came to know Karl's position. He did not oppose the match in any way, but only stipulated for its postponement until Karl should have paid off his mortgage, and built a house more suitable for a family man than his then existing shanty. So Karl, inflamed with as violent a passion as I ever saw in any man, had to wait, three years as he calculated, until he was in a really proper condition to marry. This was a tremendous incentive to him to go ahead with vigour.