LETTER FIVE.
My Dear Sister,
I have just received your parcel. Am sorry my mother is so ill, and hope she will be much better by when you get this. Am extremely glad my father is well. Shall be very glad of the seeds. Thought of writing to him before we went away for some, but there is plenty of time yet.
We are both in the enjoyment of health at present, but we have fared but badly since the date of my last, having been two or three days without anything to eat, including Christmas day, except that on that day we were made to taste Miss Irvine's plum-pudding and wine, which we were by no means unwilling to do. I tramped about London Christmas Eve for five or six hours to sell some work, but did not then succeed in doing so, nor till the following Thursday, when I could only get about half my price in Birmingham. Things are here so extremely awkward. I tell these things to you merely because I do not feel justified in hiding any portion of the gloomy side of the picture before me from so kind and dear a friend as you have ever proved to me; or if I had another motive for doing so, it is because I shall be able to look upon my distresses with more fortitude when I know there are those, though at a distance, who sympathise with me in them. But believe me, I do not tell you of my misery to make you miserable. Oh no! I hope you will not be more unhappy on my account than if I was living in the most perfect prosperity, though I wish your sympathy in believing I do not deserve all I suffer.
I am glad the dog gets fat and forgetful of his old master. I suppose he would have nothing to do with me now. However, I wish the old beggar a long life, and much of the good things by the way, and an easy death at the end.
I am very thankful for your arrangements respecting the clothes, and Clarinda's thanks to her Aunt, when you see her father again. I shall not answer my brother's letter at present, as I may have more to say before we go.
Any information which my father can give me respecting the getting of land may be of use to me till such time as he comes out to the 'land of promise' himself, which I shall depend on his doing in a year or two; though he must recollect that December and January are summer months in New South Wales, and that they have two harvests in a year. I send the Dispatch newspaper, which contains part of a letter just received from Sydney, and from an uninterested party, which you will see is very encouraging to emigrants. I feel confident James would do exceedingly well there, but he must judge for himself.
Your affectionate brother,
P.S.—Give our love to our parents and brothers and sisters, and Tom and the dog conjointly, as he is his bedfellow. Many thanks for the pie. It was good!
Perhaps I shall not send you again under three weeks or a month, on account of expense.