It is due to Mr. Croker, as a person of importance, to touch lightly upon his after-career. His wife discovered too late that in reaching England he had only changed the theme upon which his universal depreciations were composed. ‘Non animam sed cœlum mutant qui trans mare currunt.’ He abused the climate and the people of England with a savage freedom only paralleled by his Australian practice. Becoming tired of receiving 3 or 4 per cent for his money, he one day, in a fit of wrath, embarked one-half of his capital in a somewhat uncertain South American loan. His cash was absorbed, to reappear spasmodically in the shape of interest, of which there was little, while of principal it soon became apparent that there would be none.
Reduced to the practice of marked though not distressing economy, Mr. Croker enjoyed the peculiar pleasure which is yielded to men of his disposition, of witnessing the possession of luxuries by others and a style of living which they are debarred from emulating. He was gladdened, too, by the occasional vision of an Australian with more money than he could spend, who rallied him upon his grave air, and bluntly asked why he was such a confounded fool as to sell out just as prices were really rising. Finally, to aggravate his sufferings, long unendurable by his own account, Mr. Parklands had the effrontery to come home, and, in the very neighbourhood where he, Croker, was living for economy, to buy a large estate which happened to be for sale.
The unfailing flow of the new proprietor’s high spirits, his liberal ways, and frank manners, combined with exceptional straight going in the hunting-field, rendered him immensely popular, as indeed he had always contrived to be wherever fate and speculation led his roving steps. But it may be questioned whether his brother-colonist ever saw his old friend spinning by behind a blood team, or heard of his being among the select few in a ‘quick thing,’ without fulminating one of his choicest anathemas, comprehending at once the order to which he and Parklands had belonged, the country they had quitted, and the one in which they now sojourned.
Mr. Banks remained in the employment of Mr. Neuchamp at Rainbar until, having saved and acquired by guarded investment a moderate capital, he had a tempting offer of joining, as junior partner, in the purchase of a large station in new country. Always a good-looking, manly fellow, he managed to secure the affections of a niece of Mr. Middleton, whom he met on one of his rare trips to Sydney, and, before he left for the Tadmor Downs, Lower Barcoo, they were married.