Genre Fiction. Page - 227

nd we must all know each other. I know I may not be acting according to the present usages of society, but that does not trouble me a little bit."

Accordingly, with the utmost good taste, she introduced me to a number of the people who had been invited.

I need make no special mention of most of them. Some of the young ladies simpered, others were frank, some were fairly good looking, while others were otherwise, and that is about all that could be said. None had sufficient individuality to make a distinct impression upon me. The young men were about on a par with the young ladies. Some lisped and were affected, some were natural and manly; and I began to think that, as far as the people were concerned, the Christmas gathering would be a somewhat tame affair.

This thought had scarcely entered my mind when two men entered the room, who were certainly not of the ordinary type, and will need a few words of description; for both were destined, as my story will show, to have considerable influe

out of sight of Dunedin. I loafed about for a couple of hours, and when the sun got well up some of the other passengers came on deck and joined me. One of them, a little perky sort of fellow, took a good long look at me, and then came over and began talking.

"Mining, I suppose?" says he.

"Yes," I says.

"Made your pile?" he asks.

"Pretty fair," says I.

"I was at it myself," he says; "I worked at the Nelson fields for three months, and spent all I made in buying a salted claim which busted up the second day. I went at it again, though, and struck it rich; but when the gold wagon was going down to the settlements, it was stuck up by those cursed rangers, and not a red cent left."

"That was a bad job," I says.

"Broke me--ruined me clean. Never mind, I've seen them all hanged for it; that makes it easier to bear. There's only one left--the villain that gave the evidence. I'd die happy if I could come across him. There are two things I have to do if I meet him."

craft ofbirch bark like a thing of life, answering cheerfully all hiscompanion's questions. Both were gay and light-hearted. On suchoccasions men lose the superficial, worldly distinctions; they becomehuman beings working together for a common end. Simpson, the employer,and Défago the employed, among these primitive forces, were simply--twomen, the "guider" and the "guided." Superior knowledge, of course,assumed control, and the younger man fell without a second thought intothe quasi-subordinate position. He never dreamed of objecting whenDéfago dropped the "Mr.," and addressed him as "Say, Simpson," or"Simpson, boss," which was invariably the case before they reached thefarther shore after a stiff paddle of twelve miles against a head wind.He only laughed, and liked it; then ceased to notice it at all.

For this "divinity student" was a young man of parts and character,though as yet, of course, untraveled; and on this trip--the first timehe had seen any country but his own and little Switzer

ure of speed like the wind, goaded by fear and knowing the limitations of his rider, was a different matter. The swift flight took her breath away, and unnerved her. She tried to hold on to the saddle with her shaking hands, for the bridle was already flying loose to the breeze, but her hold seemed so slight that each moment she expected to find herself lying huddled on the plain with the pony far in the distance.

Her lips grew white and cold; her breath came short and painfully; her eyes were strained with trying to look ahead at the constantly receding horizon. Was there no end? Would they never come to a human habitation? Would no one ever come to her rescue? How long could a pony stand a pace like this? And how long could she hope to hold on to the furious flying creature?

Off to the right at last she thought she saw a building. It seemed hours they had been flying through space. In a second they were close by it. It was a cabin, standing alone upon the great plain with sage-brush in patches

67, is a certain fact, of which nobody will deny the sister island the honour and glory; but, it seems to me, he was no more an Irishman than a man born of English parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo. Goldsmith was an Irishman, and always an Irishman: Steele was an Irishman, and always an Irishman: Swift's heart was English and in England, his habits English, his logic eminently English; his statement is elaborately simple; he shuns tropes and metaphors, and uses his ideas and words with a wise thrift and economy, as he used his money: with which he could be generous and splendid upon great occasions, but which he husbanded when there was no need to spend it. He never indulges in needless extravagance of rhetoric, lavish epithets, profuse imagery. He lays his opinion before you with a grave simplicity and a perfect neatness. Dreading ridicule too, as a man of his humour--above all an Englishman of his humour--certainly would, he is afraid to use the poetical power which he really possessed; one often fancies in r

fairs of theworld and almost from the world itself, whose faculties are deepenedby suffering and meditation, as far remote from their fellow men asif they were already of the Future--these men look deeply into thedistance, towards the unknowable land of the living and the insane.

"Austria's act is a crime," says the Austrian.

"France must win," says the Englishman.

"I hope Germany will be beaten," says the German.

They settle down again under the blankets and on the pillows,looking to heaven and the high peaks. But in spite of that vastpurity, the silence is filled with the dire disclosure of a momentbefore.

War!

Some of the invalids break the silence, and say the word again undertheir breath, reflecting that this is the greatest happening of theage, and perhaps of all ages. Even on the lucid landscape at whichthey gaze the news casts something like a vague and somber mirage.

The tranquil expanses of the valley, adorned with soft and smoothpastures and hamlets rosy as the rose,

r sewing and darning with Aunt Izzie, which she hated extremely, there were always so many delightful schemes rioting in her brains, that all she wished for was ten pairs of hands to carry them out. These same active brains got her into perpetual scrapes. She was fond of building castles in the air, and dreaming of the time when something she had done would make her famous, so that everybody would hear of her, and want to know her. I don't think she had made up her mind what this wonderful thing was to be; but while thinking about it she often forgot to learn a lesson, or to lace her boots, and then she had a bad mark, or a scolding from Aunt Izzie. At such times she consoled herself with planning how, by and by, she would be beautiful and beloved, and amiable as an angel. A great deal was to happen to Katy before that time came. Her eyes, which were black, were to turn blue; her nose was to lengthen and straighten, and her mouth, quite too large at present to suit the part of a heroine, was to be made over i

, and presently the sewing lay on Mrs. Darling's lap. Then her head nodded, oh, so gracefully. She was asleep. Look at the four of them, Wendy and Michael over there, John here, and Mrs. Darling by the fire. There should have been a fourth night-light.

While she slept she had a dream. She dreamt that the Neverland had come too near and that a strange boy had broken through from it. He did not alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of some mothers also. But in her dream he had rent the film that obscures the Neverland, and she saw Wendy and John and Michael peeping through the gap.

The dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while she was dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop on the floor. He was accompanied by a strange light, no bigger than your fist, which darted about the room like a living thing; and I think it must have been this light that wakened Mrs. Darlin

is eyes. He breathed hard. At last he said, "Dear Father in Heaven, I live. Thou hast saved me. I thank Thee."

VII

THE FIRST NIGHT ON LAND

"Where are my companions?" That was his first thought. He began to call and halloo: "Where are you?" "Come here!" But no one answered. Then he wished to see if anyone lived on the land, and he cried, "Is there no one here? Hello!" but all remained still.

All at once he drew himself together and shrank back. He heard a bush rustle and the thought came like a flash, "That is a wild animal that will pounce upon me and tear my flesh with his teeth and claws. How shall I save myself? Where shall I fly for safety? Where shall I turn? I have nothing but my clothes and my life saved from the water. All that I had the waves have swallowed up."

And then hunger and thirst began to trouble him. He had eaten nothing the whole day and the salt water had made him sick.

In the meantime the night had come on. Robinson was very tired. Everythin

I had seen; and though, to satisfy my mother, we cross-questioned Fraser, it was with no result in the way of explanation. Fraser evidently knew nothing that could throw light on it, and she was quite certain that at the time I had seen the figure, both the other servants were downstairs in the kitchen. Fraser was perfectly trustworthy; we warned her not to frighten the others by speaking about the affair at all, but we could not leave off speaking about it among ourselves. We spoke about it so much for the next few days, that at last my mother lost patience, and forbade us to mention it again. At least she pretended to lose patience; in reality I believe she put a stop to the discussion because she thought it might have a bad effect on our nerves, on mine especially; for I found out afterwards that in her anxiety she even went the length of writing about it to our old doctor at home, and that it was by his advice she acted in forbidding us to talk about it any more. Poor dear mother! I don't know th