"Oh, I dunno. Young men takes notice o' these trifles."

"She died last week."

"Indeed? Pore soul!"

"An' she left you this by her will. 'Twas hers to leave, for I gave it to her, mysel', when that day's wrestlin' was over."

He removed the lid of the band-box and pulled out two parcels wrapped in a pile of tissue-paper. After removing sheet upon sheet of this paper he held up two glittering objects in the sunshine. The one was a silver mug: the other a leather belt with an elaborate silver buckle.

William Dendle wore a puzzled and somewhat uneasy look.

"I reckon she saw how disapp'inted I was that day," he said. After a pause he added, "Women brood over such things, I b'lieve: for years, I'm told. 'Tis their unsearchable natur'."

"William Dendle, I wish you'd speak truth."

"What have I said that's false?"

"Nuthin': an' you've said nuthin' that's true. I charge 'ee to tell me the facts about that hitch of our'n."

"You're a hard man, Sam Badgery. I hope, though, you've been soft to your wife. I mind—if you must have the tale—how you played very rough that day. There was a slim young chap—Nathan Oke, his name was—that stood up to you i' the second round. He wasn' ha'f your match: you might ha' pitched en flat-handed. An' yet you must needs give en the 'flyin' mare.' Your maid's face turned lily-white as he dropped. Two of his ribs went cr-rk! and his collar-bone—you could hear it right across the ring. I looked at her—she was close beside me—an' saw the tears come: that's how I know the colour of her eyes. Then there was that small blacksmith—you dropped en slap on the tail of his spine. I wondered if you knew the mortal pain o' bein' flung that way, an' I swore to mysel' that if we met i' the last round, you should taste it.

"Well, we met, as you know. When I was stripped, an' the folks made way for me to step into the ring, I saw her face again. 'Twas whiter than ever, an' her eyes went over me in a kind o' terror. I reckon it dawned on her that I might hurt you: but I didn' pay her much heed at the time, for I lusted after the prize, an' I got savage. You was standin' ready for me, wi' the sticklers about you, an' I looked you up an' down—a brave figure of a man. You'd longer arms than me, an' two inches to spare in height; prettier shoulders, too, I'd never clapp'd eyes on. But I guessed myself a trifle the deeper, an' a trifle the cleaner i' the matter o' loins an' quarters: an' I promised that I'd outlast 'ee.

"You got the sun an' the best hitch, an' after a rough an' tumble piece o' work, we went down togither, you remember—no fair back. The second hitch was just about equal; an' I gripped up the sackin' round your shoulders, an' creamed it into the back o' your neck, an' held you off, an' meant to keep you off till you was weak. Ten good minnits I laboured with 'ee by the stickler's watch, an' you heaved an' levered in vain, till I heard your breath alter its pace, an' felt the strength tricklin' out o' you, an' knew 'ee for a done man. 'Now,' thinks I, 'half a minnit more, an' you shall learn how the blacksmith felt.' I glanced up over your shoulder for a moment at the folks i' the ring: an' who should my eye light on but your girl?

"I hadn't got a sweetheart then, an' I've never had one since—never saw another woman who could ha' looked what she looked. I was condemned a single man there on the spot: an', what's more, I was condemned to lose the belt. There was that 'pon her face that no man is good enow to cause; an' there was suthin I wanted to see instead— just for a moment—that I could ha' given forty silver mugs to fetch up.

"An' I looked at her over your shoulders wi' a kind o' question i' my face, an' I did fetch it up. The next moment, you had your chance and cast me flat. When I came round—for you were always an ugly player, Sam Badgery—an' the folks was consolin' me, I gave a look in her direction: but she had no eyes for me at all. She was usin' all her dear deceit to make 'ee think you was a hero. So home I went, an' never set eyes 'pon her agen. That's the tale; an' I didn't want to tell it. But we'm old gaffers both by this time, an' I couldn' make this here belt meet round my middle, if I wanted to."

Sam Badgery straightened his upper lip.

"No. I got a call from the Lord a year after we was married, and gave up wrestlin'. My poor wife found grace about the same time, an' since then we've been preachers of the Word togither for nigh on forty years. If our work had lain in Cornwall, I'd have sought you out an' wrestled with you again—not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Man, I'd have shown you the Kingdom of Heaven!"

"Thank 'ee," answered Dendle; "but I got a glimpse o't once—from your wife."

The other stared, failing to understand this speech. What puzzled him always annoyed him. He set down the cup and belt on the yacht's deck, shook hands abruptly, and hurried back to the inn, where already Boutigo was harnessing for the return journey.



THE BISHOP OF EUCALYPTUS.

A DOCTOR'S STORY.

"O toiling hands of mortals! O unwearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hill-top, and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour."—R. L. Stevenson.

"Eucalyptus lies on the eastern slope of the Rockies. It will be fourteen years back this autumn that the coach dropped me there, somewhere about nine in the evening, and Hewson, who was waiting, took me straight to his red-pine house, high up among the foot-hills. The front of it hung over the edge of a waterfall, down which Hewson sent his logs with a pleasing certainty of their reaching Eucalyptus sooner or later; and right at the back the pines climbed away up to the snow-line. You remember the story of Daniel O'Rourke; how an eagle carried him up to the moon, and how he found it as smooth as an egg-plum, with just a reaping-hook sticking out of its side to grip hold of? Hewson's veranda reminded me of that reaping-hook; and, as a matter of fact, the cliff was so deeply undercut that a plummet, if it could be let through between your heels, would drop clean into the basin below the fall.

"The house was none of Hewson's building. Hewson was a bachelor, and could have made shift with a two-roomed cabin for himself and his men. He had taken the place over from a New Englander, who had made his pile by running the lumbering business up here and a saw-mill down in the valley at the same time. The place seemed dog-cheap at the time; but after a while it began to dawn upon Hewson that the Yankee had the better of the deal. Eucalyptus had not come up to early promise. In fact, it was slipping back and down the hill with a run. Already five out of its seven big saw-mills were idle and rotting. Its original architect had sunk to a blue-faced and lachrymose bar-loafer, and the roll of plans which he carried about with him—with their unrealised boulevards, churches, municipal buildings, and band-kiosks—had passed into a dismal standing joke. Hewson was even now deliberating whether to throw up the game or toss good money after bad by buying up a saw-mill and running it as his predecessor had done.

"'It's like a curse,' he explained to me at breakfast next morning. 'The place is afflicted like one of those unfortunate South Sea potentates, who flourish up to the age of fourteen and then cypher out, and not a soul to know why. First of all, there's the lumbering. Well, here's the timber all right; only Bellefont, farther down the valley, has cut us out. Then we had the cinnabar mines—you may see them along the slope to northward, right over the west end of the town. They went well for about sixteen months; and then came the stampede. A joker in the Bellefont Sentinel wrote that the miners up in Eucalyptus were complaining of the 'insufficiency of exits'; and he wasn't far out. Last there were the 'Temperate Airs and Reinvigorating Pine-odours of America's Peerless Sanatorium. Come and behold: Come and be healed!' The promoters billed that last cursed jingle up and down the States till as far south as Mexico it became the pet formula for an invitation to drink. Well, for three years we averaged something like a couple of hundred invalids, and doctors in fair proportion; and I never heard that either did badly. It was an error of judgment, perhaps, to start our municipal works with a costly Necropolis, or rather the gateway of one; two marble pillars, if you please—the only stonework in Eucalyptus to this day—with 'Campo' on one side and 'Santo' on the other. No healthy-minded person would be scared by this. But the invalids complained that we'd made the feature too salient; and the architect has gone ever since by the name of 'Huz-and-Buz,' bestowed on him by some wag who meant 'Jachin and Boaz,' but hadn't Scripture enough to know it. Anyhow the temperate airs and pine-odours are a frost. There's nobody, I fancy, living at Eucalyptus just now for the benefit of his health, and I believe that at this moment you're the only doctor within twenty miles of the place.'

"'Well,' said I, 'I'll step down this morning anyway, and take a look.'

"'You can saddle the brown horse whenever you like. You were too sleepy to take note of it last night, but you came up here by a track fit for a lady's pony-carriage. My predecessor engineered it to connect his two places of business. In its way, it's the most palatial thing in the Rockies—two long legs with a short tack between, gentle all the way—and it brings you out by the Necropolis gate. You can hitch the horse up there.'"

"By ten o'clock I had saddled the brown horse, and was walking him down the track at an easy pace. Hewson had omitted to praise its beauty. Pine-needles lay underfoot as thick and soft as a Persian carpet; and what with the pine-tops arching and almost meeting overhead, and the red trunks raying out left and right into aisles as I went by, and the shafts of light breaking the greenish gloom here and there with glimpses of aching white snowfields high above, 'twas like walking in a big cathedral with bits of the real heaven shining through the roof. The river ran west for a while from Cornice House, and then tacked north-east with a sudden bend round the base of the foot-hills; and since my track formed a sort of rough hypotenuse to this angle, I heard the voice of the rapids die away and almost cease, and then begin again to whisper and murmur, until, as I came within a mile or so of Eucalyptus, they were loud at my feet, though still unseen. I am not a devout man, but I can take off my hat now and then; and all the way that morning a couple of sentences were ring-dinging in my head: 'Lift up your hearts! We lift them up unto the Lord!' You know where they come from, I dare say.

"By and by the track took a sharp and steep trend down hill, then a curve; the trees on my right seemed to drop away; and we found ourselves on the edge of a steep bluff overhanging the valley, the whole eastern slope of which broke full into sight in that instant, from the river tumbling below—by sticking out a leg I could see it shining through my stirrup—to the rocky aretes and smoothed-out snowfields round the peaks. It made a big spectacle, and I suppose I must have stared at it till my eyes were dazzled, for, on turning again to follow the track, which at once dived among the pines and into the dusk again, I did not observe, until quite close upon her, a woman coming towards me.

"And yet she was not rigged out to escape notice. She had on a scarlet Garibaldi, a striped red-and-white skirt, bunched up behind into an immense polonaise, and high-heeled shoes that tilted her far forward. She wore no hat, but carried a scarlet sunshade over her shoulder. Her hair, in a towsled chignon, was golden, or rather had been dyed to that colour; her face was painted; and she was glaringly drunk.

"This sudden apparition shook me down with a jerk; and I suppose the sight of me had something of the same effect on the woman, who staggered to the side of the track, and, plumping down amid her flounces, beckoned me feebly with her sunshade. I pulled up, and asked what I could do for her.

"'You're the doctor?' she said slowly, with a tight hold on her pronunciation.

"'That's so.'

"'From Cornice House?'

"I nodded.

"She nodded back. 'That's so. Oh, dear, dear! you said that. I can't help it. I'm drunk, and it's no use pretending!'

"She fell to wringing her hands, and the tears began to run from her bistred eyes.

"'Now, see here, Mrs.—Miss—'

"'Floncemorency.'

"'Miss Florence Montmorency?' I hazarded as a translation.

"'That's so. Formerly of the Haughty Coal.'

"'I beg your pardon? Ah! . . . of the Haute Ecole?'

"'That's so: 'questrienne.'

"'Well, you'll take my advice, and return home at once and put yourself to bed.'

"'Don't you worry about me. It's the Bishop you've got to prescribe for. I allowed I'd reach Cornice House and fetch you down, if it took my last breath. Pete Stroebel at the drug store told me this morning that Mr. Hewson had a doctor come to stop with him, so I started right along.'

"'And how far did you calculate to reach in those shoes?'

"'I didn't calculate at all; I just started along. If the shoes had hurt, I'd have kicked them off and gone without, or maybe crawled.'

"'Very good,' said I. 'Now, before we go any farther, will you kindly tell me who the Bishop is?'

"'He's a young man, and he boards with me. See here, mister,' she went on, pulling herself together and speaking low and earnest, 'he's good; he's good right through: you've got to make up your mind to that. And he's powerful sick. But what you've got to lay hold of is that he's good. The house is No. 67, West fifteenth Street, which is pretty easy to find, seeing it's the only street in Eucalyptus. The rest haven't got beyond paper, and old Huz-and-Buz totes them round in his pocket, which isn't good for their growth.'

"'Won't you take me there?'

"'Not to-day. I guess I've got to sit here till I feel better. Another thing is, you'll be doing me a kindness if you don't let on to the Bishop that you found me in this—this state. He never saw me like this: he's good, I tell you. And he'd be sick and sorry if he knew. I'm just mad with myself, too; but I swear I never meant to be like this to-day. I just took a dose to fix me up for the journey; but ever since I've been holding off from the whisky the least drop gets into my walk. You didn't happen to notice a spring anywhere hereabouts, did you? There used to be one that ran right across the track.'

"'I passed it about a hundred yards back.'

"I dismounted and led her to the spring, where she knelt and bathed her face in the water, cold from the melting snowfields above. Then she pulled out a small handkerchief, edged with cheap lace, and fell to dabbing her eyes.

"'Hullo!' she cried, breaking off sharply.

"'Yes,' I answered, 'you had forgotten that. But another wash will take it all off, and, if you'll forgive my saying so, you won't look any the worse. After that you shall soak my handkerchief and bandage it round your forehead till you feel better. Here, let me help.'

"'Thank you,' she said, as I tied the knot. 'And now hurry along, please. Sixty-seven, West Fifteenth Street. I'll be waiting here with your handkerchief.'

"I mounted and rode on. At the end of half a mile the track began to dip more steeply, and finally emerged by a big clearing and the two marble pillars of which Hewson had spoken; and here I tethered the brown horse, and had a look around before walking down into Eucalyptus. Within the clearing a few groups of Norfolk pines had been left to stand, and between these were burial lots marked out and numbered, with here and there a painted wooden cross; but the inhabitants of this acre were few enough. Behind and above the 'Necropolis' the hill rose steeply; and there, high up, were traces of the disused cinnabar mines—patches of orange-coloured earth thrusting out among the pines.

"The road below the cemetery ran abruptly down for a bit, then heaved itself over a green knoll and descended upon what I may call a very big and flat meadow beside the river. It was here that Eucalyptus stood; and from the knoll, which was really the beginning of the town, I had my first good view of it—one long street of low wooden houses running eastward to the river's brink, where a few decayed mills and wharves straggled to north and south—a T, or headless cross, will give you roughly the shape of the settlement. From the knoll you looked straight along the main street; with a field-gun you could have swept it clean from end to end, and, what's more, you wouldn't have hurt a soul. The place was dead empty—not so much as a cur to sit on the sidewalk—and the only hint of life was the laughing and banjo-playing indoors. You could hear that plain enough. Every second house in the place was a saloon, and every saloon seemed to have a billiard-table and a banjo player. I never heard anything like it. I should say, if you divided the population into four parts, that two of these were playing billiards, one tum-tumming 'Hey, Juliana' on the banjo, and the remaining fourth looking on and drinking whisky, and occasionally taking part in the chorus. All the way down the sidewalk I had these two sounds—the click, click of the balls and the thrum, thrum, tinkle, tinkle of 'Juliana'—ahead of me; and left silence in my wake, as the inhabitants dropped their occupations and sauntered out to stare at 'the Last Invalid,' which was the name promptly coined for me by the disheartened but still humorous promoters of America's Peerless Sanatorium.

"You don't know 'Juliana'—neither tune nor words? Nor did I when I set foot in Eucalyptus; but I lived on pretty close terms with it for the next two months, and it ended by clearing me out of the neighbourhood. It was a sort of nigger camp-meeting song, and a hybrid at that. It went something like this:"

'O, de lost ell-an'-yard is a-huntin' fer de morn'—

The lost ell-and-yard is Orion's sword and belt, I may tell you—

'Hey, Juliana, Juli-he-hi-holy! An' my soul's done sicken fer de Hallelujah horn, Hey, Juliana, Juli-he-hi-ho! Was it weary there, In de wilderness? Was it weary-y-y, 'way down in Goshen?

'O, de children shibber by de Jordan's flow— Hey, Juliana, Juli-he-hi-holy! An' it's time fer Gaberl to shake hisself an' blow, Hey, Juliana, Juli-he-hi-ho! For it's weary here In de wilderness; Oh, it's weary-y-y, 'way down in Goshen!'

That was the sort of stuff, and it had any number of verses. I never heard the end of them. Also there were variants—most of them unfit for publication. The tune had swept up the valley like an epidemic disease: and, after a while, it astonished no dweller in Eucalyptus to find his waking thoughts and his whole daily converse jigging to it. But the new-comer was naturally a bit startled to hear the same strain put up from a score of houses as he walked down the street.

"I found the house, No. 67, easily; and knocked. It looked neat enough, with a fence in front and some pots of flowers in a little balcony over the porch, and clean muslin curtains to the windows. The fence and house-front were painted a bright blue, but not entirely; for here and there appeared patches of green daubed over the blue, much as if a child had been around experimenting with a paint-pot.

"'Open the door and come upstairs, please,' said an English voice right overhead. And, looking up, I saw a slim young man in a minister's black suit standing among the flower-pots and smiling down at me. I saw, of course, that this must be my patient; and I knew his complaint too. Even at that distance anyone could see he was pretty far gone in consumption.

"As I climbed the stairs he came in from the porch and met me on the landing, at the door of Miss Montmorency's best parlour— a spick-and-span apartment containing a cottage piano, some gilded furniture of the Second Empire fashion, a gaudy lithograph or two, and a carpet that had to be seen to be believed.

"'I had better explain,' said I, 'that this is a professional visit. I met Miss Montmorency just outside the town, and have her orders to call. I am a medical man.'

"Still smiling pleasantly, he took my hand and shook it.

"'Miss Montmorency is so very thoughtful,' he said; then, touching his chest lightly, 'It's true I have some trouble here— constitutional, I'm afraid; but I have suffered from it, more or less, ever since I was fourteen, and it doesn't frighten me. There is really no call for your kind offices; nothing beyond a general weakness, which has detained me here in Eucalyptus longer than I intended. But Miss Montmorency, seeing my impatience, has jumped to the belief that I am seriously ill.' Here he smiled again. 'She is the soul of kindness,' he added.

"I looked into his prominent and rather nervous eyes. They were as innocent as a child's. Of course there was nothing unusual in his hopefulness, which is common enough in cases of phthisis— symptomatic, in fact; and, of course, I did not discourage him.

"'You have work waiting for you? Some definite post?' I asked.

"He answered with remarkable dignity; he looked a mere boy too.

"'I am a minister of the gospel, as you guess by my coat: to be precise, a Congregational minister. At least, I passed through a Congregational training college in England. But nice distinctions of doctrine will be of little moment in the work before me. No, I have no definite post awaiting me—that is, I have not received a call from any particular congregation, nor do I expect one. The harvest is over there, across the mountains; and the labourers are never too many.'

"It was singular in my experience; but this young man contrived to speak like a book without being at all offensive.

"'I was sent out to America,' he went on, 'mainly for my health's sake; and the voyage did wonders for me. Of course I picked up a lot of information on the way and in New York. It was there I first heard of the awful wickedness of the Pacific Slope, the utter, abandoned godlessness of the mining camps throughout the golden and silver states. I had letters of introduction to one or two New England families—sober, religious people—and the stories they told of the Far West were simply appalling. It was then that my call came to me. It came one night—But all this has nothing to do with my health.'

"'It interests me,' said I.

"'It does one good to talk, if you're sure you mean that,' he went on, with a happy laugh. Then, with sudden gravity: 'It came one night—the clear voice of God calling me. I was asleep; but it woke me, and I sat up in bed with the voice still ringing in my ears like a bugle calling. I knew from that moment that my work lay out West. I saw that my very illness had been, in God's hands, a means to lead me nearer to it. As soon as ever I was strong enough, I started; and you may think me fanciful, sir, but I can tell you that, as sure as I sit here, every step of the way has been smoothed for me by the Divine hand. The people have been so kind all the way (for I am a poor man); and I have other signs—other assurances—'

"He broke off, hesitated, and resumed his sentence at the beginning:

"'The people have been so kind. I think the Americans must be the kindest people in the world; and good too. I cannot believe that all the wickedness they talk of out yonder can come from anything but ignorance of the Word. I am certain it cannot. And that encourages me mightily. Why, down in Bellefont they told me that Eucalyptus here was a little nest of iniquity; they spoke of it as of some City of the Plain. And what have I found? Well, the people are indeed as sheep without a shepherd; and who can wonder, seeing that there is not a single House of Prayer kept open in the municipality? There is a great deal of coarse levity, and even profanity of speech, and, I fear, much immoderate drinking; but these are the effects of blindness rather than of wickedness. From the heavier sins—from what I may call actual, conscious vice—Eucalyptus is singularly free. Miss Montmorency, indeed, tells me that in her experience (which, of course, is that of a single lady, and therefore restricted) the moral tone of the town is surprisingly healthy. You understand that I give her judgment no more than its due weight. Still, Miss Montmorency has lived here three years; and for a single lady (and, I may add, the only lady in the place) to pass three years in it entirely unmolested—'

"This was too much; and I interrupted him almost at random—

"'You remind me of the purpose of my call. I hope, if only to satisfy Miss Montmorency, you won't mind my sounding your chest and putting a few questions to you.'

"Seeing that I had already pulled out my stethoscope, he gave way, feebly protesting that it was not worth my trouble. The examination merely assured me of that which I knew already—that this young man's days were numbered, and the numbers growing small. I need not say I kept this to myself.

"'You must let me call again to-morrow,' said I. 'I've a small medicine chest up at the Cornice House, and you want a tonic badly.'

"Upon this he began, with a confused look and a slight stammer: 'Do you know—I'm afraid you will think it rude, but I didn't mean it for rudeness—really. Your visit has given me great pleasure—'

"It flashed on me that he had called himself 'a poor man.'

"'I wasn't proposing to doctor you,' I put in; and it was a shameless lie. 'You may take the tonic or not; it won't do much harm, anyway. But a gentle walk every day among the pines here—the very gentlest, nothing to overtax your strength—will do more for you than any drugs. But if you will let me call, pretty often, and have a talk— I'm an Englishman, you know, and an English voice is good to hear—'

"His face lit up at once. 'Ah, if you would!' said he; and we shook hands."

"As I closed the front door and stepped out upon the sidewalk, a tall man lounged across to me from the doorway of a saloon across the road—a lumberer, by his dress. He wore a large soft hat, a striped flannel shirt open at the neck, a broad leathern belt, and muddy trousers tucked into muddy wading-boots. His appearance was picturesque enough without help from his dress. He had a mighty length of arm and breadth of shoulders; a handsome, but thin and almost delicately fair, face, with blue eyes, and a surprisingly well-kept beard. The colour of this beard and of his hair—which he wore pretty long—was a light auburn. Just now the folds of his raiment were full of moist sawdust; and as he came he brought the scent of the pine-woods with him.

"'How's the Bishop?' asked this giant, jerking his head towards the little balcony of No. 67.

"Before I could hit on a discreet answer, he followed the question up with another:

"'What'll you take?'

"I saw that he had something to say, and allowed him to lead the way to a saloon a little way down the road. 'Simpson's Pioneers' Symposium' was the legend above the door. A small, pimply-faced man in seedy black—whom I guessed at once, and correctly, to be 'Huz-and-Buz'—lounged by the bar inside; and across the counter the bar-keeper had his banjo slung, and was gently strumming the accompaniment of 'Hey, Juliana!'

"'Put that down,' commanded my new acquaintance; and then, turning to Huz-and-Buz, 'Git!'

"The architect raised the brim of his hat to me, bowed servilely, and left.

"'Short or long?'

"I said I would take a short drink.

"'A brandy sour?'

"'A 'brandy sour' will suit me.'

"He kept his eye for a moment on the bar-tender, who began to bustle around with the bottles and glasses; then turned upon me.

"'Now, then.'

"'About the Bishop, as you call him?'

"He nodded.

"'Well, you're not to tell him so; but he's going to die.'

"'Quick?'

"'I think so.'

"He nodded. 'I knew that,' he said, and was silent for a minute; then resumed, 'No; he won't be told. We take an interest in that young man.'

"'Meaning by 'we'?'

"'The citizens of Eucalyptus as a body. My name's William Anderson: Captain Bill they call me. I was one of the first settlers in Eucalyptus. I've seen it high, and I've seen it low. And I'm going to be the last man to quit; that's the captain's place. And when I say this or that is public opinion in Eucalyptus, it's got to be. I drink to your health, Doctor.'

"'Thank you,' said I. 'Then I may count on your silence? The poor chap is so powerfully set on crossing the Rockies and getting to close quarters with some real wickedness, that to tell him the truth might shorten the few days he has left.'

"Captain Bill smiled grimly.

"'Wickedness? Lord love you! He couldn't see any. He'd go through 'Frisco, and out at the far end, without so much as guessing the place had a seamy side to it. His innocence,' pursued the captain, 'is unusual. I guess that's why we're taking so much care of him. But I must say you've been spry.'

"'Upon my word, I can't at this moment make head or tail of the business. I met Miss Montmorency on the road—'

"'I guess she was looking like a Montmorency, too. Flyheel Flo is her name hereabouts; alluding to her former profession of circus-rider. Perhaps I'd better put the facts straight for you.'

"'I wish you would.'

"'Well, it'll be about two months back that the Bishop came to Eucalyptus. We were most of us here in Simpson's bar when the coach drove up at nine o'clock—same time as it dropped you last night—and we loafed out to have a look. There was only one passenger got down; and he seemed of no account—a weedy-looking youngster with a small valise—looked like he might have come to be bartender to one of the small saloons. It was dark out there, you understand: nothing to see by but the lamps of the coach and the light of the doorway; besides which the fellow was pretty well muffled up in a heavy coat and wraps. Anyway he didn't seem worth a second look; so when the coach moved on we just sauntered back here, and I don't reckon there was a man in the room knew he'd followed us till he lifted up that reedy voice of his. 'Gentlemen,' he piped out, 'would some one of you be kind enough to direct me to a nice, comfortable lodging?' Old Huz-and-Buz was drinking here with his back to the door. 'Great Caesar's ghost!' he called out, dropping his glass, 'what 'n thunder's that?' 'Gentlemen,' pipes up the young man again, 'I am a stranger, this moment arrived by the coach; and it would be a real kindness to direct me to a comfortable lodging." By this time he'd unwound the muffler about his neck and unbuttoned his outer wraps generally, and we saw he was rigged out in genuine sky-pilot's uniform. We hadn't seen one of that profession in Eucalyptus for more'n two years. 'I'm afraid, your reverence,' says one of the boys, mimicking the poor lad's talk, 'I'm afraid the accommodation of this camp will hardly reach up to your style. I guess what you want is a cosy little nook with a brass knocker and a nice motherly woman to look after you. You oughter have sent the municipality word you was coming.' 'Thank you,' answers the poor boy, as serious as can be; 'of course I shall be glad of such comforts, but I assure you they are not indispensable. I'm an old campaigner,' he says, drawing himself up to his poor little height and smiling proud-like. I tell you, that knocked the wind out of our sails. It was too big to laugh at. We just stuck for half a minute and looked at him, till the mischief put it into old Huz-and-Buz's head to cackle out, 'Better send him right along to Flyheel Flo!' This put up a laugh, and I saw in half a minute that the proposition had caught on. It struck me as sort of funny, too, at the time. So I steps forward and says, 'I know a lady who'd likely take you in and fix you up comfortable. This kind of thing ain't exactly in her line; but no doubt she'll put herself out to oblige a minister, specially if you take her a letter of introduction from me. Miss Florence Montmorency's her name, and she lives at No. 67 along the street here. Here, pass along the ink-bottle and a pen,' I says (for, barring Huz-and-Buz, I was about the only sinner present that hadn't forgotten how to spell); and inside of five minutes I'd fixed up the letter to Flo, and a dandy document it was! He took it and thanked me like as if it was a school prize; and I guess 'twas then it began to break in on me that we'd been playing it pretty low on the innocent. However, Pete caught up his valise, and two or three of us saw him along to Flo's door, and waited out on the sidewalk while he knocked. At the second knock Flo came down and let him in. I saw him lift his hat, and heard him begin with 'I believe I am addressing Miss Montmorency'; and what Flo was making ready to say in answer I'd give a dollar at this moment to know. But she looked over his shoulder, and with the tail of her eye glimpsed us outside, and wasn't going to show her hand before the boys. So quick as thought she pulls the youngster in, with his valise, and shuts the door.

"'Well, sir, we cooled our heels outside there for a spell, but nothing occurred. So at last we made tracks back here to the saloon, owning to ourselves that Flo didn't need to be taught how to receive a surprise party. 'But,' says I, 'you'll have the minister back here before long; and I anticipate he'll ask questions.' I'd hardly said the words before the door flung open behind me. It wasn't the youngster, though, but Flo herself; and a flaming rage she was in. 'See here, boys,' she begins, 'this is a dirty game, and you'd better be ashamed of yourselves! I'm ashamed of you, Bill, anyway,' she says, tossing me back my letter; and then, turning short round on Huz-and-Buz, 'If old Iniquity, here, started the racket, it's nateral to him: he had a decent woman once for his wife, and beat her. But there's others of you oughter know that your same reasons for thinking light of a woman are reasons against driving the joke too hard.' 'You're right, Flo,' says I, 'and I beg your pardon.' 'I dunno that I'll grant it,' she says. 'Lord knows,' she says, 'It ain't for any of us here to be heaving dirt at each other; but I will say you oughter be feeling mean, the way you've served that young man. Why, boys,' she says, opening her eyes wide, like as if 'twas a thing unheard of, 'he's good! And oh, boys, he's sick, too!' 'Is he so?' I says; 'I feel cheap.' 'You oughter,' says she. 'What's to be done?' says I. 'Well, the first thing,' she says, 'that you've got to do is to come right along and paint my fence'; then, seeing I looked a bit puzzled—'Some of you boys have taken the liberty to write up some pretty free compliments about my premises; and as the most of you was born before spelling-bees came in fashion, I don't want my new boarder to come down to-morrow and form his own opinion about your education.' Well, sir, we went off in a party and knocked up old Peter, and got a pot of paint, and titivated No. 67 by the light of a couple of lanterns; and the Bishop—as we came to call him—sleeping the sleep of the just upstairs all the time. Unfortunately, Peter had made a mistake and given us green paint instead of blue, and by that light none of us could tell the difference; so I guess the Bishop next morning allowed that Miss Montmorency had ideas of her own on 'mural decoration,' as Huz-and-Buz calls it. When we got the job fixed, Flo steps inside the gate, and says she, looking over it, 'Boys, I'm grateful. And now I'm going to play a lone hand, and I look to you not to interfere. Good night.' From that day to this, sir, she's kept straight, and held off the drink in a manner you wouldn't credit. The Bishop, he thinks her an angel on earth; and to see them promenading down the sidewalk arm-in-arm of an afternoon is as good as a dime exhibition. I'm bound to own the boys act up. You wait till you see her pass, and the way the hats fly off. Old Huz-and-Buz came pretty near to getting lynched the first week, for playing the smarty and drawling out as they went by, 'Miss Montmorency, I believe?' to imitate the way in which the Bishop introduced himself. I guess he won't be humorous again for a considerable spell. And now, Doctor, I hope I've put the facts straight for you?'

"'You have,' I answered, draining my glass; 'and they do several people credit.'

"'Wait a bit. You haven't heard what I'm coming to. That young man is poor.'

"'So I gather.'

"'And I'm speaking now in the name of the boys. There was a meeting held just now, while you were dropping your card on the Bishop; and I'm to tell you, as deputy, that trouble ain't to be spared over him. It's a hopeless case; but you hear—trouble ain't to be spared; and the municipality foots the—'

"'Hold hard, there,' I broke in; and told him how the land lay. When I'd done he held out a huge but well-shaped hand, palm upwards.

"'Put it there,' he said.

"We shook hands, and walked together (still to the strain of 'Juliana') as far as the Necropolis gate. I observed that several citizens appeared at the doors of the saloons along our route, and looked inquiringly at Captain Bill, who answered in each case with a wink.

"'That passes you,' he explained, 'for the freedom of Eucalyptus City, as you'd say at home. When you want it, you've only to come and fetch it—in a pail. You're among friends.'

"He backed up this assurance by shaking my hand a second time, and with great fervour. And so we parted.

"As I neared the spring on my homeward road I saw Miss Montmorency standing beside the track, awaiting me. She looked decidedly better, and handed me back my handkerchief, almost dry and neatly folded.

"'And how did you find him?' she asked.

"I told her.

"'We allowed it was that—the boys and I. We allowed he wouldn't last out the fall. Did you meet any of the boys?'

"'I've been having a short drink and a long talk with Captain Bill.'

"She nodded her head, breaking off to clap both palms to her temples.

"'My! It does ache! I'm powerful glad you seen Bill. Now you know the worst o' me and we can start fair. I allowed, first along, that I play this hand alone; but now you've got to help. Now and then I catch myself weakening. It's dreadful choky, sitting by the hour and filling up that poor innocent with lies. And the eyes of him!' (she stamped her foot): 'I could whip his father and mother for having no more sense than to let him start. Doctor, you'll have to help.'"

"I rode down to Eucalyptus again next morning and found the Bishop seated and talking with Miss Montmorency in the gaudy little parlour.

"'We were just going out for a walk together,' he explained, as we shook hands.

"'And now you'll just have to walk out with the Doctor instead; and serve you right for talking foolishness.' She moved towards the door.

"'Doctor,' he said, 'I wish you would make her listen. I feel much better to-day—altogether a different man. If this improvement continues, I shall start in a week at the farthest. And I was trying to tell her—Doctor, you can have no notion of her goodness. 'I was a stranger and she took me in'—'

"Miss Montmorency, with her hand on the door, turned sharply round at this, and shot a queer sort of look at me. I thought she was going to speak; but she didn't.

"'Excuse me,' I said to the Bishop, as the door closed, 'but that's your Bible, I take it, on the table yonder. May I have it for a moment?'

"I picked it up and followed Miss Montmorency, whom I found just outside on the landing.

"'What's the meaning of it?' she demanded, very low and fierce.

"'I guessed that text had jerked you a bit. No, I haven't given you away. He was talking out of the Bible.' I found the place for her. 'You'd better take it to your room and read the whole passage,' said I, and went back to the parlour.

"'I have lent your Bible to Miss Montmorency,' I said.

"The Bishop seemed lost in thought, but made no remark until we were outside the house and starting for our short walk. Then he laid a hand on my arm. 'Forgive me,' he said; 'I had no idea you were earnest in these matters.'

"I was for putting in a disclaimer, but he went on:

"'She has a soul to save—a very precious soul. Mark you, if works could save a soul, hers would be secure. And I have thought sometimes God cannot judge her harshly; for consider of how much value the life of one such woman must be in such a community as this! You should observe how the men respect her. And yet we have the divine assurance that works without grace are naught; and her carelessness on sacred matters is appalling. If, when I am gone'— and it struck me sharply that not only the western mountains but the cemetery gate lay in the direction of his nod, and that the gate lay nearer—'if you could speak to her now and then—ah, you can hardly guess how it would rejoice me some day when I return, bearing'—and his voice sank here—'bearing, please God, my sheaves with me!'

"'But why,' I urged, 'go farther, when work like this lies at your hand?'

"'I have thought of that; but only for a moment. It may sound presumptuous to you; I am very young; but there is bigger work for me ahead, and I am called. I cannot argue about this. I know. I have a sign. Look up at the mountain, yonder—high up, above the quicksilver mines. Do you see those bright lights flashing?'

"Sure enough, above the disused works a line of sparkling lights led the eye upwards to the snow-fields, as if traced in diamonds. The phenomenon was certainly astonishing, and I couldn't account for it.

"'You see it? Ah! but you didn't observe it till I spoke. Nobody does. Miss Montmorency, when I pointed it out, declared that in all the time she has lived here she never once noticed it. Yet the first night I came here I saw it. My window looks westward, and I pulled the curtain aside for a moment before getting into bed. It had been dark as pitch when the coach dropped me; but now the moon was up, over opposite; and the first thing my eyes lit on was this line of lights reaching up the mountain. When I woke, next morning, it was still there, flashing in the sun. I think it was at breakfast, when I asked Miss Montmorency about it, and found she'd never remarked it, that it first came into my head 'twas meant for me. Anyhow, the idea's fixed there now, and I can't get away from it. I've asked many people, and there's not one can explain it, or has ever remarked it till I pointed it out.'

"His hand trembled on his stick, and a fit of coughing shook him. While we stood still I heard a banjo in a saloon across the road tinkle its long descent into the chorus of 'Juliana'—"

'Was it weary there In the wilderness? Was it weary-y-y, 'way down in Goshen?'

The chorus came roaring out and across the street; ceased; and the banjo slid into the next verse.

"'I wish they wouldn't,' said the Bishop, taking the handkerchief from his lips and speaking (as I thought) rather peevishly.

"'It's a weariful tune.'

"'Is it? Now I don't know anything about music. It's the words that make me feel wisht.'

"'And now,' said I, 'you've eased my soul of the curiosity that has been vexing it for twenty-four hours. Your voice told you were English; but there was something in it besides—something almost rubbed out, if I may say so, by your training for the ministry. I was wondering what part of England you hailed from, and I meant to find out without asking. You'll observe that as yet I don't even know your name. But Cornwall's your birthplace.'

"'I suppose,' he answered, smiling, 'you've only heard me called 'the Bishop.' Yes, you're quite right. I come from the north of Cornwall—from Port Isaac; and my name's Penno—John Penno. I used to be laughed at for it at the Training College, and for my Cornish talk. They said it would be a hindrance to me in the ministry, so I worked hard to overcome it.'

"'I know Port Isaac. At least, I once spent a couple of days there.'

"'Ah?' He turned on me eagerly—with a sob, almost. 'You will have seen my folks, maybe? My father's a fisherman there—Hezekiah Penno—Old Ki, he's always called: everyone knows him.'

"I shook my head. 'The only fisherman I knew at all was called Tregay. He took me out after the pollack one day in his boat, the Little Mercy.'

"'That will be my mother's brother Israel. He named the boat after a sister of mine. She's grown up now and married, and settled at St. Columb. This is wonderful! And how was Israel wearing when you saw him?'

"'You have later news of him than I can give. I am speaking of ten years ago.'

"His face fell pathetically; but he contrived a rueful little laugh as he answered: 'And I must have been a boy of nine at the time, and playing about Portissick Street, no doubt! Never mind. It's good, anyway, to speak of home to you; for you've seen it, you know!'

"He said this with his eyes fixed on the flashing mountain; and, as he finished, he sighed."

"During the next three or four days—for a relapse followed his rally, and he had to give up all thought of departing immediately—I talked much with the Bishop; and I think that each talk added to my respect and wonder. In the first place, though I had read in a good many poetry books of maidens who walked through all manner of deadliness unhurt—Una and the lion, you know, and the rest of them— I hadn't imagined that kind or amount of innocence in a young man. But what startled me even more was the size of his ambitions. 'Bishop'—in partibus infidelium with a vengeance—was too small a title for him. 'Twas a Peter the Hermit's part, or a Savonarola's, or Whitefield's at least, he was going to play all along the Pacific Slope; and his outfit no more than a small Bible and the strength of a mouse. And with all this the poor boy was just wearying for home, and every small fibre in his sick heart pulling him back while he fixed his eyes on the lights up the mountain and stiffened his back and talked about putting a hand to the plough and not turning back.

"'Hewson,' I said one morning, as we were breakfasting at the Cornice House, 'what's the cause of those curious lights up by the cinnabar mines, over Eucalyptus?'

"'Lights?' said he, 'what lights? I never heard of any.'

"'Well, it's something that flashes, anyway—a regular line of it.'

"'I'll tell you what it's not; and that's quicksilver,' Hewson answered.

"On my way down to Eucalyptus early that morning, I hitched my horse up to the Necropolis gate and determined to explore the secret of the lights before visiting the Bishop. The track towards the cinnabar works was pretty easy to follow, first along; but when I had climbed some four or five hundred feet it grew fainter, and was lost at length under the pine-needles. Luckily some hand had notched a tree here and there, and these guided me to the dry bed of a torrent, on the far side of which the track reappeared, and continued pretty plain for the rest of the journey, though broken in several places by the rains. I had missed my way three times at the most; but it took me three-quarters of an hour to reach the lowest of the works, and another twenty minutes to get into anything like clear country. At length, on the edge of a steep depression that widened and shallowed as it neared the valley, I got a fair look up the slope. So far I had met nothing to account for the lights—nothing at all, in fact, but the broken spade-handles, old boots, empty meat-cans, and other refuse of the miners' camps; but every now and then I would catch a glimpse of the hillside high overhead: and always those lights were flashing there, though in varying numbers. Now, having a clear view, I found to my dismay that they had shrunk to one. It was like a story in the Arabian Nights. I swore, though, that I would not be cheated of this last chance. The flashing object, whatever it was, lay some two hundred yards above me on the slope; and I approached cautiously, with my eyes fixed on it, much like a child hunting grasshoppers in a hay-field. I was less than ten paces from it when the light suddenly vanished, and five paces more knocked the bottom out of the mystery. The object was a battered and empty meat-can.

"I had passed a hundred such, at least, on my way. The camps had lain pretty close to the track, and the rains descending upon their refuse heaps had washed the labels off these cans, that now, as sun and moon rose and passed over the mountain side, flashed moving signals down to Eucalyptus in the valley—signals of failure and desolation. And these had been the Bishop's pillar of fire in the wilderness!"

'Was it weary, then, In the wilderness?' . . .

"I turned and went down the track.

"At the Necropolis gate I found Captain Bill standing, with a heavy and puzzled face, beside my horse.

"'I was stepping up to Cornice House; but found your nag here, and concluded to wait. I've been waiting the best part of an hour. What in thunder have you been doing with yourself?'

"'Prospecting,' said I. 'What's the news? Anything wrong with the Bishop?'

"'There's nothing wrong with him; and won't be, any more. He broke a blood-vessel in the night. Flo looked in early this morning, and found him sleeping, as she thought. An hour later she took him a cup of tea, and was putting it down on the table by the bed, when she saw blood on the pillow. She's powerful upset.'

"Two days later—the morning of the funeral—I met Captain Bill at the entrance of the town. He held the Bishop's small morocco-bound Bible in his hand; but for excellent reasons had made no change in his work-day attire.

"'You're attending, of course?' was his greeting. 'Say, would you like to conduct? It lay between me and Huz-'n-Buz, and he was for tossing up; but I allowed he was altogether too hoary a sinner. So we made him chief mourner instead, along with Flo—the more by token that he's the only citizen with a black coat to his back. As for Flo, she's got to attend in colours, having cut up her only black gown to nail on the casket for a covering. Foolishness, of course; but she was set on it. But see here, you've only to say the word, and I'll resign to you.'

"I declined, and suggested that for two reasons he was the man to conduct the service: first, as the most prominent inhabitant of Eucalyptus; and secondly, as having made himself in a way responsible for the Bishop from the first.

"'As you like,' said he.' I told him, that first night, that I'd see him through; and I will.'

"He eyed the Bible dubiously. 'It's pretty small print,' he added. 'I suppose it's all good, now?'

"'If you mean that you're going to open the book and read away from the first full-stop you happen to light on—'

"'That's what I'd planned. You don't suppose, do you, I've had time since Tuesday to read all this through and skim off the cream?'

"'Then you'd better let me pick out a chapter for you.'

"As I took the Bible something fluttered from it to the ground. Captain Bill stooped and picked it up.

"'That's pretty, too,' he said, handing it to me.

"It was a little bookmarker, worked in silk, with one pink rose, the initials M. P. (for Mercy Penno, no doubt), and under these the favourite lines that small West-country children in England embroider on their samplers:"

'Rose leaves smell When roses thrive: Here's my work When I'm alive. Rose leaves smell When shrunk and shred: Here's my work When I'm dead.'

I turned to the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians: showed the captain where to begin; and laid the bookmarker opposite the place.

"We walked a few paces together as far as the green knoll that I have described as overhanging Eucalyptus, and there I halted to wait for the funeral, while Captain Bill went on to the Necropolis to make sure that the grave was ready and all arrangements complete. The procession was not due to start for another quarter of an hour, so I found a comfortable boulder and sat down to smoke a pipe. Right under me stretched the deserted main street, and in the hush of the morning—it was just the middle of the Indian summer, and the air all sunny and soft—I could hear the billiard balls click-click-clicking as usual, and the players' voices breaking in at intervals, and the banjoes tinkling away down the street from saloon to saloon. These and the distant chatter of the river were all the sounds; and the river's chatter seemed hardly so persistent and monotonous as the voices of the saloons and the unceasing question—"

'Was it weary there In the wilderness? Was it weary-y-y, 'way down in Goshen?'

"Suddenly, far down the street, there was a stir, and from the door of No. 67 half a dozen men came staggering out into the sunshine under a black coffin, which they carried shoulder high; and behind came two figures only—those of Miss Montmorency and the architect— arm in arm. The bearers wheeled round, got into step after one or two attempts, and the procession advanced.

"And I observed, as it advanced, that a hush came slowly with it, closing on the click of the balls and the strumming of the banjoes, as from saloon after saloon the players stepped out and fell in at the tail of the procession. Gradually these noises were penned into the three or four saloons immediately beneath me; and then these, too, were silenced, and the mourners began to climb the hill.

"I did not attend the funeral after all. I rose and stood hat in hand as it climbed past—the coffin, the one woman, and the many men. It was grotesque enough. Flo had on the same outrageous costume she had worn at our first meeting; but a look at the black drapery of the coffin sanctified that. One mourner, in pure absence of mind, had brought along his billiard-cue as a walking-stick; and every now and then would step out of the ranks and distribute whacks among the five or six dogs that frisked alongside the procession. But I read on every face the consciousness that Eucalyptus was doing its duty.

"So they climbed past and up to the Necropolis, and filed in between its two pillars. I could see among the pines a group or two standing, with bent heads, and Captain Bill towering beside the grave; at times I heard his voice lifted, but could not catch the words. Down in the town for a while all was silent as death. Then in a saloon below some boy—left behind, no doubt, to look after the house—took up a banjo and began to pick out slowly and with one finger the tune of ''Way down upon the Suwanee River,' and as it went I fitted the words to it:"

'All the world is sad and dreary Everywhere I roam, Oh, brudders, how my heart grows weary . . .'

"The tune ceased. The only sound now came from a robin, hunting about the turf and now and then breaking out into an impatient twitter.

"The silence was broken at length by the footsteps of the mourners returning. They went down the hill almost as decorously as they had gone up. Flo stepped aside and came towards me.

"'Let me stay beside you for a bit. I can't go back there—yet.'

"This was all she said; and we stood there side by side for minutes. Soon the tinkle of a banjo came up to us, and a pair of billiard balls clicked; then a second banjo joined in; and gradually, as the stream of citizens trickled back and spread, so like a stream the sound of clicking billiard balls and tinkling banjoes trickled back and spread along the main street of Eucalyptus City."

'Was it weary there, In de wilderness? . . .'

"Flo looked at me and put out a hand; but drew it back before I could take it. And so, without another word, she went down the hill."



WIDDERSHINS.

A DROLL.

Once upon a time there was a small farmer living in Wendron parish, not far from the church-town. 'Thaniel Teague was his name. This Teague happened to walk into Helston on a Furry-day, when the Mayor and townspeople dance through the streets to the Furry-tune. In the evening there was a grand ball given at the Angel Hotel, and the landlord very kindly allowed Teague—who had stopped too late as it was—to look in through the door and watch the gentry dance the Lancers.

Teague thought he had never seen anything so heavenly. What with one hindrance and another 'twas past midnight before he reached home, and then nothing would do for him but he must have his wife and six children out upon the floor in their night-clothes, practising the Grand Chain while he sang—

Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise!

The seventh child, the babby, they set down in the middle of the floor, like a nine-pin. And the worst of it was, the poor mite twisted his eyes so, trying to follow his mammy round and round, that he grew up with a cast from that hour.

'Tis of this child—Joby he was called—that I am going to tell you. Barring the cast, he grew up a very straight lad, and in due time began to think upon marrying. His father's house faced south, and as it came easier to him to look north-west than any other direction, he chose a wife from Gwinear parish. His elder brothers had gone off to sea for their living, and his sister had married a mine-captain: so when the old people died, Joby took over the farm and worked it, and did very well.

Joby's wife was very fond of him, though of course she didn't like that cast in his looks: and in many ways 'twas inconvenient too. If the poor man ever put hand on plough to draw a straight furrow, round to the north 'twould work as sure as a compass-needle. She consulted the doctors about it, and they did no good. Then she thought about consulting a conjurer; but being a timorous woman as well as not over-wise, she put it off for a while.

Now, there was a little fellow living over to Penryn in those times, Tommy Warne by name, that gave out he knew how to conjure. Folks believed in him more than he did himself: for, to tell truth, he was a lazy shammick, who liked most ways of getting a living better than hard work. Still, he was generally made pretty welcome at the farm-houses round, for he could turn a hand to anything and always kept the maids laughing in the kitchen. One morning he dropped in on Farmer Joby and asked for a job to earn his dinner; and Joby gave him some straw to spin for thatching. By dinner-time Tom had spun two bundles of such very large size that the farmer rubbed his chin when he looked at them.

"Why," says he, "I always thought you a liar—I did indeed. But now I believe you can conjure, sure enough."

As for Mrs. Joby, she was so much pleased that, though she felt certain the devil must have had a hand in it, she gave Tom an extra helping of pudding for dinner.

Some time after this, Farmer Joby missed a pair of pack-saddles. Search and ask as he might, he couldn't find out who had stolen them, or what had become of them.

"Tommy Warne's a clever fellow," he said at last. "I must see if he can tell me anything." So he walked over to Penryn on purpose.

Tommy was in his doorway smoking when Farmer Joby came down the street. "So you'm after they pack-saddles," said he.

"Why, how ever did you know?"

"That's my business. Will it do if you find 'em after harvest?"

"To be sure 'twill. I only want to know where they be."

"Very well, then; after harvest they'll be found."

Home the farmer went. Sure enough, after harvest, he went to unwind Tommy's two big bundles of straw-rope for thatching the mow, and in the middle of each was one of his missing pack-saddles.

"Well, now," said Joby's wife, "that fellow must have a real gift of conjurin'! I wonder, my dear, you don't go and consult him about that there cross-eye of yours."

"I will, then," said Joby; and he walked over to Penryn again the very next market-day.

"'Cure your eyes,' is it?" said Tommy Warne. "Why, to be sure I can. Why didn't you ax me afore? I thought you liked squintin'."

"I don't, then; I hate it."

"Very well; you shall see straight this very night if you do what I tell you. Go home and tell your wife to make your bed on the roof of the four-poster; and she must make it widdershins, turnin' bed-tie and all against the sun, and puttin' the pillow where the feet come as a rule. That's all."

"Fancy my never thinkin' of anything so simple as that!" said Joby. He went home and told his wife. She made his bed on the roof of the four-poster, and widdershins, as he ordered; and they slept that night, the wife as usual, and Joby up close to the rafters.

But scarcely had Joby closed an eye before there came a rousing knock at the door, and in walked Joby's eldest brother, the sea-captain, that he hadn't seen for years.

"Get up, Joby, and come along with me if you want that eye of yours mended."

"Thank you, Sam, it's curin' very easy and nice, and I hope you won't disturb me."

"If 'tis Tommy Warne's cure you're trying, why then I'm part of it; so you'd best get up quickly."

"Aw, that's another matter, though you might have said so at first. I'd no notion you and Tommy was hand-'n-glove."

Joby rose up and followed his brother out of doors. He had nothing on but his night-shirt, but his brother seemed in a hurry, and he didn't like to object.

They set their faces to the road and they walked and walked, neither saying a word, till they came to Penryn. There was a fair going on in the town; swing-boats and shooting-galleries and lillybanger standings, and naphtha lamps flaming, and in the middle of all, a great whirly-go-round, with striped horses and boats, and a steam-organ playing "Yankee Doodle." As soon as they started Joby saw that the whole thing was going around widdershins; and his brother stood up under the naphtha-lamp and pulled out a sextant and began to take observations.

"What's the latitude?" asked Joby. He felt that he ought to say something to his brother, after being parted all these years.

"Decimal nothing to speak of," answered Sam.

"Then we ought to be nearing the Line," said Joby. He hadn't noticed the change, but now he saw that the boat they sat in was floating on the sea, and that Sam had stuck his walking-stick out over the stern and was steering.

"What's the longitude?" asked Joby.

"That doesn't concern us."

"'Tis west o' Grinnidge, I suppose?" Joby knew very little about navigation, and wanted to make the most of it.

"West o' Penryn," said Sam, very sharp and short. "'Twasn' Grinnidge Fair we started from."

But presently he sings out "Here we are!" and Joby saw a white line, like a popping-crease, painted across the blue sea ahead of them. First he thought 'twas paint, and then he thought 'twas catgut, for when the keel of their boat scraped over it, it sang like a bird.

"That was the Equator," said Sam. "Now let's see if your eyes be any better."

But when Joby tried them, what was his disappointment to find the cast as bad as ever?—only now they were slewing right the other way, towards the South Pole.

"I never thought well of this cure from the first," declared Sam. "For my part, I'm sick and tired of the whole business!" And with that he bounced up from the thwart and hailed a passing shark and walked down its throat in a huff, leaving Joby all alone on the wide sea.

"There's nice brotherly behaviour for you!" said Joby to himself. "Lucky he left his walking-stick behind. The best thing I can do is to steer along close to the Equator, and then I know where I am."

So he steered along close to the Line, and by and by he saw something shining in the distance. When he came nearer, 'twas a great gilt fowl stuck there with its beak to the Line and its wings sprawled out. And when he came close, 'twas no other than the cock belonging to the tower of his own parish church of Wendron!

"Well!" said Joby, "one has to travel to find out how small the world is. And what might you be doin' here, naybour?"

"Is that you, Joby Teague? Then I'll thank you to do me a good turn. I came here in a witch-ship last night, and the crew put this spell upon me because I wouldn't pay my footing to cross the Line. A nice lot, to try and steal the gilt off a church weather-cock! 'Tis ridiculous," said he, "but I can't get loose for the life o' me!"

"Why, that's as easy as ABC," said Joby. "You'll find it in any book of parlour amusements. You take a fowl, put its beak to the floor, and draw a chalk line away from it, right and left—"

Joby wetted his thumb, smudged out a bit of the Equator on each side of the cock's nose, and the bird stood up and shook himself.

"And now is there anything I can do for you, Joby Teague?"

"To be sure there is. I'm getting completely tired of this boat: and if you can give me a lift, I'll take it as a favour."

"No favour at all. Where shall we go visit?—the Antipodes?"

"No, thank you," said Toby. "I've heard tell they get up an' do their business when we honest folks be in our beds: and that kind o' person I never could trust. Squint or no squint, Wendron's Wendron, and that's where I'm comfortable."

"Well, it's no use loitering here, or we may get into trouble for what we've done to the Equator. Climb on my back," said the bird, "and home we go!"

It seemed no more than a flap of the wings, and Joby found himself on his friend's back on one of the pinnacles of Wendron Church and looking down on his own farm.

"Thankin' you kindly, soce, and now I think I'll be goin'," said he.

"Not till I've cured your eyesight, Joby," said the polite bird.

Joby by this time was wishing his eyesight to botheration; but before he could say a word, a breeze came about the pinnacles, and he was spinning around on the cock's back—spinning around widdershins— clutching the bird's neck and holding his breath.

"And now," the cock said, as they came to a standstill again, "I think you can see a hole in a ladder as well as any man."

Just then the bells in the tower below them began to ring merrily.

Said Joby, "What's that for, I wonder?"

"It looks to me," said the cock, "as if your wife was gettin' married again."

Sure enough, while the bells rang, Joby saw the door of his own house open, and his own wife come stepping towards the church, leaning on a man's arm. And who should that man be but Tommy Warne?

"And to think I've lived fifteen years with that woman, and never lifted my hand to her!"

Said the bird, "The wedding is fixed for eleven o'clock, and 'tis on the stroke now. If I was you, Joby, I'd climb down and put back the church clock."

"And so I would, if I knew how to get to it."

"You've but to slide down my leg to the parapet: and from the parapet you can jump right on to the string-course under the clock."

Joby slid down the bird's leg, and jumped on to the ledge. He had never before noticed a clock in Wendron Church tower; but there one was, staring him in the face.

"Now," cried his friend, "catch hold of the minute-hand and turn!" Joby did so—"Widdershins!" screamed the bird: "faster! faster!" Joby whizzed back the minute-hand with all his might.

"Aie, ul—ul—oo! Lemme go! 'Tis my arm you're pullin' off!" 'Twas his own wife's voice in his own four-poster. Joby had slid down the bed-post and caught hold of her arm, and was workin' it round like mad from right to left.

"I ax your pardon, my dear. I was thinkin' you was another man's bride."

"Indeed, I must say you wasn't behavin' like it," said she.

But when she got up and lit a candle, she was pleased enough. For Joby's eyes were as straight as yours or mine. And straight they have been ever since.



VISITORS AT THE GUNNEL ROCK.

A LIGHTSHIP IDYLL.

When first the Trinity Brothers put a light out yonder by the Gunnel Rocks, it was just a trifling makeshift affair for the time—none of your proper lightships with a crew of twelve or fourteen hands; and my father and I used to tend it, taking turn and turn with two other fellows from the Islands. I'm talking of old days. The rule then— they have altered it since—was two months afloat and two ashore; and all the time we tossed out there on duty, not a soul would we see to speak to except when the Trinity boat put off with stores for us and news of what was doing in the world. This would be about once a fortnight in fair weather; but through the winter time it was oftener a month, and provisions ran low enough, now and then, to make us anxious. "Was the life dreary?" Well, you couldn't call it gay; but, you see, it didn't kill me.

For the first week I thought the motion would drive me crazy—up and down, up and down, in that everlasting ground-swell—although I had been at the fishing all my life, and knew what it meant to lie-to in any ordinary sea. But after ten days or so I got not to mind it. And then there was the open air. It was different with the poor fellows on the Lighthouse, eighteen miles to seaward of us, to the south-west. They drew better pay than ours, by a trifle; but they were landsmen, to start with; and cooped in that narrow tower at night, with the shutters closed and the whole building rocking like a tree, it's no wonder their nerves wore out. Four or five days of it have been known to finish a man; and in those times a lighthouse-keeper had three months of duty straight away, and only a fortnight on shore. Now he gets only a fortnight out there, and six weeks to recover in. With all that, they're mostly fit to start at their own shadow when the boat takes them off.

But on the lightship we fared tolerably. To begin with, we had the lantern to attend to. You'd be surprised how much employment that gives a man—cleaning, polishing, and trimming. And my father, though particular to a scratch on the reflector, or the smallest crust of salt on the glass, was a restful, cheerful sort of a man to bide with. Not talkative, you understand—no light-keeper in the world was ever talkative—but with a power of silence that was more comforting than speech. And out there, too, we found all sorts of little friendly things to watch and think over. Sometimes a school of porpoises; or a line of little murrs flying; or a sail far to the south, making for the Channel. And sometimes, towards evening, the fishing-boats would come out and drop anchor a mile and a half to south'ard, down sail, and hang out their riding lights; and we knew that they took their mark from us, and that gave a sociable feeling.

On clear afternoons, too, by swarming up the mast just beneath the cage, I could see the Islands away in the east, with the sun on their cliffs; and home wasn't so far off, after all. The town itself, which lay low down on the shore, we could never spy, but glimpsed the lights of it now and then, after sunset. These always flickered a great deal, because of the waves, like little hills of water, bobbing between them and us. And always we had the Lighthouse for company. In daytime, through the glass, we could watch the keepers walking about in the iron gallery round the top: and all night through there it was beckoning to us with its three white flashes every minute. No, we weren't exactly gay out there, and sometimes we made wild weather of it. Yet we did pretty well; except for the fogs, when our arms ached with keeping the gong going.

But if we were comfortable then, you should have seen us at the end of our two months, when the boat came off with the relief, and took us on shore. John and Robert Pendlurian were the names of the relief; brothers they were, oldsters of about fifty-five and fifty; and John Pendlurian, the elder, a widow-man same as my father, but with a daughter at home. Living in the Islands, of course I'd known Bathsheba ever since we'd sat in infant-school; and what more natural than to ask after her health, along with the other news? But Old John got to look sly and wink at my father when we came to this question, out of the hundred others. And the other two would take it up and wink back solemn as mummers. I never lost my temper with the old idiots: 'twasn't worth while.

But the treat of all was to set foot on the quay-steps, and the people crowding round and shaking your hand and chattering; and everything ashore going on just as you'd left it, and you not wishing it other, and everybody glad to see you all the same; and the smell of the gardens and the stinking fish at the quay-corner—you might choose between them, but home was in both; and the nets drying; and to be out of oilskins and walking to meeting-house on the Sunday, and standing up there with the congregation, all singing in company, and the women taking stock of you till the newness wore off; and the tea-drinking, and Band of Hopes, and courants, and dances. We had all the luck of these; for the two Pendlurians, being up in years and easily satisfied so long as they were left quiet, were willing to take their holidays in the dull months, beginning with February and March. And so I had April and May, when a man can always be happy ashore; and August and September, which is the best of the fishing and all the harvest and harvest games; and again, December and January, with the courants and geesy-dancing, and carols and wassail-singing. Early one December, when he came to relieve us, Old John said to me in a haphazard way, "It's all very well for me and Robert, my lad; for us two can take equal comfort in singin' 'Star o' Bethl'em' ashore or afloat; but I reckon 'tis somebody's place to see that Bathsheba don't miss any of the season's joy an' dancin' on our account."

Now, Bathsheba had an unmarried aunt—Aunt Hessy Pendlurian we called her—that used to take her to all the parties and courants when Old John was away at sea. So she wasn't likely to miss any of the fun, bein' able to foot it as clever as any girl in the Islands. She had the love of it, too—foot and waist and eyes all a-dancing, and body and blood all a-tingle as soon as ever the fiddle spoke. Maybe this same speech of Old John's set me thinking. Or, maybe I'd been thinking already—what with their May-game hints and the loneliness out there. Anyway, I dangled pretty close on Bathsheba's heels all that Christmas. She was comely—you understand—very comely and tall, with dark blood, and eyes that put you in mind of a light shining steady upon dark water. And good as gold. She's dead and gone these twelve years—rest her soul! But (praise God for her!) I've never married another woman nor wanted to.

There, I've as good as told you already! When the time came and I asked her if she liked me, she said she liked no man half so well: and that being as it should be, the next thing was to put up the banns. There wasn't time that holiday: like a fool, I had been dilly-dallying too long, though I believe now I might have asked her a month before. So the wedding was held in the April following, my father going out to the Gunnel for a couple of days, so that Old John might be ashore to give his daughter away. The most I mind of the wedding was the wonder of beholding the old chap there in a long-tailed coat, having never seen him for years but in his oilskins.

Well, the rest of that year seemed pretty much like all the others, except that coming home was better than ever. But when Christmas went by, and February came and our turn to be out again on the Gunnel, I went with a dismal feeling I hadn't known before. For Bathsheba was drawing near her time, and the sorrow was that she must go through it without me. She had walked down to the quay with us, to see us off; and all the way she chatted and laughed with my father as cheerful as cheerful—but never letting her eyes rest on me, I noticed, and I saw what that meant; and when it came to goodbye, there was more in the tightening of her arms about me than I'd ever read in it before.

The old man, I reckon, had a wisht time with me, the next two or three weeks; but, by the mercy of God, the weather behaved furious all the while, leaving a man no time to mope. 'Twas busy all, and busy enough, to keep a clear light inside the lantern, and warm souls inside our bodies. All through February it blew hard and cold from the north and north-west, and though we lay in the very mouth of the Gulf Stream, for ten days together there wasn't a halliard we could touch with the naked hand, nor a cloth nor handful of cotton-waste but had to be thawed at the stove before using. Then, with the beginning of March, the wind tacked round to south-west, and stuck there, blowing big guns, and raising a swell that was something cruel. It was one of these gales that tore away the bell from the lighthouse, though hung just over a hundred feet above water-level. As for us, I wonder now how the little boat held by its two-ton anchors, even with three hundred fathom of chain cable to bear the strain and jerk of it; but with the spindrift whipping our faces, and the hail cutting them, we didn't seem to have time to think of that. Bathsheba thought of it, though, in her bed at home—as I've heard since—and lay awake more than one night thinking of it.

But the third week in March the weather moderated; and soon the sun came out and I began to think. On the second afternoon of the fair weather I climbed up under the cage and saw the Islands for the first time; and coming down, I said to my father:

"Suppose that Bathsheba is dead!"

We hadn't said more than a word or two to each other for a week; indeed, till yesterday we had to shout in each other's ear to be heard at all. My father filled a pipe and said, "Don't be a fool."

"I see your hand shaking," said I.

Said he, "That's with the cold. At my age the cold takes a while to leave a man's extremities."

"But," I went on in an obstinate way, "suppose she is dead?"

My father answered, "She is a well-built woman. The Lord is good."

Not another word than this could I get from him. That evening—the wind now coming easy from the south, and the swell gone down in a wonderful way—as I was boiling water for the tea, we saw a dozen fishing-boats standing out from the Islands. They ran down to within two miles of us and then hove-to. The nets went out, and the sails came down, and by and by through the glass I could spy the smoke coming up from their cuddy-stoves.

"They might have brought news," I cried out, "even if 'tis sorrow!"

"Maybe there was no news to bring."

"'Twould have been neighbourly, then, to run down and say so."

"And run into the current here, I suppose? With a chance of the wind falling light at any moment?"

I don't know if this satisfied my father: but I know that he meant it to satisfy me, which it was pretty far from doing. Before daylight the boats hoisted sail again, and were well under the Islands and out of sight by breakfast-time.

After this, for a whole long week I reckon I did little more than pace the ship to and fro; a fisherman's walk, as they say—three steps and overboard. I took the three steps and wished I was overboard. My father watched me queerly all the while; but we said no word to each other, not even at meals.

It was the eighth day after the fishing-boats left us, and about four in the afternoon, that we saw a brown sail standing towards us from the Islands, and my father set down the glass, resting it on the gunwale, and said:

"That's Old John's boat."

I took the glass from him, and was putting it to my eye; but had to set it down and turn my back. I couldn't wait there with my eye on the boat; so I crossed to the other side of the ship and stood staring at the Lighthouse away on the sky-line, and whispered: "Come quickly!" But the wind had moved a couple of points to the east and then fallen very light, and the boat must creep towards us close-hauled. After a long while my father spoke again:

"That will be Old John steerin' her. I reckoned so: he've got her jib shakin'—that's it: sail her close till she strikes the tide-race, and that'll fetch her down, wind or no wind. Halloa!— Lad, lad! 'tis all right! See there, that bit o' red ensign run up to the gaff!"

"Why should that mean aught?" asked I.

"Would he trouble to hoist bunting if he had no news? Would it be there, close under the peak, if the news was bad?—and she his own daughter, his only flesh!"

It may have been twenty minutes later that Old John felt the Gunnel current, and, staying the cutter round, came down fast on us with the wind behind his beam. My father hailed to him once and twice, and the second time he must have heard. But, without answering, he ran forward and took in his foresail. And then I saw an arm and a little hand reached up to take hold of the tiller; and my heart gave a great jump.

It was she, my wife Bathsheba, laid there by the stern-sheets on a spare-sail, with a bundle of oilskins to cushion her. With one hand she steered the boat up into the wind as Old John lowered sail and they fell alongside: and with the other she held a small bundle close against her breast.

"Such a whackin' boy I never see in my life!"—These were Old John's first words, and he shouted them. "Born only yestiddy week, an' she ought to be abed: an' so I've been tellin' her ever since she dragged me out 'pon this wildy-go errand!"

But Bathsheba, as I lifted her over the lightship's side, said no more than "Oh, Tom!"—and let me hold her, with her forehead pressed close against me. And the others kept very quiet, and everything was quiet about us, until she jumped back on a sudden and found all her speech in a flood.

"Tom," she said, "you're crushin' him, you great, awkward man!" And she turned back the shawl and snatched the handkerchief off the baby's face—a queer-looking face it was, too. "Be all babies as queer as that?" thought I. Lucky I didn't say it, though. "There, my blessed, my handsome! Look, my tender! Eh, Tom, but he kicks my side all to bruises; my merryun, my giant! Look up at your father, and you his very image!" That was pretty stiff. "I declare," she says, "he's lookin' about an' takin' stock of everything"—and that was pretty stiff, too. "So like a man; all for the sea and the boats! Tom, dear, father will tell you that all the way on the water he was as good as gold; and, on shore before that, kicking and fisting—all for the sea and the boats; the man of him! Hold him, dear, but be careful! A Sunday's child, too—

'Sunday's child is full of grace . . .'

And—the awkward you are! Here, give him back to me: but feel how far down in his clothes the feet of him reach. Extraordinar'! Aun' Hessy mounted a chair and climbed 'pon the chest o' drawers with him, before takin' him downstairs; so that he'll go up in the world, an' not down."

"If he wants to try both," said I, "he'd best follow his father and grandfathers, and live 'pon a lightship."

"So this is how you live, Tom; and you, father; and you, father-in-law!" She moved about examining everything—the lantern, the fog-signals and life-buoys, the cooking-stove, bunks and store-cupboards. "To think that here you live, all the menkind belongin' to me, and I never to have seen it! All the menkind did I say, my rogue! And was I forgettin' you—you—you?" Kisses here, of course: and then she held the youngster up to look at his face in the light. "Ah, heart of me, will you grow up too to live in a lightship and leave a poor woman at home to weary for you in her trouble? Rogue, rogue, what poor woman have I done this to, bringing you into the world to be her torture and her joy?"

"Dear," says I, "you're weak yet. Sit down by me and rest awhile before the time comes to go back."

"But I'm not going back yet awhile. Your son, sir, and I are goin' to spend the night aboard."

"Halloa!" I said, and looked towards Old John, who had made fast astern of us and run a line out to one of the anchor-buoys.

"'Tisn't allowed, o' course," he muttered, looking in turn and rather sheepishly towards my father. "But once in a way—'tis all Bathsheba's notion, and you mustn' ask me," he wound up.

"'Once in a way'!" cried Bathsheba. "And is it twice in a way that a woman comes to a man and lays his first child in his arms?"

My father had been studying the sunset and the sky to windward; and now he answered Old John:

"'Tis once in a way, sure enough, that a boat can lay alongside the Gunnel. But the wind's falling, and the night'll be warm. I reckon if you stay in the boat, Old John, she'll ride pretty comfortable; and I'll give the word to cast off at the leastest sign."

"Once in a way"—ah, sirs, it isn't twice in a way there comes such a night as that was! We lit the light at sunset, and hoisted it, and made tea, talking like children all the while; and my father the biggest child of all. Old John had his share passed out to him, and ate it alone out there in the boat; and, there being a lack of cups, Bathsheba and I drank out of the same, and scalded our lips, and must kiss to make them well. Foolishness? Dear, dear, I suppose so. And the jokes we had, calling out to Old John as the darkness fell, and wishing him "Good night!" "Ou, aye; I hear 'ee," was all he answered. After we'd eaten our tea and washed up, I showed Bathsheba how to crawl into her bunk, and passed in the baby and laid it in her arms, and so left her, telling her to rest and sleep. But by and by, as I was keeping watch, she came out, declaring the place stifled her. So I pulled out a mattress and blankets and strewed a bed for her out under the sky, and sat down beside her, watching while she suckled the child. She had him wrapped up so that the two dark eyes of him only could be seen, staring up from the breast to the great bright lantern above him. The moon was in her last quarter, and would not rise till close upon dawn; and the night pitchy dark around us, with a very few stars. In less than a minute Bathsheba gave a start and laid a hand on my arm.

"Oh, Tom, what was that?"

"Look up," said I. "'Tis the birds flying about the light."

For, of course, our light always drew the sea-birds, especially on dull nights, and 'twas long since we had grown used to the sound of their beating and flapping, and took no notice of it. A moment after I spoke one came dashing against the rigging, and we heard him tumble into the sea; and then one broke his neck against the cage overhead and tumbled dead at our feet. Bathsheba shivered as I tossed him overboard.

"Is it always like this?" she whispered. "I thought 'twas only at the cost of a silly woman's fears that you saved men's lives out here."

"Well," said I, "this is something more than usual, to be sure."

For, looking up into the circle of light, we could see now at least a hundred birds flying round and round, and in half an hour's time there must have been many hundreds. Their white breasts were like a snowstorm; and soon they began to fall thick upon deck. They were not all sea-birds, either.

"Halloa!" said I, "what's the day of the month?"

"The nineteenth of March."

"Here's a wheatear, then," I said. "In a couple of weeks we shall have the swallows; and, a couple of weeks after, a cuckoo, maybe. So you see that even out here by the Gunnel we know when spring comes along."

And I began to hum the old song that children sang in the Islands:

The cuckoo is a pretty bird, He sings as he flies: He brings us good tidings. He tells us no lies: He sucks the sweet flow-ers For to make his voice clear, And when he says "Cuckoo!" The summer is near.

Bathsheba's eyes were wet for the poor birds, but she took up the song, crooning it soft-like, and persuading the child to sleep:

O, meeting is a pleasure, But parting is grief, An inconstant lover Is worse than a thief; For a thief at the worst Will take all that I have; But an inconstant lover Sends me to my grave.

Her hand stole into mine as the boy's eyes closed, and clasped my fingers, entreating me in silence to look and admire him. Our own eyes met over him, and I saw by the lantern-light the happy blush rise and spread over neck and chin and forehead. The flapping of the birds overhead had almost died away, and we lay still, watching the lighthouse flash, far down in the empty darkness.

By and by the clasp of her hand slackened. A star shot down the sky, and I turned. Her eyelids, too, had drooped, and her breath came and went as softly and regularly as the Atlantic swell around us. And my child slept in her arms.

Day was breaking before the first cry awoke her. My father had the breakfast ready, and Old John sang out to hurry. A fair wind went with them to the Islands—a light south-wester. As the boat dropped out of sight, I turned and drew a deep breath of it. It was full of the taste of flowers, and I knew that spring was already at hand, and coming up that way.



LETTERS FROM TROY.

ADDRESSED TO RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABBYSSINIA.

I.—THE FIRST PARISH MEETING.

Troy Town, 5 December, 1894.

My Dear Prince,—I feel sure that you, as a sympathetic student of western politics and manners, must be impatient to hear about our first Parish Meeting in Troy; and so I am catching the earliest post to inform you that from a convivial point of view the whole proceedings were in the highest degree successful. And if Self-Government by the People can provide a success of the kind in that dull season when people as a rule are saving up for Christmas, I hardly think our Chairman stretched a point last night when he said, "This evening will leave its mark on the history of England." Indeed, some inkling of this must have guided us when we met, a few days before, and agreed to postpone our usual Tuesday evening Carol-practice in order to give the New Era a fair start. And I am told this morning that the near approach of the sacred season had a sensibly pacific influence upon the counsels of our neighbours at Treneglos. The parishioners there are mostly dairy-farmers, and party feeling runs high. But while eggs fetch 2d. apiece (as they do, towards Christmas) there will always be a disposition to give even the most unmarketable specimens the benefit of any doubt.

We were at first a good deal annoyed on finding that the Act allowed Troy but eleven Parish Councillors. We have never had less than sixty-five on our Regatta Committee, and we had believed Local Self-Government to be at least as important as a Regatta. We argued this out at some length last night, and the Chairman—Lawyer Thoms— admitted that we had reason on our side. But his instructions were definite, and he could not (as he vivaciously put it) fly in the face of the Queen and two Houses of Parliament. We saw that his regret was sincere, and so contented ourselves with handing in seventy-two nomination papers for the eleven places, just to mark our sense of the iniquity of the thing.