THE "LONG LOST UNCLE."

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1583, 1 April 1887, Page 3

THE "LONG LOST UNCLE."

It is the custom of story-spinners at to represent Father Christmas as an old man with icicles for a beard, and walking kneedeep in snow. Tae notion, wo admit, does very well in a tale or in a picture. It is quite a luxury inside a comfortable room to read about somo belated traveller, old Father Christmas, Santa Clans, or some special friend on a good mission, iflulll id to the ears, and toiling against the white storm At we know the dear old soul, he is very fatigued, and though almost within hail of the inn of his destination, he sinks down among the snow apparently doomed to die. But he does not die; for Miry the Maid of the inn, who has been sent a message by her mistress, stumbles against the already half-drowied fi ju*e in the snow* Mary gives the alarm, and the man is taken into the warm inn just in time to have his life saved. But who is the traveller ? Nobody knows, because he seems a stranger. It is supposed that he cannot 09 a man of substance, orhe would not be travelling on foot in a snowstorm, with a pretty heavy knapsack on his back. But the man is not what he seems, and it should not be forgotten that there is always one man at least travelling on foot at Christmas time even in the wildest weather, and that he is coming from the ends of the earth with one particular object in view. The story requires it. In our present case the traveller soon recovers, and begins to make a few inquiries which show that he can't be altogether a stranger to the village. When also he coolly orders dinner to be got ready for a dozen, doesn't the landlord make saucers of his eyes ? A dozen! Where are they! They can't be in the stranger's knapsack. In one sense, however, that is just where they are; for diners are always just where the money is that is to pay for the dinners; and in this particular knapsack lie shining like a mellow autumn a large number of bright yellow sovereigns. Having got the one bit of information he want? the stranger goes into the village, taps at a door, and is admitted. Though unknown, he walks in and sits down. It is the abode of poverty, but the honest and clean sort. Being Christmas, the board ought to be smoking, if not groaning, with roast beef, turkey, and plum pudding. But there is nothing. The goodman and good wife and a whole lot of children look at the stranger in mild astonishment, and ask with their eyes, "Who are you?" The stranger looks at them in a manner which clearly asks, " Don't you know me ?" Tbey don't; but the story of the man is soon told. He is, in fact, " the long-lost-un«*le " of the family, and now he re turns like a " golden angel " in the nick of Christmas time. Of course, he bundles the whole colony off to the inn, where they enjoy the best dinner they have eaten for years. This is but the beginning of great things ; for as the stranger is really a native of the place, and is now wealthy, he showers benefactions all round. There never was such a Christmas before in that village.