THE GARDEN OF GOD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18380, 21 April 1923, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE GARDEN OF GOD.

•.. — . i- , ; by H. DE verb stacpoole. ; 'If .jlrtctf of •' The Blue Lagoon," Pools of -Silsace." "The Reef of Stars," etc., eto.

KCopy right.) r ; :;1 SYNOPSIS. Kv'&Wvi dinghy. containing a young man and "H Vis young wife, both dead, the girl's arms I * Circling a ■ living child, _ is disf ' covered floating in the Pacific by the " im. g» Raratonga. On board the steamer is "J ~'J: 5 liestranae, who is searching for two adopted rfildren. lost years »go, in a boat that left « burning ship. The forms in the dinghy '---//'•"•i'Srß those of the children grown up. Lelt run ire gives . the order to proceed to the s i" s 'Idind-whence the boat had drifted, and the ■hh>'s course is set accordingly. Lestrange, ?V-."jV»r whose mind seems affected, is convinced that at tho island he will meet the children £-. ; -vVH''2»iii. and he states a viaion has appeared ii' . i' td him- Meanwhile the child. & boy. la :! ; S " vired for. and is greatly loved by the sailors. psst : The child calls himself Dick. fe: Land is sighted, and . the island, not lite'" marked on the usual charts, but reported - gome time previously by a friend of Captain H fitanistreot, of the s.s. Barotonga, appeared ' on the horizon to the great interest of all ' on board. The vessel eventually enters the P'4;i reef-bound lagoon, and the beauty of tho <«lind so fascinates Lestrange that he calls tie place tho Garden of God. v ' Lestrange and Stanistreet land to inspect 0 the island. They find signs of life and eventually _an empty habitation. .Lestrange declares his intention to stay on the island. £'•••• .• jnd on their return to the ship in the availing Stainstreet grudgingly consents to ' leave nim there, but on condition that one ■ of the sailors will stay with him. <V" The men were called together and an offer Xy'. mad* of double pay and a bonus for a £;•' year's stay on tho island. The offer is b«' : taken by one Jim Kearney, to whom the Ia?/*, child seemed to havo taken a liking, and •' tie long, red-headed sailor, with a tattered post, leaves the ship with Lestrange and ft* boy. They prepare the house for occuj} pation and put things in order for their r stay. Stores and a dinghy are left them by SUnistreot. ? Later, they watch the. ship leaving the Jiland, and bearing north. Lestrange has a premonition that he will never see that 'm?! teasel any more. Next day they settle ' Jown to their life on the island and plan • . jo*complete the house. Lestrange speaks of . Jiia belief that he will again see the "childten." Kearney believes Lestrange is " queer • \<X|'in the head. That night they are at--0 ■ tracted by the loud booming of great • •-? breakers on the reef and they realise that R thsre has been a cyclone to the north, where the ship had gone. For weeks afterwards Kearney had tho - ' uneasy feeling that perhaps they were V marooned for good and all, but he settles 00 down to fishing and to making the camp R-'j-Srl| ming and to little excursions in which he m&s}: is -joined by Dick. A queer thing about ®frfS?s Pick was his sudden change of mood. At fe&s'i limes he seemed to be brooding over some- £?{&■;• thing and, as it were, to have a different 1 Individuality. Lestrange seems to be losing fSI strength and looks more feeble. f-' . ———————————— Aj?"" . BOOK 11. I': ';-; /' ' ' \{'\ s THE CHILDREN RETURN. 1 '• ■ pV'. CHAPTER* ll.—(Continued.) !!§£ Here, to rest himself, Lestrange sat 5Jk down on a boulder and leaning forward I; v ■ith his elbows on his knees, and his chin in the cup of his hands, fell into a reverie. . The name he had given to this island came back to him as he sat there surfi; ' rounded by those ruins, perhaps two thousand years old" The Garden of H|||Qod."" " g • Ages ago men with hearts and minds, P; men who loved their children and hatea their enemies, had worshipped here— ||>i generations of them, and there lay theii : i ' god, thrown down, and his impotenct jv. \ confessed in j stone; and not only here, all across the world stretched tne fire'l&>L less altars and the broken figures of gods ' . that had been, the graveyards of futile; . , faiths. Gardens of derision. , - \ v ' The great stone figure of the god that v~' had been held his. mind in this train of :thought. What was the use? All those ancestors of his whom he bad never seen, whose forms he could not imagine, of what .use had been their sufferings, their religions; what remained of them and their worship, their tearsy and their laughter ? •' "You." .It was as "though the ferns • had answered him, the ferns that seemed trying to hide the • debasement of the great. figure the ferns still green for all the passage of the years, immortal be- ' cause they were alive. <;./• ; _>r/ The very pines that had broken the 'I | blocks apart took up the tale, the pines \ whose ancestors were green j • when the ' blocks were hewn. "The God of this ; garden, knows nothing of ghosts or ruins, L-f cares !■ for nothing' but the one untarnishable thing—life; the , spirit that .. repeats itself through the centuries in the / forms of the ferns and the trees, in the guise of the insect or the man. You." Near by a pine was standing, dead and withered, a half-grown•' tree that had fallen victim to disease close to it shoots ■ were springing, its children, born of seeds cast maybe a year ago, children of its spirit as well as its body. .; Lestrange's eyes - wandered from .the stricken ; parent to the children green and striking, toward the sun, then rising from his seat he went on through the valley, reaching the sward and the house. ; It was a couple of hours after midday. Kearney was nowhere visible, and . . Dick, down by the waterside, was busy with a cane Kearney had cut for him in imitation of a fish 3pear. Kearney had taken to spearing fiiih in i the reef pools during the past six months, taking Dick }■ with nim sometimes, an apt . pupil, ;to judge by his imitative performances. An hour later, when Lsstrange . was ' seated by the house door reading a book, Dick, who had given up imitation , fish■:.lspearing and had fetched some toys ■ from his cache, - took ■■ his : place on the sward near by. Lestrange, who had taken more notice, of the child in the last few days, £ 7 watched him for a bit and then relapsed into his book. • : wV

: : 'He was busy for a while, and the clink V ;.!;_■ of oyster ~shells and bits of coral' kept ;.";;. the reader aware of the fact. Then he Jo^;"' ceased play, and Lestrange, looking up ;.; . again from his book, saw before him, -.''"' seated on the sward, Emmeline. ,'. ' ' The child, having lost interest in its play, was seated i with hands folded gazing away across the lagoongazing wide-pup-iled. beyond the world/ just as Emmeline had often sat, caught away suddenly into v daydream-land. The folded hands were the hands of Emmeline, and the attitude % ■'. of the body, and just in that momnet, the expression of the face was as if the shade of little Emmeline's sweet soul had reappeared, vaguely braving the glances of thß.vsnn.>/;V:■ ■": '" <: r"'■''•''■■' /..-.-.;..■.,-'.■ ■■'ffifej.i. wasno illusion; the likeness was ?■' S:*?*™,* evanescent, independent of feature, .: yet distinct. - „ '.Expression, gaze, attitude of body and carriage of hands, all said to Lestrange; Hero is Emmeline reborn, living again — ; i :' : her gaze, her expression, her attitude, her r :^ Ver self. ; It was only lately that Mr. - : Kearney had noticed the child falling into : ' what he called "moody fits." It was - 'only now that the negligent eye of Les- . V;.V.trange, sharpened maybe by his return to the normal, saw what 'Kearney had missed. Nothing supernatural, something as common as the ground he stood on, and as strange— parent reappearing in th 6 child. t ,:•' Then, as Lestrange gazed on this • wonder, which was yet so commonplace, • it passed away. Kearney broke from the "trees on the " opposite side, carrying a ; bunch of bananas he had been to fetch, ; ',;; »nd Emmeline, sighting him, vanished — . turned, as if touched. by a magic wand, :' ~ into Dick, who went running toward the '• - sailor across the sward. . CHAPTER ni. |* IN THE GARDEN OF GOD THERE IS TRUTH. \ ' Yes, the promise of the vision had not been entirely broken, but that night as he lay sleepless in the house Lestrange almost Wished it had. . -/' .'lf you have, been waiting for years for ;> v > the return of someone you love, will you ■i\ be satisfied with , a likeness, ; however v,.- vivid and living, even if that likeness is Wrought from flesh and blood and spirit? I In the days that followed, watching closely now, he saw that not only had heredity given the' child the attributes ;■< of the mother, but of , the father. Perhaps I , to the absolute isolation of the parents pi from the world was clue this more than |& ordinary duplicity and simplicity of mind •■•»? structure ir, the child; he could not tell. hut the fact was there. Racing about %y'~ like a dog, following Kearney, imitating - r."- him, in the things he did, the child ; was ggj' the Dick of long ago, different somewhat Wm&ir;'' :■'-' ,■■;' ■■■•■ ,;: '":-' - : ■■■.''; '■'■-■'* ■ ■■■ ■■■-,■ ;■ .' ■-■ ■ ■ ■:.-' ■■>'■-.. ■-.

to face, - but: Dick to the life tired of P}ay or seized with a fit of day-dreaming, hdnmehne would peep forth—ever in play sometimes, Lestrange would notice the characteristicsl of ! the mother in the child's love for coloured things—flowers, bits of coral, and bright shells, and in the careful way the toys would be collected and hidden.

Sometimes so vivid was the impression that ho could have thrown out his arms and, cried, " Emmeline," only that he Miew Emmelme would know him not, . s une day, suddenly moved by an impulse could not; resist, he caught the child Siw £ 1S arms - He let himself be held Th £ St i nft A nd then ' sighting Kearney. free and f d< Wrt a PP eared > he struggled iree a , * ran to the sailor. for L Cared far more for Kearney than £&v wonder ' seeing how fee had negectd him, yet, even though he ran to the sailor Lestrange noted that the min - ln i t * rest , was not so much in the man as the object he was carrying, a a poo'L hat he had found trapped in _ "Kearney," said Lestrange. as they sat talking after supper that night. ,! You 3!* A* a \T g time a «° m y ™ kin 3 y° u aoont the other name you gave Dick— Dl * M you called him." ,ftf»" said Kearney, "that's what he labelled himself." "His mother's name was Emmeline," said Lestrange. '« He used to call her t?U Was "Peking his mother's name which he would have often heard from the icf\°. v' S fath l r ' but the «tra nß e thing is that ho used both names. It was only the other day that I noticed the likeness, .Kearney. * ■■.-.-'. ' " t Which, sir?" asked Kearney. J? 6 i 1 - ik T s ; 5 he bears t0 his mother tin ? }S { aih M welL Sometimes when he is at play or when he sits quiet at IV U . exact [y «if I were looking at his mother when she was a tiny child. and sometimes when he is running about busy, it is just as if I were watching little Dick of long ago—the thing has given me a shock, Kearney, and I don't know how to take it.

"Well, sir," said the sailor, "childand a m r V Pfc to . take after their others and mothers; I've seen it often myself, on I wouldn't be worryin* about that, if l were you.

I know,' said the other, "But it's a bit different in my case, Kearney. I have been waiting and hoping so long— and then to see them at last like— reflections m a mirror-that's what it is to me. Kearney—just like reflections in a mirror things that I know and love, but that do not know me and do not love me.

♦i, Now Kearney £ new only of one child, the solid and redoubtable Dick M., and to hear Lestrange talking of two children and reflections in a mirror gave him a touch of the old uneasiness. Not knowJSjS'droUi "* DOthing and the It would have been better if Lestrange could have hrashed the whole thing out m 'conversation with someone of a more philosophic bent than the sailor; think »ng, in a case like this, leads to brooding.

t«°w™- n W ?-, stran «° thought came to him : j «Do children really care? Did Dick nd v Emmelme long ago love me? Have I been all these years breaking my heart for the. loss of two beings who, caring for me after their way, had no enduring love, were incapable of enduring love —being children?' , .The thought was born of Dick's indifference toward him. and. of his apparent affection for Kearney..' ♦ Washing closely ;it seemed to Lestrange that this affection was less for Kearney than for the things Kearney.did and the things Kearney handled. Kearney stripped of the dinghy, of the fishing 11 lines, fish spears; Kearney unable to climb trees or carve toys would not have been the Kearney loved by Dick; the great size of the sailor probably had something to do also with the business, maybe was the cause that made Dick run 'to him first on the Raratonga. Then, when Dick in: his moody fits turned into Emmeline he seemed to care for nobody at all. * Lestrange, casting his- mind years~back and with his eyes made clear by this new revelation, tried to remember any one instance that would show him Dick or Emmeline's love for him—he could not.

The - sweet dreamy little figure of Emmeline sat before him .on the deck of the long-lost Northumberland, hunted (for her lost box of toys, was carried off to bed, by the stewardess, came, as a matter of. routine, to kiss him good-night but it was her charm that she seemed to live in a world of her own. •

Dick, an affectionate child enough. Lad called him " daddy" and sat on his knee only to wriggle off at the first enticement —had indeed shown more affection and interest , for an old sailor on board, one Paddy Button, than for his r "father." I \ Lest range, looking back across the years, could still see him. riding , round ;"the ! deck on : Mr. Button's .' back, and recalled •' his ; own pleasure in seeing the child ; amused. :, Then they had vanished with Mr. Button, and he, Lestrange, had broken his heart for them, and they! had grown up without him, surely and absolutely ;.. forgettine him never having loved him as he loved them. ■ It was only now, here in the Garden of God, as he had chosen to call, this land of nature, only here, and taught by nature herself, that the truth was borne to him the truth that for years he had been ; wandering, in ; the world, of .= illusion searching for what ': : was ,■ not there searching for what he told himself, perhaps truly, perhaps falsely, could not be there—the love of a child for a parent equal to the love of a parent for a child. . Nature said to him : You must gro^ 1 up to' love, love is the ■blossom', of the mind, not: the green tendril, children do not love as men love, they only, twine. Would you have-it otherwise? Would you have condemned Dick and Emmeline to endless regret for your loss and have made them suffer what you I had sufferedeven in part? ■' , ,; , : : - ■.';.•-■•

Dick," cried Kearney, " kim along, aisy! That's no way to be gettin' into a boat. Now set steady and give over handlin' them spears." The tide was on the ebb' and he was going over to the reef to hunt in the rock pools. 1 ~', : . ;.'■.;■:-' Since . the revelation that had come to Lestrange six months and more had passed making over 12 months since the Kara-; tonga sailed, and with the passing of the months the child had grown. ; He was now, perhaps, three and:a-half years of age, yet he was as, big as a civilised child of five, the germ of a man full of vigour and daring, restless, a thing actuated entrely by the moment, except when now and then a broody fit would take him. ' Kearney had made him a little kilt of grass such as he had seen worn by the natives of Nauru, and Dick in his kilt sat how in the stern sheets watching every movement of the man a s he cast off from the bank. They had only one boat now, for a little while ago the old dinghy of the Northumberland had given up the ghost, opening her seams, which they had no means of caulking, and filling with lagoon water. . It was nine o'clock m the morning, and when they reached the reef and tied up the sea .whs, half out and the pools showed, flashing like shields in the morning sun. .' '.' „ ,'~ Spray and the fume of beach filled the air and the crying of gulls and the everlasting murmur of the surf. Out here one's environment was completely altered. The still lagoon, the mirrored trees, the foliage and earth scents changing to thundrous .'sea, blinding coral and sea breeze scented bv beach and wave. There the coloured birds passed softly across the groves, here the seagulls clanged down the wind. " ~ • xi" u • With the breeze blowing their hair about, the man and the child stood for a moment. Kearney was looking about him to right and left, then deciding on the eastern pools he turned to the right. Dick followed, avoiding the sharp places in the coral, disdaining to notice the small, scuttling crabs, or to pick up the stray shells and cuttle-fish bones that a civilised child- would have pounced on; they were after fish, not futilities of that sort, and he carried the cane, cut for him bv Kearney, over his right shoulder in exact imitation of the man before him, with the fish spears. . • (To be continued on Monday next.)