A CHILD'S FOOTSTEPS. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2008, 18 August 1892, Page 41

A CHILD'S FOOTSTEPS. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.

By Oswald Hugo.

I pity poople who never dream. Life, though full of troubles and grief, is better than death. To the man of an active mind there is something gruesome in the thought of annihilation. Rather the sufferings of Tantalu", or of Ixion, or of Siryphus — than to be swallowed up in nothingness. And rather the strange terrors of a dream-life than sleep without dreams.

This was my dieam :

I found myself wandering on a vast sandy plain. The »ky abovo was of a dull grey. It was not daylight— neither was it darkneas. Not a tree ; not evc-u a scrub broke the monotony of the surface ; not a blade of gras3 to refresh the eye with a contrast to the universal tint of greyish-yellow.

I reached up to a figure that stood in the middle of tho plain, as if waiting for me. It was a woman I loved, jear3 ago, in South America. She had not aged tho least since I la?t saw her. She was dressed as on one day of our acquaintance when I thought she looked more lovely than I ever saw her before. A loose, white flannel dress gave, by every movement, the outlines of her slight yet^perfect figure — or rather, I should say, madu au attempt at pourtrayiug the outline!>, without succeeding any more thati a clutney faun can succeed in imita'ing the graceful dance of a nymph. A crimson rose waa fastened in her black hair. Crwnaon and black — these two clours in combination have a strange influence upon me. They move me like some of Heine's po«ms, or like Shelley's " O le to the West Wind," or like Mendelsohn's niuuc.

And ytt she was changed. Her eyes were not the same When I knew her the eyes were soft and solemn, and yet thero was something fiery — something resist lessly fiery — behind the softness. Now there was nothing of the lire left — nothing but a pensive gentleness. I felt that before those good, gentle eyes all evil thoughts, like owls frightened by the sun, fl-jd into the darkest corners.

" You have not grown any older," I said, " and yet ycu were a little older than me at that time."

" Yes," she answered, " but I have not grown older since I died."

Then it flashed upon me that I too was dead. Yet, somehow, I could not fu'ly realise it. I was nob the least altered, and everything around me seemed so much like the carth — all except that strange light which was neither daylight nor darkness. " And where is your husband ? "

" I don't know ? "

" And your dear little Isabella ? You know it was she who brought us together. It waß my affection for the child which awakened your love for me."

" I am looking for her," was her answer. " Help me to find her. Let us follow her footstep?," and she pointed to the imprints of a child's feet which extended in a line across the desert as far as the eje could reach.

We followed the footsteps, walking side by sida, without speaking a word. In my heart there was not a trace of my former feeling towards her — only tenderness axd sympathy. I wondered how I could ever have loved her in any other way than as I would a beautiful sister.

Still we wandered in the line of the footsteps. Hours went by — days, yes, ages — and btill the footsteps were before ua. Weary, oppressed, and silent, we continued our wandering over the lonely deserr. How I longed to rest — only to stand still for a moment ; but an inward feverish feeling of unrest drove me onward, onward, and ever onward; though I ftlt sure that we should never reach up to the object of our pursuit Could I only see a green scrub I I felt that a glimpse of green would make my sufferings less, would soothe my feverish brain.

And that pale, Fad-eyed woman by my side, how I pitied her. She was of hnlf Spanish aud half Norwegian descent, and fehe had rill ike deep love of nature which is a feature in the Northern ract\ She had beon used to ail the brigiitasf. of Nature's collocations of colour; used to glowing flowers, stately forests, and gcrgnous sunsets. How must she feel this maddening dreariness or h'jr prssenr, surroundings I Then there rose before my rniud the ecene of the Oamaru breakwater, and Uulotnbo Church on the hill. How happy would I be to be there once again !

And I felt truly happy when I awoke and heard the languid surges beating on the Bhore. But then I felt very sad at the thought of her whom I had lefc behind in that dreary and lonely land where there was neither daylight nor darkness. And because our dream life appeals to all

our emotions as deeply as our day-life, theref< re I pity people who never dream.