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Otago Witness, Issue 2387, 30 November 1899, Page 53

COPYRIGHT.

CHAPTER I.— ART ON CANVEY ISLAND.

hats and peg-top trousers, and when nearly every house boasted its dismal array of horse-hair-stuffed chairs and sofas covered with that most horrible invention the antimacassar, early, that is to say, in the married life of her Majesty Queen Victoria, there stood in the loneliest part of Canvey Island, at the mouth of the Thames, a solitary tumble-down inn called the Lobster Smack.

Its landlord was a certain Job Endell, who had once been a deep sea mariner, and (if report did not greatly belie him) a savage sea-dog and pirate ; its patrons and customers, few and far between, were such fishermen, bargees, lightermen, and riverside characters as were driven in their various vessels by stress of weather or freaks of the tide into the little muddy haven close to the inn door. From time to time the little inn resounded with the merriment of such wayfarers, but as a rule it was as deserted as its surroundings, and the aforesaid Job Endell was the lonely monarch of all he surveyed.

Now and then, however, Job had the privilege of entertaining a stray visitor from London, attracted thither by the chances of fishing in the river or seabird shooting in the creeks or along the seawall ; and at the time when our story opens, two such visitors, who combined the profession of Art with the pleasures of cheap sport, were occupying the only habitable guest-chambers in the inn. The little dark parlour was lumbered with their guns, their fishing rods and their nets, as well as with the paraphernalia of their profession — easels, brushes, mahl-sticks, finished and unfinished canvasses, sketch books, pipes, and cigar boxes.

The owners of this flotsam and jetsam had been in possession of the place for weeks, and as they gave little or no trouble, were satisfied with the simplest fare, and paid liberally enough for their board and 'accommodation, they were in high favour with the grim old "landlord and his wife. They had arrived there one day during early summer in a small yawl-rigged yacht which " took the ground " at low water, and floated at high tide, and they had lingered on, sailing, boating, fishing, sketchy ing, until the summer was well advanced.

Canvey Island exists still, and so, curiously enough, does the Lobster Smack ; and even to-day, when the neighbouring shores of Kent and Essex are covered with new colonies and ever increasing resorts of the tourist, Canvey is practically a "terra incognita" and its one house of public entertainment as solitary and desolate as ever. Flat as a map, so intermingled with creeks and runlets that it is difficult to say where water ends and land begins, Canvey Island lies, a shapeless octopus, right under the high ground of BeniieF.t aud Hadleigb., and stretches out

ARLY in the fifth decade of the present century, when .the quaint fairy Crinolina was waving her wand over merry England and transforming its fair women into funny reproductions of their ancestresses under good Queen Bess, when young townsmen wore Avhite

i muddy and slimy feelers to touch and . dabble in the deep ■water of the flowing Thames. Away across the- marshes rise the ancient ruins of Haldeigh Castle; further eastward, the high spire and square tower of Leigh Church ; and still further eastward the now flourishing town of Southend, called by its enemies Southend-on-Mud. ; There is plenty of life yonder, and sounds •of life ; the railway has opened up every ' spot, and in the track of the railway has i followed the cheap tourist and the Salva- | tion Army ; but down here on Canvey Island everything is " still, as silent, as lonely, and as gruesome as it was fifty or a hundred years ago, nay, as it was a thousand years past, ere the walls of Hadleigh had fallen into ruin, and when the loopholes of the Castle commanded all approaches of the enemy from the shores or the deep sea. ! In front of the Lobster^ Smack, -under the shade of a large white umbrella, a man sat before an easel painting. The | light, came over his shoulder, from the north, and he faced the little creek and the river beyond. The sun was sinking over the marshes and the river towards Gravesend, and the air was still baking hot after a blazing summer's day. The artist was a man of over 40 years of age, with a greyish beard and moustache, and a black patch over his- left eye. His face was "stern and somewhat cynical ; but when he smiled, which he did from time to time, his expression was grimly good humoured. He wore a loose painting blouse of white linen, thrown over his ordinary suit ; on his head, which was as bald as a billiard ball, was cocked a wideawake felt hat, and in his mouth was a short clay pipe. He was- painting a portrait, with the careless^ yet precise touches which showed the skill of the master. The subject of the portrait sat before itim in a cane-bottomed chair, and was no other than Mr Job Endell, the landlord of the inn. Nearer seventy than sixty years of age, with bushy white eyebrows, little' keen black cj r es, -a face the colour of mahogany, a low forehead, an eagle beak and a sharp slit of a mouth, short and broad, with .stooping shoulders, short legs, and arms which seemed to have been made for a man twice his size, they were so long and out of proportion — such was the landlord. For the rest he wore a loose flannel shirt, "ureeches, and long sea-boots, while a red flannel nightcap covered his grey head. "Getting on,* master?" observed Endell, leaning forward and /resting his large freckled hands on his knees. "I don't wish to hurry ye ; but I want to go Benfleet ways, and pick up a. rabbit." "Keep still another ten minutes," grunted the painter, " and I shall have seen as much of your ugly mug as I need to." He added a few dexterous touches, while the old man grinned, then he continued, pipe in mouth, "If your looks don't libel you, Endell, what an old scoundrel you must ifavebeen!" The landlord grinned again, not at all offended. " : Allays fond o' your joke, Mister Bufton," he chuckled. " Well, I dont deny I've been a rum, un in my time — fond of a glass, and fond of the gels, "both the black uns and the white uns. I've taken my fun where I found it, and I'm game to take it still." " Humph ! " the painter returned, looking, with the black patch over his eye, as wicked as his interlocutor. " How long did you say -you've been living on this infernal island f " '__ " Fifteen years come Christmas, sir. I'd just come ashore arter my last- voyage to South Ameriky, and .what with aguer and , rheumatics and a touch of the yellow fever, I was pretty nigh too played out for living on weevilled biscuit and salt junk ; so, as I'd saved a bit, thinks I, I'll look out for some nice little pub where I can settlo down. Then a mate of mine says to me, says he, ' I knows the werry pkee to suit ye,' and he brought me here, aifd I bought the goodwill of the crib, where I've resided ever since." " Right 'sort of liolo for an old cutthroat like you, Endell." "There's morn me -fond on it, Mister Bufton," returned Endell, with another self-satisfied grin. " Gents from London, like yourself and Mister Somerset. • They | likes the quiet, and the views, and the sport round about, and the wonderful hair — there ain't such hair in all England as comes in from the sea over them marshes. Why, it 'ud set you up in no time, sir! You're twice the man you was when you | come here." " D'ye know why I came, old man? " " Why, for the good o1o 1 your health, o' course ! " " Rot- 'It was to dodge the bailiffs and bilk the tax-gatherer. You took in the : friendless orphan, you old ruffian, and ! found him a god-send ; though you tried ■ at first to poison him with bad spirits and coarse beer. There ! " the speaker added, rising to his feet, "that'll do! You can take away your piratical figurehead to scare the curlews ! " The landlord jumped up eagerly, and then, coming in front of the canvas, looked | at the picture with complete approval I " It's werry like me," he remarked critically. "I should know it anywheres ! What are you going to do with it, Mister Bufton V Make a present on it to my old I missis? " ' Bufton cocked his uncovered eye at the landlord, and rapped out a cheerful oath. ( Ih is to be noted that this gentleman's j general conversation was liberally studded j with expletives, the greater part of which ! we shall take the liberty to suppress.

"I'm going to keep it, Endel!," he replied, "as a study for a larger picture : ' Davy Jones Opening His Locker,' ' James A very, the Pirate, Boarding an Easb Indiaman,' or something of that sort. It'll come in handily whenever I wan£ something in the Cain line, full of blood and murder."

" All right, sir," said Endell, cheerfully, as ho trotted off towards the inn-door, by the side of which hiß gun, an old Joe Mantopt .was ly.ing.

. -^ ' "Where's Mr Somerset?" the p'aintel called out. - - " I ain't seen him since the forenoon, sir) when I see him. a-going along the seaiJ •wall.""Lazy young devil!" muttered Buffotf.l: " By thi stime the old man had shouldered his gun, and was preparing to follow the! rough footpath which wound inland across? the island. He had only gone a few yards; when he stopped short and looked' at thqf painter. " I forgot to tell ye, sir, our gel's- con»ing back to-night ! " ''Girl? What girl?" " Our gel," returned Endell, with a curl* ous smile. " She waits on the customers - when she's here, and makes herself gen-, erally useful." " Your daughter, d'ye mean? " " No, sir, she's no darter o' mine, thougK me an' the missis has helped to bring her. up. She's been staying at Rayleigh Parsonage with one of the young ladies, learning sewing and reading and writing and rubbish o' that sort, and now she's a-com-ing home for good. I know what you'll say when you see her, Mister Bufton. 'I . wants to paint that gel,' that's what you'll say ! " \ ■ " Oh, indeed ! Is she such a wonder? " • "I say nought as to that, mister — all 1> knows is that she's a strapping lass, with a pair of eyes in her head as bold and fin© ; as ever you see. A painter chap come . down here last summer and drew her won- . derful — but he wasn't a slap-bang painter • like you." As the old' man spoke his v eyes /fell on, the form of a young man, dressed in a ' light grey shooting suit and Panama hat, who was slowly emerging from the mavshes. " There's Mister Somerset," he cried, with a jerk of the elbow. Bufton glanced towards the new-comer, and strolling to a form in front of the inn, sat down and awaited his arrival. A handsome, powerful-looking fellow, at least 15 years Bufton's junior, with a frank open face, a thoughtful forehead, fair hair and light moustache. He carried a sketch - book in one hand and a camp stool in the other. This was Charles Somerset, artisb' . and Bohemian, like his . friend, but unlike his friend, a bit of a dandy. "Where the thunder have you been? N growba Bufton as the other strolled up." Only the word he used was a stronge* one than " thunder." " Right over to the woods above Pit* sea," answered Somerset. " Oh, Billy such a sunset ! Old Turner neyer painted one . to touch it, and Ruskin would have drivelled pages at the merest glimpse of it ! " "The s>un hasn't been setting all day, and you've been away since breakfast." , " True, Billy;" returned the young man, airily. "The remark shows, your, usual perspicacity. To be quite franks I wanted. • a girl for a model, and I 'thoiight. I'd dis- . cover if any rural beauty was.wasting her . sweetness on the desert air of Pitsea." " I thought so," observed Bufton. , "Idling as usual, and running after the '. petticoats ! " ' " ■ ■ . Tho young man seated himself on the . form by his friend's side, and drew out a meerschaum pipe, which he proceeded to . light. Then he smiled slyly, and v winked at. his companion. * " Well? " said Bufton, answering thfc smile with another. " any luck? " Somerset shook nis head. "•No, Billy Bufton, A.R.A.," was his reply. " Women seem nearly as scarce over there as here — at least women under thef ago of 50. The bashful village maiden of poets and painters doesn't seem to grow among the marshes, and as it's nearly six weeks since I've seen a female countenance ; except old Mother Endell's, I'm seriously . thinking of chucking it and returning to tha , beauties of Bloomsbury." " Look here, youngster, we came down here to paint, not to gallivant ! You lazy t beggar, you've not done a decent day's work since you arrived, and I've done my ' Crepusculo ' and two pot-boilers." The young man laughed gaily. "You're different, Billy — you're a fogey, and an A.R.A. In a year or two, when, you're, say, 70, you'll be a full-blown. Academician. I'm a young thing, and need distraction — what's more, I'll be hanged if I don't have it ! " "Bosh!" . ■ . • • "It may be bosh, Billy; but it's human, .nature. I can't paint unless I'm inspired."-. " You can't paint in any case ! " "That's rude, Billy; but I &et it down t to artistic jealousy. I repeat that I can't' paint unless I'm inspired, and to inspire, me I need a model ! " , "Write for Polly Castle or little Juanna, the organ-grinder's daughter. Either, of 'em'll come fast enough." " Now- youire immoral," cried Somerset, shrugging his shoulders, and proceed-, ing in the same style of banter. " Besides, I'm sick of your horrid professional creatures, who hire themselves out at so much an hour, drinks not included. I want freshness, purity, simplicity ; and alas ! Nature doesn't seem to manufacture them down here." The sun now hung like a great crimson ball on the edge of the marshes, filling tho air with many-coloured lights and flashing brightly on the faces of the two men. Bufton rose and pocketed his pipe. " What rot you're talking," he cried. "Why, you couldn't draw a woman il you'd the chan.ee ; you know >as much about the figure as I do about Hebrew ; and mind you, it's that want of knowledge which pkys dicky, even with your landscapes." " Turner can't draw the figure, Billy, | yet Buskin says " " Ruskin be ! A man who talkt. about Art .without having learned its rudi; ments, and who thinks a picture is a sermon, or a sermon is a picture. Take my tip, sonny, and understand that even a landscape painter can't get on without firsfe perfecting himself in figure-drawing, and that the best preparation of all for him is the antique marble and the modern nude ! " "Of course ! " cried the other, innocently,' opening his blue eyes wide. " That's- jj§&.

Vhat I think", Billy ; and it's the very reason why " , " Oh, hang your chaff," said Bufton, {pushing him aside ; " I'm going in to have some grub." So saying, he entered the snn, followed by his "laughing friend.

The two men who have just been intro- ■ ihiced to the reader had been close conigpanions for several years, and despite the of their ages and temperaments {were sincerely attached to each other. They shared a large desolate-looking studio in St. John's Wood, a studio which was the afrode "of the elder man as well as his place ifor work. Somerset, though lie had very flittle money, had wealviiy relations, with j.one of whom he lived *nd boarded. He jjwas -not, in the strict sense of the word, an amateur, for he did careful and persisjtent work as an artist ; but he had some x)f the amateur's "limitations, and he had pot learned to take his profession seriously. (. William Edward Bufton, on -the other ihaHd, was one of those born artists who fieem to have come into the world brush an hand, with no object in life but to paint pictures. After years of study on /the Continent under the best masters, years of the greatest' penury and privation, he (had mastered all the technique of his craft, and had returned to England, at two and /thirty years of age,'full of the highest hopes and aspirations. • •Of his genius there could be no question ; Unfortunately for his pocket it was associated with an eccentricity and an audacity which persistently alienated both critics and picture dealers. Everybody admitted his power and cleverness, while deploring his methods. He wasj in fact, an impressionist — at a time when impressionism was an unknown quantity — and his works were as caviare to the general or to the individual purchaser as those of Millet or Courbet 'or any of his compeers. Nowadays, of course, when pictures by the late W. E. Bufton are often sold for fabulous prices, it is hard to believe that the man who painted them had, when living, the utmost difficulty in earning his daily bread.

To further increase his ill luck, had come, in later years, great personal unpopularity. His opinions were so strong, sd- strongly expressed, and so destructive of the reputations of^many fashionable arjtists, that he was very generally avoided and disliked. Until Somerset had joined ihim, he had lived alone, and practically friendless ; and as a consequence of this 'isolation he had acquired the habit of bursting out at intervals in the wildest [and most intemperate manner, drinking 'deeply, frequently in the wor^t of comr pany, and often closing the orgie by an appeaTance in the police court. 'During his long spells of hard work he drank nothing, or almost nothing, but dixectly the fit was on him, and the moment for one of his " sprees " (as he called jthem) had come, he lost all self-contrdl, and. not unfrequently -acted as if he were laving mad. ' " Poor Bufton ! " his iellow artists would Bay. "No one can dispute the fact of liis /talent ; but he is -such a thorough Bohemian ! What a. pity that his is suoh a Wasted life!" „ Those who spoke thus of him only saw ( the man on his darkest and most ignoble aide, and knew nothing of the deep and steadfast devotion with which, during the /best part of his life, he studied, thought, and painted. He had the misfortune, as /we have explained, to be in advance of Qiis time, both in talent and genius. The *our for. his apotheosis had not yet come ! CHAPTER H.— A VISION IN THE MOONLIGHT. The cloth was laid in the small inn-par-lour, an old-fashioned chamber furnished a table and two or three wooden chairs, a nigh chest of oak, which served 'as a sideboard, a square of carpet, a bro•ken mirror, round the edge of which was draped some flimsy yellow gauze, and two old arm-chairs, one on each side of the fireplace. .Two or three .wood engravings, ' cut from' newspapers and representing jbattles by land and sea, were stuck on the .walls. In every corner were scattered the impedimenta of the two guests, so that it was difficult to navigate the room without tumbling over canvasses, paint-boxes, brushes, fishing-rods, or portmanteaux. A grim little old woman in a very clean cotton gown was placing knives and forks on the table. Her face was wrinkled and weatherbeaten, her eyes> keen and shrewd, but her expression not unkindly. ■ She looked up as Bufton entered the room, followed by his companion. " Your dinner's nigh ready," she said. "That's right," cried Bufton. "You can serve it as soon as you like, mother, and the sooner the better, for I'm infernally hungry. I say, mother," he-added, " the youngster is talking about cutting 'his stick and going back to London." The old woman glanced at Somerset, who had seated himself, bumming a tune, on the sill of the open window. " Well, I v'jn't wonder," she said. " The JLobster Smack's a poor place for the likes pf him ! I've done my best to make ye Comfortable, gentlemen, but Canvey isn't London ! " " Ah, but you don't know his reason for wanting to go," continued Bufton, standing with his back to the fireplace. "He complains that our society isn't sufficiently attractive, mother ; and that he wants Something more stimulating." " Don't believe him," interrupted Somsrset, laughing ; " all I said was that I .was hard up for a model." c " Just so, ' said Bufton, with a wink. "Hard up for a model, with you dying io sit for him ! " ' Mrs Endell glanced from one to the other >nd shook her head indignantly. - " You're a couple of radicals, allus full of your imperence. Me a model ! I've Jjeerd tell o' them shameless hussies, and We don't take no count on 'em down bere- " ; and with a toss of her head she left the room. A little later the two men sat at table f joying a plain "but well-cooked meal of ree courses : flounders caught that mornjj, a boiled leg of mutton,, tunl a du3-

ding, with cheese and water-cress^ to follow. Somerset drank . ale, served in the tankard ; Bufton, just then on his good behaviour, took only water.

The simple meal over, the men had lit their pipes, and Mrs Endell was clearing away, when Bufton cried suddenly : " Oh, by the way, mother, who's the young lady who is soon going to join our family party? " The old woman looked' at him in wonder, peering at him sharply out of her keen dark eyes. ''Bless the man, what's he a-talking about? " she exclaimed. "There's no young lady a-coming 'ere as I knows on." " Well, the ' gel,' as Job called her ; ' our gel,' who has been staying over at Rayleigh. "

The woman's expression changed instantly and ominously. Her face darkened, her eyes grew hard, and her mouth was grimly set. " Never you mind about her," she muttered. *;jßut we do mmd — at least my friend minds ! He's interested — frantically interested, in everything feminine ! " Mrs Endell's face grew still darker. " Endell's a fool — a born fool," she said. "What did he tell cc?" " Just whafc I've ' told you. That the young woman may be expected at any moment." " She ain't expected neither," returned the old woman, sharply ; " I've bidden her bide away till you've cleared out, and I suppose you ain't a-going yet awhile." Somerset, who had been listening in surprise to the conversation, now broke in. " Hang me if I know what you're talking about. What girl? What young woman V " "Never mind," cried Mrs'Endell. "It's only more o' Mr Bufton's imperence ! " Suddenly as she spoke she became aware of her husband, who had just appeared at the open door and was looking into the room. She turned on him like a tigress. " What ■ ha' you been a-saying to the gentlemen about a girl comin' over from Rayleign, you old thief of the world? Allus with your silly mouth open, you big baby, and can't keep nothin' to yourself ! What ha' you been a-saying?" " Nowt," returned Endell, with a scowl. "Nowt tout the truth anyways. Anniedromedy's a-coming home." "Coming home?" repeated his wife. "When?" "To-night, for all I knows on," answered Endell, sulkily. "Or maybe tomorrow. Or maybe the day arter. When she pleases. ' She's " sent : a message to say she can't stay over there no more." So saying, with a nod to his guests, the landlord disappeared, followed quickly by his wife, who seemed -curiously excited.. They retired to a room irsyonS the desolate bar, and their voices could still ; be ; heard in the distance, now- .raised : arfgrily, now sunk in whispers. - ? ■• Left alone f the two friends looked at one another. . - „•_-:. " There's a mystery here,_ youngster," said Bufton; . ~- - I ■ - " There's a gal at any rate,'' returned Somerset. "He called her Anniedromedy. Sounds father -Greek. Perseus and Andromeda, you. know." - - '•' And Mother Endell for' the dragon ! " • growled Bufton ; "and walking towards the fireplace, he took a -book from the mantelpiece, sat down in one of the armchairs, and began to read. It was now quite dark. The last dim gleams of the almost tropical sunset had faded from the western sky, ajid over the horizon, on a bed of greenish' daffodil, the summer moon had risen, growing more and more luminous every moment, as twilight deepened into night. s <>Gazing through the open window, through which the air stole warm and heavy "with the scent of seagrass and weed, Somerset saw the creek filled almost to overflowing with the spring tide and glancing like mother-of-pearl in the brightening" moon rays. Black against the sky loomed the silhouette of the little yawl, now floating and swinging at anchor, and out beyond, in the shadow for the* most part, but with here and there a glimmer of reflected moonlight, lay the Great River. All was , completely still, save for the occasional cry of a curlew passing onward to join the flocks at rest on the marshes till low water. Brighter and brighter grew the moon, rising higher in the heavens, and shedding further ablutions of silver light, till all the skies «eemecl I flooded with her beam?, until the shim- j inering tide crept closer and closer to wash ; her radiant feet. "By Jove," cried Somerset, enraptured. " Come and look at the moonlight, Billy ! It's simply wonderful ! " Bufton did not stir. '"Shut up and let me read," lie muttered, settling himself in Uis chair. " Nonsense ! "■ persisted the young man. " Come for a stroll. It's a positive sin to be indoors on such an evening."Bufton made no reply. As a matter of fact he was tired and weaiy, for he had been hard at work in the open air all day ; for the rest, he was, like many another of his class, more or less insensible to Ihe charms of Nature on the sentimental side. His genius was practical and creative, not consciously emotional. It has been much the same with many great artists — with Turner, for example, and with Millais. Though their work was highly imaginative, their personality was somewhat commonplace.

It ~was very different with Somerset. The blood of five-and-twenty was warm in his veins, and he was alive to all tender influences ; nor had the artistic sense deadened, as it not unfrequently does, his susceptibility to the glamour of the world surrounding him. So it happened that, without another word of remonstrance, he seized his hat and wandered out into the open air. He had not exaggerated when he had spoken of the wonderful beauty of the night. Troops of strange stars had gathered now in the wake of the luminous moon in the west, and overhead the Mjlky Way was throbbing, sown thick with Tights as a summer field with cowslips and 'daisies. AH the heaven was alive, and its raptu-

rous brightness made the earth beneath seem blacker and blacker, save where the water was mother-o'-pearled with moonlight and starlight, and edged with ripples of argent foam.

Standing in the shadow of the old inn, Somerset looked across the creek towards the river. Far away across it dim red lights were twinkling on the coast of Kent. Shadows went and came. Then there was a deep sea sound from the distance, and a black tug went by, churning up the phosphorescence with its paddlewheels and dragging behind it the blacker shadow of a gi'eat ship. Somerset stood and listened, as the sound grew fainter and fainter, dying away up the river. Familiar with every portion of the river, Familiar with every portion of the island, he wandered inland among the innumerable creeks, every one of which was full and overflowing with the tide. Warm summei air, scented with the breath of the sea-lavender, was wafted to him from the marshes and half-flooded saltings. A heron passed slowly overhead, with that strong waft of wing which is so swift yet seems so leisurely. Far away towards the flats of Leigh, sounded the faint troubled cries of the curlews.

Presently he gained the sea-wall, which protects the central marshes from the full force of the tide and sea, and climbing upon its loose chalk and shingle, strolled slowly onward in the direction of the open sea. The moon was now at his_back, but its rays ran before him, now flashing like a torch on the water, now dipped in momentary gloom. On either side of the wall the water was slipping and murmuring ; it was real sea-water now, salt with the brine of ocean, and strong as that flowing round the lightship at the distant Norc. Eastward all was shadowy, but the lights burnt here and there, many moving slowly up stream. Away to the south-east the river broadened into an estuary, bordered on the one side by the dark shores of Essex, and on the other by the low-lying hills of Kent.

. The night was sultry as it was still. Over the land, the water, the marshes and saltings, hung a warm white vapour, the very breath of the sleeping earth. Blowily and dreamily, pursuing 'his own thoughts, the young man wandered on, and at every step he took the loneliness grew greater," the silence in tenser. " At last he sat down on the side of the seawall, lit his pipe, and resigned himself to meditation. Can we guess his thoughts? Let us try. His imagination, as was inevitable seeing the nature of his education, was haunted ■ by masterpieces he had seen, and books that he had read. To him, moonlight meant .art .and poetry, and art and poetry meant shapes of marble, -fair painied ijonns, and scraps of enchanted verse. Sitting there alone, he-'-niurmured ".ta himself the witching lines of Wordsworth, only just come- to his rightful kingdom- in the realms • of song.' ".The world is"t<*> -intick "with us ! " he repeated, and as he did so he saw the-sea, "baring its -bosom to the moon" as. in -the -poem, -and continued : ,

Great Lord! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn, So might I, -standing on this pleasant lea, Have gliihpges that would mbke me less for-

. lorn, — Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn !

Yes, that was . his fancy, the fancy of so many that are young and glad, -and who find the world bereft of the old sweet supernaturalism. He longed to be a Greek — to live in a land haunted, by the beautiful shapes of Fancy, the wondrous shapes of old mythology ; and yet there he sat, a tired Londoner, bored to death, and longing to get back to the busy whirl of life. It was the nineteenth centuiy, not the morning of the world ; it was Canvey Island and not ancient Greece.

The gods and goddesses had flown for ever, and even Puck and the quaint forms of Fairyland had vanished too.

Suddenly his heart leapt within hrm, and he started in surprise, almost in terror. ' "

Under the yea-wall, on the side on which he had stretched himself, lay a creek of moonlit water ; across it, almost 50 yards away, rose a grass-covered slope leading to shadowy sea meadows ; and suddenly, moving rapidly in the water below him, ana. floating up the creek, he saw — what? Did his eyes deceive him? Was he mad or dreaming Of course it was inippssible, but it seemed to his excited vision like the form of some living being! Something white like marble! Arms stretched out softly, and oaring the still stream ; a foim submerged, yet dimly gleaming through the water as it swam along ; and above, the moonlight shining down tipon it ; a face set in black hair, ■which fell like seaweed over ivory shoulders!

He rubbed his eyes in amazement — then lie looked acain — the vision was till there!

As he looked the shape turned with a sound like human Laughter, and began to Mvim slowly back the way it had come, it passed beneath him, gleaming in the moonlight.

He trembled and held his breath! He was not droaming. What he saw was real, and the shape that was swimming past him in the warm summer night was the shape of a woman !

(To be continued.)

— Political Candidate (addressing meeting) : "I cannot help remarking, my friends, how mean my opponent is ; but I wish to warn him that two can play at that game." . — " When you get your groceries to-day," said the butcher to his wife, " don't go to that little grocer down the street." " Why not? " she demanded. " Because he sent in yesterday and borrowed an old pair of my scales." — " Goodness ! We shall miss the first, act," she said, impatiently. " We've been waiting a good many minutes for that mother of mine." "Hours, I should say," he replied, somewha-t acrimoniously. " Ours? " cried she, rapturously. " Oh, George, this is so sudden ! " Then she fell upon his neck.

" Standard " Bone Manure is the most popular of Bone Manures on the market. It is rich in ammonia, also phosphate of lime. Is in fine condition and of easy distribution. — NiUilO AXD BIAJB,