THE STONE FLINGERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3337, 27 February 1918, Page 58

THE STONE FLINGERS.

By E. M. Story. "No, I'm not one of Luck'a favourites. I've had to fight for everything I own. When I was a nipper, two-and-a-half feet high, I remember there was a certain Christmas tree, and everything I didn't want came to me and everything I did want to somebody else, and so it's been all through." So spoke Andrew Andrews, and John Jackson heard him, and flung a smooth pebble at a rising bird without any desire to hit; it, yet did so, and the wounded bird cried out in pain and remonstrance. The two friends looked at the bird, and Andrews said to Jackson: "Just /your luckl I might have flung a hundred stones at as many birds and missed every one of them, but you! ; . ." " Fact is," said Jackson, " I'm deuced sorry! I'd not the slightest wish in the world to bring it down. ■. . ~ I So that that's my luck, too!" . The men walked for. some minutes. Then Andrews said abruptly, "Ah, but you flung your stone." . Jackson's thoughts were quite away from the bird; they had zigzagged* to Malay, where he had left a rose-covered hut and a brown darling; but the "stone" brought him back to the v incident of a few minutes behind the passing moment. '.' Yes, I flung my stone," he admitted, "for—well, why did I fling it?" " Muscular enjoyment?'.' said his friend. " No . . . scarcely. I believe" I flung it . . . for you." -* J> " Good Lord! I don't want" the bird." "No.; I aim at the bird,. I flung it v afr . .. . the thing that you had just complained eludes you. . . . Luck!" There was silence for - the space' of twenty seconds, then Andrews said: "You flung it, for me, at Luck, and you . . . brought down . . ..a bird!"* "I did . . . Heaven knows why! I suppose there's grief in some treetop," eh ?" "All the same, old chap, I'm bucked already to think of you shying at Luck for me. . . . You mayn't have hit her; but you brought down something." Jackson made no answer; he was- a taciturn; but he was suddenly possessed by an' idea. "AndjrewsJ' he said at length, " I believe your luck is- there, all" right, but . . . she's captive .-..-: and you've never tried directly to release her." \ "-Not a bit of it. I was born without reference to her." " Well, look here, I'm not so sure about myself, but some people say I bring luck. Well, now, I'll put that to the test for you, if you'll agree?" " You bet I'll agree all right. How'll you do it?" " Every morning—never mind the weather—l'll fling a stone at Luck on your behalf. . . . I'll do it at the same hour, immediately before breakfast . . . and I'ive a strong conviction that your luck'll .... turn. ... Of course, you'll' have to keep a sharp lookout for lucky happenings, and all that sort of thing, and let 'me know, . . . or,- if you prefer it, jot them down as they come along, unless that'd bore you." . Andrews laughed riotously. "It's to be a shower, you think, then ... a rainstorm of luck, eh?" • " I can't tell for certain," said Jackson slowly, " but I'm pretty sure your luck's there all right." " My God," said Andrews, seriously, a-s he looked into the grave face of his friend. "It's time I saw it." . " Yes, it's quite time," asserted Jackson. . . . Halloa, there goes your train. . . . We've missed her!" Andrews swore. "My luck again!" he said. "Anything particular to do at the office?" " No! Wish there were." "Very well, let's make a day of it then. We'll get our rods and sro down to the river." And they did. The cool, dark waters were full of fish, and the friends sat in silence under the trees—their lines thrown out to the chance beyond—and waited. The breezes soothed them; the wide spaces .tempted all the cramps of life to unroll and straighten out. Time ceased i& irritate, and there were no voices to question and contradict them. In the cool laving waters below them" a fairy world was- reflected and reality seemed to show herself beneath her veil of actuality. Yet the -life in the river . . . the life in the trees . . . the life in the brown earth . . . the life in the air . . . and the life within each man as he sat silently . . . waiting . . . waiting in anticipation of his fish . . . throbbed with a universe of love and hate, hopes and fears, known only to the "secret people" of the "secret places." Jackson had wealth; Andrews was comparatively poor. Jackson had health;

Andrews also had it. Jackson was not a man of books; Andrews was. Jackson was "original"—as if,any man could be; —Andrews well read in other men's thoughts. Both men were bachelors; both intended to marry—some day. Both men had remarkable memorie.s, totally different in what they retained. man believed in himself—from the opposite pole, as it were. Jackson had once said, " If I sold shrouds there'd be an epidemic of deaths"; and Andrews, "If I sold candles the sun would only set when I died." Jackson was not desirous of woman's love, yet al± women who saw him would have followed him across the world had ho but invited them "to do so. Andrews was wistfully anxious to win the love of woman, but was unahle to attract any one woman. The hours passed; many fish rewarded the patient fishers. 'lt must have been your stone," Andrews said to Jackson, as he counted his catch, and made two more than his friend. "Undoubtedly," assented Jackson; and together they set off homewards. They finished the day in a game of chess, and Andrews won. "I've never beaten you before," he said to his friend. "Enter it in your 'book of luck,V' said Jackson; ' 'it seems that stone brought down more than a bird, eh?" For the first night in his remembrance Andrews slept with the assurance that something desirable was to befall him . . . on the way to him, and that he would awake to it. At breakfast he ate heartily; his grace before meat was the recollection that Jackson had mingled "lucks." He was not surprised when he arrived at' the office''to find several inquiries from prospective clients; and when he dictated the answers to his assistant he felt 'so certain that they would bring the desired result-that he "was convinced as he left the office that things were lookin S U P- . , . A week passed; many pages m his "book of luck" were covered with pencilings; he wondered if a week's jottings occupied so many pages, what sized book he would fill in a year. Every morning, hi imagination, he saw Jackson fling his stone for luck's sake on his behalf, and every morning, Andrews told himself, he hits something, for I've been lucky ever since he flung the first stone that 'fetched down bird." ' Six months later Jackson and Andrews sat smoking and talking in the house of Jackson. " To-day fortnight I leave for Malay," said the stone-flinger. Andrews gazed at his friend. There was reproach in his eyes. " I . . . knew ... things '. . . couldn't . . . last '•-.-•"'. . of course," said Andrews. "What 'things.,'?" asked Jackson. "Mine. . . . My change of luck." "Why not?" "You'll be away . . .and it's absurd to think ..." "Not at all; go on ' thinking.' I'll ' fling the stone' every morning just the same as I've done here, until you can do . . . it yourself. "I shall never do it myself . . *." "Oh, yes; you'll do it for ME some day.. I . may need it by and by, you knoV." The face of Jackson flushed as he said this, and Andrews was perplexed as he noticed it. ■ ( >'My dear chap, if I thought for j£ moment thai . . ... why, I'd never let you' go." There was no answer, save a glance of gratitude and understanding from Jackson. Then he .said, "Say, old man, if k things turn out . ~/ so . . . and you're' thrown on your owri, you'll keep it up . . . yourself, . . . won't you?" " What?" "The offering . . . to the God of Luck . . . every morning at eight-thirty." " By Jove! exclaimed rising, "I do believe . . . Why, you don't >mean to say that you think of that stone as . . . prayer!" "What is a- prayer?" murmured Jackson. "We were' speaking of luck," he said. " Don't get behind things, there's a dear chap, or presently you'll be doubting if liwe really flung the stones." Andrews said, " No, I don't doubt your word." "Let's go down and look at the stones," said Jackson, and they went. A dull grey heap of 'flints was before them. " There are . one hundred and eighty-five stones there—flung with a straight aim at . . . Luck," said Jackson. " .Every stone has brought! something," said Andrews, " and some many things, as my book attests. He stooped and picked up a stone; he looked at it, felt it, put it to his tongue, and then carefully replaced it. " I'd far rather have that kind of a monument raised to my memory," he said, "than a flying angel on a globe or a broken pillar or anything that the stonemason put up in the way of his art." Jackson smiled. "It's a good thing stones don't cry out all they know," he said, " or you'd want new drums to your ears when even that little heap had done shouting." "And there'll be another heap in Malay," soliloquised Andrews. " Yes, another heap in Malay. . . . I shall not forget . . . have no fear," said Jackson; and he was astonished to see that the** eyes of his friend were full of tears. ' Jackson, old man," said Andrews, " now that my luck is turned, I'm starting a heap for you. . . . You won't . . . mind?" "Two heaps," said Jackson—"one a cairn, the other an altar." " How?" . "The cairn for ill luck, the- altar Tor good luck." To himself he said, "And every stone a prayer." Then he remembered the little brown love of the rose bower of Malay, who had taught him to pray by flinging a stone day by day, and he knew that already there was in Malay a growing pyramid, and he smiled. He could never break faith with his poor little love. She had given him her trust, < the prayer stones would witness against him;

but he only said: " Memory, is an odd thing. I never forgot the stono. . . «. It did more than turn your luck; . . . It's taking me back to Malay and . . . maybe you'll come out on a visit . . . later? There's a great deal in stones." "Or is it in the stone-flinger?" asked Andrews. As they took their last look at the heap, they flung one apiece, which met, and crashed and fell together. ' ••