THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11604, 19 August 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE.

By LkorD Osboobne.

His thirtieth birthday ! His first youth was behind him, with all its heartburnings, its failures, its manifold humiliations. What had he done these years past but dint, forlorn, penniless and unattached, over those shallows where others had stuck and prospered ? A gentle decline all the way from college in hope andfulfilment. The Army and Civil Service had alike refused him. In the colonies he had toiled unremittingly ■in half a hundred characters ; groom, cook, boundary-rider, steamer rouaenbout, always sinking, always failing. Then those last four years in the islands and bis tumbledown store in Vaiala! Had Hie nothing more for him than an endless succession of empty days on the furtherest beach of Upolu, with scarcely more to eat than the commonest kanaka, and no other outlet for his energies than the bartering of salf beef for coprah and an occasional I night's fishing on the reef ! On the ' other hand, he was well in body, and bad times of oveu thinking himself happy in this fag end of the world.

The noise of an incoming boat drew him to the door, and he looked out to see the pastor's old whaler heading through the pass. They had made a night trip to avoid the heat, and all looked tired and weary with their long pull lrom Apia, and the song with which they timed their paddles sounded mournfully across the lagoon. A halfgrown girl leaped into the water and hastened up to the store with something fastened in a banana leaf. It was a letter, which she shyly hauded to the trader. Walter Kinross looked at it with surprise, for it was the first he

had received in four years, and the sight of its English stamp and familiar band-writing filled him with something like awe.

" Th" white man said you would give as a tin of salmon and six masi," said the little girl in native tongue. Kinross unlocked the dingy traderoom, still in a maze of wonder and irapatimee, and gave the little girl a box of matches in excess of postage. Then h^ opened the letter.

" Mv fear nephew," it began, " I know you are pretty old to come back and .start life afresh here, but if you have not had the unmitigated folly to get m.uried out there and tied by the leg for ever, I will help you to make a ,new st>irt if you have the grit to do it. You shan't starve if £300 a year will belp yon, acd if you will try and turn over a new leaf and liiake a man of yourself in good earnest, I am prepared to mark you down substantially in my will. But mmd — no promises — payment strictly by results. You are no longer a boy, and this is probably the la»t chance you will ever get of entering civilised life again and meeting respectable folk. I enclose you a draft a f sight on Sydney, N.S.W., for £250, for you will doubtless need some clothes, etc,, as well as your passage money, if you decide not to return you can accept it as a present from your old uncle. I have told Jones (yon v. juld scarcely know the old tellow, Walter, he's so changed) to ■•f-nd you a bundle of books and illusu.ited jipors, which I hope will amuse you mpie than they seem to do me, — ! tlHecttuuately yours, ■

Alfred Banxock."

The uader read the letter with extraordinary attention, though the drifc of it wa- at first almost beyond him. He read it and re-read it, dazed and overcome, scarcely realising his good fortune.

The house conld aot contain him and his eager thoughts ; he must needs feel the sky overhead and the Trades against his cheek and take all Nature into his puny confidence, Besides, Vaiala hai now a new charm for him, one he 1} id never counted on to find. Soon now it would begin to melt into the irrevocable past ; its mi9t-swept mountain g, it 3 forests and roaring waterfalls would fade into nothingness and become no more than .an impalpable i-liantotn of his mind, the stuff that dreams are maJe of. He wandered along the path from one settlement to another, round the great half moon of the bay, absorbing every impression with a new and tender interest.

Hard and lonely though his life had been, 'tln.s Saraoan bay was endeared to him by a thousand pleasant memories and even by the recollection of his past unhappiviess. Here he had found peace mid love, ' freedom from taskmasters, scenes more beautiEul than any picture, and not least, a sufficiency to eat. A little money and his life might have been tolerable, even happy ; enough money for a good sized boat, a cow or two, and those six acres of the Pascoe estate he had so often longed to buy. What a suug, cosy garden a man might make of it ! What a satisfaction and zest it might have been J How often had he talked of it with Leata, who had been no less eager than him?elf to harness their quarter-acre to the six and make of them all a little paradise. Poor Leata ! *whom he had taken so lightly from her father's house and paid for in gunpowder and kegs of beef ; his smiling soft-eyed Leata who would have died for him. What was to become of her in this new arrangement of things ? Ah well 1 He must not think too much about her or it would take the edge off his high spirits and spoii the happiest day of his life.

By this tide he had worked quite round the bay and almost witnout knowing it he found himself in front of Paul Englebert's store. Englebert was the other trader in Vaiala, a peppery, middle-aged Prussian who had been a good friend of his before those seven breadfruit trees had come between them. In his new found affluence and consequent good humour the bitterness of that old feud suddenly passed away. He reciilled Englebert's rough, jovial kindness-, remembered how Paul had cared for him through the fever, and helped Lim afterwarda with money and trade. How could he hare been so

petty as to make a quarrel of thesehreaJfruit trees ? He recollected, with indescribable wonder at himself that he had once drawn a pistol on the old fellow, and all this over six feet of boundary and seven gnawed breadfruits. By jove, he could afford to be generous and hold out the right hand of friendship ! Poor old Pauf ! it was a shame they had not spoken these two years. On the verandah, ■ barefoot and in striped pyjamas was Englebert, pretending not to see him. To Kinross as he walked up the path and mounted the veranda stairs the man looked old an«l sick, and not a little changed. '' How do you do, Englebert ?" he said. The German looked at htm with smouldering eyes. " 'Grant yon see I am busy ?" he said.

'• You might offer a man a chair,** said Kinross, seating himself on the tool-chest. — " pare is no jare for dem dat isn't welcome, 1 ' said the German.

" I used to be welcome here," said Kinross. « There was a time when, you were a precious good friend oE mine, Paul Englebert." — " Dat was long ago," said the trader.

" I have been thinking," said Kinross, " that I have acted like a damned fool about those trees." — " Dad was what I was dinking, too, deso twodree years," responded the other.

" Take them ; they are yours," said Kinross. " Yon can build your fence there to-morrow." — " So !" said Englebert with dawning intelligence, " the German Gonsul has at last to my complaint listened."

" Hang the German Consul ! No,'' cried Kinross, " I do it myself, because I was wrong ; because you were good to> me that time I was sick, and lent me the hundred dollars and the trade."

" And you want noding ?" asked Englebert, still incredulous.

" I want to shake your hand and be friends again, old man," said Kinross, '•same as we usei tj be when we played dominoes every night, and you would tell me about the Austrian War and how the prince: divided the cigars with you when you were wounded."

The German looked away. " Ob, Kinross," he said, with a queer shining light in his eyes, " you make me much, ashamed." He tutned suddenly round, and wrung the Englishman's hand in, an an iron grasp. "1, too, was damn fool."

" A friend is worth more than seven, breadfruits," said Kinross.

" It was not breai fruit ; it was bnncibal," said the German. " Poof, de drees are nothing ; here it was I was

hurted," and he laid a heavy paw upon his breast. " Ho, Malia, de beer !" His strapping native wife appeared with bottles and mug's ; at the sight of their guest she could scarcely conceal her surprise. " Prosit," said Englebert, touching glasses.

" You know dem six acres of de Pasgoe estate," he said, looking very hard at his companion. " Very nice little place, very cheap, yoost behind your store ?"

Kinross nodded, but his face fell in spite of himself.

v 1 from the American Gonsul boy it," went on the German, " very cheap; two hundred dollars Chile money."

Kinross looked black. Engleberfc patted his hand and smiled ambiguously.

'' Dey are yonrs," he said. " Pay me back when you have the money. I buy deni only to spite you. My friend, take them. 1 '

" Paul, Paul," cried Kinross, '• I don't know what to say ; how to thank you. Only thi*3 morning I got money from home, and the first thing I meant to do was to buy them."

" All de better," said Englebert, <% and my boy. you blant goffee. Oobrah, poof ! Gotton, poof ! It is the goffee dat pays, and I will get you plenty leetle drees from my friend, de captain in Utumabu Blantation. Yon must go? So ? Yoost one glass beer. Neia 1 Ho Malia, de beer 1"

Kinross tore himself away with difficulty and started homewards, his heart swelling with kindness for the old Prussian. He exulted in the six acres he had so nearly lost and they now seemed to him more precious than ever. H2 could have kissed Paul Englebert's hand, he was so pleased and grateful. It was no empty promisa that of the

coffee trees from Utumabn ; these would save him all manner of pteparatory Inbonr and put his little plantation six months ahead. Then he remembered he gwas leaving Yaiala and again he heard the hum of London in his ears. Well, he would explain about the trees to Leata and would beg old Englebert to help and advise her a bit. Poor* Leata, sbe had lots of good sense and ■wa9 very quick to learn. He could trost Leata. He found Leata sitting on the floor spelling out *' The Good News from Uew Guinea " in the missionary magazine. She was fresh from her bath, and her black, damp hair was outspread to the sunshine to dry. She rippled with smiles at his approach, and it seemed to him she had never looked more radiant and engaging. He 6at down beside her and pressed her curly head against his lips and kissed it. How was it that such a little snvage could appear to him more alluring, more daintily and gracefully formed than any white woman he had ever seen ? Was he bewitched ? He looked at her critically, dispassionately, and marvelled at the perfection of her wild young beauty, mirvelled, too, at her elegance and delicacy. And for heart and tenderness, where was her match in all the seas ? He threw his arm iound her and kissed bet on the lips. " Of all things .in the world what would thou like most, Leata 1 T he asked. "lo have thee always near me, Kinilosi,"' she answered. " Before, 1 had no understanding and was like the black people in the missionary book, bat now my heart is pained so full it is with love." '* But there aro other things than love," persisted Kinross. " Earrings, musical boxes, print for dresses." J " Yes, many things," she said. "But ■ I trouble not myself about then, Kinilosi. Sometimes I think of the land behind our house and the fine plantation we will make there some day." " Bnt if I gave yoa a little bag of gold shillings,'* he said, " and took thee to Apia, my pigeon, what wouldeat yon bny?" " First I would give ten dollars to the new church," she began . " Then for my father I would buy an umbrella and a shiny bag in which he could carry his cartridges and tobacco ■when he goes to war. For my mother also an umbrella and a picture-book like that of the missionary's with photographs of Qneen Victoria and captains of men-of-war. For my sister a Bible and a bymn book-, and for my brothers a little pigeon gun." " Oh, tbou foolish Leata," said Kintosp, tC and nothing at all for tbyselt ?" '• There is still more in my bag,'' she answered, " enough for a golden locket and a golden chain. And in the locket there will be your picture and a lock of - your hair — like the one the naval officer gave Titi's sister, and when I die, 10, no one shall touch it, for -it shall lie on my breast in the grave." " To-morrow we shall go to Apia, and buy them," said Kinross. " Thiß morning the pastor brought me a letter from Britain with a present of many ■° dollars. The six acres I have already purchased, and in Apia I shall get prickly wire for fencing and many things we need for the clearing and planting of the land." Leata clapped her bands for joy. "Oh Kinilosi," she ciied, " it was breaking my heart ; I feared the letter would make you £0 back to the white man's country." Kinross looked at her with great gentleness. His resolution was taken, be it for good or evil. " I shall never go back," he said. Then in a rousing ■voice be cried, so loudly that the natives started in the neighbouring bouses, " In Yaiala shall I live and in "Vaiala die." A NUCLEUS OP DISEASE— THE COMMON COLD OR CHILL. Most ills that flesh ia heir to have their beginnings in a common cold or chill, -which may fairly be described aa a nucleus of disease. A cold is always worthy of respect, and it is never sife to neglect one. spencer Vincent's benjamin gum baa the reputation of curing coughs, colds, sore throats, and inflammation of the lungs, a reputation which is endorsed by the statements of people with whom you are acquainted. Mr A. G. Mill ward resides at 255 Colombo Road, Christchurch. His statement is — "About two months ago I bad a very Revere cold, and I tried a bottle of Benjamin Gum. I felt better after taking half the bottle, and when it was finished my cold had completely disappeared. • The remedy is extremely palatable." Price 1/6 and 2/6. Loasby's Waboo Mfg. Co.i Ld., Bole Proprietors , and "Manufacturers.

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