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Waikato Times, Volume IV, Issue 183, 12 July 1873, Page 3

Sit then, and talk with her ; she is thine own. Winny Rowlands had taken up her abode for the time at the gardener's cottage, which lay below the house, nearer the beach. The shock of the night before had been terrible ; her head was still confused and troubled ; she could neither read nor rest, nor think nor sleep. Her father, too, was 80 atrange; he would gire no orders about anything; he would make no arrangement •; would suffer her to make tione. Wait and see' wait and see! wa3 all he would say. Would the wedding take place 9 She did'nt know. Wait and see ! was all her father said. Wore they to take a house at once, whilst Bodgadfan was being rebuilt ? Wait and see ! said the banker. Winny, full of perplexities, and yet unable to do anything, wandered down into the town, and so to the pier-head, where she met a refreshing westerly breeze. She *at down, and began to think— began to con ,'ovor last night's catastrophe. Up to this time, such had been her terror and confusion, that she had remembered .nothing — nothing but finding herself on the lawn m her night-dress, her father eupporting her, the house in flames. But thinking, and still thinking, she began to remember, dimly and indistinctly, something that had gone before ; that she had awakened, and had found herself hanging over a. rocky brow, clasped tight in some one's arms, and that come one not her father. She blushed all over, and glowed with self indignation ; and yet the thought came back to her, and was even connected in her mind with the handsome stranger she had rescued from among the hills. And somehow, the old summer-house on the chlF— that musty old house she had not visited for years — brought itself into contact with this halt-con ceivod idea, and mixed itself inextricably with the phantoms of half-memories that danced to and fro on the Tablet of her mind, like magic-lantern figures on a screen. She would go and see the old place. Perhaps, if she saw it once more, she would remember why it had been so constantly before her mind's eye. There was a winding pathway from the beach, starting from a little spit of sand which was uncovered at high-water, except during the highest spring tides. Above that was a narrow platform her brother had kept his boat upon, till one day a great howling gale from the norfch-west had combined with a huge tidal wave, and knocked the little ikilF to matches against tho rocks. Winny made her way to the place. She was rather surprised to find a boat lying on tho sand, chained to a ring fixed in the rock. It was one of the boats of the Arthur's Bride. She thought little, however, of the occurrence, supposing that Captain Ellis had gone to see the ruins of the fire, and had taken the shortest way. At such time, nobody stood upon ceremony. The path was steep and difficult, but Winny was a capitnl mountaineer, and made light of the ascent. The summerhouse door was open, and nho saw that there had been a fire m the grate, and a heap of tinder from the burned paper lav upon the ttoor. But there was a httlo slip of paper lying there which bore her father's •ignature ; she picked it up, and put it carelestly in her bosom. No ; the lumtner-houso suggested nothing. She would go round by the pathway to the house, and find out what her father was doing in his t tU i y> i fV**? heart " bre al"ng to see the old place, and she had tried hard to dissuade him from eoing up to it ; but, he had persisted . ho had paper, ho iniut attend to, he hud told her. ShA bud altered her purpose when she saw that tho path hid b«en broken od «t the gull-; without s tron« induueineU, she wuuldn t cross that terrible slope, which looked

o treacherous, and which ended io abruptly. There had been a bridge and an iron railing there once upon a tune, she remembered, for the patli would be always breaking away. Was that one of tho stanchions fixed in'tbe rock on the other hide? As she ,tood there, peering about tho stones, lhalf-ashaine. l ot tiiruiim back, and \et fearing to advance, sho saw amon^ the rocks a sinning 'piece of gold ; and her curiosity overcoming her prudence, .-.he took sudden ttignt over tbe loose ston,. a in the gully, and found herself sate, but breathless, on the other side The piece of gold was a little chased stud bin* wore in the wristband of her night-dress, and which she had missed that morning. Then the whole scene- came back to her- the bewildered horror her awakening, her sudden rescue, Hie face of her rescuer. No ; it had not been a dream ; here she stood with one foot over the precipice. Sho shuddered, and turned away. Yet, again, how had it happenod ? By what chance had the Englishman been there to rescue her' And tho lire which had broken out in her room, what of that ? Ah ! that must have happened after she had left it. Yes, sho remembered now ; she had fallen asleep with the thought of her childish nocturnal visit to the summer-house in her mind. She had once upon a tune hud a habit of walking in her sleep ; the anxiety and cure that sho felt must have set her brain to work once more in the old grove. Sho must have risen, lit tho candle, passed out of her room, perhaps setting fire to the lace-curtains which hung about the window, and tried to make her way to tho summer-house. At least that was tho onlj explanation sho could devise. She must go her father at once, and tell him all, and ask him all, and ask him what she should do. How could she meet the young Englishman without shame ? and yet, after all, she would bo very glad to find that it was he who saved her. There seemed to be a sort of mystic, undefinable tie between them now. But would he feel the attraction of it ? If ho did, thon it seemed to her that shame would be lost, aud that sho would treasure the thought of that night's walk on the rocks as one of tho sweetest memories of life. Sho made a little triad of it as sho tripped along towards the house ; tho three happy ovonts of the life of Winny Rowlands— the finding of the youth among the mountains— the finding the maid among tho rocks. And the third happy event? Winny wouldn't think of it jet, but blushed, and laughed, and culled herself a silly dreamer; and as she turned round to take one more view of tho perilous gully, lo ! there ho stood on the other side thereof, the sans slanting rays lighting up his yellow hair. Even now, the fervid, fiery sun flung forth his yellow beams over the curved summits of the hills. Kosy down had departed, and all the wreathed vapours of the night, arrayed in bright and snowy masses, marched forth into the river-vale. Last night, the storm gods had been abroad , the mists had llowu,fnghtened,to their lairs among the hills; but now, protected by the sun, their lord, they spread themselves upon the full-hpped tide, which creamed and mantled upon the glowing rocks. Yet not so closely did they clasp the waters, but that you might behold, between the wreathing mist and frothing sea, the dark wake of the duck, as he drove gaily along with the tide— the shadows of the diven, as they plashed up and down on the swelling undulations of the sottly incoming waves. On this lovely, cheerful morn, the young man and the maiden, meeting among the rocks, felt attracted to each other by all the spells and charms of fresh young love. Strangers to each other almost, they were yet as long-parted friends who had once more met. ' I hate bo longed to see you again,' said Gerard, ' ever since I left your father's house.' 'Ah ! why did you go to suddenly ? You might at least have said good-bje.' 1 Go! I was torn away forcibly -kidnapped by mistake, I suppose ; but I don't know ; the whole thing is an inextricable muddle to me ; I don't see any motive, and yet But I will tell you all my adventures, shall I ?' ' Do,' said Winny. 1 Then,' cried Gerard, 'we will sit upon this warm rock in this sunny nook, and I will tell you all I have done and suffered.' ' Yes,' said Winny ; ' and please don't hurry Jover it, but give me all tho details, and make it as graphic'as you ean — consistent with truth, you know.' When Gerard had finished his recital almost, and had come to tell her of his visit to the summer-house at night, and his peril among the sailors, he stopped in his narrative, broke it off short, saying : 'la fact, they were disturbed, and so I got awoy.' ' I know,' said Winny, now looking him bravely in the face ; ' I remember all now. It was you who saved mo from tumbling over tho rocks into tho sea. Isn't it hornblo to think oil"? How can I thank jou enough ?' ' The deed itself was the reward, Winny, anwyl bach !' 1 And pray, sir, who taught you so much Welsh - 1 ' cried Winny, flushing up. • You have made good use of your opportunities here, sir.' ' It's the language of nature herself,' cried Gerard, approaching her more nearly. ' O Winny, if you only knew. 1 'Well, what?' ' How that I can't help — well, that I love \on.' 'It is impossible !' cried Wiuny. 'Do you English people' think that Welsh maidens are to be won by a word pF | 1 Not by word*, but by deeds, Winny. Last night was a | lifetime : you were mine for a moment, a short sweet moment ; and now I feel as if I wero bound to you for ever ' ' 1 Ah ! it 13 not generous of you to say such things ; you i do not really mean them ; you are so sudden !' ! ' Sudden ! Isn't even thing sudden ? Is not life sudden, and death, and love most sudden of all?' ' I won't hear another word from jou about that,' said Winny, recovering her presence of mmd, and preparing to depart. ' But as to jour own affairs, I have a great deal to say to you. You seem to bo the centre of some great conspiracj, of which I can divine nothing. Come and see my father, he is a magistrate and a man of power here: he will tell you if there is dauber ; and if not, to what strange accidents you have boon the victim. Come !' Gerard thought for a moment, and then followed Winny along the rocky path which led to tho wastod mansion of Bodgadfan.

Thb Chubch Cbpsadb Against Intempebanck.— Sir Henry Thompson has addressed tho following letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury :— " I have long had the conviction that there is no greater cause of evil, moral and physical, in this country than tho use of alcoholic beverages. I do notjmean by this that extreme indulgence which produces drunkenness. The habitual use of fermented liquors to an extent far thort of what is necessary to produce that condition, and such as is quite common in all ranks of society, injures the body and diminishes the montal power to an extent which I think few peoplo are aware of. Such, at all events, is tho result of observation during more than 20 years of professional life devoted to hospital practice, and to private practice in every rank above it. Thus, I have no hesitation in attributing a very large proportion of some of the most painful and dangerous maladies which come under my notice, as well as those which every medical man has to treat, to the ordinary and daily use of fermented drink taken in the quantity which is conventionally deemed moderate. Whatever may be said in regard to its evil influence on tho mental and moral facnltics, as to the fact above stated I feel that I have a right to apeak with authority ; and I do so solely because it appears to me a duty, especially at tins moment, not to be silent on the matter of such extreme importance. I know full well how unpalatable is such truth, and how such a declaration brings me into painful conflict, I had almost said with the national sentiments and the timehonored and prescriptive usages of our race. Cherishing tuch (convictions, I rejoice to observe an endeavor to organize on a large scale in the national Church a special and systematic plan for promoting temperance, and I cannot but regard this as an event of the highest significance. I believe that no association m this country has means to influence society in a favorable direction at all comparable to that existing in tho English Church, and the example and teaching of its clergy may do more than any of the other associations which have long labored with the same object to diminish the national ignorance on this subject, and the consequent national vice. My main object 'is to express my opinion as a professional man in relation to habitual employment of fermented liquor as a beverage. But if I ventured one step further it would be to express a belief that there is no single habit in this country which so much tends to deteriorate the qualities of tho race, and so much disqualifies it for endurance m that competition which m tlio nature of things must exist, and in which struggle the prize of superiority must fall to the best and to the strongest."