THE MAITLANDS.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1634, 23 December 1882, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE MAITLANDS.

11 Well, good bye, old fellow. I wish I could go with you. I hear the snipe are very thick up at Bargooma, don't forget to send me down a few brace if you have any luck." "I won't forget," said Victor Levison to his friend Inspector Smith, of the Detective force who had accompanied him &S far as the Spencer-street Station. "And, I say, old boy," continued the detective, who looked mbre like a doctor or a lawyer, than a member of the force," don't be making love to the pretty 'girl in the next carriage who, I accidentally heard, is bound for the same hospitable house as yourself." "No fear of ihat " said Levison with a smile ; " you know lam a confirmed woman hater," " I know you say so ; but nietbinks you do protest too much sometimes." "I never was more in earnest; and,, if it was not that I had promised my old friend ' Campbell to pay, him a visit, I should feel, half inclined to postpone my holiday until jl. was sure that toe cpastHvas clear Of girls who I are the special' plagues sentrby." arr unking t ' providence, to punish, us tot dvi; "sins." ' f^"!

I" Victor Xevisoriwas a handsome young '(ss_ ' low of five and , twenty, and as the Wain moved away from, the Spencer-street Station, he lay back with a half resigned half melancholy air and lit a cigar which he smoked in a semi-unconscious fashion while he gazed out at the shifting panorama which he evidently saw only with his physical organs, while his spiritual faculties were engaged in some introspective problems. He looked a very well-to-do gentleman too ; and one upon whom the cares of this world sate iightiy. Above the middle height, well formed and athletic, there was something in his face which denoted the man of thought as well as of action. There was a frank look in his clear grey eyes that inspired confidence, while they had a knack of blazing up suddenly at any excitement, or sparkling with fun when the occasion offered, which formed a happy contrast to their habitual look of calm thoughtfulness. The second son of Gilbert Levison, Victor had chosen the profession of a barrister, and if he had only devoted his energies and talents to his profession, he would probably have made his mark in it ; but he was something of a dreamer, and, if he had decided for the law, it was only to escape from a profession even more distasteful. He courted the muses, which was sufficient to put him outside the pale of decent society; and men who dealt in coals by the wholesale, or who trafficked in beef and mutton, while still in the condition of bullocks and sheep, or who made their fortunes by the careful selection of ewes and rams, looked upon him with a sort of contemptuous pity, as much as to say : " well, there's a clever sort of ne'er-do-weel, who writes books and poems and that sort of trash instead of buying and selling and making money — he'll come to no good t" This sort of thing in the abstract, did not annoy Victor Levison — it rather amused him ; but when it came to interfering between him and the girl he loved, it caused a bitterness in his heart, which occasionally found vent in bitter and caustic words, and intensified the feeling of antagonism already existing. " I wonder who the girl is, that Smith spoke of," murmured Levison, as he pitched his cigar out of the window, and yawned prodigiously. " Going to Archie Campbells is she ? Governess perhaps ; and good-looking, Smith aays. Well if she is— and I must say Smith has a tolerable taste in womankind— I may perhaps fall in love with her, out of sheer spite. Yet I can't help thinking that there must have been some underhand influence at work, to make Lucy break off our engagement. The last time I saw her, poor girl, she seemed nearly heart-broken. I swear she loves me, and I know I love her ; then what the . . . but there? cursing won't mend matters— let me read her letter again." " Dearest Victor — If you knew the grief that fills my heart while I write this letter, which is to release you from our engagement, you would pity me. lam torn between my love and my duty. I love you, Victor, I love you ; and I am not afraid to say so, for you ate good and noble, and I gave you my heart, when you told me, in your own sweet passionate words, that you loved me. Oh, Victor, do not think harshly of me. Bear with me, though I cannot reveal to you the cause of our separation. It is — it must be, God help me — enough that I can never marry you. My load is sufficiently heavy to bear in parting with you, without feeling that you think unkindly of me. Let us meet no more, for I fear myself. My tears blot out the words, as I write farewell.— Your own, Lucy." " Poor girl 1" said Levison, as he kissed the letter, while a not unmanly tear mingled with those of his love which already stained the unconscious paper, " poor girl ! it is now nearly twelve months since she wrote that letter, and I have never heard of her since in spite of the utmost efforts of Inspectoi Smith and the whole of the detective staff. I wonder what can be the duty she talks about. I expect some of her relations have been telling her that I am not exactly orthodox— a sort of Bohemian, which, to some minds, is equivalent to heathen — and she considers it her duty to tear herself away from the world, the flesh, and — the devil in the shape of myself. But then, so far as I know, she had no relations except her father and mother ; the father I never met, and although the old lady was extremely orthodox, albeit, I must confess, a little vulgar, it never struck me that she had any objections to a Bohemian son-in-law. Well ! well 1 I give it up," and Victor Levison resigned himself with a feigh to the task of smoking a second cigar. In the meantime the train sped on its way at the usual high 1 rate of speed adopted on the Victorian Bailways of about ten miles an hour, pulling up every eight or nine miles to put down or take up some passenger, and making the most hideous and blood-curdling noises at every stoppage, with an abominable contrivance which is dignified with the name of a break. Past interminable paddocks enclosed by post and rail fences, wherein sheep and cattle grazed in peace, apparently indifferent to the huge monster which rushed frantically by them belching forth fire and smoke ; past queer little melancholy looking huts, like glorified dog kennels, standing in solitary grandeur on bleak-looking plains, and each bearing witness to the former existence of a free selection, and the present existence of a freehold dummy block; past miles upon miles of rich grazing land, where Herefords and short-horns waxed fat, while their owners were kicked by the iriends of the people to eke out the balance of the proverb ; past State schools, where the rising generation stopped playing for a moment or two to cheer the locomotive on its way, or yell defiance at the monster according to their humour for the time being ; past level crossitgs where queer old cripples, who were helpless enough to be members of Parliament, opened and shut the gates as if opening and shutting gates was the chief end of man ; past grand-looking mansions, each of which some simple-minded squatter had built up in defiance of all the canons of art, and most of whom had died shortly after the erection of these palatial structures ; past, or rather through endless miles of black wattles, planted apparently for the sole purpose of some day, adding fuel to a huge bush-fire, fated to consume passengers and train in one vast holocaust; and then, after having religiously stopped fifteen times in less than a hundred and fifty miles, the panting engine pulls up at a sort of one-horse station, which is for the time being a terminus. Victor Levison was aroused from a reverie by the demand for his ticket, and then he found himself at the mercy of the cabmen who quarrelled over his gun-case and portmanteau and rug, until, having settled their dispute in their own way, he found himself seated in a melancholylooking cab vis u vis to the fair incognito, whose destination was the same as his own.