The Young Master.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 November 1900, Page 136

The Young Master.

]! v "Alikn," (Author of " The Untold Half," etc.)

Illustrated by W. Wright

f'HIS fine foi'est, how like it is to the , forest sixteen thousand miles away 1 — we called it "bush " there — and — p.. this dark chine might pass for the gorge on which stood the mill, the old sawmill with its adjacent cottage that made my childhood's home. Sit here, and let me see it all again. The gorse there, and the little hillocks clumping in between ; only where the ocean is, there should be a high range of bush-clad mountains, capped with snow, and there should be the sound of water among the bracken in the chine ; and on the cliff should be rails down which the trollies ran, bringing the pines from the hills, and a little l'emoved from it all, a tall slender figure with the student's stoop, wearing "a low crowned hat with a very broad brim " over grey hair, and mild blue eyes" watching the gorgeous colours of the sunset, or the drifting of a fleecy cloud over the summer sky, or with a smile lurking in them following the movements of an impossible girl coming down on a load of logs on the trolly. And I should be that girl — and there it all is ! Yet not all ; there was my mother and Jim. In those days ray mother stood to me for law and order, for limitation and negation. She was more a quality to me than an individual. I had only arrived at that stage where the animal kicks at the curb : the burden of freedom had not been laid upon me. How my father came to be placed master of a sawmill in a lonely forest, is explained by the fact that in those days the folk who adopted New Zealand as their home took as their task whatsoever their hands found to do. My father found a pine forest, and built a sawmill. The forest was a poem, and the mill was its accompaniment, and Arnold Hunter loved poems. He had written them

before he married my mother. Then she took him in hand, and endeavoured to put the commercial spirit into him, with the result that, "for the sake of the child," he went from the old to the new country, and invested his all in the mill. He made it beautiful, and after this act of deterrainableness, went back to his books and his dreams again. One day James Allison took command, and from that day the sternness of my mother's face relaxed. I could hear her sometimes humming as she sewed. Whatever my mother had foregone with her sojourn in a strange land, what of romance she had known, what renounced, she did not say. She left her past completely behind her. One just found her where she was, and accepted her. She seemed to occupy all her sphere. But it was she who made the house, home. Once I thought differently : her iron rule harassed me ; but although one half of me she never understood, the half that served me best and gave me will, was all of her. I was fourteen when James Allison came. Little by little he took the burden and the authority of the mill upon his shoulders, and long before I was of age he was known as " the young master." Master ! That expressed him ! He was always masterful except to my mother, and yet with her he had his way. There was a link of character between them, an understanding that went deep, two strong wills that willed one way, perhaps. Prom being " Jim " to her, he became " boy." I was powerless against Jim's sway. My mother's " no " stood like a rock in the house, but Jim's quiet remonstrance obtained a " yes " for me whenever he chose. But I disliked owing my privileges and freedom

to Jim; it gave him part control of my actions. Tet I was slipped into chains unconsciously ; sold into bondage without a yea or a nay. I found myself by common consent belonging to Jim. It dawned upon me gradually he was the man chosen for me to marry, or rather, to marry me. And I determined he shouldn't, perhaps because he did not woo me, but rather ruled me instead. lam not sure how I felt towards him. I treated him with unreserve that yet was all reserve, for while I talked of all things freely to him, I rarely spoke about myself. Yet he knew me. He knew every haunt of my rambles and rides : that I pined for a wider life — and meant one day to go free. The first time he ever made love to me was a little too late. "Do you know that you are beautiful ? One day you will be told it." We were alone in the mill then, piles of wood and sawdust around us. The rest of the world was occupied elsewhere. I had been I'eading, seated on a log, still sweet and moss-covered from the forest. Through the open door in the brilliant sunlight I could see the trolly coming down the hill with more logs. The rattle of the wheels had caused me to look up ; I met Jim's eyes intent with the expression of one who has been looking long. "Someone will tell you so one day," he reiterated, thoughtfully, never removing his eyes, while his steady hands still guided the log. Jim had beautiful hands, brown and hard with sun and work, but with tapered fingers that told quick sensibilities, and yet, as he gripped the wood, it struck me how tenaciously he could hold on. " Someone has !" There was a swift movement, and the worrying steel had bitten into the wood, a snarl and a cry like a human thing in pain. "It hurts !" I said, fascinated, often as I had seen it done, drawn irresistibly to look at the wounded log. Jim's eyes had a steely gleam in them as they met mine, but he said nothing, and I went back to my seat and my book. Presently a shadow fell across tb.B

page. Jim stood before mo with folded arms, and although his head was bunt to me his attitude was that of a young Emperor : " Who told you ?" he demanded. I felt my face colour hotly. Angry at his tone, I drew myself up as haughtily as he, aud without answering would have gone, but I felt his detaining hand upon my arm. 1 looked at his baud in a way ho understood. " I beg your pardon," he said, aud immediately released me. This was a vow experience, Jim subdued. I was playing with lire, of course, without knowing it. A delicious thrill of triumph elated me : the monotony of existence had been broken at last ! As I walked to the house my heart beat fast ; that something in Jim's eyes, the tone of his voice, appealed to me, and his hand had trembled as it lay on my arm. It was my first taste of power, i had been curbed and chidden as a child is chidden, thwarted, and made of no account, but it had come — my womanhood, and with it my woman's rule. To me it was not a little thing — a man's haud trembling on my arm, Jim's hand! Was it that made me glad ? I do not know. I thought it was the vista that it opened to mo of a woman's world, my world whoro I should be queen, yet serve. Whore things of import would be for me to take and give, a world of my own creation. 1 knew not of what form, so that it were mine, where I could speak my own thoughts, and act out my own destiny. I was eager to live — hitherto I had but existed, had but been tho accomplishor of desires not my own. It was part of Jim's independence that he did not live at the mill-house, but in a cottago of his own on the bank of the stream over which I must cross to get to my beloved hills. As I stepped over the boulders Jim came to the bank and waited, then as though by appointment, joined me in my walk. " Alice," he said, quietly. " Come, dear, you must tell me." " There is no such word between us as mast." " There shall be," he exclaimed, "if I break a promise to establish it. You muut

understand, you must see, hear and know — you must. I cannot stand by and see another man with you. I will not !" His face had paled beneath the tan, his eyes were shining. He bent towards me to draw me into his arms, then his arms fell. " What a brute lam!" he said in a husky voice. " The truth is, lam bound by a promise. Forget what I have said." At that he turned and left me to go on alone. Bound by a promise — to whom ? I could not tell whether I was glad or sorry that he had kept his promise. However, I told myself that it made no difference. There was no " must " between us. I would understand nothing, except to be first, last, and chief motive in a man's life— there must be no limitation. Somehow I connected that promise with my mother, and I resented it with almost bitterness. Could I accept as lover the man who was more influenced by her than by me ? Into this part she must not come. " The young master" must be my slave absolutely — or not at all. " Alice !" My reverie was broken by an eager voice, and springing down the track, a young man, slighter and darker than Jim, stood beside me. It was he who had called me beautiful a day before, Arthur Alexander, the playmate of my childhood, who had gone away a boy and returned a man, and of whose advent James Allison had not yet heard. " I have lost my little chum— and found a beautiful woman," he had added softly, with something in his voice that denied his first regret. " Mary has come," he said, as he turned to walk beside me. Mary was his sister and my friend— the only girl companion of my solitary childhood, the idol of her father, who, to give her tk benefit of the bracing air, had built the "Retreat" on the mountain slope. The captain and my father were fast friends, anc I know not which grieved the most whei Captain Alexander suddenly decided t( travel— for Mary's sake—my father oi myself at loss of companionship. I made i sudden halt.

" I must see Mary," I declared. "So Mary says. I was coming for you Shall we go back ?" In all he said there was a tone of entreaty, as though he were pleading against rebuff. His dark eyes watched me as though in the face of a stranger he was trying to- trace a friend. And that is how Jim knew who had first, told me I was beautiful. Returning in the moonlight with Arthur beside me, we heard Jim singing as he swung towards us along the track between the pines : "... I sought thee sorrowing, Alice, where art thou ?" As I made the introduction, the two men took each other's measure in a cold steady look, then both turned to me. That was the beginning of it— from that first moment when they met among the pines Arthur and Jim hated each other. I was to have my wish of empire. But Jim had been a week too late in surrender. Even now he did not yield. His face grew tense and almost stern ; from showing interest, even coercion of me, he left me entirely to ray own devices ; and all that summer Mary and I, or Arthur, making a third, idled the hours together. But it was idleness that throbbed with passion, and I saw before autumn came that Mary's dark eyes turned wistfully to "the young master's" silent figure in the mill. And, like me, she took to watching the saws. There was a strained electrical feeling in the air. Not one of us was happy, and my mother's glance had question and anxiety in it when she looked from Jim to me. One night I was passing the open window and heard her say : " No, not yet. She must make her own . choice. ... If she loves you she must i know it. All of her inheritance has been ; lost to her except her freedom-that must l not be forced." > My mother, who had ruled, to speak so. : That was the first revelation of her real self i to me. " If she loves you, she must kuow it."

These words recurred and recurred again. Bid I love Jim ? I did not know. If Arthur had not come should I have known? I stood debating by the window. In that room the window opened to the bank on the gorge and faced the bush. Before I drew the blind, after lighting the lamp, I stood for a moment peering out into the darkness; then a strange incident occurred, and one that changed perhaps the whole current of my life — a man's head bent forward from the shadow, someone kissed me through the glass ! I started back, and hastily drew the blind, and turned with burning cheeks to find Jim standing there. The moment before I had almost hoped he was outside the window. "It must have been Arthur !" I said, giving expression to my readjusted thought, crimsoning in confusion. " So there is a must," remarked Jim, with a half-repressed sneer. I seemed to wither before the white anger in his face. But before speech came he turned and went, leaving me with a sense of shame. He thought me a coquette, for if I had loved Arthur, why did I seem not to be grieved that Jim loved me ? After that day I saw him sometimes answer Mary Alexander's smile, and talk and walk with her on the lawn as he had talked and walked with me. He was her equal by birth — out there, you know, gentlemen work like common men — and as I watched them I pictured Jim in other scenes, and Mary's soft eyes smiling up at him. Mary was gentler than I, and " the young master" would have his way. Well — Where was I ? About this time something was troubling the old Dad. He took to roaming less, studied the clouds less, and looked oftener at me. He looked so sadly that I feared I had disappointed him. Once he asked : "Would you enjoy the life your mother had once ?" "My mother!" "Of interests in another world — movement, exoitem.ent, position !" "Had my mother that?"

" I spoilt it," he replied. " She came here to build again for you. Don't disappoint her." I asked him in what way. " She wants to see you back among the living," was the only answer he gave. Arthur was away all the autumn. After the incident of the window I would barely speak to him. " I had been watching you ; your eyes were full of thought — I hoped of me," he said. But before he went he knew differently — and often in the evening when I sat alone, looking from the window into the darkening bush, I saw the misery of his dark eyes when he turned to go. I was so lonely during those silent evenings that had he appeared to me then, I might have let him stay. For I was giving up Jim, and putting the thought of him out of my life, and understanding as I did so how he had been its background — the setting against which my life's picture had hung. Mary Alexander had forgotton me for him, and he for Mary Alexander. One cold afternoon in the late autumn, when the mist phantoms haunted the hills and blotted out the forest, tired of inaction, tired, too, of the quiet house, I set off at a brisk pace along the mountain path that led to the Retreat. I had not seen Mary for several weeks, and Captain Alexander had that morning spoken uneasily of her. " She looks moped," he said. " The place doesn't agree with her as well as it did — we shall have to pack off after Arthur to town." He looked at me quizzically, and, I thought, reproachfully. Half-way to the Retreat quick footsteps overtook me. Jim came up rather breathlessly. " I saw you from the mill," he remarked, half apologetically. I turned back ; the mill was blotted out. " When you passed," he explained. " We can walk on together," I said. "No," he answered. "I was not going to the Retreat. Alice," he burst out, " you shall listen to me." He put himself hi

front of the barred gate through which I wanted to pass. " What is there to say ?" I asked quietly, in spite of my beating heart. "Everything is to say" — he bent his head, his eyes upon mine, held by the meaning in his — " I love you ! I love you, sweet ! Can I make you understand ? Every beat of your heart I feel ! The sound of your voice peoples this wilderness " "And Mary Alexander?" I asked. He waived the interruption aside. " I have served for you as Jacob never served — seven long years I have been dead to all the earth beside. Is it life for a man — existence here ? What has kept me, held me ? You, Alice, you ! Ah ! you must have known ! Say that you knew !" The hand that I had put out to open the gate lay passively on the rail, his own hand upon it. I felt its strength in the pressure of the fingers holding mine. " I came a lad eager for investment ■" he stopped suddenly in confusion and added : "Of my inexperience. I picked up the trick of the saws. The mother wanted some one to help , and I stayed." All in a flash I knew. He had staved off vuin, propped up falling pillars, and the mother, who had been through it all before, loved him for our salvation. For his own sake, too. " What was the promise you gave to my mother ?" His face clouded, grew almost stern. He released my hand. " I was a fool," he said. "It was to leave you free until she gave me leave to win you. She herself had loved the man's love of her, more "he paused. " Than the man," I supplemented. I was learning things. I began to understand the long aching of my mother's heart and her stern care of me. " Poor mummy !" and my eyes filled. " It is you, and you, and you with her as it is with me " "There is Mary," I said. He flung away a step or two, then he came book.

" When you were cold to me, when hor brother — curse him ! — stepped in where I was bound not to tread, I — Alice, I wanted to make you feel — I only made you cold !" "And what of Mary? What of her? Suppose that she had cared ?" " Nonsense !" he said, and moant it. " But suppose she had," I went on in my knowledge. " She would build her ideal of the man she loved. She would credit him with honour, believe him true, interpret hia smile as approval, match his constancy by her own, and when ho did not smile, and did not come " my voice faltered. Jim bent with his lips to mine in v first long kiss. " Who taught you this ?" ho asked, gently holding me close to him, and turning my face to the light. " Alice, I havo given no woman but you reason for such thought ; none but you could read my meaning so. To other women I have been courteous — to you I feel." And Mary was only one of " the other women " — not even Mary Alexander. But if she had no personality to Jim, she had shown me my heart. I hurried up the path to the Retreat, in answer to my ring the servant showed me into the drawing-room, The shaded lamps were lit, and Mary, who had risen hurriedly from a pillowed couch, looked past me with hungry gaze for someone else. When the door closed the colour left her chooks. " You, Alice," she said, in a tone of forced gladness, and kissing me with cold lips, sank down again among her cushions. Then I was sure, and the new gladness died at my heart. Instantly I knew what must be done. The fault was ours, Jim's and mine, and we must bear the burden. " Dear, you are ill ?" I said. " No," she answered, " only tired." And I knew it was of waiting for Jim's loye. " You ought to go away," I ventured presently. She looked at me, startled, and spoke almost fiercely : " I will not go. lam not Arthur—he took his pain out of sight."

It was not generous, but weak women can be very cruel. I felt a little scorn of her as I went back to Jim. I had blundered, true, but I had not meant suffering to others. "It is just as I thought," I said to Jim, who came out strong and protectingly from among the shadows. "You are bound to Mary — she has misunderstood." He swore that no power on earth should induce him to let me go. I knew that it had to be, or Mary would die; but how to bring it to pass? I speak quietly, do I ? Well, one's heart only breaks once, you see. After that, there is a Jong calm. That night the tempest went over my soul I never was a girl again. But Jim had kissed me ; I had felt his heart throb beneath my cheek, and heard him say : " I love you ! You are my world." And there are women who can die quietly, or live in loneliness for long years for the joy of such remembrance. When the day had dawned I knew what I should do. Once having conquered I could forego ; and Jim owed part of the debt, he could but own. Arthur came in answer to my summons. I saw by his face he had reached the limits of his endurance. "You sent for me, Alice," he said, a note of meaning on the word " sent " that implied had it not been so he would not have come. His sensitive face showed his conflicting hope and fear. I had always been fond of him, fond enough to be glad that I was about to make him happy. " Could you marry me if I gave you less than my best love ?" I asked. " Marry you ?" His voice was a note of incredulity, his beautiful brown eyes lit with sudden joy. I felt my hands close clasped in his. "My beautiful !" he murmured. Then suddenly he let go my hand, the gladness left his face. " Why do you torture me ?" he asked. " What pleasure can it give you to hurt me so ?" " None," I answered. " Yet you do it ?"

" Hurt ! Are you the only one ? Am I glad? Do men never feel past their own pain ?" He took my hands again. • " Darling, can't you see, don't you understand ?" How familiar the words sounded ! " You must /" His voice broke "I had hoped to serve you as a subject serves his queen — and you banished me — all but crushed me. You sent me away, I went ; you called me back, lam here. lam weak, I kuow. But you have called me, and I will never leave you again !" So I married him secretly ; it was the only way. My mother had destined me for Jim. And Jim ? He must marry Mary Alexander. " Till death do us part.'" Arthur's voice was scarce above a whisper, but when I mot his eyes I knew come weel, come woe, come any sort of good or ill — I belonged to him. That thought compensated him for all that was not and had not been. I was his. Of what avail my flutterings for freedom ? 1 was his, my brains, my body, my estate, my triumphs, my sins were labelled Mrs. Alexander. Only my thoughts were mine, and the memories of my heart. Have you ever taken upon youi-self tha burdens of the weak ? Yes. Then you know that there is no burden so heavy as the weight of another soul. Go fast, it cannot keep pace ; go slow, it stumbles ; aspire for it, it fails ; plan, and its execution is lacking. I did not know that then. With the arrogance of youth, and the impulse of an impatient spirit, I wanted to sweep unhappiness in joy ; I could not wait for development. I felt so strange that night when I turned homeward. What would my mother say ? She had destined me for Jim — subservient to her will. Well, it might comfort her to know that I could take my place — the place that my father had lost to her. But how would she reconcile the fact that " the boy " did not belong to her daughter ? I would take them away, this old father and mother of mine : they should go Home and relive what they had most prized. That Arthur was rich, occurred to me only then — his life

beyond the " Retreat " was unknown to me. As I passed the window — the window through which Arthur had first kissed me — I saw my mother sitting with folded hands at the window, grey of face, gazing out, as I had gazed, far away, seeing things that were not actualities. She looked up as I entered, and gave a half cry. I went quickly over to her, startled by what I saw in her face ; she looked at me a little vacantly, then, as I knelt before her, she very gently stroked my hair. " Your father is dead," she said, dully. My first thought was that she had gone mad. "He died in his chair," she explained. " Jim found him." While I had been disposing of my life with the lavish prodigality of youth, duty had other demands for it. My mother indicated to me then what that duty was — to marry Jim. " Only to-day," she said, " I have known it to be that. I held you free from him, wishing to give your young life its brightest years bondless. But Jim must have his own. This house is his, this mill is his — I did not know. A second time your father brought us to beggary. I saved for you — Jim's money. I prided for you — in Jim's possessions. I did not know. For love of you the young master has served in his own domains, been humbled to save your pride ; always to save you. He thinks that he is screening you now, but I chance to know. He will woo you humbly. He will not say that he has fed and housed and clothed us for seven years. I chance to know. But you love Jim ? Child, you can repay?" She peered into my face, expectantly. " Yes, I love Jim," I answered. "Ah. thank God!" she cried in a tone that told me that only I could have saved her heart from breaking. "I can forgive your father now," she said. " He has humbled us, but he has given us Jim," and kissing me, she went quietly out to make peace with her dead. With a heart as tempestuous as the night I

went out to keep my tryst with Arthur on the mountain path. Ho heard my footsteps before he saw me. In my misery I repulsed him, and when he asked my meaning I told him all the truth, except the reason for my marrying him. Had ho known that it was for his sister's sake he never would have let her marry Jim. Ho thought that I was tired of my life at the mill and had used him to get free. Did he take it meekly ? Ho was nigh killing me. I had hiddeu my love for Jim so well that Arthur had novor guessed it. " You have tricked and deluded mo," ho accused me. "In heaven's name, why ! Ah ! I see, out of pique because of tho young master's friendship with my sister. Mon must serve you only, must thoy not ? But with all his cleverness the young master has been done. The mill is his — but you belong to me !" Jim stood before us, and wrenched Arthur's hand from my arm. They gazed at each other silently, and in the fitful moonlight they faced each other like two animals before they spring. They must not kill each other because of me — not till they knew that it was not wanton coquetry, but for anothor woman's sake that I had put this hatred in their hearts, and that woman the sister of my husband. I sprang to part them — then — I do not know how it happened. Jim turned to put me out of reach of harm — we were on the edge of the cliff, and he pushed me over. I heard my own shrieking in my ears, felt that I was falling through space. When next I felt anything it was the splash of tears upon my face. I tried to move, but racking pain prevented me. I opened my eyes and saw my mother sitting beside my bed with a widow's cap covering her grey hair, and her hands crossed patiently upon her black gown. Then I remembered my cry of pain startled her into sudden life. " Thank God !" she said for the second time, and then I knew how much she wanted me. " Alice, 0 my love ! " another voice murmured.

Then the light went out of my eyes again. But before the darkness I had seen the white, aged face of Jim. And that is the reason that I always limp a little — and how Jim came at last to ask Mary Alexander to marry him. I asked it — put it to him that else my suffering was in vain — for at the first I suffered terribly, and it was thought I should never walk again. In those awful nights it always seemed that I was in the mill, and Jim at the saws, and by an irresistible power I was drawn till my flesh met the biting teeth, and my own shrieks would waken me to pitying eyes. They had taken me to the mill, and Arthur writhed to know that he and I were both the guests of its young master. He bore himself with a courteous dignity, that sat well upon him, but in those first weeks my husband's bearing was not so well. How he thwarted Jim. He sat beside me night ' and day with the right that I had given him to care for and tend and watch me, and oh ! how I yearned through the long days to tell Jim not to grieve for me — that I had forgiven him what he had not meant to do ! The nights were awful. Have you ever lain awake in the night ? Yes. You know then those awful hours between two and four, when the dark earth lies lifeless — it seems nnder the ban of its Creator. You know that first dawning of day, when to take up its burden again is so heavy for the soul, when flesh is weak, and like Saul, one wants to turn one's face to the wall. I couldn't speak of it only I thought you knew. One morning in this grey hour my mother slipped her arms about me — how mothers can forget ! " Oh, hush," she said, "it breaks my heart to hear you crying so!" And then she went away. But she knew how to ease me. The door opened presently, and closed behind Jim. What did he say ? He scarcely spoke. He knelt down by the bed, and put his face down on ray hands. I knew he was crying, because I felt his tears upon them. " Tell me what to do ?" he said.

It seems 1 had revealed all in my delirium. How I loved him ; how I gave him up for Mary Alexander. Not even to you can I tell what ho said to me, or Ito him. It was tho vital hour of my life, and I always remember that it was given me by my mother. Somohow sho knew. Knew that I should have died olso ; kuew that without it " tho boy " would never have been strong or happy again. At its close Jim told me he would not mock mo — he would ask Mary to marry him. I Jut sho never was his wife — sho died. After all my meddling was in vain, as most meddling is. Since then I have learned, try as wo will, give as we may, wo cannot bo tho providonco of another life. I only did this — Mary diod in Jim's arms. It seems long life had boon impossible ; she had been consumptive from her birth. The captain know it ; ho had fought his foav for twenty years since the mother of Mary died. Afterwards? Jim never lot my motlior go. She did not lose her " boy." Sho was mistress of the mill till sho diod. And, because of Mary, Arthur was very patient with me. Ho took mo overywhoro. Yes, we were happy. Before ho died ho said to me : " Sweetheart, you have blessed me, as you blessed Mary by your unselfish love. I shall tell Mary. Do you think he has ? It pleases me to fancy so." * # # # # It had grown dark, and as we went down the chine together, I felt her limp as her arm linked in mine. I had loved her since first we met, and wondered about her always. She had made a big name for herself in literature, her beauty and charm of manner had won many hearts. I know more than one man who regretted her young widowhood. She had a way with her all her own : she would come and go, appear and disappear, speak or be silent as she willed, and after that evening in the chine — when I understood the wistful tenderness of her face — her visit to me being at an end, I had only & brief note of acknowledgment from

her till six months had passed, then a letter in her handwriting reached me inscribed " via 'Frisco," and it was dated from The Mill, Pine Forest, New Zealand. " I suppose it was that talk with you in Alum Ohine," she wrote, "but from that hour I could not rest. The scent of the pines brought back all that had been most fragrant, most real, and all that went to make me what the world calls a successful woman could not hold me. I came back home. The old mill drew me. I found myself one evening outside the window where Arthur had kissed me through the

glass. Since then I had been bound : I had known freedom, known life, known death, won honour, love ; all that a woman could ask had been mine. I returned to my starting place, but with a deeper knowledge than when I set out.

It was night, all the world was blotted out. There was just the mill, and I peered in, the master at the saws, his bent head iron grey. I was drawn as of old, irresistibly, but before the log reached the saw Jim let it fall. ' Dear heart !' he cried. 'At last ! ' "