KING DUNCE.

[Contents]KING DUNCE.Only a careless, stupid boy perched on a high stool within the schoolroom, trying to learn his lesson, long after his companions had been dismissed to their several homes. Only the biggest dunce at Slate-em’s Academy, who wouldn’t try, like other boys, to master his tasks—not because he hadn’t the ability to do so, but because he wanted to be a King. Yes, dear readers, Noel Biffin, son of Jack Biffin, the tin-smith, wanted to be a King. Nothing less would satisfy him. No, not even the rank of Duke or Prince; so, instead of minding his lessons, young Biffin drew Kings on his slate and in his copy-book, and was therefore compelled to ride the wooden horse after school hours.It was a very beautiful evening, with a grand sunset glow flooding Slate-em’s Academy, and wrapping the Dunce round and round as with an amber-coloured mantle, orange tinted. The old usher, nodding in his chair, was quite unconscious[92]of the halo which played round and about his bald, venerable head, and made him appear for one brief moment like one of the Apostles. The good, patient old man was tired with the heat, and weary with the incessant chatter of the boys, and so he dozed in comfort, and saw not the wee, shapely creature who entered at the window and approached the boy as he stood upon the stool and bent the knee before him. Although small, the stranger was very handsome, and decked from head to heel in bright, glittering armour, with a crimson plume adorning his helmet.“May it please your gracious Majesty,” he said, doffing his helmet, “my name is Popgun—Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun, Knight—one of your Majesty’s subjects from the realm of Shadowland.” The Dunce nearly fell from the stool in amazement at the strange words. He looked towards the still sleeping master, and from him to the armour-clad Knight at his feet, and replied in a low tone, “Hush! Don’t speak so loud. I haven’t learnt my lesson yet; if he wakens he’ll thrash me. Now, what do you want?”“Pardon, your liege,” rejoined the Knight respectfully, “I am sent as ambassador from the good people of Shadowland to inform your[93]Majesty that you have been unanimously elected monarch of our wide and spacious dominions, and I beg that it may please you to allow me to conduct you thither without delay.”“A King! Am I really a King after all?” cried Biffin, jumping from the stool.“Every inch a King, your Majesty,” replied Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun, replacing his headpiece. “Will your liege follow me?”“Stop, where is Shadowland?” inquired the boy.“Speeding away across the country as swift as the wind.”Australian Fairy Tales][Page 93.“Speeding away across the country as swift as the wind.”“On the borders of Fancy, where dwell my kindred, the Australian elves. Fairyland will have none but a mortal to reign over her. Come, your Majesty.” And with a dignified bearing the Elfin Knight strode past the slumbering usher, and led the newly-elected Majesty of Elfland out at the door, which opened at their approach. Beyond the school, out on the open play-ground, stood two fine-looking emus, splendidly caparisoned, and ready for a journey; and before young Biffin knew what he was about he and his companion were mounted thereon, and were speeding away across the country as swift as the wind. Small townships, hills and valleys, tracts of gloomy forests, and broad lakes appeared before them, and disappeared behind them again, before the boy could say “Jack Robinson.”[94]Indeed, poor Biffin hadn’t breath to say anything, they proceeded so swiftly. At length they came to a large sandy desert on the confines of which rose a chain of lofty mountains. After crossing the desert these mountains looked so steep and high that further progress appeared at an end, but the Knight went to a cave close by and brought forth a pair of flying horses, which flew upward with them in a moment and landed them far away on the other side in safety—and this was Shadowland of the Elfins. What poet’s brain, teeming with strange wild fancies, could give expression to such a scene of loveliness as Noel the Dunce saw here? What travel-stained worshipper of Nature, traversing the girdle of the globe, ever feasted his eyes on a more glorious prospect? Not at Rome, filled as it is with monuments of man; nor at Athens, where Paul found the tablet inscribed, “To the Unknown God”; or on that Ionian Isle, where the inspired John wrote “The Revelation.” Beautiful and sacred are all three to view, but I have feasted my soul on scenes equally grand and sublime in this new land where the Universal Spirit of “Our Father” seemed to rest, and attract the uplifted eyes and the inmost thoughts of the Soul to the Invisible Presence.[95]The flying steeds alighted in a ravine shut in by walls of fantastic rocks, peaked and turreted like the gable of some old feudal castle. Here a mounted escort, composed of the potent and mighty of the empire, awaited their coming, and led the King upwards to a grassy platform, shaded by a patch of hoary trees, where a throne built of wild-flowers had been erected for his reception. The site commanded a fine view of the surrounding country, and the elected monarch beheld with satisfaction thousands and thousands of his subjects assembled on the plains below to do him homage, and whose cheers and shouts rang far and wide when he ascended the throne to read the proclamation.From time to time, for generations past, the Elfin Kings had to read their own proclamations, but when young Biffin received the paper from the hands of the Prime Minister his heart sank within him. His progress at school had been so slow that he was unable to read print fluently. How, then, was he to master the contents of the closely-written parchment in his hand? At that moment he would have given all his toys at home, even to his crop-eared pony, to have been able to read writing; but he couldn’t read or spell, nor make anything better than a pot-hook.[96]“May it please your Majesty to read the proclamation to the people?” whispered Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun in the King’s ear.“I—I cannot read,” replied his Majesty, trembling with shame and vexation.“Cannot read!” repeated the courtiers, looking at each other. “Surely your Majesty is jesting.”“Indeed, gentlemen, I’m afraid I’m a dunce,” replied Biffin sheepishly.“A dunce, who cannot read, and yet has the silly presumption to be a King!” shouted the fairy populace in a mocking tone. “Hurrah for King Dunce! Long live King Dunce!”And such is the uncertainty of popular favour in Elfland, that the vast assembly, who but a moment before had exhibited such hearty tokens of good-will, began to hoot and clamour in derision. They pulled the monarch from his throne, stripped him of his robes of state, and carried him to a rocky peak, where they doffed his crown and replaced it with a wreath of straw; while their shouts—“Long live King Dunce! Hurrah for King Dunce!”—once more rent the air.In all his troubles at home, and his canings and disappointments with his lessons at school, our hero never felt so humbled and crestfallen[97]in his life before. He would have given anything to be enabled to read and write well. And this wish would have been easily gratified, had he but paid a little attention to his books while at the Academy; but he hadn’t done so, and the result was his downfall from the proud position he had so long coveted.What availed his regretsnow, when he was led away a prisoner, and placed in a dark cave, guarded by seven monsters, whose bodies were covered with long feathers, and who had heads like monkeys? It availed nothing that they set him hard lessons day and night, beat him with rods, until he was bruised all over, and suffered such pain that he made his escape from the cave. But the monsters were after him across the country, over hill and dale, until he came to the top of the high mountain which overlooked the desert, and the monsters being close behind, there was nothing left for him in his last extremity but to leap for his life and liberty.And Noel Biffin did leap; but instead of being dashed to pieces, the Dunce came down from his perch on the stool to the floor of the schoolroom, the noise of which roused the usher from his nap, who gave the stupid boy a dose of cane pie and sent him home.[98][Contents]“I DON’T KNOW.”Our little hero lived in a very pretty cottage on the hills. He was fond of reading, and his parents, who could well afford it, indulged the boy to his heart’s content with interesting books.By his schoolmates this lad was known by the nickname of “Careless Harry,” because he was so untidy and negligent in his habits. Out of all the expensive books that had been purchased for him there wasn’t one that had a decent cover. Indeed, some of them had their backs completely broken with ill-usage, while others hadn’t a back at all. Besides being careless and forgetful the boy had still another fault. If his mother asked him a question, the answer was sure to be, “I don’t know.”“Where’s your hat, Harry?”“I don’t know.”“What have you done with your ball?”“I don’t know.”“Child, however did you tear your clothing in that frightful manner?”[99]“I am sure I don’t know.”His room was littered with his books, toys, and playthings. There stood the rocking-horse with his tail pulled out. Here, flat on its back, lay his sister’s big doll, its poor face dreadfully disfigured by Harry’s mischievous fingers. His mother was very much displeased with him, and had sent him to bed, promising to take severe measures with him if she ever heard “I don’t know” from his lips again.Harry was very frightened. He did not wish to vex his mother, or to act unkindly towards his sister, and so, resolving to be more careful in the future, he covered his head over with the bedclothes and fell fast asleep.But Harry’s carelessness had raised the ire of others besides his mother and sister, and they were determined to punish him.It is all very well to treat books, dolls, drums, rocking-horses, and other playthings as if they had no life in them, but careless boys may do that once too often. So it appeared in this case. Harry was no sooner asleep than these ill-fated creatures held a great discussion with reference to his cruelty.“I’ll not stand this any longer,” cried Robinson Crusoe, stepping from the boy’s bookshelf. “I’m[100]getting an old man, and I won’t be insulted by having my only covering torn from my back by this young rogue. There he is covered up quite snug, while I am standing here shivering in my shirt.”“And I,” responded little Red Riding Hood, “would gladly see him punished. He has thrown so much soapy water over me I feel as if I’d been shipwrecked in the washing-tub.”“And I,” echoed the Drum, “owe him a grudge, not so much for the hard thumps he has bestowed on my person, as for his disgraceful treatment of yonder fair lady, whose dear nose he has completely put out of joint. That lady doll is my relation. We were born in the same place, were sent out in the same ship to Australia, and have occupied the same shop, until purchased and brought here to be cuffed and ill-treated by this boy. Gentlemen, I mean to avenge the lady.”Now the ice was broken, accusations came so fast and thick against the unlucky culprit that it was quite impossible to make them all out. Fishing rods, minus line or hook, bats without handles, balls and tops, which danced like mad around the bed—the hubbub became so great the wonder is the whole house was not roused by his accusers.[101]The noise, however, woke Harry, who sat bolt upright in bed, and gazed with a bewildered stare at the queer crowd surrounding him. He was too much alarmed to speak, but one glance showed him Robinson Crusoe, clad in nothing but his fly-leaves, standing at his bedside, with many others, who in the dim light he could not recognise.“Place him on my back, friends, and I’ll gallop away to—‘I don’t know,’ ” cried out the tailless Rocking-horse in a terrible voice; and the words were no sooner uttered than poor Harry was quickly blindfolded, dragged from his bed, and placed astride the horse, who instantly galloped out into the cold night with him.The pace at which the steed travelled was a caution. Harry had once accompanied his father to Gawler by rail, but the speed of the train was like travelling on a bullock dray in comparison to the flying pace of that beast without a tail. How he held on to its back is a positive wonder. All he saw was the clear starlit sky above his head, rocking and rolling about like the waves at the Semaphore on a windy day. His poor feet ached with the cold, for his only covering was his night-gown, and his legs felt as though they didn’t belong to him. At length, just as he was beginning[102]to feel faint and giddy from exhaustion, the Rocking-horse stopped, and the bandage was removed from his eyes. Ah! what a sight he beheld. There was the Drum he had broken strutting about on legs like a human being, who came up to Harry with a haughty swagger, and said, “Boy, why did you break my head?”“A JACK-IN-THE-BOX ... CAME AND REVILED HIM.”“A JACK-IN-THE-BOX … CAME AND REVILED HIM.”And then a Hoop came, and demanded, “why he was thrown aside in the lumber-room?” and a black Jack-in-the-box, whose scanty locks had been wantonly torn from his scalp, came and[103]reviled him; and, lastly, his late victim, the poor doll, made its appearance in a winding sheet, and began to reproach him for his cruelty.The unfortunate boy seated himself on the ground and burst into tears, but the more he wept the more his tormentors jeered at him; and really the Drum and Robinson Crusoe seemed to incite the others to insult him; therefore was our poor Harry very miserable indeed. Growing tired of playing with him, or afraid of the cold wind, perhaps, his strange companions at last took their departure, and Harry was left alone.Such companionship had been bad enough, but solitude was worse. He started up, and shouted with all his might, “Is there anybody about?” “I don’t know,” sighed the wind. “Which is the way home?” shouted Harry. “I don’t know,” chuckled the laughing jackass. “Where’s my mother?” screamed the boy. “I don’t know,” exclaimed a ’possum and a kangaroo together. Too frightened to speak any more, Harry groped his way along in the darkness. As day dawned he came to a very high hill, and here he saw his tormentors having some rare fun. The Doll had mounted the Rocking-horse, which was galloping round and round as they do in a[104]circus. While the Drum beat time, old Robinson Crusoe was waltzing with the Lady of the Lake; and Jack the Giant-killer played leap-frog with Mother Hubbard, Red Riding Hood and Little Jack Horner. Their merriment grew more fast and furious every moment, but the instant they espied our hero it ceased, and a deep silence fell upon them all.“Ladies and gentlemen,” cried a Pop-gun, breaking the silence, “you are aware we have refrained from doing injury to this cruel boy, through the mediation of the ‘Old Woman who lived in a Shoe.’ We left him in peace to make his way home, and instead of doing so he has wantonly broken in upon our secret revelry, and so has forfeited all claim to our clemency. What shall we do with him?”“Pitch him headlong from the cliff,” replied the Drum in a deep voice.“It shall be done,” responded a chorus of voices.Poor Harry, who had not spoken hitherto, now found his voice. “No, no! Spare me, good gentlemen; spare me!” he cried.They only mocked him for his pains. “Hearken to him pleading for mercy! Careless Harry! cruel Harry!” and amidst much noise and confusion the young mortal was carried to the apex of the[105]steep, tall cliff, and pushed over into the yawning gulf below.Poor Harry, half mad with terror, uttered a series of piercing shrieks as he felt himself falling—falling through the air—and called aloud for his mother to help him. Conceive his joy when he found himself in her arms, and heard her well-known voice reassuring him.“You are safe, my boy, quite safe. What has frightened you?”“Oh, mother! I have been taken away in the night.”“Taken away! Where?”“To—to—‘I don’t know.’ ”The mother smiled to herself as she left the room, and “Careless Harry” went out to see if the rocking-horse and the others had returned home.[106][Contents]THE BANK CAT.Because “Tent-Peg” on the Bogan isn’t on the map of Australia, it must not be inferred that the little township does not exist. Indeed, any old colonist who knows his way about will tell you that the place is in the sister colony, and consists of one public-house, a blacksmith’s shop, a store, a church (about the shape and size of a haystack), and a small branch bank.The latter building presented nothing of the polish and artistic finish, or the magnificence of many of our metropolitan banks, but it was one of the most snug and cosy institutions in the whole country, within its walls. No doubt Toney Buck, the messenger, was of the same opinion, as he sat dozing before a warm coal fire, this severe winter night, with no other company than a large black cat, of the male gender, for his companion.Toney Buck was an orphan, aged twelve years, or thereabouts, and acted in the dualrôleof servant to the manager and messenger to the[107]bank. The boy slept on the premises, and the manager having gone to visit a neighbouring squatter, his servant had been ordered to sit up until he returned. There Toney sat in the manager’s armchair, bowing and nodding to the fire, as if it had been some great fetish to whom he was paying homage. Toney was a very practical lad. Nothing fanciful or dreamy ever bothered Toney. Had the boy been otherwise, I’m afraid he wouldn’t have had anything to do with the bank, because his employers were anything but poets or visionaries, as some of my borrowing friends can testify. However, be this as it may, every time our hero opened his heavy eyelids after each jerk forward, he encountered the round, black, winking orbs of Tabby fixed full upon his face, with a strange expression stamped thereon. Indeed, more than once Toney felt certain that the cat actually laughed at him, and when discovered in the act, instantly attempted to compose its features and wink at the fire in a knowing way. It is not a very easy task for a sleepy boy, who feels as if his eyelids were freighted with four-pound weights, to rouse himself and his waking faculties all in a moment, but Toney managed to sit bolt upright after a time and to stare at his companion. Toney fancied he could stare. So he could[108]without a doubt; but the cat could and did stare harder than Toney. Its eyes never moved, in their fixed look, from his face, yet he could see their colour change from black to pale sea-green, and from green to grey, and then turn flaming red as the fire. Toney feeling uncomfortable, removed his chair farther back, muttering, “Oh, bother the cat!”“Whirr. You’re another,” replied a voice instantly.The messenger was in the act of sitting down again, but he gave a jump as if a snake had bitten him. He looked first at Tabby, and then at the fire bewildered, and said, “Who spoke?”“I did,” replied the cat.“Good gracious! Are you sure now?” inquired Toney, with the scales—or the weights, rather—fallen from his eyeballs.“I did say ‘You’re another’; and so you are. If you bother me I’ll bother you!” replied Tabby, whisking his long tail.“Oh, my! I never knew cats could talk, although I’ve heard their voices sometimes, of a night, to some tune.”“None of your sneers, Toney,” interrupted Tabby quickly. “There are more wonderful things in Australia than a talking cat, and some noises to[109]which our midnight concerts are as sweet music in comparison. Listen to me. The bank will be robbed this very night. There!”“Talking cat—the bank robbed. I—I hope I’m awake,” cried Toney, tugging at his unkempt hair in astonishment.“I hope you are, for there are those coming who will soon arouse you,” replied the cat, jumping on the back of a chair, and erecting his back in the form of a rainbow. “Hark! that noise is worse than our caterwauling. Hear them forcing in the door of the front office.”As the cat spoke there came upon their ears first a low grating noise, then followed a sound as if the heavy door of the bank had been wrenched off its hinges. “Lord help us! It’s the bushrangers, and master’s away. Oh! what shall I do?” and the poor boy began to cry bitterly.“Stop crying. Wait and see!” Tabby hadn’t time to say more, ere three men, with masks upon their faces, and armed with revolvers, rushed into the room.“Hallo! only a boy here. Where’s the manager?” inquired one of the robbers, grasping Toney.“He isn’t here, sir.”“Come, none o’ that,” cried the man gruffly.[110]“Tell us where he is, or I’ll shove you a-top of that fire.”Toney looked at the fire, and then at the bushranger, and began to cry afresh.“Where’s the manager?”“Gone to Mr. Hilton’s, the station on the river.”“Are you certain?”“Yes, as certain as that you will be hanged.”The man let go his hold of Toney instantly, and stared first at the cat and then at the messenger, as if he was puzzled as to which had answered him. He appeared to decide in favour of the boy, for he said hoarsely, “No cheek, my fine kiddie, or I’ll roast you like a chicken. Bring the keys of the safe, quick.”“Master has them in his pocket, sir.”The robber swore a frightful oath, then held converse with his companions in an undertone. After which they produced a cord, and having tied the lad hand and foot, left him in the room with the cat, locked the door on the outside, and proceeded to ransack the bank.Poor Toney! What could he do against three armed men? The manager, his master, had been very good to him. He was father and mother and brother and sister all in one. What would he say when he returned and found the place robbed—[111]the money gone? Hadn’t he entrusted all the gold, and notes, and papers—worth thousands and thousands of pounds—into his (Toney’s) custody, and here were villains breaking open these sacred coffers with hammer and crowbar in ruthless plunder! In his trouble, he almost wished the bushrangers would come in and roast him as they had promised to do. Even that would be preferable to facing his kind master.“Toney. Hi, Toney!” The boy jumped. He had forgotten all about the cat.“You were always kind to me, Toney, and I’m going to help you now.”“How can a cat help anybody?” replied poor Toney.“Ah! but I wasn’t always a cat, Toney.”“Oh, bother; I suppose you mean when you were a little kitten,” muttered the boy.“No, I don’t, Toney Buck. I never was a kitten. I mean when I was a happy fairy in Elfland, before I was changed into a cat for being cruel and selfish.”“Snooks!” answered Toney sceptically.“Who?”“Snooks! It won’t do, you know. There ain’t no fairies, nor moonland, and such nonsense.”“Supposing my shape were to change again,[112]here under your very nose; would you believe what you saw?”“Rather! but you can’t do it, puss.”“Can’t I? You shall see,” replied Tabby. “Say: ‘Sevle naila rtsua’ very slowly. Now!”“ ‘Sevle naila rtsua,’ ” cried the boy in a brisk tone; but he had no sooner uttered the words than the black cat vanished into thin air, and in its place he beheld a wee, thin, elderly gentleman dressed in hunting costume, seated astride the back of the chair, who bowed very politely and lifted his hat to the astonished messenger.“Well I never!” cried Toney. “Who are you, pray?”“ ‘Sevle naila rtsua!’ ” replied the little man, laughing.“What is ‘Sevle naila rtsua’?”demanded the boy.“Read the letters backwards and join the first two syllables together.”“Ah! A-u-s-t-r-a-l-i-a-n—E-l-v-e-s—Australian Elves, eh?”“That’s it, Toney; I’m proud to be one of them, my boy. Now I’ll show you how a cat can help you out of this scrape,” answered the wee man, with a smile only to be seen on the face of a fairy. “I’m going out at that broken pane in[113]the window there, straight to Dick Holmes’ stable, take out the steeplechaser ‘Nightwind,’ ride as fast as he can go to the junction, return with half-a-dozen troopers by a short cut, and secure these ruffians red-handed with their booty.“Hurrah!” cried Toney in his enthusiasm.“Hush, boy. Not so loud,” said the elfin; “they may hear you. I must away on my errand quickly; yet mind, Toney, if you don’t see the bank cat here again, I’m always to be found on the banks of the Bogan. Keep good heart. Good-bye.”With a hop, skip, and a jump the wee man was through the broken pane and astride the horse “Nightwind” before the boy could realise that he was alone.Meanwhile the strong-room of the bank resounded with the heavy blows dealt by the robbers upon the solid doors of the iron safe, which for a long time withstood their utmost attempts to break it open. Poor Toney sat in fear and trembling, and counted the minutes as they fled by, listening to the noises without, and wondering if the little elfin man would really do what he promised. It seemed hardly possible that he could sit a horse at all, much less guide the crack steeplechaser “Nightwind” across country[114]on a dark night. Nevertheless, the confident tone of the fairy before he jumped out at the window reassured him, and hope began to gather in Toney the messenger.Alas! that hope was dispelled the next moment by a loud shout from the bushrangers, which proclaimed that the safe had yielded. Had the robbers been less intent upon the bags of gold and silver which met their gaze, it is probable they would have seen the half-dozen police-troopers who entered, carbine in hand, and surrounded them. When the ruffians did see them, however, it was too late to resist, and they were taken away out into the darkened night, some of them never to see the light of the sun again as free men.At the trial of the bushrangers the police couldn’t swear who gave the information about the bank, and I believe it remains a mystery to this day.[115][Contents]GUMTREE HOLLOW.Like “Ben Bolt’s” mill, Allan’s farm, situated by the River Torrens, had gone to decay and ruin. It was a flourishing place before the death of Peter Allan, but the farmer had been taken away, and his widow and her three children had to fight out the battle of life unaided. The property had been heavily mortgaged three years previously, and, what with unfavourable seasons and other misfortunes, the widow Allan had not been able to repay principal or interest of the money borrowed, and the creditors therefore gave the farmer’s wife notice to quit.Fortunately, Mrs. Allan had a brother who had gone to some diggings in New South Wales, and had left in charge of his sister an old hut and a patch of land known as Gumtree Hollow. In the emergency the widow determined to occupy the place until she could find a more suitable home. The Hollow consisted of about two acres of crags and stones, without sufficient soil to grow[116]a potato in, and was distant from the farm about five miles.On a warm afternoon, three days after the widow had received notice to leave the homestead, little Charlie Allan, the eldest boy, aged twelve, started to the hut at Gumtree Hollow with his mother’s goods and chattels in the spring-cart. It had been arranged that after delivering his load the lad should return for his parent and his brother and sister. Charlie was intelligent and very kind-hearted. He had noticed his mother crying bitterly, and he had followed her into a back room where his father had died, and there putting his little arms about her neck he had tried to soothe her with many assurances that when he became a man he would work for her and buy the place back again.Old Bob, the pony, didn’t like the road to the hut, but repeatedly turned to retrace his steps every half-mile or so of the journey. Nevertheless, Charlie managed to get him there at last.In a ravine between a natural cutting of jagged crags stood the old building, overshadowed by a gigantic tree whose wide-open trunk, hollow as a bell, had often afforded shelter to straggling picnic parties. It was a grand, old, hoary gum, knobbed and gnarled with age, and whose spreading[117]branches formed a canopy over the dilapidated hut. One long, fork-like branch projected farther over than the rest, on the extreme end of which something perched, swaying the bough to and fro with an easy motion. Charlie, thinking it was a parrot, took up a stone for a shot; but he dropped the stone again instantly, as a voice from the tree uttered a shrill peal of laughter.The poor lad’s first thought was to take to his heels and run for it; but the voice called out in a kindly tone, “Hallo! Charlie ’avic, how are ye, Charlie Allan?”The boy gazed upward in amazement, and beheld a wee, teeny, queer fellow, hardly six inches high, sitting astride the branch, and gazing down with a knowing look at him. The creature’s dress was green; from his shapely shoes to his brimless hat, swallow-tailed coat, breeches, stockings, all were the verdant green colour.“Who are you?” questioned Charlie, recovering from his surprise.“Shure I’m an Irishman,” cried the little fellow, at the same time springing to the ground. “A rale paddy, an’ I may tell you that there isn’t a fay or a gnome in South Australia that I can’t leap or swim wid; do’s thee hear that, ’avic?”He was such a dwarfed miniature of a man,[118]and appeared such an impudent swaggerer—with his chimney-pot hat on one side of his head, and his saucy turned-up nose—that Charlie felt inclined to pick him up and cuff him soundly.“What is your name?” asked the boy, making a sudden dive at the creature.“McKombo,” answered the sprite, dodging under Charlie’s legs. “My name is McKombo; but be aisy wid ye now, an’ don’t be after trying to take a mane advantage of me.”“I’d scorn to do it,” said Charlie, unconsciously clenching his fists. “Who are you; what are you; and what do you want?”“Be aisy, Charlie. Arrah’, don’t be botherin’ me wid too many questions,” said McKombo. “I’ve tould ye I’m an Irishman. Captain Brophy imported me to the colony in a hat-box twenty years ago.”“Why, you’re a fairy,” suggested the lad, eyeing his strange companion askance.“Of course I am,” replied McKombo, “and I may tell you I’ve been waiting all this blessed day to see you.”“To see me?”“Thrue for ye, Charlie. I am very well acquainted wid all the bother an’ trouble that’s going on at the farm, an’ I mane to help your mother clane out of it.”[119]Poor Charlie felt as if he could have hugged McKombo, but the sprite kept his distance and said quietly, “You haven’t such a thing as a spade and a pick among the things in the cart?”“‘HURRAH!’ HE CRIED, TOSSING UP HIS HAT.”“ ‘HURRAH!’ HE CRIED, TOSSING UP HIS HAT.”Charlie had, though. Both the pick and the spade he had used many a time at the farm, and he produced them at once; but he looked doubtfully at McKombo as to what he was to do with them or how they could be the means of assisting his mother in her difficulties. It seemed very business-like, however, the way the sprite led Charlie to the hollow trunk of the great gum-tree, and[120]commanded him to dig within a certain circle he at once marked out. The goblin’s promises of certain and speedy benefit gave the boy faith and energy to dig and delve away with might and main until there gaped a large hole within the trunk, which revealed some of the thick roots beneath, also the top of a square tin box, such as lawyers keep their deeds in. The moment McKombo caught sight of the box he began to caper about the sward in antic glee.“Hurrah!” he cried, tossing up his hat. “There it is, me boy, safe an’ sound, as on the night I saw them murthering scoundrels place it there twenty years ago.”Poor Charlie stared at the fairy, and wiped the perspiration from his heated face, but he could not comprehend what his companion meant. Acting under McKombo’s directions, young Allan made a lever and got the box out of its bed. It did not appear large, but it was very heavy—so heavy that the boy could hardly lift it; the thick coating of paint on it had preserved it from rusting and decay, and it was fastened with an iron padlock. With one blow of his spade Charlie broke open the lid, when—lo! he saw a heap of dark yellow sovereigns and several parcels of bank-notes within. The sight made him faint and[121]giddy with surprise and delight, so that he could not utter a word.“Look there, now. See that,” ejaculated the sprite, pointing to the treasure. “One evening, twenty years ago, three men brought that box here and hid it beneath the trunk of this old gum-tree; they went away, but never returned for it. In time a poor woodcutter built his hut beneath the great tree, and I watched him come and go to his daily toil, until he could toil no more and they carried him forth and buried him on the river-bank. Then came your Uncle George, my boy, who purchased the place for ten pounds; but had he known of the riches under his very nose, I’ll go bail he wouldn’t have gone away to dig for gold.”“Why didn’t you tell Uncle George about this money?” asked Charlie.“Bekasehe would have spent it recklessly, honey, that’s why. Money ill-spent or misapplied is a great evil. Put the box on the cart wid the things, and return to your mother. Off wid ye, boy, at onst.”“Won’t you come with me?” pleaded Charlie.“I can’t, ’avic, I’m going to a christening at McFadden’s in the Glen. Away ye go. Good-bye.” Saying which, McKombo vanished from his sight.[122]Widow Allan was very much astonished when Charlie returned and told his story, but her surprise was still greater when she saw the box of hard cash. She counted the money, which amounted to over three thousand pounds sterling; after which she fastened the box again, and wrote a letter to the manager of a certain bank in Sydney, and to which most of the notes belonged.In due course the bank sent a representative to Allan’s farm, who informed the widow that the bank had been robbed of over three thousand pounds one night in June twenty years ago, and which had never been recovered. The bank agent departed with the money, but he left the poor but honest widow a cheque for £500—a sum which not only paid off the liability upon her farm, but enabled her to put something by for a rainy day and for Charlie when he came of age.[123][Contents]WHISKERKISS.[Contents]CHAPTER I.THE MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY.In the heart of the far Australian wild—away from traces of civilisation, and beyond the hope of help, a brave youth, faint with travel and with hunger, reclines completely exhausted by the bank of a broad river. He is the last of a band of nine who have attempted to explore the central portion of our vast continent, where on the Atlas we read, written right across the great blank,Unexplored. All his companions have perished of want and thirst, and Roland Trent, although he has reached water, and has quenched his burning thirst, feels that he also must follow his comrades ere long. He is very weak and so fatigued that he cannot stand; but he can see the flowing stream and the sunlit landscape, which anon becomes o’erclouded in his vicinity by the shadow of some moving object between him and the river. What could it be?[124]The explorer looked up in wonder, and beheld a small and very ugly old man standing and grinning at him. The creature was most outrageously grotesque in form—having, by some freak of nature, the body of a child with the head of a giant. No one, not even Mr. Punch, could boast a finer hump than protruded from between the shoulders of the intruder. From out a circular hole in his jerkin the hump rose bare, behind the big round skull, like a sugar loaf. He had small eyes, but they were infinitely more terrible than all his other deformity put together; at one moment they glowed with a phosphorescent sheen, which changed again to a vivid purple light, and from that to diamond flashes, without the closing of an eyelid.“Ho! Ho! Who is more powerful than fire, stronger then the wind, and deeper than the streams? Whiskerkiss—I am he.”The voice of the old fellow was dreadful, and echoed with a sullen roar like the growl of a lion, “I am Whiskerkiss, King of the Mountain Barrier, and Lord of Birds and Beasts. Who art thou?”The lips of the fainting youth answered, “An unfortunate explorer.”“Ha! Ha!” laughed the grim sprite in mimicry. “Thou puny mortal! Thou an explorer! Why,[125]thy poor breath is nearly spent, ere thou hast reached the threshold of the greatUnknown. Ho! Ho!”Roland Trent shuddered.“Wouldst thou see the wonders of this vast division of the globe? Come with Whiskerkiss, and he will show thee fertile lands, great lakes, and powerful nations in this unexplored interior. Come! here is my boat, and Starmoon, my slave, lashes the stream impatiently.”As the dwarf spoke, he lifted Roland in his arms and placed him in a skiff upon the river, which immediately shot along the watery way with the speed of an express train. It was some time before Roland Trent recovered from the half unconscious state in which he had been conveyed to the boat; by-and-by, however, his vision became more clear, and he saw a sight he had never seen before. The skiff was nothing but a frail canoe, at the stern of which stood Whiskerkiss steering; but in front, a great, strange fish was harnessed to the bow, and plunging through the stream with immense velocity.No pearl diver ever encountered such a quaint-looking denizen of the deep, as Starmoon the goblin fish of Whiskerkiss. It was in shape like an alligator, only its legs were as those of a grasshopper,[126]which it used in place of fins while swimming. Fully twenty feet in length, it had a body as thick as a bullock, and a long spike projecting out of the top of its head. The face of the monster was hideous to behold—the rolling eyes, dreadful mouth, filled with a row of sharp, glistening teeth, and above all, it appeared to jibber, and make faces at our hero, as he looked at it in its swift course.And now the river widened into a deep black gulf, and the shore receded from their gaze; not a ripple broke over the sullen surface, for the waters were like thick oil. Dark objects, in rapid motion, darted along like dolphins, and played leap-frog over the skiff. Roland Trent put his hand over the side; to his astonishment the water felt quite hot. He dipped a little up in the hollow of his palm, and tasted it. Pah! It was not salt, nor fresh, but worse than either, as it instantly produced a horrible nauseous feeling in him akin to stupor.Onward went Starmoon at increased speed, urged by his master Whiskerkiss, until Roland beheld a great mountain range in the distance, which they rapidly approached. Abrupt and perpendicular, the summit of these high hills was lost in the clouds. The canoe sped onwards, and[127]it seemed as if the frail barque would be dashed to atoms against their rugged sides. Daylight faded away as they drew near, and a distant roaring noise shook the sluggish waters. Were they hurrying to some fatal mäelstrom, or going headlong into some tremendous cavity in the bowels of the mountains? Roland’s spirit quailed within him at the thought. In the dim twilight, he saw the boat had entered an enormous cavern, where a dense wall of black rock, or rather boulders, were piled in wild disorder one above the other, and terminating in a flat roof of the same description.“Ho, ho! I am Whiskerkiss, King of Woods and Stream,” and the voice of the steersman awoke the slumbering echoes of the dreary place with ten thousand vibrations.“Who sails through rocks and hills, and guides the torrent in its course? I, Whiskerkiss. Ho! Starmoon. Ho! my slave, delve, delve!”Gradually the darkness became more opaque around them. Roland cast himself down at the bottom of the canoe, and awaited his fate. He closed his eyes in horror at the vision of that dread abyss.The time passed on, and still the same ghastly darkness prevailed. Our hero knew not whether[128]it was night or day, or how many hours had passed since they had entered that dreadful passage under the mountain. From a sort of torpor into which he had fallen Roland was at length aroused by a touch on his cheek. It was not the touch which animated him so quickly, but the intensely pleasing sensation which it caused. Like that warm, thrilling emotion caused by the infusion of laughing gas, Roland felt a vigorous glow pervade his whole frame in an instant. He opened his eyes, but the bright rush of the noon-day light which burst unexpectedly upon his sight completely blinded him.He shaded his eyes at first, until he should become accustomed to the glare. When at length he looked up, lo! where were Starmoon and Whiskerkiss, and the black unclean waters of the murky cavern below the mountains? Gone! With his hearing more acute, his sight much keener, and with every other faculty braced and quickened, the explorer found himself the occupant of a beautiful boat canopied with gold and silver network of rare design and workmanship. The sides and bottom of the skiff were inlaid with mother-of-pearl, while a large outspread fan, at the stern, of the same material, gave the resemblance of a gorgeous peacock floating on a silver[129]stream. A dozen creatures, dazzlingly fair, and dressed superbly, propelled the boat with ivory paddles; while one who appeared robed in roseate splendour stood at his side, and pointed out to him a glorious country.Yonder shone an immense valley, shut in by Alpine hills, of a deep, rich green, spangled with flowers. Birds of every hue and shade flitted from tree to tree, and filled the air with melody. At the foot of the hills a clear lake sparkled in the sunlight, and beyond the lake rose the towers, peaks, and domes of a beautiful city of white marble, which flashed back the sun’s rays in a million shafts of different coloured lights. The magnificence of this scene grew each moment yet more glowing and brilliant as Roland Trent gazed. Soon there smote upon his ear most ravishing sounds—sounds that seemed as the tinkle of silver bells, mingled with the soft murmurs of the Æolian harp. To his astonishment Roland discovered the melody proceeded from his companions, who were conversing with each other, and in his own language. Next to the gratification of finding himself in such an enchanting region, the explorer was delighted to find these people could understand and converse with him.[130]“Gentlemen,” said he, bowing politely, “will you have the goodness to tell me what country this is I now gaze upon for the first time?”The rowers ceased rowing at the sound of his voice, and the nearest to him answered,—“O! adored mortal, we are thy slaves. This is the kingdom of Bo-Peep, and is called Dreamland. No feet of soul-lit mortal hath ever trodden our soil before. Hail to thee! immortal one!”“Are you the King of this fair land?” inquired our hero.“Nay, I am but his Majesty’s messenger—my name is Pop-Corn. What shall we call thee?”“Roland, the Explorer.”“Welcome, then, to our shores. Thou shalt see Bo-Peep and his daughter Princess Golden Hair.”The rowers resumed their paddles, and the fairy boat shot down the shining stream into the lovely sheen of the lake by the marble city.Moments in Dreamland are as days with us. Therefore it will take a week of our time to prepare the charming Princess Golden Hair to receive our hero. Next Saturday the bold explorer shall be ushered into her presence at the Court of Bo-Peep.[131][Contents]CHAPTER II.PRINCESS GOLDEN HAIR.The metropolis of Dreamland presented a most glorious spectacle of magnificence and beauty to the wondering eyes of Roland Trent, as the fairy boat glided into the lake near the city. Beneath a fine marble colonnade, supported by pillars of jasper, he beheld a crowd of people, composed chiefly of Ministers of State and the nobles of the King, standing ready to give him welcome, while beyond these dignitaries a great square was filled with his Majesty’s Guards, armedcap-à-piéin silver armour, and surrounded by lithe, gay figures, who flitted to and fro like gorgeous butterflies in the sunlight.The Australian youth was amazed at the dazzling beauty of the ladies, who gathered round him as he landed, with loud cries. Some of them even went so far out of the rule of good breeding and etiquette in their reception as to embrace and almost smother him with kisses. But there are no Mrs. Grundys in Elfland, and so the dames enjoyed themselves with the freedom and the innocence of children. With waving banners and bands of music, which sounded to his ears like so many tinkling musical boxes, our hero was[132]escorted by a troop of silver-clad Guards to the palace of Bo-Peep. Grander than anything that ever entered the mind of that famous architect, Sir Christopher Wren, rose the glittering domes and lofty peaks of the fairy King’s palace. Through a labyrinth of budding roses perfuming the air around; by gold and silver fountains in full play, and whose soft cadence fell upon the ear like angels’ whispers; beneath a natural arch of mighty trees, every one of which held a thronged choir of winged choristers warbling forth a jubilee; and onward, amid glories and beauties unknown to the hosts of the waking world, into the presence of Bo-Peep. No comparison in this sea-bordered city would help to convey the faintest conception of the pomp and splendour of the King’s reception-hall. Nature and Art had here combined, and the blended effect was sublime. Not the array of nobles nor the throng of superbly dressed ladies, through whom he passed, nay, not even the throne itself, ablaze with jewels and precious stones, which circled in the elfin monarch as the ring of a magic lantern, had any attraction for the young stranger. His eyes had fallen upon a young creature of enchanting loveliness at the King’s side, and he had become spellbound thereby.[133]Poet or painter never dreamed of such a vision of beauty. Not the sunset glow had a richer tint than the long glossy hair of Bo-Peep’s only daughter. She was named “Princess Golden Hair”; and well did she merit the name, for it was the most glorious golden hair that mortal eye had ever seen. So Roland Trent thought as he was led forward and seated by her side.Here where the laws of Nature (as we recognise them) are altered and suspended, the Princess and the mortal wanderer became enamoured of each other instantly.Oh! the power, the irresistible charm of love! How it glowed in the eyes of Princess Golden Hair, and made the bewitching face yet more charming! Like the clear notes of a flute, only infinitely softer and more thrilling, her voice came upon his ears: “Welcome, oh, my Prince—lord of my being!—welcome to Dreamland!”What mattered the cheers of the people and the great speech from the fairy King, and the grand banquet that followed—what mattered the thousand surprises and the wonderful things that encountered him at every turn? There was no fascination like the lovely Princess.Glorious light and sunshine reigned here eternally. Roland watched in vain for the[134]approach of eve and darkness; but gloom came not. It was one never-ceasing day.By order of Bo-Peep, our hero was attired in rich robes softer than silken velvet, which emitted a rose-coloured glow, mingled with a delicious perfume, that by some mysterious power gave him a keener zest for pleasure and enjoyment. Go where he would, the King’s daughter was ever at his side.“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”What bliss to be with her on the bright lake, seated beneath a canopy of roses in the royal[135]barge; what sensations he felt with his head pillowed on her lap, and her snow-white fingers toying with his curls!“The sun never fades in this enchanting valley?” he asked.“No,” she replied softly. “The great light is our life. Dulness is destruction in Dreamland. We are only creatures of an hour, that is all.”Oh, what witchery in the low, thrilling voice! Creatures of an hour, forsooth. Take care, Princess Golden hair! Take care.“Your people are very beautiful, my Princess; but thou art fairer than a summer dream,” he responded gaily.“Flatterer, I and my people are but as dreams,” she answered, smiling. “All thou see’st here of brightness and splendour are merely passing visions, nothing more.”“Thou art more real and enchanting, dear Rosebud, than any dream that has haunted me.”“Nay, adored stranger, mock me not,” said Golden Hair. “I am as the wind, which fills our sail—here, there, then gone for ever. Life with me is but a breath. But thou—thou wilt live when the wind and the vast sun, which giveth our race life and motion, are fled for ever.”“Dear Princess,” and he caught her hand within[136]his own, looking into her eyes the while, “Love is not a breath, a sunbeam. It is mightier than the wind, and more powerful than the combined forces of sea and air. Didst thou ever love, sweet maiden?”What soft diffused light, glinting from the rich window of some ancient cathedral, ever shed such a rosy glow as was seen for one brief instant upon her face?“Oh, Love has come with thee from beyond the Western Mountain,” she answered quietly.“And thou hast felt its presence?”“Ay, in thee. Yet thou hast brought a demon with thee also,” she replied.“The sprite Whiskerkiss; of course, I remember.”“Nay, not Whiskerkiss; but a gnome a thousand times more terrible than the monster of the Barrier.”“And what is that, Princess?”“Pain,” replied Golden Hair.“What! has Pain never entered into this realm?” he inquired with amazement.“Never.”“Wonderful!” he ejaculated. “Had my charming Princess ever the toothache?”The ringing laugh which burst from her lips was like the carol of a canary on a June morning.[137]“Nor the whooping-cough or—or the measles?” he added, smiling at her excessive merriment.“Stop, stop!” she cried, looking at him with a wilful light in her large eyes, that held him as a spell. “The words thou hast uttered are unknown to me, even as Pain was unknown to me ere I saw thee.”A cloud fell over his handsome face at her words, which did not escape Golden Hair, for she added quickly, “Lord of my life, Love and Pain are twinborn, and go hand-in-hand, but the one is so beautiful that it destroys even while it creates the other. Thou seemest to me all love. Tell me, are all thy race like thee?”“Fair Princess,” he replied gravely, “beyond the Mountain Barrier from whence I came the people are as varied as the hues on yonder peak. Some there are who feel not love. Many suffer pain willingly in the service of a powerful world-god calledMoney. Amid the many fetishes who are honoured and exalted, none are more esteemed than this. At his word mighty empires rise in the wilderness, oceans are bridged, space changed into a willing slave.”“Money is a mighty demon,” answered Princess Golden Hair.“Yes, lady,” continued Roland. “Money is[138]mighty, but ere now he has lent his power to an evil spirit called Hate, who going broadcast among the races of men has incited them to gather together and destroy each other without cause.”“Hate is a monster, uglier than Pain,” replied the fairy.“Ay, and he is invariably assisted by three other wicked powers known as Murder, Slander, and Malice.”“Poor lost people!” cried the gentle Princess. “Is there no good genii to do battle with these wicked ones?”“Oh yes; the renowned champion Sympathy has unfurled his banner to meet the hosts of evil in the world; and by-and-by the people who have groaned groans from their birth shall live as serene and peaceful as the shadows on this lake. And now, sweet love, I would fain close my eyes in repose, under the melody of thy lute.”Sweetly fell the cadence over the still waters. Goldenly shone the domes and peaks of the marble palaces, as Roland Trent dreamed.Shall we wake him out of his glorious vision? Nay; let him slumber on. He will open his eyes soon enough upon the realities of this sober empire at the Antipodes.[139]

[Contents]KING DUNCE.Only a careless, stupid boy perched on a high stool within the schoolroom, trying to learn his lesson, long after his companions had been dismissed to their several homes. Only the biggest dunce at Slate-em’s Academy, who wouldn’t try, like other boys, to master his tasks—not because he hadn’t the ability to do so, but because he wanted to be a King. Yes, dear readers, Noel Biffin, son of Jack Biffin, the tin-smith, wanted to be a King. Nothing less would satisfy him. No, not even the rank of Duke or Prince; so, instead of minding his lessons, young Biffin drew Kings on his slate and in his copy-book, and was therefore compelled to ride the wooden horse after school hours.It was a very beautiful evening, with a grand sunset glow flooding Slate-em’s Academy, and wrapping the Dunce round and round as with an amber-coloured mantle, orange tinted. The old usher, nodding in his chair, was quite unconscious[92]of the halo which played round and about his bald, venerable head, and made him appear for one brief moment like one of the Apostles. The good, patient old man was tired with the heat, and weary with the incessant chatter of the boys, and so he dozed in comfort, and saw not the wee, shapely creature who entered at the window and approached the boy as he stood upon the stool and bent the knee before him. Although small, the stranger was very handsome, and decked from head to heel in bright, glittering armour, with a crimson plume adorning his helmet.“May it please your gracious Majesty,” he said, doffing his helmet, “my name is Popgun—Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun, Knight—one of your Majesty’s subjects from the realm of Shadowland.” The Dunce nearly fell from the stool in amazement at the strange words. He looked towards the still sleeping master, and from him to the armour-clad Knight at his feet, and replied in a low tone, “Hush! Don’t speak so loud. I haven’t learnt my lesson yet; if he wakens he’ll thrash me. Now, what do you want?”“Pardon, your liege,” rejoined the Knight respectfully, “I am sent as ambassador from the good people of Shadowland to inform your[93]Majesty that you have been unanimously elected monarch of our wide and spacious dominions, and I beg that it may please you to allow me to conduct you thither without delay.”“A King! Am I really a King after all?” cried Biffin, jumping from the stool.“Every inch a King, your Majesty,” replied Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun, replacing his headpiece. “Will your liege follow me?”“Stop, where is Shadowland?” inquired the boy.“Speeding away across the country as swift as the wind.”Australian Fairy Tales][Page 93.“Speeding away across the country as swift as the wind.”“On the borders of Fancy, where dwell my kindred, the Australian elves. Fairyland will have none but a mortal to reign over her. Come, your Majesty.” And with a dignified bearing the Elfin Knight strode past the slumbering usher, and led the newly-elected Majesty of Elfland out at the door, which opened at their approach. Beyond the school, out on the open play-ground, stood two fine-looking emus, splendidly caparisoned, and ready for a journey; and before young Biffin knew what he was about he and his companion were mounted thereon, and were speeding away across the country as swift as the wind. Small townships, hills and valleys, tracts of gloomy forests, and broad lakes appeared before them, and disappeared behind them again, before the boy could say “Jack Robinson.”[94]Indeed, poor Biffin hadn’t breath to say anything, they proceeded so swiftly. At length they came to a large sandy desert on the confines of which rose a chain of lofty mountains. After crossing the desert these mountains looked so steep and high that further progress appeared at an end, but the Knight went to a cave close by and brought forth a pair of flying horses, which flew upward with them in a moment and landed them far away on the other side in safety—and this was Shadowland of the Elfins. What poet’s brain, teeming with strange wild fancies, could give expression to such a scene of loveliness as Noel the Dunce saw here? What travel-stained worshipper of Nature, traversing the girdle of the globe, ever feasted his eyes on a more glorious prospect? Not at Rome, filled as it is with monuments of man; nor at Athens, where Paul found the tablet inscribed, “To the Unknown God”; or on that Ionian Isle, where the inspired John wrote “The Revelation.” Beautiful and sacred are all three to view, but I have feasted my soul on scenes equally grand and sublime in this new land where the Universal Spirit of “Our Father” seemed to rest, and attract the uplifted eyes and the inmost thoughts of the Soul to the Invisible Presence.[95]The flying steeds alighted in a ravine shut in by walls of fantastic rocks, peaked and turreted like the gable of some old feudal castle. Here a mounted escort, composed of the potent and mighty of the empire, awaited their coming, and led the King upwards to a grassy platform, shaded by a patch of hoary trees, where a throne built of wild-flowers had been erected for his reception. The site commanded a fine view of the surrounding country, and the elected monarch beheld with satisfaction thousands and thousands of his subjects assembled on the plains below to do him homage, and whose cheers and shouts rang far and wide when he ascended the throne to read the proclamation.From time to time, for generations past, the Elfin Kings had to read their own proclamations, but when young Biffin received the paper from the hands of the Prime Minister his heart sank within him. His progress at school had been so slow that he was unable to read print fluently. How, then, was he to master the contents of the closely-written parchment in his hand? At that moment he would have given all his toys at home, even to his crop-eared pony, to have been able to read writing; but he couldn’t read or spell, nor make anything better than a pot-hook.[96]“May it please your Majesty to read the proclamation to the people?” whispered Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun in the King’s ear.“I—I cannot read,” replied his Majesty, trembling with shame and vexation.“Cannot read!” repeated the courtiers, looking at each other. “Surely your Majesty is jesting.”“Indeed, gentlemen, I’m afraid I’m a dunce,” replied Biffin sheepishly.“A dunce, who cannot read, and yet has the silly presumption to be a King!” shouted the fairy populace in a mocking tone. “Hurrah for King Dunce! Long live King Dunce!”And such is the uncertainty of popular favour in Elfland, that the vast assembly, who but a moment before had exhibited such hearty tokens of good-will, began to hoot and clamour in derision. They pulled the monarch from his throne, stripped him of his robes of state, and carried him to a rocky peak, where they doffed his crown and replaced it with a wreath of straw; while their shouts—“Long live King Dunce! Hurrah for King Dunce!”—once more rent the air.In all his troubles at home, and his canings and disappointments with his lessons at school, our hero never felt so humbled and crestfallen[97]in his life before. He would have given anything to be enabled to read and write well. And this wish would have been easily gratified, had he but paid a little attention to his books while at the Academy; but he hadn’t done so, and the result was his downfall from the proud position he had so long coveted.What availed his regretsnow, when he was led away a prisoner, and placed in a dark cave, guarded by seven monsters, whose bodies were covered with long feathers, and who had heads like monkeys? It availed nothing that they set him hard lessons day and night, beat him with rods, until he was bruised all over, and suffered such pain that he made his escape from the cave. But the monsters were after him across the country, over hill and dale, until he came to the top of the high mountain which overlooked the desert, and the monsters being close behind, there was nothing left for him in his last extremity but to leap for his life and liberty.And Noel Biffin did leap; but instead of being dashed to pieces, the Dunce came down from his perch on the stool to the floor of the schoolroom, the noise of which roused the usher from his nap, who gave the stupid boy a dose of cane pie and sent him home.[98]

KING DUNCE.

Only a careless, stupid boy perched on a high stool within the schoolroom, trying to learn his lesson, long after his companions had been dismissed to their several homes. Only the biggest dunce at Slate-em’s Academy, who wouldn’t try, like other boys, to master his tasks—not because he hadn’t the ability to do so, but because he wanted to be a King. Yes, dear readers, Noel Biffin, son of Jack Biffin, the tin-smith, wanted to be a King. Nothing less would satisfy him. No, not even the rank of Duke or Prince; so, instead of minding his lessons, young Biffin drew Kings on his slate and in his copy-book, and was therefore compelled to ride the wooden horse after school hours.It was a very beautiful evening, with a grand sunset glow flooding Slate-em’s Academy, and wrapping the Dunce round and round as with an amber-coloured mantle, orange tinted. The old usher, nodding in his chair, was quite unconscious[92]of the halo which played round and about his bald, venerable head, and made him appear for one brief moment like one of the Apostles. The good, patient old man was tired with the heat, and weary with the incessant chatter of the boys, and so he dozed in comfort, and saw not the wee, shapely creature who entered at the window and approached the boy as he stood upon the stool and bent the knee before him. Although small, the stranger was very handsome, and decked from head to heel in bright, glittering armour, with a crimson plume adorning his helmet.“May it please your gracious Majesty,” he said, doffing his helmet, “my name is Popgun—Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun, Knight—one of your Majesty’s subjects from the realm of Shadowland.” The Dunce nearly fell from the stool in amazement at the strange words. He looked towards the still sleeping master, and from him to the armour-clad Knight at his feet, and replied in a low tone, “Hush! Don’t speak so loud. I haven’t learnt my lesson yet; if he wakens he’ll thrash me. Now, what do you want?”“Pardon, your liege,” rejoined the Knight respectfully, “I am sent as ambassador from the good people of Shadowland to inform your[93]Majesty that you have been unanimously elected monarch of our wide and spacious dominions, and I beg that it may please you to allow me to conduct you thither without delay.”“A King! Am I really a King after all?” cried Biffin, jumping from the stool.“Every inch a King, your Majesty,” replied Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun, replacing his headpiece. “Will your liege follow me?”“Stop, where is Shadowland?” inquired the boy.“Speeding away across the country as swift as the wind.”Australian Fairy Tales][Page 93.“Speeding away across the country as swift as the wind.”“On the borders of Fancy, where dwell my kindred, the Australian elves. Fairyland will have none but a mortal to reign over her. Come, your Majesty.” And with a dignified bearing the Elfin Knight strode past the slumbering usher, and led the newly-elected Majesty of Elfland out at the door, which opened at their approach. Beyond the school, out on the open play-ground, stood two fine-looking emus, splendidly caparisoned, and ready for a journey; and before young Biffin knew what he was about he and his companion were mounted thereon, and were speeding away across the country as swift as the wind. Small townships, hills and valleys, tracts of gloomy forests, and broad lakes appeared before them, and disappeared behind them again, before the boy could say “Jack Robinson.”[94]Indeed, poor Biffin hadn’t breath to say anything, they proceeded so swiftly. At length they came to a large sandy desert on the confines of which rose a chain of lofty mountains. After crossing the desert these mountains looked so steep and high that further progress appeared at an end, but the Knight went to a cave close by and brought forth a pair of flying horses, which flew upward with them in a moment and landed them far away on the other side in safety—and this was Shadowland of the Elfins. What poet’s brain, teeming with strange wild fancies, could give expression to such a scene of loveliness as Noel the Dunce saw here? What travel-stained worshipper of Nature, traversing the girdle of the globe, ever feasted his eyes on a more glorious prospect? Not at Rome, filled as it is with monuments of man; nor at Athens, where Paul found the tablet inscribed, “To the Unknown God”; or on that Ionian Isle, where the inspired John wrote “The Revelation.” Beautiful and sacred are all three to view, but I have feasted my soul on scenes equally grand and sublime in this new land where the Universal Spirit of “Our Father” seemed to rest, and attract the uplifted eyes and the inmost thoughts of the Soul to the Invisible Presence.[95]The flying steeds alighted in a ravine shut in by walls of fantastic rocks, peaked and turreted like the gable of some old feudal castle. Here a mounted escort, composed of the potent and mighty of the empire, awaited their coming, and led the King upwards to a grassy platform, shaded by a patch of hoary trees, where a throne built of wild-flowers had been erected for his reception. The site commanded a fine view of the surrounding country, and the elected monarch beheld with satisfaction thousands and thousands of his subjects assembled on the plains below to do him homage, and whose cheers and shouts rang far and wide when he ascended the throne to read the proclamation.From time to time, for generations past, the Elfin Kings had to read their own proclamations, but when young Biffin received the paper from the hands of the Prime Minister his heart sank within him. His progress at school had been so slow that he was unable to read print fluently. How, then, was he to master the contents of the closely-written parchment in his hand? At that moment he would have given all his toys at home, even to his crop-eared pony, to have been able to read writing; but he couldn’t read or spell, nor make anything better than a pot-hook.[96]“May it please your Majesty to read the proclamation to the people?” whispered Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun in the King’s ear.“I—I cannot read,” replied his Majesty, trembling with shame and vexation.“Cannot read!” repeated the courtiers, looking at each other. “Surely your Majesty is jesting.”“Indeed, gentlemen, I’m afraid I’m a dunce,” replied Biffin sheepishly.“A dunce, who cannot read, and yet has the silly presumption to be a King!” shouted the fairy populace in a mocking tone. “Hurrah for King Dunce! Long live King Dunce!”And such is the uncertainty of popular favour in Elfland, that the vast assembly, who but a moment before had exhibited such hearty tokens of good-will, began to hoot and clamour in derision. They pulled the monarch from his throne, stripped him of his robes of state, and carried him to a rocky peak, where they doffed his crown and replaced it with a wreath of straw; while their shouts—“Long live King Dunce! Hurrah for King Dunce!”—once more rent the air.In all his troubles at home, and his canings and disappointments with his lessons at school, our hero never felt so humbled and crestfallen[97]in his life before. He would have given anything to be enabled to read and write well. And this wish would have been easily gratified, had he but paid a little attention to his books while at the Academy; but he hadn’t done so, and the result was his downfall from the proud position he had so long coveted.What availed his regretsnow, when he was led away a prisoner, and placed in a dark cave, guarded by seven monsters, whose bodies were covered with long feathers, and who had heads like monkeys? It availed nothing that they set him hard lessons day and night, beat him with rods, until he was bruised all over, and suffered such pain that he made his escape from the cave. But the monsters were after him across the country, over hill and dale, until he came to the top of the high mountain which overlooked the desert, and the monsters being close behind, there was nothing left for him in his last extremity but to leap for his life and liberty.And Noel Biffin did leap; but instead of being dashed to pieces, the Dunce came down from his perch on the stool to the floor of the schoolroom, the noise of which roused the usher from his nap, who gave the stupid boy a dose of cane pie and sent him home.[98]

Only a careless, stupid boy perched on a high stool within the schoolroom, trying to learn his lesson, long after his companions had been dismissed to their several homes. Only the biggest dunce at Slate-em’s Academy, who wouldn’t try, like other boys, to master his tasks—not because he hadn’t the ability to do so, but because he wanted to be a King. Yes, dear readers, Noel Biffin, son of Jack Biffin, the tin-smith, wanted to be a King. Nothing less would satisfy him. No, not even the rank of Duke or Prince; so, instead of minding his lessons, young Biffin drew Kings on his slate and in his copy-book, and was therefore compelled to ride the wooden horse after school hours.

It was a very beautiful evening, with a grand sunset glow flooding Slate-em’s Academy, and wrapping the Dunce round and round as with an amber-coloured mantle, orange tinted. The old usher, nodding in his chair, was quite unconscious[92]of the halo which played round and about his bald, venerable head, and made him appear for one brief moment like one of the Apostles. The good, patient old man was tired with the heat, and weary with the incessant chatter of the boys, and so he dozed in comfort, and saw not the wee, shapely creature who entered at the window and approached the boy as he stood upon the stool and bent the knee before him. Although small, the stranger was very handsome, and decked from head to heel in bright, glittering armour, with a crimson plume adorning his helmet.

“May it please your gracious Majesty,” he said, doffing his helmet, “my name is Popgun—Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun, Knight—one of your Majesty’s subjects from the realm of Shadowland.” The Dunce nearly fell from the stool in amazement at the strange words. He looked towards the still sleeping master, and from him to the armour-clad Knight at his feet, and replied in a low tone, “Hush! Don’t speak so loud. I haven’t learnt my lesson yet; if he wakens he’ll thrash me. Now, what do you want?”

“Pardon, your liege,” rejoined the Knight respectfully, “I am sent as ambassador from the good people of Shadowland to inform your[93]Majesty that you have been unanimously elected monarch of our wide and spacious dominions, and I beg that it may please you to allow me to conduct you thither without delay.”

“A King! Am I really a King after all?” cried Biffin, jumping from the stool.

“Every inch a King, your Majesty,” replied Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun, replacing his headpiece. “Will your liege follow me?”

“Stop, where is Shadowland?” inquired the boy.

“Speeding away across the country as swift as the wind.”Australian Fairy Tales][Page 93.“Speeding away across the country as swift as the wind.”

Australian Fairy Tales][Page 93.

“Speeding away across the country as swift as the wind.”

“On the borders of Fancy, where dwell my kindred, the Australian elves. Fairyland will have none but a mortal to reign over her. Come, your Majesty.” And with a dignified bearing the Elfin Knight strode past the slumbering usher, and led the newly-elected Majesty of Elfland out at the door, which opened at their approach. Beyond the school, out on the open play-ground, stood two fine-looking emus, splendidly caparisoned, and ready for a journey; and before young Biffin knew what he was about he and his companion were mounted thereon, and were speeding away across the country as swift as the wind. Small townships, hills and valleys, tracts of gloomy forests, and broad lakes appeared before them, and disappeared behind them again, before the boy could say “Jack Robinson.”[94]Indeed, poor Biffin hadn’t breath to say anything, they proceeded so swiftly. At length they came to a large sandy desert on the confines of which rose a chain of lofty mountains. After crossing the desert these mountains looked so steep and high that further progress appeared at an end, but the Knight went to a cave close by and brought forth a pair of flying horses, which flew upward with them in a moment and landed them far away on the other side in safety—and this was Shadowland of the Elfins. What poet’s brain, teeming with strange wild fancies, could give expression to such a scene of loveliness as Noel the Dunce saw here? What travel-stained worshipper of Nature, traversing the girdle of the globe, ever feasted his eyes on a more glorious prospect? Not at Rome, filled as it is with monuments of man; nor at Athens, where Paul found the tablet inscribed, “To the Unknown God”; or on that Ionian Isle, where the inspired John wrote “The Revelation.” Beautiful and sacred are all three to view, but I have feasted my soul on scenes equally grand and sublime in this new land where the Universal Spirit of “Our Father” seemed to rest, and attract the uplifted eyes and the inmost thoughts of the Soul to the Invisible Presence.[95]

The flying steeds alighted in a ravine shut in by walls of fantastic rocks, peaked and turreted like the gable of some old feudal castle. Here a mounted escort, composed of the potent and mighty of the empire, awaited their coming, and led the King upwards to a grassy platform, shaded by a patch of hoary trees, where a throne built of wild-flowers had been erected for his reception. The site commanded a fine view of the surrounding country, and the elected monarch beheld with satisfaction thousands and thousands of his subjects assembled on the plains below to do him homage, and whose cheers and shouts rang far and wide when he ascended the throne to read the proclamation.

From time to time, for generations past, the Elfin Kings had to read their own proclamations, but when young Biffin received the paper from the hands of the Prime Minister his heart sank within him. His progress at school had been so slow that he was unable to read print fluently. How, then, was he to master the contents of the closely-written parchment in his hand? At that moment he would have given all his toys at home, even to his crop-eared pony, to have been able to read writing; but he couldn’t read or spell, nor make anything better than a pot-hook.[96]

“May it please your Majesty to read the proclamation to the people?” whispered Sir Guy Fawkes Popgun in the King’s ear.

“I—I cannot read,” replied his Majesty, trembling with shame and vexation.

“Cannot read!” repeated the courtiers, looking at each other. “Surely your Majesty is jesting.”

“Indeed, gentlemen, I’m afraid I’m a dunce,” replied Biffin sheepishly.

“A dunce, who cannot read, and yet has the silly presumption to be a King!” shouted the fairy populace in a mocking tone. “Hurrah for King Dunce! Long live King Dunce!”

And such is the uncertainty of popular favour in Elfland, that the vast assembly, who but a moment before had exhibited such hearty tokens of good-will, began to hoot and clamour in derision. They pulled the monarch from his throne, stripped him of his robes of state, and carried him to a rocky peak, where they doffed his crown and replaced it with a wreath of straw; while their shouts—“Long live King Dunce! Hurrah for King Dunce!”—once more rent the air.

In all his troubles at home, and his canings and disappointments with his lessons at school, our hero never felt so humbled and crestfallen[97]in his life before. He would have given anything to be enabled to read and write well. And this wish would have been easily gratified, had he but paid a little attention to his books while at the Academy; but he hadn’t done so, and the result was his downfall from the proud position he had so long coveted.

What availed his regretsnow, when he was led away a prisoner, and placed in a dark cave, guarded by seven monsters, whose bodies were covered with long feathers, and who had heads like monkeys? It availed nothing that they set him hard lessons day and night, beat him with rods, until he was bruised all over, and suffered such pain that he made his escape from the cave. But the monsters were after him across the country, over hill and dale, until he came to the top of the high mountain which overlooked the desert, and the monsters being close behind, there was nothing left for him in his last extremity but to leap for his life and liberty.

And Noel Biffin did leap; but instead of being dashed to pieces, the Dunce came down from his perch on the stool to the floor of the schoolroom, the noise of which roused the usher from his nap, who gave the stupid boy a dose of cane pie and sent him home.[98]

[Contents]“I DON’T KNOW.”Our little hero lived in a very pretty cottage on the hills. He was fond of reading, and his parents, who could well afford it, indulged the boy to his heart’s content with interesting books.By his schoolmates this lad was known by the nickname of “Careless Harry,” because he was so untidy and negligent in his habits. Out of all the expensive books that had been purchased for him there wasn’t one that had a decent cover. Indeed, some of them had their backs completely broken with ill-usage, while others hadn’t a back at all. Besides being careless and forgetful the boy had still another fault. If his mother asked him a question, the answer was sure to be, “I don’t know.”“Where’s your hat, Harry?”“I don’t know.”“What have you done with your ball?”“I don’t know.”“Child, however did you tear your clothing in that frightful manner?”[99]“I am sure I don’t know.”His room was littered with his books, toys, and playthings. There stood the rocking-horse with his tail pulled out. Here, flat on its back, lay his sister’s big doll, its poor face dreadfully disfigured by Harry’s mischievous fingers. His mother was very much displeased with him, and had sent him to bed, promising to take severe measures with him if she ever heard “I don’t know” from his lips again.Harry was very frightened. He did not wish to vex his mother, or to act unkindly towards his sister, and so, resolving to be more careful in the future, he covered his head over with the bedclothes and fell fast asleep.But Harry’s carelessness had raised the ire of others besides his mother and sister, and they were determined to punish him.It is all very well to treat books, dolls, drums, rocking-horses, and other playthings as if they had no life in them, but careless boys may do that once too often. So it appeared in this case. Harry was no sooner asleep than these ill-fated creatures held a great discussion with reference to his cruelty.“I’ll not stand this any longer,” cried Robinson Crusoe, stepping from the boy’s bookshelf. “I’m[100]getting an old man, and I won’t be insulted by having my only covering torn from my back by this young rogue. There he is covered up quite snug, while I am standing here shivering in my shirt.”“And I,” responded little Red Riding Hood, “would gladly see him punished. He has thrown so much soapy water over me I feel as if I’d been shipwrecked in the washing-tub.”“And I,” echoed the Drum, “owe him a grudge, not so much for the hard thumps he has bestowed on my person, as for his disgraceful treatment of yonder fair lady, whose dear nose he has completely put out of joint. That lady doll is my relation. We were born in the same place, were sent out in the same ship to Australia, and have occupied the same shop, until purchased and brought here to be cuffed and ill-treated by this boy. Gentlemen, I mean to avenge the lady.”Now the ice was broken, accusations came so fast and thick against the unlucky culprit that it was quite impossible to make them all out. Fishing rods, minus line or hook, bats without handles, balls and tops, which danced like mad around the bed—the hubbub became so great the wonder is the whole house was not roused by his accusers.[101]The noise, however, woke Harry, who sat bolt upright in bed, and gazed with a bewildered stare at the queer crowd surrounding him. He was too much alarmed to speak, but one glance showed him Robinson Crusoe, clad in nothing but his fly-leaves, standing at his bedside, with many others, who in the dim light he could not recognise.“Place him on my back, friends, and I’ll gallop away to—‘I don’t know,’ ” cried out the tailless Rocking-horse in a terrible voice; and the words were no sooner uttered than poor Harry was quickly blindfolded, dragged from his bed, and placed astride the horse, who instantly galloped out into the cold night with him.The pace at which the steed travelled was a caution. Harry had once accompanied his father to Gawler by rail, but the speed of the train was like travelling on a bullock dray in comparison to the flying pace of that beast without a tail. How he held on to its back is a positive wonder. All he saw was the clear starlit sky above his head, rocking and rolling about like the waves at the Semaphore on a windy day. His poor feet ached with the cold, for his only covering was his night-gown, and his legs felt as though they didn’t belong to him. At length, just as he was beginning[102]to feel faint and giddy from exhaustion, the Rocking-horse stopped, and the bandage was removed from his eyes. Ah! what a sight he beheld. There was the Drum he had broken strutting about on legs like a human being, who came up to Harry with a haughty swagger, and said, “Boy, why did you break my head?”“A JACK-IN-THE-BOX ... CAME AND REVILED HIM.”“A JACK-IN-THE-BOX … CAME AND REVILED HIM.”And then a Hoop came, and demanded, “why he was thrown aside in the lumber-room?” and a black Jack-in-the-box, whose scanty locks had been wantonly torn from his scalp, came and[103]reviled him; and, lastly, his late victim, the poor doll, made its appearance in a winding sheet, and began to reproach him for his cruelty.The unfortunate boy seated himself on the ground and burst into tears, but the more he wept the more his tormentors jeered at him; and really the Drum and Robinson Crusoe seemed to incite the others to insult him; therefore was our poor Harry very miserable indeed. Growing tired of playing with him, or afraid of the cold wind, perhaps, his strange companions at last took their departure, and Harry was left alone.Such companionship had been bad enough, but solitude was worse. He started up, and shouted with all his might, “Is there anybody about?” “I don’t know,” sighed the wind. “Which is the way home?” shouted Harry. “I don’t know,” chuckled the laughing jackass. “Where’s my mother?” screamed the boy. “I don’t know,” exclaimed a ’possum and a kangaroo together. Too frightened to speak any more, Harry groped his way along in the darkness. As day dawned he came to a very high hill, and here he saw his tormentors having some rare fun. The Doll had mounted the Rocking-horse, which was galloping round and round as they do in a[104]circus. While the Drum beat time, old Robinson Crusoe was waltzing with the Lady of the Lake; and Jack the Giant-killer played leap-frog with Mother Hubbard, Red Riding Hood and Little Jack Horner. Their merriment grew more fast and furious every moment, but the instant they espied our hero it ceased, and a deep silence fell upon them all.“Ladies and gentlemen,” cried a Pop-gun, breaking the silence, “you are aware we have refrained from doing injury to this cruel boy, through the mediation of the ‘Old Woman who lived in a Shoe.’ We left him in peace to make his way home, and instead of doing so he has wantonly broken in upon our secret revelry, and so has forfeited all claim to our clemency. What shall we do with him?”“Pitch him headlong from the cliff,” replied the Drum in a deep voice.“It shall be done,” responded a chorus of voices.Poor Harry, who had not spoken hitherto, now found his voice. “No, no! Spare me, good gentlemen; spare me!” he cried.They only mocked him for his pains. “Hearken to him pleading for mercy! Careless Harry! cruel Harry!” and amidst much noise and confusion the young mortal was carried to the apex of the[105]steep, tall cliff, and pushed over into the yawning gulf below.Poor Harry, half mad with terror, uttered a series of piercing shrieks as he felt himself falling—falling through the air—and called aloud for his mother to help him. Conceive his joy when he found himself in her arms, and heard her well-known voice reassuring him.“You are safe, my boy, quite safe. What has frightened you?”“Oh, mother! I have been taken away in the night.”“Taken away! Where?”“To—to—‘I don’t know.’ ”The mother smiled to herself as she left the room, and “Careless Harry” went out to see if the rocking-horse and the others had returned home.[106]

“I DON’T KNOW.”

Our little hero lived in a very pretty cottage on the hills. He was fond of reading, and his parents, who could well afford it, indulged the boy to his heart’s content with interesting books.By his schoolmates this lad was known by the nickname of “Careless Harry,” because he was so untidy and negligent in his habits. Out of all the expensive books that had been purchased for him there wasn’t one that had a decent cover. Indeed, some of them had their backs completely broken with ill-usage, while others hadn’t a back at all. Besides being careless and forgetful the boy had still another fault. If his mother asked him a question, the answer was sure to be, “I don’t know.”“Where’s your hat, Harry?”“I don’t know.”“What have you done with your ball?”“I don’t know.”“Child, however did you tear your clothing in that frightful manner?”[99]“I am sure I don’t know.”His room was littered with his books, toys, and playthings. There stood the rocking-horse with his tail pulled out. Here, flat on its back, lay his sister’s big doll, its poor face dreadfully disfigured by Harry’s mischievous fingers. His mother was very much displeased with him, and had sent him to bed, promising to take severe measures with him if she ever heard “I don’t know” from his lips again.Harry was very frightened. He did not wish to vex his mother, or to act unkindly towards his sister, and so, resolving to be more careful in the future, he covered his head over with the bedclothes and fell fast asleep.But Harry’s carelessness had raised the ire of others besides his mother and sister, and they were determined to punish him.It is all very well to treat books, dolls, drums, rocking-horses, and other playthings as if they had no life in them, but careless boys may do that once too often. So it appeared in this case. Harry was no sooner asleep than these ill-fated creatures held a great discussion with reference to his cruelty.“I’ll not stand this any longer,” cried Robinson Crusoe, stepping from the boy’s bookshelf. “I’m[100]getting an old man, and I won’t be insulted by having my only covering torn from my back by this young rogue. There he is covered up quite snug, while I am standing here shivering in my shirt.”“And I,” responded little Red Riding Hood, “would gladly see him punished. He has thrown so much soapy water over me I feel as if I’d been shipwrecked in the washing-tub.”“And I,” echoed the Drum, “owe him a grudge, not so much for the hard thumps he has bestowed on my person, as for his disgraceful treatment of yonder fair lady, whose dear nose he has completely put out of joint. That lady doll is my relation. We were born in the same place, were sent out in the same ship to Australia, and have occupied the same shop, until purchased and brought here to be cuffed and ill-treated by this boy. Gentlemen, I mean to avenge the lady.”Now the ice was broken, accusations came so fast and thick against the unlucky culprit that it was quite impossible to make them all out. Fishing rods, minus line or hook, bats without handles, balls and tops, which danced like mad around the bed—the hubbub became so great the wonder is the whole house was not roused by his accusers.[101]The noise, however, woke Harry, who sat bolt upright in bed, and gazed with a bewildered stare at the queer crowd surrounding him. He was too much alarmed to speak, but one glance showed him Robinson Crusoe, clad in nothing but his fly-leaves, standing at his bedside, with many others, who in the dim light he could not recognise.“Place him on my back, friends, and I’ll gallop away to—‘I don’t know,’ ” cried out the tailless Rocking-horse in a terrible voice; and the words were no sooner uttered than poor Harry was quickly blindfolded, dragged from his bed, and placed astride the horse, who instantly galloped out into the cold night with him.The pace at which the steed travelled was a caution. Harry had once accompanied his father to Gawler by rail, but the speed of the train was like travelling on a bullock dray in comparison to the flying pace of that beast without a tail. How he held on to its back is a positive wonder. All he saw was the clear starlit sky above his head, rocking and rolling about like the waves at the Semaphore on a windy day. His poor feet ached with the cold, for his only covering was his night-gown, and his legs felt as though they didn’t belong to him. At length, just as he was beginning[102]to feel faint and giddy from exhaustion, the Rocking-horse stopped, and the bandage was removed from his eyes. Ah! what a sight he beheld. There was the Drum he had broken strutting about on legs like a human being, who came up to Harry with a haughty swagger, and said, “Boy, why did you break my head?”“A JACK-IN-THE-BOX ... CAME AND REVILED HIM.”“A JACK-IN-THE-BOX … CAME AND REVILED HIM.”And then a Hoop came, and demanded, “why he was thrown aside in the lumber-room?” and a black Jack-in-the-box, whose scanty locks had been wantonly torn from his scalp, came and[103]reviled him; and, lastly, his late victim, the poor doll, made its appearance in a winding sheet, and began to reproach him for his cruelty.The unfortunate boy seated himself on the ground and burst into tears, but the more he wept the more his tormentors jeered at him; and really the Drum and Robinson Crusoe seemed to incite the others to insult him; therefore was our poor Harry very miserable indeed. Growing tired of playing with him, or afraid of the cold wind, perhaps, his strange companions at last took their departure, and Harry was left alone.Such companionship had been bad enough, but solitude was worse. He started up, and shouted with all his might, “Is there anybody about?” “I don’t know,” sighed the wind. “Which is the way home?” shouted Harry. “I don’t know,” chuckled the laughing jackass. “Where’s my mother?” screamed the boy. “I don’t know,” exclaimed a ’possum and a kangaroo together. Too frightened to speak any more, Harry groped his way along in the darkness. As day dawned he came to a very high hill, and here he saw his tormentors having some rare fun. The Doll had mounted the Rocking-horse, which was galloping round and round as they do in a[104]circus. While the Drum beat time, old Robinson Crusoe was waltzing with the Lady of the Lake; and Jack the Giant-killer played leap-frog with Mother Hubbard, Red Riding Hood and Little Jack Horner. Their merriment grew more fast and furious every moment, but the instant they espied our hero it ceased, and a deep silence fell upon them all.“Ladies and gentlemen,” cried a Pop-gun, breaking the silence, “you are aware we have refrained from doing injury to this cruel boy, through the mediation of the ‘Old Woman who lived in a Shoe.’ We left him in peace to make his way home, and instead of doing so he has wantonly broken in upon our secret revelry, and so has forfeited all claim to our clemency. What shall we do with him?”“Pitch him headlong from the cliff,” replied the Drum in a deep voice.“It shall be done,” responded a chorus of voices.Poor Harry, who had not spoken hitherto, now found his voice. “No, no! Spare me, good gentlemen; spare me!” he cried.They only mocked him for his pains. “Hearken to him pleading for mercy! Careless Harry! cruel Harry!” and amidst much noise and confusion the young mortal was carried to the apex of the[105]steep, tall cliff, and pushed over into the yawning gulf below.Poor Harry, half mad with terror, uttered a series of piercing shrieks as he felt himself falling—falling through the air—and called aloud for his mother to help him. Conceive his joy when he found himself in her arms, and heard her well-known voice reassuring him.“You are safe, my boy, quite safe. What has frightened you?”“Oh, mother! I have been taken away in the night.”“Taken away! Where?”“To—to—‘I don’t know.’ ”The mother smiled to herself as she left the room, and “Careless Harry” went out to see if the rocking-horse and the others had returned home.[106]

Our little hero lived in a very pretty cottage on the hills. He was fond of reading, and his parents, who could well afford it, indulged the boy to his heart’s content with interesting books.

By his schoolmates this lad was known by the nickname of “Careless Harry,” because he was so untidy and negligent in his habits. Out of all the expensive books that had been purchased for him there wasn’t one that had a decent cover. Indeed, some of them had their backs completely broken with ill-usage, while others hadn’t a back at all. Besides being careless and forgetful the boy had still another fault. If his mother asked him a question, the answer was sure to be, “I don’t know.”

“Where’s your hat, Harry?”

“I don’t know.”

“What have you done with your ball?”

“I don’t know.”

“Child, however did you tear your clothing in that frightful manner?”[99]

“I am sure I don’t know.”

His room was littered with his books, toys, and playthings. There stood the rocking-horse with his tail pulled out. Here, flat on its back, lay his sister’s big doll, its poor face dreadfully disfigured by Harry’s mischievous fingers. His mother was very much displeased with him, and had sent him to bed, promising to take severe measures with him if she ever heard “I don’t know” from his lips again.

Harry was very frightened. He did not wish to vex his mother, or to act unkindly towards his sister, and so, resolving to be more careful in the future, he covered his head over with the bedclothes and fell fast asleep.

But Harry’s carelessness had raised the ire of others besides his mother and sister, and they were determined to punish him.

It is all very well to treat books, dolls, drums, rocking-horses, and other playthings as if they had no life in them, but careless boys may do that once too often. So it appeared in this case. Harry was no sooner asleep than these ill-fated creatures held a great discussion with reference to his cruelty.

“I’ll not stand this any longer,” cried Robinson Crusoe, stepping from the boy’s bookshelf. “I’m[100]getting an old man, and I won’t be insulted by having my only covering torn from my back by this young rogue. There he is covered up quite snug, while I am standing here shivering in my shirt.”

“And I,” responded little Red Riding Hood, “would gladly see him punished. He has thrown so much soapy water over me I feel as if I’d been shipwrecked in the washing-tub.”

“And I,” echoed the Drum, “owe him a grudge, not so much for the hard thumps he has bestowed on my person, as for his disgraceful treatment of yonder fair lady, whose dear nose he has completely put out of joint. That lady doll is my relation. We were born in the same place, were sent out in the same ship to Australia, and have occupied the same shop, until purchased and brought here to be cuffed and ill-treated by this boy. Gentlemen, I mean to avenge the lady.”

Now the ice was broken, accusations came so fast and thick against the unlucky culprit that it was quite impossible to make them all out. Fishing rods, minus line or hook, bats without handles, balls and tops, which danced like mad around the bed—the hubbub became so great the wonder is the whole house was not roused by his accusers.[101]

The noise, however, woke Harry, who sat bolt upright in bed, and gazed with a bewildered stare at the queer crowd surrounding him. He was too much alarmed to speak, but one glance showed him Robinson Crusoe, clad in nothing but his fly-leaves, standing at his bedside, with many others, who in the dim light he could not recognise.

“Place him on my back, friends, and I’ll gallop away to—‘I don’t know,’ ” cried out the tailless Rocking-horse in a terrible voice; and the words were no sooner uttered than poor Harry was quickly blindfolded, dragged from his bed, and placed astride the horse, who instantly galloped out into the cold night with him.

The pace at which the steed travelled was a caution. Harry had once accompanied his father to Gawler by rail, but the speed of the train was like travelling on a bullock dray in comparison to the flying pace of that beast without a tail. How he held on to its back is a positive wonder. All he saw was the clear starlit sky above his head, rocking and rolling about like the waves at the Semaphore on a windy day. His poor feet ached with the cold, for his only covering was his night-gown, and his legs felt as though they didn’t belong to him. At length, just as he was beginning[102]to feel faint and giddy from exhaustion, the Rocking-horse stopped, and the bandage was removed from his eyes. Ah! what a sight he beheld. There was the Drum he had broken strutting about on legs like a human being, who came up to Harry with a haughty swagger, and said, “Boy, why did you break my head?”

“A JACK-IN-THE-BOX ... CAME AND REVILED HIM.”“A JACK-IN-THE-BOX … CAME AND REVILED HIM.”

“A JACK-IN-THE-BOX … CAME AND REVILED HIM.”

And then a Hoop came, and demanded, “why he was thrown aside in the lumber-room?” and a black Jack-in-the-box, whose scanty locks had been wantonly torn from his scalp, came and[103]reviled him; and, lastly, his late victim, the poor doll, made its appearance in a winding sheet, and began to reproach him for his cruelty.

The unfortunate boy seated himself on the ground and burst into tears, but the more he wept the more his tormentors jeered at him; and really the Drum and Robinson Crusoe seemed to incite the others to insult him; therefore was our poor Harry very miserable indeed. Growing tired of playing with him, or afraid of the cold wind, perhaps, his strange companions at last took their departure, and Harry was left alone.

Such companionship had been bad enough, but solitude was worse. He started up, and shouted with all his might, “Is there anybody about?” “I don’t know,” sighed the wind. “Which is the way home?” shouted Harry. “I don’t know,” chuckled the laughing jackass. “Where’s my mother?” screamed the boy. “I don’t know,” exclaimed a ’possum and a kangaroo together. Too frightened to speak any more, Harry groped his way along in the darkness. As day dawned he came to a very high hill, and here he saw his tormentors having some rare fun. The Doll had mounted the Rocking-horse, which was galloping round and round as they do in a[104]circus. While the Drum beat time, old Robinson Crusoe was waltzing with the Lady of the Lake; and Jack the Giant-killer played leap-frog with Mother Hubbard, Red Riding Hood and Little Jack Horner. Their merriment grew more fast and furious every moment, but the instant they espied our hero it ceased, and a deep silence fell upon them all.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” cried a Pop-gun, breaking the silence, “you are aware we have refrained from doing injury to this cruel boy, through the mediation of the ‘Old Woman who lived in a Shoe.’ We left him in peace to make his way home, and instead of doing so he has wantonly broken in upon our secret revelry, and so has forfeited all claim to our clemency. What shall we do with him?”

“Pitch him headlong from the cliff,” replied the Drum in a deep voice.

“It shall be done,” responded a chorus of voices.

Poor Harry, who had not spoken hitherto, now found his voice. “No, no! Spare me, good gentlemen; spare me!” he cried.

They only mocked him for his pains. “Hearken to him pleading for mercy! Careless Harry! cruel Harry!” and amidst much noise and confusion the young mortal was carried to the apex of the[105]steep, tall cliff, and pushed over into the yawning gulf below.

Poor Harry, half mad with terror, uttered a series of piercing shrieks as he felt himself falling—falling through the air—and called aloud for his mother to help him. Conceive his joy when he found himself in her arms, and heard her well-known voice reassuring him.

“You are safe, my boy, quite safe. What has frightened you?”

“Oh, mother! I have been taken away in the night.”

“Taken away! Where?”

“To—to—‘I don’t know.’ ”

The mother smiled to herself as she left the room, and “Careless Harry” went out to see if the rocking-horse and the others had returned home.[106]

[Contents]THE BANK CAT.Because “Tent-Peg” on the Bogan isn’t on the map of Australia, it must not be inferred that the little township does not exist. Indeed, any old colonist who knows his way about will tell you that the place is in the sister colony, and consists of one public-house, a blacksmith’s shop, a store, a church (about the shape and size of a haystack), and a small branch bank.The latter building presented nothing of the polish and artistic finish, or the magnificence of many of our metropolitan banks, but it was one of the most snug and cosy institutions in the whole country, within its walls. No doubt Toney Buck, the messenger, was of the same opinion, as he sat dozing before a warm coal fire, this severe winter night, with no other company than a large black cat, of the male gender, for his companion.Toney Buck was an orphan, aged twelve years, or thereabouts, and acted in the dualrôleof servant to the manager and messenger to the[107]bank. The boy slept on the premises, and the manager having gone to visit a neighbouring squatter, his servant had been ordered to sit up until he returned. There Toney sat in the manager’s armchair, bowing and nodding to the fire, as if it had been some great fetish to whom he was paying homage. Toney was a very practical lad. Nothing fanciful or dreamy ever bothered Toney. Had the boy been otherwise, I’m afraid he wouldn’t have had anything to do with the bank, because his employers were anything but poets or visionaries, as some of my borrowing friends can testify. However, be this as it may, every time our hero opened his heavy eyelids after each jerk forward, he encountered the round, black, winking orbs of Tabby fixed full upon his face, with a strange expression stamped thereon. Indeed, more than once Toney felt certain that the cat actually laughed at him, and when discovered in the act, instantly attempted to compose its features and wink at the fire in a knowing way. It is not a very easy task for a sleepy boy, who feels as if his eyelids were freighted with four-pound weights, to rouse himself and his waking faculties all in a moment, but Toney managed to sit bolt upright after a time and to stare at his companion. Toney fancied he could stare. So he could[108]without a doubt; but the cat could and did stare harder than Toney. Its eyes never moved, in their fixed look, from his face, yet he could see their colour change from black to pale sea-green, and from green to grey, and then turn flaming red as the fire. Toney feeling uncomfortable, removed his chair farther back, muttering, “Oh, bother the cat!”“Whirr. You’re another,” replied a voice instantly.The messenger was in the act of sitting down again, but he gave a jump as if a snake had bitten him. He looked first at Tabby, and then at the fire bewildered, and said, “Who spoke?”“I did,” replied the cat.“Good gracious! Are you sure now?” inquired Toney, with the scales—or the weights, rather—fallen from his eyeballs.“I did say ‘You’re another’; and so you are. If you bother me I’ll bother you!” replied Tabby, whisking his long tail.“Oh, my! I never knew cats could talk, although I’ve heard their voices sometimes, of a night, to some tune.”“None of your sneers, Toney,” interrupted Tabby quickly. “There are more wonderful things in Australia than a talking cat, and some noises to[109]which our midnight concerts are as sweet music in comparison. Listen to me. The bank will be robbed this very night. There!”“Talking cat—the bank robbed. I—I hope I’m awake,” cried Toney, tugging at his unkempt hair in astonishment.“I hope you are, for there are those coming who will soon arouse you,” replied the cat, jumping on the back of a chair, and erecting his back in the form of a rainbow. “Hark! that noise is worse than our caterwauling. Hear them forcing in the door of the front office.”As the cat spoke there came upon their ears first a low grating noise, then followed a sound as if the heavy door of the bank had been wrenched off its hinges. “Lord help us! It’s the bushrangers, and master’s away. Oh! what shall I do?” and the poor boy began to cry bitterly.“Stop crying. Wait and see!” Tabby hadn’t time to say more, ere three men, with masks upon their faces, and armed with revolvers, rushed into the room.“Hallo! only a boy here. Where’s the manager?” inquired one of the robbers, grasping Toney.“He isn’t here, sir.”“Come, none o’ that,” cried the man gruffly.[110]“Tell us where he is, or I’ll shove you a-top of that fire.”Toney looked at the fire, and then at the bushranger, and began to cry afresh.“Where’s the manager?”“Gone to Mr. Hilton’s, the station on the river.”“Are you certain?”“Yes, as certain as that you will be hanged.”The man let go his hold of Toney instantly, and stared first at the cat and then at the messenger, as if he was puzzled as to which had answered him. He appeared to decide in favour of the boy, for he said hoarsely, “No cheek, my fine kiddie, or I’ll roast you like a chicken. Bring the keys of the safe, quick.”“Master has them in his pocket, sir.”The robber swore a frightful oath, then held converse with his companions in an undertone. After which they produced a cord, and having tied the lad hand and foot, left him in the room with the cat, locked the door on the outside, and proceeded to ransack the bank.Poor Toney! What could he do against three armed men? The manager, his master, had been very good to him. He was father and mother and brother and sister all in one. What would he say when he returned and found the place robbed—[111]the money gone? Hadn’t he entrusted all the gold, and notes, and papers—worth thousands and thousands of pounds—into his (Toney’s) custody, and here were villains breaking open these sacred coffers with hammer and crowbar in ruthless plunder! In his trouble, he almost wished the bushrangers would come in and roast him as they had promised to do. Even that would be preferable to facing his kind master.“Toney. Hi, Toney!” The boy jumped. He had forgotten all about the cat.“You were always kind to me, Toney, and I’m going to help you now.”“How can a cat help anybody?” replied poor Toney.“Ah! but I wasn’t always a cat, Toney.”“Oh, bother; I suppose you mean when you were a little kitten,” muttered the boy.“No, I don’t, Toney Buck. I never was a kitten. I mean when I was a happy fairy in Elfland, before I was changed into a cat for being cruel and selfish.”“Snooks!” answered Toney sceptically.“Who?”“Snooks! It won’t do, you know. There ain’t no fairies, nor moonland, and such nonsense.”“Supposing my shape were to change again,[112]here under your very nose; would you believe what you saw?”“Rather! but you can’t do it, puss.”“Can’t I? You shall see,” replied Tabby. “Say: ‘Sevle naila rtsua’ very slowly. Now!”“ ‘Sevle naila rtsua,’ ” cried the boy in a brisk tone; but he had no sooner uttered the words than the black cat vanished into thin air, and in its place he beheld a wee, thin, elderly gentleman dressed in hunting costume, seated astride the back of the chair, who bowed very politely and lifted his hat to the astonished messenger.“Well I never!” cried Toney. “Who are you, pray?”“ ‘Sevle naila rtsua!’ ” replied the little man, laughing.“What is ‘Sevle naila rtsua’?”demanded the boy.“Read the letters backwards and join the first two syllables together.”“Ah! A-u-s-t-r-a-l-i-a-n—E-l-v-e-s—Australian Elves, eh?”“That’s it, Toney; I’m proud to be one of them, my boy. Now I’ll show you how a cat can help you out of this scrape,” answered the wee man, with a smile only to be seen on the face of a fairy. “I’m going out at that broken pane in[113]the window there, straight to Dick Holmes’ stable, take out the steeplechaser ‘Nightwind,’ ride as fast as he can go to the junction, return with half-a-dozen troopers by a short cut, and secure these ruffians red-handed with their booty.“Hurrah!” cried Toney in his enthusiasm.“Hush, boy. Not so loud,” said the elfin; “they may hear you. I must away on my errand quickly; yet mind, Toney, if you don’t see the bank cat here again, I’m always to be found on the banks of the Bogan. Keep good heart. Good-bye.”With a hop, skip, and a jump the wee man was through the broken pane and astride the horse “Nightwind” before the boy could realise that he was alone.Meanwhile the strong-room of the bank resounded with the heavy blows dealt by the robbers upon the solid doors of the iron safe, which for a long time withstood their utmost attempts to break it open. Poor Toney sat in fear and trembling, and counted the minutes as they fled by, listening to the noises without, and wondering if the little elfin man would really do what he promised. It seemed hardly possible that he could sit a horse at all, much less guide the crack steeplechaser “Nightwind” across country[114]on a dark night. Nevertheless, the confident tone of the fairy before he jumped out at the window reassured him, and hope began to gather in Toney the messenger.Alas! that hope was dispelled the next moment by a loud shout from the bushrangers, which proclaimed that the safe had yielded. Had the robbers been less intent upon the bags of gold and silver which met their gaze, it is probable they would have seen the half-dozen police-troopers who entered, carbine in hand, and surrounded them. When the ruffians did see them, however, it was too late to resist, and they were taken away out into the darkened night, some of them never to see the light of the sun again as free men.At the trial of the bushrangers the police couldn’t swear who gave the information about the bank, and I believe it remains a mystery to this day.[115]

THE BANK CAT.

Because “Tent-Peg” on the Bogan isn’t on the map of Australia, it must not be inferred that the little township does not exist. Indeed, any old colonist who knows his way about will tell you that the place is in the sister colony, and consists of one public-house, a blacksmith’s shop, a store, a church (about the shape and size of a haystack), and a small branch bank.The latter building presented nothing of the polish and artistic finish, or the magnificence of many of our metropolitan banks, but it was one of the most snug and cosy institutions in the whole country, within its walls. No doubt Toney Buck, the messenger, was of the same opinion, as he sat dozing before a warm coal fire, this severe winter night, with no other company than a large black cat, of the male gender, for his companion.Toney Buck was an orphan, aged twelve years, or thereabouts, and acted in the dualrôleof servant to the manager and messenger to the[107]bank. The boy slept on the premises, and the manager having gone to visit a neighbouring squatter, his servant had been ordered to sit up until he returned. There Toney sat in the manager’s armchair, bowing and nodding to the fire, as if it had been some great fetish to whom he was paying homage. Toney was a very practical lad. Nothing fanciful or dreamy ever bothered Toney. Had the boy been otherwise, I’m afraid he wouldn’t have had anything to do with the bank, because his employers were anything but poets or visionaries, as some of my borrowing friends can testify. However, be this as it may, every time our hero opened his heavy eyelids after each jerk forward, he encountered the round, black, winking orbs of Tabby fixed full upon his face, with a strange expression stamped thereon. Indeed, more than once Toney felt certain that the cat actually laughed at him, and when discovered in the act, instantly attempted to compose its features and wink at the fire in a knowing way. It is not a very easy task for a sleepy boy, who feels as if his eyelids were freighted with four-pound weights, to rouse himself and his waking faculties all in a moment, but Toney managed to sit bolt upright after a time and to stare at his companion. Toney fancied he could stare. So he could[108]without a doubt; but the cat could and did stare harder than Toney. Its eyes never moved, in their fixed look, from his face, yet he could see their colour change from black to pale sea-green, and from green to grey, and then turn flaming red as the fire. Toney feeling uncomfortable, removed his chair farther back, muttering, “Oh, bother the cat!”“Whirr. You’re another,” replied a voice instantly.The messenger was in the act of sitting down again, but he gave a jump as if a snake had bitten him. He looked first at Tabby, and then at the fire bewildered, and said, “Who spoke?”“I did,” replied the cat.“Good gracious! Are you sure now?” inquired Toney, with the scales—or the weights, rather—fallen from his eyeballs.“I did say ‘You’re another’; and so you are. If you bother me I’ll bother you!” replied Tabby, whisking his long tail.“Oh, my! I never knew cats could talk, although I’ve heard their voices sometimes, of a night, to some tune.”“None of your sneers, Toney,” interrupted Tabby quickly. “There are more wonderful things in Australia than a talking cat, and some noises to[109]which our midnight concerts are as sweet music in comparison. Listen to me. The bank will be robbed this very night. There!”“Talking cat—the bank robbed. I—I hope I’m awake,” cried Toney, tugging at his unkempt hair in astonishment.“I hope you are, for there are those coming who will soon arouse you,” replied the cat, jumping on the back of a chair, and erecting his back in the form of a rainbow. “Hark! that noise is worse than our caterwauling. Hear them forcing in the door of the front office.”As the cat spoke there came upon their ears first a low grating noise, then followed a sound as if the heavy door of the bank had been wrenched off its hinges. “Lord help us! It’s the bushrangers, and master’s away. Oh! what shall I do?” and the poor boy began to cry bitterly.“Stop crying. Wait and see!” Tabby hadn’t time to say more, ere three men, with masks upon their faces, and armed with revolvers, rushed into the room.“Hallo! only a boy here. Where’s the manager?” inquired one of the robbers, grasping Toney.“He isn’t here, sir.”“Come, none o’ that,” cried the man gruffly.[110]“Tell us where he is, or I’ll shove you a-top of that fire.”Toney looked at the fire, and then at the bushranger, and began to cry afresh.“Where’s the manager?”“Gone to Mr. Hilton’s, the station on the river.”“Are you certain?”“Yes, as certain as that you will be hanged.”The man let go his hold of Toney instantly, and stared first at the cat and then at the messenger, as if he was puzzled as to which had answered him. He appeared to decide in favour of the boy, for he said hoarsely, “No cheek, my fine kiddie, or I’ll roast you like a chicken. Bring the keys of the safe, quick.”“Master has them in his pocket, sir.”The robber swore a frightful oath, then held converse with his companions in an undertone. After which they produced a cord, and having tied the lad hand and foot, left him in the room with the cat, locked the door on the outside, and proceeded to ransack the bank.Poor Toney! What could he do against three armed men? The manager, his master, had been very good to him. He was father and mother and brother and sister all in one. What would he say when he returned and found the place robbed—[111]the money gone? Hadn’t he entrusted all the gold, and notes, and papers—worth thousands and thousands of pounds—into his (Toney’s) custody, and here were villains breaking open these sacred coffers with hammer and crowbar in ruthless plunder! In his trouble, he almost wished the bushrangers would come in and roast him as they had promised to do. Even that would be preferable to facing his kind master.“Toney. Hi, Toney!” The boy jumped. He had forgotten all about the cat.“You were always kind to me, Toney, and I’m going to help you now.”“How can a cat help anybody?” replied poor Toney.“Ah! but I wasn’t always a cat, Toney.”“Oh, bother; I suppose you mean when you were a little kitten,” muttered the boy.“No, I don’t, Toney Buck. I never was a kitten. I mean when I was a happy fairy in Elfland, before I was changed into a cat for being cruel and selfish.”“Snooks!” answered Toney sceptically.“Who?”“Snooks! It won’t do, you know. There ain’t no fairies, nor moonland, and such nonsense.”“Supposing my shape were to change again,[112]here under your very nose; would you believe what you saw?”“Rather! but you can’t do it, puss.”“Can’t I? You shall see,” replied Tabby. “Say: ‘Sevle naila rtsua’ very slowly. Now!”“ ‘Sevle naila rtsua,’ ” cried the boy in a brisk tone; but he had no sooner uttered the words than the black cat vanished into thin air, and in its place he beheld a wee, thin, elderly gentleman dressed in hunting costume, seated astride the back of the chair, who bowed very politely and lifted his hat to the astonished messenger.“Well I never!” cried Toney. “Who are you, pray?”“ ‘Sevle naila rtsua!’ ” replied the little man, laughing.“What is ‘Sevle naila rtsua’?”demanded the boy.“Read the letters backwards and join the first two syllables together.”“Ah! A-u-s-t-r-a-l-i-a-n—E-l-v-e-s—Australian Elves, eh?”“That’s it, Toney; I’m proud to be one of them, my boy. Now I’ll show you how a cat can help you out of this scrape,” answered the wee man, with a smile only to be seen on the face of a fairy. “I’m going out at that broken pane in[113]the window there, straight to Dick Holmes’ stable, take out the steeplechaser ‘Nightwind,’ ride as fast as he can go to the junction, return with half-a-dozen troopers by a short cut, and secure these ruffians red-handed with their booty.“Hurrah!” cried Toney in his enthusiasm.“Hush, boy. Not so loud,” said the elfin; “they may hear you. I must away on my errand quickly; yet mind, Toney, if you don’t see the bank cat here again, I’m always to be found on the banks of the Bogan. Keep good heart. Good-bye.”With a hop, skip, and a jump the wee man was through the broken pane and astride the horse “Nightwind” before the boy could realise that he was alone.Meanwhile the strong-room of the bank resounded with the heavy blows dealt by the robbers upon the solid doors of the iron safe, which for a long time withstood their utmost attempts to break it open. Poor Toney sat in fear and trembling, and counted the minutes as they fled by, listening to the noises without, and wondering if the little elfin man would really do what he promised. It seemed hardly possible that he could sit a horse at all, much less guide the crack steeplechaser “Nightwind” across country[114]on a dark night. Nevertheless, the confident tone of the fairy before he jumped out at the window reassured him, and hope began to gather in Toney the messenger.Alas! that hope was dispelled the next moment by a loud shout from the bushrangers, which proclaimed that the safe had yielded. Had the robbers been less intent upon the bags of gold and silver which met their gaze, it is probable they would have seen the half-dozen police-troopers who entered, carbine in hand, and surrounded them. When the ruffians did see them, however, it was too late to resist, and they were taken away out into the darkened night, some of them never to see the light of the sun again as free men.At the trial of the bushrangers the police couldn’t swear who gave the information about the bank, and I believe it remains a mystery to this day.[115]

Because “Tent-Peg” on the Bogan isn’t on the map of Australia, it must not be inferred that the little township does not exist. Indeed, any old colonist who knows his way about will tell you that the place is in the sister colony, and consists of one public-house, a blacksmith’s shop, a store, a church (about the shape and size of a haystack), and a small branch bank.

The latter building presented nothing of the polish and artistic finish, or the magnificence of many of our metropolitan banks, but it was one of the most snug and cosy institutions in the whole country, within its walls. No doubt Toney Buck, the messenger, was of the same opinion, as he sat dozing before a warm coal fire, this severe winter night, with no other company than a large black cat, of the male gender, for his companion.

Toney Buck was an orphan, aged twelve years, or thereabouts, and acted in the dualrôleof servant to the manager and messenger to the[107]bank. The boy slept on the premises, and the manager having gone to visit a neighbouring squatter, his servant had been ordered to sit up until he returned. There Toney sat in the manager’s armchair, bowing and nodding to the fire, as if it had been some great fetish to whom he was paying homage. Toney was a very practical lad. Nothing fanciful or dreamy ever bothered Toney. Had the boy been otherwise, I’m afraid he wouldn’t have had anything to do with the bank, because his employers were anything but poets or visionaries, as some of my borrowing friends can testify. However, be this as it may, every time our hero opened his heavy eyelids after each jerk forward, he encountered the round, black, winking orbs of Tabby fixed full upon his face, with a strange expression stamped thereon. Indeed, more than once Toney felt certain that the cat actually laughed at him, and when discovered in the act, instantly attempted to compose its features and wink at the fire in a knowing way. It is not a very easy task for a sleepy boy, who feels as if his eyelids were freighted with four-pound weights, to rouse himself and his waking faculties all in a moment, but Toney managed to sit bolt upright after a time and to stare at his companion. Toney fancied he could stare. So he could[108]without a doubt; but the cat could and did stare harder than Toney. Its eyes never moved, in their fixed look, from his face, yet he could see their colour change from black to pale sea-green, and from green to grey, and then turn flaming red as the fire. Toney feeling uncomfortable, removed his chair farther back, muttering, “Oh, bother the cat!”

“Whirr. You’re another,” replied a voice instantly.

The messenger was in the act of sitting down again, but he gave a jump as if a snake had bitten him. He looked first at Tabby, and then at the fire bewildered, and said, “Who spoke?”

“I did,” replied the cat.

“Good gracious! Are you sure now?” inquired Toney, with the scales—or the weights, rather—fallen from his eyeballs.

“I did say ‘You’re another’; and so you are. If you bother me I’ll bother you!” replied Tabby, whisking his long tail.

“Oh, my! I never knew cats could talk, although I’ve heard their voices sometimes, of a night, to some tune.”

“None of your sneers, Toney,” interrupted Tabby quickly. “There are more wonderful things in Australia than a talking cat, and some noises to[109]which our midnight concerts are as sweet music in comparison. Listen to me. The bank will be robbed this very night. There!”

“Talking cat—the bank robbed. I—I hope I’m awake,” cried Toney, tugging at his unkempt hair in astonishment.

“I hope you are, for there are those coming who will soon arouse you,” replied the cat, jumping on the back of a chair, and erecting his back in the form of a rainbow. “Hark! that noise is worse than our caterwauling. Hear them forcing in the door of the front office.”

As the cat spoke there came upon their ears first a low grating noise, then followed a sound as if the heavy door of the bank had been wrenched off its hinges. “Lord help us! It’s the bushrangers, and master’s away. Oh! what shall I do?” and the poor boy began to cry bitterly.

“Stop crying. Wait and see!” Tabby hadn’t time to say more, ere three men, with masks upon their faces, and armed with revolvers, rushed into the room.

“Hallo! only a boy here. Where’s the manager?” inquired one of the robbers, grasping Toney.

“He isn’t here, sir.”

“Come, none o’ that,” cried the man gruffly.[110]“Tell us where he is, or I’ll shove you a-top of that fire.”

Toney looked at the fire, and then at the bushranger, and began to cry afresh.

“Where’s the manager?”

“Gone to Mr. Hilton’s, the station on the river.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, as certain as that you will be hanged.”

The man let go his hold of Toney instantly, and stared first at the cat and then at the messenger, as if he was puzzled as to which had answered him. He appeared to decide in favour of the boy, for he said hoarsely, “No cheek, my fine kiddie, or I’ll roast you like a chicken. Bring the keys of the safe, quick.”

“Master has them in his pocket, sir.”

The robber swore a frightful oath, then held converse with his companions in an undertone. After which they produced a cord, and having tied the lad hand and foot, left him in the room with the cat, locked the door on the outside, and proceeded to ransack the bank.

Poor Toney! What could he do against three armed men? The manager, his master, had been very good to him. He was father and mother and brother and sister all in one. What would he say when he returned and found the place robbed—[111]the money gone? Hadn’t he entrusted all the gold, and notes, and papers—worth thousands and thousands of pounds—into his (Toney’s) custody, and here were villains breaking open these sacred coffers with hammer and crowbar in ruthless plunder! In his trouble, he almost wished the bushrangers would come in and roast him as they had promised to do. Even that would be preferable to facing his kind master.

“Toney. Hi, Toney!” The boy jumped. He had forgotten all about the cat.

“You were always kind to me, Toney, and I’m going to help you now.”

“How can a cat help anybody?” replied poor Toney.

“Ah! but I wasn’t always a cat, Toney.”

“Oh, bother; I suppose you mean when you were a little kitten,” muttered the boy.

“No, I don’t, Toney Buck. I never was a kitten. I mean when I was a happy fairy in Elfland, before I was changed into a cat for being cruel and selfish.”

“Snooks!” answered Toney sceptically.

“Who?”

“Snooks! It won’t do, you know. There ain’t no fairies, nor moonland, and such nonsense.”

“Supposing my shape were to change again,[112]here under your very nose; would you believe what you saw?”

“Rather! but you can’t do it, puss.”

“Can’t I? You shall see,” replied Tabby. “Say: ‘Sevle naila rtsua’ very slowly. Now!”

“ ‘Sevle naila rtsua,’ ” cried the boy in a brisk tone; but he had no sooner uttered the words than the black cat vanished into thin air, and in its place he beheld a wee, thin, elderly gentleman dressed in hunting costume, seated astride the back of the chair, who bowed very politely and lifted his hat to the astonished messenger.

“Well I never!” cried Toney. “Who are you, pray?”

“ ‘Sevle naila rtsua!’ ” replied the little man, laughing.

“What is ‘Sevle naila rtsua’?”demanded the boy.

“Read the letters backwards and join the first two syllables together.”

“Ah! A-u-s-t-r-a-l-i-a-n—E-l-v-e-s—Australian Elves, eh?”

“That’s it, Toney; I’m proud to be one of them, my boy. Now I’ll show you how a cat can help you out of this scrape,” answered the wee man, with a smile only to be seen on the face of a fairy. “I’m going out at that broken pane in[113]the window there, straight to Dick Holmes’ stable, take out the steeplechaser ‘Nightwind,’ ride as fast as he can go to the junction, return with half-a-dozen troopers by a short cut, and secure these ruffians red-handed with their booty.

“Hurrah!” cried Toney in his enthusiasm.

“Hush, boy. Not so loud,” said the elfin; “they may hear you. I must away on my errand quickly; yet mind, Toney, if you don’t see the bank cat here again, I’m always to be found on the banks of the Bogan. Keep good heart. Good-bye.”

With a hop, skip, and a jump the wee man was through the broken pane and astride the horse “Nightwind” before the boy could realise that he was alone.

Meanwhile the strong-room of the bank resounded with the heavy blows dealt by the robbers upon the solid doors of the iron safe, which for a long time withstood their utmost attempts to break it open. Poor Toney sat in fear and trembling, and counted the minutes as they fled by, listening to the noises without, and wondering if the little elfin man would really do what he promised. It seemed hardly possible that he could sit a horse at all, much less guide the crack steeplechaser “Nightwind” across country[114]on a dark night. Nevertheless, the confident tone of the fairy before he jumped out at the window reassured him, and hope began to gather in Toney the messenger.

Alas! that hope was dispelled the next moment by a loud shout from the bushrangers, which proclaimed that the safe had yielded. Had the robbers been less intent upon the bags of gold and silver which met their gaze, it is probable they would have seen the half-dozen police-troopers who entered, carbine in hand, and surrounded them. When the ruffians did see them, however, it was too late to resist, and they were taken away out into the darkened night, some of them never to see the light of the sun again as free men.

At the trial of the bushrangers the police couldn’t swear who gave the information about the bank, and I believe it remains a mystery to this day.[115]

[Contents]GUMTREE HOLLOW.Like “Ben Bolt’s” mill, Allan’s farm, situated by the River Torrens, had gone to decay and ruin. It was a flourishing place before the death of Peter Allan, but the farmer had been taken away, and his widow and her three children had to fight out the battle of life unaided. The property had been heavily mortgaged three years previously, and, what with unfavourable seasons and other misfortunes, the widow Allan had not been able to repay principal or interest of the money borrowed, and the creditors therefore gave the farmer’s wife notice to quit.Fortunately, Mrs. Allan had a brother who had gone to some diggings in New South Wales, and had left in charge of his sister an old hut and a patch of land known as Gumtree Hollow. In the emergency the widow determined to occupy the place until she could find a more suitable home. The Hollow consisted of about two acres of crags and stones, without sufficient soil to grow[116]a potato in, and was distant from the farm about five miles.On a warm afternoon, three days after the widow had received notice to leave the homestead, little Charlie Allan, the eldest boy, aged twelve, started to the hut at Gumtree Hollow with his mother’s goods and chattels in the spring-cart. It had been arranged that after delivering his load the lad should return for his parent and his brother and sister. Charlie was intelligent and very kind-hearted. He had noticed his mother crying bitterly, and he had followed her into a back room where his father had died, and there putting his little arms about her neck he had tried to soothe her with many assurances that when he became a man he would work for her and buy the place back again.Old Bob, the pony, didn’t like the road to the hut, but repeatedly turned to retrace his steps every half-mile or so of the journey. Nevertheless, Charlie managed to get him there at last.In a ravine between a natural cutting of jagged crags stood the old building, overshadowed by a gigantic tree whose wide-open trunk, hollow as a bell, had often afforded shelter to straggling picnic parties. It was a grand, old, hoary gum, knobbed and gnarled with age, and whose spreading[117]branches formed a canopy over the dilapidated hut. One long, fork-like branch projected farther over than the rest, on the extreme end of which something perched, swaying the bough to and fro with an easy motion. Charlie, thinking it was a parrot, took up a stone for a shot; but he dropped the stone again instantly, as a voice from the tree uttered a shrill peal of laughter.The poor lad’s first thought was to take to his heels and run for it; but the voice called out in a kindly tone, “Hallo! Charlie ’avic, how are ye, Charlie Allan?”The boy gazed upward in amazement, and beheld a wee, teeny, queer fellow, hardly six inches high, sitting astride the branch, and gazing down with a knowing look at him. The creature’s dress was green; from his shapely shoes to his brimless hat, swallow-tailed coat, breeches, stockings, all were the verdant green colour.“Who are you?” questioned Charlie, recovering from his surprise.“Shure I’m an Irishman,” cried the little fellow, at the same time springing to the ground. “A rale paddy, an’ I may tell you that there isn’t a fay or a gnome in South Australia that I can’t leap or swim wid; do’s thee hear that, ’avic?”He was such a dwarfed miniature of a man,[118]and appeared such an impudent swaggerer—with his chimney-pot hat on one side of his head, and his saucy turned-up nose—that Charlie felt inclined to pick him up and cuff him soundly.“What is your name?” asked the boy, making a sudden dive at the creature.“McKombo,” answered the sprite, dodging under Charlie’s legs. “My name is McKombo; but be aisy wid ye now, an’ don’t be after trying to take a mane advantage of me.”“I’d scorn to do it,” said Charlie, unconsciously clenching his fists. “Who are you; what are you; and what do you want?”“Be aisy, Charlie. Arrah’, don’t be botherin’ me wid too many questions,” said McKombo. “I’ve tould ye I’m an Irishman. Captain Brophy imported me to the colony in a hat-box twenty years ago.”“Why, you’re a fairy,” suggested the lad, eyeing his strange companion askance.“Of course I am,” replied McKombo, “and I may tell you I’ve been waiting all this blessed day to see you.”“To see me?”“Thrue for ye, Charlie. I am very well acquainted wid all the bother an’ trouble that’s going on at the farm, an’ I mane to help your mother clane out of it.”[119]Poor Charlie felt as if he could have hugged McKombo, but the sprite kept his distance and said quietly, “You haven’t such a thing as a spade and a pick among the things in the cart?”“‘HURRAH!’ HE CRIED, TOSSING UP HIS HAT.”“ ‘HURRAH!’ HE CRIED, TOSSING UP HIS HAT.”Charlie had, though. Both the pick and the spade he had used many a time at the farm, and he produced them at once; but he looked doubtfully at McKombo as to what he was to do with them or how they could be the means of assisting his mother in her difficulties. It seemed very business-like, however, the way the sprite led Charlie to the hollow trunk of the great gum-tree, and[120]commanded him to dig within a certain circle he at once marked out. The goblin’s promises of certain and speedy benefit gave the boy faith and energy to dig and delve away with might and main until there gaped a large hole within the trunk, which revealed some of the thick roots beneath, also the top of a square tin box, such as lawyers keep their deeds in. The moment McKombo caught sight of the box he began to caper about the sward in antic glee.“Hurrah!” he cried, tossing up his hat. “There it is, me boy, safe an’ sound, as on the night I saw them murthering scoundrels place it there twenty years ago.”Poor Charlie stared at the fairy, and wiped the perspiration from his heated face, but he could not comprehend what his companion meant. Acting under McKombo’s directions, young Allan made a lever and got the box out of its bed. It did not appear large, but it was very heavy—so heavy that the boy could hardly lift it; the thick coating of paint on it had preserved it from rusting and decay, and it was fastened with an iron padlock. With one blow of his spade Charlie broke open the lid, when—lo! he saw a heap of dark yellow sovereigns and several parcels of bank-notes within. The sight made him faint and[121]giddy with surprise and delight, so that he could not utter a word.“Look there, now. See that,” ejaculated the sprite, pointing to the treasure. “One evening, twenty years ago, three men brought that box here and hid it beneath the trunk of this old gum-tree; they went away, but never returned for it. In time a poor woodcutter built his hut beneath the great tree, and I watched him come and go to his daily toil, until he could toil no more and they carried him forth and buried him on the river-bank. Then came your Uncle George, my boy, who purchased the place for ten pounds; but had he known of the riches under his very nose, I’ll go bail he wouldn’t have gone away to dig for gold.”“Why didn’t you tell Uncle George about this money?” asked Charlie.“Bekasehe would have spent it recklessly, honey, that’s why. Money ill-spent or misapplied is a great evil. Put the box on the cart wid the things, and return to your mother. Off wid ye, boy, at onst.”“Won’t you come with me?” pleaded Charlie.“I can’t, ’avic, I’m going to a christening at McFadden’s in the Glen. Away ye go. Good-bye.” Saying which, McKombo vanished from his sight.[122]Widow Allan was very much astonished when Charlie returned and told his story, but her surprise was still greater when she saw the box of hard cash. She counted the money, which amounted to over three thousand pounds sterling; after which she fastened the box again, and wrote a letter to the manager of a certain bank in Sydney, and to which most of the notes belonged.In due course the bank sent a representative to Allan’s farm, who informed the widow that the bank had been robbed of over three thousand pounds one night in June twenty years ago, and which had never been recovered. The bank agent departed with the money, but he left the poor but honest widow a cheque for £500—a sum which not only paid off the liability upon her farm, but enabled her to put something by for a rainy day and for Charlie when he came of age.[123]

GUMTREE HOLLOW.

Like “Ben Bolt’s” mill, Allan’s farm, situated by the River Torrens, had gone to decay and ruin. It was a flourishing place before the death of Peter Allan, but the farmer had been taken away, and his widow and her three children had to fight out the battle of life unaided. The property had been heavily mortgaged three years previously, and, what with unfavourable seasons and other misfortunes, the widow Allan had not been able to repay principal or interest of the money borrowed, and the creditors therefore gave the farmer’s wife notice to quit.Fortunately, Mrs. Allan had a brother who had gone to some diggings in New South Wales, and had left in charge of his sister an old hut and a patch of land known as Gumtree Hollow. In the emergency the widow determined to occupy the place until she could find a more suitable home. The Hollow consisted of about two acres of crags and stones, without sufficient soil to grow[116]a potato in, and was distant from the farm about five miles.On a warm afternoon, three days after the widow had received notice to leave the homestead, little Charlie Allan, the eldest boy, aged twelve, started to the hut at Gumtree Hollow with his mother’s goods and chattels in the spring-cart. It had been arranged that after delivering his load the lad should return for his parent and his brother and sister. Charlie was intelligent and very kind-hearted. He had noticed his mother crying bitterly, and he had followed her into a back room where his father had died, and there putting his little arms about her neck he had tried to soothe her with many assurances that when he became a man he would work for her and buy the place back again.Old Bob, the pony, didn’t like the road to the hut, but repeatedly turned to retrace his steps every half-mile or so of the journey. Nevertheless, Charlie managed to get him there at last.In a ravine between a natural cutting of jagged crags stood the old building, overshadowed by a gigantic tree whose wide-open trunk, hollow as a bell, had often afforded shelter to straggling picnic parties. It was a grand, old, hoary gum, knobbed and gnarled with age, and whose spreading[117]branches formed a canopy over the dilapidated hut. One long, fork-like branch projected farther over than the rest, on the extreme end of which something perched, swaying the bough to and fro with an easy motion. Charlie, thinking it was a parrot, took up a stone for a shot; but he dropped the stone again instantly, as a voice from the tree uttered a shrill peal of laughter.The poor lad’s first thought was to take to his heels and run for it; but the voice called out in a kindly tone, “Hallo! Charlie ’avic, how are ye, Charlie Allan?”The boy gazed upward in amazement, and beheld a wee, teeny, queer fellow, hardly six inches high, sitting astride the branch, and gazing down with a knowing look at him. The creature’s dress was green; from his shapely shoes to his brimless hat, swallow-tailed coat, breeches, stockings, all were the verdant green colour.“Who are you?” questioned Charlie, recovering from his surprise.“Shure I’m an Irishman,” cried the little fellow, at the same time springing to the ground. “A rale paddy, an’ I may tell you that there isn’t a fay or a gnome in South Australia that I can’t leap or swim wid; do’s thee hear that, ’avic?”He was such a dwarfed miniature of a man,[118]and appeared such an impudent swaggerer—with his chimney-pot hat on one side of his head, and his saucy turned-up nose—that Charlie felt inclined to pick him up and cuff him soundly.“What is your name?” asked the boy, making a sudden dive at the creature.“McKombo,” answered the sprite, dodging under Charlie’s legs. “My name is McKombo; but be aisy wid ye now, an’ don’t be after trying to take a mane advantage of me.”“I’d scorn to do it,” said Charlie, unconsciously clenching his fists. “Who are you; what are you; and what do you want?”“Be aisy, Charlie. Arrah’, don’t be botherin’ me wid too many questions,” said McKombo. “I’ve tould ye I’m an Irishman. Captain Brophy imported me to the colony in a hat-box twenty years ago.”“Why, you’re a fairy,” suggested the lad, eyeing his strange companion askance.“Of course I am,” replied McKombo, “and I may tell you I’ve been waiting all this blessed day to see you.”“To see me?”“Thrue for ye, Charlie. I am very well acquainted wid all the bother an’ trouble that’s going on at the farm, an’ I mane to help your mother clane out of it.”[119]Poor Charlie felt as if he could have hugged McKombo, but the sprite kept his distance and said quietly, “You haven’t such a thing as a spade and a pick among the things in the cart?”“‘HURRAH!’ HE CRIED, TOSSING UP HIS HAT.”“ ‘HURRAH!’ HE CRIED, TOSSING UP HIS HAT.”Charlie had, though. Both the pick and the spade he had used many a time at the farm, and he produced them at once; but he looked doubtfully at McKombo as to what he was to do with them or how they could be the means of assisting his mother in her difficulties. It seemed very business-like, however, the way the sprite led Charlie to the hollow trunk of the great gum-tree, and[120]commanded him to dig within a certain circle he at once marked out. The goblin’s promises of certain and speedy benefit gave the boy faith and energy to dig and delve away with might and main until there gaped a large hole within the trunk, which revealed some of the thick roots beneath, also the top of a square tin box, such as lawyers keep their deeds in. The moment McKombo caught sight of the box he began to caper about the sward in antic glee.“Hurrah!” he cried, tossing up his hat. “There it is, me boy, safe an’ sound, as on the night I saw them murthering scoundrels place it there twenty years ago.”Poor Charlie stared at the fairy, and wiped the perspiration from his heated face, but he could not comprehend what his companion meant. Acting under McKombo’s directions, young Allan made a lever and got the box out of its bed. It did not appear large, but it was very heavy—so heavy that the boy could hardly lift it; the thick coating of paint on it had preserved it from rusting and decay, and it was fastened with an iron padlock. With one blow of his spade Charlie broke open the lid, when—lo! he saw a heap of dark yellow sovereigns and several parcels of bank-notes within. The sight made him faint and[121]giddy with surprise and delight, so that he could not utter a word.“Look there, now. See that,” ejaculated the sprite, pointing to the treasure. “One evening, twenty years ago, three men brought that box here and hid it beneath the trunk of this old gum-tree; they went away, but never returned for it. In time a poor woodcutter built his hut beneath the great tree, and I watched him come and go to his daily toil, until he could toil no more and they carried him forth and buried him on the river-bank. Then came your Uncle George, my boy, who purchased the place for ten pounds; but had he known of the riches under his very nose, I’ll go bail he wouldn’t have gone away to dig for gold.”“Why didn’t you tell Uncle George about this money?” asked Charlie.“Bekasehe would have spent it recklessly, honey, that’s why. Money ill-spent or misapplied is a great evil. Put the box on the cart wid the things, and return to your mother. Off wid ye, boy, at onst.”“Won’t you come with me?” pleaded Charlie.“I can’t, ’avic, I’m going to a christening at McFadden’s in the Glen. Away ye go. Good-bye.” Saying which, McKombo vanished from his sight.[122]Widow Allan was very much astonished when Charlie returned and told his story, but her surprise was still greater when she saw the box of hard cash. She counted the money, which amounted to over three thousand pounds sterling; after which she fastened the box again, and wrote a letter to the manager of a certain bank in Sydney, and to which most of the notes belonged.In due course the bank sent a representative to Allan’s farm, who informed the widow that the bank had been robbed of over three thousand pounds one night in June twenty years ago, and which had never been recovered. The bank agent departed with the money, but he left the poor but honest widow a cheque for £500—a sum which not only paid off the liability upon her farm, but enabled her to put something by for a rainy day and for Charlie when he came of age.[123]

Like “Ben Bolt’s” mill, Allan’s farm, situated by the River Torrens, had gone to decay and ruin. It was a flourishing place before the death of Peter Allan, but the farmer had been taken away, and his widow and her three children had to fight out the battle of life unaided. The property had been heavily mortgaged three years previously, and, what with unfavourable seasons and other misfortunes, the widow Allan had not been able to repay principal or interest of the money borrowed, and the creditors therefore gave the farmer’s wife notice to quit.

Fortunately, Mrs. Allan had a brother who had gone to some diggings in New South Wales, and had left in charge of his sister an old hut and a patch of land known as Gumtree Hollow. In the emergency the widow determined to occupy the place until she could find a more suitable home. The Hollow consisted of about two acres of crags and stones, without sufficient soil to grow[116]a potato in, and was distant from the farm about five miles.

On a warm afternoon, three days after the widow had received notice to leave the homestead, little Charlie Allan, the eldest boy, aged twelve, started to the hut at Gumtree Hollow with his mother’s goods and chattels in the spring-cart. It had been arranged that after delivering his load the lad should return for his parent and his brother and sister. Charlie was intelligent and very kind-hearted. He had noticed his mother crying bitterly, and he had followed her into a back room where his father had died, and there putting his little arms about her neck he had tried to soothe her with many assurances that when he became a man he would work for her and buy the place back again.

Old Bob, the pony, didn’t like the road to the hut, but repeatedly turned to retrace his steps every half-mile or so of the journey. Nevertheless, Charlie managed to get him there at last.

In a ravine between a natural cutting of jagged crags stood the old building, overshadowed by a gigantic tree whose wide-open trunk, hollow as a bell, had often afforded shelter to straggling picnic parties. It was a grand, old, hoary gum, knobbed and gnarled with age, and whose spreading[117]branches formed a canopy over the dilapidated hut. One long, fork-like branch projected farther over than the rest, on the extreme end of which something perched, swaying the bough to and fro with an easy motion. Charlie, thinking it was a parrot, took up a stone for a shot; but he dropped the stone again instantly, as a voice from the tree uttered a shrill peal of laughter.

The poor lad’s first thought was to take to his heels and run for it; but the voice called out in a kindly tone, “Hallo! Charlie ’avic, how are ye, Charlie Allan?”

The boy gazed upward in amazement, and beheld a wee, teeny, queer fellow, hardly six inches high, sitting astride the branch, and gazing down with a knowing look at him. The creature’s dress was green; from his shapely shoes to his brimless hat, swallow-tailed coat, breeches, stockings, all were the verdant green colour.

“Who are you?” questioned Charlie, recovering from his surprise.

“Shure I’m an Irishman,” cried the little fellow, at the same time springing to the ground. “A rale paddy, an’ I may tell you that there isn’t a fay or a gnome in South Australia that I can’t leap or swim wid; do’s thee hear that, ’avic?”

He was such a dwarfed miniature of a man,[118]and appeared such an impudent swaggerer—with his chimney-pot hat on one side of his head, and his saucy turned-up nose—that Charlie felt inclined to pick him up and cuff him soundly.

“What is your name?” asked the boy, making a sudden dive at the creature.

“McKombo,” answered the sprite, dodging under Charlie’s legs. “My name is McKombo; but be aisy wid ye now, an’ don’t be after trying to take a mane advantage of me.”

“I’d scorn to do it,” said Charlie, unconsciously clenching his fists. “Who are you; what are you; and what do you want?”

“Be aisy, Charlie. Arrah’, don’t be botherin’ me wid too many questions,” said McKombo. “I’ve tould ye I’m an Irishman. Captain Brophy imported me to the colony in a hat-box twenty years ago.”

“Why, you’re a fairy,” suggested the lad, eyeing his strange companion askance.

“Of course I am,” replied McKombo, “and I may tell you I’ve been waiting all this blessed day to see you.”

“To see me?”

“Thrue for ye, Charlie. I am very well acquainted wid all the bother an’ trouble that’s going on at the farm, an’ I mane to help your mother clane out of it.”[119]

Poor Charlie felt as if he could have hugged McKombo, but the sprite kept his distance and said quietly, “You haven’t such a thing as a spade and a pick among the things in the cart?”

“‘HURRAH!’ HE CRIED, TOSSING UP HIS HAT.”“ ‘HURRAH!’ HE CRIED, TOSSING UP HIS HAT.”

“ ‘HURRAH!’ HE CRIED, TOSSING UP HIS HAT.”

Charlie had, though. Both the pick and the spade he had used many a time at the farm, and he produced them at once; but he looked doubtfully at McKombo as to what he was to do with them or how they could be the means of assisting his mother in her difficulties. It seemed very business-like, however, the way the sprite led Charlie to the hollow trunk of the great gum-tree, and[120]commanded him to dig within a certain circle he at once marked out. The goblin’s promises of certain and speedy benefit gave the boy faith and energy to dig and delve away with might and main until there gaped a large hole within the trunk, which revealed some of the thick roots beneath, also the top of a square tin box, such as lawyers keep their deeds in. The moment McKombo caught sight of the box he began to caper about the sward in antic glee.

“Hurrah!” he cried, tossing up his hat. “There it is, me boy, safe an’ sound, as on the night I saw them murthering scoundrels place it there twenty years ago.”

Poor Charlie stared at the fairy, and wiped the perspiration from his heated face, but he could not comprehend what his companion meant. Acting under McKombo’s directions, young Allan made a lever and got the box out of its bed. It did not appear large, but it was very heavy—so heavy that the boy could hardly lift it; the thick coating of paint on it had preserved it from rusting and decay, and it was fastened with an iron padlock. With one blow of his spade Charlie broke open the lid, when—lo! he saw a heap of dark yellow sovereigns and several parcels of bank-notes within. The sight made him faint and[121]giddy with surprise and delight, so that he could not utter a word.

“Look there, now. See that,” ejaculated the sprite, pointing to the treasure. “One evening, twenty years ago, three men brought that box here and hid it beneath the trunk of this old gum-tree; they went away, but never returned for it. In time a poor woodcutter built his hut beneath the great tree, and I watched him come and go to his daily toil, until he could toil no more and they carried him forth and buried him on the river-bank. Then came your Uncle George, my boy, who purchased the place for ten pounds; but had he known of the riches under his very nose, I’ll go bail he wouldn’t have gone away to dig for gold.”

“Why didn’t you tell Uncle George about this money?” asked Charlie.

“Bekasehe would have spent it recklessly, honey, that’s why. Money ill-spent or misapplied is a great evil. Put the box on the cart wid the things, and return to your mother. Off wid ye, boy, at onst.”

“Won’t you come with me?” pleaded Charlie.

“I can’t, ’avic, I’m going to a christening at McFadden’s in the Glen. Away ye go. Good-bye.” Saying which, McKombo vanished from his sight.[122]

Widow Allan was very much astonished when Charlie returned and told his story, but her surprise was still greater when she saw the box of hard cash. She counted the money, which amounted to over three thousand pounds sterling; after which she fastened the box again, and wrote a letter to the manager of a certain bank in Sydney, and to which most of the notes belonged.

In due course the bank sent a representative to Allan’s farm, who informed the widow that the bank had been robbed of over three thousand pounds one night in June twenty years ago, and which had never been recovered. The bank agent departed with the money, but he left the poor but honest widow a cheque for £500—a sum which not only paid off the liability upon her farm, but enabled her to put something by for a rainy day and for Charlie when he came of age.[123]

[Contents]WHISKERKISS.[Contents]CHAPTER I.THE MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY.In the heart of the far Australian wild—away from traces of civilisation, and beyond the hope of help, a brave youth, faint with travel and with hunger, reclines completely exhausted by the bank of a broad river. He is the last of a band of nine who have attempted to explore the central portion of our vast continent, where on the Atlas we read, written right across the great blank,Unexplored. All his companions have perished of want and thirst, and Roland Trent, although he has reached water, and has quenched his burning thirst, feels that he also must follow his comrades ere long. He is very weak and so fatigued that he cannot stand; but he can see the flowing stream and the sunlit landscape, which anon becomes o’erclouded in his vicinity by the shadow of some moving object between him and the river. What could it be?[124]The explorer looked up in wonder, and beheld a small and very ugly old man standing and grinning at him. The creature was most outrageously grotesque in form—having, by some freak of nature, the body of a child with the head of a giant. No one, not even Mr. Punch, could boast a finer hump than protruded from between the shoulders of the intruder. From out a circular hole in his jerkin the hump rose bare, behind the big round skull, like a sugar loaf. He had small eyes, but they were infinitely more terrible than all his other deformity put together; at one moment they glowed with a phosphorescent sheen, which changed again to a vivid purple light, and from that to diamond flashes, without the closing of an eyelid.“Ho! Ho! Who is more powerful than fire, stronger then the wind, and deeper than the streams? Whiskerkiss—I am he.”The voice of the old fellow was dreadful, and echoed with a sullen roar like the growl of a lion, “I am Whiskerkiss, King of the Mountain Barrier, and Lord of Birds and Beasts. Who art thou?”The lips of the fainting youth answered, “An unfortunate explorer.”“Ha! Ha!” laughed the grim sprite in mimicry. “Thou puny mortal! Thou an explorer! Why,[125]thy poor breath is nearly spent, ere thou hast reached the threshold of the greatUnknown. Ho! Ho!”Roland Trent shuddered.“Wouldst thou see the wonders of this vast division of the globe? Come with Whiskerkiss, and he will show thee fertile lands, great lakes, and powerful nations in this unexplored interior. Come! here is my boat, and Starmoon, my slave, lashes the stream impatiently.”As the dwarf spoke, he lifted Roland in his arms and placed him in a skiff upon the river, which immediately shot along the watery way with the speed of an express train. It was some time before Roland Trent recovered from the half unconscious state in which he had been conveyed to the boat; by-and-by, however, his vision became more clear, and he saw a sight he had never seen before. The skiff was nothing but a frail canoe, at the stern of which stood Whiskerkiss steering; but in front, a great, strange fish was harnessed to the bow, and plunging through the stream with immense velocity.No pearl diver ever encountered such a quaint-looking denizen of the deep, as Starmoon the goblin fish of Whiskerkiss. It was in shape like an alligator, only its legs were as those of a grasshopper,[126]which it used in place of fins while swimming. Fully twenty feet in length, it had a body as thick as a bullock, and a long spike projecting out of the top of its head. The face of the monster was hideous to behold—the rolling eyes, dreadful mouth, filled with a row of sharp, glistening teeth, and above all, it appeared to jibber, and make faces at our hero, as he looked at it in its swift course.And now the river widened into a deep black gulf, and the shore receded from their gaze; not a ripple broke over the sullen surface, for the waters were like thick oil. Dark objects, in rapid motion, darted along like dolphins, and played leap-frog over the skiff. Roland Trent put his hand over the side; to his astonishment the water felt quite hot. He dipped a little up in the hollow of his palm, and tasted it. Pah! It was not salt, nor fresh, but worse than either, as it instantly produced a horrible nauseous feeling in him akin to stupor.Onward went Starmoon at increased speed, urged by his master Whiskerkiss, until Roland beheld a great mountain range in the distance, which they rapidly approached. Abrupt and perpendicular, the summit of these high hills was lost in the clouds. The canoe sped onwards, and[127]it seemed as if the frail barque would be dashed to atoms against their rugged sides. Daylight faded away as they drew near, and a distant roaring noise shook the sluggish waters. Were they hurrying to some fatal mäelstrom, or going headlong into some tremendous cavity in the bowels of the mountains? Roland’s spirit quailed within him at the thought. In the dim twilight, he saw the boat had entered an enormous cavern, where a dense wall of black rock, or rather boulders, were piled in wild disorder one above the other, and terminating in a flat roof of the same description.“Ho, ho! I am Whiskerkiss, King of Woods and Stream,” and the voice of the steersman awoke the slumbering echoes of the dreary place with ten thousand vibrations.“Who sails through rocks and hills, and guides the torrent in its course? I, Whiskerkiss. Ho! Starmoon. Ho! my slave, delve, delve!”Gradually the darkness became more opaque around them. Roland cast himself down at the bottom of the canoe, and awaited his fate. He closed his eyes in horror at the vision of that dread abyss.The time passed on, and still the same ghastly darkness prevailed. Our hero knew not whether[128]it was night or day, or how many hours had passed since they had entered that dreadful passage under the mountain. From a sort of torpor into which he had fallen Roland was at length aroused by a touch on his cheek. It was not the touch which animated him so quickly, but the intensely pleasing sensation which it caused. Like that warm, thrilling emotion caused by the infusion of laughing gas, Roland felt a vigorous glow pervade his whole frame in an instant. He opened his eyes, but the bright rush of the noon-day light which burst unexpectedly upon his sight completely blinded him.He shaded his eyes at first, until he should become accustomed to the glare. When at length he looked up, lo! where were Starmoon and Whiskerkiss, and the black unclean waters of the murky cavern below the mountains? Gone! With his hearing more acute, his sight much keener, and with every other faculty braced and quickened, the explorer found himself the occupant of a beautiful boat canopied with gold and silver network of rare design and workmanship. The sides and bottom of the skiff were inlaid with mother-of-pearl, while a large outspread fan, at the stern, of the same material, gave the resemblance of a gorgeous peacock floating on a silver[129]stream. A dozen creatures, dazzlingly fair, and dressed superbly, propelled the boat with ivory paddles; while one who appeared robed in roseate splendour stood at his side, and pointed out to him a glorious country.Yonder shone an immense valley, shut in by Alpine hills, of a deep, rich green, spangled with flowers. Birds of every hue and shade flitted from tree to tree, and filled the air with melody. At the foot of the hills a clear lake sparkled in the sunlight, and beyond the lake rose the towers, peaks, and domes of a beautiful city of white marble, which flashed back the sun’s rays in a million shafts of different coloured lights. The magnificence of this scene grew each moment yet more glowing and brilliant as Roland Trent gazed. Soon there smote upon his ear most ravishing sounds—sounds that seemed as the tinkle of silver bells, mingled with the soft murmurs of the Æolian harp. To his astonishment Roland discovered the melody proceeded from his companions, who were conversing with each other, and in his own language. Next to the gratification of finding himself in such an enchanting region, the explorer was delighted to find these people could understand and converse with him.[130]“Gentlemen,” said he, bowing politely, “will you have the goodness to tell me what country this is I now gaze upon for the first time?”The rowers ceased rowing at the sound of his voice, and the nearest to him answered,—“O! adored mortal, we are thy slaves. This is the kingdom of Bo-Peep, and is called Dreamland. No feet of soul-lit mortal hath ever trodden our soil before. Hail to thee! immortal one!”“Are you the King of this fair land?” inquired our hero.“Nay, I am but his Majesty’s messenger—my name is Pop-Corn. What shall we call thee?”“Roland, the Explorer.”“Welcome, then, to our shores. Thou shalt see Bo-Peep and his daughter Princess Golden Hair.”The rowers resumed their paddles, and the fairy boat shot down the shining stream into the lovely sheen of the lake by the marble city.Moments in Dreamland are as days with us. Therefore it will take a week of our time to prepare the charming Princess Golden Hair to receive our hero. Next Saturday the bold explorer shall be ushered into her presence at the Court of Bo-Peep.[131][Contents]CHAPTER II.PRINCESS GOLDEN HAIR.The metropolis of Dreamland presented a most glorious spectacle of magnificence and beauty to the wondering eyes of Roland Trent, as the fairy boat glided into the lake near the city. Beneath a fine marble colonnade, supported by pillars of jasper, he beheld a crowd of people, composed chiefly of Ministers of State and the nobles of the King, standing ready to give him welcome, while beyond these dignitaries a great square was filled with his Majesty’s Guards, armedcap-à-piéin silver armour, and surrounded by lithe, gay figures, who flitted to and fro like gorgeous butterflies in the sunlight.The Australian youth was amazed at the dazzling beauty of the ladies, who gathered round him as he landed, with loud cries. Some of them even went so far out of the rule of good breeding and etiquette in their reception as to embrace and almost smother him with kisses. But there are no Mrs. Grundys in Elfland, and so the dames enjoyed themselves with the freedom and the innocence of children. With waving banners and bands of music, which sounded to his ears like so many tinkling musical boxes, our hero was[132]escorted by a troop of silver-clad Guards to the palace of Bo-Peep. Grander than anything that ever entered the mind of that famous architect, Sir Christopher Wren, rose the glittering domes and lofty peaks of the fairy King’s palace. Through a labyrinth of budding roses perfuming the air around; by gold and silver fountains in full play, and whose soft cadence fell upon the ear like angels’ whispers; beneath a natural arch of mighty trees, every one of which held a thronged choir of winged choristers warbling forth a jubilee; and onward, amid glories and beauties unknown to the hosts of the waking world, into the presence of Bo-Peep. No comparison in this sea-bordered city would help to convey the faintest conception of the pomp and splendour of the King’s reception-hall. Nature and Art had here combined, and the blended effect was sublime. Not the array of nobles nor the throng of superbly dressed ladies, through whom he passed, nay, not even the throne itself, ablaze with jewels and precious stones, which circled in the elfin monarch as the ring of a magic lantern, had any attraction for the young stranger. His eyes had fallen upon a young creature of enchanting loveliness at the King’s side, and he had become spellbound thereby.[133]Poet or painter never dreamed of such a vision of beauty. Not the sunset glow had a richer tint than the long glossy hair of Bo-Peep’s only daughter. She was named “Princess Golden Hair”; and well did she merit the name, for it was the most glorious golden hair that mortal eye had ever seen. So Roland Trent thought as he was led forward and seated by her side.Here where the laws of Nature (as we recognise them) are altered and suspended, the Princess and the mortal wanderer became enamoured of each other instantly.Oh! the power, the irresistible charm of love! How it glowed in the eyes of Princess Golden Hair, and made the bewitching face yet more charming! Like the clear notes of a flute, only infinitely softer and more thrilling, her voice came upon his ears: “Welcome, oh, my Prince—lord of my being!—welcome to Dreamland!”What mattered the cheers of the people and the great speech from the fairy King, and the grand banquet that followed—what mattered the thousand surprises and the wonderful things that encountered him at every turn? There was no fascination like the lovely Princess.Glorious light and sunshine reigned here eternally. Roland watched in vain for the[134]approach of eve and darkness; but gloom came not. It was one never-ceasing day.By order of Bo-Peep, our hero was attired in rich robes softer than silken velvet, which emitted a rose-coloured glow, mingled with a delicious perfume, that by some mysterious power gave him a keener zest for pleasure and enjoyment. Go where he would, the King’s daughter was ever at his side.“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”What bliss to be with her on the bright lake, seated beneath a canopy of roses in the royal[135]barge; what sensations he felt with his head pillowed on her lap, and her snow-white fingers toying with his curls!“The sun never fades in this enchanting valley?” he asked.“No,” she replied softly. “The great light is our life. Dulness is destruction in Dreamland. We are only creatures of an hour, that is all.”Oh, what witchery in the low, thrilling voice! Creatures of an hour, forsooth. Take care, Princess Golden hair! Take care.“Your people are very beautiful, my Princess; but thou art fairer than a summer dream,” he responded gaily.“Flatterer, I and my people are but as dreams,” she answered, smiling. “All thou see’st here of brightness and splendour are merely passing visions, nothing more.”“Thou art more real and enchanting, dear Rosebud, than any dream that has haunted me.”“Nay, adored stranger, mock me not,” said Golden Hair. “I am as the wind, which fills our sail—here, there, then gone for ever. Life with me is but a breath. But thou—thou wilt live when the wind and the vast sun, which giveth our race life and motion, are fled for ever.”“Dear Princess,” and he caught her hand within[136]his own, looking into her eyes the while, “Love is not a breath, a sunbeam. It is mightier than the wind, and more powerful than the combined forces of sea and air. Didst thou ever love, sweet maiden?”What soft diffused light, glinting from the rich window of some ancient cathedral, ever shed such a rosy glow as was seen for one brief instant upon her face?“Oh, Love has come with thee from beyond the Western Mountain,” she answered quietly.“And thou hast felt its presence?”“Ay, in thee. Yet thou hast brought a demon with thee also,” she replied.“The sprite Whiskerkiss; of course, I remember.”“Nay, not Whiskerkiss; but a gnome a thousand times more terrible than the monster of the Barrier.”“And what is that, Princess?”“Pain,” replied Golden Hair.“What! has Pain never entered into this realm?” he inquired with amazement.“Never.”“Wonderful!” he ejaculated. “Had my charming Princess ever the toothache?”The ringing laugh which burst from her lips was like the carol of a canary on a June morning.[137]“Nor the whooping-cough or—or the measles?” he added, smiling at her excessive merriment.“Stop, stop!” she cried, looking at him with a wilful light in her large eyes, that held him as a spell. “The words thou hast uttered are unknown to me, even as Pain was unknown to me ere I saw thee.”A cloud fell over his handsome face at her words, which did not escape Golden Hair, for she added quickly, “Lord of my life, Love and Pain are twinborn, and go hand-in-hand, but the one is so beautiful that it destroys even while it creates the other. Thou seemest to me all love. Tell me, are all thy race like thee?”“Fair Princess,” he replied gravely, “beyond the Mountain Barrier from whence I came the people are as varied as the hues on yonder peak. Some there are who feel not love. Many suffer pain willingly in the service of a powerful world-god calledMoney. Amid the many fetishes who are honoured and exalted, none are more esteemed than this. At his word mighty empires rise in the wilderness, oceans are bridged, space changed into a willing slave.”“Money is a mighty demon,” answered Princess Golden Hair.“Yes, lady,” continued Roland. “Money is[138]mighty, but ere now he has lent his power to an evil spirit called Hate, who going broadcast among the races of men has incited them to gather together and destroy each other without cause.”“Hate is a monster, uglier than Pain,” replied the fairy.“Ay, and he is invariably assisted by three other wicked powers known as Murder, Slander, and Malice.”“Poor lost people!” cried the gentle Princess. “Is there no good genii to do battle with these wicked ones?”“Oh yes; the renowned champion Sympathy has unfurled his banner to meet the hosts of evil in the world; and by-and-by the people who have groaned groans from their birth shall live as serene and peaceful as the shadows on this lake. And now, sweet love, I would fain close my eyes in repose, under the melody of thy lute.”Sweetly fell the cadence over the still waters. Goldenly shone the domes and peaks of the marble palaces, as Roland Trent dreamed.Shall we wake him out of his glorious vision? Nay; let him slumber on. He will open his eyes soon enough upon the realities of this sober empire at the Antipodes.[139]

WHISKERKISS.

[Contents]CHAPTER I.THE MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY.In the heart of the far Australian wild—away from traces of civilisation, and beyond the hope of help, a brave youth, faint with travel and with hunger, reclines completely exhausted by the bank of a broad river. He is the last of a band of nine who have attempted to explore the central portion of our vast continent, where on the Atlas we read, written right across the great blank,Unexplored. All his companions have perished of want and thirst, and Roland Trent, although he has reached water, and has quenched his burning thirst, feels that he also must follow his comrades ere long. He is very weak and so fatigued that he cannot stand; but he can see the flowing stream and the sunlit landscape, which anon becomes o’erclouded in his vicinity by the shadow of some moving object between him and the river. What could it be?[124]The explorer looked up in wonder, and beheld a small and very ugly old man standing and grinning at him. The creature was most outrageously grotesque in form—having, by some freak of nature, the body of a child with the head of a giant. No one, not even Mr. Punch, could boast a finer hump than protruded from between the shoulders of the intruder. From out a circular hole in his jerkin the hump rose bare, behind the big round skull, like a sugar loaf. He had small eyes, but they were infinitely more terrible than all his other deformity put together; at one moment they glowed with a phosphorescent sheen, which changed again to a vivid purple light, and from that to diamond flashes, without the closing of an eyelid.“Ho! Ho! Who is more powerful than fire, stronger then the wind, and deeper than the streams? Whiskerkiss—I am he.”The voice of the old fellow was dreadful, and echoed with a sullen roar like the growl of a lion, “I am Whiskerkiss, King of the Mountain Barrier, and Lord of Birds and Beasts. Who art thou?”The lips of the fainting youth answered, “An unfortunate explorer.”“Ha! Ha!” laughed the grim sprite in mimicry. “Thou puny mortal! Thou an explorer! Why,[125]thy poor breath is nearly spent, ere thou hast reached the threshold of the greatUnknown. Ho! Ho!”Roland Trent shuddered.“Wouldst thou see the wonders of this vast division of the globe? Come with Whiskerkiss, and he will show thee fertile lands, great lakes, and powerful nations in this unexplored interior. Come! here is my boat, and Starmoon, my slave, lashes the stream impatiently.”As the dwarf spoke, he lifted Roland in his arms and placed him in a skiff upon the river, which immediately shot along the watery way with the speed of an express train. It was some time before Roland Trent recovered from the half unconscious state in which he had been conveyed to the boat; by-and-by, however, his vision became more clear, and he saw a sight he had never seen before. The skiff was nothing but a frail canoe, at the stern of which stood Whiskerkiss steering; but in front, a great, strange fish was harnessed to the bow, and plunging through the stream with immense velocity.No pearl diver ever encountered such a quaint-looking denizen of the deep, as Starmoon the goblin fish of Whiskerkiss. It was in shape like an alligator, only its legs were as those of a grasshopper,[126]which it used in place of fins while swimming. Fully twenty feet in length, it had a body as thick as a bullock, and a long spike projecting out of the top of its head. The face of the monster was hideous to behold—the rolling eyes, dreadful mouth, filled with a row of sharp, glistening teeth, and above all, it appeared to jibber, and make faces at our hero, as he looked at it in its swift course.And now the river widened into a deep black gulf, and the shore receded from their gaze; not a ripple broke over the sullen surface, for the waters were like thick oil. Dark objects, in rapid motion, darted along like dolphins, and played leap-frog over the skiff. Roland Trent put his hand over the side; to his astonishment the water felt quite hot. He dipped a little up in the hollow of his palm, and tasted it. Pah! It was not salt, nor fresh, but worse than either, as it instantly produced a horrible nauseous feeling in him akin to stupor.Onward went Starmoon at increased speed, urged by his master Whiskerkiss, until Roland beheld a great mountain range in the distance, which they rapidly approached. Abrupt and perpendicular, the summit of these high hills was lost in the clouds. The canoe sped onwards, and[127]it seemed as if the frail barque would be dashed to atoms against their rugged sides. Daylight faded away as they drew near, and a distant roaring noise shook the sluggish waters. Were they hurrying to some fatal mäelstrom, or going headlong into some tremendous cavity in the bowels of the mountains? Roland’s spirit quailed within him at the thought. In the dim twilight, he saw the boat had entered an enormous cavern, where a dense wall of black rock, or rather boulders, were piled in wild disorder one above the other, and terminating in a flat roof of the same description.“Ho, ho! I am Whiskerkiss, King of Woods and Stream,” and the voice of the steersman awoke the slumbering echoes of the dreary place with ten thousand vibrations.“Who sails through rocks and hills, and guides the torrent in its course? I, Whiskerkiss. Ho! Starmoon. Ho! my slave, delve, delve!”Gradually the darkness became more opaque around them. Roland cast himself down at the bottom of the canoe, and awaited his fate. He closed his eyes in horror at the vision of that dread abyss.The time passed on, and still the same ghastly darkness prevailed. Our hero knew not whether[128]it was night or day, or how many hours had passed since they had entered that dreadful passage under the mountain. From a sort of torpor into which he had fallen Roland was at length aroused by a touch on his cheek. It was not the touch which animated him so quickly, but the intensely pleasing sensation which it caused. Like that warm, thrilling emotion caused by the infusion of laughing gas, Roland felt a vigorous glow pervade his whole frame in an instant. He opened his eyes, but the bright rush of the noon-day light which burst unexpectedly upon his sight completely blinded him.He shaded his eyes at first, until he should become accustomed to the glare. When at length he looked up, lo! where were Starmoon and Whiskerkiss, and the black unclean waters of the murky cavern below the mountains? Gone! With his hearing more acute, his sight much keener, and with every other faculty braced and quickened, the explorer found himself the occupant of a beautiful boat canopied with gold and silver network of rare design and workmanship. The sides and bottom of the skiff were inlaid with mother-of-pearl, while a large outspread fan, at the stern, of the same material, gave the resemblance of a gorgeous peacock floating on a silver[129]stream. A dozen creatures, dazzlingly fair, and dressed superbly, propelled the boat with ivory paddles; while one who appeared robed in roseate splendour stood at his side, and pointed out to him a glorious country.Yonder shone an immense valley, shut in by Alpine hills, of a deep, rich green, spangled with flowers. Birds of every hue and shade flitted from tree to tree, and filled the air with melody. At the foot of the hills a clear lake sparkled in the sunlight, and beyond the lake rose the towers, peaks, and domes of a beautiful city of white marble, which flashed back the sun’s rays in a million shafts of different coloured lights. The magnificence of this scene grew each moment yet more glowing and brilliant as Roland Trent gazed. Soon there smote upon his ear most ravishing sounds—sounds that seemed as the tinkle of silver bells, mingled with the soft murmurs of the Æolian harp. To his astonishment Roland discovered the melody proceeded from his companions, who were conversing with each other, and in his own language. Next to the gratification of finding himself in such an enchanting region, the explorer was delighted to find these people could understand and converse with him.[130]“Gentlemen,” said he, bowing politely, “will you have the goodness to tell me what country this is I now gaze upon for the first time?”The rowers ceased rowing at the sound of his voice, and the nearest to him answered,—“O! adored mortal, we are thy slaves. This is the kingdom of Bo-Peep, and is called Dreamland. No feet of soul-lit mortal hath ever trodden our soil before. Hail to thee! immortal one!”“Are you the King of this fair land?” inquired our hero.“Nay, I am but his Majesty’s messenger—my name is Pop-Corn. What shall we call thee?”“Roland, the Explorer.”“Welcome, then, to our shores. Thou shalt see Bo-Peep and his daughter Princess Golden Hair.”The rowers resumed their paddles, and the fairy boat shot down the shining stream into the lovely sheen of the lake by the marble city.Moments in Dreamland are as days with us. Therefore it will take a week of our time to prepare the charming Princess Golden Hair to receive our hero. Next Saturday the bold explorer shall be ushered into her presence at the Court of Bo-Peep.[131][Contents]CHAPTER II.PRINCESS GOLDEN HAIR.The metropolis of Dreamland presented a most glorious spectacle of magnificence and beauty to the wondering eyes of Roland Trent, as the fairy boat glided into the lake near the city. Beneath a fine marble colonnade, supported by pillars of jasper, he beheld a crowd of people, composed chiefly of Ministers of State and the nobles of the King, standing ready to give him welcome, while beyond these dignitaries a great square was filled with his Majesty’s Guards, armedcap-à-piéin silver armour, and surrounded by lithe, gay figures, who flitted to and fro like gorgeous butterflies in the sunlight.The Australian youth was amazed at the dazzling beauty of the ladies, who gathered round him as he landed, with loud cries. Some of them even went so far out of the rule of good breeding and etiquette in their reception as to embrace and almost smother him with kisses. But there are no Mrs. Grundys in Elfland, and so the dames enjoyed themselves with the freedom and the innocence of children. With waving banners and bands of music, which sounded to his ears like so many tinkling musical boxes, our hero was[132]escorted by a troop of silver-clad Guards to the palace of Bo-Peep. Grander than anything that ever entered the mind of that famous architect, Sir Christopher Wren, rose the glittering domes and lofty peaks of the fairy King’s palace. Through a labyrinth of budding roses perfuming the air around; by gold and silver fountains in full play, and whose soft cadence fell upon the ear like angels’ whispers; beneath a natural arch of mighty trees, every one of which held a thronged choir of winged choristers warbling forth a jubilee; and onward, amid glories and beauties unknown to the hosts of the waking world, into the presence of Bo-Peep. No comparison in this sea-bordered city would help to convey the faintest conception of the pomp and splendour of the King’s reception-hall. Nature and Art had here combined, and the blended effect was sublime. Not the array of nobles nor the throng of superbly dressed ladies, through whom he passed, nay, not even the throne itself, ablaze with jewels and precious stones, which circled in the elfin monarch as the ring of a magic lantern, had any attraction for the young stranger. His eyes had fallen upon a young creature of enchanting loveliness at the King’s side, and he had become spellbound thereby.[133]Poet or painter never dreamed of such a vision of beauty. Not the sunset glow had a richer tint than the long glossy hair of Bo-Peep’s only daughter. She was named “Princess Golden Hair”; and well did she merit the name, for it was the most glorious golden hair that mortal eye had ever seen. So Roland Trent thought as he was led forward and seated by her side.Here where the laws of Nature (as we recognise them) are altered and suspended, the Princess and the mortal wanderer became enamoured of each other instantly.Oh! the power, the irresistible charm of love! How it glowed in the eyes of Princess Golden Hair, and made the bewitching face yet more charming! Like the clear notes of a flute, only infinitely softer and more thrilling, her voice came upon his ears: “Welcome, oh, my Prince—lord of my being!—welcome to Dreamland!”What mattered the cheers of the people and the great speech from the fairy King, and the grand banquet that followed—what mattered the thousand surprises and the wonderful things that encountered him at every turn? There was no fascination like the lovely Princess.Glorious light and sunshine reigned here eternally. Roland watched in vain for the[134]approach of eve and darkness; but gloom came not. It was one never-ceasing day.By order of Bo-Peep, our hero was attired in rich robes softer than silken velvet, which emitted a rose-coloured glow, mingled with a delicious perfume, that by some mysterious power gave him a keener zest for pleasure and enjoyment. Go where he would, the King’s daughter was ever at his side.“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”What bliss to be with her on the bright lake, seated beneath a canopy of roses in the royal[135]barge; what sensations he felt with his head pillowed on her lap, and her snow-white fingers toying with his curls!“The sun never fades in this enchanting valley?” he asked.“No,” she replied softly. “The great light is our life. Dulness is destruction in Dreamland. We are only creatures of an hour, that is all.”Oh, what witchery in the low, thrilling voice! Creatures of an hour, forsooth. Take care, Princess Golden hair! Take care.“Your people are very beautiful, my Princess; but thou art fairer than a summer dream,” he responded gaily.“Flatterer, I and my people are but as dreams,” she answered, smiling. “All thou see’st here of brightness and splendour are merely passing visions, nothing more.”“Thou art more real and enchanting, dear Rosebud, than any dream that has haunted me.”“Nay, adored stranger, mock me not,” said Golden Hair. “I am as the wind, which fills our sail—here, there, then gone for ever. Life with me is but a breath. But thou—thou wilt live when the wind and the vast sun, which giveth our race life and motion, are fled for ever.”“Dear Princess,” and he caught her hand within[136]his own, looking into her eyes the while, “Love is not a breath, a sunbeam. It is mightier than the wind, and more powerful than the combined forces of sea and air. Didst thou ever love, sweet maiden?”What soft diffused light, glinting from the rich window of some ancient cathedral, ever shed such a rosy glow as was seen for one brief instant upon her face?“Oh, Love has come with thee from beyond the Western Mountain,” she answered quietly.“And thou hast felt its presence?”“Ay, in thee. Yet thou hast brought a demon with thee also,” she replied.“The sprite Whiskerkiss; of course, I remember.”“Nay, not Whiskerkiss; but a gnome a thousand times more terrible than the monster of the Barrier.”“And what is that, Princess?”“Pain,” replied Golden Hair.“What! has Pain never entered into this realm?” he inquired with amazement.“Never.”“Wonderful!” he ejaculated. “Had my charming Princess ever the toothache?”The ringing laugh which burst from her lips was like the carol of a canary on a June morning.[137]“Nor the whooping-cough or—or the measles?” he added, smiling at her excessive merriment.“Stop, stop!” she cried, looking at him with a wilful light in her large eyes, that held him as a spell. “The words thou hast uttered are unknown to me, even as Pain was unknown to me ere I saw thee.”A cloud fell over his handsome face at her words, which did not escape Golden Hair, for she added quickly, “Lord of my life, Love and Pain are twinborn, and go hand-in-hand, but the one is so beautiful that it destroys even while it creates the other. Thou seemest to me all love. Tell me, are all thy race like thee?”“Fair Princess,” he replied gravely, “beyond the Mountain Barrier from whence I came the people are as varied as the hues on yonder peak. Some there are who feel not love. Many suffer pain willingly in the service of a powerful world-god calledMoney. Amid the many fetishes who are honoured and exalted, none are more esteemed than this. At his word mighty empires rise in the wilderness, oceans are bridged, space changed into a willing slave.”“Money is a mighty demon,” answered Princess Golden Hair.“Yes, lady,” continued Roland. “Money is[138]mighty, but ere now he has lent his power to an evil spirit called Hate, who going broadcast among the races of men has incited them to gather together and destroy each other without cause.”“Hate is a monster, uglier than Pain,” replied the fairy.“Ay, and he is invariably assisted by three other wicked powers known as Murder, Slander, and Malice.”“Poor lost people!” cried the gentle Princess. “Is there no good genii to do battle with these wicked ones?”“Oh yes; the renowned champion Sympathy has unfurled his banner to meet the hosts of evil in the world; and by-and-by the people who have groaned groans from their birth shall live as serene and peaceful as the shadows on this lake. And now, sweet love, I would fain close my eyes in repose, under the melody of thy lute.”Sweetly fell the cadence over the still waters. Goldenly shone the domes and peaks of the marble palaces, as Roland Trent dreamed.Shall we wake him out of his glorious vision? Nay; let him slumber on. He will open his eyes soon enough upon the realities of this sober empire at the Antipodes.[139]

[Contents]CHAPTER I.THE MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY.In the heart of the far Australian wild—away from traces of civilisation, and beyond the hope of help, a brave youth, faint with travel and with hunger, reclines completely exhausted by the bank of a broad river. He is the last of a band of nine who have attempted to explore the central portion of our vast continent, where on the Atlas we read, written right across the great blank,Unexplored. All his companions have perished of want and thirst, and Roland Trent, although he has reached water, and has quenched his burning thirst, feels that he also must follow his comrades ere long. He is very weak and so fatigued that he cannot stand; but he can see the flowing stream and the sunlit landscape, which anon becomes o’erclouded in his vicinity by the shadow of some moving object between him and the river. What could it be?[124]The explorer looked up in wonder, and beheld a small and very ugly old man standing and grinning at him. The creature was most outrageously grotesque in form—having, by some freak of nature, the body of a child with the head of a giant. No one, not even Mr. Punch, could boast a finer hump than protruded from between the shoulders of the intruder. From out a circular hole in his jerkin the hump rose bare, behind the big round skull, like a sugar loaf. He had small eyes, but they were infinitely more terrible than all his other deformity put together; at one moment they glowed with a phosphorescent sheen, which changed again to a vivid purple light, and from that to diamond flashes, without the closing of an eyelid.“Ho! Ho! Who is more powerful than fire, stronger then the wind, and deeper than the streams? Whiskerkiss—I am he.”The voice of the old fellow was dreadful, and echoed with a sullen roar like the growl of a lion, “I am Whiskerkiss, King of the Mountain Barrier, and Lord of Birds and Beasts. Who art thou?”The lips of the fainting youth answered, “An unfortunate explorer.”“Ha! Ha!” laughed the grim sprite in mimicry. “Thou puny mortal! Thou an explorer! Why,[125]thy poor breath is nearly spent, ere thou hast reached the threshold of the greatUnknown. Ho! Ho!”Roland Trent shuddered.“Wouldst thou see the wonders of this vast division of the globe? Come with Whiskerkiss, and he will show thee fertile lands, great lakes, and powerful nations in this unexplored interior. Come! here is my boat, and Starmoon, my slave, lashes the stream impatiently.”As the dwarf spoke, he lifted Roland in his arms and placed him in a skiff upon the river, which immediately shot along the watery way with the speed of an express train. It was some time before Roland Trent recovered from the half unconscious state in which he had been conveyed to the boat; by-and-by, however, his vision became more clear, and he saw a sight he had never seen before. The skiff was nothing but a frail canoe, at the stern of which stood Whiskerkiss steering; but in front, a great, strange fish was harnessed to the bow, and plunging through the stream with immense velocity.No pearl diver ever encountered such a quaint-looking denizen of the deep, as Starmoon the goblin fish of Whiskerkiss. It was in shape like an alligator, only its legs were as those of a grasshopper,[126]which it used in place of fins while swimming. Fully twenty feet in length, it had a body as thick as a bullock, and a long spike projecting out of the top of its head. The face of the monster was hideous to behold—the rolling eyes, dreadful mouth, filled with a row of sharp, glistening teeth, and above all, it appeared to jibber, and make faces at our hero, as he looked at it in its swift course.And now the river widened into a deep black gulf, and the shore receded from their gaze; not a ripple broke over the sullen surface, for the waters were like thick oil. Dark objects, in rapid motion, darted along like dolphins, and played leap-frog over the skiff. Roland Trent put his hand over the side; to his astonishment the water felt quite hot. He dipped a little up in the hollow of his palm, and tasted it. Pah! It was not salt, nor fresh, but worse than either, as it instantly produced a horrible nauseous feeling in him akin to stupor.Onward went Starmoon at increased speed, urged by his master Whiskerkiss, until Roland beheld a great mountain range in the distance, which they rapidly approached. Abrupt and perpendicular, the summit of these high hills was lost in the clouds. The canoe sped onwards, and[127]it seemed as if the frail barque would be dashed to atoms against their rugged sides. Daylight faded away as they drew near, and a distant roaring noise shook the sluggish waters. Were they hurrying to some fatal mäelstrom, or going headlong into some tremendous cavity in the bowels of the mountains? Roland’s spirit quailed within him at the thought. In the dim twilight, he saw the boat had entered an enormous cavern, where a dense wall of black rock, or rather boulders, were piled in wild disorder one above the other, and terminating in a flat roof of the same description.“Ho, ho! I am Whiskerkiss, King of Woods and Stream,” and the voice of the steersman awoke the slumbering echoes of the dreary place with ten thousand vibrations.“Who sails through rocks and hills, and guides the torrent in its course? I, Whiskerkiss. Ho! Starmoon. Ho! my slave, delve, delve!”Gradually the darkness became more opaque around them. Roland cast himself down at the bottom of the canoe, and awaited his fate. He closed his eyes in horror at the vision of that dread abyss.The time passed on, and still the same ghastly darkness prevailed. Our hero knew not whether[128]it was night or day, or how many hours had passed since they had entered that dreadful passage under the mountain. From a sort of torpor into which he had fallen Roland was at length aroused by a touch on his cheek. It was not the touch which animated him so quickly, but the intensely pleasing sensation which it caused. Like that warm, thrilling emotion caused by the infusion of laughing gas, Roland felt a vigorous glow pervade his whole frame in an instant. He opened his eyes, but the bright rush of the noon-day light which burst unexpectedly upon his sight completely blinded him.He shaded his eyes at first, until he should become accustomed to the glare. When at length he looked up, lo! where were Starmoon and Whiskerkiss, and the black unclean waters of the murky cavern below the mountains? Gone! With his hearing more acute, his sight much keener, and with every other faculty braced and quickened, the explorer found himself the occupant of a beautiful boat canopied with gold and silver network of rare design and workmanship. The sides and bottom of the skiff were inlaid with mother-of-pearl, while a large outspread fan, at the stern, of the same material, gave the resemblance of a gorgeous peacock floating on a silver[129]stream. A dozen creatures, dazzlingly fair, and dressed superbly, propelled the boat with ivory paddles; while one who appeared robed in roseate splendour stood at his side, and pointed out to him a glorious country.Yonder shone an immense valley, shut in by Alpine hills, of a deep, rich green, spangled with flowers. Birds of every hue and shade flitted from tree to tree, and filled the air with melody. At the foot of the hills a clear lake sparkled in the sunlight, and beyond the lake rose the towers, peaks, and domes of a beautiful city of white marble, which flashed back the sun’s rays in a million shafts of different coloured lights. The magnificence of this scene grew each moment yet more glowing and brilliant as Roland Trent gazed. Soon there smote upon his ear most ravishing sounds—sounds that seemed as the tinkle of silver bells, mingled with the soft murmurs of the Æolian harp. To his astonishment Roland discovered the melody proceeded from his companions, who were conversing with each other, and in his own language. Next to the gratification of finding himself in such an enchanting region, the explorer was delighted to find these people could understand and converse with him.[130]“Gentlemen,” said he, bowing politely, “will you have the goodness to tell me what country this is I now gaze upon for the first time?”The rowers ceased rowing at the sound of his voice, and the nearest to him answered,—“O! adored mortal, we are thy slaves. This is the kingdom of Bo-Peep, and is called Dreamland. No feet of soul-lit mortal hath ever trodden our soil before. Hail to thee! immortal one!”“Are you the King of this fair land?” inquired our hero.“Nay, I am but his Majesty’s messenger—my name is Pop-Corn. What shall we call thee?”“Roland, the Explorer.”“Welcome, then, to our shores. Thou shalt see Bo-Peep and his daughter Princess Golden Hair.”The rowers resumed their paddles, and the fairy boat shot down the shining stream into the lovely sheen of the lake by the marble city.Moments in Dreamland are as days with us. Therefore it will take a week of our time to prepare the charming Princess Golden Hair to receive our hero. Next Saturday the bold explorer shall be ushered into her presence at the Court of Bo-Peep.[131]

CHAPTER I.THE MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY.

In the heart of the far Australian wild—away from traces of civilisation, and beyond the hope of help, a brave youth, faint with travel and with hunger, reclines completely exhausted by the bank of a broad river. He is the last of a band of nine who have attempted to explore the central portion of our vast continent, where on the Atlas we read, written right across the great blank,Unexplored. All his companions have perished of want and thirst, and Roland Trent, although he has reached water, and has quenched his burning thirst, feels that he also must follow his comrades ere long. He is very weak and so fatigued that he cannot stand; but he can see the flowing stream and the sunlit landscape, which anon becomes o’erclouded in his vicinity by the shadow of some moving object between him and the river. What could it be?[124]The explorer looked up in wonder, and beheld a small and very ugly old man standing and grinning at him. The creature was most outrageously grotesque in form—having, by some freak of nature, the body of a child with the head of a giant. No one, not even Mr. Punch, could boast a finer hump than protruded from between the shoulders of the intruder. From out a circular hole in his jerkin the hump rose bare, behind the big round skull, like a sugar loaf. He had small eyes, but they were infinitely more terrible than all his other deformity put together; at one moment they glowed with a phosphorescent sheen, which changed again to a vivid purple light, and from that to diamond flashes, without the closing of an eyelid.“Ho! Ho! Who is more powerful than fire, stronger then the wind, and deeper than the streams? Whiskerkiss—I am he.”The voice of the old fellow was dreadful, and echoed with a sullen roar like the growl of a lion, “I am Whiskerkiss, King of the Mountain Barrier, and Lord of Birds and Beasts. Who art thou?”The lips of the fainting youth answered, “An unfortunate explorer.”“Ha! Ha!” laughed the grim sprite in mimicry. “Thou puny mortal! Thou an explorer! Why,[125]thy poor breath is nearly spent, ere thou hast reached the threshold of the greatUnknown. Ho! Ho!”Roland Trent shuddered.“Wouldst thou see the wonders of this vast division of the globe? Come with Whiskerkiss, and he will show thee fertile lands, great lakes, and powerful nations in this unexplored interior. Come! here is my boat, and Starmoon, my slave, lashes the stream impatiently.”As the dwarf spoke, he lifted Roland in his arms and placed him in a skiff upon the river, which immediately shot along the watery way with the speed of an express train. It was some time before Roland Trent recovered from the half unconscious state in which he had been conveyed to the boat; by-and-by, however, his vision became more clear, and he saw a sight he had never seen before. The skiff was nothing but a frail canoe, at the stern of which stood Whiskerkiss steering; but in front, a great, strange fish was harnessed to the bow, and plunging through the stream with immense velocity.No pearl diver ever encountered such a quaint-looking denizen of the deep, as Starmoon the goblin fish of Whiskerkiss. It was in shape like an alligator, only its legs were as those of a grasshopper,[126]which it used in place of fins while swimming. Fully twenty feet in length, it had a body as thick as a bullock, and a long spike projecting out of the top of its head. The face of the monster was hideous to behold—the rolling eyes, dreadful mouth, filled with a row of sharp, glistening teeth, and above all, it appeared to jibber, and make faces at our hero, as he looked at it in its swift course.And now the river widened into a deep black gulf, and the shore receded from their gaze; not a ripple broke over the sullen surface, for the waters were like thick oil. Dark objects, in rapid motion, darted along like dolphins, and played leap-frog over the skiff. Roland Trent put his hand over the side; to his astonishment the water felt quite hot. He dipped a little up in the hollow of his palm, and tasted it. Pah! It was not salt, nor fresh, but worse than either, as it instantly produced a horrible nauseous feeling in him akin to stupor.Onward went Starmoon at increased speed, urged by his master Whiskerkiss, until Roland beheld a great mountain range in the distance, which they rapidly approached. Abrupt and perpendicular, the summit of these high hills was lost in the clouds. The canoe sped onwards, and[127]it seemed as if the frail barque would be dashed to atoms against their rugged sides. Daylight faded away as they drew near, and a distant roaring noise shook the sluggish waters. Were they hurrying to some fatal mäelstrom, or going headlong into some tremendous cavity in the bowels of the mountains? Roland’s spirit quailed within him at the thought. In the dim twilight, he saw the boat had entered an enormous cavern, where a dense wall of black rock, or rather boulders, were piled in wild disorder one above the other, and terminating in a flat roof of the same description.“Ho, ho! I am Whiskerkiss, King of Woods and Stream,” and the voice of the steersman awoke the slumbering echoes of the dreary place with ten thousand vibrations.“Who sails through rocks and hills, and guides the torrent in its course? I, Whiskerkiss. Ho! Starmoon. Ho! my slave, delve, delve!”Gradually the darkness became more opaque around them. Roland cast himself down at the bottom of the canoe, and awaited his fate. He closed his eyes in horror at the vision of that dread abyss.The time passed on, and still the same ghastly darkness prevailed. Our hero knew not whether[128]it was night or day, or how many hours had passed since they had entered that dreadful passage under the mountain. From a sort of torpor into which he had fallen Roland was at length aroused by a touch on his cheek. It was not the touch which animated him so quickly, but the intensely pleasing sensation which it caused. Like that warm, thrilling emotion caused by the infusion of laughing gas, Roland felt a vigorous glow pervade his whole frame in an instant. He opened his eyes, but the bright rush of the noon-day light which burst unexpectedly upon his sight completely blinded him.He shaded his eyes at first, until he should become accustomed to the glare. When at length he looked up, lo! where were Starmoon and Whiskerkiss, and the black unclean waters of the murky cavern below the mountains? Gone! With his hearing more acute, his sight much keener, and with every other faculty braced and quickened, the explorer found himself the occupant of a beautiful boat canopied with gold and silver network of rare design and workmanship. The sides and bottom of the skiff were inlaid with mother-of-pearl, while a large outspread fan, at the stern, of the same material, gave the resemblance of a gorgeous peacock floating on a silver[129]stream. A dozen creatures, dazzlingly fair, and dressed superbly, propelled the boat with ivory paddles; while one who appeared robed in roseate splendour stood at his side, and pointed out to him a glorious country.Yonder shone an immense valley, shut in by Alpine hills, of a deep, rich green, spangled with flowers. Birds of every hue and shade flitted from tree to tree, and filled the air with melody. At the foot of the hills a clear lake sparkled in the sunlight, and beyond the lake rose the towers, peaks, and domes of a beautiful city of white marble, which flashed back the sun’s rays in a million shafts of different coloured lights. The magnificence of this scene grew each moment yet more glowing and brilliant as Roland Trent gazed. Soon there smote upon his ear most ravishing sounds—sounds that seemed as the tinkle of silver bells, mingled with the soft murmurs of the Æolian harp. To his astonishment Roland discovered the melody proceeded from his companions, who were conversing with each other, and in his own language. Next to the gratification of finding himself in such an enchanting region, the explorer was delighted to find these people could understand and converse with him.[130]“Gentlemen,” said he, bowing politely, “will you have the goodness to tell me what country this is I now gaze upon for the first time?”The rowers ceased rowing at the sound of his voice, and the nearest to him answered,—“O! adored mortal, we are thy slaves. This is the kingdom of Bo-Peep, and is called Dreamland. No feet of soul-lit mortal hath ever trodden our soil before. Hail to thee! immortal one!”“Are you the King of this fair land?” inquired our hero.“Nay, I am but his Majesty’s messenger—my name is Pop-Corn. What shall we call thee?”“Roland, the Explorer.”“Welcome, then, to our shores. Thou shalt see Bo-Peep and his daughter Princess Golden Hair.”The rowers resumed their paddles, and the fairy boat shot down the shining stream into the lovely sheen of the lake by the marble city.Moments in Dreamland are as days with us. Therefore it will take a week of our time to prepare the charming Princess Golden Hair to receive our hero. Next Saturday the bold explorer shall be ushered into her presence at the Court of Bo-Peep.[131]

In the heart of the far Australian wild—away from traces of civilisation, and beyond the hope of help, a brave youth, faint with travel and with hunger, reclines completely exhausted by the bank of a broad river. He is the last of a band of nine who have attempted to explore the central portion of our vast continent, where on the Atlas we read, written right across the great blank,Unexplored. All his companions have perished of want and thirst, and Roland Trent, although he has reached water, and has quenched his burning thirst, feels that he also must follow his comrades ere long. He is very weak and so fatigued that he cannot stand; but he can see the flowing stream and the sunlit landscape, which anon becomes o’erclouded in his vicinity by the shadow of some moving object between him and the river. What could it be?[124]

The explorer looked up in wonder, and beheld a small and very ugly old man standing and grinning at him. The creature was most outrageously grotesque in form—having, by some freak of nature, the body of a child with the head of a giant. No one, not even Mr. Punch, could boast a finer hump than protruded from between the shoulders of the intruder. From out a circular hole in his jerkin the hump rose bare, behind the big round skull, like a sugar loaf. He had small eyes, but they were infinitely more terrible than all his other deformity put together; at one moment they glowed with a phosphorescent sheen, which changed again to a vivid purple light, and from that to diamond flashes, without the closing of an eyelid.

“Ho! Ho! Who is more powerful than fire, stronger then the wind, and deeper than the streams? Whiskerkiss—I am he.”

The voice of the old fellow was dreadful, and echoed with a sullen roar like the growl of a lion, “I am Whiskerkiss, King of the Mountain Barrier, and Lord of Birds and Beasts. Who art thou?”

The lips of the fainting youth answered, “An unfortunate explorer.”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed the grim sprite in mimicry. “Thou puny mortal! Thou an explorer! Why,[125]thy poor breath is nearly spent, ere thou hast reached the threshold of the greatUnknown. Ho! Ho!”

Roland Trent shuddered.

“Wouldst thou see the wonders of this vast division of the globe? Come with Whiskerkiss, and he will show thee fertile lands, great lakes, and powerful nations in this unexplored interior. Come! here is my boat, and Starmoon, my slave, lashes the stream impatiently.”

As the dwarf spoke, he lifted Roland in his arms and placed him in a skiff upon the river, which immediately shot along the watery way with the speed of an express train. It was some time before Roland Trent recovered from the half unconscious state in which he had been conveyed to the boat; by-and-by, however, his vision became more clear, and he saw a sight he had never seen before. The skiff was nothing but a frail canoe, at the stern of which stood Whiskerkiss steering; but in front, a great, strange fish was harnessed to the bow, and plunging through the stream with immense velocity.

No pearl diver ever encountered such a quaint-looking denizen of the deep, as Starmoon the goblin fish of Whiskerkiss. It was in shape like an alligator, only its legs were as those of a grasshopper,[126]which it used in place of fins while swimming. Fully twenty feet in length, it had a body as thick as a bullock, and a long spike projecting out of the top of its head. The face of the monster was hideous to behold—the rolling eyes, dreadful mouth, filled with a row of sharp, glistening teeth, and above all, it appeared to jibber, and make faces at our hero, as he looked at it in its swift course.

And now the river widened into a deep black gulf, and the shore receded from their gaze; not a ripple broke over the sullen surface, for the waters were like thick oil. Dark objects, in rapid motion, darted along like dolphins, and played leap-frog over the skiff. Roland Trent put his hand over the side; to his astonishment the water felt quite hot. He dipped a little up in the hollow of his palm, and tasted it. Pah! It was not salt, nor fresh, but worse than either, as it instantly produced a horrible nauseous feeling in him akin to stupor.

Onward went Starmoon at increased speed, urged by his master Whiskerkiss, until Roland beheld a great mountain range in the distance, which they rapidly approached. Abrupt and perpendicular, the summit of these high hills was lost in the clouds. The canoe sped onwards, and[127]it seemed as if the frail barque would be dashed to atoms against their rugged sides. Daylight faded away as they drew near, and a distant roaring noise shook the sluggish waters. Were they hurrying to some fatal mäelstrom, or going headlong into some tremendous cavity in the bowels of the mountains? Roland’s spirit quailed within him at the thought. In the dim twilight, he saw the boat had entered an enormous cavern, where a dense wall of black rock, or rather boulders, were piled in wild disorder one above the other, and terminating in a flat roof of the same description.

“Ho, ho! I am Whiskerkiss, King of Woods and Stream,” and the voice of the steersman awoke the slumbering echoes of the dreary place with ten thousand vibrations.

“Who sails through rocks and hills, and guides the torrent in its course? I, Whiskerkiss. Ho! Starmoon. Ho! my slave, delve, delve!”

Gradually the darkness became more opaque around them. Roland cast himself down at the bottom of the canoe, and awaited his fate. He closed his eyes in horror at the vision of that dread abyss.

The time passed on, and still the same ghastly darkness prevailed. Our hero knew not whether[128]it was night or day, or how many hours had passed since they had entered that dreadful passage under the mountain. From a sort of torpor into which he had fallen Roland was at length aroused by a touch on his cheek. It was not the touch which animated him so quickly, but the intensely pleasing sensation which it caused. Like that warm, thrilling emotion caused by the infusion of laughing gas, Roland felt a vigorous glow pervade his whole frame in an instant. He opened his eyes, but the bright rush of the noon-day light which burst unexpectedly upon his sight completely blinded him.

He shaded his eyes at first, until he should become accustomed to the glare. When at length he looked up, lo! where were Starmoon and Whiskerkiss, and the black unclean waters of the murky cavern below the mountains? Gone! With his hearing more acute, his sight much keener, and with every other faculty braced and quickened, the explorer found himself the occupant of a beautiful boat canopied with gold and silver network of rare design and workmanship. The sides and bottom of the skiff were inlaid with mother-of-pearl, while a large outspread fan, at the stern, of the same material, gave the resemblance of a gorgeous peacock floating on a silver[129]stream. A dozen creatures, dazzlingly fair, and dressed superbly, propelled the boat with ivory paddles; while one who appeared robed in roseate splendour stood at his side, and pointed out to him a glorious country.

Yonder shone an immense valley, shut in by Alpine hills, of a deep, rich green, spangled with flowers. Birds of every hue and shade flitted from tree to tree, and filled the air with melody. At the foot of the hills a clear lake sparkled in the sunlight, and beyond the lake rose the towers, peaks, and domes of a beautiful city of white marble, which flashed back the sun’s rays in a million shafts of different coloured lights. The magnificence of this scene grew each moment yet more glowing and brilliant as Roland Trent gazed. Soon there smote upon his ear most ravishing sounds—sounds that seemed as the tinkle of silver bells, mingled with the soft murmurs of the Æolian harp. To his astonishment Roland discovered the melody proceeded from his companions, who were conversing with each other, and in his own language. Next to the gratification of finding himself in such an enchanting region, the explorer was delighted to find these people could understand and converse with him.[130]

“Gentlemen,” said he, bowing politely, “will you have the goodness to tell me what country this is I now gaze upon for the first time?”

The rowers ceased rowing at the sound of his voice, and the nearest to him answered,—

“O! adored mortal, we are thy slaves. This is the kingdom of Bo-Peep, and is called Dreamland. No feet of soul-lit mortal hath ever trodden our soil before. Hail to thee! immortal one!”

“Are you the King of this fair land?” inquired our hero.

“Nay, I am but his Majesty’s messenger—my name is Pop-Corn. What shall we call thee?”

“Roland, the Explorer.”

“Welcome, then, to our shores. Thou shalt see Bo-Peep and his daughter Princess Golden Hair.”

The rowers resumed their paddles, and the fairy boat shot down the shining stream into the lovely sheen of the lake by the marble city.

Moments in Dreamland are as days with us. Therefore it will take a week of our time to prepare the charming Princess Golden Hair to receive our hero. Next Saturday the bold explorer shall be ushered into her presence at the Court of Bo-Peep.[131]

[Contents]CHAPTER II.PRINCESS GOLDEN HAIR.The metropolis of Dreamland presented a most glorious spectacle of magnificence and beauty to the wondering eyes of Roland Trent, as the fairy boat glided into the lake near the city. Beneath a fine marble colonnade, supported by pillars of jasper, he beheld a crowd of people, composed chiefly of Ministers of State and the nobles of the King, standing ready to give him welcome, while beyond these dignitaries a great square was filled with his Majesty’s Guards, armedcap-à-piéin silver armour, and surrounded by lithe, gay figures, who flitted to and fro like gorgeous butterflies in the sunlight.The Australian youth was amazed at the dazzling beauty of the ladies, who gathered round him as he landed, with loud cries. Some of them even went so far out of the rule of good breeding and etiquette in their reception as to embrace and almost smother him with kisses. But there are no Mrs. Grundys in Elfland, and so the dames enjoyed themselves with the freedom and the innocence of children. With waving banners and bands of music, which sounded to his ears like so many tinkling musical boxes, our hero was[132]escorted by a troop of silver-clad Guards to the palace of Bo-Peep. Grander than anything that ever entered the mind of that famous architect, Sir Christopher Wren, rose the glittering domes and lofty peaks of the fairy King’s palace. Through a labyrinth of budding roses perfuming the air around; by gold and silver fountains in full play, and whose soft cadence fell upon the ear like angels’ whispers; beneath a natural arch of mighty trees, every one of which held a thronged choir of winged choristers warbling forth a jubilee; and onward, amid glories and beauties unknown to the hosts of the waking world, into the presence of Bo-Peep. No comparison in this sea-bordered city would help to convey the faintest conception of the pomp and splendour of the King’s reception-hall. Nature and Art had here combined, and the blended effect was sublime. Not the array of nobles nor the throng of superbly dressed ladies, through whom he passed, nay, not even the throne itself, ablaze with jewels and precious stones, which circled in the elfin monarch as the ring of a magic lantern, had any attraction for the young stranger. His eyes had fallen upon a young creature of enchanting loveliness at the King’s side, and he had become spellbound thereby.[133]Poet or painter never dreamed of such a vision of beauty. Not the sunset glow had a richer tint than the long glossy hair of Bo-Peep’s only daughter. She was named “Princess Golden Hair”; and well did she merit the name, for it was the most glorious golden hair that mortal eye had ever seen. So Roland Trent thought as he was led forward and seated by her side.Here where the laws of Nature (as we recognise them) are altered and suspended, the Princess and the mortal wanderer became enamoured of each other instantly.Oh! the power, the irresistible charm of love! How it glowed in the eyes of Princess Golden Hair, and made the bewitching face yet more charming! Like the clear notes of a flute, only infinitely softer and more thrilling, her voice came upon his ears: “Welcome, oh, my Prince—lord of my being!—welcome to Dreamland!”What mattered the cheers of the people and the great speech from the fairy King, and the grand banquet that followed—what mattered the thousand surprises and the wonderful things that encountered him at every turn? There was no fascination like the lovely Princess.Glorious light and sunshine reigned here eternally. Roland watched in vain for the[134]approach of eve and darkness; but gloom came not. It was one never-ceasing day.By order of Bo-Peep, our hero was attired in rich robes softer than silken velvet, which emitted a rose-coloured glow, mingled with a delicious perfume, that by some mysterious power gave him a keener zest for pleasure and enjoyment. Go where he would, the King’s daughter was ever at his side.“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”What bliss to be with her on the bright lake, seated beneath a canopy of roses in the royal[135]barge; what sensations he felt with his head pillowed on her lap, and her snow-white fingers toying with his curls!“The sun never fades in this enchanting valley?” he asked.“No,” she replied softly. “The great light is our life. Dulness is destruction in Dreamland. We are only creatures of an hour, that is all.”Oh, what witchery in the low, thrilling voice! Creatures of an hour, forsooth. Take care, Princess Golden hair! Take care.“Your people are very beautiful, my Princess; but thou art fairer than a summer dream,” he responded gaily.“Flatterer, I and my people are but as dreams,” she answered, smiling. “All thou see’st here of brightness and splendour are merely passing visions, nothing more.”“Thou art more real and enchanting, dear Rosebud, than any dream that has haunted me.”“Nay, adored stranger, mock me not,” said Golden Hair. “I am as the wind, which fills our sail—here, there, then gone for ever. Life with me is but a breath. But thou—thou wilt live when the wind and the vast sun, which giveth our race life and motion, are fled for ever.”“Dear Princess,” and he caught her hand within[136]his own, looking into her eyes the while, “Love is not a breath, a sunbeam. It is mightier than the wind, and more powerful than the combined forces of sea and air. Didst thou ever love, sweet maiden?”What soft diffused light, glinting from the rich window of some ancient cathedral, ever shed such a rosy glow as was seen for one brief instant upon her face?“Oh, Love has come with thee from beyond the Western Mountain,” she answered quietly.“And thou hast felt its presence?”“Ay, in thee. Yet thou hast brought a demon with thee also,” she replied.“The sprite Whiskerkiss; of course, I remember.”“Nay, not Whiskerkiss; but a gnome a thousand times more terrible than the monster of the Barrier.”“And what is that, Princess?”“Pain,” replied Golden Hair.“What! has Pain never entered into this realm?” he inquired with amazement.“Never.”“Wonderful!” he ejaculated. “Had my charming Princess ever the toothache?”The ringing laugh which burst from her lips was like the carol of a canary on a June morning.[137]“Nor the whooping-cough or—or the measles?” he added, smiling at her excessive merriment.“Stop, stop!” she cried, looking at him with a wilful light in her large eyes, that held him as a spell. “The words thou hast uttered are unknown to me, even as Pain was unknown to me ere I saw thee.”A cloud fell over his handsome face at her words, which did not escape Golden Hair, for she added quickly, “Lord of my life, Love and Pain are twinborn, and go hand-in-hand, but the one is so beautiful that it destroys even while it creates the other. Thou seemest to me all love. Tell me, are all thy race like thee?”“Fair Princess,” he replied gravely, “beyond the Mountain Barrier from whence I came the people are as varied as the hues on yonder peak. Some there are who feel not love. Many suffer pain willingly in the service of a powerful world-god calledMoney. Amid the many fetishes who are honoured and exalted, none are more esteemed than this. At his word mighty empires rise in the wilderness, oceans are bridged, space changed into a willing slave.”“Money is a mighty demon,” answered Princess Golden Hair.“Yes, lady,” continued Roland. “Money is[138]mighty, but ere now he has lent his power to an evil spirit called Hate, who going broadcast among the races of men has incited them to gather together and destroy each other without cause.”“Hate is a monster, uglier than Pain,” replied the fairy.“Ay, and he is invariably assisted by three other wicked powers known as Murder, Slander, and Malice.”“Poor lost people!” cried the gentle Princess. “Is there no good genii to do battle with these wicked ones?”“Oh yes; the renowned champion Sympathy has unfurled his banner to meet the hosts of evil in the world; and by-and-by the people who have groaned groans from their birth shall live as serene and peaceful as the shadows on this lake. And now, sweet love, I would fain close my eyes in repose, under the melody of thy lute.”Sweetly fell the cadence over the still waters. Goldenly shone the domes and peaks of the marble palaces, as Roland Trent dreamed.Shall we wake him out of his glorious vision? Nay; let him slumber on. He will open his eyes soon enough upon the realities of this sober empire at the Antipodes.[139]

CHAPTER II.PRINCESS GOLDEN HAIR.

The metropolis of Dreamland presented a most glorious spectacle of magnificence and beauty to the wondering eyes of Roland Trent, as the fairy boat glided into the lake near the city. Beneath a fine marble colonnade, supported by pillars of jasper, he beheld a crowd of people, composed chiefly of Ministers of State and the nobles of the King, standing ready to give him welcome, while beyond these dignitaries a great square was filled with his Majesty’s Guards, armedcap-à-piéin silver armour, and surrounded by lithe, gay figures, who flitted to and fro like gorgeous butterflies in the sunlight.The Australian youth was amazed at the dazzling beauty of the ladies, who gathered round him as he landed, with loud cries. Some of them even went so far out of the rule of good breeding and etiquette in their reception as to embrace and almost smother him with kisses. But there are no Mrs. Grundys in Elfland, and so the dames enjoyed themselves with the freedom and the innocence of children. With waving banners and bands of music, which sounded to his ears like so many tinkling musical boxes, our hero was[132]escorted by a troop of silver-clad Guards to the palace of Bo-Peep. Grander than anything that ever entered the mind of that famous architect, Sir Christopher Wren, rose the glittering domes and lofty peaks of the fairy King’s palace. Through a labyrinth of budding roses perfuming the air around; by gold and silver fountains in full play, and whose soft cadence fell upon the ear like angels’ whispers; beneath a natural arch of mighty trees, every one of which held a thronged choir of winged choristers warbling forth a jubilee; and onward, amid glories and beauties unknown to the hosts of the waking world, into the presence of Bo-Peep. No comparison in this sea-bordered city would help to convey the faintest conception of the pomp and splendour of the King’s reception-hall. Nature and Art had here combined, and the blended effect was sublime. Not the array of nobles nor the throng of superbly dressed ladies, through whom he passed, nay, not even the throne itself, ablaze with jewels and precious stones, which circled in the elfin monarch as the ring of a magic lantern, had any attraction for the young stranger. His eyes had fallen upon a young creature of enchanting loveliness at the King’s side, and he had become spellbound thereby.[133]Poet or painter never dreamed of such a vision of beauty. Not the sunset glow had a richer tint than the long glossy hair of Bo-Peep’s only daughter. She was named “Princess Golden Hair”; and well did she merit the name, for it was the most glorious golden hair that mortal eye had ever seen. So Roland Trent thought as he was led forward and seated by her side.Here where the laws of Nature (as we recognise them) are altered and suspended, the Princess and the mortal wanderer became enamoured of each other instantly.Oh! the power, the irresistible charm of love! How it glowed in the eyes of Princess Golden Hair, and made the bewitching face yet more charming! Like the clear notes of a flute, only infinitely softer and more thrilling, her voice came upon his ears: “Welcome, oh, my Prince—lord of my being!—welcome to Dreamland!”What mattered the cheers of the people and the great speech from the fairy King, and the grand banquet that followed—what mattered the thousand surprises and the wonderful things that encountered him at every turn? There was no fascination like the lovely Princess.Glorious light and sunshine reigned here eternally. Roland watched in vain for the[134]approach of eve and darkness; but gloom came not. It was one never-ceasing day.By order of Bo-Peep, our hero was attired in rich robes softer than silken velvet, which emitted a rose-coloured glow, mingled with a delicious perfume, that by some mysterious power gave him a keener zest for pleasure and enjoyment. Go where he would, the King’s daughter was ever at his side.“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”What bliss to be with her on the bright lake, seated beneath a canopy of roses in the royal[135]barge; what sensations he felt with his head pillowed on her lap, and her snow-white fingers toying with his curls!“The sun never fades in this enchanting valley?” he asked.“No,” she replied softly. “The great light is our life. Dulness is destruction in Dreamland. We are only creatures of an hour, that is all.”Oh, what witchery in the low, thrilling voice! Creatures of an hour, forsooth. Take care, Princess Golden hair! Take care.“Your people are very beautiful, my Princess; but thou art fairer than a summer dream,” he responded gaily.“Flatterer, I and my people are but as dreams,” she answered, smiling. “All thou see’st here of brightness and splendour are merely passing visions, nothing more.”“Thou art more real and enchanting, dear Rosebud, than any dream that has haunted me.”“Nay, adored stranger, mock me not,” said Golden Hair. “I am as the wind, which fills our sail—here, there, then gone for ever. Life with me is but a breath. But thou—thou wilt live when the wind and the vast sun, which giveth our race life and motion, are fled for ever.”“Dear Princess,” and he caught her hand within[136]his own, looking into her eyes the while, “Love is not a breath, a sunbeam. It is mightier than the wind, and more powerful than the combined forces of sea and air. Didst thou ever love, sweet maiden?”What soft diffused light, glinting from the rich window of some ancient cathedral, ever shed such a rosy glow as was seen for one brief instant upon her face?“Oh, Love has come with thee from beyond the Western Mountain,” she answered quietly.“And thou hast felt its presence?”“Ay, in thee. Yet thou hast brought a demon with thee also,” she replied.“The sprite Whiskerkiss; of course, I remember.”“Nay, not Whiskerkiss; but a gnome a thousand times more terrible than the monster of the Barrier.”“And what is that, Princess?”“Pain,” replied Golden Hair.“What! has Pain never entered into this realm?” he inquired with amazement.“Never.”“Wonderful!” he ejaculated. “Had my charming Princess ever the toothache?”The ringing laugh which burst from her lips was like the carol of a canary on a June morning.[137]“Nor the whooping-cough or—or the measles?” he added, smiling at her excessive merriment.“Stop, stop!” she cried, looking at him with a wilful light in her large eyes, that held him as a spell. “The words thou hast uttered are unknown to me, even as Pain was unknown to me ere I saw thee.”A cloud fell over his handsome face at her words, which did not escape Golden Hair, for she added quickly, “Lord of my life, Love and Pain are twinborn, and go hand-in-hand, but the one is so beautiful that it destroys even while it creates the other. Thou seemest to me all love. Tell me, are all thy race like thee?”“Fair Princess,” he replied gravely, “beyond the Mountain Barrier from whence I came the people are as varied as the hues on yonder peak. Some there are who feel not love. Many suffer pain willingly in the service of a powerful world-god calledMoney. Amid the many fetishes who are honoured and exalted, none are more esteemed than this. At his word mighty empires rise in the wilderness, oceans are bridged, space changed into a willing slave.”“Money is a mighty demon,” answered Princess Golden Hair.“Yes, lady,” continued Roland. “Money is[138]mighty, but ere now he has lent his power to an evil spirit called Hate, who going broadcast among the races of men has incited them to gather together and destroy each other without cause.”“Hate is a monster, uglier than Pain,” replied the fairy.“Ay, and he is invariably assisted by three other wicked powers known as Murder, Slander, and Malice.”“Poor lost people!” cried the gentle Princess. “Is there no good genii to do battle with these wicked ones?”“Oh yes; the renowned champion Sympathy has unfurled his banner to meet the hosts of evil in the world; and by-and-by the people who have groaned groans from their birth shall live as serene and peaceful as the shadows on this lake. And now, sweet love, I would fain close my eyes in repose, under the melody of thy lute.”Sweetly fell the cadence over the still waters. Goldenly shone the domes and peaks of the marble palaces, as Roland Trent dreamed.Shall we wake him out of his glorious vision? Nay; let him slumber on. He will open his eyes soon enough upon the realities of this sober empire at the Antipodes.[139]

The metropolis of Dreamland presented a most glorious spectacle of magnificence and beauty to the wondering eyes of Roland Trent, as the fairy boat glided into the lake near the city. Beneath a fine marble colonnade, supported by pillars of jasper, he beheld a crowd of people, composed chiefly of Ministers of State and the nobles of the King, standing ready to give him welcome, while beyond these dignitaries a great square was filled with his Majesty’s Guards, armedcap-à-piéin silver armour, and surrounded by lithe, gay figures, who flitted to and fro like gorgeous butterflies in the sunlight.

The Australian youth was amazed at the dazzling beauty of the ladies, who gathered round him as he landed, with loud cries. Some of them even went so far out of the rule of good breeding and etiquette in their reception as to embrace and almost smother him with kisses. But there are no Mrs. Grundys in Elfland, and so the dames enjoyed themselves with the freedom and the innocence of children. With waving banners and bands of music, which sounded to his ears like so many tinkling musical boxes, our hero was[132]escorted by a troop of silver-clad Guards to the palace of Bo-Peep. Grander than anything that ever entered the mind of that famous architect, Sir Christopher Wren, rose the glittering domes and lofty peaks of the fairy King’s palace. Through a labyrinth of budding roses perfuming the air around; by gold and silver fountains in full play, and whose soft cadence fell upon the ear like angels’ whispers; beneath a natural arch of mighty trees, every one of which held a thronged choir of winged choristers warbling forth a jubilee; and onward, amid glories and beauties unknown to the hosts of the waking world, into the presence of Bo-Peep. No comparison in this sea-bordered city would help to convey the faintest conception of the pomp and splendour of the King’s reception-hall. Nature and Art had here combined, and the blended effect was sublime. Not the array of nobles nor the throng of superbly dressed ladies, through whom he passed, nay, not even the throne itself, ablaze with jewels and precious stones, which circled in the elfin monarch as the ring of a magic lantern, had any attraction for the young stranger. His eyes had fallen upon a young creature of enchanting loveliness at the King’s side, and he had become spellbound thereby.[133]

Poet or painter never dreamed of such a vision of beauty. Not the sunset glow had a richer tint than the long glossy hair of Bo-Peep’s only daughter. She was named “Princess Golden Hair”; and well did she merit the name, for it was the most glorious golden hair that mortal eye had ever seen. So Roland Trent thought as he was led forward and seated by her side.

Here where the laws of Nature (as we recognise them) are altered and suspended, the Princess and the mortal wanderer became enamoured of each other instantly.

Oh! the power, the irresistible charm of love! How it glowed in the eyes of Princess Golden Hair, and made the bewitching face yet more charming! Like the clear notes of a flute, only infinitely softer and more thrilling, her voice came upon his ears: “Welcome, oh, my Prince—lord of my being!—welcome to Dreamland!”

What mattered the cheers of the people and the great speech from the fairy King, and the grand banquet that followed—what mattered the thousand surprises and the wonderful things that encountered him at every turn? There was no fascination like the lovely Princess.

Glorious light and sunshine reigned here eternally. Roland watched in vain for the[134]approach of eve and darkness; but gloom came not. It was one never-ceasing day.

By order of Bo-Peep, our hero was attired in rich robes softer than silken velvet, which emitted a rose-coloured glow, mingled with a delicious perfume, that by some mysterious power gave him a keener zest for pleasure and enjoyment. Go where he would, the King’s daughter was ever at his side.

“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”

“SEATED BENEATH A CANOPY OF ROSES.”

What bliss to be with her on the bright lake, seated beneath a canopy of roses in the royal[135]barge; what sensations he felt with his head pillowed on her lap, and her snow-white fingers toying with his curls!

“The sun never fades in this enchanting valley?” he asked.

“No,” she replied softly. “The great light is our life. Dulness is destruction in Dreamland. We are only creatures of an hour, that is all.”

Oh, what witchery in the low, thrilling voice! Creatures of an hour, forsooth. Take care, Princess Golden hair! Take care.

“Your people are very beautiful, my Princess; but thou art fairer than a summer dream,” he responded gaily.

“Flatterer, I and my people are but as dreams,” she answered, smiling. “All thou see’st here of brightness and splendour are merely passing visions, nothing more.”

“Thou art more real and enchanting, dear Rosebud, than any dream that has haunted me.”

“Nay, adored stranger, mock me not,” said Golden Hair. “I am as the wind, which fills our sail—here, there, then gone for ever. Life with me is but a breath. But thou—thou wilt live when the wind and the vast sun, which giveth our race life and motion, are fled for ever.”

“Dear Princess,” and he caught her hand within[136]his own, looking into her eyes the while, “Love is not a breath, a sunbeam. It is mightier than the wind, and more powerful than the combined forces of sea and air. Didst thou ever love, sweet maiden?”

What soft diffused light, glinting from the rich window of some ancient cathedral, ever shed such a rosy glow as was seen for one brief instant upon her face?

“Oh, Love has come with thee from beyond the Western Mountain,” she answered quietly.

“And thou hast felt its presence?”

“Ay, in thee. Yet thou hast brought a demon with thee also,” she replied.

“The sprite Whiskerkiss; of course, I remember.”

“Nay, not Whiskerkiss; but a gnome a thousand times more terrible than the monster of the Barrier.”

“And what is that, Princess?”

“Pain,” replied Golden Hair.

“What! has Pain never entered into this realm?” he inquired with amazement.

“Never.”

“Wonderful!” he ejaculated. “Had my charming Princess ever the toothache?”

The ringing laugh which burst from her lips was like the carol of a canary on a June morning.[137]

“Nor the whooping-cough or—or the measles?” he added, smiling at her excessive merriment.

“Stop, stop!” she cried, looking at him with a wilful light in her large eyes, that held him as a spell. “The words thou hast uttered are unknown to me, even as Pain was unknown to me ere I saw thee.”

A cloud fell over his handsome face at her words, which did not escape Golden Hair, for she added quickly, “Lord of my life, Love and Pain are twinborn, and go hand-in-hand, but the one is so beautiful that it destroys even while it creates the other. Thou seemest to me all love. Tell me, are all thy race like thee?”

“Fair Princess,” he replied gravely, “beyond the Mountain Barrier from whence I came the people are as varied as the hues on yonder peak. Some there are who feel not love. Many suffer pain willingly in the service of a powerful world-god calledMoney. Amid the many fetishes who are honoured and exalted, none are more esteemed than this. At his word mighty empires rise in the wilderness, oceans are bridged, space changed into a willing slave.”

“Money is a mighty demon,” answered Princess Golden Hair.

“Yes, lady,” continued Roland. “Money is[138]mighty, but ere now he has lent his power to an evil spirit called Hate, who going broadcast among the races of men has incited them to gather together and destroy each other without cause.”

“Hate is a monster, uglier than Pain,” replied the fairy.

“Ay, and he is invariably assisted by three other wicked powers known as Murder, Slander, and Malice.”

“Poor lost people!” cried the gentle Princess. “Is there no good genii to do battle with these wicked ones?”

“Oh yes; the renowned champion Sympathy has unfurled his banner to meet the hosts of evil in the world; and by-and-by the people who have groaned groans from their birth shall live as serene and peaceful as the shadows on this lake. And now, sweet love, I would fain close my eyes in repose, under the melody of thy lute.”

Sweetly fell the cadence over the still waters. Goldenly shone the domes and peaks of the marble palaces, as Roland Trent dreamed.

Shall we wake him out of his glorious vision? Nay; let him slumber on. He will open his eyes soon enough upon the realities of this sober empire at the Antipodes.[139]

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