Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers. Stables Gordon

thus of his parents. They might not have been much to any one else, but they were all the world to my brother and me.

      My father was to be a rich man some day, auntie told us, when he came into his estates in Cornwall. Meanwhile he was simply Captain Jones, and proud and happy to be so.

      Ours was not a very large village, though dignified at times by the name of town by the people themselves, only it was quaint and pretty enough in the sweet summer-time, when the sky was blue, and the sea reflected its colour; when the waves sang on the beach, and birds in the hedges and bushes, on the cliffs, and in the glen; when fisher boats were drawn up on the sand, or went lazily out towards the horizon in the evening. Yes, then it was even picturesque, and more than one artist that I remember of lived quite a long time at the Fisherman’s Joy. They would be sketching boats and sails and spars, and the natives themselves, all day, to the great astonishment of the natives.

      “He do be uncommon clever-like,” I heard one man say; “but surely he ought to let the loikes of we have our Sunday clothes on afore he paints us.”

      The artists thought differently.

      Quite a friendship sprang up between our family and the Grays.

      But shortly after we made their acquaintance, Bill – who was not a Gray, his name was Moore – went away, having got, at his own request – he being a deserving old coast-guardsman – a post as ship keeper on an old hulk, of which you will hear more soon. Here he lived alone with his old woman, as he called his buxom wife.

      Then something else really strange happened. Quite an adventure in a little way. Jill had gone to P – with mamma that day, and I was strolling on the beach, feeling very lonely indeed. The tide was far back, and near the water’s edge I could see a girl gathering shells. Strolling down towards her was a fisher lad, about my own age, and some instinct impelled me to follow. I was just in time to notice him rudely snatch at her basket, and empty all the shells, and presently she passed me crying.

      My blood boiled, so I went right on and told the boy he was no gentleman.

      He said he didn’t pretend to be, but he could lick me if I wanted him to, gentleman or not gentleman.

      I said, “Yes, I wanted him to.”

      I never knew I was so strong before. That lad was soon on his back crying for mercy, and next minute I left him.

      The girl was about seven, but so beautiful and lady-like.

      She thanked me very prettily, and we walked on together, I feeling shy. But I summoned up courage after a time to ask her name.

      “Mattie Gray,” she replied; “and yonder comes mother.”

      To my surprise, “mother” was Nancy, the fisherman’s wife.

      I was invited in, and made a hero of for hours, but somehow I could not keep from wondering about Mattie.

      I told auntie the story that evening. Now, if there be anything a woman loves in this world it is a mystery, and auntie was no exception. So she and Jill and I all walked over to the cottage next afternoon.

      “What a lovely child you have, Mrs Gray! We have not seen her before.”

      “No, ma’am, she’d been to school.”

      “Have you only one?”

      “My dear lady,” said Nancy, “Mattie isn’t ours. You see, we have only been here for six months, and people don’t know our story. We come from far south in Cornwall, and when a baby, bless her, Mattie, as we call her, came to us in a strange, strange way.”

      “Tell us,” said auntie, seating herself in a chair which Nancy had dusted for her.

      “Oh, it is soon told, ma’am, all that’s of it. We lived on a wild bit o’ coast, ma’am, and many is the ship that foundered there. Well, one wild afternoon we noticed a barque trying to round the point, and would have rounded it, but missed stays like, struck, and began to break up. We saw her go to pieces before our eyes, for no boat could be lowered.

      “At long last, though, my man and his mate determined to venture. It was a terrible risk. But I am a fisherman’s wife, and I never said, ‘Don’t go, Joe.’”

      She paused a moment, woman-like, to wipe away a tear.

      “And they saved the crew?” asked auntie.

      “They came back wi’ four in the boat, ma’am. One was a gentle lady, one was Mattie, and there were two sailors besides. They were all Spanish, Miss. The poor lady never spoke a word we could understand. She wore away next afternoon, but that great box yonder was washed on shore, and when she saw it she pointed to poor baby, then to the chest, and smiled – and died.”

      “And the men, could they tell you nothing?”

      “They told the parson something in Spanish, but it wasn’t much. Mattie’s mother was a grand dame, and the father had not been on board. They promised to write and tell us more, but ah! Miss, we’ll never hear nor know aught else till the sea gives up its dead.”

      “We read of such things in books,” said auntie, “but I never heard so strange a tale from living lips before. Come hither, child.”

      Mattie obeyed, and, marvellous to say, was not a bit afraid of auntie. She clambered on to her knee and put an arm round her neck, and auntie looked softened, so much so that for a moment or two I thought I saw a tear in her eye. She sat a long time talking, and orphan Mattie went sound asleep.

      After this Mattie came very often to Trafalgar Cottage, and became our playmate all the winter, out of doors when the weather was fine, and in the house when it blew wild across the sea.

      Jill and I grew very fond of Mattie, but we used to wonder at her strange beauty. She was so different from other children, with her creamy face, her weird black eyes, and long, long hair. And we used to wonder also at her cleverness. I suppose Spanish people have the gift of tongues, but though Mattie was younger by three years than we, she could talk far better, and to hear her read was like listening to the music of birds.

      She used to read to us by the hour, Jill and I lying on the floor on goats’ skins, as was our custom, and feeling all the while in some other world – dreamland, I think they call it.

      There were three of us now, for auntie asked permission to teach Mattie with us. But one o’clock was never struck on Mattie’s little knuckles; indeed, she was clever even at “ologies,” and had all the “ographies” by heart, and so did not deserve one o’clock.

      There were three of us to play on the beach now, and climb the broomy hills, and gather wild flowers, and look for birds’ nests in the spring, and three of us to go out with Father Gray in his brown-sailed yawl.

      There were three of us, never separate all the livelong summer days.

      But summer passed away at last, the days shortened in, the sea looked rougher and colder now, and the vessels out on the grey distance went staggering past under shortened sails, or flew like ghosts when the wind blew high.

      And then came my first sorrow, the first time that I really knew there was grief and death in the world.

      I will not take long to tell it. I am but little likely to linger over so sad and dismal a memory of the past. Yet every incident in that day’s drama is painted on the tablets of memory in colours that will never be effaced while life does last.

      Little did big brown-bearded Joe Gray think, when he kissed his wife and Mattie on that bright afternoon, and with his mate put off to sea, that they would never see him alive again.

      The moon rose early, and shone red and clear over the water in a triangular path of silver, that went broadening away towards the horizon. And when hours passed by, and the wind came up with cloud banks out of the west, Nancy – fisherman’s wife though she was – grew uneasy, and went very often to the door.

      The wind grew wilder and wilder, and the air was filled with rain, and with spray from the waves that broke quick and angrily on the beach.

      The big petroleum lamp was lighted and put in the window. That lamp had often guided Joe Gray