Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/399



cattle were pretty well broken to their new run at Squattlesea Mere. Little more was necessary than to go round them daily and discourage explorers. The heathen were temporarily at rest, brooding (like the Boers) over fresh ambuscades. A suspicion of monotone pervaded the 'eucalyptine cloisterdom,' when, neither by telegram nor newspaper—our Arcadia knew neither brain-disturber in 1844 word came orally, personally transmitted, that the Mount Rouse Hounds were to throw off at Port Fairy, with races to follow, the whole to wind up with a ball.

These astonishing tidings so affected me that I became unable to settle down to daily details. A meet with real fox-hounds, races, and—temptation overwhelming—a ball! I have resisted things in my day, have exhibited Spartan virtue in sorrowful altruism, economies, mortifications of the flesh, what not. But this special attraction was complicated, ingenious, subtly alluring 'in the brave days when we were twenty-one.' I lacked a year or so of that romantic period, and consequently was more prudent, more intolerant, and more abstemious than in the aftertime. People may talk as they like, but youth is the time for wisdom. That riper years bring prudence, steadfastness, circumspection, indeed any improvement of mind or body, is a widespread error. It is a fable of the wary ancient. The real sage, the true philosopher, the consistent disciple, is the ingenuous youth. The Greeks knew this. Contrast Telemachus with that old humbug Ulysses, far-travelled, much experienced in war; council, battle, and peace alike familiar to him. How reprehensible was his conduct, flirting with Calypso and other