Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/453

 When we quit Tumberumba in the early morn for the return journey to Tumut, the air is charged with vapour, the mists lie heavily upon the hills. The low grey sky, the drizzle and the damp which pervade all nature, suggest 'The Lewis' or other Hebridean region. One can fully realise the sort of weather chiefly prevailing when the King of Bora uttered his pathetic farewell 'to his little Sheilah,' returning to his desolate dwelling alone, to distract himself as best he might with the company of the simple (but not vulgar) fishermen and a reasonable consumption of alcohol.

This opens up to the contemplative mind the whole vast 'Grief Question, and how people bear it.' What volumes might be written about the sorrows of the bereaved, the forsaken men or women!—'all the dull, deep sorrow, the constant anguish of patience.' How the slow torture drags on, varied only by pangs of acute mental pain—the throbs, the rackings, the utterly unendurable torment—what time the agonised spirit elects to quit its earthly tenement and face the dread unknown, rather than longer suffer the too dreadful present! So the soldier, captured by Indians, shoots himself to escape the inevitable torture. Also in this connection regarding anodynes, distractions, solaces, and medicaments, the which can be used harmlessly by one class of patients, but in no wise by others.

'An early start makes easy stages,' saith the seer. So it comes to pass that soon after mid-day we find ourselves at the Bago Cabaret, after which we incontinently dismount, fully minded to bait, after four or five hours' battling with the stony, sticky, slippery sidelings of the track. The good horse well deserves a feed. Also, thanks to the keenness of the atmosphere, we experience a steady prompting towards luncheon.

The horse is led away, and in the parlour we find a fire, a welcome, and agreeable society. We learn that the wedding dance duly took place, well attended, and a great success—our fair informants having been there and danced till daylight, after which they walked home a trifle of five miles, which, with snow still on the ground, showed, in our opinion, praiseworthy pluck and determination; a convincing proof, were any needed, that the Anglo-Saxon race has not degenerated in this part of the world. 'The reverse if anything,'