Beiley's recollections went backward through the slothful record, item by item, with an unhasting finger that passed nothing by. He had no thought to hide anything; he felt hung up. If he had been again asked his name he would have answered truly. As a musician,' he said at last, hoarsely, remembering Nestthorpe.

Ah! It would hardly be vocal. What instrument? 'The bones and the banjo.'

There was the general laugh. 'Anything else?

Backward again travelled the finger of his memory, line by line, futile item by futile item, checking everything.

6

Yes, at stone-breaking.'

Again the laugh, louder, more general. He remembered, as a far-off thing, that he too had sat on high, apart, and allowed himself to be languidly amused by the follies of poor un-Etoned, unancestored wretches.

'Look at his hands,' said the chairman.

Lord Beiley's nearer hand was just lifted and dropped by the policeman who stood over him and said:

'They're not the hands of a working man, your lordship.'

A word went from the chairman under breath, and a slight glance to right and left meeting glance.

The professional tramp gets his six weeks''hard'; the amateur is dismissed to become the prisoner of his own despair. He is in the mood when a conscientious man feels that death is better than he deserves. If he could be sure that beyond there would be nothing -he is very fit to become one with nothing. But if, instead of Nothing there should be Something-a crowd, perhaps, of living spirits-who is he that he should thrust himself upon an unknown company? So low, so desperate seems his fortune that one despairs almost of a solution other than that presented by the wandering maniac, with his ominous offer of a half-crown's worth of rope. The author has his way out, one that commends itself-if one must use great words-to the reason and the imagination, though it must be confessed that there is some loss of mastery on the upward road. We believe, with slight reservations on matters of detail, in Beiley's recovery of himself and of the much-forgiving Lady Sarah, but it is the man of adversity who firmly holds our attention.

It gives a curious zest and flavour to the book, this tragedy of mere inertia, forming as it does the background to a procession of life of extraordinary richness and variety. To turn from Beiley's

night of self-despair to the confident presence of Sambo, that experienced comedian and connoisseur of the public taste in legitimate music,' or, better still, to the witty philosopher of idleness and ease, Jack, the tramp, each one of whose sayings cries for quotation, is to get some notion of the author's width of range. Some, indeed, may complain that the author's range is too wide, too comprehensive. There is at times a sense as of humanity pressing in upon one over-closely. All the figures here, however lightly sketched, have come, not from books, but clean-cut from life, and to make acquaintance with one after another in a short space of time has in it something of fatigue, as the same process would have in actual life. Precisely because all is so good one could wish that there had been a little less. One more careful of form and his own fame had, perhaps, from the material here fashioned two works, and each one a more perfect thing. There are, in particular, two chapters, 'Twopence an Hour' and 'The Shadow,' which demand as it were a wider margin, a less engrossing context. Each of these, one thinks, might stand against the best of its kind and lose no colour. Partial quotation would give no idea of the racy, rounded humour of the one, of the spiritual beauty of the other. Singularly impressive are the few pages which tell of the invisible, silent stranger whose footsteps echo Beiley's through the dead of a rainy summer night, until, impelled as by some secret current of affinity, he gives utterance to the love within him which has no shadow, because 'noat 'not Death itself-can happen now to make my happiness sorry.' Is the sentiment which illumines this dark night too fine? Does it derive from sources too high and pure to be found in the heart of a rough countryman, a casual acquaintance of the high-road? Those, perhaps, who have rubbed most against all sorts and conditions of men will be least inclined to think so.

Here is a book not so much to borrow from the library as to buy and make friends with. And those who have done so may feel inclined to turn back to 'A Walking Gentleman's' predecessor, Forest Folk,' where will be found the same sure and humorous grasp of rustic character, perhaps less of ripe wit and experience, but more of story; the same high-couraged philosophy of life, and, in even greater degree, more freely, more spontaneously the very breath and aspect of the country. The earlier work has also I do not know if it will be considered an advantage; it is at least something of a rarity in the modern novel-a heroine with whom it is possible to fall in love. ELEANOR CECIL.

42

KAYUKE AND ALGO.'

BY K. AND HESKETH PRICHARD.

TOWARDS the western margin of the Patagonian pampa, a hill stands up solitary in the gaunt sunset land. Thither in remote ages descended the Good Spirit, and sitting in a cave, whose mouth was draped in a snowcloud, he made animals such as the guanaco, huemul and cavy, which he gave to his people, the Tehuelches, for food. Whereupon, some say Gualichu, the Spirit of Evil, more easily moved to action than the sleepy Lord of Good, took up his dwelling in another cave upon the left hand, where he created the puma and the fox to harry and devour the good gifts bestowed upon the tribes.

So runs the legend of the far-off days. But in it the great and real Enemy of this nomadic people has no place. He came long after. Many snows had fallen and many hunting seasons passed over them before he rode out of the east with his troop of pack-horses, having come down in a ship along the stormy coasts, where the spume of the angry seas lies for ever melting and for ever is renewed.

Even the Gualichu, watching from a snow-peak above black forests of antarctic beech, was affrighted at the coming of this Man, for he foresaw that soon he would be a god without a people, a mere abstraction, a vanished superstition. He knew he would one day be caught, imprisoned inside a book, and carried overseas-no more a god. For the first time a thought, untainted by hostility to his tribes, entered into the dark heart of the slinking, formless Spirit. He could look onward to the time when he should no longer lurk at night behind the toldos (tents), groaning, till the men and women feared their own shadows. No longer would the dawn see the hunters rush forth, and leap upon their horses, galloping into the sunrise with howls to drive him away to his haunts in the mountains. Under the weight of this foreknowledge, the heart of Gualichu grew sad.

As to the Spirit of Good, he had so long been drowsing that he was become almost nameless among the people. He took no 'American Rights reserved.

heed of the blue smoke that heralded the pale-faced rider, but only turned in his age-long sleep.

So the rider came up out of the east, more perilous than a conquering army, more remorseless than an antarctic winter, though he sat down as a friend by the fires of the toldos.

Kayuke was a Tehuelche Indian, whose tribe roamed far from the little settlements white men had begun to plant upon the eastern coasts. He was born under a califaté bush beside the trail his forefathers had trodden through the centuries, following the game upon their migrations north and south on the pampa. The tribe were on the march, and an hour after his birth, Kayuke was riding in his mother's arms towards the warmer north, for behind them the winter was closing down in heavy snow-falls.

Kayuke's father was made glad by the birth of the great brown boy. He was the Gownok, the Chief of his tribe, and his people were glad with him. Perhaps the only creature that grieved for the coming of the baby was Panzo, a small yellow dog that the father of Kayuke had adopted, Tehuelche fashion, as his son. Thus if an Indian were to say to the Gownok, 'Lend me a horse for the hunting,' he would answer, 'Go, ask Panzo, he has ten horses and thirty mares.' Panzo's reply probably tallied with the Gownok's secret wish.

Panzo was petted and made much of, and even had a young china (woman) to look after his comfort, until the true heir, Kayuke, opened his eyes upon the light and claimed his own. Then the dog fell to the level of his kin, and knew soreness of heart.

The birth-ceremonies in Kayuke's honour became in after years a tradition. How the tribal wizard cut himself and bled from forehead and fore-arm, and how long the disembowelled horse lived and quivered after the child was placed in his warm body. Thus it was known beforehand how brave a heart Kayuke was destined to carry.

Before he was five he had ridden many hundreds of miles up and down the wild, treeless country. Before he was fifteen, he overtopped six feet, and was become a great hunter, and his father had given to him a boleadores weighted with copper balls, very ancient and cut out round with a groove to take the thong. This was the third most important piece of property in the tribe, the first being a broken looking-glass gained in barter from a Chilian pioneer, and the second a cabin-lamp washed ashore from a wreck

just south of where the Rio Deseado pours its volume of darkhued waters into the Atlantic.

Those were very joyous years for Kayuke. Deep down in his heart he was extravagantly happy, though outwardly he wore a grave face, for he had learned the greatest of Tehuelche arts, the aspect of silent expressionless dignity.

Often in later days Kayuke used to look back to the morning of his life with uncomprehending pain. The golden and white guanaco racing with swinging necks across a scarp, or on the rim of black hills etched out slenderly against the sky; the spring of his horse under him as they flew in pursuit up and down the stony slopes; the unforgotten scent of burning califaté wood that met him when the toldos rose in sight, the meal roasted by the camp-fire, and mingled through all these recollections the vague and glowing hopes of youth.

Kayuke had grown to be the first hunter of the tribe. He enjoyed life without recognising the fountain of his joy, caring not why his heart was light in his great chest, why the struggle of the unbroken colt under him wrought up a frenzy of delight in his brain as he put forth his strength and skill to conquer.

In the midst of these pleasures there stole upon him an unaccustomed melancholy, remote yet infinite. He cared no longer for the twilight dance, when the young men with ostrich feathers in their hair circled round the fires to the beating of drums. He longed to be alone, to roam apart like the animals he hunted. He had no clear thoughts perhaps, but he sought and desired the piercing sadness of the sunset land with its uncollected dreams.

Saying no word even to Tanlu, his chosen friend, Kayuke withdrew himself to a solitary spot beside the mouth of a river that pours its waters into the great southern lake. For there were caves with paintings on the rock-faces, where a people now forgotten had made their dwellings in times long past. Kayuke and his tribe had of old feared to linger near these pictures, believing that the hand of the Gualichu had set them on the rock, and when night darkened the water, perchance they sprang from their places, living, and strong-handed and terrible.

But with this new feeling hot in him, the young man lost the old fear. Of all things Kayuke most desired to be alone. The call to go away and brood awhile compelled him, he yielded to an instinct he could not name. Knowing that none would dare to follow him to the caves of the ancients, he went thither, and