n a stick, and that for a moment, unnoticed by the rest, these
two stood looking strangely at each other.

From these sea-scented scenes, my memory travels to a weary land where
dead ashes lie, and there is blackness--blackness everywhere. Black
rivers flow between black banks; black, stunted trees grow in black
fields; black withered flowers by black wayside. Black roads lead from
blackness past blackness to blackness; and along them trudge black,
savage-looking men and women; and by them black, old-looking children
play grim, unchildish games.

When the sun shines on this black land, it glitters black and hard; and
when the rain falls a black mist rises towards heaven, like the hopeless
prayer of a hopeless soul.

By night it is less dreary, for then the sky gleams with a lurid light,
and out of the darkness the red flames leap, and high up in the air they
gambol and writhe--the demon spawn of that evil land, they seem.

Visitors who came to our house would tell strange tales of this black
land, and some of the stories I am inclined to think were true. One man
said he saw a young bull-dog fly at a boy and pin him by the throat. The
lad jumped about with much sprightliness, and tried to knock the dog
away. Whereupon the boy's father rushed out of the house, hard by, and
caught his son and heir roughly by the shoulder. "Keep still, thee young
---, can't 'ee!" shouted the man angrily; "let 'un taste blood."

Another time, I heard a lady tell how she had visited a cottage during a
strike, to find the baby, together with the other children, almost dying
for want of food. "Dear, dear me!" she cried, taking the wee wizened
mite from the mother's arms, "but I sent you down a quart of milk,
yesterday. Hasn't the child had it?"

"Theer weer a little coom, thank 'ee kindly, ma'am," the father took upon
himself to answer; "but thee see it weer only just enow for the poops."

We lived in a big lonely house on the edge of a wide common. One night,
I remember, just as I was reluctantly preparing to climb into bed, there
came a wild ringing at the gate, followed by a hoarse, shrieking cry, and
then a frenzied shaking of the iron bars.

Then hurrying footsteps sounded through the house, and the swift opening
and closing of doors; and I slipped back hastily into my knickerbockers
and ran out. The women folk were gathered on the stairs, while my father
stood in the hall, calling to them to be quiet. And still the wild