terfowl, and they realised what they
had done. It is quite possible that they had killed some unique
specimens, imported at fabulous cost from Central Africa, or from the
heart of the Australian continent, some priceless bird that was the
apple of the eye of the Curator of the Gardens, so we buried the
episode and the birds, in profound secrecy.

For my younger brother and myself, this lake had a different
attraction, for, improbable as it may seem, it was the haunt of a gang
of most abandoned pirates. Behind a wooded island, but quite invisible
to the adult eye, the pirate craft lay, conforming in the most orthodox
fashion to the descriptions in Ballantyne's books: "a schooner with a
long, low black hull, and a suspicious rake to her masts. The copper on
her bottom had been burnished till it looked like gold, and the black
flag, with the skull and cross-bones, drooped lazily from her peak."

The presence of this band of desperadoes entailed the utmost caution
and watchfulness in the neighbourhood of the lake. Unfortunately, we
nearly succeeded in drowning some young friends of ours, whom we
persuaded to accompany us in an attack on the pirates' stronghold. We
embarked on a raft used for cutting weeds, but no sooner had we shoved
off than the raft at once, most inconsiderately, sank to the bottom of
the lake with us. Being Christmas time, the water was not over-warm,
and we had some difficulty in extricating our young friends. Their
parents made the most absurd fuss about their sons having been forced
to take a cold bath in mid-December in their best clothes. Clearly we
could not be held responsible for the raft failing to prove sea-worthy,
though my youngest brother, even then a nice stickler for correct
English, declared, that, given the circumstances, the proper epithet
was "lake-worthy."

What a wonderful dream-world the child can create for himself, and
having fashioned it and peopled it, he can inhabit his creation in
perfect content quite regardless of his material surroundings, unless
some grown-up, with his matter-of-fact bluntness, happens to break the
spell.

I have endeavoured to express this peculiar faculty of the child's in
rather halting blank verse. I apologise for giving it here, as I make
no claim to be able to write verse. My only excuse must be that my
lines attempt to convey what every man and woman must have felt, though
probably the average person would express himself in far better
language