第26章 CHAPTER XII(1)

MAY, OCTOBER 24TH.

MY DEAR CARTHEW, - See what I have written, but it's Colvin I'm after - I have written two chapters, about thirty pages of WRECKER since the mail left, which must be my excuse, and the bother I've had with it is not to be imagined, you might have seen me the day before yesterday weighing British sov.'s and Chili dollars to arrange my treasure chest. And there was such a calculation, not for that only, but for the ship's position and distances when - but I am not going to tell you the yarn - and then, as my arithmetic is particularly lax, Lloyd had to go over all my calculations; and then, as I had changed the amount of money, he had to go over all HIS as to the amount of the lay; and altogether, a bank could be run with less effusion of figures than it took to shore up a single chapter of a measly yarn. However, it's done, and I have but one more, or at the outside two, to do, and I am Free! and can do any damn thing I like.

Before falling on politics, I shall give you my day. Awoke somewhere about the first peep of day, came gradually to, and had a turn on the verandah before 5.55, when 'the child' (an enormous Wallis Islander) brings me an orange; at 6, breakfast; 6.10, to work; which lasts till, at 10.30, Austin comes for his history lecture; this is rather dispiriting, but education must be gone about in faith - and charity, both of which pretty nigh failed me to-day about (of all things)

Carthage; 11, luncheon; after luncheon in my mother's room, I read Chapter XXIII. of THE WRECKER, then Belle, Lloyd, and I go up and make music furiously till about 2 (I suppose), when I turn into work again till 4; fool from 4 to half-past, tired out and waiting for the bath hour; 4.30, bath; 4.40, eat two heavenly mangoes on the verandah, and see the boys arrive with the pack-horses; 5, dinner; smoke, chat on verandah, then hand of cards, and at last at 8 come up to my room with a pint of beer and a hard biscuit, which I am now consuming, and as soon as they are consumed I shall turn in.

Such are the innocent days of this ancient and outworn sportsman; to-day there was no weeding, usually there is however, edge in somewhere. My books for the moment are a crib to Phaedo, and the second book of Montaigne; and a little while back I was reading Frederic Harrison, 'Choice of Books,' etc. - very good indeed, a great deal of sense and knowledge in the volume, and some very true stuff, CONTRA Carlyle, about the eighteenth century. A hideous idea came over me that perhaps Harrison is now getting OLD. Perhaps you are. Perhaps I am. Oh, this infidelity must be stared firmly down. I am about twenty-three - say twenty-eight; you about thirty, or, by'r lady, thirty-four; and as Harrison belongs to the same generation, there is no good bothering about him.

Here has just been a fine alert; I gave my wife a dose of chlorodyne. 'Something wrong,' says she. 'Nonsense,' said I. 'Embrocation,' said she. I smelt it, and - it smelt very funny. 'I think it's just gone bad, and to-morrow will tell.' Proved to be so.

WEDNESDAY.

HISTORY OF TUESDAY. - Woke at usual time, very little work, for I was tired, and had a job for the evening - to write parts for a new instrument, a violin. Lunch, chat, and up to my place to practise; but there was no practising for me - my flageolet was gone wrong, and I had to take it all to pieces, clean it, and put it up again. As this is a most intricate job - the thing dissolves into seventeen separate members, most of these have to be fitted on their individual springs as fine as needles, and sometimes two at once with the springs shoving different ways - it took me till two. Then Lloyd and I rode forth on our errands; first to Motootua, where we had a really instructive conversation on weeds and grasses. Thence down to Apia, where we bought a fresh bottle of chlorodyne and conversed on politics.

My visit to the King, which I thought at the time a particularly nugatory and even schoolboy step, and only consented to because I had held the reins so tight over my little band before, has raised a deuce of a row - new proclamation, no one is to interview the sacred puppet without consuls' permission, two days' notice, and an approved interpreter - read (I suppose) spy. Then back; I should have said I was trying the new horse; a tallish piebald, bought from the circus; he proved steady and safe, but in very bad condition, and not so much the wild Arab steed of the desert as had been supposed. The height of his back, after commodious Jack, astonished me, and I had a great consciousness of exercise and florid action, as I posted to his long, emphatic trot. We had to ride back easy; even so he was hot and blown; and when we set a boy to lead him to and fro, our last character for sanity perished. We returned just neat for dinner; and in the evening our violinist arrived, a young lady, no great virtuoso truly, but plucky, industrious, and a good reader; and we played five pieces with huge amusement, and broke up at nine. This morning I have read a splendid piece of Montaigne, written this page of letter, and now turn to the WRECKER.