J. Storer Clouston

“ Even Captain Briggs, when the geniality of liquor had evaporated in the morning, seemed chiefly anxious to be quit of his midnight folly. And so Paul's eyes looked very plaintively over this Northern Sea.
And yet as the steamer turned into the bay there was something so calm and peaceful and open about the shining water that rippled briskly under the bows, in the great clear tent of sky with the sun only just setting at this late hour, in the soft outline of the land ahead, that he felt in his heart convinced kindness was somewhere close at hand. ”

“ To Paul it was half-restful, half-frightening; this land would be so lonely when darkness descended.
And then all of a sudden his heart began to lighten and he knew that he had come to a kind country; for night was held back. The Northern sky was still glowing like a far-away fire; the air was transparently clear; the stars must have been left behind in the south. He told himself he had come to a land where there was no night, so that poor people could find their way.
“Paul hobbled on shore, and made his way slowly up the cobbles of the pier.” ”

“ The man went on to read of other things, but those words ran like a song in Paul's whirling head:
“In the Windy Islands they are kind to poor people.”
He famished, and said them continually to himself. Night and day the chorus followed him through the hard streets and careless people, till it became a wish; and at last the wish became a determination. ”

“ Sometimes he has come from half the world away; and once the land is reached, little wonder he is often content, poor soul, to call his drifting done and rest like a broken spar on the beach where he is stranded. ”

“ He was so silent and so alien in everything that goes to make up a human being, that he never, in all the years he lived in London, put one foot across the line that divided him sharply from the people in the same house, the folk of the same street. ”

“ He should always now have one friend by him.
And so he first came to the island links. The dew still lay upon them, the quiet ocean sparkled beyond; the air was fresh as on a mountain top and fragrant with clover. They sat on the soft turf, and the cattle stolidly began to graze, the dog pretended to close his wary eyes, and Paul's fancy started musing.
“It is very good, it is all very kind; sunshine and grass, and no people to speak hardly: and that blue sea. I do not ever have to sail upon it again. Yes—yes, here they are kind to poor people. But will it last? It is too good ”

“ It is a land of dingy brick ranged into short, straight streets, some narrow, others little more than slits between the houses. The life of this country has often been told: the work and the meals, and the loves and the hates; but poor Paul had no share even in this. ”

“ He lay crumpled up on a doorstep one bright Sunday morning, so empty and wearied that even his quiet, inherited fatalism was tried, when his inspiration came to him. Two relaxed labourers were lounging close beside him, and one read aloud from a paper anecdotes and scraps of various information. Suddenly Paul caught the words: “In the Windy Islands they are kind to poor people.” ”

“ He had no idea where these islands were, how far or in what country, but if they were islands, he must take a ship to reach them. Besides, his rickety legs could scarcely carry him from one street to another, much less over the leagues of land that he was sure must lie between London and a people so different. He remembered dimly coming to this city in a ship, and in a ship he must go away. He inquired of a few men who passed him ”

“ When he could find work and earned a few shillings a week, he lived under a roof, in a little evil-smelling den; when work failed him he drifted out into the streets, and sometimes slept in night shelters and sometimes on doorsteps, and sometimes, when he was hungrier than usual, he never slept at all, but watched the day break and the man come round to put out the lamps and the occasional policemen pass. ”

“ Yes—yes, he would go to these islands where they were kind to poor people. It sounds as wild a thought as the resolution of a caged canary to fly home again.
A little work came his way again, and laboriously he laid by a few shillings, half starving himself to do it—for, alas, a poor man could not hope to win his way to this El Dorado. Money was necessary even to reach these kind folk. In time, if this job lasted, he might save perhaps ten shillings ”