Alys

“ Some of the courtiers knelt, but others stood in confusion, looking from Alys to Ivane and back again.
Kieron studied Ivane coldly. She was, he had to admit, a regal figure. A tall woman with hair the color of jet. A face that seemed chiseled out of marble. Dark, predatory eyes and a figure like a Dawn Age goddess. She stood before the Great Throne of the Empire, mantled in the sable robe of the Imperium—a robe as black as space and spangled with diamonds to resemble the stars of the Imperial Galaxy. ”

“ It is a high honor I have prepared for my king.”
CERCAMON felt every eye fasten upon him; the hot, impatient eye full of a boy's curiosity and a boy's restlessness; the gentle, brooding eyes of Countess Alys; the hard, cynical eyes of Thibault; and the unbroken stare of five hundred war-hardened knights of France. These men, untrained to value the polished verse of his southland and flushed with wine—these men he must please. But more than all he must please King Louis; and it was well for him the king was of finer stuff than his nobles. ”

“ Towering cold and white against the blue sky were the great mountains in the distance, behind emerald hills whose trees stood out individually in the clear atmosphere, and close to the water’s edge blazed the rata, flaunting its crimson boldly among the surrounding graces of the tree-ferns and palms. Every moment disclosed new pictures, fresh groupings of foliage and flower, different curves and crevices in the hills, with waterfalls leaping down in their hurry to reach the lake. ”

“ The wind was blowing the clouds away, the snow had ceased, and every now and then we had glimpses of gigantic peaks and mountain masses, glimpses that were like draughts of water to the thirsty for they assured us that the eternal hills were there behind the concealing clouds, and they spoke of glad to-morrows when the broken promises of the to-days should be fulfilled. ”

“ And then came Stafford; and Milly looked out for the castle, and wondered whether the castles in her story-books looked like that, and whether princesses and fairy godmothers and giants ever lived there in old times.
After they had left Stafford, Olly began to get tired and fidgety. First he went to sit on his father’s knee, then on mother’s, then on nurse’s—none of them could keep him still, and nothing seemed to amuse him for long together.
“Come and have a sleep, Master Olly,” said nurse. “You are just tired and hot. This is a long way for little boys, and we’ve got ever so far to go yet.” ”

“ After successfully negotiating the channels we went up the creek leading to the lake, a lovely creek, fringed with bush, and with flax, tree-fern, and clumps of pampas grass growing in and on the edge of the water. Rugged ratas flung their misshapen branches out against the sky to be reflected in the water as in a mirror, and their scarlet flowers made grateful dashes of colour in the gloomy setting of the forest picture. ”

“ PLATE VIII.—LA LAITIÈRE
“La Laitière,” or “The Milkmaid,” may perhaps be given as quite the most representative of Greuze’s works. The affected pose and simpering smile, the unsuitability and over-arrangement of the dress, are as characteristic of the painter as the perfect grace of the ensemble, the delicious coquetry of the attitude, the dimpled roundness of the form, and, above all, the sparkle in the clear eyes and the exquisite bloom of the flesh. The picture is in the Louvre. ”

“ And as I felt quite rested and wanted to give my ankle some exercise, Captain Greendays, Colonel Deane and I climbed to the top of the hill near the house to watch old Sutherland cross the Sound and bring his passengers back. The hill was a labyrinth of fairy groves, with a fernery here and an arbour of delicate creeping plants there, and a marvellous tangle of woodland everywhere. From the top Sutherland’s house looked like a white butterfly that had fallen on the edge of a tiny lake among giant hills, and his little launch was just a toy boat sailing under the shadow of mighty cliffs. ”

“ We liked Dunedin better than any of the other cities. It is so beautifully situated, and if an Edinburgh by the sea can be imagined it is this far Southern home of the Scottish pioneers. Its many as yet unspoiled hills are more clustering, smaller, and dressed in a brighter livery than those of Scotland,—the gay green and yellow of virgin grass, gorse, briar and broom, instead of the heathery purple and green that in Scotland is subdued by greyer skies and distance into a soft, indefinable shade. ”

“ But the train rushed relentlessly on, it did not even dawdle at the little stations as all the other expresses had done, and we felt sadder and sadder as each emerald field and hill and vale, each sparkling stream and peaceful lake that we passed took us nearer and nearer to the boat that was waiting to carry us out of sight of it all.
“It is a pity that you could not have spent at least six months out here!” said Colonel Deane. “As it is you have only an impressionist idea of New Zealand to carry away with you. ”

“ It was the finest sight and the grandest, finer far than the Sutherland Falls, grander even than the Huka. For the great mass of water comes rushing down the first cliff in a foaming torrent, irresistible, and awful in its power, and while an immense white body of seething froth is whirling in the rocky basin another, sea-blue and transparent, in one gigantic curving fountain shoots into the air, and falls, leaving between it and the rocks a wide space that shows a picture of the vegetation on the further cliff. ”

“ I walked about with Colonel Deane and Captain Greendays, up and down the track, while Mrs Greendays had a hot tub in our hut, prepared for her by the obliging old cook. And later on, when I had had mine and we were both snugly tucked up in our kapok nests, with the firelight dancing on the brown boards and the great logs hissing and crackling a pleasant lullaby, we vowed that we had never been so comfortable and cosy since we landed in New Zealand.
It is not often that one has an opportunity of resting in a silence so profound that it can almost be felt ”

“ The country as far as Timaru was very flat, bounded by the Southern Alps far away on the right and by the sea on the left of the line. Such splendid fields of grain there were, hedged with gorse or hawthorn, mile after mile of them, with plantations of pinus insignis like dark green islands in a sea of verdure, and surrounding some of the houses near the railway were sycamores, limes, poplars, elms, and oaks. And numerous rivers, numberless streams,—no wonder that the isles of New Zealand are emerald with such abundance of water everywhere and such a temperate climate. ”

“ Not two feet from the river there is an erection of petrified sticks in the shape of a crow’s nest, and every two or three hours, with marvellous punctuality, a geyser blows high into the air from its depths,—an accommodating geyser that plays three times in succession as an encouragement to the amateur photographers who wait patiently for the performance. ”

“ All the guide-books that we consulted spoke equally rapturously of the climate of New Zealand, and so, with visions of eternal blue, cloudless skies, and long sunny days, we added to our stock of dainty muslins and shady hats, gave away any winter clothes we had from last spring, and kept only one warm tailor-made each in case of occasional cold days on the voyage out. ”

“ It still looked like a battle-field, too, that wonderful valley, even more so, perhaps, under the sunny peaceful sky than when the storm-clouds were darkening and half concealing the gigantic peaks and enormous masses of snow and ice. Now the sun shone down on the battered grey warriors fallen from their lofty eyries, and glistened on the streaming sides of the cruelly-torn and rent declivities, whence great masses of rock and soil had been dislodged in the fury of the elements. ”

“ In front of the verandahed wooden house embowered in climbing roses were lawns bounded by a winding willow-bordered stream; at the back, orchards, where pears, plums, apples, cherries, oranges, and tangerines flourished in surprising harmony. The place was nearly surrounded with beautiful native bush, with tree-fern and cabbage-palms; flax and toi-grass grew in the creek; the turquoise sea rippled and sparkled in front, and the great white cone of the mountain towered above the undulating pasture-lands and forest stretching away behind. ”

“ The great iron hose is turned on to a given point in the hill-side, the water rushes out with tremendous force, tearing away the grass, washing out the sand and gravel, stones and clay that form it, and it all runs away in a muddy stream down a self-made channel into one prepared with a floor of planks a foot deep. ”

“ It hangs in the Louvre, and is always surrounded by eager copyists, who strive, very frequently in vain, to reproduce the delicate tints of the flesh and the vague, wondering expression in the eyes of the charming heroine. ”

“ I will serve none,” said Elias, “who is not in some measure famous. I prefer that he be knight as well as poet. Be so kind as to round it in such an one’s ear that you know a famed jongleur. Say to him that if God has not given him voice wherewith to sing or to relate his chansons, tensos, and sirventes, I, who sing like rossignol and who learned narration in Tripoli and Alexandria, will do him at least some justice. But if he sings like rossignol himself or, God-like, speaks his own compositions, then say that I am the best accompanist—harp, lute, or viol—between Spain and Italy. ”

“ THE ART OF GREUZE When you think of the important place held by Greuze before the Revolution in the art of the eighteenth century, above all, when you reflect on how, being long dead, he still speaks in accents of such beauty, his pictures, valued at vast sums, finding honoured places in the art treasure-houses of the world, it comes almost as a shock to consider how far from being a really great artist he was. ”

“ The worst bit of all was the flat on the summit, for the wind was so strong that it was really hard to keep from being blown over, and it howled like fury. Speech had long been impossible; even if we could have made ourselves heard breath was far too precious to waste in talking.
But happily it was soon over; a few hundred yards and we were over the Saddle. Here the snow had melted as it fell, or been thawed immediately by the myriad streams from the peaks, and so much water was pouring down the precipitous downward track that the descent was simply a tortuous waterway. ”

“ The people who crowded to the stations, as though the arrival of the Wellington mail-train was the signal for a gathering of the whole community, were all so well-dressed and prosperous-looking that there seemed to be only one class in the country, and that certainly not a labouring nor hard-working one! ”

“ And everywhere there was manuka, the heathery, fragrant, white-flowered shrub that makes beautiful the desert places and supplies so many needs that I wonder New Zealand does not make it her symbolic flower. Far away behind the numberless hills before and below us lay Okoroire, and as we stopped now and then to examine ferns or flowers we did not arrive until just in time for luncheon, which we had at the hotel. ”

“ Nurse and Milly always left him alone till he was quite woke up. It made him cross if you began to talk to him too soon.
“Milly,” said Olly presently, in a sleepy voice, “I’m going right up the mountains after breakfast. Aren’t you?”
“Wait till you see them, Master Olly,” said nurse, taking him up and kissing him, “perhaps your little legs won’t find it quite so easy to climb up the mountains as you think.”
“I can climb up three, four, six, seven mountains,” said Olly stoutly; “mountains aren’t a bit hard. Mother says they’re meant to climb up.” ”

“ There were the milk, the cream, and the mustard pools, the blue, green, and light-green lakes, the Paddle-pool, the Champagne-pool, which is set fizzing by throwing in a handful of sand, the Primrose Falls, the Sulphur Cave, and so on, quite a big programme for half-a-crown! Most of the springs are hot, but the cold ones are removed from the hot by only a foot or so, and sometimes only by inches. In the hot ones the boiling clay often splashes and spouts out a great deal farther than one expects, as if a live imp had its habitation there and wished to maliciously surprise the intruder. ”

“ Why is it that men who make a failure of every other calling under the sun invariably take to hotel-keeping? It is a profession that needs the most delicate tact, the widest knowledge of human nature, an almost divine combination of generosity and economy, vast patience, Napoleonic powers of insight and strategy, and above all, incomparable manners. But how many of these qualities, all of which, I assure you, Madam, are indispensable to the making of a fair specimen of the genus host, do the gentlemen aspiring to such positions in New Zealand possess? ”

“ We had a sort of afternoon-tea-luncheon at one of the coach-stables, provided by the groom’s wife, but as the breakfast at Lurnsden had been far from delectable we were frightfully hungry long before we got to the Accommodation House on the lake.
The ugliness of the drive lasted until we got within measurable distance of the snow-capped mountains that had been part of the horizon all day. ”

“ The people at Glade House built a log-fire for us in the dining-room, gave us afternoon tea with delicious home-made cake, and quite a recherche little dinner later on. We sat round the fire all the evening, Mr. Inspector telling us stories of the track, and as the sandflies left us alone, and happy in our loneliness, after the daylight died, we went to bed very much pleased at the propitious commencement to our pilgrimage. ”