Harry Milvaine

“ To make matters worse, the hopelessness of his situation brought a prostration of mind and body, and the hardships and privations he had undergone in his wanderings began to tell upon Harry.
Besides, there was the dread marsh miasma to be breathed day after day, while the very appearance and dejectedness of the people he found himself among was not calculated to mend matters. He found himself growing ill, he struggled against it with all the force of his mind. But alas! a struggle of this kind is like that of floundering in a miry bog—the more you struggle the deeper you sink. ”

“ Every hour now, almost, Harry felt himself getting stronger. He was soon able to sit up for hours, then the king exhibited all the exuberant joy of a child of six. With his own hands he brought his patient a small dish of delightfully curried chicken and rice, and as Harry ate it King Googagoo laughed till his black, fat sides shook again.
With returning health came returning hope and happiness, and when, leaning on the king’s arm, Harry made his first venture out of doors it seemed for all the world like going into a new world. ”

“ Why it seemed like three years, so filled had the days been with toil and adventure. No wonder that Harry felt a man when he looked back to all he had come through. He had seen many strange sights, and been among many strange tribes and peoples, and yet he could have told you truthfully that he had not as yet made an enemy. To do so needs that wonderful skill and judgment, tact and calmness of mind, which only men like Stanley and Cameron possess. ”

“ Harry is back in the Highlands at last. He has come a good two hours earlier than he expected. But he does not mind that He likes to walk slowly on towards the home of his boyhood. Every little cottage, every hill—the hills are all heather-clad, for the summer’s bloom bedecks them—every wood, ay, every tree recalls some sweet memory of the bygone. ”

“ His majesty went to his tent and did not appear again that day, nor was he visible until late into the next.
Harry was walking about making friends with the cocks and hens, the goats and the pigs, and with several charmingly plumaged birds of the guinea-hen species, when he was summoned into the king’s presence.
The dusky monarch was seated in the middle of his tent on a mat. So black was he, and so dark was the hut, that, coming right in from the glare of the noonday sun, it was some time before Harry could see him or anything else. ”

“ They say the child is the father of the man. I believe there is much truth in the statement, so that, in describing Harry’s character as a young boy, I am saving myself the trouble of doing so when he is very much older, and mingling in wilder life.
He was impulsive then and brave, fond to some extent of mischief of a mild, kind nature, but he was tender-hearted. One day in the forest he came to the foot of a great Scotch fir-tree.
“There is an old nest up there, Guvie. I’m off up.” ”

“ Then silence. She knows that assistance is not far off, if she can only make them hear. She knows that the silence which succeeds the shouting means that they are listening for a response.
She tries to answer, but no sound much louder than a whisper can she emit. The cold dews have rendered her almost voiceless.
Now she shakes and tries to arouse Harry.
“Harry, Harry, awake, dear!”
“Whe—where am I?” cries the boy, rubbing his eyes.
“In the forest, Harry; in a tree.”
“Oh, I remember now,” says Harry, smiling, and looking down; “and there’s Towsie. What a jolly sleep I’ve had, Guvie! Have you?” ”

“ The Land of Depopulation—In a Beast-Haunted Wilderness—A Mystery—A Strange King. Three months have elapsed since the night Harry found the dying slave lad on the grass, near the old camp-fire Harry is as strong now as ever. Nay, he is even stronger. He has had a birthday since then, and now in his own mind calls himself a man.
He is a man in heart at all events, a man in pluck and a man in manliness.
The trio—Somali Jack, Raggy, and Harry—are very friendly now. ”

“ He was no wanton nest-robber, though; a boy who is so has no manliness or fairness or gentlemanly feeling about him. Harry never robbed a nest, but more than once he pitched into other boys for doing so, and fought sturdy battles in the forest in defence of his friends the birds. ”

“ Harry saw through his tactics at once, for after all war is very much like a game of draughts, and skill goes a long way, while the more you can guess your opponent’s thoughts the surer you are of victory: so Harry rightly guessed that Kara-Kara’s plan of action was first to capture the island king’s palace and stronghold, king and all, then take the other islands one by one. ”

“ But Harry saw that whatever was to be done must be done with care and caution. For failure would mean the death—probably by torture—of the unfortunate white captives.
To please King Googagoo he at once accepted his assistance, but said they must prepare.
“All the men of war and all the amazons,” replied the king, “are at your disposal. You have brought everlasting joy to my heart, do with us what you will.”
Harry at once set about operations. He held a great review in one of the largest islands. Every man, he found, was a soldier, but they were sadly deficient in armour of an effective kind. ”

“ His youthful education, and the lessons honest Andrew had taught him when quite a boy, now came in very handy indeed, which only shows that no lad, whatever his position in life, should hesitate to learn a trade.
Harry, assisted by Raggy and Jack, made chairs for the king’s tent, and an extra couch. He also made rude but useful candlesticks, and with the fat of goats and pigs rude and useful candles to place in them; so that when the rainy season returned, it was quite a treat to sit in the palace tent with lights burning, and read, tell stories, and sing songs till it was time to go to bed. ”

“ Harry would reply, “what are they to me? I have books, a gun, and a fishing-rod, and I have Eily; what more should I want?”
The name of Hermit followed him to the parish school. Our tale dates back to the days before School Boards were thought of.
Harry was eleven now, and therefore somewhat too old for a governess. So Miss Campbell had gone. I’m afraid that Harry had already forgotten his promise to marry her when he “grew a great big man.” ”

“ Then the boy’s heart melted for her, and he went and threw his arms around her and kissed her, and said:
“Oh! Guvie dear, don’t cry, and Harry will never, never be quite so naughty again. Don’t cry, dear, and when Harry grows a big man, he will fight for you and then marry you.” ”

“ Harry at once called off his men. He meant to cripple, if not destroy, the foe in a way that would save the lives of his own fellows. The double boats fell back at once, and the enemy, or what remained of them—for at least five hundred must have fallen in this terrible melée—commenced pulling away with might and main towards their own camp on the distant shore. ”

“ But he vowed to himself that if spared to return he would try to make amends for such thoughtlessness.
“You should sow good seed when you can,” something seemed to whisper to Harry; “the ground may be rough, the soil may be hard, but good seed often makes good soil for itself.”
Book Four—Chapter One. On the War Path. Adventure with a Python—The Unwholesome Fen—The Village of the Dismal Swamp—The Man-Eater. Not only as guides and carriers, but in a variety of other ways did Harry find his new men useful. ”

“ Walda had a wondrous way of his own of making his peace with native tribes. He seemed to know the whole country well, and used to run on miles in front of the company, and by the time Harry got up it was no uncommon thing to find everything prepared and ready, and even a rude tent made for the white man’s reception.
So that life became now a deal easier for our hero. ”

“ Amazons—The Lake of the Hundred Isles—The Feast of Flowers. When the king’s barge left the shore, shoved slowly along by the head of the big hulking negro, Harry, of course, had not the faintest notion whence he was being taken.
Perhaps he was just a trifle reckless. He was so at most times, but in this case I imagine he was in the right. For the worst thing one can do on meeting strange savages is to show mistrust or fear of them. If you mistrust them, they at once suspect you, and the consequences may sometimes be anything but pleasant. ”

“ No matter, he lives; my son will soon be well. The king will make him well; he shall eat honey and milk, and drink of the blood of she-goats until he is once more strong.”
When landed at the island, the king led the way to his own tent, and Harry was brought here and laid on a bed or dais covered with lions’ skins. ”

“ Take me and turn me round and round, and what more am I than just a poor devil that lives by horses, and not always the price of a pot o’ stout in my pocket—
‘Four farthings and a thimble
Makes the tailor’s pocket jingle.’
Your tongue’s a bit too hard, Mildred; but ye mean well, and there’s kindness at the bottom o’ the mug, though the brew be bitter.”
“I think I hear the doctor,” said Mildred, placing her palm behind her ear and listening.
“Ay,” said Harry; “I hear him talkin’.” ”

“ That a man like Jasper Milvain, whose name was every now and then forced upon his notice as a rising periodicalist and a faithful henchman of the unspeakable Fadge—that a young fellow of such excellent prospects should seriously attach himself to a girl like Marian seemed to him highly improbable, save, indeed, for the one consideration, that Milvain, who assuredly had a very keen eye to chances, might regard the girl as a niece of old John Yule, and therefore worth holding in view until it was decided whether or not she would benefit by her uncle’s decease. ”

“ Better still, perhaps I can enlist the Gwilt-Athelston; I'm to meet her to-morrow. I'll let you know. Now I must get into my teaharness, so run along."
We are next constrained to glance at a strong man bowed in the hurt of a great grief. Horace Milbrey sits alone in his gloomy, high-ceilinged library. His attire is immaculate. His slender, delicate hands are beautifully white. The sensitive lines of his fine face tell of the strain under which he labours. ”

“ Lying in his bunk Harry awoke to the consciousness of another bleak dawn. The morning waking was always a pain to him, for in sleep the barriers fell away and the mind fared forth along the free, sweet highways of memory. He did not open his eyes at once, but he felt the rasp of the coarse blanket at his throat, smelled the cold clamminess of the granite floor, and realised by a thousand reminders of the sharpened senses that another round of the treadmill awaited him. ”

“ For young Bines, after dinner, fell in love with Miss Milbrey all over again. The normal human mind going to one extreme will inevitably gravitate to its opposite if given time. Having put her away in the conviction that she was heartless and mercenary—having fasted in the desert of doubt—he now found himself detecting in her an unmistakable appeal for sympathy, for human kindness, perhaps for love. He forgot the words of Higbee and became again the confident, unquestioning lover. ”

“ They must just take them as they found them, or, if not, stay away, was her rule.
“Why, here comes Harry Stride,” said Ben, looking up. “He seems a bit cross by the way he’s walking. You can nearly always tell a man’s mood by the way he walks. Hallo, Harry!”
The young prospector turned to join them, only too delighted. He was a handsome and manly-looking young fellow, as Verna was not slow to recognise as she noted his tall form coming down the garden path.
“Come from the club, Harry?” said the trader. ”

“ It would be only a lark to laugh over, an essay in effrontery performed for a wager and the delectation of a press-agent!
Harry suddenly felt the longing to be free take him by the throat, so that he trembled in every limb with the force of it. He smelled the wind racing across frosty meadows; he could almost fancy that he heard the flow of river-water under its icy coverlet; he could almost see the gnarled catalpas along the Allen driveway lifting their wintry twisted arms toward him. ”

“ But, after all, thought I to myself, who can prove that Harry has fibbed? Certainly, his manners are polished, he has a mighty easy address; and there is nothing altogether impossible about his having consorted with the master of Ickworth, and the daughter of the anonymous earl. And what right has a poor Yankee, like me, to insinuate the slightest suspicion against what he says? What little money he has, he spends freely; he can not be a polite blackleg, for I am no pigeon to pluck ”

“ Why should I hold back? Out of regard for him? I regard no man!"
"Yet he is my father. And you profess—ah, if this is love, I had rather you hated me! I know nothing of a love that is neither brave nor compassionate, that strikes at the aged and defenceless and that is without—honour!"
He had not taken his eyes from her face, and now there grew in them a strange, haggard fire. Relentless and unscrupulous as was that love of his, Harry could have pitied him at that moment. "Honour?" he said. "It is an empty word to me! What is honour, what is anything, to me without you—Echo, Echo!" ”

“ During those months Harry's visible life had been turning in an endless cycle of new-gained habit that ruled with vicious and numbing precision the huge conglomerate of which he was but a single atom—a bitter, dragging treadmill in which he was constrained to tramp steadily round and round with the hands of the clock, marking time, as it were, in a painful void that changed with mocking reverberations. ”