David seems to have changed his style, de'il ha'e him! And
much I care, if the tale travel!


FRIDAY, FEB. ?? 19TH?


Two incidents to-day which I must narrate. After lunch, it
was raining pitilessly; we were sitting in my mother's
bedroom, and I was reading aloud Kinglake's Charge of the
Light Brigade, and we had just been all seized by the horses
aligning with Lord George Paget, when a figure appeared on
the verandah; a little, slim, small figure of a lad, with
blond (I.E. limed) hair, a propitiatory smile, and a nose
that alone of all his features grew pale with anxiety. 'I
come here stop,' was about the outside of his English; and I
began at once to guess that he was a runaway labourer, and
that the bush-knife in his hand was stolen. It proved he had
a mate, who had lacked his courage, and was hidden down the
road; they had both made up their minds to run away, and had
'come here stop.' I could not turn out the poor rogues, one
of whom showed me marks on his back, into the drenching
forest; I could not reason with them, for they had not enough
English, and not one of our boys spoke their tongue; so I
bade them feed and sleep here to-night, and to-morrow I must
do what the Lord shall bid me.

Near dinner time, I was told that a friend of Lafaele's had
found human remains in my bush. After dinner, a figure was
seen skulking across towards the waterfall, which produced