sink into a slothful, fat, and useless middle and old age; that his life
would be a failure. And he knew that they were right; that if he stayed
where he could live an easy life, a fat and easy life he would lead; that
in a few years he would be good for nothing except to eat and sleep--no
more. One day, waking suddenly from a bad dream of himself so fat as to
be drawn about on a dray by monstrous fat oxen with rings through their
noses, led by monkeys, he began to wonder what he should do--the hardest
thing to do; for only the hardest life could possibly save him from
failure, and, in spite of all, he really did want to make something of
his life. He had been reading the story of Sir John Franklin's Arctic
expedition, and all at once it came home to him that the only thing for
him to do was to go to the Far North and stay there, coming back about
once every ten years to tell the people in the cities what was being done
in the wilds. Then there came the inspiration to write his poem on Sir
John Franklin, and he had done so, winning the college prize for poetry.
But no one had seen any change in him in those months; and, indeed, there
had been little or no change, for he had an equable and practical, though
imaginative, disposition, despite his avoirdupois, and his new purpose
did not stir him yet from his comfortable sloth.

And in all the journey West and North he had not been stirred greatly
from his ease of body, for the journey was not much harder than playing
cricket every day, and there were only the thrill of the beautiful air,
the new people, and the new scenes to rouse him. As yet there was no
great responsibility. He scarcely realised what his life must be, until
one particular day. Then Sleeping Beauty waked wide up, and from that
day lost the name. Till then he had looked and borne himself like any
other traveller, unrecognised as a parson or "mikonaree." He had not had
prayers in camp en route, he had not preached, he had held no meetings.
He was as yet William Rufus Holly, the cricketer, the laziest dreamer of