62 LITERATURE. 



harmless, so gentle, so . . . Yes, they carry thee everywhere at thy leisure, whilst I 

 have always had to ride my kanj^aroos, and now that I am too old for that have to walk 

 as best I may wherever I require to go. Ah ! one aiways learns something in growing old. 

 I do if women do not ; and nothing angers me so much as to see thy foolish conduct in 

 thine old age; thy ridiculous behaviour with that son of thine, who, notwithstanding all 

 thou mayest say, as soon as thou hast gone one way starts off in another and is not to be 

 seen all day long until just before thou comest back, which is usually late, very late, often 

 at untimely hours. Silence, my Dame ! Silence ! I know what I am saying. I know 

 when the wife deserts her home the husband is angered and the children go . . . where 

 they should not. So it has always been, so it is in thy rase, and so it will be forever 

 I have said . . . Go ! " 



The poor mother went, and wept, and was disconsolate at having l)een so rebuked 

 by her I.ord. " Alas ! Alas !" did she cry. " Woe on me ! What have I done? How 

 have I lost the reverence of my Lord? Is it a crime to love that sweet last son of mine, 

 who was given to me in my old age, the dear beloved? The beauteous youth ! Oh ! Woe 

 on me! Woe forever!" And she cried and cried, and when her anguish gave her a 

 minute's respite she thought to herself that perhaps in her everyday course from one end 

 of heaven to the other she had failed to meet with some of those who had suffered from 

 the wild pranks of her son, and that her I.ord has been complained to by beings who, 

 having long lived in the calm, customary, well-regulated, and time-honoured routine of 

 eternity, could not understand the outbursts of her robust young son, and who, being so 

 very old themselves, had. like Timu, forgotten long ago the time which everyone has to go 

 through, and which, if noisy, peradventure somewhat riotous and disorderly, is nevertheless 

 the time for one day of which auyone would barter the whole of eternity. " What shall 

 I do?" cried Kari, " I dare not now alfront the anger of my I ord. It would only provoke 

 him the more. I must set off at once and travel day and night in order that no fresh 

 complaint be made, because I am sure that some bad report by an evil tongue is the true 

 cause of my beloved child's disgrace and my own. My son ! Oh, where art thou? Come 

 to me, darling. Thy mother knows now the taste of tears." 



She was just lamenting thus when she was startled by a tremendous clash, accom- 

 panied l)y the awful bellowing of anger, and heard her son, mad with passion, fighting, and 

 shouting on this wise : " Off ! Stand ofl ! Ofl with you, wretch !" —and rushing upon him 

 headlong were giants of hery countenance, whom War fought, and sent at a Ijlow rolling into 

 the infinitude of darkness. 



At the first sight she was terrified, trembling for the safety of her son; but iu a 

 moment her fears had disappeared and her face brightened with the carnadine hue of pride 

 and joy, and as soon as the last blow had Hung far away into space the last of the giants, 

 she approached her son, and embi-aced him, though she had not strength at first to utter 

 a word. How happv was that embrace, how sweet ! She would surely have fainted in 

 the arms of the beloved but she had to rally all her motherly courage ; she wanted to know 

 if he had not been hurt, and then what was the cause of the quarrel, how it came about, 

 and what consequences would be likely to follow, antl she heard all about it in the 

 following terse answer • — 



"Hurt? No fear of that; I cannot be hurt, mother. The cause? A pretty little 

 star who loved me, and whom I loved dearly. How it canie about? Well . . . the 

 father, one of the ministers of Timu, objected, and told me so in such lauguage that I, in 

 turn, objected to it. I took the star and carried her far away, and while coming back, on 

 my way to thee, I was attacked by her father and his followers, and thou hast just seen 

 what I have done with the last of them." 



" But dost thou not think that thy father will be angered when he liears about it?" 



The son thought for a moment .... 



" Well, mother. Well I do not know. What i> there to be done?" 



