44 JOCK'S LAKE. 



tively harmless, so far. The last trip I made with him he 

 was full of 'nectar' and 'ambrosia' and the 'feasts of 

 the gods.' We're lucky if we get oil' with ' eosmo< ' this 

 time." 



But despite the talk and banter the eating went on. until 

 the heartv breakfast was ended, and Horace ceased from 

 his labors at the frying-pan, and Ceorge. (lie waiter, gladly 

 heard from one and another. " No more! " 



After breakfast Wilkinson returned home with his 

 horses, but leaving his wagon until he should come for 

 us; and as he disappeared in the forest, the Neophyte. 

 experiencing fora moment a sensation of home-longing. 

 thought,: " So the curtain drops between us and the outer 

 world, to be raised some days hence, revealing no one 

 knows what!" lie never tell precisely that way again, 

 but never failed, in similar circumstances, to feel for an 

 instant a certain sense of loneliness and helple^n> 



Now began, in earnest, the real life that we had come to 

 enjoy, life in a primitive fashion, far from the cares and 

 dist ['actions as well as the luxuries of civilization, cut otV 

 from all men but our OAVH chosen company; the life of the 

 savage, with all the bad elements left out. unconstrained 

 but not lawless, jovial and free but self respectful, natural 

 but certainly not barbarous; a too short period of alternate 

 work and rest, of sport in fishing, rowing, shooting, 

 swimming and in doing a thousand little things, important 

 on such occasions to be done, but dillicult to report and 

 perhaps of interest only to the actors themselves. 



"Wilkinson is a good enough fellow/' said Ben -on. 



