Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
go at all. I wondered what was the tie that prevented him. 
I did not reckon with the mighty force of habit. I stayed 
with him about a month, helping him in his work and dis- 
covering thereby how much he did amongst the poorer 
classes for pure love, apparently, of his fellow-creatures. 
He was not much of a talker ; he would sit smoking his pipe 
in the verandah at night, watching the Fireflies circling in the 
ambient air, and dropping dry pithy remarks. One night 
he said after a long silence, “ Airchie ” (he had discovered 
my name was Archibald), “ Airchie, my mon, I’m thinking I 
should not let ye leave the island without seeing the Padre ” 
“ The Padre ? ” I said, rather surprised, as, although I was 
not exactly acquainted with the form of religion professed 
by Doctor Gordon, I somehow could not fancy his lank 
red-haired personality in touch with what must evidently be 
some fat friar, shepherd of some dusky flock. “ Ay, Padre 
Avelino ; he’s a man, he is. I’ve known him since I drifted 
here years ago, without a friend to my name.” He paused 
and took a whiff at his pipe, then added : “ He nursed me 
through an attack of Yellow Jack that was like to have 
carried me off. Not because he was acquent with me; no, 
because I had nobody to do a hand’s turn for me.” A few 
days afterwards Dr. Gordon suddenly announced to me he 
was going to take me a long ride into the country. We 
started in the early dawn, a pale pink flush was spreading 
over the sky in the distance above the mountains, what 
somebody calls the “ rosy fingers of Aurora opening the gates 
of morning to the Sun’s chariot.” There was a chilly feeling 
in the air, but on my complaining, Dr. Gordon said, with a 
grim smile, “ Hoots, ye’ll be hot eneuch later. Dinna fash 
yersel’.” The Doctor’s old grey house, with its tall door- 
way and deep portico wreathed with the flaming flowers of 
the Venusta, was situate on the road to the Botanic Gardens, 
in a sadly dirty street where stray dogs, ungainly black 
vultures called “ Corbeaux,” and soft-eyed goats roamed at 
will, along with leggy chickens and endless children, half- 
clothed but shining with grease and cheerfulness. We 
hurried on, past wretched wooden sheds, the habitations of 
328 
