St. Landry democrat., 1886-07-03
who could thrash the Young Penruths,

WIZ 'oulu IhlaSh the young Penruths,
respectively three and four years his
senior, whenever they vent!red on the
island, and who pretty generally did
(bemg provoked thereto by town
grown satire i'll the first instance), was
hunting one day in the library for a
outline which he Remembered TO have
slowed away a month or two before.
using one of Trewarthen's neglected
volumes as winding-block. After a
little time he found it and began to I'M
wind 1t from the book The fact that
the volume he thus handled was an
carry ana somewhat rare and valuable
cory OF the ''Iempe>t, by Mr. William
Shakespeare, was nothing to Phil: but
though he knew as little as he thought,
ms hour for entering on another life
than the one he had hitherto known
had stolen upon him. The hooked end
OF the line had been set within the
Noh' so that firm purchase upon the
rest might be taken. and now the hooks
We're fastened in a page or two. As
ne went about to distangle them his
! eyes fell on passage that interested
him:
~ The strong based promontory
rave maze snake and by the spurs plucked
the pine and cedar; graves at my command
Have walked their sleepers, oped, and let EN-
forth,
| by my so-pOtent art
This was worth inquirinr into. Phil
was not Ignorant of the reputation
which clung to MS protector, but to a
child commonplaces are so wonderful
that wonders have Il chance of seeming
com mDnnl3no and bn
amazed or frightened. or moved in anv
way, by the island chatter which had
1regarthen for its mark. The first notion
that entered Pills mind was that this
was some fellow in Arthur's line of bust
ness. (Iregarthen, in some doubt as to
the relationship the boy should bear to
him, had ordered that Phil should ad-
dress him by his Christian name) So.
throwing down the line, he took a seat
at the tablc,a being by nature inclined
to be thorough in all things. he turned
the leaves back until he came to the
beginning OF the drama, and for the
first time in his life made acquaintance
with poetry.
There was no doubt or shadow of a |
doubt in his mind. Everything he read |
there was as real "a the solid earth to |
him. Ariel and Caliban were as indis- |
putably true as the propositions of En-
cid are to mathematician. Prospero
struck awe into him. He fell in love
with Miranda. He shuddered when the
wicked mobiles laid their plot to kill the
King. And when the clear and ma
Jestlc thunders of the poets deepest
tones broke about him:
VI,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself.
Yea, all which it nherits, shall dissolve
he felt as Job felt when a spirit passed
before him in the night and the hair of
his flesh stood up. For the lad, without
in the least suspecting it, had been
poet from his cradle, and he only need
ed to see the greatest of the craft into
which he himself was born to fall pros
trate before him and adore
Reading. hitherto the greatest of
earthly bores to Phil, became his chief
delight. Tregarthen's library was es-
pecially rich in poetry and drama, and
every day Phil plunged headlong into
some new stream of joy and bathed in
It. To rush down to the Sea-gate with
4 Struggled volume, to lay it in the
BOAT and pull out into the open, then to
ship his sculls and lie down full length,
md read, read, read until hunger drove
him home-this was his joy. As mat
er of course, it was not long before he
began to write and initiate. and he
yept. and flushed, and trembled over !
much degraded fustian of his own !
making, the which he remembered in
lfter years with shame and pleasure {
even Tregarthen, absent as he was.
nd absorbed in his crazy studies, be- $
IAN to notice Il change in him, and T
hiding him studiously inclined, !
undertook to direct his reading, b
ut soon forgot it, having done no I
lore than to direct his pupils atten-
ion to John Locke and Rev Mr. Paley, A
18th whom Phil at once declined to
old any commerce whatever. c.
The seasons pursued each other, and
/ due course came round the tenth an Y
iversary of Pills rescue by Ire II
arthen. This by tacit consent was b
as the lads seventeenth tt
Irthday, and the past, of course, was
i'm to him. He seemed to have spent tt
1 his life on the island; and now that I'll
J knew of the great world through W
ooks, and was beginning to be fired W
7 secret ambitions about his own al
ture, he began also to long for wider 70
faces and a communion with the til
orld. h;
Arthur he said, sitting opposite lii
his protector, 'I'm seventeen to- pl
W. W
Tregarthen looked up, absently at
st, but with a growing interest in his w
es. w
Seventeen" he said, with a Won Lis
l I,