The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1896-04-05
CHAPTER III.
THE WALKER OF CLIFrE ROYAL.

So much for Champion Harrison. Now I
wish to say something more about Boy Jim,
youth. but because you will find AS YOU 90 on
that this book is his story rather than mine:
his fame were In the mouths, of all England;
You will bear with me, therefore, while ! tell
you of his character as 1T was in those days.
and especially of one very singular adventure
which neither Of us is likely to forget.
1t was strange to see Jim with his uncle and
and breed to them, Often ] have watched
them come up the aisle upon u sunday, first the
square. thick-set man, and then the little.
worm, anxious eyed woman. and last this glo-
rious lad, with his clear.cut face: his black
curls. and his step so .~springy and light that
lesser tie than the heavy footed villagers round
him. He had not yet attained his full six feet
W Woman a,aa"r at least e"s "T Is ' "Se' c OF { % io"R t at his sI neT.
feet ,shoulders.hi his marrow loins, and his proud
head. that sat upon his neck like n flower ulon,
Its stalk. without feeling that sober JOY. which
all that Is beautiful in nature gives to us n
vague self-content, MS though in some way we
also had a hand in the making of II.
But we are used to associate beauty with
%softness, in a man; l do not know why they
S wi,S 11im De 50 o. coupled sI mdn ana ana, 1h sy, never w were Ire
was the most iron-hard. in body and mind.
Who was there among us who, could, walk
who. on gil the country side, save only Boy
Jim. would have, swung himself over wolston-
the mother, hawk Tapping ut hts ears. in the
vain struggle to hold him from her nestf He
was but 10. with his cristle not yet all set into
bone. when he fought and beat Gypsy Lee of
Burgess Hill. who called himself the cock of
the south Downs. II was after this that
So Ha"'' in hand ns['i' "f'd 'G rather ms YOU sraiie eft fmi iii
alone. Boy Jim, said he. and 50 had the
my fault eHf # II You @'i aaS So0 R hUid u IT y YOUR p hands de
to anything in the south country" And it
was not long before he made good his promise.
love for his books. but by hat l meant his
schoolbcoks. for when II came TO he reading
OF gallantry or adventure. there WAS no tear
Ing him away from 1t until II was finished.
Oak and the smithy became n dream to him.
and his life was spent out upon the ocean or
wandering oyer the broad continents with his
thusiasm also, SO that was glad to play Fri
day to his Crusoe when he proclaimed that the
Clump at Clayton was a desert island and that
we were cast upon it for ! week.
But when | found that we were actually to
sleep out there without, covering every night.
and that he proposed that our food should be
the sheep of the Downs wild goats he called
them, cooked upon a fire which was to be maze
heart failed me. and on the very first night !
crept away to my mother: But Jim STAYED
week II was. too-and came back at the end OF
It looking IA deal wilder and dirtier than his
hero does in the picture books. 1t Is we'll that
had been a month he would have died Of cold
and hunger before his pride would have let
His pride that was the deepest thing in all
Jim's nature. 1t is a mixed quality. to my
mind, half IA virtue and half u vice II virtue In
holding II man out of the dirt. a vice in making
it hard for him to rise when once he has fallen.
Jim was proud down to the very marrow of his
bones. You remember the guinea that the
young lord lad thrown him from the box of
the coach. Two days later some one picked It
M from the roadside mud. Jim only had seen
where II had fallen, and he would not deign
even to point it out TO a beggar. Nor would he
stoop to give IA reason, in such n case. but would
answer all remonstrances with a curl II his lip
and u flash of his dark eyes. Even Mt school he
was the same. with such n sense Of his own dig
nifty that other folk had to think OF II. TOO. lie
was n proper sort Of an angle. or put Panama
IN sicily. hut old Joshua Allen would as soon
him as he would of letting me off If | had said
rs much. And so IL was that. although Jim
was the son of nobody. and | of a Kings officer,
il always seemed to me Tn have been a conde-
'cension, on his part that he should have chosen
me as his friend.
To BE Continued.