‘I am that woman; how happy then, how unhappy now, no one but myself can ever know!’
‘Then why this change? What strange mystery is here?’
‘I cannot tell you. My lips are sealed. Believe me, Oscar, we had better say farewell here and now.’
‘I cannot and I will not say farewell!’ he passionately exclaimed. ‘You belong to me, and I belong to you; that kiss was the seal and consecration of our union. No earthly power shall keep us asunder. There is some strange mystery at work here. If you will not give me the key to it, I must try to find it for myself.’ He lifted his hat, stooped and pressed his lips to her hair, and then, without another word, he plunged into the shrubbery.
Laura gazed after his retreating figure through a mist of tears. ‘The key to the mystery!’ she murmured. ‘You may try your best to find it, my poor Oscar, but Merlin’s enchantments will prove too strong for you to overcome.’
A PEEP AT THE FALKLAND ISLANDS.
Except to mariners who have rounded Cape Horn, this solitary group of islands is a veritable terra incognita. Seldom visited, however, as the Falkland Islands have been in the past, their isolation promises to be yet more complete in the future, as soon as an inter-oceanic canal diverts commerce from the old to a new route. Up to the present time, they have served as a half-way house for sailing-vessels on their voyage round Cape Horn in need of provisioning, or for refitting such as have been disabled by the tempestuous weather which for a great part of the year prevails in those latitudes. It appears probable, however, that their usefulness for even these purposes is nearly at an end, and that their lonely inhabitants are doomed, like the surviving innkeepers of coaching-days, to pass the remainder of their lives in mourning over the memories of the past.
These islands have at various times belonged to France and to Spain; but since 1833, when they were annexed by the English government for the protection of the whale-fishery, they have formed part of the British possessions. The group consists of the islands of East and West Falkland, and upwards of a hundred others—mostly mere islets or sandbanks—which have a united area of nearly five million acres. The only settlement or town—if it may be dignified with that name—is Stanley, which is situated on a gentle slope of moorland bordering upon a narrow and nearly land-locked harbour in the island of East Falkland; but few of the houses in Stanley are well constructed, and these are occupied by the governor and colonial officers and a few successful traders. The remainder are rough-and-ready specimens of architecture, in the construction of which the timber of many an old shipwrecked hulk has been utilised. The climate, though generally damp, is extremely healthy, but very changeable. To-day, perhaps the sun may be shining, the air clear and exhilarating; but to-morrow you rise at daybreak, look out at the same landscape, and behold what a change is there! A thick driving mist has rolled in from the ocean, and enveloped all nature in its moist and chilly embrace. The soil is more adapted to pasturage than to cultivation, being similar in its character to the unreclaimed wild lands of northern Scotland and the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Large herds of wild cattle roam at will over the country, but are worth little except for their hides, there being no market for the beef. The greater portion of these cattle belong to the Falkland Islands’ Company, who own a marine store and general outfitting establishment at Stanley. This Company, a few years ago, embarked in sheep-raising, by way of an experiment, importing some common stock from Patagonia, and crossing them with cheviots. The experiment has proved a great success, and sheep-raising now forms the principal industry of the later settlers; several young Englishmen, with a few hundred pounds capital, having within the last few years settled on the islands for this purpose, their ‘stations’ ranging from twenty to one hundred and fifty thousand acres, the aggregate value of the wool annually exported to England amounting to nearly fifty thousand pounds sterling.
There being no roads or vehicles for internal traffic, as most of the country round Stanley is a huge morass, the owners of these sheep-stations are obliged to keep small sailing-vessels in which to visit Stanley for provisions, or send their wool there for shipment to England.
In respect of scenery, it cannot be said that nature has bestowed gifts on the Falklands with a too lavish hand. There is but one tree in the entire islands, and that solitary exception attempts to grow in the governor’s garden at Stanley, where it is protected by a wall from the cutting south wind, which ruthlessly nips off any ambitious shoot which presumes to peep over its restricted limits.