THE WAVE FOLK.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 645, 21 February 1914, Page 3

THE WAVE FOLK.

DID YOU 3WER READ A PRETTIER COLUMN THAN THIS ?

Ruby and gold of the sunset; gleam of a glory divine ; great, glistening, fiat-backed waves running landwards, and he—a smallish, fat, creamy, soft-eyed, long-whiskered body, lying on Ms back on a rock, fanning himseif with one flipper.

His mother had just been teaching him to swim that day, for, be it known to you, even baby seals—--which he was I'ashioned for water progress only—have to learn to swim, just as foolishly, helplessly, aervousty as a child. He had learnt quickly, and '.vas now formally admitted to the Brotherhood of The Wave FoHt, and all the broad Western Ocean was not big enough to hold him that tide.

Then up shot his mother—the spray flying in a careless shower-o'-pearl from the gentle head —from out the foot of a wave, a limp, fat flounder in her mouth for him. He seized it with the appalling selfishness of all young creatures, eating quite naturally, as his first solid food in this world, a fish, which was destined to be almost his staple food through life. Thereafter he turned three somersaults in the lap of a father, or mother, of Atlantic rollers, just to prove to his mother—as if any jsroof were necessary—that his lesson oaee learned could never be unlearnt ; stood on iris head in the water ; dived, and came up shooting, arrow-wise, his head bedec&ed with »reen and amber seaweed. THE SEALS SLBEP. Then the two headed for shor-e, six imies away, aad bed. It is a wondssfol fcfeing in its way to witness the travelling mareh of the seals across the ocean. '?hey churned into it head first, steadily, at a regular pace, the spray flying from their blunt noses, the water bubbling in their wake.

And in a few ruinates they were sound asleep on their backs, t&e head of the young one tucked up against his mother's chita, on the sandy floor of a cave under the frowning cliffs of the coast, the thundering trample of the surf in their ears for a lullaby.

Now at dawmthe next day a fisherman of those parts foand, entangled and alive in his nets,. a young seal. It was our young seal, who had been too clever, and had gone afish'ing before it was light without his mother. He was terrified beyond measure, But, according to tribal custom,, beautifully, winningly gentle—as gentle, in fact, as the old Bsherman, who rowed away with him delighted to the little fishing village, saying ' "Us be main glad tu zee 'ee. Us'll keep .'ee for a pet for th' gran'fihiWer.'' THE REPROACHFUL LOOK. Next dawning the old fisherman went out in his boat to earn his daily bread as usual. The little harbour was quite deserted at thai? hour, save for the wheeling gulls, and very still. The old fisherman had not taken three strokes when there rose up out of the smooth jade-green waters a soft, mild-eyed, gentle head, which sighed at him. It was the mother seal. All day she followed the boat, and when he returned home in the evening she was still there, like a patient dog, in the wake of the boat.

She must have remained there all night, for in the morning of the second day she again went with him fishing. As he put off he could hear the strange, lonesome, dry, harsh complaint of the baby seal from his cottage up the cliff. So could the mother hear it, apparently, for she sat up listening on her tail, turning upon him such a look of reproach in her large soft eyes that the old fellow could stand it no longer. He turned back to the shore, and, going up to his cottage, fetched the young seal, and gave him back to his mother and the sea. The last he saw of them was two round heads, one big, one small, a ripple of water on either side, heading straight out of the harbour up the path of golde» wonder opened across the ocean by the rtefeag sua.— ,: Answers."