CHAPTER XI.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1905, 20 September 1884, Page 5

CHAPTER XI.

A neat slab, out with care out of the granite boulders that lay around, was erected over the grave of the late King Bonshaw. Travellers were surprised on reaching the welcome Bhade of the grove by the creek to find ,a grave and tombstone fenced with wire, and flowers and green grass growing on the mound. In the early morning some cut flowers were sprinkled over the mound, but the flery can wasted them before noon. Amoretta lived, or rather existed, with the Soanlans. Her fragile figure, from that wretched night, wasted away until she became as weak as a ohild, and had to be assisted by Miss Scanlan to the grove, which she visited every morning. To the last flhe tended the flowers and the grass — her only solace. A sweet sad smile lit up her wasted features as she looked at the pretty mound and wound her arms around Miss Soanlan for support. Then they vronld go back slowly, with a rest here and there by the way. A winter and a summer had passed in this way, and the balmy evenings were giving place to cold winds and occasional evening fires. Amoretta was getting weaker and weaker. The season was exceptional in its severity. Frosts were experienced, and a thin coating of ice was occasionally foand on small pools of water. The flowers on the little mound drooped and died. When the days began to get shorter, and the nights longer, Amoretta said to Miss Scanlan — " When I die lay me beside him." One moonlight night when the stars shone out brightly, and the air was clear and cold, Mies Scanlan and George Button were walking — as lovers lova to walk — down by the creek, conversing in a low sweet voice of the marriage that would soon take place and in whioh they were to be the ohief aotors. As they walked into the shade of the grove of trees by the creek, the moon shone throngh a break in the trees above and lit up the mound and tablet. Miss Scanlan uttered a cry of apprehension. There, stretched on the mound, colder than the night, lay Amoretta, crushing the faded flowers closer to the earth. She was dead 1 Her soul had gone forth, and was now far from the creek, the cedar and the gum tree 3. Only a few seconds ago it parted from all that belonged to the land of her fathers, and now (freed from the clay that clogged her dealre to be with those she loved) it flew to regions we know not of, but can only guess and hope. The lovers now lie side by side, but the place is no longer marked by the tombstone or the mound with its flowers. Time and the floods have swept these memorials away, but their memory lives. The little children are told of the bravery of King Bonshaw, and the maidens of the love of Amoretta. THE END.