SHELTER

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20492, 7 May 1938, Page 21 (Supplement)

SHELTER

T WISH ?ou weren't going alone,” protected Mrs Haeburn for the I' nth time at least. 'You don’t know (he neighbourhood; and what would Imi’pen if jou sprained your ankle or were taktn 111 or something?’* Dear Mrs Raeburn,” answered Murion, trying to stay patiently and persuasively what she had expressed is often. ”1 wish you’d set your mind at rest. I often go hiking by myself and nothing has ever happened to me jet. My ankles aren't the kind that -prain, and I'm not the kind of girl who’s taken suddenly ill. It’s never done in the Cairns family.** "It’s all very well for you to Joke like that, my dear. You young people of to-day ere far too sure of yourselves—that’s why we older people jre so anxious. .Anybody with common sense would agree with me that for a mere schoolgirl to cross those dreadful hills all by herself is perfectly preposterous, particularly when she's a total stranger to the district.” "Now, Auntie, you’re being ridiculous- To begin with. I’m not Just any ‘mere schoolgirl’—l shall be an undergraduate next year; and how can you possibly call these hills dreadful’? You know you’ve told me that you've never in your life been on them except for a Sunday afternoon saunter up the path as far as the fails—never out of sight of the village! And as to my being a stranger Ashere—well, my mother’s people belonged here since—oh, since the dawn of history, and I feel In my bones as if every burn and boulder were friendly towards me. They’re like the people. Did I tell you that yesterday old Mrs Cameron at the post office told me I was every inch a Dalzell, and that 1 might have been my own mother in the way I bought my stamps and counted the change?” The little anecdote diverted Mrs Raeburn's mind, for the moment, from her worry over Marion’s hiking proposal—which was what Marion had hoped It would do. She was only an "adopted aunt,” the widow of a former parish minister; she had known Marlon's mother as a child, and Marion had grown up to regard her as a particularly nice relative. Major and Mrs Cairns were in India: Marlon, at a boarding school ia England, had . ome north to spend the Easter holi.iavs with Mrs Raeburn, for the sake of*the keen Highland air. which was proving a marvellous tonic after a term’s very hard study. The old lady wished it had not proved so exhibilatii g as to Inspire the guest whom she regarded as still a child to such a mad enterprise as a tramp across the mountain range behind the village. Like many of those who live all their lives in the shadow' of- the hills, she l ad never, even as a young woman, felt any inclination to explore them, and indeed regarded them with a kind of horror. Marion had shown her on a survey map the route she intended to follow—up one glen and down another to th#» town where she knew the famllv of the doctor: :>»t map* R * rverl Onlv to add to Mr. Itarl.nrn s apprrh.nsion. .-he developed the Idea that if a district required to t*o mapped it must be even wilder than she had | supposed! *o it was not without many gloom: | forebodings and shakings of th* head ' that the old lady at last pave her eenaent. thou*h not her approval, to Marion s expedition. N You'll oe lost. 1 know you will: | 'And then what will your poor mother J say to me?”

By \V. Kersley Holmes)

These were the words with which she bade her headstrong young guest farewell. Marion kissed her and laughed at her and set off Joyfully. It was one of those spring mornings which puzzle even the local weather prophet. There was a breeze; there were scattered clouds In the sky hurrying across patches of pale blue. The whole landscape seemed alive, thanks to the constant change and movement of cloud shadows. On the tops of the higher hills and in the gullies winter snow still lingered, blit Marion's route was to take her nowhere near it. " Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.” The spirit of that quotation filled her wind as she set out.

A day’s perfect freedom, with all her needs in her rucksack, stout nailed shoes on her feet and a sturdy etick in her hand I What more could a girl ask for when she was In the mood for fresh air and exercise and the company of her own thoughts? Those thoughts were company in a very special way; they were concerned chiefly with her mother’s ancestors, who had for generations counted this their own country. Marion had not spoken altogether In Jest when she had said that she felt that every burn and boulder was friendly to her. She was proud of her association with this wild and lovely district, and could not believe it was absurd to suppose that there must be some reciprocation, even from its inanimate features, to her love. She would not count herself a stranger here. Was she not half a Cairns, her mother’s daughter, and was not the name of Cairns interwoven Inextricably with local history —history some of which was barbarous enough a century or two before. (To be continued)