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Introduction. Love in Infancy

The boy threw off his solitary garment and waded into the creek, kicking up the water higher and higher around him, until he had gone too far for splashing. Near the opposite bank he paused a few moments and looked down with anticipatory enjoyment into a deep pool, so clear that he could see the yellow sand at the bottom. Then plunging into the forest bath he swam about with the agility of a fish or a North Island Maori. Next, he emerged on to the ferny bank, and then, recollecting an important detail of his toilette, he took a corner of his shirt, rubbed his face vigorously and looking into the rippled mirror of the pool, remarked aloud with enthusiasm, "Clean—clean as anyfing." Still naked, his sturdy brown limbs gleaming and dripping, he ran backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards in the spring breeze, until the time seemed ripe for completing the drying process by a rub over with the page 2one invaluable garment. This garment was in the shape of a smock or shirt: the material was of strongest drill; the colour, originally ultramarine, was modified by sun and rain and weather of several seasons into that of a neutraltoned sky. In the winter it was supplemented by braces and short trousers; but he did not have a favourable opinion of these trousers nor of the trousers' season. There was no purgatory he could have imagined worse than being compelled the whole year round to wear drawers, vest, shirt, waistcoat, trousers, socks, boots, hat and all the useless trappings of civilisation which encumbered "Rat" Willoughby, the only other boy he had ever seen. Having no impediments worth mentioning, Dennis could climb trees, run races, swim and wade with an ease and speed that was the envious despair of "The Rat," and though his father thrashed him for many other sins, it was never for tearing his clothes.

The child evidently enjoyed both the bathing and the wind-drying, but at the same time he went through these processes in a purposeful manner that suggested a ceremonial rite. When they were performed, he climbed through the bush towards "The House," with steps that became slower and slower, and were finally arrested just outside the cleared ground where English grasses and gowan daisies and daffodils grew wild. Across this charmed circle he gazed for some time, in a mingling of bush shyness and curiosity, screening himself behind a covert of page 3sprouting miro bushes. He was a fine child, with limbs of heroic build, and smooth brown skin, a fine head heaped with waving hair, and his eyes were as beautiful as those of a superb calf or dog or some woodland animal, but gifted with a more divine intelligence. The object of his devotion was a lady who sat on a lounge on the verandah of "The House," playing with the infant in her lap, dangling a string of red corals into its tiny hands and out again and raining down smiles and pretty words. There was a fine other world aspect about both mother and child, transcending anything else in Dennis's experience, and of the two the infant was the more miraculous: the one had not long come from far away over the unseen sea, but the other had just fallen from fairyland. Curiosity having ripened into resolution, the boy stepped out of the beech covert and announced his presence in a musical drawl with a roll on the r's and a lift at the end—"Mitheth Borrl's!"

Mrs. Borlase looked up with a start and then a smile.

"Why, is that you, Boysie?"

"Yeth, me."

"Come and see my new baby." As he had come expressly for that purpose, he now advanced with an engaging mixture of shyness and boldness; then drawing close to Mrs. Borlase, laid one arm along her lap and leaned against her more and more confidingly, like the well-mothered, much-cuddled child that he was. page 4This was the only baby he had ever seen and he watched it with great attention, and finally touched its hand. It had a surprising way of twining its fingers round his, and waiting vaguely to see if he were laughing before it laughed. Then, too, that was all so mysterious about its being brought by the fairies from Elfinland and dropped into the astonishingly glorious cradle at Haeremai. The brown wavy head nestled closer into Mrs. Borlase's dress, and the boy looked up sideways.

"I'ud like to have that baby," he said; "you give it me?"

"Give you my little daughter, Dennis?"

"Yeth, do," he coaxed. "I'ud be clean."

Grubbiness was the sin most commonly laid to his charge "up at the House."

"What would you do with her, Boysie?"

This was an unforseen question, and he buried his head in her skirt for a considerable time, then looked up.

"What' you do, Mith' Borrl's?"

Mrs. Borlase touched on a long list of disheartening duties, such as sewing, knitting, feeding, finally culminating in the task of all most impossible—that of walking up and down in the middle of the night. "Could you do that?" she concluded.

He heaved a sigh. The baby was not quite worth that. It was a pity, because it was so very small and soft.

"No -a -p," he said decisively.

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"Ada! Ada!"

Mrs. Borlase rose quickly, but not before the owner of the voice appeared—a well-knit figure, rather under the average height, with eyes so blue they seemed to sparkle out of a prevailing greyness of costume and tint—a man who even in his farmer's dress bore the conscious air of a gentleman, though rather the worse for the rough wear and tear of colonial life. "I've been looking for you everywhere," he went on.

"I am sorry, dearest." There was a gentle deprecation in her tone and in her eyes. "I have been sitting here to watch for you. I did not expect you to come through the orchard."

"Yes, it's my fault, isn't it?" Mr. Borlase laid one hand caressingly on her cheek, then looked down at the child. "Well, what did you come for, young man? Bothering you, Ada?"

"Oh, no, Dennis and I are great—chums." She hesitated and smiled over her deliberate colonialism. "I think he wants our baby."

"You are a modest young man, aren't you? Would you like my wife as well?"

"No -a -p. She too beeg." The child shook his head vigorously, then added with depressed philosophy, "And I don't want the baby much."

"You would like a piece of cake better, wouldn't you, Boysie?"

"May I have a piece of cake, Mith' Borrl's?" He brightened and swung one brown dimpled foot with animation.

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"Yes. Go and ask Emmie."

Dennis was rapidly disappearing when his head again showed round the corner of the house.

"Mith' Borrl's?"

"Yes, Boysie?"

"How much cake d' you say?"

"As much as Emmie will give you."

"Emmie will give me lots." The bare legs trotted fast out of sight while he was speaking.

"Your are an angel, Ada. But don't let the brat bother you."

"I think he is a dear little fellow, Anthony. But fancy his coming up to the house to ask for our precious baby." And she fell to kissing and cooing again.

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