Dawn

Dawn, by H. Rider Haggard

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Title: Dawn
Author: H. Rider Haggard
Release Date: January 31, 2004 [EBook #10892]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Produced by John Bickers and Dagny

DAWN
BY
H. RIDER HAGGARD
1884

"Our natures languish incomplete; Something obtuse in this our star
Shackles the spirit's winged feet; But a glory moves us from afar, And
we know that we are strong and fleet." Edmund Ollier.

"Once more I behold the face of her Whose actions all had the
character Of an inexpressible charm, expressed; Whose movements
flowed from a centre of rest, And whose rest was that of a swallow, rife
With the instinct of reposing life; Whose mirth had a sadness all the
while It sparkled and laughed, and whose sadness lay In the heaven of
such a crystal smile That you longed to travel the self-same way To the
brightness of sorrow. For round her breathed A grace like that of the
general air, Which softens the sharp extremes of things, And connects
by its subtle, invisible stair The lowest and the highest. She
interwreathed Her mortal obscureness with so much light Of the world
unrisen, that angel's wings Could hardly have given her greater right To
float in the winds of the Infinity." Edmund Ollier.

DAWN
CHAPTER I
"You lie; you always were a liar, and you always will be a liar. You
told my father how I spent the money."
"Well, and what if I did? I had to look after myself, I suppose. You
forget that I am only here on sufferance, whilst you are the son of the
house. It does not matter to you, but he would have turned me out of
doors," whined George.
"Oh! curse your fine words; it's you who forget, you swab. Ay, it's you
who forget that you asked me to take the money to the gambling- tent,
and made me promise that you should have half of what we won, but
that I should play for both. What, are you beginning to remember

now--is it coming back to you after a whole month? I am going to
quicken your memory up presently, I can tell you; I have got a good
deal to pay off, I'm thinking. I know what you are at; you want to play
cuckoo, to turn 'Cousin Philip' out that 'Cousin George' may fill the nest.
You know the old man's soft points, and you keep working him up
against me. You think that you would like the old place when he's
gone--ay, and I daresay that you will get it before you have done, but I
mean to have my penn'orth out of you now, at any rate," and, brushing
the tears of anger that stood in his brown eyes away with the back of
his hand, the speaker proceeded to square up to George in a most
determined way.
Now Philip, with his broad shoulders and his firm-knit frame, would,
even at eighteen, have been no mean antagonist for a full-grown man;
much more then did he look formidable to the lankly, overgrown
stripling crouching against the corner of the wall that prevented his
further retreat.
"Philip, you're not going to strike me, are you, when you know you are
so much stronger?"
"Yes, I am, though; if I can't match you with my tongue, at any rate I
will use my fists. Look out."
"Oh, Philip, don't! I'll tell your father."
"Tell him! why, of course you will, I know that; but you shall have
something to lie about this time," and he advanced to the attack with a
grim determination not pleasant for his cousin to behold.
Finding that there was no escape, George turned upon him with so
shrill a curse that it even frightened from his leafy perch in the oak
above the tame turtle-dove, intensely preoccupied as he was in cooing
to a new-found mate. He did more than curse; he fought like a cornered
rat, and with as much chance as the rat with a trained fox-terrier. In a
few seconds his head was as snugly tucked away in the chancery of his
cousin's arm as ever any property was in the court of that name, and, to
speak truth, it seemed quite possible that, when it emerged from its

retreat, it would, like the property, be much dilapidated and extensively
bled.
Let us not dwell