10 OVER THE SEA.

 

Joe Galvin brought home a stepmother to his children. It was quite natural that he should
marry again. What could a stockman do with two motherless mites on an out-station thirty
miles from the nearest women-folk ? And then his duty obliged him to be away from the
hut often for days and nights together, when it was mustering time and the cattle had to
be brought from round the lake. But it was a pity he should have married Polly Warren,
who was violent, intemperate, rough of speech, and hated sickly children.

Poor little Dick had a tendency to water on the brain, and he was often stupid and drowsy,
and slow in answering his stepmother when she called him, and in obeying her commands.
She said he was obstinate and disobedient, whereas the child was only dazed and frightened.
Once she had beaten him severely, and Dick had been ill for days afterwards; and Janie,
remembering her mother’s dying words, had vowed to herself that with her own little body
she would defend her baby-brother from being a second time so cruelly treated. A stray
blow now and then, a box on the ears, or an angry push were ordinary occurrences and not
so greatly to be minded, but to see Dick tied up to a rail of the stockyard and beaten like
a dog with the stockman’s. heavy . ; whip was more than
Janie could endure. ee & And now this
was threatened again. Dick had been
naughty. The stock- man was away, and
Polly Galvin had de- clared that on

 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

 

the morrow Dick should be
taught by the lash which was mas-
ter, he or she. In vain Janie had
pleaded, had urged Dick’s: delicacy
and the pos- sible conse-

feeble brain. In
entreated that she
herself might bear the punishment.
Polly was inexorable. ‘ 2 The boy had disobeyed
her: he shouldbe sent tobedonbread =~ OO and water at sundown.
To-night she did not choose to tire her arms further after her day’s washing ; and besides
there was grog in the house, and Polly wished to enjoy her evening glass undisturbed. On
the morrow she would be fresh for her brutal work, and she had something of the true
tyrant’s pleasure in keeping her victim trembling in suspense.

Poor little Dick did indeed tremble and cry all that long evening, and Janie heard him
through the slab walls of the verandah-room where he was lockéd up, and where she was
not allowed to go to him. Janie’s own small frame quivered and shook in helpless misery
and indignation.

What had she and Dick done that they should be used so? Why did not God have
pity on them? and oh! if their own mother could look down from Heaven and see what
they were suffering, why did she not come and help them ?

All kinds of wild fancies and despairing resolves passed through Janie’s brain. If she
could only get Dick away—if she could only hide him safe till her father came home!
Surely, for her dead mother’s sake her father would prevent Polly from beating the boy.

He did not know—he could not know—how hard she struck ; what her temper was when
it was roused, and how she hated little white-faced sickly Dick. Janie had heard her say
that she wished him dead. Perhaps on the morrow she meant to kill him. All Janie’s

quences to his
vain had she