The Children's Graves
Every one said said Donald was a "damned good chap." He reminded me of the twelve apostles; I say twelve because I couldn't single out the one that came to my mind when I first set eyes on him at the Laura. I recognized a face I knew; the face came back to me out of the long, long ago, and I puzzled over it till I hit it. "Judas"! Yes!! I remembered it now—Judas! with the beautiful eyes—not the scowling, evil-faced, thick-set German of the cheap illustrated Bible—but W. G. Wills Judas, out of "Charles I," whom the King describes to the traitor Murray, beginning the lines, if I remember aright.
I saw a picture once, by a great master. Yes, that was Donald, and he ought to have been roaming about the Laura in a toga and halo; but wore instead an old pair of what had once been grey trousers, very patched and ragged round the bottoms—old blucher boots burst out where the little toe of the right foot should have been. I never saw the toe, but I presume it was there—for the sake of argument we will say it was there—and a smile—a soft, undecided sort of smile. He also wore a white cotton coat, or what had once been a white coat, and a faded cabbage-tree hat. Donald, like Judas, had his price, which, with the characteristic of his race, was generally as much as he could get—for Donald kept a store at the Laura, and also the pub, which he dignified by the name of "York Peninsular Hotel."
I never heard Donald laugh but once. He was a solemn man; he'd a high forehead, soft dark eyes, and a patriarchal beard. He laughed once when we all were sitting around the table at "supper," in the back roped space behind the pub, and I describing how
