CHAPTER XVI.
SEPARATION--GUELPHS AND GHIBELINES--MONTAGUES AND CAPULETS--SADNESS--THE REUNION--JOCKO AND HIS EDUCATION--THE ENTERTAINMENTS OF A KING--THE MULES OF NERO AND THE ASSES OF POPPAEA--HERCULES AND ACHILLES--LIBERTY AND EQUALITY--SEMIRAMIS AND ELIZABETH--CHRISTIANITY AND THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER--THE WILLISONIAN METHOD--MORAL DISCIPLINE VERSUS BIRCH.
Winter was now drawing near, with its storms and deluges.

Becker therefore felt that it was necessary to make some alterations in their domestic arrangements; and he saw that, for this season at all events, the two families must be separated--this was to create a desert within a desert; but propriety and convenience demanded the sacrifice.
It was decided that Wolston and his family should be quartered at Rockhouse, whilst Becker and his family should pass the rainy season at Falcon's Nest, where, though these aerial dwellings were but indifferently adapted for winter habitations, they had passed the first year of their sojourn in the colony.

The rains came and submerged the country between the two families, thus, for a time, cutting off all communication between them.

The barriers that separated the Guelphs from the Ghibelines, the Montagues from the Capulets, the Burgundians from the Armagnacs, and the House of York from that of Lancaster, could not have been more impenetrable than that which now existed between the Wolstons and Beckers.
Whenever a lull occurred in the storm, or a ray of sunshine shot through the murky clouds, all eyes were mechanically turned to the window, but only to turn them away again with a sigh; so completely had the waters invaded the land, that nothing short of the dove from Noah's Ark could have performed the journey between Rockhouse and Falcon's Nest.
Dulness and dreariness reigned triumphant at both localities.

The calm tranquility that Becker's family formerly enjoyed under similar circumstances had fled.