Midnight Webs Part 26

The oars fell plashing into the sea; and then, save the low regular dip, all was once more silent. The crew, as they kept a sharp look-out, fancied they once heard a loud splash and a faint cry; but there was no repet.i.tion of the sounds, though the men listened attentively. The glow by the town faded slowly away, a breeze sprung up, and the stars came peering out, one after another, till, as the sky brightened, the spars and rigging of the sloop-of-war could be dimly seen, her lights just beginning to swing to and fro as the breeze ruffled the waters. But no farther alarm disturbed the Sarah Ann, though one and all the crew kept on deck, in case of another attack.

"Wasn't there a small schooner off there, about a quarter of a mile?"

said the captain suddenly, as he lowered the night-gla.s.s, with which he had been carefully searching for enemies.

"To be sure!" said Murray. "Isn't it there now?"

"Try for yourself," was the reply.

And the young man carefully swept the offing.

"I can't make her out," he said; "but we may see her as day breaks.

Perhaps she moved in more under the land."

"More like those fellows boarded her, and that noise was the captain sent overboard. Well, all I can say, Murray, is, that if they'd got possession here, the best thing they could have done would have been to throw me over; for I could never have faced the owners again."

Morning broke, but there was no schooner in sight; whereupon the sloop immediately weighed in chase, for the convicts had seized her, cut the cable, and made sail, running none knew whither.

Towards afternoon the captain of the Sarah Ann came on board, after concluding his business with the agents.

"Good luck to you, Murray; make sail, and let's be off, for I sha'n't feel as if the old Sally is safe till we've left this beautiful spot a hundred knots astern. The poor skipper of that schooner's ash.o.r.e there, and he's half mad, and no wonder."

The captain made his way below, the anchor was weighed, sail after sail dropped down, and then, with a pleasant breeze astern, the old barque slowly began to force her way through the bright and transparent waters, making the sunlit windows of Port Caroline grow more and more distant, while Edward Murray's heart gladdened within him, as he thought of the prolonged stay for discharging and loading that would be made in Kaitaka Bay, New Zealand.

STORY THREE, CHAPTER THREE.

GOLDEN GAP.

"'And I said, if there's peace in this world to be found'--Go on, Joey, will you?--'The--he heart that is humble might welcome it here,'" sang and said a st.u.r.dy-looking, hard-faced man, with cleanly-shaven chin and upper lip, and a pair of well-trimmed grizzly whiskers. He was somewhat sun-browned, but wore a broad-brimmed straw hat, and in addition, as he strode a very weedy, meditative-looking pony, he carried up a large gingham umbrella.

"Well, Joey!" he continued, apostrophising the pony, which had come to a full stop; "you're a sensible beast, and it _is_ a beautiful spot, and 'the heart that is humble' might truly 'welcome it here.' What a paradise! They may well call it Golden Gap! Golden, indeed! A heavenly gilding--no dross here! No more like Battersea Fields than I'm like an archangel. Well, Joey, suppose we meditate, then, for half an hour. You shall chew your herb, and I'll smoke mine, even if it be not canonical. I don't like good things to be wasted, as my old mother used to say. Savages smoke, so why should not a parson?"

Slowly dismounting, he closed his umbrella, unbuckled the pony's bridle, that he might graze, and then, seating himself beneath a huge tree-fern, he filled and lit his pipe, and began to enjoy its fragrance.

For he was seated far up on the side of a mountain, whose exact similitude was on the other side of the valley, so that it seemed as if, in some wild convulsion, Nature had divided one vast eminence, and then clothed the jagged and rugged sides from the point where the glittering, snow-tipped summits peered forth, down to the lovely stream in the valley, with the riches of her wondrous arboretum. The fattest of pastures by the little river, and deepest of arable rich soil; and then, as step by step the mountain rose, everywhere shone forth the glory of the New Zealand foliage, with its fern and palm-like fronds, parasite and creeper, of the most golden greens, and here and there blushing with blossom; while in scores of places tiny silver threads could be seen dashing, plashing, and flashing in the sun-rays, as they descended from the never-exhausted storehouses of ice and snow far above, which glowed in turn, like some wondrous collection of gold and gems.

Some three miles away there shone the sparkling waters of a tiny bay, whose sh.o.r.es, at that distance, could be seen framed in emerald green, as the forest trees grew right down to where the sea could almost lave their roots, and goodly ships have made fast cable or hawser to their trunks. And yet, in all the length and breadth of the glorious vale, stood but one house, sheltered in another tiny valley, running off at right angles; while right up and up, higher and higher, tree, crag, and mossy bank were piled with a profuseness of grandeur that displayed novel beauties at every glance.

"'And I said, if there's peace,'--I don't believe any place could be more lovely, even in this land of beauty," muttered the traveller, tapping the ashes out of his smoked pipe on to a mossy boulder, and then blowing them carefully away. "Here am I, too, defiling Nature's beauties with my vile nicotine. But beauty is beauty, Joey; and it only satisfies the eye; and man has a stomach, and bones that ache if they don't have a bed; so, my gallant steed, we'll finish our journey to the Moa's Nest, and see what friend Lee will say to us, and whether he will bestow on thy master, damper, tea, and bacon, and on thee some corn."

The gallant steed did not even sniff at the prospect of the feed of corn, but submitted, like the well-broken animal he was, to the replacing of his bit; when, arranging his bridle, his master mounted, put up his umbrella again, and then, leaving the pony to pick his way, slowly descended the zigzag track which led to old Martin Lee's station, known far and wide, from an old Maori tradition, as the Moa's Nest.

The distance seemed nothing from where he had been seated; but the track wound and doubled so much, from the steepness of the descent, that it was getting towards sundown before the traveller rode up to the long, straggling, wooden building, that had evidently been erected at various times, as the prosperity of its occupant had called for farther increase; when, slowly dismounting, he closed the great umbrella, hung his bridle upon a hook, and stalked in to where the family were at tea, if the substantial meal spread out could be so called.

"G.o.d bless all here!" he said heartily, as he brought down the umbrella with a thump; "How's friend Lee?"

"Right well am I, parson, thank you!" exclaimed a bluff, st.u.r.dy-looking farmer. "Won't you draw up to the log fire?"

There was a merry laugh at these words; for it was midsummer, and the Gap was famed for its hot days and nights.

"And how is the good wife, and my little queen, too?" continued the new-comer, shaking hands with Mrs Lee, a sharp, eager little woman; and then taking their daughter's blooming face between his hands, to kiss her lovingly, as if she had been his own child. "All well? That's right! Yours obediently, sir," he continued, to a tall, dark man of about thirty, who had risen from the table with the others.

"A neighbour of ours, Mr Meadows," said Mrs Lee; "Mr Anthony Bray."

"Your servant, sir," said the new-comer stiffly. "A neighbour, eh?

Lives close by--six or eight miles off, I suppose?" And then he muttered to himself, "I know what's your business."

"Well, I think you've made a pretty good guess at the distance," said the other; "it _is_ seven miles."

"Great blessing sometimes, but it makes one's parish too extended to be pleasant. I find it a long journey to visit all my people in the nooks and corners--"

"And Moas' Nests."

"Ay, and Moas' Nests, they get into. Well, I've come to ask a bed and a meal, if you'll give them to me, friend Lee."

"Always welcome, parson, so long as you don't come begging," said the head of the family.

"But I have come begging," he said, standing with one hand upon his umbrella, and the other stuck under his grey frock coat. "I want a subscription towards our new church; so, if we are not welcome, Joey and I will have to--There, bless me, child, don't take away my umbrella!" he exclaimed, to the pretty daughter of the household, who, in true patriarchal fashion, was divesting him of his sunshade and hat, and placing him in a chair.

"There, sit down, do!" exclaimed the settler, laughing; "it's quite a treat to see a fresh face--and I daresay I can buy you off with a crooked sixpence or so. Fall to, man; you look hot and worn."

"Little overdone, perhaps," said the visitor. "Phew! bother the flies!

How they always seem to settle on you, when a little out of sorts!

Scent sickness, I suppose. Thank you, my child; nothing like a cup of tea for refreshment. Why, our Katie looks more blooming than ever, Mrs Lee."

"Ay, she grows," said the father; "and we begin to want to see her married and settled, eh, Mr Bray?"

Kate Lee's face crimsoned, and she darted an appealing look to her mother, one not misinterpreted by the other visitor, who a.s.sumed not to have heard his host's remark.

But farther remark was checked by a boisterous "Hillo!" a horse cantered up to the door, and Edward Murray, flushed and heated, sprang to the ground, to fold Kate Lee in his arms in an instant, and then heartily salute the rest of the family.

"Couldn't overtake you, Mr Meadows," said the young sailor, "though I saw your old umbrella bobbing down the valley like a travelling mushroom."

"There, parson, there's no best bed for you to-night," said the settler.

"The woman-kind worship this fellow, and you'll only come off second best."

"I can be happy anywhere," said Mr Meadows. "Don't incommode yourselves for me."

Meanwhile it needed no interpreter to tell of the intimacy between Edward Murray and Kate Lee. A love the growth of years--the love that had induced him to quit the navy; for he had felt unable to settle when old Lee had left his native town, driven by misfortunes to settle in one of the colonies, New Zealand being his choice, where now, after some years' hard fight with difficulties, he was living a wealthy, patriarchal life in this pleasant valley.

So Edward Murray had found no difficulty in getting appointed to a trader, which, however little in accordance with his tastes, took him at least once a year to where he could visit the Lees in their new home.

At first, old Lee did not evince much pleasure at the sight of the young man, for he had seen Anthony Bray's dark visage grow more dark as he tugged at his handkerchief, and then, after a vain attempt at showing his nonchalance, he rose hastily and quitted the place, followed by the eyes of Mr Meadows, who generally contrived to see all, and to interpret things pretty correctly.

And he made few mistakes in the conclusions he had that evening arrived at; for, but that very afternoon, Anthony Bray had, after months of unsuccessful wooing, asked the maiden to be his wife, but only to meet with an unconditional refusal; for Katie Lee possessed a faith not shared by both her parents, and it was with a triumphant joy in her bright eyes that she took her place quietly by Edward Murray's side, as he told of his long and stormy travels since he met them a year ago.