Station Amusements in New Zealand Part 5

We were indeed three "lone, 'lorn women," all through that weary night.

I could not close my eyes; but laid awake listening to the weka's shrill call, or the melancholy cry of the bitterns down in the swamp. With the morning light came hope and courage; and I must say I felt ashamed of my suspicions when my cook came to announce that the "swaggers was just agoin' off, and wishful to say good-bye. They've been and washed up the tin plates and pannikins and spoons as clean as clean can be; and the one I thought favoured Burgess so much, mum, he's been and draw'd water from the well, all that we shall want to-day; and they're very civil, well-spoken chaps, if you please, mum!" F---- was right in his surmise, I fancy; for there were plenty of tattooed pictures of anchors and ships on the brawny bare arms of my departing guests. They seemed much disappointed to find there was no work to be had on our station; but departed, with many thanks and blessings, "over the hills and far away."

Latterly, with increasing civilization and corresponding social economy, there have been many attempts made by new-fangled managers of runs, more than by the run-holders themselves, to induce these swaggers to work for their tucker,--to use pure colonial phraseology. Several devices have been tried, such as taking away their swags (_i.e._, their red blankets rolled tightly into a sort of pack, which they carry on their backs, and derive their name from), and locking them up until they had chopped a small quant.i.ty of wood, or performed some other trifling domestic duty.

But the swagger will be led, though not driven, and what he often did of his own accord for the sake of a nod or a smile of thanks from my pretty maid-servants, he would not do for the hardest words which ever came out of a boss's mouth. There are also strict rules of honesty observed among these men, and if one swagger were to purloin the smallest article from a station which had fed and sheltered him, every other swagger in all the country side would immediately become an amateur detective to make the thief give up his spoil. A pair of old boots was once missing from a neighbouring station, and suspicion fell upon a swagger. Justice was perhaps somewhat tardy in this instance, as it rested entirely in the hands of every tramp who pa.s.sed that way; but at the end of some months the boots were found at home, and the innocence of the swaggers, individually and collectively, triumphantly established.

The only instance of harshness to a swagger which came under my notice during three years residence in New Zealand, is the one I have alluded to above, and contains so much dramatic interest in its details, that it may not be out of place here.

Although I have naturally dwelt in these papers more upon our bright sunny weather, our clear, bracing winter days, and our balmy spring and autumn evenings, let no intending traveller think that he will not meet with bad weather at the Antipodes! I can only repeat what I have said with pen and voice a hundred times before. New Zealand possesses a very capricious and disagreeable climate: disagreeable from its constant high winds: but it is perhaps the most singularly and remarkably healthy place in the world. This must surely arise from the very gales which I found so trying to my temper, for damp is a word without meaning; as for mildew or miasma, the generation who are growing up there will not know the meaning of the words; and in spite of a warm, bright day often turning at five minutes warning into a snowy or wet afternoon, colds and coughs are almost unknown. People who go out there with delicate lungs recover in the most surprising manner; surprising, because one expects the sudden changes of temperature, the unavoidable exposure to rain and even snow, to kill instead of curing invalids. But the practice is very unlike the theory in this case, and people thrive where they ought to die.

During my first winter in Canterbury we had only one week of _really_ bad weather, but I felt at that time as if I had never realized before what bad weather meant. A true "sou'-wester" was blowing from the first to the second Monday in that July, without one moment's lull. The bitter, furious blast swept down the mountain gorges, driving sheets of blinding rain in a dense wall before it. Now and then the rain turned into large snow-flakes, or the wind rose into such a hurricane that the falling water appeared to be flashing over the drenched earth without actually touching it. Indoors we could hardly hear ourselves speak for the noise of the wind and rain against the shingle roof. It became a service of danger, almost resembling a forlorn hope, to go out and drag in logs of wet wood, or draw water from the well,--for, alas, there were no convenient taps or snug coal-holes in our newly-erected little wooden house. We husbanded every sc.r.a.p of mutton, in very different fashion to our usual reckless consumption, the consumption of a household which has no butcher's bill to pay; for we knew not when the shepherd might be able to fight his way through the storm, with half a sheep packed before him, on st.u.r.dy little "Judy's" back. The creeks rose and poured over their banks in angry yellow floods. Every morning casualties in the poultry yard had to be reported, and that week cost me almost as many fowls and ducks as my great christening party did. The first thing every morning when I opened my eyes I used to jump up and look out of the different windows with eager curiosity, to see if there were any signs of a break in the weather, for I was quite unaccustomed to be pent up like a besieged prisoner for so many succeeding days. We did not boast of shutters in those regions, and even blinds were a luxury which were not wasted in the little hall. Consequently, when my unsatisfactory wanderings about the silent house--for no one else was up--led me that dreadful stormy morning into the narrow pa.s.sage called the back-hall, I easily saw through its gla.s.s-door what seemed to me one of the most pathetic sights my eyes had ever rested upon.

Just outside the verandah, which is the invariable addition to New Zealand houses, stood, bareheaded, a tall, gaunt figure, whose rain-sodden garments clung closely to its tottering limbs. A more dismal morning could not well be imagined: the early dawn struggling to make itself apparent through a downpour of sleet and rain, the howling wind (which one could almost see as it drove the vapour wall before it), and the profound solitude and silence of all except the raging storm.

At first I thought I must be dreaming, so silent and hopeless stood that weird figure. My next impulse, without staying to consider my dishevelled hair and loose wrapper, was to open the door and beckon the poor man within the shelter of the verandah. When once I had got him there I did not exactly know what to do with my guest, for neither fire nor food could be procured quite so early. He crouched like a stray dog down on the dripping mat outside the door, and murmured some unintelligible words. In this dilemma I hastened to wake up poor F----, who found it difficult to understand why I wanted him to get up at daylight during a "sou'-wester." But I entreated him to go to the hall door, whilst I flew off to get my lazy maids out of their warm beds.

With all their faults, they did not need much rousing on that occasion.

I suppose I used very forcible words to convey the misery of the object standing outside, for I know that Mary was in floods of tears, and had fastened her gown on over her night-gear, whilst I was still speaking; and the cook had tumbled out of bed, and was kneeling before the kitchen fire with her eyes shut, kindling a blaze, apparently, in her sleep.

As soon as things were in this forward state, I returned to the verandah, and found our swagger guest drawing a very long breath after a good nip of pure whisky which F---- had promptly administered to him.

"I'm fair clemmed wi' cold and wet," the swagger said, still bundled up in his comparatively sheltered corner. "I've been out on the hills the whole night, and I am deadbeat. Might I stop here for a bit?" He asked this very doubtfully, for it is quite against swagger etiquette to demand shelter in the morning. For all answer he was taken by the shoulder, and helped up. I never shall forget the poor tramp's deprecating face, as he looked back at me, whilst he was being led through the pretty little dining-room, with its bright carpet, on which his clay-clogged boots and dripping garments left a muddy, as well as a watery track. "All right," I said, with colonial brevity; and so we escorted our strange guest through the house into the kitchen, where the ever-ready kettle and gridiron were busy preparing tea and chops over a blazing fire. Of course the maids screamed when they saw us, and I do not wonder at their doing so, for neither F---- nor I looked very respectable, with huddled on dressing-gowns and towzled hair; whilst our foot-sore, drenched guest subsided into a chair by the door, covered his wretched pinched face with two bony hands, and burst into tears. I certainly never expected to see a swagger cry, and F---- declared the sight was quite as new to him as to me. However, the poor man's tears and helplessness gave fresh energy to my maids' treacherous nerves, and they even suggested dry clothes. Our good-natured cadet, who at this moment appeared on the scene, was only too happy to find some outlet for _his_ superfluous benevolence, and hastened off, to return in a moment or two with an old flannel shirt, dry and whole, in spite of its faded stripes, a pair of moleskin trousers, and a huge pair of canvas cricketing shoes. It was no time for ceremony, so we women retreated for a few minutes into the store-room, whilst F---- and Mr. A---- made the swagger's toilette, getting so interested in their task as even to part his dripping hair out of his eyes. He had no swag, poor fellow, having lost his roll of red blankets in one of the treacherous bog-holes across the range.

That man was exactly like a lost, starving dog. He ate an enormous breakfast, curled himself upon some empty flour-sacks in a dry corner of the kitchen, and slept till dinner time; then another sleep until the supper hour, and so on, the round of he clock. All this time he never spoke, though we were dying to hear how he had come into such a plight.

The "sou'-wester" still raged furiously out of doors without a moment's cessation, and we were obliged to have recourse to the tins of meat kept in the store-room for such an emergency. The shepherd told us afterwards he had ventured out to look for some wethers, his own supply being exhausted, but the whole mob had hidden themselves so cleverly that neither man nor dog could discover their place of shelter. On the Monday night, exactly a week after the outbreak of bad weather; the skies showed signs of having exhausted themselves, and nature began to wear a sulky air, as if her temper were but slowly recovering herself. The learned in such matters, however, took a cheerful view of affairs, and declared the worst to be over,--"for this bout,"--as they cautiously added.

Whether it was the three days of rest, warmth, and good food which unlocked the swagger's heart, or not, I do not pretend to decide; but that evening, over a pipe in the kitchen, he confided to Mr. A----that he had been working his way down to the sea-coast from a station where he had been employed, very far back in the hill ranges. The "sou'-wester" had overtaken him about twenty miles from us, but only five from another station, where he had applied towards the evening for shelter, being even then drenched with rain, and worn out by struggling through such a tremendous storm. There, for some reason which I confess did not seem very clear, he had been refused the unvarying hospitality extended in New Zealand to all travellers, rich or poor, squatter or swagger, and had been directed to take a short cut across the hills to our station, which he was a.s.sured could easily be reached in an hour or two more. The track, a difficult one enough to strike in summer weather, became, indeed, impossible to discover amid rushing torrents and driving wind and rain; besides which, as the poor fellow repeated more than once during his story, "I was fair done up when I set out, for I'd been travelling all day." Mr. A---- told us what the man had been saying, before we all went to bed, adding, "He seems an odd, surly kind of creature, for although he declares he is going away the first thing to-morrow, if the rain be over, I noticed he never said a word approaching to thanks."

The rain was indeed over next morning, and a flood of brilliant sunshine awoke me "bright and early," as the country people say. It seemed impossible to stop in bed, so I jumped up, thrust my feet into slippers, and my arms into a warm dressing-gown, and sallied forth, opening window after window, so as to let the sunshine into rooms which not even a week's steady down-pour could render damp. What a morning it was, and for mid-winter too! No haze, or fog, or vapour on all the green hills, whose well-washed sides were glistening in a bright glow of sunlight.

For the first time, too, since the bad weather had set in, was to be heard the incessant bleat which is music to the ears of a New Zealand sheep-farmer. White, moving, calling patches on the hillsides told that the sheep were returning to their favourite pastures, and a mob of horses could be descried quietly feeding on the sunny flat.

But I had no eyes for beauties of mountain or sky. I could do nothing but gaze on the strange figure of the silent swagger, who knelt yes, positively knelt, on the still wet and shining shingle which formed an apology for a gravel path up to the back-door of the little wooden homestead. His appearance was very different to what it had been three days before. Now his clothes were dry and clean and mended,--my Irish maids doing; bless their warm hearts! He had cobbled up his boots himself, and his felt hat, which had quite recovered from its drenching, lay at his side. The perfect rest and warmth and good food had filled up his hollow cheeks, but still his countenance was a curious one; and never, until my dying day, can I forget the rapture of entreaty on that man's upturned face. It brings the tears into my own eyes now to recollect its beseeching expression. I do not think I ever _saw_ prayer before or since. He did not perceive me, for I had hidden behind a sheltering curtain, to listen to his strange, earnest pet.i.tions; so he could not know that anybody in the house was stirring, for he knelt at the back, and all my fussings had taken place in the front, and he could not, therefore, have been doing anything for effect.

There, exactly where he had crouched a wretched, way-worn tramp in pouring rain, he knelt now with the flood of sunshine streaming down on his uplifted face, whilst he prayed for the welfare and happiness, individually and collectively, of every living creature within the house. Then he stood up and lifted his hat from the ground; but before he replaced it on his head, he turned, with a gesture which would have made the fortune of any orator,--a gesture of mingled love and farewell, and solemnly blessed the roof-tree which had sheltered him in his hour of need. I could not help being struck by the extraordinarily good language in which he expressed his fervent desires, and his whole bearing seemed quite different to that of the silent, half-starved man we had kept in the kitchen these last three days. I watched him turn and go, noiselessly closing the garden gate after him, and--shall I confess it?--my heart has always felt light whenever I think of that swagger's blessing. When we all met at breakfast I had to take his part, and tell of the scene I had witnessed; for everybody was inclined to blame him for having stolen away, scarcely without saying good-bye, or expressing a word of thanks for the kindness he had received. But I knew better.

From the sublime to the ridiculous we all know the step is but short, especially in the human mind; and to my tender mood succeeds the recollection of an absurd panic we once suffered from, about swaggers.

Exaggerated stories had reached us, brought by timid fat men on horseback, with bulky pocket-books, who came to buy our wethers for the Hokitika market, of "sticking up" having broken out on the west land. I fear my expressions are often unintelligible to an English reader, but in this instance I will explain. "Sticking up" is merely a concise colonial rendering of "Your money or your life," and was originally employed by Australian bushrangers, those terrible freebooters whose ranks used to be always recruited from escaped convicts. Fortunately we had no community of that cla.s.s, only a few prisoners kept in a little ricketty wooden house in Christchurch, from which an enterprising baby might easily have escaped. I dare say as we get more civilized out there, we shall build ourselves handsome prisons and penitentiaries; but in those early days a story was current of a certain jailor who let all his captives out on some festal occasion, using the tremendous threat, that whoever had not returned by eight o'clock should be "_locked out!_"

But to return to that particular winter evening. We had been telling each other stories which we had heard or read of bushranging exploits, until we were all as nervous as possible. Ghosts, or even burglar stories, are nothing to the horror of a true bushranger story, and F---- had made himself particularly ghastly and disagreeable by giving a minute account of an adventure which had been told to him by one of the survivors.

We listened, with the wind howling outside, to F----'s horrid second-hand story, of how one fine day up country, eight or ten men,--station hands,--were "stuck up" by one solitary bushranger, armed to the teeth. He tied them up one by one, and seated them all on a bench in the sun, and deliberately fired at and wounded the youngest of the party; then, seized with compunction, he unbound one of the captives, and stood over him, revolver in hand, whilst he saddled and mounted a horse, to go for a doctor to set the poor boy's broken leg. Before the messenger had gone "a league, a league, but barely twa',"--the freebooter recollected that he might bring somebody else back with him besides the doctor, and flinging himself across his horse, rode after the affrighted man, and coolly shot him dead. I really don't know how the story ended: I believe everybody perished; but at this juncture I declared it to be impossible to sit up any longer to listen to such tragedies, and went to bed.

Exactly at midnight,--the proper hour for ghosts; burglars, and bushrangers, and such "small deer" to be about, everybody was awakened simultaneously by a loud irregular knocking, which sounded with hollow reverberations all through the wooden house. "Bushrangers!" we all thought, every one of us; for although burglars may not usually knock at hall-doors in England, it is by no means uncommon for their bolder brethren to do so at the other end of the world. It is such a comfort to me now, looking back on that scene to remember that our stalwart cadet was as frightened as anybody. _He_ stood six feet one in his stockings, and was a match for any two in the country side, and yet, I am happy to think, he was as bad as any one. As for me, to say that my heart became like water and my knees like soft wax, is to express in mild words my state of abject terror. There was no need to inquire what the maids thought, for smothered shrieks, louder and louder as each peal of knocks vibrated through the little house, proclaimed sufficiently their sentiments on the subject.

Dear me, how ridiculous it all must have been! In one corner of the ceiling of our bedroom was a little trap-door which opened into an attic adjoining that where the big cadet slept. Now whilst F---- was hurriedly taking down his double-barrelled gun from its bracket just below this aperture, and I held the candlestick with so shaky a hand that the extinguisher clattered like a castanet, this door was slowly lifted up, and a large white face, with dishevelled stubbly hair and wide-open blue eyes, looked down through the cobwebs, saying in a husky whisper, "Could you let me have a rifle, or any thing?" This was our gallant cadet, who had no idea of presenting himself at a disadvantage before the foe.

I had desperately seized a revolver, but F---- declared that if I persisted in carrying it I certainly should go first, as he did not wish to be shot in the back.

We held a hurried council of war,--Mr. A---- a.s.sisting through the trap door, and the maids breathing suggestions through the part.i.tion-planks,--but the difficulty consisted in determining at which door the knocking was going on. Some said one, and some another (for there were many modes of egress from the tiny dwelling); but at last F---- cried decidedly, "We must try them all in succession," and shouldering his gun, with the revolver sticking in the girdle of his dressing-gown, sallied valiantly forth. I don't know what became of Mr. A----: I believe he took up a position with the rifle pointing downwards; the maids retreated beneath their blankets, and I (too frightened to stay behind) followed closely, armed with an Indian boar-spear. F---- flung the hall door wide open, and called out, "Who's there?" but no one answered. The silence was intense, and so was the cold; therefore we returned speedily indoors to consult. "It must be at the back door," I urged; adding, "that is the short cut down the valley, where bushrangers would be most likely to come." "Bushrangers, you silly child!" laughed F----. "It's most likely a belated swagger, or else somebody who is playing us a trick." However as he spoke a succession of fierce and loud knocks resounded through the whole house. "It must be at the kitchen door," F---- said. "Come along, and stand well behind me when I open the door."

But we never opened the door; for on our way through the kitchen, with its high-pitched and unceiled roof,--a very cavern for echoes,--we discovered the source of the noise, and of our fright. Within a large wooden packing-case lay a poor little lamb, and its dying throes had wakened us all up, as it kicked expiring kicks violently against the side of the box. It was my doing bringing it indoors, for I never _could_ find it in my heart to leave a lamb out on the hills if we came across a dead ewe with her baby bleating desolately and running round her body. F---- always said, "You cannot rear a merino lamb indoors; the poor little thing will only die all the same in a day or two;" and then I am sorry to say he added in an unfeeling manner, "They are not worth much now," as if that could make any difference! I had brought this, as I had brought scores of others, home in my arms from a long distance off; fed it out of a baby's bottle, rubbed it dry, and put it to sleep in a warm bed of hay at the bottom of this very box. They had all died quietly, after a day or two, in spite of my devotion and nursing, but this little foundling kicked herself out of the world with as much noise as would have sufficed to summon a garrison to surrender. It is all very well to laugh at it now, but we were, five valiant souls in all, as thoroughly frightened at the time as we could well be.

The only real harm a swagger did me was to carry off one of my best maidservants as his wife, but as he had 300 pounds in the bank at Christchurch, and was only travelling about looking for work, and they have lived in great peace and prosperity ever since, I suppose I ought not to complain. This swagger was employed in deepening our well, and Mary was always going to see how he was getting on, so he used to make love to her, looking up from the bottom of a deep shaft, and shouting compliments to her from a depth of sixty feet. What really won her Irish heart, though, was his calmly putting a rival, a shepherd, into a water-b.u.t.t. She could not resist that, so they were married, and are doing well.

Let no one despise swaggers. They are merely travelling workmen, and would pay for their lodging if it was the custom to do so. I am told that even now they are fast becoming things of the past; for one could not "swagger" by railroad, and most of our beautiful happy vallies will soon have a line of rails laid down throughout its green and peaceful length.

Chapter X: Changing servants.

To the eyes of an English housewife the t.i.tle of this chapter must appear a very bad joke indeed, and the amus.e.m.e.nt what the immortal Mrs.

Poyser would call "a poor tale." Far be it from me to make light of the misery of a tolerably good servant coming to you after three months'

service, just as you were beginning to feel settled and comfortable, and announcing with a smile that she was going to be married; or, with a flood of tears, that she found it "lonesome." Either of these two contingencies was pretty sure to arise at least four times a year on a station.

At first I determined to do all I could to make their new home so attractive to my two handmaidens that they would not wish to leave it directly. In one of Wilkie Collins' books an upholsterer is represented as saying that if you want to domesticate a woman, you should surround her with bird's-eye maple and chintz. That must have been exactly my idea, for the two rooms which I prepared for my maidservants were small, indeed, yet exquisitely pretty. Of course I should not have been so foolish as to buy any of the unnecessary and dainty fittings with which they were decorated, but as all the furniture and belongings of an English house, a good deal larger than our station home, had been taken out to it, there were sundry toilet tables, etc., whose destination would have been a loft over the stable, if I had not used them for my maids.

I had seen and chosen two very respectable young women in Christchurch, one as a cook, and the other as a housemaid. The cook, Euphemia by name, was a tall, fat, flabby woman, with a pasty complexion, but a nice expression of face, and better manners than usual. She turned out to be very good natured, perfectly ignorant though willing to learn, and was much admired by the neighbouring _c.o.c.katoos_, or small farmers. Lois the housemaid, was the smallest and skimpiest and most angular girl I ever beheld. At first I regarded her with deep compa.s.sion, imagining that she was about fifteen years of age, and had been cruelly ill-treated and starved. How she divined what was pa.s.sing in my mind I cannot tell, but during our first interview she suddenly fired up, and informed me that she was twenty-two years old, that she was the seventh child of a seventh child, and therefore absolutely certain to achieve some wonderful piece of good luck; and furthermore, that she had been much admired in her own part of the country, and was universally allowed to be "the flower of the province." This statement, delivered with great volubility and defiant jerkiness of manner, rather took my breath away; but it was a case of "Hobson's choice" just then about servants, and as I was a.s.sured she was a respectable girl, I closed with her terms (25 pounds a year and all found) on the spot. The fat pale cook was to get 35 pounds. Now-a-days I hear that wages are somewhat lower, but the sums I have named were the average figures of six or seven years ago, especially "up-country."

Here I feel impelled to repeat the substance of what I have stated elsewhere,--that these rough, queer servants were, as a general rule, perfectly honest, and of irreproachable morals, besides working, in their own curious fashion, desperately hard. Our family was an exceptionally small one, and the "place" was considered "light, you bet," but even then it seemed to me as if both my domestics worked very hard. In the first place there was the washing; two days severe work, under difficulties which they thought nothing of. All the clothes had to be taken to a boiler fixed in the side of a hill, for the convenience of the creek, and washed and rinsed under a blazing sun (for of course it never was attempted on a wet day) and amid clouds of sand-flies. Not until evening was this really hard day's work over, and the various garments fluttering in the breeze up a valley behind the house. The chances were strongly in favour of a tremendous nor'-wester coming down this said valley during the night, and in that case there would not be a sign next morning of any of the clothes. Heavy things, such as sheets or table cloths, might be safely looked for under lee of the nearest gorse hedge, but it would be impossible even to guess where the lighter and more diaphanous articles had been whisked to. A week afterwards the shepherds used to bring in stray cuffs and collars, and upon one occasion "Judy," the calf, was discovered in a paddock hard by, breakfasting off my best pocket handkerchiefs with an excellent appet.i.te. Of course everything was dirty, and needed to be washed over again. We had a mangle, which greatly simplified matters on the second day, but it used not to be uncommon on back-country stations to get up the fine things with a flat stone, heated in the wood ashes, for an iron. After the washing operations had been brought to a more or less successful ending, there came the yeast making and the baking, followed by the brewing of sugar beer, preserves had to be made, bacon cured, all sorts of things to be done, besides the daily duties of scrubbing and cleaning, and cooking at all hours for stray visitors or "swaggers."

But I am overcome with contrition at perceiving into what a digression I have wandered; having strayed from my maids' rooms to their duties.

They arrived as usual on a dray late in the evening, tired and wearied enough, poor souls. In those early days I had not yet plucked up courage to try my hand in the kitchen, and our meals had been left to the charge of F----, who, whatever he may be in other relations of life, is a vile cook; and our good-natured cadet Mr. U----, who was exceedingly willing, but profoundly ignorant of the elements of cookery. For fear of being tempted into another digression, I will briefly state that during that week I lived in a chronic state of hunger and heartburn, and sought forgetfulness from repeated attacks of indigestion, by decorating my servants' rooms. They opened into each other, and it would have been hard to find two prettier little nests. Each had its shining bra.s.s bedstead with chintz hangings, its muslin-draped toilette table, and its daintily curtained window, besides a pretty carpet. I can remember now the sort of dazed look with which Euphemia regarded a room such as she had never seen; whilst Lois considered it to be an instalment of her good luck, and proceeded to contemplate her sharp and elfish countenance in her looking-gla.s.s, p.r.o.nouncing it as her opinion that she wanted more colour. That she certainly did, and she might have added, more flesh and youthfulness, while she was about it. However, they were greatly delighted, and Euphemia who was of a grateful and affectionate disposition, actually thanked me, for having with my own hands arranged such pretty rooms for them.

This was a very good beginning. They were both hard-working, civil girls, and got on very well together, leaving me plenty of leisure to attend to the quant.i.ties of necessary arrangements which have to be made when you are settling yourself for good, fifty miles from a shop, and on a spot where no other human being has ever lived before. F---- congratulated myself in private on my exceptional good luck, and attributed it partly to my having followed the Upholsterer's advice in that book of Mr. Wilkie Collins. But as it turned out, F---- was dwelling in a fool's paradise. In vain had it been pointed out to me that a certain stalwart north countryman, whose shyness could only be equalled by his appet.i.te, had been a most regular attendant for some weeks past at our Sunday evening services, accepting the offer of tea in the kitchen, afterwards, with great alacrity. I scouted these insinuations, appealing to the general sense of the public as to whether Moffatt had _ever_ been known to refuse a meal anywhere, or under any circ.u.mstances, and declaring that, if he was "courting," it was being done in solemn silence, for never a sound filtered through the thin wooden planks between the kitchen and the dining room, except the clatter of a vigorously plied knife and fork, for Moffatt's teas always included a shoulder of mutton.

But I was wrong and others were right. Early in October, our second spring month, I chanced to get up betimes one delicious, calm morning, a morning when it seemed a new and exquisite pleasure to open each window in succession, and fill one's lungs with a deep, deep breath of that heavenly atmosphere, at once so fresh and so pure.

Quiet as the little homestead lay, nestled among the hills, there were too many morning noises stirring among the animals for any one to feel lonely or dull, I should have thought. From a distance came a regular, monotonous, lowing sound. That was "Hetty," the pretty little yellow Alderney, announcing from the swamps that she and her two female friends were quite ready to be milked. Their calves answered them dutifully from the English gra.s.s paddock, and between the two I could see Mr. U----'s tall figure stalking down the flat with his cattle dog at his heels, and hear his merry whistle shrilling through the silent air. Then all the ducks and fowls about the place were inquiring, in noisy cackle, how long it would be before breakfast was ready, whilst "Helen's" whinneying made me turn my head to see her, with a mob of horses at her heels, coming over the nearest ridge on the chance of a stray carrot or two going begging. All the chained-up dogs were pulling at the staples of their fastenings, and entreating by short, joyous barks, to be allowed just one good frisk and roll in the sparkling dewy gra.s.s around. But even I, universal spoiler of animals that I am, was obliged to harden my heart against their noisy appeals; for quite close to the stable, on the nearest hill-side, an immense mob of sheep and young lambs were feeding.

That steep incline had been burnt six weeks before, and was now as green as the clover field at its base, affording a delicious pasturage to these nursing mothers and their frisky infants. I think I see and hear it all now. The moving white patches on the hill-side, the incessant calling and answering, the racing and chasing among the curly little merino lambs, and above all the fair earth the clear vault of an almost cloudless sky bent itself in a deep blue dome. Just over the eastern hills the first long lances of the sun lay in bright shafts of silver sheen on the dew-laden tussocks, and that peculiar morning fragrance rose up from the moist ground, which is as much the reward of the early riser as the early worm is of the bird.

Was it a morning for low spirits or sobs and sighs? Surely not; and yet as I turned the handle of the kitchen door those melancholy sounds struck my ear. I had intended to make my entrance with a propitiatory smile, suitable to such a glorious morning, proceed to pay my damsels a graceful compliment on their somewhat unusual early rising, and wind up with a request for a cup of tea. But all these friendly purposes went out of my head when I beheld Euphemia seated on the rude wooden settle, with its chopped tussock mattra.s.s, which had been covered with a bright cotton damask, and was now called respectfully, "the kitchen sofa." Her arm was round Lois's waist, and she had drawn that young lady's shock head of red curls down on her capacious bosom. Both were crying as if their hearts would break, and startled as I felt to see these floods of tears, it struck me how incongruous their att.i.tude looked against the background of the large window through which all nature looked so smiling and sparkling. The kettle was singing on the fire, everything seemed bright and snug and comfortable indoors. "What in the world has happened?" I gasped, really frightened.

"Nothing, mem: its only them sheep," sobbed Euphemia, "calling like.

They always makes me cry. Your tea 'll be ready directly, mem" (this last with a deep sigh.)

"Is it possible you are crying about that?" I inquired. "Yes, mem, yes," said Euphemia, in heart-broken accents, clasping Lois, who was positively howling, closer to her sympathetic heart. "Its terrible to hear 'em. They keeps calling and answering each other, and that makes us think of our home and friends." Now both these women had starved as factory "hands" all their lives, and I used to feel much more inclined to cry when they told me, all unconscious of the pathos, stories of their baby work and hardships. Certainly they had never seen a sheep until they came to New Zealand, and as they had particularly mentioned the silence which used to reign supreme at the manufactory during work hours, I could not trace the connection between a dingy, smoky, factory, and a bright spring morning in this delightful valley. "What nonsense!"

I cried, half laughing and half angry. "You can't be in earnest. Why you must both be ill: let me give you each a good dose of medicine." I said this encouragingly, for there was nothing in the world Euphemia liked so much as good substantial physic, and the only thing I ever needed to keep locked up from her was the medicine drawer.

Euphemia seemed touched and grateful, and her face brightened up directly, but Lois looked up with her frightful little face more ugly than usual, as she said, spitefully, "Physic won't make them nasty sheep hold their tongues. I'm sure _this_ isn't the place for me to find my luck, so I'd rather go, if you please, mem. I've prospected-up every one o' them gullies and never seen the colour yet, so it ain't any good my stopping."

This was quite a fresh light thrown upon the purpose of Lois's long lonely rambles. She used to be off and away, over the hills whenever she had finished her daily work, and I encouraged her rambles, thinking the fresh air and exercise must do her a world of good. Never had I guessed that the sordid little puss was turning over every stone in the creek in her search for the shining flakes.

"Why did you think you should find gold here?" I asked.

"Because they do say it lies in all these mountain streams," she answered sullenly; "and I'm always dreaming of nuggets. Not that a girl with my face and figure wants 'dust' to set her off, however. But if its all the same to you, mem, I'd rather leave when Euphemia does."

"Are _you_ going, then?" I inquired, turning reproachfully to my pale-faced cook, who actually coloured a little as she answered, "Well, mem, you see Moffatt says he's got his window frames in now, and he'll gla.s.s them the very first chance, and I think it'll be more company for me on Saddler's Flat. So if you'll please to send me down in the dray, I should be obliged."

Here was a pretty upset, and I went about my poultry-feeding with a heavy heart. How was I to get fresh servants, and above all, what was I to do for cooking during the week they were away? These questions fortunately settled themselves in rather an unexpected manner. I heard of a very nice willing girl who was particularly anxious to come up as housemaid, to my part of the world, on condition that I should also engage as cook her sister, who was leaving a place on the opposite side of a range of high hills to the south. I shall only briefly say that all inquiries about these damsels proved satisfactory, and I could see Euphemia and Lois depart, with tolerable equanimity. The former wept, and begged for a box of c.o.c.kles' pills; but Lois tossed her elfish head, and gave me to understand that she had never been properly admired or appreciated whilst in my service.