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The interest shown by the public in the simple and true account of every-day life in New Zealand, published by the author three years ago, has encouraged her to enlarge upon the theme. This volume is but a continuation of “Station Life,” with this difference: that whereas that little book dwelt somewhat upon practical matters, these pages are entirely devoted to reminiscences of the idler hours of a settler’s life.
Many readers have friends and relations out in those beautiful
distant islands, and though her book should possess no wider
interest, the author hopes
M. A. B.
Since my return to England, two years ago, I have been frequently
asked by my friends and acquaintances, “How did you amuse yourself
up at the station?” I am generally tempted to reply, “We were all
too busy to need amusement;” but when I come to think the matter
over calmly and dispassionately, I find that a great many of our
occupations may be classed under the head of play rather than work.
But that would hardly give a fair idea of our lives there, either.
It would be more correct to say perhaps, that most of our simple
pleasures were composed of a solid layer of usefulness underneath
the froth of fun and frolic. I purpose therefore in these
It will be as well to begin with the description of one of the
picnics, which were favourite amusements in our home, nestled in a
valley of the Malvern Hills of Canterbury. These hills are of a
very respectable height, and constitute in fact the lowest slopes of
the great Southern Alps, which rise to snow-clad peaks behind them.
Our little wooden homestead stood at the head of a sunny, sheltered
valley, and around it we could see the hills gradually rolling into
downs, which in their turn were smoothed out, some ten or twelve
miles off, into the dead level of the plains. The only drawback to
the picturesque beauty of these lower ranges is the absence of
forest, or as it is called there, bush. Behind the Malvern Hills,
where they begin to rise into steeper ascents, lies many and many a
mile of bush-clad mountain, making deep blue shadows when the
setting sun brings the grand Alpine range into sharp white outline
against the background of dazzling Italian sky. But just here,
where my beloved antipodean home stood, we had no trees whatever,
except those which we had planted ourselves, and whose growth we
watched with eager
Quite out of view from the house or garden, and about seven miles
away, lay a mountain pass, or saddle, over a range, which was
densely wooded, and from whose highest peak we could see a wide
extent of timbered country. Often in our evening rides we have gone
round by that saddle, in spite of a break-neck track and quicksands
and bogs, just to satisfy our constant longing for green leaves,
waving branches, and the twitter of birds. Whenever any wood was
wanted for building a stockyard, or slabbing a well, or making a
post-and-rail fence around a new paddock, we were obliged to take
out a Government license to cut wood in this splendid bush. Armed
with the necessary document the next step was to engage “bushmen,”
or woodcutters by profession, who felled and cut the timber into the
proper lengths, and stacked it neatly in a clearing, where it could
get dry and seasoned. These stacks were often placed in such
inaccessible and rocky parts of the steep mountain side, that they
had to be brought down to the flat in rude little sledges, drawn by
a bullock, who required to be trained
Imagine, then, a beautiful day in our early New Zealand autumn. For
a week past, a furious north-westerly gale had been blowing down the
gorges of the Rakaia and the Selwyn, as if it had come out of a
funnel, and sweeping across the great shelterless plains with
irresistible force. We had been close prisoners to the house all
those days, dreading to open a door to go out for wood or water,
lest a terrific blast should rush in and whip the light shingle roof
off. Not an animal could be seen out of doors; they had all taken
shelter on the lee-side of the gorse hedges, which are always
planted round a garden to give the vegetables a chance of coming up.
On the sky-line of the hills could be perceived towards evening,
mobs of sheep feeding with their heads up-wind, and travelling to
the high camping-grounds which they always select in preference to a
valley. The yellow tussocks were bending all one way, perfectly
flat to the ground, and the shingle on the gravel walk outside
rattled like hail against the low latticed windows. The uproar from
the gale was
All that I have been describing was the weather of the past week.
Disagreeable as it might have been, it was needed in both its hot
and cold, dry and wet extremes, to make a true New Zealand day. The
furious nor’-wester had blown every fleck of cloud below the
horizon, and dried the air until it was as light as ether. The
“s’utherly buster,” on the other hand, had cooled and refreshed
everything in the most delicious way, and a perfect day had come at
last. What words can describe the pleasure it is to inhale such an
atmosphere? One feels as if old age or sickness or even sorrow,
could hardly exist beneath such a spotless vault of blue as
stretched out above our happy heads. I have often been told that
this feeling of intense pleasure on a fine day, which is peculiar to
New Zealand, is really a very low form of animal enjoyment. It may
be so, but I only know that I never stood in the verandah early in
the morning of such a day as I am trying to sketch in pen and ink
now, without feeling the highest spiritual joy, the deepest
thankfulness to the loving Father who had made His beautiful world
so fair, and who would fain lead us through its paths of
pleasantness to a still more glorious, home, which will be free from
the shadows brooding from
But to return to the verandah, although we have never left it. Presently F—— came out, and I said with a sigh, born of deep content and happiness, “What a day!” “Yes,” answered F——: “a heavenly day indeed: well worth waiting for. I want to go and see how the men are getting on in the bush. Will you like to come too?” “Of course I will. What can be more enchanting than the prospect of spending such sunny hours in that glorious bush?” So after breakfast I give my few simple orders to the cook, and prepare, to pack a “Maori kit,” or flat basket made of flax, which could be fastened to my side-saddle, with the preparations for our luncheon. First some mutton chops had to be trimmed and prepared, all ready to be cooked when we got there. These were neatly folded up in clean paper; and a little packet of tea, a few lumps of white sugar, a tiny wooden contrivance for holding salt and pepper, and a couple of knives and forks, were added to the parcel.
So much for the contents of the basket. They needed to be carefully
packed so as not to rattle in
After the luncheon, the next question to be decided is, which of the
dogs are to join the expedition. Hector, of course; he is the
master’s colley, and would no more look at a sheep, except in the
way of business, than he would fly. Rose, a little short-haired
terrier, was the most fascinating of dog companions, and I pleaded
hard for her, as she was an especial pet; though there were too many
lambs belonging to a summer lambing (in New Zealand the winter is
the usual lambing season) in the sheltered paddocks beneath the
bush, to make it quite safe for her to be one of the party. She
would not kill or hurt a lamb on any account, but she always
appeared anxious to play with the little creatures; and as her own
spotless coat was as white as theirs, she often managed to get quite
close to a flock of sheep before they perceived that she belonged to
the dreaded race of dogs. When the timid animals found out their
mistake, a regular stampede used to ensue; and it was not supposed
to be good for the health of the old or young
At last we were fairly off about eleven o’clock, and an hour’s easy
canter, intersected by many “flat-jumps,” or rather “water-jumps,”
across the numerous creeks, brought unto the foot of the bush-clad
mountain. After that our pace became a very sober one, as the.
track resembled a broken rocky staircase more than a bridle-path.
But such as it was, our sure-footed horses carried us safely up and
down its rugged steeps, without making a single false step. No mule
can be more sure-footed than a New Zealand horse. He
However, the event proved him to have been right, and we reached the
clearing in safety. Here we dismounted, and led the horses to a
place where they could nibble some grass, and rest in the cool
shade. The saddles and bridles were soon removed, and halters
improvised out of the New Zealand flax, which can be turned to so
many uses. Having provided for the comfort of our faithful animals,
our next step was to look for the bushmen. The spot which
But this is a digression, and I want to make you see with my eyes
the beautiful glimpses of distant country lying around the bold
wooded cliff on which we were standing. The ground fell away from
our feet so completely in some places, that we could see over the
tops of the high trees around us, whilst in others the landscape
appeared framed in an arch of quivering foliage. A noisy little
creek chattered and babbled as it hurried along to join its big
brother down below, and kept a fringe of exquisite ferns, which grew
along
That was a fair and fertile land stretching out before us,
intersected by the deep banks of the Rakaia, with here and there a
tiny patch of emerald green and a white dot, representing the house
and English grass paddock of a new settler. In the background the
bush-covered mountains rose ever higher and higher in bolder
outline, till they shook off their leafy clothing, and stood out in
steep cliffs and scaurs from the snow-clad glacier region of the
mountain range running from north to south, and forming the back
bone of the island. I may perhaps make you see the yellow,
river-furrowed plains, and the great confusion of rising ground
behind them, but cannot make
You could not find more favourable specimens of New Zealand
colonists than the two men, Trew and Domville, who stood before us
in their working dress of red flannel shirts and moleskin trousers,
“Cookham” boots and digger’s plush hats. Three years before this
day they had landed at Port Lyttleton, with no other capital than
their strong, willing arms, and their sober, sensible heads. Very
different is their appearance to-day from what it was on their
arrival; and the change in their position and circumstances is as
great. Their bodily frames have filled out and developed under the
influence of the healthy climate and
The great mistake made in England, next to that of sending out
worthless idle paupers, who have never done a hand’s turn for
themselves here, and are still less likely to do it elsewhere, is
for parents and guardians to ship off to New Zealand young men who
ought to do
something, and they make day by day the terrible discovery that
there is nothing for them to do in their own rank of life. Many a
poor clergyman’s son, sooner than return to the home which has been
so pinched to furnish forth his passage money and outfit, takes a
shepherd’s billet, though he generally makes a very bad shepherd for
the first year or two; or drives bullocks, or perhaps wanders
vaguely over the country, looking for work, and getting food and
lodging indeed, for inhospitality is unknown, but no pay. Sometimes
they go to the diggings, only
Once I was riding with my husband up a lovely gulley, when we heard
the crack of a stockwhip, sounding strangely through the deep
eternal silence of a New Zealand valley, and a turn of the track
showed us a heavy, timber-laden bullock-waggon labouring slowly
along. At the head of the long team sauntered the driver, in the
usual rough-and-ready costume, with his soft plush hat pulled low
over his face, and pulling vigorously at a clay pipe. In spite of
all the outer surroundings, something in the man’s walk and dejected
attitude struck my imagination, and I made some remark to my
companion. The sound of my voice reached the bullock-driver’s ears;
he looked up, and on seeing a lady, took his pipe out of his mouth,
his hat off his head, and forcing his beasts a little aside, stood
at their head to let us pass. I smiled and
I have also known an ex-dragoon officer working as a clerk in an
attorney’s office at fifteen shillings a
This has been a terrible digression, almost a social essay in fact; but I have it so much at heart to dissuade fathers and mothers from sending their sons so far away without any certainty of employment. Capitalists, even small ones, do well in New Zealand: the labouring classes still better; but there is no place yet for the educated gentleman without money, and with hands unused to and unfit for manual labour and the downward path is just as smooth and pleasant at first there, as anywhere else.
Trew and Domville soon got over their momentary shyness, and
answered my inquiries about their families. Then I had a short talk
with them, but on the principle that it is “ill speaking to a
fasting man,” we agreed to adjourn to the clearing, where they had
built a rough log hut for temporary shelter, and have our dinner.
They had provided themselves with some bacon; but were very glad to
accept of F——’s offer of mutton, to be had for the trouble of
fetching it. When we reached the little shanty, Trew produced some
capital bread, he had baked the evening before in a camp-oven; F——’s
pockets were emptied of
Over another fire, a little way to leeward, hung the bushmen’s
kettle on an iron tripod, and, so soon as it boiled, my little
teapot was filled before Domville threw in his great fist-full of
tea. I had brought a tiny phial of cream in the pocket of my
saddle, but the men thought it spoiled the flavour of the tea, which
they always drink “neat,” as they call it. The Temperance Society
could draw many interesting statistics from the amount of hard work
which is done in New Zealand on tea. Now, I am sorry to say, beer
is creeping up to the stations, and is served out at shearing time
and so on; but in the old days all the hard work used to be done on
tea, and tea alone, the men always declaring they worked far better
on it than on beer. “When we have as much good bread and mutton as
we can eat,” they would say, “we don’t feel to miss the beer we used
to drink in England;” and at the end of a year or two of tea and
water-drinking, their bright eyes and splendid physical
So there we sat round the fire: F—— with the men, and I, a little
way off, out of the smoke, with the dogs. Overhead, the sunlight
streamed down on the grass which had sprung up, as it always does in
a clearing; the rustle among the lofty tree tops made a delicious
murmur high up in the air; a waft of cool breeze flitted past us
laden with the scent of newly-cut wood (and who does not know that
nice, clean perfume?); innumerable paroquets almost brushed us
with their emerald-green wings, whilst the tamer robin or the dingy
but melodious bell-bird came near to watch the intruders. The sweet
clear whistle of the tui or parson-bird—so called from his glossy
black suit and white wattles curling exactly where a clergy-man’s
bands would be,—could be heard at a distance; whilst overhead the
soft cooing of the wild pigeons, and the hoarse croak of the ka-ka
or native parrot, made up the music of the birds’ orchestra. Ah,
how delicious it all was,—the Robinson Crusoe feel of the whole
thing; the heavenly air, the fluttering leaves, the birds’ chirrups
and whistle, and the foreground of happy, healthy men!
Rose and I had enough to do, even with Nettle’s assistance, in
acting as police to keep off those bold
After dinner was over and Domville had brought back the tin plates
and pannikins from the creek where he had washed them up, pipes were
lighted, and a few minutes smoking served to rest and refresh the
men, who had been working since their six o’clock breakfast. The
daylight hours were too precious however to be wasted in smoking.
Trew and Domville
And so it was, most beautiful and thoroughly delightful. I sat on
the short sweet grass, which springs upon the rich loam of fallen
leaves the moment sunlight is admitted into the heart of a bush. No
one plants it; probably the birds carry the seeds; yet it grows
freely after a clearing has been made. Nature lays down a green
sward directly on the rich virgin mould, and sets to work besides to
cover up the unsightly stems and holes of the fallen timber with
luxuriant tufts of a species of hart’s-tongue fern, which grows
almost as freely as an orchid on decayed timber. I was so still and
silent that innumerable forest birds came about me. A wood pigeon
alighted on a branch close by, and sat preening her radiant
Thus the delicious afternoon wore on, until it was time to boil the
kettle once more, and make a cup of tea before setting out
homewards. The lengthening shadows added fresh tenderness and
beauty to the peaceful scene, and the sky began to paint itself in
its exquisite sunset hues. It has been usual to praise the tints of
tropic skies when the day is declining; but never, in any of my
wanderings to East and West
A loud coo-ee summoned F—— to tea, and directly afterwards the
horses were re-saddled, the now empty flax basket filled with the
obnoxious teapot and cup, wrapped in many layers of flax leaves, to
prevent their rattling, and we bade good night to the tired bushmen.
We left them at their tea, and I was much struck to observe that
though they looked like men who had done a hard day’s work, there
was none of the exhaustion we often see in England depicted on the
labouring man’s face. Instead of a hot crowded room, these bushmen
were going to sleep in their log hut, where the fresh pure air could
circulate through every nook and cranny. They had each their pair
of red blankets, one to spread over a heap of freshly cut tussocks,
which formed a delicious elastic mattrass, and the other to serve as
a coverlet. During the day these blankets were always hung outside
on a tree, out of the reach of the most investigating weka. You may
be sure I had not come empty-handed in the way of books and papers,
and my last glance as I rode away rested on Trew opening a number of
Good Words
Evening Hours was not in existence at that
time, or else its pages are just what those simple God-fearing men
would have appreciated and enjoyed. Good Words and the eisur used to be their favourite periodicals, and the kindness of
English friends kept me also well supplied with copies of Miss
Marsh’s little books, which were read with the deepest and most
eager interest.
And so we rode slowly home through the delicious gloaming, with the evening air cooled to freshness so soon as the sun had sunk below the great mountains to the west, from behind which he shot up glorious rays of gold and crimson against the blue ethereal sky, causing the snowy peaks to look more exquisitely pure from the background of gorgeous colour. During the flood of sunlight all day, we had not perceived a single fleck of cloud; but now lovely pink wreaths, floating in mid-air, betrayed that here and there a “nursling of the sky” lingered behind the cloud-masses which we thought had all been blown away yesterday.
The short twilight hour was over, and the stars were filtering their soft radiance on our heads by the time we heard the welcoming barks of the homestead, and saw the glimmer of the lighted lamp in our sitting-room, shining out of the distant gloom. And so ended, in supper and a night of deep dreamless sleep, one of the many happy picnic days of my New Zealand life.
One of the greatest drawbacks in an English gentleman’s eyes to
living in New Zealand is the want of sport. There is absolutely
none. There used to be a few quails, but they are almost extinct
now; and during four years’ residence in very sequestered regions I
only saw one. Wild ducks abound on some of the rivers, but they are
becoming fewer and shyer every year. The beautiful Paradise duck is
gradually retreating to those inland lakes lying at the foot of the
Southern Alps, amid glaciers and boulders which serve as a barrier
to keep back his ruthless foe. Even the heron, once so plentiful on
the lowland rivers, is now seldom seen. As I write these lines a
remorseful recollection comes back upon me of overhanging cliffs,
and of a bend in a swirling river, on whose rapid current a
beautiful wounded heron—its right wing
I have seen very good blue duck shooting on the Waimakiriri river,
but 50 per cent. of the birds were lost for want of a retriever bold
enough to face that formidable river. Wide as was the beautiful
reach, on whose shore the sportsmen stood, and calmly as the deep
stream seemed to glide beneath its high banks, the wounded birds,
flying low on the water, had hardly dropped when they disappeared,
sucked beneath by the strong current, and whirled past us in less
time than it takes one to write a line. We had retrievers with us
who would face the waves of an inland lake during a nor’-wester,
—which is giving a dog very high praise indeed; but there was no
canine Bayard at hand to brave those treacherous depths, and bring
out our game, so the sport soon ceased; for what was the good of
shooting the beautiful, harmless
I often accompanied F—— on his eel-fishing expeditions, but more for the sake of companionship than from any amusement I found in the sport. I may here confess frankly that I cannot understand anyone being an inveterate eel-fisher, for of all monotonous pursuits, it is the most self-repeating in its forms. Even the first time I went out I found it delightful only in anticipation; and this is the one midnight excursion which I shall attempt to re-produce for you.
It had been a broiling midsummer day, too hot to sit in the
verandah, too hot to stroll about the garden, or go for a ride, or
do anything in fact, except bask like a lizard in the warm air. New
Zealand summer weather, however high the thermometer, is quite
different from either tropical or English heat. It is intensely hot
in the sun, but always cool in the shade. I never heard of an
instance of sun-stroke from exposure to the mid-day sun, for there
always was a light air—often scarcely perceptible until you were
well out in the open,—to temper the fierce vertical rays. It
sometimes happened that I found myself obliged, either for business
or pleasure, to take a long ride in the middle of a summer’s day,
and my
What surprised me most was the utter absence of damp or miasma. After a blazing day, instead of hurrying in out of reach of poisonous vapours as the tropic-dweller must needs do, we could linger bare-headed, lightly clad, out of doors, listening to the distant roar of a river, or watching the exquisite tints of the evening sky. I dwell on this to explain that in almost any other country there would have been risk in remaining out at night after such still, hot days.
On this particular evening, during my first summer in the New
Zealand Malvern Hills, after we had watered my pet flowers near the
house, and speculated a good deal as to whether the mignonette seed
had all been blown out of the ground by the last nor’-wester or not,
F—— said, “I shall go eel-fishing to-night to the creek, down the
flat. Why don’t you come too? I am sure you would like it.” Now,
I
It was of no use starting until the twilight had darkened into a
cloudy, moonless night; so, after our seven o’clock supper, we
adjourned into the verandah to watch F—— make a large round ball,
such as children play with, out of the scraps of worsted with
“Are we going into the water?” I timidly inquired.
“Oh, no,—not at all: it is on account of the Spaniards.”
No doubt this sounds very unintelligible to an English reader; but
every colonist who may chance to see my pages will shiver at the
recollection of those vegetable defenders of an unexplored region in
New Zealand. Imagine a gigantic artichoke with slender instead of
broad leaves, set round in dense compact order. They vary, of
course, in size, but in our part
into a Spaniard is a thing to be remembered all
one’s life. Interspersed with the Spaniards are generally clumps of
“wild Irishman,” a straggling sturdy bramble, ready to receive and
scratch you well if you attempt to avoid the Spaniard’s weapons.
Especially detrimental to riding habits are wild Irishmen; and there
are fragments of mine, of all sorts of materials and colours,
fluttering now on their thorny branches in out-of-the-way places on
our run. It is not surprising, therefore, that we guarded our legs
as well as we could against these foes to flesh and blood.
“We are rather early,” said the gentlemen, as I appeared, ready and
eager to start; “but perhaps it is
At first it appeared as if we had stepped from the brightness of the
drawing-room into utter and pitchy blackness; but after we had
groped for a few steps down the familiar garden path, our eyes
became accustomed to the subdued light of the soft summer night.
Although heavy banks of cloud,—the general precursors of wind,—
were moving slowly between us and the heavens, the stars shone down
through their rifts, and on the western horizon a faint yellowish
tinge told us that daylight was in no hurry to leave our quiet
valley. The mountain streams or creeks, which water so well the
grassy plains among the Malvern Hills, are not affected to any
considerable extent by dry summer weather. They are snow-fed from
the high ranges, and each nor’-wester restores many a glacier or
avalanche to its original form, and sends it flowing down the steep
sides of yonder distant beautiful mountains to join the creeks,
which, like a tangled skein of silver threads, ensure a good water
supply to the New Zealand sheep-farmer. In the holes, under steep
overhanging banks, the eels love to lurk, hiding from the sun’s rays
in cool depths,
About a mile down the flat, between very high banks, our principal
creek ran, and to a quiet spot among the flax-bushes we directed our
steps. By the fast-fading light the gentlemen set their lines in
very primitive fashion. On the crumbling, rotten earth the New
Zealand flax, the Phormium tenax, loves to grow, and to its long,
ribbon-like leaves the eel-fishers fastened their lines securely,
baiting each alternate hook with mutton and worms. I declared this
was too cockney a method of fishing, and selected a tall slender
flax-stick, the stalk of last year’s spike of red honey-filled
blossoms, and to this extempore rod I fastened my line and bait.
When one considers
Hot as the day had been, the night air felt chill, and a heavy dew
began to fall, showing me the wisdom of substituting woollen for
cotton garments. I could see the dim outlines of the high hills,
which shut in our happy valley on all sides, and the smell
As I waited and watched, I thought, as every one must surely think,
with strange paradoxical feelings, of one’s own utter insignificance
in creation, mingled with the delightful consciousness of our
individual importance in the eyes of the Maker and Father of all.
An atom among worlds, as one feels, sitting there at such an hour
and in such a spot, still we remember with love and pride, that not
a hair of our head falls to the ground unnoticed by an Infinite Love
and an Eternal Providence. The soul tries to fly into the boundless
regions of space and eternity, and to gaze upon other worlds, and
other beings equally the object of the Great Creator’s care; but her
mortal wing soon droops and tires, and she is fain to nestle home
again to her Saviour’s arms, with the thought, “I am my Beloved’s,
and He is mine.” That is the only safe beginning and end of all
speculation. It was very solemn and beautiful, that long dark
night,—a pause amid the bustle of every day cares and duties,—
Midnight had come and gone, when the sputter and snap of striking a
match, which sounded almost like a pistol shot amid the profound
silence, told me that one of the sportsmen had been successful. I
got up as softly as possible, wrapped my damp shawl round my still
damper shoulders, and, fastening the flax-stick securely in the
ground, stole along the bank of the creek towards the place where a
blazing tussock, serving as a torch, showed the successful
eel-fisher struggling with his prize. Through the gloom I saw
another weird-looking figure running silently in the same direction;
for the fact was, we were all so cramped and cold, and, weary of
sitting waiting for bites which never came, that we hailed with
delight a break in the monotony of our watch. It did not matter now
how much noise we made (within moderate limits), for the peace of
that portion of the creek was destroyed for the night. Half-a-dozen
eels must have banded themselves together, and made a sudden and
furious dash at the worsted ball, which Mr. U—— had been dangling
in front of their mud hall-door for the last two hours. Just as he
had intended, their long sharp teeth became entangled in the worsted
loops, and although he declared some had broken away and
It would have been almost impossible for one man to lift such a
weight straight out of the water by a string; and as we came up and
saw Mr. U——’s agitated face in the fantastic flickering light of
the blazing tussock, which he had set on fire as a signal of
distress, I involuntarily thought of the old Joe Miller about the
Tartar: “Why don’t you let him go?” “Because he has caught me.”
It looked just like that. The furious splashing in the water below,
and Mr. U—— grasping his line with desperate valour, but being
gradually drawn nearer to the edge of the steep bank each instant.
“Keep up a good light, but not too much,” cried F—— to me, in a
regular stage-whisper, as he rushed to the rescue. So I pulled up
one tussock after another by its roots,—an exertion which resulted
in upsetting me each time,—and lighted one as fast as its
predecessor burned out. They were all rather damp, so they did not
flare away too quickly. By the blaze of my grassy torches I saw F——
first seize Mr. U—— round the waist and drag him further from the
bank; but the latter called out, “It’s my hands,—they have no skin
left: do catch hold, there’s a good fellow.” So the “good fellow”
did catch hold, but he was too
The sportsmen were delighted however, and departed to a fresh bend of the creek, leaving me to find my way back to my original post. This would have been difficult indeed, had not Nettle remained behind to guard my gloves, which I had left in his custody. As I passed, not knowing I was so near the spot, the little dog gave a low whimper of greeting, sufficient to attract my attention and guide me to where he was keeping his faithful watch and ward. I felt for my flax-stick and moved it ever so gently. A sudden jerk and splash startled me horribly, and warned me that I had disturbed an eel who was in the act of supping off my bait. In the momentary surprise I suppose I let go, for certain it is that the next instant my flax-stick was rapidly towed down the stream.
Instead of feeling provoked or mortified, it was the greatest relief
to know that my eel-fishing was over for the night, and that now I
had nothing to do except “wait till called for.” So I took Nettle
on my lap and tried to abide patiently, but I had not been long
enough in New Zealand to have any confidence in the climate, and as
I felt how damp my clothes were, and recollected with horror my West
Indian experiences of the consequences of exposure to night air and
heavy dew, my mind would dwell gloomily on the prospect of a
fever, at least. It seemed a long and weary while before I
perceived a figure coming towards me; and I am afraid I was both
cross and cold and sleepy by the time we set our faces homewards.
“I have only caught three,” said F——. “How many have you got?”
“None, I am happy to say,” I answered peevishly, “What could Nettle
and I have done with the horrible things if we had caught any?”
The walk, or rather the stumble home, proved to be the worst part of
the expedition. Not a ray of starlight had we to guide us,—nothing
but inky blackness around and over us. We tried to make Nettle go
first, intending to follow his lead, and trusting to his keeping the
track; but Nettle’s place was at my heels, and neither coaxing nor
scolding would induce him to forego it. A forlorn hope was nothing
to the
From time to time we fell into and over Spaniards, and what was left of our clothes and our flesh the wild Irishmen devoured. We must have got home somehow, or I should not be writing an account of it, at this moment, but really I hardly know how we reached the house. I recollect that the next day there was a great demand for gold-beater’s skin, and court-plaster, and that whenever F—— and Mr. U—— had a spare moment during the ensuing week, they devoted themselves to performing surgical operations on each other with a needle; and that I felt very subdued and tired for a day or two. But there was no question of fever or cold, and I was stared at when I inquired whether it was not dangerous to be out all night in heavy dew after a broiling day.
We had the eels made into a pie by our shepherd,
It was much too hot in summer to go after wild pigs. That was our
winter’s amusement, and very good sport it afforded us, besides the
pleasure of knowing that we were really doing good service to the
pastoral interest, by ridding the hills around us of almost the only
enemies which the sheep have. If the squatter goes to look after
his mob of ewes and lambs in the sheltered slopes at the back of his
run, he is pretty nearly certain to find them attended by an old sow
with a dozen babies at her heels. She will follow the sheep
patiently from one camping ground to another, watching for a
new-born and weakly lamb to linger behind the rest, and then she
will seize and devour it. Besides this danger, the presence of pigs
on the run keeps the sheep in an excited state. They have an uneasy
consciousness that their foes are looking
It may be strange to English ears to hear a woman of tolerably
peaceful disposition, and as the advertisements in the Times so
often state, “thoroughly domesticated,” aver that she found great
pleasure in going after wild pigs; but the circumstances of the ease
must be taken into consideration before I am condemned. First of
all, it seemed terribly lonely at home if F—— was out with his
rifle all day. Next, there was the temptation to spend those
delicious hours of a New Zealand winter’s day, between ten and.
four, out of doors, wandering over hills and exploring new gullies.
And lastly, I had a firm idea
I had heard terrible stories of shepherds slipping down and injuring themselves so that they could not move, and of their dead bodies being only found after weeks of careful seeking. F—— himself delighted to terrify me by descriptions of narrow escapes; and, as the pigs had to be killed, I resolved to follow in the hunter’s train. The sport is conducted exactly like deer stalking, only it is much harder work, and a huge boar is not so picturesque an object as a stag of many tines, when you do catch sight of him. There is just the same accurate knowledge needed of the animal’s habits and customs, and the same untiring patience. It is quite as necessary to be a good shot, for a grey pig standing under the lee of a boulder of exactly his own colour is a much more difficult object to hit from the opposite side of a ravine than a stag; and a wild boar is every whit as keen of scent and sharp of eye and ear as any antlered “Monarch of the Glen.”
Imagine then a beautiful winter’s morning without wind or rain. There has been perhaps a sharp frost over-night, but after a couple of hours of sunshine the air is as warm and bright as midsummer. We used to be glad enough of a wood fire at breakfast; but after that meal had been eaten we went into the verandah, open to the north-east (our warm quarter), which made a delicious winter parlour, and basked in the blazing sunshine. I used often to bring out a chair and a table, and work and read there all the morning, without either hat or jacket. But it sometimes happened that once or twice a week, on just such a lovely morning, F—— would proclaim his intention of going out to look for pigs, and, sooner than be left behind, I nearly always begged to be allowed to come too. There was no fear of my getting tired or lagging behind; and as I was willing to make myself generally useful, by carrying the telescope, a revolver for close quarters, and eke a few sandwiches, the offer of my company used to be graciously accepted. We could seldom procure the loan of a good pig-dog, and after one excursion with a certain dog of the name of “Pincher,” I preferred going out by ourselves.
On that occasion F—— did not take his rifle, as there was no
chance of getting a long shot at our game; for the dog would surely
bring the pig to bay,
a shear) bound firmly on a flax stick by green
flax-leaves. We had heard of pigs having been seen by our
out-station shepherd at the back of the run, and as we were not
encumbered by the heavy rifle, we mounted our horses and rode as far
as we could towards the range where the pigs had been grubbing up
the hill sides in unmolested security for some time past. Five
miles from home the ground became so rough that our horses could go
no further; we therefore jumped off, tied them to a flax-bush,
taking off the saddles in case they broke loose, and proceeded on
foot over the jungly, over-grown saddle. On the other side we came
upon a beautiful gully, with a creek running through it, whose banks
were so densely fringed with scrub that we could not get through to
the stream, which we heard rippling amid the tangled shrubs. If we
could only have reached the water our best plan would have been to
get into it and follow its windings up the ravine; but even Pincher
could hardly squeeze and burrow through the impenetrable fence of
matapo and goi, which were woven together by fibres of a thorny
creeper called “a lawyer” by the shepherds.
It was very tantalising, for in less than five minutes
Pincher and the creek made such a noise between them that I could
not hear what F—— said, and only guessed from his despairing
gestures that there was no trap door visible in the green roof. I
signalled as well as I could that he was to come down directly, for
his-standing-place looked most insecure. Insecure indeed it proved.
As I spoke the great fragment of rock loosely embedded in earth on
the mountain side gave way with a crash, and came tumbling
majestically down on the top of the scrub. As for F——, he
I expected every moment to hear the revolver go off, but mercifully
it did not do so; and as his thorny bed was hardly to be endured,
F—— soon kicked himself off it, and before I could realize that he
was unhurt, had scrambled to his feet, and was rushing off, crying
in school-boy glee, “That will fetch him out.” That (the rock)
certainly did fetch him (the pig) out in a moment, and Pincher
availed himself of the general confusion to seize hold of his
enemy’s hind leg, which he never afterwards let go. The boar kept
snapping and champing his great tusks; but Pincher, even with the
leg in his mouth, was too active to be caught: so as the boar found
that it was both futile and undignified to try to run away with a
dog hanging on his hind-quarters, he tried another plan. Making for
a clump of Ti-ti palms he went to bay, and contrived to take up a
very good defensive
They did not even hear me, for the din of battle was loud. The pig
dodged about so fast, that although F——’s bullets lodged in the
palm tree at his back, not one struck a vulnerable part, and at last
F——, casting his revolver behind him for me to pick up and reload,
closed with his foe, armed only with the shear-spear. Pincher
considered this too dangerous, and rushed in between them to
distract the boar’s attention. Just as F—— aimed a thrust at his
chest,—for it was of no use trying to penetrate his hide,—the boar
lowered his head, caught poor faithful Pincher’s exposed flank, and
tore it open with his razor-like tusk; but in the meantime the spear
had gone well home into his brawny chest, exactly beneath the left
shoulder, and his life-blood came gushing out. I was so infuriated
at the sight of
I cannot help pausing to say that I sewed up Pincher’s wound then and there, with some of the contents of my Cambusmore house-wife; which always accompanied me on my sporting expeditions, and we carried him between us down to where the horses were fastened. There I mounted; and F—— lifting the faithful creature on my lap, we rode slowly home, dipping our handkerchiefs in cold water at every creek we crossed, and laying them on his poor flank. He was as patient and brave as possible, and bore his sufferings and weakness for days afterwards in a way which was a lesson to one, so grateful and gentle was he. His brave and sensible behaviour met its due reward in a complete though slow recovery.
I have only left myself space for one little sketch
After a little hesitation, F—— decided on climbing a high cliff on
the right bank of the river, and trying to catch a glimpse of him.
The opposite hill-side was gaunt and bare; a southern aspect shut
out the sun in winter, and. for all its rich traces of copper ore,
“Holkam’s Head” found no favour in the eyes of either shepherds or
master. Grass would not grow there except in summer, and its gray,
shingly sides were an eye-sore to its owner. We sat down on the
cliff, and looked around carefully. Presently F—— said, in a
breathless whisper of intense delight, “I
After what seemed a long time, he pulled his rifle’s trigger, and
the flash and crack was followed apparently by one of the gray
boulders opposite leaping up, and then rolling heavily down the
hill. F—— jumped up in triumph crying, “Come along, and don’t
forget the revolver.” When we had crossed the river, reckless of
getting wet to our waists in icy-cold water, F—— took the revolver
from me and went first; but, after an instant’s examination, he
called out, “Dead as a door-nail! come and look at him.” So I came,
with great caution, and a more repulsive and disgusting sight cannot
be imagined than the huge carcass of our victim already stiffening
in death. The shot had been a fortunate one, for only an inch away
from the hole the bullet had made his shoulders were regularly
plated with thick horny scales, off which a revolver bullet would
have glanced harmlessly, and he bore marks of having fought many and
many a battle with younger rivals. His huge tusks were notched and
broken, and he had evidently been driven out from
I do not believe that even in Canada the skating can be better than
that which was within our reach in the Malvern Hills. Among our
sheltered valleys an sunny slopes the hardest frost only lasted a
few hour after dawn; but twenty-five miles further back, on the
border of the glacier region, the mountain tarns could boast of ice
several feet thick all the winter. We heard rumours of far-inland
lakes, across which heavily-laden bullock-teams could pass in
perfect safety for three months of the year, and we grumbled at the
light film over our own large ponds, which would not bear even my
little terrier’s weight after mid-day: and yet it was cold enough at
night, during our short bright winters, to satisfy the most
icy-minded person. I think I have mentioned before that the wooden
houses in New Zealand, especially those roughly put
Some such theory as this is absolutely necessary to account for the
wonderfully good health enjoyed by all, in the most capricious and
trying climate I have ever come across. When a strong nor’-wester
was howling down the glen, I have seen the pictures on my
drawing-room walls blowing out to an angle of 45 degrees, although
every door and window in the little low wooden structure had been
carefully closed for hours. It has happened to me more than once,
on getting up in the morning, to find my clothes, which had been
laid on a chair beneath my bedroom window overnight, completely
covered by powdered snow, drifting in through the ill-fitting
casement. This same window was within a couple of feet of my bed,
and between me and it was neither curtain nor shelter
It was just on such a day as this, and in just such a bright mid-day
hour, that a distant neighbour of ours rode up to the garden gate,
leading a pack horse.
“Well, not exactly at my station, but there is a capital lake ten miles from my house where I am sure of a good day’s skating any time between June and August,” answered Mr. C. H——, our newly arrived guest.
We all looked at each other. I believe I heaved a deep sigh, and
dropped my thimble, which “Joey” instantly seized, and with a low
chirrup of intense delight, commenced to poke down between the
boards of the verandah. It was too bad of us to give such broad
hints by looks if not by words. Poor Mr. C. H—— was a bachelor in
those days: he had not been at his little out-of-the-way homestead
for some weeks, and was ignorant of its resources in the way of
firing (always an important matter at a station), or even of tea and
mutton. He had no woman-servant, and was totally unprepared for an
incursion of skaters; and yet,—New Zealand fashion,—no sooner did
he perceive that we were all longing and pining for some
When the host is willing and the guests eager, it does not take long
to arrange a plan, so the next morning found three of us, besides
Mr. C. H—— mounted and ready to start directly after breakfast. I
have often been asked how I managed in those days about toilette
arrangements, when it was impossible to carry any luggage except a
small “swag,” closely packed in a waterproof case and fastened on
the same side as the saddle-pocket. First of all I must assure my
lady readers that I prided myself on turning out as neat and natty
as possible at the end of the journey, and yet I rode not only in my
every-day linsey gown, which could be made long or short at
pleasure, but in my crinoline. This was artfully looped up on the
right side and tied by a ribbon, in such a way that when I came out
ready dressed to mount, no one in
cage beneath my short riding habit with a loose tweed
jacket over the body of the dress. Within the “swag” was stowed a
brush and comb, collar, cuffs and handkerchiefs, a little necessary
linen, a pair of shoes, and perhaps a ribbon for my hair if I meant
to be very smart. On this occasion we all found that our skates
occupied a terribly large proportion both of weight and space in our
modest kits, but still we were much too happy to grumble.
Where could you find a gayer quartette than started at an easy
canter up the valley that fresh bracing morning? From the very
first our faces were turned to the south-west, and before us rose
the magnificent chain of the Southern Alps, with their bold snowy
peaks standing out in a glorious dazzle against the cobalt sky. A
stranger, or colonially speaking, a “new chum,” would have thought
we must needs cross that barrier-range before we could penetrate any
distance into the back country, but we knew of long winding vallies
and gullies running up between the giant slopes, which would lead
us, almost without our knowing how high we had climbed, up to the
elevated but sheltered plateau among the back country ranges where
Mr. C. H——’s homestead stood. There was only one steep saddle to
be crossed, and that lay
These deep-mouthed tones invariably constitute the first notes of a
sheep-station’s welcome; and a delightful sound it is to the belated
and bewildered traveller, for besides guiding his horse to the right
spot, the noise serves to bring out some one to see who the
traveller may be. On this occasion we heard one man say to the
other, “It’s the boss:” so almost before we had time to dismount
from our tired horses (remember they had each carried a heavy “swag”
besides their riders), lights gleamed from the windows of the little
house, and a wood fire sparkled and sputtered on the open hearth.
Mr. C. H—— only just guided me to the door of the sitting-room,
making an apology and injunction together,—“Its very rough I am
afraid: but you can do what you like;”—before he hastened back to
assist his guests in settling their horses comfortably for the
night. Labour used to be so dear and wages so high, especially in
the back country of New Zealand, that the couple of men,—one for
indoor work, to saw wood, milk, cook, sweep, wash, etc., and the
other to act as gardener, groom, ploughman, and do all the numerous
odd jobs about
The first thing to do was to let down my crinoline, for I could only
walk like a crab in it when it was fastened up for riding, kilt up
my linsey gown, take off my hat and jacket, and set to work The
curtains must be drawn close, and the chairs moved out from their
symmetrical positions against the wall; then I made an expedition
into the kitchen, and won the heart of the stalwart cook, who was
already frying chops over the fire, by saying in my best German,“ I
have come to help you with the tea.” Poor man! it was very unfair,
for Mr. C. H—— had told me during our ride that his servitor was a
German, and I had employed the last long hour of the journey in
rubbing up my exceedingly rusty knowledge of that language, and
arranging one or two effective sentences. Poor Karl’s surprise and
delight knew no bounds, and he burst forth into a long monologue, to
which I could find no readier answers than smiles and nods, hiding
my inability to follow up my brilliant beginning under the pretence
of being very busy. By the time the
It was cold enough the next morning, I assure you: so cold that it
was difficult to believe the statement that all the gentlemen had
been down at daybreak to bathe in the great lake which spread like
an inland sea before the bay-window of the little sitting room.
This lake, the largest of the mountain chain, never freezes, on
account partly of its great depth, and also because of its sunny
aspect. Our destination lay far inland, and if we meant to have a
good long day’s skating we must start at once. Such a perfect day
as it was! I felt half inclined to beg off the first day on the
ice, and to spend my morning wandering along the rata-fringed shores
of Lake Coleridge, with its
No sooner had we mounted (with no “swag” except our skates this
time) than Mr. C. H—— set spurs to his horse, and bounded over the
slip-rail of the paddock before Karl could get it down. We were too
primitive for gates in those parts: they only belonged to the
civilization nearer Christchurch; and I had much ado to prevent my
pony from following his lead, especially as the other gentlemen were
only too delighted to get rid of some of their high spirits by a
jump. However Karl got the top rail down for me, and “Mouse” hopped
over the lower one gaily, overtaking the leader of the expedition in
a very few strides. We could not keep up our rapid pace long; for
the ground became terribly broken and cut up by swamps, quicksands,
blind creeks, and all sorts of snares and pit-falls. Every moment
added to the desolate grandeur of the scene. Bleak hills rose up
After two hour’s riding, at the best pace which we could keep up
through these terrible gorges, a sharp turn of the track brought us
full in view of our destination. I can never forget that first
glimpse of Lake Ida. In the cleft of a huge, gaunt, bare hill,
divided as if by a giant hand, lay a large black sheet of ice. No
ray of sunshine ever struck it from autumn until spring, and it
seemed impossible to imagine our venturing to skate merrily in such
a sombre looking spot. But New-Zealand sheep farmers are not
sentimental I am afraid. Beyond a rapid thought of self-
congratulation that such “cold country” was not on their run, they
did not feel affected by its eternal silence and gloom. The ice
would bear, and what
It was too cold to dawdle about, however, that day. The frost lay
white and hard upon the ground, and we felt that we were cruel in
leaving our poor horses standing to get chilled whilst we amused
ourselves. Although my beloved Helen was not there, having been
exchanged for the day in favour of Master Mouse, a shaggy pony,
whose paces were as rough as its coat, I begged a red blanket from
Mr. K——, and covered up Helen’s stable companion, whose sleek skin
spoke of a milder temperature than that on Lake Ida’s “gloomy
shore.” Our simple arrangements were soon made. Mr. K—— left
directions to his mate to prepare a repast consisting of tea, bread,
and mutton for us, and, each carrying our skates, we made the best
of our way across the frozen tussocks to the lake. Mr. K—— proved
an admirable guide over its surface, for he was in the
I despair of making my readers see the scene as I saw it, or of
conveying any adequate idea of the intense, the appalling loneliness
of the spot. It really seemed to me as if our voices and laughter,
so far from breaking the deep eternal silence, only brought it out
into stronger relief. On either hand rose up, shear from the waters
edge, a great, barren, shingly mountain; before us loomed a dark
pine forest, whose black shadows crept up until they merged in the
deep
crevasses and fissures of the Snowy Range. Behind us
stretched the winding gullies by which we had climbed to this
mountain tarn, and Mr. K——’s little hut and scrap of a garden and
paddock gave the one touch of life, or possibility of life, to this
desolate region. In spite of all scenic wet blankets we tried hard
to be gay, and no one but myself would acknowledge that we found the
lonely grandeur of our “rink” too much for us. We skated away
perseveringly until we were both tired and hungry, when we returned
to Mr. K——’s hut, took a hasty meal, and mounted our chilled
steeds. Mr. C. H—— insisted on bringing poor Mr. K—— back with
us, though he was somewhat reluctant to come, alleging that a few
days spent in the society of his kind made the solitude of his
weather-board hut all the more dreary. The next day and yet the
next we returned to our gloomy skating ground, and when I turned
round in my saddle as we rode away on Friday evening, for a last
look at Lake Ida lying behind us in her winter black numbness, her
aspect seemed more forbidding than ever, for only the bare steep
hill-sides could be seen; the pine forest and white distant
mountains were all blotted and blurred out of sight by a heavy pall
of cloud creeping slowly up.
“Let us ride fast,” cried Mr. K——, “or we shall have a sou’-wester upon us;” so we galloped home as quickly as we could, over ground that I don’t really believe I could summon courage to walk across, ever so slowly, to-day,—but then one’s nerves and courage are in very different order out in New Zealand to the low standard which rules for ladies in England, who “live at home in ease!” Long before we reached home the storm was pelting us: my little jacket was like a white board when I took it off, for the sleet and snow had frozen as it fell. I was wet to the skin, and so numb with cold I could hardly stand when we reached home at last in the dark and down-pour. I could only get my things very imperfectly dried, and had to manage as best I could, but yet no one even thought of making the inquiry next morning when I came out to breakfast, “Have you caught cold?” It would have seemed a ridiculous question.
I cannot resist the temptation to touch upon one of the winter
amusements which came to us two years later. Yet the word
“amusement” seems out of place, no one in the Province having much
heart to amuse themselves, for the great snow storm of
Such knowledge could not be acted upon, however, for no human being
could hope to plunge through the
This had been the terrible state of things, and although the blessed
warm wind had removed our immediate and pressing fear of starvation,
we could not hope to employ ourselves in searching for our missing
sheep for many days to come. None of us had been able to take any
exercise for more than a fortnight, and having done all that could
possibly be done near at hand, F—— set to work to manufacture some
sledges out of old packing-cases. Quite close to the house, a hill
sloped smoothly for about 300 yards, at an angle of 40 °;
along its side lay a perfectly level and deep drift, which did not
show any signs of thawing for more than a month, and we resolved to
Montagne Russe. The construction of a
suitable sledge was the first difficulty to be surmounted, and many
were the dismal failures and break-neck catastrophes which preceded
what we considered a safe and successful vehicle. Not only was it
immensely difficult to make, without either proper materials or
tools, a sledge which could hold two people (for F—— declared it
was no fun sleighing alone), but his “patent brakes” proved the most
broken of reeds to lean upon when the sledge was dashing down the
steep incline at the rate of a thousand miles an hour.
We nearly broke our necks more than once, and I look back now with
amazement to our fool-hardiness. How well I remember one
expedition, when F——, who had been hammering away in a shed all the
morning, came to find me sitting in the sun in the verandah, and to
inform me that at last he had perfected a conveyance which would
combine speed with safety. Undaunted by previous mishaps, I sallied
forth, and in company with Mr. U—— and F——, climbed painfully up
the high hill I have mentioned, by some steps which they had cut in
the frozen snow. Without some such help we could not have kept our
footing for a moment, and as long as I live I shall never forget the
sensation of leaving my friendly Alpenstock planted
Well, to return to that terrible moment. I see the whole scene now.
The frail, rude sledge, with its breaks made out of a couple of
standards from a wire fence, connected by a strong iron chain; F——
seated at the back of the precious contrivance, firmly grasping a
standard in each hand; Mr. U—— clinging desperately to his
Alpen-stock with one hand, whilst
Will any one believe that after such a perilous journey, I could
actually be persuaded to try again? But so it was. At first the
fright (for I was really terrified) used to make me very cross, and
I declared that I was severely hurt, if not “kilt entirely;” but
after I had shaken the snow out of my linsey skirt, and discovered
that beyond the damage to my nerves I was uninjured, F—— was quite
sure to try to persuade me to make another attempt, and I was
equally sure to yield to the temptation. As well as my memory
serves me, we only made one really successful journey, and that was
on an occasion when we kept the breaks down the whole way. But I
never could insure similar precautions being taken again, and we
consequently experienced every variety of mishaps possible to sledge
travellers. I persevered
These two persevered so long as an inch of snow remained on the
hill-side. Some of their adventures were very alarming, and
certainly rather dangerous. One afternoon I had been watching them
for more than an hour, and had seen them go through every variety of
disaster, and capsize with no further effect than increasing their
desire for “one more” trial. On the blind-side of the hill,—that
is to say the side which gets scarcely any sun in winter,—a deep
drift of snow still lingered, filling up a furrow made in former
years by a shingle-slip. Thither the two adventurous
I must have been away about half an hour, and had made the circuit
of the little knoll which projected from the mountain side,
returning to where I expected to find sleigh and sleighers starting
perhaps on just “one more” journey. But no one was there, and a
dozen yards or so from the usual starting-point, the snow was a good
deal ploughed up and stained in large patches by blood. Here was an
alarming spectacle, though the only wonder was that a bad accident
had not occurred before. I saw the sledge, deserted and broken,
near the end of the drift: of the passengers there was neither sign
nor token. I must say I was terribly frightened, but it is useless
in New Zealand to scream or faint; the only thing to do in an
emergency is to coo-é; and so, although my heart was thumping
loudly in my ears, and at first I could not produce a sound, I
managed at last, after many attempts, to muster up a loud clear
coo-é. There was the usual pause, whilst the last sharp note rang
back from the hill-sides, and vibrated through the clear silent
Under the circumstances these words were consolatory; and when I
came to hear the story, this was the way the accident happened. As
I mentioned before, even this drift had thawed till it was soft at
the surface and worn away almost to the rocks. During a rapid
descent the nose of the sledge dipped through the snow, and stopped
dead against a rock. Mr. U—— was instantly buried in the snow,
falling into a young but prickly Spaniard, which assaulted him
grievously; but F—— shot over his head some ten yards, turned a
somersault, and alit on his feet. This sounds a harmless
performance enough, but it requires practice; and F—— declared that
for weeks afterwards his neck felt twisted. The accident must have
looked very ridiculous: the sledge one moment gliding smoothly along
at the rate of forty miles an hour,—
Looking back on that time, I can remember how curiously soon the external traces of the great snow-storm disappeared. For some weeks after the friendly nor-wester, the air of the whole neighbourhood was tainted by dead and decaying sheep and lambs; and the wire fences, stock-yard rails, and every “coign of vantage,” had to be made useful but ghastly by a tapestry of sheep-skins. The only wonder was that a single sheep had survived a storm severe enough to kill wild pigs. Great boars, cased in hides an inch thick, had perished through sheer stress of weather; while thin-skinned animals, with only a few months growth of fine merino wool on their backs, had endured it all. It was well known that the actual destruction of sheep was mainly owing to the two days of heavy rain which succeeded the snow. Out of a flock of 13,000 of all ages, we lost, on the lowest calculation, 1,000 grown sheep and nearly 3,000 lambs; and yet our loss was small by comparison with that of our neighbours, whose runs were further back among the hill, and less sheltered than our own.
Long before midsummer our cloud-shadowed hills were green once more;
and I think I see again their
Like many other people in the world, I have occasionally built castles in the air, and equally of course they have invariably tumbled down in due time with a crash This particular castle however, not only attained to a great elevation in the visionary builder’s eyes, but it covered so vast an area of land, that the story of its rise and fall deserves to be placed on record, as a warning to aerial architects and also as a beacon-light to young colonists.
This was exactly the way it all happened. The new year of 186-
found us living very quietly and happily on a small compact
sheep-farm, at the foot of the Malvern Hills, in the province of
Canterbury, New Zealand. As runs went, its dimensions were small
indeed; for we only measured it at 12,000 acres, all told. The
great tidal wave of prosperity, which sets
We squatters were not the only inhabitants of this
The paramount anxiety in men’s minds seemed to be to secure land.
Sheep-runs in sheltered accessible parts of the country commanded
enormous prices, and were bought in the most complicated way. The
first comers had taken up vast tracts of land in all directions from
the Government, at an almost nominal rental.
i.e., a small
farmer), or a speculator in mines, fancied any part of your
property, he had only to go to the land office, and challenge your
pre-emptive rights. The officials gave you notice of the challenge,
and six weeks’ grace in which to raise the money, and buy it
freehold yourself; but few sheep-farmers could afford to pay a good
many hundred pounds unexpectedly to secure even their best “flats”
or vallies. Hence it often happened that large runs in the most
favourable situations were cut up by small investors, “free
selectors” as they are called in Australia, and it used to be rather
absurd the way one grew to distrust any stranger who was descried
riding about the run. The poor man might be looking for a stray
horse, or have lost his way, but we always fancied he
Such was the state of things when my story opens. Shearing was just over, and we knew to a lamb how rapidly our flocks and herds were increasing. A succession of mild winters and early genial springs had got the flock into capital order. The wool had all been sent off to Christchurch by drays, the sheep were turned out on the beautiful green hills for ten months of perfect rest and peace; whilst the dogs, who had barked themselves quite hoarse, were enabled to desist from their labours in mustering and watching the yet unshorn mobs on the vallies. Although our run was as well grassed and watered as any in the province, still it could not possibly carry more than a certain number of sheep, and to that total our returns showed that we were rapidly approaching. The most careful calculations warned us that by next shearing we should hardly know what to do with our sheep. It is always better to be under than overstocked, for the merino gets out of condition immediately, and even the staple of the wool deteriorates if its wearer be at all crowded on his feeding-grounds.
“You must take up more country directly,” was the invariable formula
of the advice we, comparatively “new chums,” received on all sides.
This was easier
back-est of “back country,”
every inch of land was taken up. No fear had those distant
Squatters of “cockatoos,” or even of miners; for no one came their
way who could possibly help it. Still we should have been
comparatively glad to buy such a run fifty or sixty miles further
back,—at the foot, in fact of the great Southern Alps,—just as a
summer feeding-ground for the least valuable portion of our flock.
But no one was inclined to part with a single acre, and we were
forced to turn our eyes in a totally different direction.
If my readers will refer to the accompanying map of New Zealand, and
look at the Middle or South Island, they will notice a long seaboard
on the eastern side of the island, stretching SS.W. for many hundred
leagues. It extends beyond the Province of Canterbury to that of
Otago, and embraces some of the most magnificent pastoral land in
the settlement. Not only is the soil rich and productive, but the
climate is rather less windy than with us in the northern portion of
the island; and the capital of Otago (Dunedin) had risen into
comparative position and importance before Christchurch,—was in
short an elder sister of that
With our minds in this state of desire for what poor Mazzini used to
denounce as “territorial aggrandisement,” we paid our usual
post-shearing visit to Christchurch. F—— had his agent’s accounts
to examine, a nice little surplus of wool-money to receive, and many
other squatting interests to attend to; whilst I had to lay in
chests of tea, barrels of sugar and rice, hundreds of yards of
candle-wick, flower-seeds, reels of cotton, and many other
miscellaneous articles. But through all our pleasant, happy little
bustle ran the constant thought: “What shall we do for more
country?” A day or two before the expiration of the week’s leave of
absence which we always gave ourselves, F—— came into my
sitting-room at the hotel,
did hear about it, for my brain reeled with figures and
calculations. By bedtime I was wondering if we could possibly
quite so rich;
half our promised income would have been ample, I thought. My
anxieties on that score turned out to have been, to say the least,
premature.
Not to make my story too long, I may briefly say that after making
due allowance for the natural exaggeration of the owner, the run on
Lake Wanaka’s shores seemed certainly to offer many attractions.
Besides thousands of acres of beautiful sheltered sheep country, it
was said to possess a magnificent bush, in which sawyers were
already hard at work. Of course all this timber would become our
own, and we were to make so much a year by selling it. “How about
the carriage?” inquired F—— cautiously, having visions of costly
bullock-drays, and teams and drivers at fabulous wages. “Oh, the
lake is your highway,” replied the would-be seller, airily; “you
have nothing to do but lash your felled trees together, as they do
in the mahogany-growing countries, and set them afloat on the lake,
they will thus form a natural raft, and cost you little or nothing
to get down to a good
By the time the coffee was served F—— had made up his mind to buy the Lake Wanaka run; his business agent urging him strongly not to hesitate for a moment in securing such a chance. The negotiations reached thus far without the least hitch, but at this point F—— said, “Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: we will start in a day or two and go straight up to this run and look round it, and if I find it anything like so good as you both make it out, I’ll buy it on the spot.”
Never did that sociable little word “we” sound so delightful to my
ears! “Then I am to come too,” I thought to myself, but I prudently
concealed from the company that I had ever had any misgivings on
that point. However, the company did not concern themselves with my
doubts and fears, for our two guests seemed much taken aback at this
very matter-of-fact proposal of F——’s. “That won’t do at all, my
dear fellow,” said the owner of the run; “I am going to England by
the next mail steamer, which you know sails next week, and the
reason I am literally giving away my property is that I don’t want
any suspense
smell of tracing-paper,
with its suggestions of ownership? When these fresh and crackling
drawings
Why need I go on? It was the old, old story of misplaced confidence.
Neither F—— nor I could believe that our friends would wilfully
over-reach us, so it was settled that the first thing next morning
the money should be handed over and the Government lease transferred
to us. We decided that as we were so far on the way to our new
property, we would go and look at it before returning to the Malvern
Hills, and the next few days were very busy ones, as we had to
arrange our small domestic affairs, send up the dray, etc., etc. I
felt rather anxious at the postponement of our return home, for I
had left several “clutches” of eggs on the point of being hatched,
and I had grave misgivings as to the care my expected
have got your fortune cut out for you,
and no mistake; I feel half sorry already to think that I’ve
parted with that run.” About two days after his departure, F—— who
had registered his name at the land office as the present tenant of
100,000 acres in the Lake Wanaka district, received a polite request
from official quarters to pay up the annual rent, just due,
amounting to £100 or so. We had effected our brilliant
negotiations about a week too soon it seemed, but that was our own
fault, so we had nothing to do but pay the money with as good a
grace as possible. I am “free to confess” that this second cheque
ran our banker’s account very fine indeed, but still in those palmy
days of the past this was no subject of uneasiness to a squatter.
His credit was almost unlimited, and he could always raise as much
money as he liked on an hypothecation of next year’s wool. But we
had not come to that yet. The weather was delightful;
After much consultation we decided to go by coach as far as Timaru,
and then trust to circumstances to decide our future means of
transport. Not only were we obliged to pay a large sum for our
places but our luggage was charged for by the pound, so we found it
necessary to reduce our kit to the most modest dimensions, and only
to take what was absolutely necessary. The journey was a long and
weary one, the only variety being caused by a strong spice of danger
at each river. At some streams we were transferred bodily to a
large raft-like ferry boat, and so taken across. At others the
passengers and luggage only were put into the boat, the lumbering
coach with its leathern springs left behind, whilst the horses swam
in our wake across the wide and rushing river, to be re-harnessed to
another coach on the opposite shore. The Rakaia, Ashburton, and
Rangitata had been crossed in this way, and we had reached the
Otaio, a smaller river, when we found a new mode of transport
awaiting us. A large dray with a couple of powerful
must come through the crown of
our heads, and I expected all my teeth to tumble out.
In the midst of my fright and suffering, a laugh was jolted out of
me by the absurd behaviour of one of our fellow-passengers. He was
what is called a bush carpenter: i.e., a wandering carpenter, who
travels from station to station, doing any little odd rough jobs
Timaru was reached very late, and the best accommodation at the inn
placed at our disposal. Still, in those distant days there was no
such thing as a private sitting room, and we had all to eat our
supper in the same rough-boarded little apartment. But in all my
varied wanderings in different parts of the world, when the
accidents of travel have thrown me for a
more
self-sacrificing than my friends in fustian jackets have always
proved themselves, and on this particular evening the landlord of
the inn was so amazed at the orders for tea and coffee instead of
the usual “nips” of spirits, that he was constrained to inquire the
reason. A stalwart drover who was sitting opposite to me at the
rude table, murmured from the depths of his great beard, in an
oracular whisper, “The smell of speerits might’nt be agreeble like
to the lady.” In vain I protested that I did not mind it in the
least; tea and coffee was the order of the evening, and solemn
silence and good behaviour. No smoking, no songs, no conviviality
of any sort. I would fain have shown my appreciation of their
courtesy by talking to them; but alas, I was one
Early the next morning we all breakfasted together, and then
separated with most polite adieux. We sallied forth to look for a
couple of riding horses. There were none to be hired, so we had to
buy two good-looking nags for £45 a-piece. Now-a-days the
same horses would not fetch more than £10 and I have been told
that in Australia you can buy a horse for a shilling, but ours in
New Zealand have never sunk lower than a couple of pounds, if they
had any legs at all. It seemed to the horse-dealer quite a
superfluous question when I timidly inquired if my horse had ever
carried a lady. “No: I can’t just say as he has, mum, as you see
there aint no ladies in these parts for him to carry. But,” he
added magnanimously, “I’ll try him with a blanket fust, if you’re at
all oneasy about him.” We did not start until the next
It was a beautiful day, warm but not oppressive, and delightfully
calm. Our road lay at first along the sea-shore. Ever since we had
left Christchurch the ground had been almost level, and the road
consisted merely of a track cleared from tussocks. On
Between the ranges, beautiful fertile valleys extended; when I say
fertile, I mean that the soil was excellent, and the land
well-grassed. But there was no cultivation. Not a sod had ever been
turned there since the creation of the world, and the whole country
wore the peculiar yellow tinge caught from the tall waving tussocks,
which is the prevailing feature of New Zealand scenery au naturel.
Every acre had been “taken up,” but as yet the runs were rather
understocked. Our fourth day’s ride was the longest,—fifty-five
miles in all, though we halted for a couple of hours at a miserable
accommodation house. Our bivouac that night was close to Lake
Wanaka, at the Molyneux Ferry-house, and there I was kept awake all
night by the attentions of a cat. I never saw such
The next day we got to a station known as “
The mile or two of the run which lay along the shore of the lake
showed us frightfully rough country. A dense jungle of tussocks and
thorny bushes choked up the feed, and made it impossible to drive
any animals through it, even supposing that good pasturage lay
beyond. Still we hoped that we might be looking at the worst
portion of our purchase, and
Accordingly the first day’s sail was against a light, ominously warm
head-wind, and we only made any way at all by keeping up a
complicated system of tacking. The start had not been an early one,
so darkness found us but little advanced on our voyage, and we
passed the night in a rough shanty, on beds of fern-leaves, wrapped
in our red blankets. Tired as we were, none of us could sleep much.
The air was dry and parched; every now and then a sough of the
rising. hot gale swept through our crazy shelter without cooling us,
and warned us to prepare for what was coming. Our only chance of
getting on was to make an early start, for fortunately a true
“nor’-wester” is somewhat
We had only time to beach the boat, that is to say F—— and the two
men did so, whilst I ran backwards and forwards with the blankets
and provisions, before the hurricane was upon us. Henceforth there
was no stirring out of doors until the gale had blown itself out. We
dragged in some driftwood, barricaded the door, and prepared to pass
the time as well as we could. Oh, the fleas in the hut! The ground
was literally alive with them, and their audacity and appetite was
unparalleled. Our boatmen sat tranquilly by the
Times, at least two years old, which we had brought to wrap up
some of our provisions; whilst I was still more idle and wretched.
Two weary interminable days dragged, or perhaps I should say, blew,
themselves along in this miserable fashion, but at sundown on the
evening of the third day the wind dropped suddenly, and we did not
lose a moment in darting out of our prison and embarking once more.
For the first time since we started we could perceive the grandeur
of the surrounding country; but grand scenery is not necessary nor
indeed desirable in a sheep run. Splendid mountains ran down in
steep spurs to the very shore of the enormous lake. Behind them,
piled in snowy steeps, rose the distant Alps of the Antipodes; great
masses of native bush
The next day was beautifully still, with a light air from the
opposite point, just sufficient to cool the parched atmosphere; and
we made our way along the head of the lake to a place were a couple
of sawyers were at work. One of them had brought his wife with him,
and her welcome to me was the most touching thing in the world. She
took me entirely under her care, and would hardly let me out of her
sight. I must say it was very nice to be waited on so faithfully,
and I gave myself up to the unaccustomed luxury. All she required
of me in exchange for her incessant toil on my behalf was “news.” It
did not matter of what kind, every scrap of intelligence was welcome
to her, and she refused to tell me to what date her “latest advices”
extended. During the three days of our
All this time whilst I was being “interviewed” nearly to death, F——
employed himself in making excursions to different parts of the run.
One of the sawyers lent him a miserable half-starved little pony;
and he penetrated to another sawyer’s hut, seven miles distant up
the Matukituki river. But no matter whether he turned his steps to
north or south, east or west, he met with the same disheartening
report. There was the ground indeed, but it was perfectly useless.
Not only was there was no pasturage, but if there had been, the
nature of the country would have rendered it valueless, on account
of the way it was overgrown. It would be tedious to explain more
minutely why this was the case. Sufficient must it be to say that
whilst F—— was only too anxious
No: there was nothing for it but to go home again to the little run
which had seemed such a mere paddock in our eyes, whilst we indulged
in castle-building over 100,000 acres of country. It was of no use
lingering amid such disappointment and discomfort; besides which my
listener, the sawyer’s wife, had turned her husband and herself out
of their hut, and were sleeping under a red blanket tent. Poor
woman, she was most anxious to get away; and the lovely sylvan
scene, with the tall trees standing like sentinels over their
prostrate brethren, the wealth of beauteous greenery, springing
through fronds of fern and ground creepers, the bright-winged flight
of paroquets and other bush birds, even the vast expanse of the lake
which stretched almost from their threshold for so many miles, all
would have been gladly exchanged
We were afraid of lingering too long, lest another nor’-wester should become due; and we therefore started as soon as F—— had decided that it was of no use exploring our wretched purchase any further. We had a stiff breeze from the north-west all the way down the lake; but as it was right a-stern it helped us along to such good purpose, that one day’s sailing before it brought us back to Mr. Johnson’s homestead and comparative civilization. The little parlour and the tiny bed-room beyond, into which I could only get access by climbing through a window (for the architect had forgotten to put a door), appeared like apartments in a spacious palace, so great was the contrast between their snug comfort and the desolate misery of our hut life. Of course nothing else was talked of except our disappointment at our new run; and although Mr. Johnson had indulged in forebodings, which were only too literally fulfilled, he had the good taste never to remind us of his prophecies.
Of all the forms of human woe, Defend me from that dread, ‘I told you so.’
After a day’s halt and rest we mounted our much refreshed horses,
and set our faces straight across country for Dunedin. This is very
easy to write, but it was not quite so easy to do. We could only
ride for the first fifty-two miles, which we accomplished in two
days. These stages brought us to the foot of the Dunstan Range, and
near the gold-diggings of that name. I would fain have turned aside
to see them, but we had not time. However, we felt the auriferous
influence of the locality; for a perfect stranger came up to us,
whilst we were baiting at another place, called the Kaiwarara
diggings, and offered to buy our horses from us for £30 each,
and also to purchase our saddles and bridles at a fair price. This
was exactly what we wanted, as we had intended to sell them at
Dunedin; and I was no ways disinclined to part with the Hermit; who
retained the sulky, misanthropical temper which had earned him his
name. He was now pronounced “fit to carry a lady,” and purchased to
be sold again at the diggings. Whether there were any ladies there
or not I cannot tell. Of course, before parting with our nags we
ascertained that the ubiquitous “Cobb’s coach” started from our
resting place for Dunedin next day, and we made the rest of our
journey in one of that
But that bright little town was reached at last, the hotel welcomed
us, tired and bruised travellers that we were, and next evening we
started in the Geelong for Port Lyttleton. This little coasting
steamer seemed to touch at every hamlet along the coast, and after
each pause I had to begin afresh my agonies of sea-sickness. There
was no such thing as getting one’s sea-legs; for we were seldom more
than a few hours outside, and had no chance of getting used to the
horrible motion. Timaru was reached next day, but we had suffered
so frightfully during the night from a chopping sea and an open.
roadstead, that we went on shore, and entrusted ourselves once more
to
And so we rode quietly home in the gloaming, winding up the lovely, tranquil valley, at whose head stood our own snug little homestead. At first we were so glad to be safely at hone again that we scarcely gave a thought to our fruitless enterprise; but as our bruised bodies became rested and restored, our hearts began to ache when we thought of the money we had so rashly flung away in BUYING A RUN.
It is to be hoped and expected that such a good understanding has
been established between my readers and myself by this time, that
they will not find the general title of these papers unsuitable to
the heading of this particular chapter. Indeed, I may truly say,
that, looking back upon the many happy memories of my three years
life in that lovely and beloved Middle Island, no pleasures stand
out more vividly than my evening rides up winding gullies or across
low hill-ranges in search of a shepherd’s hut, or a cockatoo’s
nest. A peculiar brightness seems to rest on those sun-lit peaks of
memory’s landscape; and it is but fitting that it should be so, for
other excursions or expeditions used to be undertaken merely for
business or pleasure, but these delicious wanderings were in search
of scattered dwellings whose lonely
And here I feel constrained to say a word to those whose eyes may
haply rest on my pages, and who may find themselves in the coming
years in perhaps the same position as I did a short time ago. A new
comer to a new country is sure to be discouraged if he or she
(particularly she, I fancy) should attempt to revive or introduce
any custom which has been neglected or overlooked. This is
especially the case with religious observances. At every turn one is
met by disheartening warnings. “Oh, the people here are very
different to those in the old country; they would look upon it as
impertinence if you suggested they should come to church.” “You
will find a few may come just at first, and then when the novelty
wears off and they have seen all the pretty things in your drawing
room, not a soul will ever come near the place.”
“If even the men don’t say something very free and easy to you when you invite them to your house on Sunday afternoons, you may depend upon it that after two or three weeks you will not know how to keep them in order.”
Such, and many more, were the discouraging remarks made when I
consulted my neighbours about my plan for collecting the shepherds
from the surrounding runs, and holding a Church of England Service
every Sunday afternoon at our own little homestead. To my mind, the
distances seemed the greatest obstacle, as many of the men I wanted
to reach lived twenty-five or even thirty miles away, with very
rough country between. I had no fear of impertinence, for it is
unknown to me, and seldom comes, I fancy, unprovoked; whilst with
regard to the novelty wearing off and the men ceasing to attend,
that must be left in God’s hands. We could only endeavour to plant
the good seed, and trust to Him to give the increase. It was a
great comfort to me in those early days that F——, who had been many
years in the colony, never joined in the disheartening prophecies I
have alluded to. Although as naturally averse to reading aloud
before strangers as a man who had lived a solitary life would be
sure to be, he promised at once, with a good grace, to read the
Evening Service and a sermon afterwards, and thus smoothed one
difficulty over directly. His advice to me was precisely what I
would fain repeat: “Try, by all means: if you fail you will at least
feel you have made the attempt.” May all who try
But I fear to linger too long on the end, instead of telling you about the means.
It was May when we were fairly settled in our new home at the head
of a hill-encircled valley. With us that month answers to your
November, but fogs are unknown in that breezy Middle Island, and my
first winter in Canterbury was a beautiful season, heralded in by an
exquisite autumn. How crisp the mornings and evenings were, with
ever so light a film of hoar frost, making a splendid sparkle on
every blade of waving tussock-grass! Then in the middle of the day
the delicious warmth of the sun tempted one to linger all day in the
open air, and I never wearied of gazing at the strange purple
shadows cast by a passing cloud; or up, beyond the floating
vapourous wreath, to the heaven of brilliant blue which smiled upon
us. And yet, when I come to think of it, I don’t know that I had
much time to spare for glancing at either hills or skies, for we
were just settling ourselves in a new place, and no one knows what
that means unless they have tried it, fifty miles away from
It is true these rough jobs were not exactly in my line, but indoors
I was just as busy trying to make big things fit into little spaces
and vice versa. We could not afford to take things coolly and do
a little every day, for at that time of year an hour’s change in the
wind might have brought a heavy fall of snow, or a sharp frost, or
a; deluge of rain down upon the uncovered and defenceless heads of
our live stock.
But yet, busy as we were, we found time to look up a congregation. The very first Sunday afternoon, whilst we were still in the midst of a chaos of chips and big boxes and straw and empty china-barrels, our own shepherds came over, by invitation, and the only very near neighbours we had—a Scotch head-shepherd and his charming young wife,—and we held a Service in the half-furnished drawing room. After it was ended we had a long talk with the men, and they confessed that they had enjoyed it very much, and would like to come regularly. When questioned as to the feasibility of inducing others to join, they said that it might be suggested to more than one distant, lonely hill-shepherd, but his uncontrollable shyness would probably prevent his attendance.
“Jim Salter, and Joe Bennett, and a lot more on
So the scheme was Pepper’s after all, you see. But this “looking
round,” to which he alluded so airily, meant scrambling rides,
varying from ten to twenty-eight miles in length, over break-neck
country, and this on the slender chance of finding the men in-doors.
Now a New Zealand shepherd almost lives out on the hills, so the
prospect of finding any of our congregation at home was slight
indeed. However, as I said before, F—— stood by me, and although
we neither of us could well spare the time, we agreed to devote two
afternoons every week, so long as the fine open autumn weather,
lasted, to making excursions in search of back-country huts. There
are no roads or finger posts or guides of any sort in those distant
places. When we inquired what was the name of “Mills” shepherd (the
masters are always plain Smith or Jones, and the shepherds Mr.——,
in the colonies) the answer was generally very vague. “Wiry Bill,
we mostly calls ’im; but I think I’ve heerd say his
Here Pepper paused, in consideration of my face of horror; for if there was one thing I dreaded more than another in those early days, it was a swamp. Steep hill sides, wide creeks, honey-combed flats, all came in, the day’s ride,—but a swamp! Ugh! the horrible treacherous thing, so green and innocent looking, with here and there a quicksand or a peaty morass, in which, without a moment’s warning, your horse sank up to his withers! It was dreadful, and when we came to such a place Helen used to stop dead short, prick her pretty ears well forward, and, trembling with fear and excitement, put her nose close to the ground, smelling every inch, before she would place her fore foot down on it, jumping off it like a goat if it proved insecure. Generally she crossed a swamp, by a series of bounds in and out of flax bushes; and hopeless indeed would a morass be without those green cities of refuge!
Horrible as a large swamp is however to a timid horsewoman, it is dear to the heart of a cockatoo. He gladly buys a freehold of fifty acres in the midst of one, burns it, makes a sod fence, sown with gorse seed a-top, all round his section, drains it in a rough and ready fashion, and then the splendid fertile soil which has been waiting for so many thousand years, “brings forth fruit abundantly.” Such enormous fields of wheat and oats and barley as you come upon sometimes,—with, alas, never a market near enough to enable the plenteous crop to return sevenfold into its master’s bosom!
I shall not inflict upon you a description of all our rides in
search of members for our congregation. Two, in widely differing
directions, will serve as specimens of such excursions. In
consideration of my new-chumishness, F—— selected a comparatively
easy track for our first ride. And yet, “bad was the best,” might
surely be said of that breakneck path. What would an English horse,
or an English lady say, to riding for miles over a slippery winding
ledge on a rocky hill side, where a wall of solid mountain rose up
perpendicularly on the right hand, and on the left a very
respectable sized river hurried over its boulders far beneath the
aerial path; yet this was comparatively a safe track, and presented
but one serious obstacle,
A sudden sharp turn showed me what appeared to be a low stone wall
running own the spur of the mountain, right across our track, and I
had already begun to disquiet myself about the possibility of
turning back on such a narrow ledge, when I saw F——’s powerful
black horse, with his ears well forward, and his reins, lying loose
on his neck, make a sort of rush at the obstacle, climb up it as a
cat would, stand for an instant, exactly like a performing goat,
with all four legs drawn closely together under him, and then with a
spring disappear on the other side. “This wall”, I thought, “must
be but loosely built, for Leo has displaced some of the stones
from its coping.” Helen, pretty dear, hurried after her friend and
leader; and before I had time to realize what she was going to do,
she was balancing herself on the crumbling summit of this stone wall
(which was only the freak of a landslip), and as it proved
impossible to remain there, perched like a bird on a very insecure
entirely to
itself. I have seen men who were reckoned good riders in England,
get the most ignominious tumbles from a disregard of this advice.
An up-country horse knows perfectly well the only sound spots in a
swamp; or the only sound part of a creek’s banks. If his rider
persists in taking him over the latter, where he himself thinks it
narrowest and safest, he is pretty sure to find the earth rotten and
crumbling, and to pay for his obstinacy by a wetting; whilst in the
case of a swamp the consequences are even more serious, and the
horse often gets badly strained in floundering out of a quagmire.
But it was not all danger and difficulty, and the many varieties of
scene in the course of a long ride
A wire fence always proved a very tiresome obstacle, for horses have
a great dread of them, and will not be induced to jump them on any
account. If we could find out where the gate was, well and good;
I shall always believe that some bird of the air had “carried the matter” to Salter, because not only was he at home, and in his Sunday clothes, but he had made a cake the evening before, and that was a very suspicious circumstance. However we pretended not to imagine that we were expected, and Jim pretended with equal success to be much surprised at our visit, so both sides were satisfied. Nothing could be neater than the inside of the little hut; its cob walls papered with, old Illustrated London News,—not only pictures but letter-press,—its tiny window as clean as possible, a new sheep-skin rug laid down before the open fireplace, where a bright wood fire was sputtering and cracking cheerily, and the inevitable kettle suspended from a hook half-way up the low chimney. Outside, the dog-kennels had been newly thatched with tohi grass, the garden weeded and freshly dug, the chopping-block and camp-oven as clean as scrubbing could make them. It was too late in the year for fruit, but Salter’s currant, raspberry, and gooseberry bushes gave us a good idea of how well he must have fared in the summer. The fowls were just devouring the last of the green-pea shoots, and the potatoes had been blackened by our first frosts.
It was all very nice and trim and comfortable,
Without any exception, the shepherds I came across in New Zealand
were all passionately fond of reading; and they were also
well-informed men, who often expressed themselves in excellent,
through superfine, language. Their libraries chiefly consisted of
yellow-covered novels, and out of my visits in search of a
congregation grew a scheme for a book-club to supply
“Dear me, Salter,” I cried, “I had no idea you were so grand as to
have sauces up here: why we hardly ever use them.” “Well, mum,”
replied Salter, bashfully, and stroking his long black beard to gain
time to select the grandest words he could think of, “it is hardly
to be regarded in the light of happetite, that there bottle, it is
more in the nature of remedies.” Then, seeing that I still looked
mystified, he added, “You see, mum, although we gets our ’elth
uncommon well in these salubrious mountings, still a drop of physic
is often handy-like, and in a general way I always purchase myself a
box of Holloway’s Pills (of which you do get such a lot for your
money), and also a bottle of pain-killer; but last shearing they was
out o’ pain-killer, they said, so they put me up a bottle o’ Cain
pepper, and likewise that ’ere condiment, which was werry
efficacious, ’specially towards the end o’ the bottle!” “And do you
really
“Certainly I do, mum, whenever I felt out o’ sorts. It always took my mind off the loneliness, and cheered me up wonderful, especial if I hadded a little red pepper to it,” said Salter, getting up from his log of wood and making me a low bow. All this time F—— and I were seated amicably side by side on poor Salter’s red blanket-covered “bunk,” or wooden bedstead, made of empty flour-sacks nailed between rough poles, and other sacks filled with tussock grass for a mattress and pillow.
The word loneliness gave me a good opening to broach the subject of our Sunday gatherings, and my suspicions of Jim’s having been told of our visit were confirmed by the alacrity with which he said, “I have much pleasure in accepting your kind invitation, mum, if so be as I am not intruding.”
“No, indeed Salter,” F—— said; “you’d be very welcome, and you could always turn Judy into the paddock whilst we were having service.”
Now if there was one thing dearer to Salter’s heart than another, it
was his little roan mare Judy: her excellent condition, and jaunty
little hog-mane and tail, testified to her master’s loving care. So
it was all happily settled, and after paying a most
At my request he made the rough little pen and ink sketches which are here given, and as he held my offered hand (not knowing quite what else to do with it) when I took leave of him after our last home-service, when my face was set towards England, he could not say a word. The great burly creature’s heart must have been nearly as big as his body, and he seemed hardly to know that large tears were rolling down his sunburnt face and losing themselves in his bushy beard. I tried to be cheerful myself, but he kept repeating, “It is only natural you should be glad to go, yet it is very rough upon us.” In vain I assured him I was not at all glad to go,—very, very sorry, in fact: all he would say was, “To England, home and beauty, in course any one would be pleased to return.” I can’t tell you what he meant, and he had no voice to waste on explanations; I only give poor dear Jim’s valedictory sentences as they fell from his white and trembling lips.
Very different was Ned Palmer, the most diminutive and wiry of hill shepherds, with a tongue which seemed never tired, and a good humoured smile for every one. Ned used to try my gravity sorely by stepping up to me half a dozen times during the service, to find his place for him in his Prayer-book, and always saying aloud, “Thank you kindly, m’m.”
To get to Ned’s hut—which was not nearly so trim or comfortable as
Salter’s, and stood out in the midst of a vast plain covered with
waving yellow tussocks,—we had to cross a low range of hills, and
pick our way through nearly a mile of swampy ground on the other
side. The sure-footed horses zig-zagged their way up the steep
hill-side with astonishing ease, availing themselves here and there
of a sheep track, for sheep are the best engineers in the world, and
always hit off the safest and easiest line of country. I did not
feel nervous going up the hill, although we must have appeared,
had there been any one to look at us, more like flies on a wall than
a couple of people on horse back, but when we came to the ridge and
looked down on the descent beneath us, my heart fairly gave way.
Not a blade of grass, or a leaf of a shrub, was to be
was at home: never, never will I come out riding again.” All this
time the leading horse was slowly and carefully edging himself down
hill a few steps to the right, then a few to the left, just as he
thought best, displacing tons of loose stone and even small rocks at
every movement. Helen, nothing daunted, was eager to follow, and
although she quivered with excitement at the noise,
could keep a little more to the right, so as to
send the stones clear of me, I should be very grateful,” shouted
F——, who was actually near the bottom of the hill already, so sharp
had been the angles of his horse’s descent. I felt afraid of
attempting to guide Helen, lest the least check should send us both
head over heels into the quagmire below, and yet it seemed dreadful
to cause the death of one’s husband by rolling down cart loads of
stones upon him. It could not have been more than five minutes
before Helen and I stood side by side with Leo, on the only bit of
firm ground at the edge of the morass. I believe I was as white as
my pocket handkerchief; and if fright could turn a person’s hair
grey, I had been sufficiently alarmed to make myself eligible for
any quantity of walnut pomade.
Fortunately the summer had proved rather a dry one, and the swamp
was not so wet as it would have been after a heavy rain-fall. The
horses stepped carefully from flax bushes to “nigger heads” (as the
very old blackened grass stumps are called), resting hardly a moment
anywhere, and avoiding all the most
Although it is a digression, I must tell you here how, one beautiful
early winter’s day, I was standing in the verandah at my own home,
when one of our pigeons, chased by a hawk, flew right into my face
and its pursuer was so close and so heated by the chase, that it
flung itself also with great violence against my head, with a scream
of rage and triumph, hurting me a good deal as it dug its cruel,
armed heel into my cheek. The pigeon had fluttered, stunned
We consoled ourselves however on this occasion, by reflecting. that
we had annihilated two young hawks before they had commenced their
lives of rapine and robbery, and rode on our way rejoicing, to find
Ned Palmer sitting outside his but door on a log of drift wood,
making, candles. In the more primitive
Ned was just running a slender piece of wood through the loops of
his twisted cotton wicks, so as to keep them above the rim of the
mould, and the strong odour of melted mutton fat was tainting the
lovely fresh air. But New Zealand run-holders have often to put up
with queer smells as well as sights and sounds, therefore we only
complimented Ned on being provident enough to make a good stock of
candles before-hand, for home consumption, during the coming dark
days. After we had dismounted and hobbled our horses with the
stirrup leathers, so that they could move about and nibble the sweet
blue grass growing under each sheltering tussock, I sat down on a
large stone near, and began to tell Ned how often I had watched the
negroes in Jamaica making candles after a similar fashion, only they
use the wax from the
Ned listened to my little story with much politeness, and then, feeling it incumbent on him to contribute to the conversation, remarked, “I never makes candles ma’am without I thinks of frost-bites.”
“How is that, Palmer?” I asked, laughingly. “What in the world have they to do with each other?”
“Well, ma’am, you see it was just in this way. It was afore I come
here, which is quite a lively, sociable place compared to Dodson’s
back country out-station, at the foot o’ those there ranges beyond.
I give you my word, ma’am, it used always to make me feel as if I
was dead, and living in a lonely eternity. Them clear, bright-blue
glassers (glaciers, he meant, I presume) was awful lonesome, and
as for a human being they never come a-nigh the place. Well as I
was saying, ma’am, one day I finds I had run out o’ candles, and as
the long dark evenings (for it was the height o’ winter) was bad
enough, even with a dip
In coorse I couldn’t stand gaping there all day, so I went and
stooped down to the man, who was lying flat on his face, with his
arms straight out. He wasn’t sensibleless (Palmer’s favourite word
for senseless), for he opened his eyes, and said, “For God’s sake,
mate, take me in.” “So I will, mate,” I makes reply “and welcome
you are. Can you get on your legs, think you?” With that he groans
awful, and says, “My legs is friz.” Well, I looks at his legs, and
sees he was dressed in what had been good moleskins, and high jack
riding-boots, coming up to his knees; but sure enough they was as
hard as a board, and actially, if you’ll believe me, ma’am, there
was a rim o’ solid hice round the tops of his boots. As for
standing, he couldn’t do it: his legs was no more use to him than
anglice-tomahawk), and chop his boots
off, and that’s the gospel truth, ma’am. I broke my knife, first
try, and the axe was too big. He told me, poor fellow, that two
days before, as he was returning from prospecting up towards the
back ranges, his horse got away, and he couldn’t catch him. No:
he tried with all his might and main, for in his swag, which was
strapped to the D’s of his saddle, was not only his blanket, but his
baccy, and tea, and damper, and a glass o’ grog. The curious thing,
too, was that the horse didn’t bolt right away, as they generally
do: he jest walked a-head, knowing his master was bound to follow
wherever he led, for in coorse he had hopes to catch him every
moment. That ere brute, he never laid down nor rested,—jest kep
slowly moving on, as if he was a Lunnon street-boy, with a bobby at
his heels. Through creeks and rivers and swamps he led that poor
fellow. His boots got chuck full o’ cold water, and when the sun
went down it friz into solid
five mortial hours to come
the last mile, the horse walkin’ slowly afore him, and guiding him
like. And how do you think he did it, with two pillars of hice for
legs? Why he lifted up just one leg and then the other with both
his hands, and put them afore him, and took his steps that way.
Here honest Ned, his eyes glistening, and his ugly little face glowing with emotion through its coating of sunburn, paused, as if he did not like to go on.
I was more touched and interested than I could avoid. showing, and
cried, “Oh, do tell me, Palmer, what became of the poor fellow!
Did he die?”
Ned cleared his throat, and moved so as to get between me and the
light from the door, as he said huskily, “He came very nigh to it,
ma’am. I never did set eyes on such a decent patient chap as that
man was. I did the very wust thing I could a’ done, the town
doctors told me, for I brought him into the hut, instead o’ keeping
him outdoors and rubbing his poor black legs with snow. ’Stead o’
that, I wrapped him up warm in my own blankets, after I had chipped
his boots and the hice off of ’em, and I made up a
“Presently I remembers, quite sudden like, that a bush doctor, name
of Tomkins, was likely to be round by Simmons, cos’ o’ his missus.
So I got on my ’oss in a minnit, and I rides off and fetches him,
for sure enough he was there; and though Simmons’ missis wasn’t to
say over her troubles, she spoke up from behind the curtain of red
blanket she had put up in her tidy little hut, and bade old Tomkins
go with me. May God bless her and hers for that same, say I! Well,
ma’am, when Tomkins come back with me and saw the poor fellow (he
was fair shoutin’ with the pain in his legs by then), he said
nothin’ could be done. ‘They’ll mortify by morrow mornin’,’ says
he, ‘and then he’ll die easy.’ So with that he goes back with the
first light next day, to Simmons. Sure enough,
“By and bye I hears a rumbling and a creaking, and cracking of whips; and when I looks out, what do I see but the bullock-dray from Simmons’ coming up the flat. It was the only thing on wheels within forty mile, and Simmons had brought it his own self to see if we couldn’t manage to get the poor fellow down to the nighest town. I won’t make my yarn no longer than I can help, ma’am, so I’ll only mention that we made a lot o’ the strongest mutton broth you ever tasted; we slung a hammock of red blankets in the dray, and we got the poor fellow down by evening to a gentleman’s station. There they made us kindly welcome, did all they could for him, and transhipped the hammock into a pair-horse dray, which went quicker and was easier. We got on as fast as we could every step of the way, and by midnight that poor fellow was tucked into a clean bed in the hospital at Christchurch, with both his legs neatly cut off just above the knee, for there wasn’t a minute to lose.
I was almost afraid to inquire how the sufferer fared,
subscribetion, and bought the poor chap a first-rate pair o’
wooden legs, and he could even manage to ride about after a bit; and
instead o’ wandering about looking for country, or gold, or what
not, he settled down as a carrier, and throve and did well. And I
was thinking, ma’am, as how I’d like to return thanks for that poor
fellow’s wonderful recovery, for I’ve never had a chance of going to
Church since, and its nigh upon two years ago that it happened.
“So you shall, Ned: so you shall!” we said with one voice. And so at our first Church gathering at our dear little antipodean home, F——, who acted as our minister, paused in the beautiful Thanksgiving Service, after he had read solemnly and slowly the simple words, “Especially for Thy late mercies vouchsafed to —,” and Ned Palmer chimed in with an “Amen,”—misplaced, indeed, but none the less hearty, and delightful to hear.
Dr. Johnson did not know the somewhat vulgar word which heads this
paper. At least he did not know it as a noun, but gives “swagger:
v.n., to bluster, bully, brag;” but the Slang Dictionary admits it
as a word, springing indeed from the thieves’ vocabulary: “one who
carries a swag.” Neither of these books however give the least idea
of the true meaning of the expression, which is as fully recognised
as an honest word in both Australia and New Zealand as any other
combination of letters in the English language. A swagger is the
very antithesis then of a swaggerer, for, whereas, the one is full
of pretension and abounds in unjust claims on our notice, the
swagger is humility and civility itself. He knows, poor weary
tramp, that on the favourable impression he makes upon the “boss,”
depends his night’s lodging and food, as well as a job of work in
Nothing astonished me so much in my New Zealand Station Life as
these visitors. Even Sir Roger de Coverley himself would have
looked with distrust upon most of our swagger-guests, and yet I
never heard of an instance in our part of the country where the
unhesitating, ungrudging hospitality extended by the rich squatters
to their poorer compatriots was ever abused. I say “in our part,”
because unfortunately, wherever gold is discovered, either in quartz
or riverbed, the good old primitive customs and ways die out of
themselves in a few weeks, and each mammon-seeker looks with
distrust on a stranger. Only fifty or sixty miles from us, as the
crow might fly across the snowy range, where an immense Bush clothes
the banks of the Hokitika river right down to its sand-filled mouth
on the West Coast, the great gold diggings broke out seven or eight
years ago, and changed the face of society in that district in a few
days. There a swagger meant a man who might rob or murder you in
your sleep after you had fed and lodged him; or—under
Even before the famous Maungatapu murders in
Such, and yet still more fair must have been the prospect on which
Burgess, Kelly, Levy, and Sullivan’s eyes rested one June morning in
the mid-winter of
It was therefore no mystery that four unarmed diggers, carrying a
considerable number of ounces of gold-dust with them, were going to
start from the Canvas-town diggings for Nelson on a certain day, and
the men I have mentioned set out to meet them. One part of their
long journey led them over the Maungatapu range by a saddle, which
in its lowest part is 2,700 feet above the sea-level. The night
before the murder, the victims and their assassins camped out with
only ten miles between them. So lonely and deserted was the rough
mountain track, that the appearance of a poor old man named Battle
It was all over in a moment: Burgess and his men flung the bodies
down among the tangled bush, and returned to Nelson rejoicing
exceedingly over the simple and easy means by which they had
possessed themselves of several hundred pounds. Of course they
calculated on the usual supine indifference to other people’s
affairs, which prevails in busy gold-seeking communities; but in
this instance the public
On one occasion it chanced that F——, our stalwart cadet Mr. A——,
and the man who did odd jobs about the place, were all on the point
of setting out upon some expedition, when a party of four swaggers
made their appearance just at sundown. No true swagger ever appears
earlier, lest he might be politely requested to “move on” to the
next station; whereas if he times his arrival exactly when “the
shades of night are falling fast,” no boss could be hard-hearted
enough to point to mist-covered hills and valleys, which are a
net-work of deep creeks and swamps, and desire the wayfarer to go on
further. Once, and only once, did I know of such a thing being done;
but I will not say more about that unfortunate at this moment, for I
want to claim the pity of all my lady readers for the very
unprotected position I am trying to depict. F—— could not
understand my nervousness, and did not reassure me by saying, as he
mounted his horse, “I’ve told them
Now I was a very new chum in those days, and had just heard of the Maungatapu murders. These guests of mine looked most disreputable, and were all powerful young men. I do not believe there was a single lock or bolt or bar on any door in the whole of the little wooden house: the large plate-chest stood outside in the verandah, and my dressing-case could have been carried off through the ever-open bedroom window by an enterprising thief of ten years old. As for my two maids,—the only human beings within reach,—they were as perfectly useless on any emergency as if they had been wax dolls. One of them had the habit of fainting if anything happened, and the other used to tend her until she revived, when they both sat still and shrieked. Their nerves had once been tested by a carpenter, who was employed about the house, and cut his hand badly; on another occasion by the kitchen chimney which took fire; and that was the way they behaved each time. So it was useless to look upon their presence as any safeguard; indeed one of them speedily detected a fancied likeness to Burgess in one of the poor swaggers, and shrieked every time she saw him.
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
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 quantity
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 passed 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
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 scrap 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 sturdy little “Judy’s” back. The
creeks rose and poured over their banks in angry yellow floods.
Every morning casualties in the poultry
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 class,
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 ocked”
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
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—— assisting through the
trap door, and the maids breathing suggestions through the
partition-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,”
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
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 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
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.
To the eyes of an English housewife the title of this chapter must appear a very bad joke indeed, and the amusement 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
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
cockatoos, 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 compassion, imagining that she was about
fifteen years of age, and had been cruelly ill-treated and starved.
How she divined what was passing 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
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
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 brass 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
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 quantities 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 appetite, 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
ever been
known to refuse a meal anywhere, or under any circumstances, 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 grass paddock, and between
the two I could see Mr. U——’s tall figure stalking down the flat
with his cattle dog at his heels,
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 mattrass, 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 attitude 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
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 glass 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 Cockles’ 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.
I want to lodge a formal complaint against all cookery books. They are not the least use in the world, until you know how to cook! and then you can do without them. Somebody ought to write a cookery book which would tell an unhappy beginner whether the water in which she proposes to put her potatoes is to be hot or cold; how long such water is to boil; how she is to know whether the potatoes are done enough; how to dry them after they have boiled, and similar things, which make all the difference in the world.
To speak like Mr. Brooke for a moment. “Rice now: I have dabbled in that a good deal myself, and found it wouldn’t do at all.”
Of course in time, and after many failures, I did learn to boil a
potato which would not disgrace me,
One lesson I leaned in my New Zealand kitchen,—and that was not to
be too hard on the point of breakages; for no one knows, unless from
personal experience, how true was the Irish cook’s apology for
breaking a dish, when she said that it let go of her hand. I
declare that I used, at last, to regard my plates and dishes, cups
and saucers, yea, even the pudding basons, not as so much china and
delf, but as troublesome imps, possessed with an insane desire to
dash themselves madly on the kitchen floor upon the least
provocation. Every woman knows what a slippery thing to hold is a
baby in its tub. I am in a position to pronounce that wet plates
and dishes are far more difficult to keep hold of. They have a way
My maids had a very ingenious method of disposing of the fragments
of their pottery misfortunes. At the back of the house an open
patch of ground, thickly covered with an under-growth of native
grass, and the usual large proportion of sheltering tussocks
stretched away to the foot of the nearest hill. This was burned
every second year or so, and when the fire had passed away the sight
it revealed was certainly very curious. Beneath each tussock had
lain concealed a small heap of broken china, which must have been
placed there in the dead of the night. The delinquents had
evidently been at the pains to perfect their work of destruction by
reducing the china articles in question, to the smallest imaginable
fragments, for fear of a protruding corner betraying the clever
câche; and the contrast afforded to the blackened ground on which
they lay, by the gay patches of tiny fragments huddled together, was
droll indeed. That was the moment for recognising the remains of a
favourite jug or plate, or even a beloved tea-cup. There they were
all laid in neat little heaps, and the best of it was that the
existing cook always declared
All housekeepers will sympathise with my feelings at seeing an
amateur scullion, who had distinguished himself greatly in the
Balaklava charge, but who appeared to have no idea that boiling
water would scald his fingers,—drop the top plate of a pile which
he had placed in a tub before him. In spite of my entreaties to be
allowed to “wash-up” myself, he gallantly declared that he could do
it beautifully, and that the great thing was to have the water very
hot. In pursuance of this theory he poured the contents of a kettle
of boiling water over his plates, plunged his hand in, and dropped
the top plate, with a shriek of dismay, on those beneath it. Out of
consideration for that well-meaning emigrant’s feelings, I abstain
from publishing the list of the killed and wounded, briefly stating
that he might almost as well have fired a shot among my poor plates.
A perfect fountain of water and chips and bits of china flew up into
the air, and I really believe that hardly one plate remained
uncracked. So much for one’s friends. I must candidly state that
although the servants broke a good deal, we destroyed twice as much
amongst us during the week
Shall I ever forget the guilty pallor which overspread the bronzed and bearded countenance of one of my guests, who particularly wished to dust the drawing-room ornaments, when on hearing a slight crash I came into the room and found him picking up the remains of a china shepherdess? Considering everything, I kept my temper remarkably well, merely observing that he had better go into the verandah and sit down with a book and his pipe, and send Joey in to help me. Joey was a little black monkey from Panama, who had to be provided with broken bits of delf or china in order that he might amuse himself by breaking them ingeniously into smaller fragments.
But the real object of this chapter was to relate some of my own private misfortunes in the cooking line. Once, when Alice S—— was staying with me and we had no servants, she and I undertook to bake a very infantine and unweaned pig. It was all properly arranged for us, and, making up a good fire, we proceeded to cook the little monster.
Hours passed by; all the rest of the dinner got itself properly
cooked at the right time, but the pig presented exactly the same
appearance at dewy eve as it had done in the early morn. We looked
rather crest-fallen
Has anybody ever reflected on how difficult it must be to get a
chimney swept without ever a sweep or even a brush? Luckily our
chimneys were short and wide, and we used a good deal of wood; so in
three years the kitchen chimney only needed to be cleansed twice.
The first time it was cleared of soot by the simple process of being
set on fire, but as a light nor’-wester was blowing, the risk to the
wooden roof became very great and could only be met by spreading wet
blankets over the shingles. We had a very narrow escape of losing
our little wooden house, and it was fortunate it happened just at
the men’s dinner hour when there was plenty of help close at hand.
However great my satisfaction at feeling that at last my chimney had
been thoroughly swept, there was evidently too much risk about the
performance to admit of its being repeated, so about a year
afterwards I asked an “old chum” what I was to do with my chimney.
“Sweep it with a furze-bush, to be sure,” she replied. I mentioned
this primitive receipt at home, and the idea was carried out a day
or two later by one man mounting on the roof of the house whilst
another remained in the kitchen; the individual on the roof threw
down a rope to the one below, who fastened a large furze-bush in the
middle, they each held an end of this rope, and so pulled it up and
down the chimney until the
I feel, however, that in all these reminiscences I am straying widely from the point which was before my mind when I began this chapter, and that is the delusiveness of a cookery book. No book which I have ever seen tells you, for instance, how to boil rice properly. They all insist that the grains must be white and dry and separate, but they omit to describe the process by which these results can be attained. They tell you what you are to do with your rice after it is boiled, but not how to boil it. The fact is, I suppose, that the people who write such books began so early to be cooks themselves, that they forget there ever was a time when such simple things were unknown to them.
Even when I had, after many failures, mastered the
On this special occasion, which proved to be nearly the last, my
mind was easy, for the simple reason that I was now independent of
cookery books. I had puzzled out all the elementary parts of the
science for myself, and had no misgivings on the subject of potatoes
or even peas. So confident was I, and vain, that I volunteered to
make a curry for breakfast. Such a savoury curry as it was, and it
turned out to be all that the heart of a hungry man could desire; so
did the rice: I really felt proud of that rice; each grain kept
itself duly apart from its fellow, and was as soft and white and
plump as possible. Everything went well,
Imagine the scene. The bright pretty kitchen, with its large window through which you could see the green hills around dotted with sheep; the creek chattering along just outside, whilst close to the back door loitered a crowd of fowls and ducks on the chance of fate sending them something extra to eat. Beneath the large window, and just in front of it, stood a large deal table, and it used to be my custom to transfer the contents of the saucepans to the dishes at that convenient place. Well, I emptied the rice into its dish, and gazed fondly at it for a moment: any cook might have been proud of that beautiful heap of snow-white grains. I had boiled a great quantity, more than necessary it seemed, for although the dish was piled up almost as high as it would hold, some rice yet remained in the saucepan.
Oh, that I had been content to leave it there! But no: with a
certain spasmodic frugality which has often been my bane, I shook
the saucepan vehemently, in order to dislodge some more of its
contents into my already full dish. As I did so, my treacherous
riz au noir it seems. Although
I feel more than half ashamed to confess it, I am by no means sure I
did not retire into the store-room and shed a tear over the fate of
that rice. Everybody else laughed, but I was dreadfully mortified
and vexed.
I flattered myself on a certain occasion that I had made some very artful arrangements to provide the family with something to eat during the servants’ absence. I had been lamenting the week of experiments in food which would be sure to ensue so soon as the dray should leave, in the hearing of a gallant young ex-dragoon, who had come out to New Zealand to try and see if one could gratify tastes, requiring, say a thousand a year to provide for, on an income of £120. He was just finding out that it was quite as difficult to manage this in the Southern as in the Northern Hemisphere, but his hearty cheery manner, and enormous stock of hope, kept him up for some time.
“I’ll come and cook for you,” he cried. “I can cook like a bird.
But I can’t wash up. No, no:
“Where did you learn to cook?” I inquired, suspiciously; for F——
had also assured me he could cook, and this had upset my
confidence.
“On the west coast; to be sure! Ask Vere, and Williams and Taylor,
and everybody, if they ever tasted such pies as I used to make
them.” My countenance must have still looked rather doubtful,
because I well remember sundry verbal testimonials of capability
being produced; and as I was still very ignorant of the rudiments of
the science of cookery, I shrank from assuming the whole
responsibility of the family meals. So the household was arranged
in this way:—Captain George, head cook; Mr. U——, scullery-maid;
Miss A——, housemaid; myself, lady-superintendent; Mr. Forsyth (a
young naval officer), butler. On the principle of giving honour to
whom honour is due, this gallant lieutenant deserves special mention
for the way he cleaned glass. He did not pay much attention to his
silver,
It was really a dreadful time, although we got well cooked plats,
for Captain George wasted quite as much as he used. The pigs fed
sumptuously that week on his failures, in sauces, minces; puddings,
and what not. He had insisted on our making him a paper cap and a
linen apron, or rather a dozen linen aprons, for he was perpetually
blackening his apron and casting it aside. Then, he used suddenly
to cease to take any interest in his occupation, and, seating
himself sideways on the kitchen dresser, begin to whistle through a
whole opera, or repeat pages of poetry. I tried the experiment of
banishing Miss A—— from the kitchen during cooking hours, but a few
bars played on the piano were quite enough to distract my cook from
his work. My only quiet time was the afternoon, when about four
o’clock, my amateur servants all went out for a ride, and left me in
peace for a couple of hours.
still
week, no dry, hot nor’-westers, nor cold, wet sou’-westers, and it
was perfectly delicious to sit out in the verandah and rest, after
the labours of the day, in our cane easy-chairs. The balmy air was
so soft and fresh, and the intense silence all around so profound.
Unfortunately there was a full moon. I say “unfortunately,” because
the flood of pale light suggested to these dreadful young men the
feasibility of having what they called a “servant’s ball.” In vain
I declared that the housekeeper was never expected to dance. “Oh,
yes!” laughed Captain George. “I’ve often danced with a
housekeeper, and very jolly it was too. Come along! F——, make
her dance.” And I was forced to gallopade up and down that verandah
till I felt half dead with fatigue. The boards had a tremendous
spring, and the verandah (built by F——, by the way), was very wide
and roomy, so it made an excellent ball-room. As for
Ah, well! that may be an absurd bit of one’s life to look back upon,
but its days were bright and innocent enough. Health was so perfect
that the mere sensation of being alive became happiness, and all the
— Becomes aware of his life’s flow And bears its winding murmur, and be sees The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze; And there arrives a lull in the hot race, Wherein he doth for ever chase That flying and elusive shadow, rest.
One good effect of my sufferings with a house full of unruly
volunteers, was that during the brief stay
Nothing could be more extraordinary than the way in which the two
affectionate sisters, mentioned [earlier] and who succeeded Euphemia
and Lois, quarrelled. They were very unlike each other in
appearance, and one fruitful source of bickering arose from their
respective styles of beauty. Not only did they wrangle and rave at
each other all the day long, during every moment of their spare
time, but after they had gone to bed, we could hear them quite
plainly calling out to each other from their different rooms. If I
begged them to be quiet, there might be silence for a moment, but it
would shortly be broken by Maria, calling out, “I say, Dinah, don’t
you go for to wear green, my girl. I only tell you friendly, but
you’re a deal too yellow for that. It suits me, ’cause I’m so
fresh and rosy, but you never will have my ’plexion, not if you
live to be eighty. Good night. I thought I’d just mention it while
I remembered.” This used to aggravate Dinah dreadfully, and she
would retaliate by repeating some complimentary speech of Old Ben’s,
or Long Tom’s, the
Their successors were Clarissa and Eunice. Eunice wept sore for a
whole month, over her sweeping and cleaning. To this day I have not
the dimmest idea why. She gave me warning, amid floods of tears,
directly she arrived, though I could not make out any other tangible
complaint than that “the dray had jolted as never was;” and to
Clarissa, I gave warning the first day I came into the kitchen.
She received me seated on the kitchen table, swinging her legs, which did not nearly touch the floor. She had carefully arranged her position so as to turn her back towards me, and she went on picking her teeth with a hair-pin. I stood aghast at this specimen of colonial manners, which was the more astonishing as I knew the girl had lived in the service of a gentleman’s family in the North of England for some time before she sailed.
“Dear me, Clarissa,” I cried, “is that the way you behaved at Colonel St. John’s?”
Clarissa looked at me very coolly over her shoulder (I must mention
she was a very pretty girl, blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked, but with
such a temper!) and, giving her plump shoulders a little shrug,
said, “No, in course not: they was gentlefolks, they was.”
I confess I felt rather nettled at this, and yet it was difficult to be angry with a girl who looked like a grown up and very pretty baby. I restrained my feelings and said, “Well, I should like you to behave here as you did there. Suppose you get off the table and come and look what we can find in the store room.”
“I have looked round,” she declared: “there ’aint much to be
seen.” My patience began to run short, and I said very firmly, “You
must get off the table directly, Clarissa, and stand and speak
properly; or I shall send you down to Christchurch again.” I
suppose that was exactly what the damsel wished, for she made no
movement; whereat I said in great wrath, “Very well, then you shall
leave at the end of a month.” And so she did, having bullied
everybody out of their lives during that time.
Whilst we are on the subject of manners, it may not be out of place
to relate a little episode of my early days “up country.” I think I
have alluded
“Station Life in New Zealand” Macmillan and Co.
This innate tact and true gentlemanly feeling which struck me so
much in the labouring man as he appears in New Zealand, made the
lapse of good manners, to which I am coming, all the more
remarkable. Of course they never touched their hats to me: they
would make me a bow or take their hats off, but they never touched
them. I have often seen a hand raised
At last I was goaded to declare I felt sure that the men only
behaved in that way from crass ignorance, and that if they knew how
much my feelings were hurt, they would alter their manners directly.
This opinion was received with such incredulity that I felt roused
to declare I should try the experiment next Sunday afternoon. The
only warning which at all daunted me was the assurance that I should
affront my congregation and scare them away. It was the dread of
this which made my heart beat so fast, and my hands turn so cold as
I opened the kitchen-door the next Sunday afternoon. There were
exactly the same attitudes, every body perfectly civil and
respectful, but every body seated. Luckily my courage rose at the
right moment, and I came forward as usual with a smile, and said,
“Look here, my men, there is one little thing I want to ask you. Do
you know that it is not the custom anywhere, in any civilized
country, for gentlemen to remain seated
The effect of my little speech was magical. Pepper glanced at
McQuhair, Moffatt crimsoned and nudged McKenzie, Wiry Ben slipped
off the window-seat and shyed his hat across the kitchen, whilst
Long Tom, the bullock-driver, “thanked me kindly for mentioning of
it;” and every body got up directly and took their hats off. I felt
immensely proud of my success, and hastened the moment of my return
to the drawing room, where I announced my triumph. I repeated my
little speech as concisely as possible; but, alas, it was not nearly
so well received as it had been in the kitchen! “Have you ever gone
to see a London club?” one person inquired. “Ah: I thought not! I
don’t know about the Prince, because he always does do the
prettiest things at the right moment, but I doubt very much about
all the others. I fear you have made a very wild assertion to get
your own way.” I need hardly say I sulked at that incredulous
individual for many days but he always stuck firmly
I feel that my chapter should end here; but any record of my New
Zealand servants would be incomplete without mention of my “bearded
cook.” Every body thinks, when I say this, that I am going to tell
them about a man, but it is nothing of the sort. Isabella Lyon, in
spite of her pronounced beard, was a very fine woman; exceedingly
good-humoured looking and fresh-coloured, with most amiable
prepossessing manners. She had not long arrived, and had been at
once snapped up for an hotel, but she applied for my place, saying
she wished for quiet and a country life. Could any thing be more
propitious? I thought, like Lois, that my luck, so long in turning,
was improving, and that at last I was to have a cook who knew her
business. And so she did, thoroughly and delightfully. For one
brief fortnight we lived on dainties. Never could I have believed
that such a variety of dishes could have been produced out of
mutton. In fact we seemed to have everything at table except the
staple dish. Unlike the cook who actually sent me in a roast
shoulder of mutton for breakfast one morning, Isabella prided
herself on eliminating the monotonous animal from her bills of
This Arcadian state of kitchen affairs went on for exactly a
fortnight. One evening, at the end of that time, we had been out
riding, and returned as usual very hungry. “What are we going to
have for supper?” inquired F——. I told him what had been ordered;
but when that meal made its appearance, lo, there was not a single
dish which I had named! The things were not exactly nasty, but they
were queer. For instance, pears are not usually stewed in gravy;
but they were by no means bad, and we took it for granted it was
something quite new. The housemaid, Sarah, looked very nervous
Next morning, when we came out to breakfast, imagine my astonishment at seeing a tureen of half cold soup on the table, and nothing else! I could hardly believe my eyes, and hastened to the kitchen to explain that this was rather too much of a novelty in the gastronomic line. If I live to be a hundred years old, I shall never forget the sight—at once terrible and absurd—which met my eyes. Before the kitchen fire stood Isabella, having evidently slept in her clothes all night. She looked wretched and bloated, and quite curiously dirty, as black as if she had been up the chimney; and even I could see that, early as was the hour, she was hopelessly drunk. Between both of her nerveless, black hands, she held a poker, with which she struck, from time to time, a feeble blow on a piled-up heap of plates, which she persisted in considering a lump of coal. The fire was nearly out, but she hastened to assure me that if she could only break this lump of coal it would soon burn up. Need I say that I rescued my plates at once, and marched the bearded one off to her own apartment.
Oh, how dimmed its dainty freshness had become since even yesterday! Sarah was summoned, and confessed that she had known last night that “Hisabella” had gone on the “burst,” having bought, for some fabulous sum, a bottle of rum from a passing swagger. It was all very dreadful, and worst of all was the scene of tears and penitence I had to endure when the rum was finished. The dray, however, relieved me of the incubus of her presence; and that was the only instance of drunkenness I came across among my domestic changes and chances.
One of the first things which struck me when I came to know a little
more about the feelings and ways of my neighbours in the Malvern
Hills, was the good understanding which existed between man and
beast. I am afraid I must except the poor sheep, for I never heard
them spoken of with affection, nor do I consider that they were the
objects of any special humanity even on their owners’ parts. This
must surely arise from their enormous numbers. “How can you be fond
of thousands of anything?” said a shepherd once to me, in answer to
some sentimental inquiry of mine respecting his feelings towards his
flock. That is the fact. There were too many sheep in our “happy
Arcadia” for any body to value or pet them. On a large scale they
were looked after carefully. Water, and sheltered feed,
Far different is the feeling of the New Zealander, whether he be squatter or cockatoo, towards his horse and his dog. They are the faithful friends, and often the only companions of the lonely man. Of course there will soon be no “lonely men” anywhere, but a few years ago there were plenty of unwilling Robinson Crusoes in the Middle Island; and whenever I came upon one of these pastoral hermits, I was sure to find a dog or a horse, a cat, or even a hen, established as “mate” to some poor solitary, from whom all human companionship was shut out by mountain, rock, or river.
“Are you not very lonely here?” was often my first instinctive
question, as I have dismounted at the door of a shepherd’s hut in
the back country, and listened to the eternal roar of the river
which formed his boundary, or the still more oppressive silence
which seemed to have reigned ever since the creation.
“Well, mum, it aint very lively; but I’ve got Topsy (producing a black kitten from his pocket), and there’s the dogs, and I shall have some fowls next year, p’raps.”
But my object in beginning this chapter was not to enter into a
disquisition on other people’s pets, with which after all one can
have but a distant acquaintance, but to introduce some of my own
especial favourites to those kind and sympathetic readers who take
pleasure in hearing of my own somewhat solitary existence in that
distant land. I am quite ready to acknowledge that I never
thoroughly comprehended the individuality of animals, even of fowls
and ducks, until I lived up at the Station. Perhaps, like their
masters, they really get to possess more independence of character
under those free and easy skies; for where would you meet with such
a worldly and selfish cat as “Sandy,” or so fastidious and
intelligent a smooth terrier as “Rose”? Sandy was an old bachelor
of a sleek appearance, red in colour, but with a good deal of white
shirt-front and wristbands, as to the get-up of which he was most
particular. It was easy to imagine Sandy sitting in a club window;
and I am sure he had a slight tendency to gout and reading French
novels. Sandy’s selfishness was quite open and above-board. He
liked you
What always appeared to me so odd, was that in spite of his known
and unblushing selfishness, Sandy used to be a great favourite, and
we all vied with each other for the honour of his notice. Now why
was this? If boundless time and space were at our disposal, we
might go deeply into the question and work it out, but as the
dimensions of this volume are not elastic, the impending social
essay shall be postponed, and we will confine ourselves to a brief
description of Sandy’s outer cat. He was of a pure breed, far
A far more unselfish and agreeable personage was Rose, the white
terrier, whose name often finds a loving place in these pages. She
and Sandy dwelt
It always happened I observed that everybody arrived together.
For weeks we would be alone.
Whenever Rose appeared thus suddenly in my quiet retreat, I felt sure some greater uproar than usual was going on down at the wool-shed, and, more than once, on inquiry, I found Rose’s nerves must have been tried to the utmost before she turned and fled.
As for the intelligence of sheep-dogs, a volume could be written on
the facts concerning them, and a still more entertaining book on the
fictions, for a New Zealand shepherd will always consider it a point
of honour to cap his neighbour’s anecdote of his dog’s sagacity,
by a yet stronger proof of canine intelligence. I shall only,
briefly allude to one dog, whose history will probably be placed in
the colonial archives,—a colley, who knows his master’s brand; and
who will, when the sheep get boxed, that is mixed together, pick
out; with unfailing accuracy,
Then among my horse friends was a certain Suffolk “Punch,” who had
been christened the “Artful Dodger,” from his trick of
counterfeiting lameness the moment he was put in the shafts of a
dray. That is to say if the dray was loaded; so long as it was
empty, or the load was light, the “Dodger” stepped out gaily, but if
he found the dray at all heavy, he affected to fall dead lame. The
old strain of staunch blood was too strong in his veins to allow him
to refuse or jib, or stand still. Oh, no! The “Dodger” arranged a
compromise with his conscience, and though he pulled manfully, he
resorted to this lazy subterfuge. More than once with a “new chum”
it had succeeded to
Very different was “Star,” poor, wilful, beauty, whose name and fate
will long be remembered among the green hills, where her short life
was passed. Born and bred on the station, she was the pride and joy
of her owner’s heart. Slender without being weedy, compact without
clumsiness, her small head well set on her graceful neck, and her
fine legs, with their sinews like steel, she attracted the envy of
all the neighbouring squatters. “What will you take for that little
grey filly when she is broken?” was a constant question. “She’s not
for sale,” her owner used to answer. “I’ll break her myself, and
make her as gentle as a dog, and she’ll do for my wife when I get
one.” But this proved a castle in the air, so far as Star was
concerned. The wife was not so mythical. In due time she appeared
in that sheltered valley, and, standing at the head of a mound
marked by a stake whereon a star was rudely carved, heard the story
of the poor creature’s fate. From the first
When her second birthday was passed, Star’s education commenced.
The process called “gentling,” was a complete misnomer for the
series of buck jumps, of bites and kicks, with which the young lady
received the slightest attempt to touch her. She had a horrible
habit also of shrieking, really almost like a human being in a
frantic rage; she would rush at you with a wild scream of fury, and
after striking at you with her front hoofs, would wheel round like
lightning, and dash her hind legs in your face. The stoutest
stockman declined to have anything whatever to do with Star; the
most experienced breaker “declined her, with thanks;” generally
adding a long bill for repairs of rack and manger, and breaking
tackle, and not unfrequently a hospital report of maimed and wounded
stablemen. Amateur horsemen of celebrity arrived at the station to
look at the beautiful fiend, and departed, saying they would rather
not have anything to say to her. At last, she was given over in
despair, to lead her own free life,
Months passed away, and Star and her tantrums had been nearly
forgotten, when one mild winter evening the stockman came in to
report that,—wonder of wonders,—Star was standing meekly outside,
whinnying, and as “quiet as a dog.” Her master went out to find the
man’s report exact: Star walked straight up to him, and rubbed her
soft nose confidingly against his sleeve. The mystery explained
itself at a glance: she was on the point of having her first foal,
and, with some strange and pathetic instinct, she bethought herself
of the kind hands whose caresses she had so often rejected, and came
straight to them for help and succour. Her shy and touching
advances were warmly responded to, and in a few minutes the poor
beast was safely housed in the warm shed which then represented the
present row of neat stables long since on that very spot. A warm
mash was eagerly swallowed, and the good-hearted stockman
volunteered to remain up until all should be happily over; but his
courage failed him at the sight of her horrible sufferings, and in
the early dawn he came to rouse up his master, and beg him to come
and see if anything more could be done. There lay Star, all her
fierce spirit quenched, with an
Two years later, exactly the same thing happened again. The dreaded
hour of suffering found the wayward beauty once more under the roof
which had sheltered her in her former time of trial, and once more
she rested her head in penitence and appeal against her owner’s
shoulder. Who could bear malice
No account of station pets would be complete without a brief
allusion to my numerous and unsuccessful attempts to rear merino
lambs in the house. It never was of any use advising me to leave
the poor little creatures out on the bleak hill-side, if, in the
course of my rambles after ferns or creepers, I came upon a dead ewe
with her half-starved baby running round and round her. How could I
turn my
who could turn away from a little helpless thing
like that, who positively leaped into your arms and cuddled itself
up in delight, sucking vigorously away at your glove, or anything
handy? Not I, for one,—though I might as well have left it alone,
so far as its ultimate fate was concerned; but I always hoped for
better luck next time, and carried it off in my arms.
The first thing to be do be on arrival at home, was to give the
starving little creature a good meal out of a tea-pot, and the next,
to put it to sleep in a box of hay in a warm corner of the kitchen.
What always seemed to me so extraordinary, was that the lambs, one
and all, preserved the most cheerful demeanour, ate and drank and
slept well,—and yet died within a month. Some lingered until quite
four weeks had passed, others succumbed to my treatment in a week.
I varied their food, mixing oatmeal with the milk; some I fed often,
others seldom; to some I gave sugar in the milk, others had new
milk. There was abundance of grass just outside the house for them
to eat, if they could. Some did mumble feebly at it, I remember,
but the mortality continued uninterrupted.
Often and often, of a cold night (for we must remember that New
Zealand lambing used always to come off in winter), we would all
become suddenly aware of a strong smell of burning pervading the
whole house; which, on being traced to its source, was often found
to proceed from the rosette of wool on the forehead of a chilly
lamb. The creature drew nearer and nearer to the genial warmth of
the kitchen fire, until at last it used to lean its brow pensively
against the red hot bars. Hence arose the powerful odour gradually
filling the whole of the little wooden house. Of course
No record of those dear, distant days would be complete without a
short memoir of “Kitty.” She was only a grey Dorking hen, but no
heroine in fact or fiction, no Lady Rachel Russell or Fleurange,
ever exceeded Kitty in unswerving devotion to a beloved object, or
rather objects.
To see Kitty was to admire her, at least as I saw her one beautiful
spring evening in a grassy paddock on the banks of the Horarata. We
had ridden over there to visit our kind and friendly neighbours, the
C——’s; we had enjoyed a delicious cup of tea in the
passion-flower-covered verandah, which looked on the whole range,
from East to West, of the glorious Southern Alps, their shining
white summits sharply cut against our own peculiarly beautiful sky;
we had strolled round the charming,
very gently, that perhaps I took too
As a preliminary step to this reformation, she offered to bestow
upon me one of her best Dorking hens. It was too tempting an offer
to be refused, and I forthwith bestowed my affections on a beautiful
grey pullet, whose dignified carriage and speckled exterior bespoke
her high lineage. “That’s Kitty,” said Mrs. C——. “I am so glad you
fancy her; she is one of my nicest young hens. We’ll catch her for
you in a moment.” I must pause to mention here, that it struck me
as being very odd in New Zealand the way in which every creature
has a name, excepting always the poor sheep. If one sees a cock
strutting proudly outside a shepherd’s door; you are sure to hear it
is either Nelson or Wellington; every hen has a pet name, and
answers to it; so have the ducks and geese,—at least, up-country;
of course, dogs, horses, cows and bullocks, each rejoice in the most
inflated appellations, but I don’t remember ever hearing ducks and
fowls answer to their names in any other country.
But this is only by the way. I gratefully and gladly accepted the
transfer of the fair Kitty, and only wondered how I was to convey
her to her new home, fifteen miles away. Kitty was soon caught,
There was no help for it, however, and I tried to put my bravest
face on the matter. The difficulties commenced at the very point of
departure, for it is not easy to say farewell cordially with your
hands full of reins, whip, and poultry. But it proved comparatively
easy going whilst we only cantered over the plains. It was not
until the first creek had been reached, that I really perceived what
lay before me. Helen distrusted the contents of the bag, and kept
trying to look round and see what it contained; and her fears of
something uncanny might well have been confirmed when she took off
at her first flat jump. Kitty screamed, or shrieked, or whatever
name best expresses her discordant and piercing
However, next morning brought a renewed delight in existence to both
Kitty and me, and our night’s sleep had made us forget our agitation
and peril. After breakfast I introduced her to the poultry yard,
and she adapted herself to her new home with a tact and good humour
most edifying to behold. Months passed away. Kitty had made
herself a nest in a place, the selection of which did equal honour
to her head and heart, and she gladdened my eyes one fine morning by
appearing with a lovely brood of chicks around her. Who so proud as
the young mother? She exhibited them to me, and after I had duly
admired them, used to carry them off to a nursery of her own, which
she had established among the tussocks just outside the stable door.
Mrs. C—— had impressed upon me that
About a week after Kitty had first shown me her large, small family, a friend of ours arrived unexpectedly to stop the night. Next morning, when he was going away, he apologised for asking leave to mount at the stables, saying his led horse was so vicious, and the one he was riding so gay, that it was quite possible their legs might find themselves within the verandah, or do some mischief to the young shrubs which were the pride and joy of my heart. This gentleman rode beautifully, and I used to like to see the courage and patience with which he always conquered the most unruly horse.
“We will come up to the stable and see you mount,” I cried, seizing
my hat. Of course every one followed my lead, and it was to the
sound of mingled jeers and compliments that poor Mr. T—— mounted
his fiery steed, and seized hold of the leading rein of his
pack-horse. But this animal had no intention of taking his
departure with propriety or tranquillity: he
If anybody wanted to teaze me, they suggested that I had omitted to replace my dear Kitty’s brains before closing that cruel wound in her skull.
So many reminiscences come crowding into my mind,—some grave and others gay,—as I sit down to write these final chapters, that I hardly know where to begin.
The most clamorous of the fast-thronging memories, the one which pushes its way most vividly to the front, is of a little amateur doctoring of mine; and as my patient luckily did not die of my remedies, I need not fear that I shall be asked for my diploma.
Shearing was just over; over only that very evening in fact. We had
been leading a sort of uncomfortable picnic life at the home station
My motives for the plan I formed for us to go over, bag and baggage,
to the home station, the evening before the shearing began, and live
there till it was over, were varied. We will put the most unselfish
first, for the sake of appearances. I knew it would be very hard
work for poor F—— all that time, and I thought it would add to his
fatigue if he had to go backwards and forwards to his own house
every day, getting up at five in the morning and returning late at
night, besides having no comfortable
Accordingly one evening we set forth: such a ridiculous cavalcade.
I would not hear of riding, for it was only a short two miles walk;
and as we did not start until after our last meal, the sun had
dipped behind Flag-pole’s tall peak, and nearly the whole of our
happy valley lay in deep, cool shadow. Besides which, it looked
more like the real thing to walk, and that was half the battle with
me. The “real thing” in this case, though I did not stop to explain
it to myself, must have meant emigrants, Mormons, soldiers on the
march, what you will; any thing which expresses all one’s belongings
being packed into a little cart, with a huge tin bath secured on the
top of all. Such a miscellaneous assortment of dry goods as that
cart held! A couple of mattresses (for my courage failed me at the
idea of sleeping on chopped tussocks for a fortnight), a couple of
folding-up arm-
We had plenty of escort as far as the first swamp. When that
treacherous and well-known spot had
détour had its driver been forced
to make in order to find a place sound enough to bear its weight.
But we caught it up again after we had happily crossed the quagmire
which used always to be my bug-bear, and in due time we made our
appearance, in the gloaming, at the tiny house belonging to the home
station. Early as was the hour, not later than half-past eight, the
place lay silent and still under the balmy summer haze. All the
shearers were fast asleep in the men’s hut, whilst every available
nook and corner was filled with the spare hands; the musterers,
branders, yard-keepers, and many others, whose duties were
less-defined. Far down the flat we could dimly discern a white
patch,—the fleecy outlines of the large mob destined to fill the
skillions at day-break to-morrow morning; and, although we could not
see them distinctly, close by, watchful and vigilant all through
that and many subsequent summer nights, Pepper and his two beautiful
colleys kept watch and ward over the sheep.
Writing in the heavy atmosphere of this vast
bunks,—i.e., wooden bed-frames of
the simplest and rudest construction, with a sacking bottom,—a
couple of empty boxes, one for a dressing-table and the other for a
wash-stand, a tin basin and a bucket of water, being the
paraphernalia of the latter, whilst some nails behind the door
served to hang our clothes on, such was my station bedroom and all
my own doing too! Certainly it looked uncomfortable enough to
satisfy any one, but I would not have complained of it for the
world, lest I might have been ordered home directly.
Hard as was my bed that night, I slept soundly, and it appeared only
five minutes before I heard a tremendous noise outside the verandah.
The bleating of hundreds of sheep announced that the mob were slowly
advancing, before a perfect army of men and dogs, up to the sheep
yards. What a din they all
why I had insisted on coming over, got
up too, and made my way into the little kitchen, where I found a
charming surprise awaiting me in the shape of some faggots of
neatly-stacked wood, cut into exactly, the right lengths for the
American stove; and also a heap of dry Menuka bushes, which make the
best touchwood for lighting fires in the whole world. The tiny
kitchen and stove were both scrupulously clean, and so were my three
saucepans and kettle. This had been, of course, my maids’ doing,
but the fuel was a delicate little attention on Pepper’s part. How
he blushed and grinned with delight when I thanked him before all
his mates! This was indeed station-life made easy! It did not take
two minutes to light my fire, and in five more I had a delicious cup
of tea and some bread-and-butter all ready for F——. It was nearly
cold, however, by the time I could catch him and make him drink it.
Of course, being a man, instead of saying, “Thank you,” or anything
of that sort, he merely remarked, “What nonsense!” but equally of
course, he was very glad to get it, and ate and drank it all up,
returning instantly to his shed.
After this little episode, I set to work to unpack a little, and
make the sitting-room look the least bit
But all these details, though necessary to make you understand what
I had been doing, are not the story itself, so to that we will hurry
on. The shearing was over; Saturday evening had come, as welcome to
poor imprisoned me as to any one, and the great work of the New
Zealand year had been most successfully accomplished. F—— was in
such good humour that he even deigned to admit that his own comfort
had been somewhat increased by my living at the home station, so I
felt quite rewarded for my many dreary hours. The shearers had been
paid, and were even then picking their way over the hills in little
groups of two and three; some, I grieve to
Even at the last moment, when the cart had already started
homewards, with the tin bath balanced once more on the top of the
mattresses and boxes; when
All the way home F—— said from time to time, anxiously, “I wish the
shed was empty;” but I cheered him up, and told him he was
over-tired and unreasonably nervous, and so forth, but with a great
longing myself for Monday morning to come, and for the dray to take
its load and start. I need not dwell on how delicious it was to
return home, where everything seemed so comfortable and nice, and
the bed felt especially soft and welcome to tired limbs. Early
I was the first to hear the noise, and cried, “Who’s there? what is it?” all in a breath.
“The wool-shed on fire,” murmured F——, in a tone of agonized conviction.
“It’s you that’s wanted, please mum, this moment, over at the home station!” I heard Pepper say, in impatient tones.
“It’s the wool-shed,” repeated F——, more than half asleep, and with only room for that one idea in his dreamy mind.
“Nonsense!” I cried, jumping out of bed. “I should not be wanted if the wool-shed were on fire. Don’t you hear Pepper say he wants me?”
“All right, then,” said F——, actually turning over and proposing to
go to sleep again. But there was no more sleep for either of us
that night. Whilst I hastily put on my riding-habit, Pepper told
me, through the window; an incoherent tale of some one being at the
point of death, and wanting me to cure him, and the master to bring
over pen and ink, to make a will, and dying speeches and cold
shivers, all
We said to each other while we were hastily dressing, “How shall we
ever catch the horses? They have all been turned out, of course, as
no one thought they would be wanted until Monday; and who knows
where they have gone to?—miles away, perhaps; and it’s pitch dark.”
Judge, then, of our delighted surprise, when, on going out into the
verandah, preparatory to starting off to look for our steeds, we
found them standing at the gate, ready saddled and bridled. It
seemed like magic, but the good fairies in this case had been the
two guests to whom I have alluded as
To our impatience, the difficult track, with its swamps and holes,
its creeks to be jumped, and morasses to be avoided, seemed long
indeed; but to judge from the continued profound darkness,—that
inky blackness of the sky which is the immediate forerunner of
daylight,—the dawn could not be far off.
I jumped off my horse instantly, and went in. At first I thought my
patient was dead, for he lay, rigid and grey, in his bunk. At a
glance I perceived that nothing could really be done to help him
whilst he was lying on a high shelf, almost out of my reach, in a
small hut filled with bewildered men, who kept offering him from
time to time a “pull” at a particularly good pipe, having previously
poured all the grog they could muster down his throat, or rather
over his pillow (his saddle performed that duty by night), for
I made Pepper and another man both rub the cold clammy body, as hard
as they could with mustard and hot flannel. I got some bottles
filled with hot water (for it did not take five minutes to boil the
kettle) and placed to his icy-cold feet and under his arms, then I
mixed a little very strong and hot brandy and water, to which I
added a few drops of chlorodyne, and gave him a teaspoonful every
five minutes. For the first half-hour there was no sign of life to
be detected, and the same horrible bluish pallor made poor Fenwick’s
really handsome face look ghastly in the flickering light. My two
assistants were getting
the shearer’s demand for a few minutes rest
I need not go into the details of my jumbled-up remedies; probably I
should bring upon myself serious remonstrances from the Royal Humane
Society, if my treatment of that unhappy man were made public. It
is enough to say that I “exhibited” mustard by the pound and brandy
by the quart, that I roasted him first on one side and then on the
other, that his true skin was rubbed off, that I chlorodyned him
until he slept for nearly a week, and that when he finally recovered
he declared he felt “as if he’d been dead:” “And no wonder,” as
Pepper always remarked. The only clue I could get to the cause of
his illness was a shy confession, about a week
“Well, you see, mum, I wasn’t rightly hungry: it must have been them
gripses coming on. So I only had a shoulder (of mutton, ien
ent; when Fenwick had really a good appetite he regarded
anything less than a whole leg of a sheep as an insult) that night,
half-a-dozen slap jacks, and a trifle of mushrooms.” “How big were
the mushrooms?” I asked. “Oh, they was rather fine ones, mum, I
won’t deny: they might have been the bigness of a plate.” Now even
supposing them to have been perfectly wholesome, a few dozen
mushrooms of that size, eaten half raw with a whole shoulder of
mutton, are quite enough to my ignorant mind to account for so
severe a fit of the “choleraics.”
My nerves had hardly recovered the shock of having the care of such
a huge patient thrust on me; for, seriously speaking, Fenwick took a
good deal of nursing and attention before he got well again, when we
had another night alarm. Our beautiful summer weather was breaking
up; high nor’-westers had blown down the gorges for days, and now a
cold wet gale was coming up in heavy banks of fleecy clouds from the
sou’-west. Everything looked cold and wretched out of doors, but
the sheep-farmers were thankful and pleased. Their “mobs” could
find excellent shelter for themselves, for it takes very bad
weather to hurt a Merino sheep, and the creeks had been running
rather low. “We shall have a splendid autumn after this is over,”
said all the squatters gleefully, “with lots of feed: there’s
Tyler’s creek coming down beautifully.”
So I was fain to be content, though my fowls
we
were making such an uproar. How could we do it, if even we had
wished to get out of our warm beds, and create a disturbance on such
a wild night.
“Good gracious! the house is coming down,” I cried, as a fresh shudder ran through the slight framework of, our little wooden home. “Pray go out, and see what is the matter.” Thus urged, F—— opened a casement on the sheltered side,—if any side could be said to be sheltered in such weather,—and cautiously put his head out. I peered over his shoulder, and never can I forget the ridiculous sight which met our eyes. There, dripping and forlorn, huddled together under the wide roof of our summer parlour, as the verandah used to be often called, the whole mob of horses had gathered themselves. The garden gate chanced to have been left open, and, evidently under old Jack’s’ guidance, they had all walked into the verandah, wandered disconsolately up and down its boarded floor, and after partaking of a slight refreshment in the shape of my best creepers, had proceeded to make themselves at home by rubbing their wet sides against the pillars and the wooden sides of the house itself.
No wonder the noise had aroused us all. Ironshod hoofs clattering
up and down a boarded verandah is riot a silent performance; and
Jack was so cool and impudent about it, positively refusing to stir
from the sheltered corner by the silver-pheasants’ aviary, which he
had chosen for himself. The other
It was the more absurd Jack pretending to be afraid of a wet night,
when he had walked many and many a weary mile over the rough
mountain passes towards the West-Coast, with a heavy pack on his
Once when we were in great despair for a cart-horse, Jack was
elected to the post, but long before we had come to the journey’s
end we regretted our choice. It was during the first summer of my
life in the Malvern Hills, and whilst the nor’-westers were still
steadily setting their breezy faces against such a new fangled idea
as a lawn. I had wearied of sowing grass seed at, a guinea a bag,
long before those extremely rude zephyrs got tired of blowing it all
out of the
Of course we wanted to start immediately, but how were we to get the
croquet things there, to say nothing of the delightful excuse for
tea out of doors which immediately presented itself to my
ever-thirsty mind. A dray was suggested (carriages we had none;
there being no roads for them if we had possessed such vehicles);
but alas, and alas! the proper dray and driver and horse were all
away, on an expedition up a distant
Peals of laughter announced the setting forth of the expedition; and
no wonder! Inside the dray, which was a very light and crazy old
affair, was seated Alice on an empty flour-sack; by her side I
crouched on an old sugar bag, one of my arms keeping tight hold of
my beloved tea-basket with its jingling contents, whilst the other
was desperately clutching at the side of the dray. On a board
across the front three gentlemen were perched, each wanting to
drive, exactly like so many small children in a goat carriage, and
like them, one holding the reins, the other the whip, and the third
giving good advice. In the shafts stood poor shaggy old Jack,
looking over his blinkers as much as to say, “What do you want me to
do now?”
In this extraordinary fashion we proceeded down the flat for two or three hundred yards, one carrot succeeding the other in Jack’s jaws rapidly. Mr. U—— was just beginning to say “Look here: don’t you think we ought to take turns at this?” when Jack caught sight of a creek right before him. He only knew of one way of crossing such obstacles, and that was to jump them. No one calculated on the sudden rush and high bound into the air with which he triumphantly cleared the water; knocking Mr. U—— over, and scattering his three drivers like summer leaves on the track. As for Alice and me, the inside passengers, we found the sensation of jumping a creek in a dray most unpleasant. All the croquet balls leapt wildly up into the air to fall like a wooden hailstorm around us. The mallets and hoops bruised us from our head to our feet; and the contents of my basket were utterly ruined. Not only had my tea-cups and saucers come together in one grand smash, but the kettle broke the bottle of cream, which in its turn absorbed all the sugar. Jack looked coolly round at us with an air of mild satisfaction, as if he thought he had done something very clever, whilst our shrieks were rending the air.
What a merry, light-hearted time of one’s life was that! We all had to work hard, and our amusements were so simple and Arcadian that I often wonder if they really did amuse us so much as we thought they did at the moment. Let all New Zealanders who doubt this, look into those perhaps closed chapters of their lives, and as memory turns over the leaves one by one, and pictures like the sketches I try to reproduce in pen and ink, grow into distinctness out of the dim past, it will indeed “surprise me very much,” if they do not say, as I do,—my pleasant task ended,—“Ah, those were happy days indeed!”