Chapter IX I am Set at Liberty

Te Huata's triumph—if such it can be called—was brief. So far from reviving the custom of cannibalism, he had dealt its death-blow, and never again did it lift its hideous head in the territory of the Ngatimaniapoto. My father, longsuffering and of infinite patience, was roused now to show how great was the power he had accumulated and so long held in abeyance. North and south, east and west sped his messengers, calling together the heads of the hapus for the appointed day. And at his summons they came, from every village and outpost of the tribe, bringing with them gifts, but carrying also arms in their hands, that due weight might be given to their opinions.

Stormy was the beginning, but calm as an evening sky the end of the meeting. Chief after chief espoused the cause of the trader. For every voice on the other side, a dozen were eager to respond. Item by item, the trader's demands were debated and upheld. White men had deceived them in the past, but this was a man alone. What he said came to pass. In vain Te Huata—curbing his fierce nature with difficulty—painted for them a picture of the Maori race subjected and enslaved. "It is but the beginning," he declared. "Granted the rewards that go with a beginning, what of the end? What of the day when you are in travail with the monster you have so lightly conceived?" They met his images with a dozen page 114as potent. Allowing grounds for uneasiness in the increase of the pakeha population, it was now a thing past remedy. The Maori nation was impossible of combination, and did he desire that the Ngatimaniapoto should alone, of all the tribes, refuse the patent advantages which accrued from the goodwill of the whites? In vain the ariki threatened; they heard him in stony silence. He bethought him of his godly lineage and denounced them, as from the high heavens: they shuddered, but stood firm. And, in the end, he yielded—yielded completely—conceding every privilege my father had claimed, and thus saved himself from that deposition from chieftainship which was otherwise inevitable.

From that hour I date the beginning of the new order and the passing away of the old. Every change in our manner of life—and the changes were far-reaching—was referable to that momentous assembly. In the first place Christianity was accepted as the faith of the tribe; missions were established and schools sprang into being, as mushrooms, in a single night. Very quaint, though full of a fiery enthusiasm, were many of these institutions. Village vied with village in the providing of scholastic advantages. Youths, who had been sent by the more far-sighted of the parents to be trained at outside missions, were hastily recalled and placed at the head of affairs. An unappeasable demand arose for Bibles, for the Maori language in its new and wonderful garb of print, and old men and children, husbands and wives sat daily at the feet of the teacher, imbibing such knowledge as he possessed. Nothing short of the dire necessity for providing tobacco sufficed to cause a gap in the ranks of the pupils. And truly wonderful, all things considered, was the progress they made. Their memories, trained and strengthened by centuries of oral learning, held the new facts gathered by their quick intelligence, and not many years passed page 115before there were scores, even hundreds, who were able to quote the Bible to the frequent discomfiture of their pakeha neighbours.

Another change inaugurated by my father, who himself set the example, was the abandonment of the pa as a place of abode. Even Te Moanaroa could not be brought to see the wisdom of this step. Many years of profound peace had not entirely allayed the old dread of attack. Though Matakiki had gone unscathed, other places within a few days' journey had suffered again and again from raiders, and the Queen's law did not as yet control the actions of the Maoris among themselves Who was to say that when the news of the defencelessness of the new village was spread abroad some ancestral enemy might not see therein his god-given opportunity?

Nevertheless, my father persisted in his design. So far as he was concerned, the heavy labour of transporting goods into the pa should cease. His store should be on the flat above the river, accessible for both land and water carriage, and his customers, to east and west, should no longer be required to carry their flax and produce to the top of a hill, whence it must shortly be recarried to the plain below. To my eyes the new store was an immense and beautiful building, and great and widespread was the interest that attended its erection. Rafts of timber were brought from the vicinity of Auckland, overland to the Waikato, thence up that river and the Waipa to our doors; a journey so prodigious that the emerging of the first raft from the dense shadow of the bush into view of the pa seemed the most romantic event of my life.

Roma heard the decision to vacate our old premises with dismay, and she entered on the possession of her new' and splendid dwelling, with its chairs and tables, its bedsteads and floor-covers and pictures on the walls, with fear and trembling. I do not think she was ever happy page 116there. For months she was continually finding excuses for a return to her old home, and uncounted times one or other of us found her, after an absence sufficiently long to rouse inquiry, sitting by the cold hearth of the dismantled kitchen, or endeavouring to repair the damages of time in its rush walls. Perhaps she lived in the hope that some happy day the Ngapuhi would descend upon us, burn the new mansion, and drive us back on the old abode. At any rate, it was not until the whole place fell into decay, and rain and wind entered at will, that she finally ceased to visit it.

What other change is there to record, before I again take up the thread of my story among scenes very different from those with which I have so far dealt? White men were invading the chief native settlements; almost daily, account reached us of their doings, their land purchases or attempted purchases. Mr. Hall became a frequent visitant, often renewing the subject he had broached on the first day of our acquaintance. It was clear, he said, that God had marked me out for some special destiny; what more likely than that it was His service for which I was intended? My reply was always, as it had been at first, a reference to my foster-father. I believe the attitude of the latter greatly puzzled him. Men who are truly broad-minded in theological matters are by no means common even now, and in those days they were extremely rare. An atheist Mr. Hall had heard of and could properly abhor; but Mr. Huxley had not yet invented agnosticism, and there was no word to denote the mental view of a man who was alternately helpful and indifferent.

However, I was a constant attendant at the mission school, where, in addition to my task of committing to memory chunks of collect and catechism—the same mystical jumble of words that is still, I believe, served up to Sunday-school scholars—I was myself also a teacher. page 117My own schooling at this period began also to occupy more of my time, I had learnt so far—as my father was careful to point out—as a parrot learns; henceforth reason must be brought to bear on the matter. "Memory," said he, "will enable you to pursue a trail; only reason can give you the power of hewing out a fresh one." Of books we had plenty, and new—or, better, old—ones were constantly arriving. Books formed, indeed, my father's one extravagance, and, now I think of it, he was probably induced to change his quarters in the first place by the inordinate accumulation of volumes and the necessity that they should be more suitably housed.

The second summer following the great assembly was scarcely sped ere I lost the comradeship of Rangiora. He had derived his advantage from the new order in a greater measure of freedom. Hardly a day passed but I encountered him somewhere in my rambles, and later on, after I had once induced him to break the ice, he became a frequent visitor at the house. For some time past Puhi-Huia and I had been teaching him English. His memory was perfect and his intelligence keen, but he found the language beset with pitfalls into which he was continually floundering. What a relief it was to me when on our expeditions, after starting with the proviso that no language should be spoken save English, he would break into his own musical tongue, with its wealth of poetic and legendary allusion! But with an increase in opportunity the matter was taken up with thoroughness, and so rapid was his progress that before very long—though his speech for some reason continued full of defects—he could read fluently, and even write with considerable correctness. My father had taken a great fancy to him. The day following the affair described in the last chapter he had sent him by special messenger a fine sporting gun, forwarding also gifts for Tuku-tuku, for, as he said, it was page 118a grievous thing he had been called upon to do against that mother's heart in defence of my life; and now, as the boy began to pay his shy visits, he made him welcome with all the simple kindliness of his nature.

But more pronounced changes were in store for Rangiora. Though Te Huata had yielded to the will of his fellow-tribesmen as concerned the pakeha, he had lost no jot of his belief in the sanctity and wisdom of the ancient customs. Concerning the rearing of an ariki these were of much detail and inflexibility. The direct descendant of the gods was not to be suffered to grow up as any common fellow, with a mere smattering of genealogies picked up at the fireside and such knowledge of practical science as it was necessary every man should know: he must be carefully trained and fitted for the great position he would one day occupy. He must learn and store in his memory, as securely as a book has its subject-matter stored in its pages, the history of the tribe and of all the tribes from the beginning; and as the mouthpiece of the gods, he must be familiar with every nook and corner of the Maori mythology.

We had been looking one day at a number of drawings my father had made of remarkable facial tattooings he had come across in his journeyings, when Rangiora startled us all by saying that he must shortly submit himself to the tattooer. A supreme artist belonging to the Ngatihaua tribe had been requisitioned for the work and would shortly put in an appearance.

"But surely you won't allow it, Rangiora," said I, hotly. "I shall hate to see you transfigured out of all likeness to yourself. Won't you, sir?"

But my father was silent.

"I shall," said Puhi-Huia. "I am never able to recognise any of the boys again after they have been tattoed. Besides, it is very ugly."

I noticed that he seemed to pay more attention to my foster-sister's words than to mine. There was anxiety in his eyes as he looked at her. "I had thought that the wahine¹ took pleasure in it," he urged.

"I should not," said Puhi-Huia.

He sat awhile, wistful reflection in his eyes. "It is a thing that must be," he said at last. "It would be a disgrace to my tribe if their ariki should be as a common fellow with a plain face."

"There you are wrong, Rangiora," said my father, gathering together his drawings. "The tattoo is not a mark of rank, though some of its finest examples may be found on the faces of high chiefs. There are men of descent as good as your own whose faces have not been disfigured by a single line."

He looked incredulous at first, but presently—whether or no some instance in support of my father's statement had occurred to him—he became thoughtful. "Yet the Great One wills it," he said with a sigh at last.

Then my father brought his mind to bear fully upon the matter. "Do you desire to be tattooed?" he asked directly, and, receiving an answer in the negative, bade the boy hold out. "They cannot operate on you against your will," he said. "Speak to your mother and enlist her sympathies. There dozen precedents for refusing, and if there were none it would be a good thing to make one."

Whether he were influenced by my father's encouragement or Puhi-Huia's objection—and on this point she showed what was, for her, surprising resolution—Rangiora took a firm stand, and neither his father's pleadings nor his anger succeeded in shaking him from it. He had gathered together a list, of the great men living and dead whose faces had escaped the scarification of the chisel, and this

¹ Wahine = womenfolk.

page 120was his sole argument. The learning and eloquence of the pa could not affect the unalterable facts on which he relied, however much they might seek by their explanations to minimise their importance. And he had his way.

But the Whare-Kura¹ was another matter. No precedent existed for the avoidance by a high-born youth of the curriculum of this college of mysteries, even if Rangiora had any such desire. He passed into it in the autumn, and not until the recess arrived with the following spring, and he was once more at liberty, did any of us behold him again. A tapu of an awful character clothed him and his fellow-pupils. Secrecy attended their doings, and only from the remarks he occasionally let slip and from other sources was I able to form some idea of his manner of life through the long winter.

Study claimed the night and sleep the day. Priest after priest took up the tale of work, reciting the tribal history and its mythology, and calling on the pupils to commit their lessons to memory. Incantations and spells, the art and practice of makutu or witchcraft, the names and positions of the heavenly bodies, with the times of their appearance and decline, made up the main portion of the syllabus and gave employment to the scholars during the four or five years over which the full course extended. Periodical tests took the place of the examinations of the colleges of civilisation, and weird and even terrible as some of these tests were, they yet contained the germ of an idea remarkable in its sagacity. The young student standing for his examination was not called upon to repeat the lessons he had been taught; they were merely the means to an end. Let him show the real inwardness of his learning by accomplishing something. Then, if he succeeded, it was evident that his teaching had borne fruit. Thus and only thus might he pass into the higher

¹ Whare-Kura = Maori college.

page 121classes and eventually come forth the holder of a degree in the mysteries.

Here then, in charge of the priests, and more especially of Te Atua Mangu, who had come to great honours since the display of his powers recorded in the last chapter, I will for the present leave Rangiora and return to my own affairs.

As, with the passing of the years, I grew in strength and intelligence, there grew up also in my mind a vague unrest and dissatisfaction. No doubt my reading was largely responsible for this, though, as I shall presently show you, the mystery that clouded my parentage had its share. To open the pages of a book, almost irrespective of its subject-matter, was to pass into the great world of which at first hand I knew nothing. Objects familiar to the infant of civilisation were often to me mere words. My mind was a firmament of hazy outlines, sometimes resplendent, sometimes repellent, taking definite form one by one as I encountered some pictorial representation. I looked on civilisation from the outside, dazzled by its glitter, awed by its undercurrent of horrors. Yet the horrors attracted me no less than the delights. The romance of the world was bound up with its wickedness, and it was the romantic for which I thirsted.

It was certainly not with the consent of my will that my father gained a knowledge of my feelings. Absorbed as he seemed to be at every moment of the day, either in his business or his books, it was marvellous how quick he was to conceive and even forestall our desires. He and I were returning one summer's evening from a trip down the river, where a branch store in charge of a white man had lately been established, when, without any kind of prelude, he announced his intention of sending me to Auckland in the winter.

"We must go through a course in manners," he went page 122on, without giving me time to speak. "What books have we? However, it doesn't matter. The root of the thing is in you."

"What is the root, sir?" I asked. Not that I cared, but I feared if I spoke of the greater matter the delight his words had given me would be too evident.

"A kind heart, Cedric. And at the top is a quick intelligence. There also you are fitted. Convention for the sake of convention is an abomination. Insincerity brings all manners, however exquisite their polish, into contempt. If you cannot feel kindness, do not attempt to express it. You may meet the Governor, Captain Grey—or Sir George, as yesterday's post informs us—address him as you do me. He will ask no better."

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

"You will board with my agent, Mr. Brompart. It is his own suggestion. He tells me that there are young ladies in the family, and that they move in the best circles —New Zealand circles. Never take less than the best, Cedric. If you do not think that the best alone is good enough for you, you are a mean-spirited fellow."

"How long shall I be in Auckland, sir?"

"As long as it amuses you—six months, a year, two or three years. You are your own master."

"Am I to work for Mr. Brompart, father?"

"No, no! You will be his guest—his paying guest. Consider that I have struck every chain from you. You are free."

"But, father——"

"Well?"

"It will be a great expense. And how——"

"That is my affair. Such money as you need you will ask Mr. Brompart for. He has my instructions to honour any demand you may make on him."

"Oh, father! Why should you do all this for me?"

"Why?" he echoed, smiling. "Must one have a reason for everything one does?"

"You have taught me to think so, sir," I answered. He burst out laughing at that, and taking the oars from my hands, sent the boat hissing through the calm water.

"You can manage a boat, swim, and wrestle," he said musingly, presently. "Your boxing, however, is deficient and must be attended to. Better learn here than be taught by necessity in Auckland. What else? In scholarship, I doubt not, you will be more than a match for any boy of your age. Yes, and for the majority of your seniors. Figs from thistles," and he chuckled at some idea that occurred to him.

The light was fading as we came in sight of the house, set in its green plantations and young orchard trees, with the river wheeling past and the mass of the pa behind. I could see Puhi-Huia with a watering-can among her rose bushes, and Roma standing in the doorway on the look-out for us. What great news I had to communicate!

My father held me with a word or two till the boat was safely secured. Then we walked up together.

"It is a pleasant spot, Cedric," he said, laying his hand on my shoulder. "With those we love around us, and work and books, one should be happy here. The trees are springing up. In a year or two there will be fruit and shade in abundance. Even now it has a charm in the soft light?"

"Yes, sir," I said soberly.

"And it will increase in beauty. Memory will beautify it." He was silent a moment. "You asked me a question, child. There will be no need to put it again, for I shall answer it once for all. I love you; that is the why and the wherefore."

His hand came against my cheek and I held it there, not trusting myself to make any other kind of reply.

"Well, well," he said gently. "It's a poor-spirited bird that does not wish to try its wings. Heaven forbid that I should say one word to daunt or dissuade you! Only remember that here is your home. Remember it as you see it now.—Well, mother! Here we are, and as hungry as hunters. Come, little huia bird, and set the dishes on the table. Then we will give you our news."