Chapter XL.

We had our choice of landing at Oamaru in surf or whale boats (Oamaru boasts a fine serviceable breakwater now, and the old inconveniences are done away with). I chose a surf boat, and walked from it to the shore on two shaky planks that sent me up first on one foot, then on the other, in a manner at once uncomfortable and ridiculous. Our Basso went with the last load of passengers in a whale boat, and was, I am happy to say, capsized and washed up with the others by the surf. I was sorry for his fellow-sufferers, but, as Our Tenor afterwards remarked, they could expect no better fate with such a Jonah as Our Basso on board. Our Pianist declined to go ashore at all in that risky manner, so we had to wait till she fainted, and then two stalwart seamen got her safely landed by the surf boat.

I suppose the captain of that steamer had some knowledge of, and faith in Oamaru as a show-patronising place, for he nobly stood guarantee for us at a lodging-house which, in common with all the hotels, at first declined to accommodate us without page 261payment in advance. I am glad to say that his kindness resulted in no loss to him. He had an order, as I have mentioned, entitling him to all our first receipts, and after he had quite recouped himself there was still a fair surplus for division amongst us at the close of our first performance.

Oamaru is a charming little town, built chiefly of white stone obtained from its own quarries. It nestles like a fair white maiden in the bosom of a protecting half-circle of hills, and it is gradually creeping up the emerald slopes, and away over the summits, until presently it will be no longer a maiden, but a handsome expanded and expanding matron, with a large family of pretty suburbs.

Oamaru has no native bush, but it is beautified with many plantations of young gums, which, straight and wonderfully tall for their age, give promise of forest-like luxuriance in the future. These trees are planted so densely that one wonders what will happen when they are all old and big. It will be a case of the 'survival of the fittest' again, I suppose. The strong ones will kill the weak ones, and themselves wax stronger and handsomer on the death and decay they have caused.

Dear old Eucalyptus! How an old Australian's heart warms up at sight of thee, whether thou art in the spring of thy bright slim sapling-hood, with a soft blue bloom over all thy foliage, or advanced to thy knotty, gnarled, and warty old manhood, with sparse and sombre leaves, and weird, dead, naked limbs. Young or old, at home or abroad, thou wilt ever be my dearest friend among trees, because thou wert my first and best. It is difficult to say whether Oamaru has its prettiest aspect from the hills overlooking the breakwater, or from the points of the range extending in the other direction. From either one may behold the long undulating stretch of shingly beach, with the spray of surf making varying rainbow tints throughout its entire length; the bay, a glittering lake of azure in calm weather, a foam-flecked, tempestuous, fascinating sea in times of storm, the little white city in its dark green frame, the shimmering hills and valleys in the middle distance, the snow-clad Southern Alps forming a dazzling distant background to the whole.

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We walked out to the quarries near Maheno one day and saw the beautiful white stone lying in a huge, smooth, level block beneath a stratum of earth not more than two feet deep. The workmen simply removed the earth and sawed the stone, as they might saw wood, into square smooth blocks all ready for use. It is a pity that this pretty building material does not wear better. When it leaves the quarry it looks almost too pure a thing for common use, but after a little exposure it becomes, unless put through some special preserving process, a greenish-yellow in tint, and unpleasantly suggestive of damp. One Oamaru resident told us that it had a special faculty for absorbing moisture, and that a house of it could scarcely be considered waterproof unless the stone had been previously prepared.

Once having accepted us temporary sojourners beneath his roof, our host laid himself out to please. He took us warmly into his confidence about lodging-house keeping, said it was an art, and showed us all over his establishment. He also told us that he had come over from Melbourne to Oamaru, and that he had brought with him no fewer than thirty pairs of trousers. Probably he thought trousers were unknown in New Zealand. We said among ourselves that if the pair he then wore were a sample of the rest, we would devoutly pray that a conflagration or other catastrophe might occur in time to prevent the other twenty-nine pairs from afflicting the vision of sensitive suffering humanity.

The dining-table in that house was a permanently gorgeous spectacle. The landlord dressed it once or twice a week, as ladies in ancient times used to dress their hair, with a view to making one dressing last a long time. There were two wines, one champagne, two different-coloured claret glasses, and one tumbler to each knife and fork. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, always that same ghastly display of glass. Then there were old-fashioned finger-glasses containing the fantastically shaped napkins, and down the middle of the table huge vases filled with artificial flowers and immortelles. It was awfully imposing, and made us feel humble all the time. On the first evening at dinner, our host, officiating as waiter, came behind my chair, page 263and with his hand to his mouth, trumpet-wise, informed me in a stage whisper that 'them,' pointing to two long-legged animals on the centre dish, 'them was game uns.'

'I beg pardon?' said I.

'Game uns,' said he; 'I've been saving 'em up for the table this three months.'

Judging from the flavour, I believed him; believed he had been saving them dead, too. Also that he had been saving their food for a long time before they had died. They were the leanest, toughest roosters it was ever my lot to try my teeth upon. Getting high had not affected them as the process generally affects game—it had not made them tender. It seemed a pity to destroy such splendid muscle and sinew by mastication, so I passed that dish and filled up with vegetables and bread and cheese. I noticed that all the Itinerant Show did likewise.

An hour after this repast we opened business to a densely packed house, our friend, the captain, seated conspicuously in the front row, and wearing an air of triumphant proprietorship, to which he had every right. Honesty was not the most rampant virtue of the Itinerant Show, but we really did derive hearty satisfaction from the knowledge that that captain would be amply repaid the coin he had laid out to us.

Everyone played his and her best that night, and when the show was over and surplus receipts fairly divided, we climbed the hill to our lodgings with light feet and easy minds. The moon, or rather half of her, was rising from the ocean, and straight from herself to the shore ran a rippling ribbon of silver light, in the midst of which a tiny white-sailed craft rose and fell with every throb of the sea. The waves broke on the shingly beach with a ceaseless boom; a soft breeze brought a sweet salt odour to our nostrils; the cry of a sea bird came faintly to our ears.

Our Violinist and I found the night too entrancing to be spent indoors, so we walked over to the cliff on the southern beach and passed an hour or two in happy appreciation of the loveliness surrounding us. And Tempest sang for me two page 264verses from Gordon's poem 'The Swimmer,' set to some strange haunting melody:

'I would that with sleepy soft embraces
The sea would enfold me—would find me rest
In luminous shades of her secret places,
In depths where her marvels are manifest;
So the earth beneath her should not discover
My hidden couch,—nor the heaven above her—
As a strong love shielding a weary lover,
I wouid have her shield me with shining breast.

'O brave white horses! you gather and gallop,
The storm-sprite loosens the gusty reins;
Now the stoutest ship were the frailest shallop
In your hollow backs and your high-arched manes.
I would ride, as never a man hath ridden
In your sleepy swirling surges hidden,
To gulfs foreshadow'd through straits forbidden,
Where no light wearies and no love wanes.'