"I agree with you," Mr. Mitford said. "Two hundred acres is more than you want if you are going to put it under the plough; it is not enough if you are going to raise cattle and horses. I should certainly recommend you to take up another two hundred. The next land on this side is still vacant. Poor Langston chose the spot because it happened to be particularly pretty, with an open glade down to the river, but the land for fully two miles on this side is unoccupied. You can get it at ten shillings an acre at present. I will see about it for you if you make up your mind after seeing Langston's place, to take it."
"Of course I cannot settle it by myself, sir, not absolutely. I can only recommend it to my father as the best place that I have seen. If it is as you describe it they will be delighted."
"Well, we will ride over to-morrow and have a look at it. The only possible objection I have is loneliness; but that will improve in time; the natives here are perfectly peaceful, and we have never had the slightest trouble with them."
"We are a good large party to begin with, you see," Wilfrid said. "Having the two men with us will take away the feeling of loneliness, especially if Mr. Atherton decides upon taking the piece of land next to us. Then there are the two Allens who came out with us. I promised to write and tell them if I found any nice place; and they said particularly that they wanted ground on a river if they could get it, as they are fond of boating and fishing, and fancied that if there were other farms round that they could, until their own place paid, help to keep themselves by taking their neighbours' crops down to market."
"Yes, it might pay if they got a large flat-boat capable of carrying cargo; but as far as light goods, letters, and groceries from town are concerned, the Indians could do it cheaper in their canoes. However, at present there is no market for them to come down to. I keep what I call a grocery store for the benefit of the two or three score of settlers there are on the river. I do not make any profit out of the matter, but each season get a hogshead or two of sugar, a couple of tons of flour, some barrels of molasses, a few chests of tea, and an assortment of odds and ends, such as pickles, &c., with a certain amount of rum and whisky, and sell them at the price they stand me in at. I do not know what they would do without it here. I only open the store on the first Monday of each month, and they then lay in what stores they require, so it gives me very little trouble. I generally take produce in return. My bills run on until they get up to the value of something a customer wants to sell—a horse, or two or three dozen sheep. That suits me just as well as money, as I send a cargo off to Wellington every two or three months.
"In time no doubt a settlement will spring up somewhere near the mouth of the river, and we shall have a trader or two establishing themselves there; but at present I am the purveyor of the district, and manage most of the business of the settlers in the way of buying and selling at Wellington. So, you see, if you establish yourself here you will have no choice but to appoint me your grocer."
Wilfrid laughed. "It will be a great advantage to us to be able to get our things so close at hand. I was wondering how people did in the back settlements."
"They generally send their drays every two or three months down to the nearest store, which may, of course, be fifty miles off, or even more. Here, fortunately, you will not be obliged at first to have a dray, but can send any produce you have to sell down by water, which is a far cheaper and more convenient mode of carriage. You will not have much to send for some time, so that will not trouble you at present."
"Oh, no. We shall be quite content if we can live on the produce of our farm for the next year or two," Wilfrid laughed.
"It is," Mr. Mitford said, "an immense advantage to settlers when they have sufficient funds to carry them on for the first two or three years, because in that case they gain the natural increase of their animals instead of having to sell them off to pay their way. It is wonderful how a flock of sheep or a herd of cattle will increase if there is no selling. You may take it that under favourable circumstances a herd of cattle will nearly double itself every two years, allowing, of course, a large proportion of the bull calves to be sold off as soon as they arrive at maturity. Sheep will increase even faster. If you can do without selling, you will be surprised, if you start with say fifty sheep or ten cows, in how short a time you will have as many animals as your land will carry."
"But what are we to do then, sir?"
"Well, you will then, providing the country has not in the meantime become too thickly settled, pay some small sum to the natives for the right of grazing your cattle on their unoccupied ground. They cultivate a mere fraction of the land. In this way you can keep vastly larger herds than your own ground could carry. However, it is time to be turning in for the night. To-morrow we will start the first thing after breakfast to inspect Langston's land."
When the party assembled at breakfast the next morning, Mr. Atherton's first question was:
"Is there such a thing as a boat or a good-sized canoe to be had, Mr. Mitford? If you had an elephant here I might manage, but as I suppose you do not keep such an animal in your stud I own that I should greatly prefer going by water to running the risk of breaking a horse's back and my own neck. If such a thing cannot be obtained I will get you, if you will, to let me have a native as guide, and I will walk, taking with me some small stock of provisions. I can sleep at this hut of Langston's, for I say frankly that I should not care about doing the distance there and back in one day."
"I have a boat," Mr. Mitford said smiling, "and you shall have a couple of natives to paddle you up. I will give orders for them to be ready directly after breakfast. You will scarcely be there as soon as we are, but you will be there long before we leave. Of course we shall spend some time in going over the ground, and we shall take a boy with us with a luncheon basket, so you will find refreshment awaiting you when you get there."
"That will suit me admirably." Mr. Atherton said. "A boating excursion up an unknown river is just the thing I like—that is, when the boat is a reasonable size. I was once fool enough on the Amazon to allow myself to be persuaded that a canoe at most two feet wide would carry me, and the tortures I suffered during that expedition, wedged in the bottom of that canoe, and holding on to the sides, I shall never forget. The rascally Indians made matters worse by occasionally giving sly lurches to the boat, and being within an ace of capsizing her. I had two days of that work before I got to a village where I could obtain a craft of reasonable size, and I should think I must have lost two stone in weight during the time. You think that that was rather an advantage I can see, Miss Mitford," he broke off, seeing a smile upon the girl's face. "Well, yes, I could spare that and more, but I should prefer that it was abstracted by other means than that of agony of mind; besides, these improvements are not permanent."
After a hearty breakfast the party prepared for their start. Mrs. Mitford had already said that she should not accompany them, the distance being longer than she cared to ride; and four horses were therefore brought round. Mr. Atherton was first seen fairly on his way in a good-sized boat, paddled by two powerful Maoris. Mr. Mitford, his daughters, and Wilfrid then mounted; the lad had already been asked if he was accustomed to riding.
"Not lately," he replied, "but I used to have a pony and rode a good deal when I was a small boy, and I daresay I can stick on."
Wilfrid was delighted with his ride through the forest. In his other trips ashore their way had led through an open country with low scrub bush, and this was his first experience of a New Zealand forest. Ferns were growing everywhere. The tree-ferns, coated with scales, rose from thirty to forty feet in the air. Hymenophylla and polypodia, in extraordinary variety, covered the trunks of the forest trees with luxuriant growth. Smaller ferns grew between the branches and twigs, and a thick growth of ferns of many species extended everywhere over the ground.
The trees were for the most part pines of different varieties, but differing so widely in appearance from those Wilfrid had seen in England, that had not Mr. Mitford assured him that they were really pines he would never have guessed they belonged to that family. Mr. Mitford gave him the native names of many of them. The totara matai were among the largest and most beautiful. The rimu was distinguished by its hanging leaves and branches, the tanekaha by its parsley-shaped leaves. Among them towered up the poplar-shaped rewarewa and the hinau, whose fruit Mr. Mitford said was the favourite food of the parrots.
Among the great forest trees were several belonging to the families of the myrtles and laurels, especially the rata, whose trunk often measured forty feet in circumference, and on whose crown were branches of scarlet blossoms. But it was to the ferns, the orchids, and the innumerable creepers, which covered the ground with a natural netting, coiled round every stem, and entwined themselves among the topmost branches, that the forest owed its peculiar features. Outside the narrow cleared track along which they were riding it would have been impossible for a man to make his way unless with the assistance of knife and hatchet, especially as some of the climbers were completely covered with thorns.
And yet, although so very beautiful, the appearance of the forest was sombre and melancholy. A great proportion of the plants of New Zealand bear no flowers, and except high up among some of the tree-tops no gay blossoms or colour of any kind meet the eye to relieve the monotony of the verdure. A deep silence reigned. Wilfrid did not see a butterfly during his ride, or hear the song or even the chirp of a single bird. It was a wilderness of tangled green, unrelieved by life or colour. Mr. Mitford could give him the names of only a few of the principal trees; and seeing the infinite variety of the foliage around him, Wilfrid no longer wondered Mr. Atherton should have made so long a journey in order to study the botany of the island, which is unique, for although many of the trees and shrubs can be found elsewhere, great numbers are entirely peculiar to the island.
"Are there any snakes?" Wilfrid asked.
"No; you can wander about without fear. There is only one poisonous creature in New Zealand, and that is found north of the port of Tauranga, forty or fifty miles from here. They say it exists only there and round Potaki, near Cook's Strait. It is a small black spider, with a red stripe on its back. The natives all say that its bite is poisonous. It will not, they say, cause death to a healthy person, though it will make him very ill; but there are instances of sickly persons being killed by it. Anyhow, the natives dread it very much. However, as the beast is confined to two small localities, you need not trouble about it. The thorns are the only enemies you have to dread as you make your way through the forest."
"That is a comfort, anyhow," Wilfrid said; "it would be a great nuisance to have to be always on the watch against snakes."
The road they were traversing had been cleared of trees from one settler's holding to another, and they stopped for a few minutes at three or four of the farmhouses. Some of these showed signs of comfort and prosperity, while one or two were mere log cabins.
"I suppose the people here have lately arrived?" Wilfrid remarked as they rode by one of these without stopping.
"They have been here upwards of two years," Mr. Mitford replied; "but the place is not likely to improve were they to be here another ten. They are a thriftless lazy lot, content to raise just sufficient for their actual wants and to pay for whisky. These are the sort of people who bring discredit on the colony by writing home declaring that there is no getting on here, and that a settler's life is worse than a dog's.
"People who come out with an idea that a colony is an easy place to get a living in are completely mistaken. For a man to succeed he must work harder and live harder here than he would do at home. He is up with the sun, and works until it is too dark to work longer. If he employs men he must himself set an example to them. Men will work here for a master who works himself, but one who thinks that he has only to pay his hands and can spend his time in riding about the country making visits, or in sitting quietly by his fire, will find that his hands will soon be as lazy as he is himself. Then the living here is rougher than it is at home for one in the same condition of life. The fare is necessarily monotonous. In hot weather meat will not keep more than a day or two, and a settler cannot afford to kill a sheep every day; therefore he has to depend either upon bacon or tinned meat, and I can tell you that a continuance of such fare palls upon the appetite, and one's meals cease to be a pleasure. But the curse of the country, as of all our colonies, is whisky. I do think the monotony of the food has something to do with it, and that if men could but get greater variety in their fare they would not have the same craving for drink. It is the ruin of thousands. A young fellow who lands here and determines to work hard and to abstain from liquors—I do not mean totally abstain, though if he has any inclination at all towards drink the only safety is total abstinence—is sure to get on and make his way, while the man who gives way to drink is equally certain to remain at the bottom of the tree. Now we are just passing the boundary of the holding you have come to see. You see that piece of bark slashed off the trunk of that tree? That is what we call a blaze, and marks the line of the boundary."
After riding a few minutes further the trees opened, and they found themselves in a glade sloping down to the river. A few acres of land had been ploughed up and put under cultivation. Close by stood the hut, and beyond a grassy sward, broken by a few large trees, stretched down to the river.
"That's the place," Mr. Mitford said, "and a very pretty one it is. Poor young Langston chose his farm specially for that bit of scenery."
"It is pretty," Wilfrid agreed; "I am sure my father and mother will be delighted with it. As you said, it is just like a piece of park land at home."
The hut was strongly built of logs. It was about thirty feet long by twenty wide, and was divided into two rooms; the one furnished as a kitchen and living-room, the other opening from it as a bed-room.
"There is not much furniture in it," Mr. Mitford said; "but what there is is strong and serviceable, and is a good deal better than the generality of things you will find in a new settler's hut. He was getting the things in gradually as he could afford them, so as to have it really comfortably furnished by the time she came out to join him. Of course the place will not be large enough for your party, but you can easily add to it; and at any rate it is vastly better coming to a shanty like this than arriving upon virgin ground and having everything to do."
"I think it is capital," Wilfrid said.
"Now we will take a ride over the ground, and I will show you what that is like. Of course it will give you more trouble clearing away the forest than it would do if you settled upon land without trees upon it. But forest land is generally the best when it is cleared; and I think that to people like your father and mother land like this is much preferable, as in making the clearings, clumps and belts of trees can be left, giving a home-like appearance to the place. Of course upon bare land you can plant trees, but it is a long time before these grow to a sufficient size to give a character to a homestead. Besides, as I told you, there are already several other natural clearings upon the ground, enough to afford grass for quite as many animals as you will probably start with."
After an hour's ride over the holding and the lands adjoining it, which Mr. Mitford advised should be also taken up, they returned to the hut. A shout greeted them as they arrived, and they saw Mr. Atherton walking up from the river towards the hut.
"A charming site for a mansion," he said as they rode up. "Mr. Mitford, I think I shall make you a bid for this on my own account, and so cut out my young friend Wilfrid."
"I am afraid you are too late," Mr. Mitford laughed. "I have already agreed to give him the option of it, keeping it open until we can receive a reply from his father."
"I call that too bad," Mr. Atherton grumbled. "However, I suppose I must move on farther. But really this seems a charming place, and I am sure Mrs. Renshaw will be delighted with it. Why, there must be thirty acres of natural clearing here?"
"About that," Mr. Mitford replied; "and there are two or three other patches which amount to about as much more. The other hundred and forty are bush and forest. The next lot has also some patches of open land, so that altogether out of the four hundred acres there must be about a hundred clear of bush."
"And how about the next lot, Mr. Mitford?"
"I fancy that there is about the same proportion of open land. I have only once been up the river higher than this, but if I remember right there is a sort of low bluff rising forty or fifty feet above the river which would form a capital site for a hut."
"I will set about the work of exploration this afternoon," Mr. Atherton said, "and if the next lot is anything like this I shall be very well contented to settle down upon it for a bit. I have always had a fancy for a sort of Robinson Crusoe life, and I think I can get it here, tempered by the change of an occasional visit to our friends when I get tired of my own company."
The men had by this time brought up the basket of provisions, and the two girls were spreading a cloth on the grass in the shade of a tree at a short distance from the hut, for all agreed that they would rather take their lunch there than in the abode so lately tenanted by young Langston. After the meal was over the party mounted their horses and rode back. One of the natives who had come up from the boat remained with Mr. Atherton, the others started back in the boat, as Mr. Atherton declared himself to be perfectly capable of making the journey on foot when he had finished his explorations. He returned two days later, and said he was quite satisfied with the proposed site for his hut and with the ground and forest.
"I regard myself as only a temporary inhabitant," he said, "and shall be well content if, when I am ready for another move, I can get as much for the ground as I gave for it. In that way I shall have lived rent free and shall have had my enjoyment for nothing, and, I have no doubt, a pleasant time to look back upon."
"Do you never mean to settle down, Mr. Atherton?" Mrs. Mitford asked.
"In the dim future I may do so," he replied. "I have been wandering ever since I left college, some fifteen years ago. I return to London periodically, spend a few weeks and occasionally a few months there, enjoy the comforts of good living and club-life for a bit; then the wandering fit seizes me and I am off again. Nature altogether made a mistake in my case. I ought to have been a thin wiry sort of man, and in that case I have no doubt I should have distinguished myself as an African explorer or something of that sort. Unfortunately she placed my restless spirit in an almost immovable frame of flesh, and the consequence is the circle of my wandering is to a certain extent limited."
"You make yourself out to be much stouter than you are, Mr. Atherton. Of course you are stout, but not altogether out of proportion to your height and width of shoulders. I think you put it on a good deal as an excuse for laziness."
Mr. Atherton laughed. "Perhaps you are right, Mrs. Mitford, though my weight is really a great drawback to my carrying out my views in regard to travel. You see, I am practically debarred from travelling in countries where the only means of locomotion is riding on horses. I could not find animals in any foreign country that would carry me for any distances. I might in England, I grant, find a weight-carrying cob capable of conveying twenty stone along a good road, but I might search all Asia in vain for such a horse, while as for Africa, it would take a dozen natives to carry me in a hammock. No, I suppose I shall go on wandering pretty nearly to the end of the chapter, and shall then settle down in quiet lodgings somewhere in the region of Pall Mall."
Upon the day after his return from the inspection of the farm Wilfrid wrote home to his father describing the location, and saying that he thought it was the very thing to suit them. It would be a fortnight before an answer could be received, and during that time he set to work at Mr. Mitford's place to acquire as much knowledge as possible of the methods of farming in the colony. The answer arrived in due course, and with it came the two Grimstones. Wilfrid had suggested in his letter that if his father decided to take the farm the two men should be sent up at once to assist in adding to the hut and in preparing for their coming, and that they should follow a fortnight later. Mrs. Mitford also wrote, offering them a warm invitation to stay for a time with her until their own place should be ready for their occupation.
Mr. Mitford had an inventory of the furniture of the hut, and this was also sent, in order that such further furniture as was needed might be purchased at Wellington. As soon as the letter was received, inclosing, as it did, a cheque for a hundred pounds, Wilfrid went over with the two Grimstones and took possession. Mr. Mitford, who was the magistrate and land commissioner for the district, drew up the papers of application for the plot of two hundred acres adjoining the farm, and sent it to Wellington for Mr. Renshaw's signature, and said that in the meantime Wilfrid could consider the land as belonging to them, as it would be theirs as soon as the necessary formalities were completed and the money paid.
When Wilfrid started, two natives, whom Mr. Mitford had hired for him, accompanied him, and he also lent him the services of one of his own men, who was a handy carpenter. The Grimstones were delighted with the site of their new home.
"Why, it is like a bit of England, Master Wilfrid! That might very well be the Thames there, and this some gentleman's place near Reading; only the trees are different. When we get up a nice house here, with a garden round it, it will be like home again."
During the voyage the Renshaws had amused themselves by drawing a plan of their proposed house, and although this had to be somewhat modified by the existence of the hut, Wilfrid determined to adhere to it as much as possible. The present kitchen should be the kitchen of the new house, and the room leading from it should be allotted to the Grimstones. Adjoining the kitchen he marked out the plan of the house. It was to consist of a sitting-room twenty feet square; beyond this was Mr. and Mrs. Renshaw's bed-room; while behind it were two rooms, each ten feet square, for himself and Marion. The roof was to project four feet in front of the sitting-room, so as to form a verandah there.
A boat-load of supplies was sent up from Mr. Mitford's stores. These consisted of flour, sugar, tea, molasses, and bacon, together with half a sheep. It was arranged that while the building was going on Wilfrid and the two Grimstones should occupy the bed-room, and that the natives should sleep in the kitchen. The Grimstones had brought with them the bedding and blankets with which they had provided themselves on board ship, while Wilfrid took possession of the bed formerly occupied by the young settler. Mr. Mitford himself came over next morning and gave general instructions as to the best way of setting about the building of the house. He had already advised that it should be of the class known as log-huts.
"They are much cooler," he said, "in the heat of summer than frame-huts, and have the advantage that in the very improbable event of troubles with the natives they are much more defensible. If you like, afterwards, you can easily face them outside and in with match-board and make them as snug as you like; but, to begin with, I should certainly say build with logs. My boy will tell you which trees you had better cut down for the work. It will take you a week to fell, lop, and roughly square them, and this day week I will send over a team of bullocks with a native to drag them up to the spot."
The work was begun at once. Half a dozen axes, some adzes, and other tools had been brought up with the supplies from the stores, and the work of felling commenced.
Wilfrid would not have any trees touched near the hut.
"There are just enough trees about here," he said, "and it would be an awful pity to cut them down merely to save a little labour in hauling. It will not make any great difference whether we have the team for a week or a fortnight."
Wilfrid and the two young Englishmen found chopping very hard work at first, and were perfectly astounded at the rapidity with which the Maoris brought the trees down, each of them felling some eight or ten before the new hands had managed to bring one to the ground.
"I would not have believed it if I had not seen it," Bob, the elder of the two brothers, exclaimed as he stood breathless with the perspiration streaming from his forehead, "that these black chaps could have beaten Englishmen like that! Half a dozen strokes and down topples the tree, while I goes chop, chop, chop, and don't seem to get any nearer to it."
"It will come in time," Wilfrid said. "I suppose there is a knack in it, like everything else. It looks easy enough, but it is not easy if you don't know how to do it. It is like rowing; it looks the easiest thing in the world until you try, and then you find that it is not easy at all."
When work was done for the day Wilfrid and the Grimstones could scarcely walk back to the hut. Their backs felt as if they were broken, their arms and shoulders ached intolerably, their hands smarted as if on fire; while the Maoris, who had each achieved ten times the result, were as brisk and fresh as they were at starting. One of them had left work an hour before the others, and by the time they reached the hut the flat cakes of flour and water known as dampers had been cooked, and a large piece of mutton was frizzling over the fire. Wilfrid and his companions were almost too tired to eat, but they enjoyed the tea, although they missed the milk to which they were accustomed. They were astonished at the Maoris' appetite, the three natives devouring an amount of meat which would have lasted the others for a week.
"No wonder they work well when they can put away such a lot of food as that," Bob Grimstone said, after watching them for some time in silent astonishment. "Bill and me was always considered as being pretty good feeders, but one of these chaps would eat twice as much as the two of us. I should say, Mr. Wilfrid, that in future your best plan will be to let these chaps board themselves. Why, it would be dear to have them without pay if you had to feed them!"
"Mutton is cheap out here," Wilfrid said. "You can get five or six pounds for the price which one would cost you at home; but still, I do not suppose they give them as much meat as they can eat every day. I must ask Mr. Mitford about it."
He afterwards learned that the natives received rations of flour and molasses and tobacco, and that only occasionally salt pork or fresh meat were issued to them. But Mr. Mitford advised that Wilfrid should, as long as they were at this work, let them feed with the men.
"You will get a good deal more out of them if they are well fed and in good humour. When your people arrive the natives will of course have a shanty of their own at some distance from your house, and then you will put things on regular footing and serve out their rations to them weekly. I will give you the scale usually adopted in the colony."
The second day Wilfrid and the Grimstones were so stiff that they could at first scarcely raise their axes. This gradually wore off, and at the end of three or four days they found that they could get through a far greater amount than at first with much less fatigue to themselves; but even on the last day of the week they could do little more than a third of the amount performed by the natives. By this time an ample supply of trees had been felled. The trunks had been cut into suitable lengths and roughly squared. The bullocks arrived from Mr. Mitford's, and as soon as the first logs were brought up to the house the work of building was commenced. The Maori carpenter now took the lead, and under his instructions the walls of the house rose rapidly. The logs were mortised into each other at the corners; openings were left for the doors and windows. These were obtained from Mr. Mitford's store, as they were constantly required by settlers.
At a distance of four feet in front of the house holes were dug and poles erected, and to these the framework of the roof was extended. This point was reached ten days after the commencement of the building, and the same evening a native arrived from Mr. Mitford's with a message that the party from Wellington had arrived there and would come over the next day. He also brought a letter to Wilfrid from the Allens, in answer to one he had written them soon after his arrival, saying that they were so pleased with his description of the district they should come down at once, and, if it turned out as he described it, take up a tract of land in his neighbourhood.
While Wilfrid had been at work he had seen Mr. Atherton several times, as that gentleman had, upon the very day after his first trip up the river, filled up the necessary papers, hired half a dozen natives, and started up the river in a boat freighted with stores to his new location. Wilfrid had not had time to go over to see him there, but he had several times sauntered over from his place, which was half a mile distant, after the day's work was over. He had got up his hut before Wilfrid fairly got to work.
It was, he said, a very modest shanty with but one room, which would serve for all purposes; his cooking being done by a native, for whom he had erected a small shelter twenty yards away from his own.
"I have not quite shaken down yet," he said, "and do not press you to come over to see me until I have got everything into order. I am sure you feel thankful to me that I do not expect you to be tramping over to see me after your long day's work here. By the time your people arrive I shall have everything in order. I am expecting the things I have written for and my own heavy baggage in a few days from Wellington."
Glad as he was to hear that his father and mother had arrived, Wilfrid would have preferred that their coming should have been delayed until the house was finished and ready for them, and after his first greeting at the water side he said: "You must not be disappointed, mother, at what you will see. Now everything is in confusion, and the ground is covered with logs and chips. It looked much prettier, I can assure you, when I first saw it, and it will do so again when we have finished and cleared up."
"We will make all allowances, Wilfrid," his mother replied as he helped her from the boat; "but I do not see that any allowance is necessary. This is indeed a sweetly pretty spot, and looks as you said like a park at home. If the trees had been planted with a special view to effect they could not have been better placed."
"You have done excellently, Wilfrid," his father said, putting his hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Mitford here has been telling me how energetically you have been working, and I see that the house has made wonderful progress."
Marion had, after the first greeting, leapt lightly from the boat and run up to the house, towards which the others proceeded at a more leisurely pace, stopping often and looking round at the pleasant prospect. Marion was full of questions to Wilfrid when they arrived. Why were the walls made so thick? How were they going to stop up the crevices between the logs? Where were the windows and doors coming from? What was the roof going to be made of? Was there going to be a floor, or was the ground inside going to be raised to the level of the door-sill? When did he expect to get it finished, and when would they be ready to come in? Couldn't they get some creepers to run up and hide these ugly logs? Was it to be painted or to remain as it was?
Wilfrid answered all these questions as well as he was able. There was to be a floor over all the new portion of the building; Mr. Mitford was getting up the requisite number of planks from a saw-mill at the next settlement. The crevices were to be stopped with moss. It would be for their father to decide whether the logs should be covered with match-boarding inside or out, or whether they should be left as they were for the present. It would probably take another fortnight to finish the roof, and at least a week beyond that before the place would be fit for them to move in.
"You see, Marion, I have built it very much on the plan we decided upon on board the ship, only I was obliged to make a change in the position of the kitchen and men's room. The two Grimstones are going to set to work to-morrow to dig up a portion of the ploughed land behind the house and sow vegetable seeds. Things grow very fast here, and we shall soon get a kitchen-garden. As to flowers, we shall leave that to be decided when you come here."
"I wish I could come over and live here at once and help," Marion said.
"There is nothing you can help in at present, Marion, and it will be much more useful for you to spend a month in learning things at Mr. Mitford's. You undertook to do the cooking; and I am sure that will be quite necessary, for father and mother could never eat the food our Maori cook turns out. And then you have got to learn to make butter and cheese and to cure bacon. That is a most important point, for we must certainly keep pigs and cure our own as Mr. Mitford does, for the stuff they have got at most of the places we touched at was almost uneatable. So, you see, there is plenty to occupy your time until you move in here, and our comfort will depend a vast deal upon the pains you take to learn to do things properly."
"What are you going to roof it with, Wilfrid?" Mr. Renshaw asked.
"We are going to use these poles, father. They will be split in two and nailed with the flat side down on the rafters, and the shingles are going to be nailed on them. That will give a good solid roof that will keep out a good deal of heat. Afterwards if we like we can put beams across the room from wall to wall and plank them, and turn the space above into a storeroom. Of course that will make the house cooler and the rooms more comfortable, but as it was not absolutely necessary I thought it might be left for a while."
"I think, Wilfrid, I should like to have the rooms done with boards inside at once. The outside and the ceiling you speak of can very well wait, but it will be impossible to get the rooms to look at all neat and tidy with these rough logs for walls."
"It certainly will be more comfortable," Wilfrid agreed. "Mr. Mitford will get the match-boards for you. I will measure up the walls this evening and let you know how much will be required. And now shall we take a walk round the place?" The whole party spent a couple of hours in going over the property, with which Mr. and Mrs. Renshaw were greatly pleased. Luncheon had been brought up in the boat, and by the time they returned from their walk Mrs. Mitford and her daughters, who had not accompanied them, had lunch ready and spread out on the grass. The meal was a merry one. Mr. Renshaw was in high spirits at finding things so much more home-like and comfortable than he had expected. His wife was not only pleased for herself, but still more so at seeing that her husband evinced a willingness to look at matters in the best light, and to enter upon the life before him without regret over the past.
"What are you going to call the place, Mr. Renshaw?" Mrs. Mitford asked. "That is always an important point."
"I have not thought about it," Mr. Renshaw replied. "What do you think?"
"Oh, there are lots of suitable names," she replied, looking round. "We might call it Riverside or The Park or The Glade."
"I think The Glade would be very pretty," Marion said; "Riverside would suit so many places."
"I like The Glade too," Mrs. Renshaw said. "Have you thought of anything, Wilfrid?"
"No, mother, I have never given it a thought. I think The Glade will do nicely." And so it was settled, and success to The Glade was thereupon formally drunk in cups of tea.
A month later the Renshaws took possession of their new abode. It looked very neat with its verandah in front of the central portion, and the creepers which Wilfrid had planted against the walls on the day after their visit, promised speedily to cover the logs of which the house was built. Inside the flooring had been planed, stained a deep brown and varnished, while the match-boarding which covered the walls was stained a light colour and also varnished. The furniture, which had arrived the day before from Hawke's Bay was somewhat scanty, but Wilfrid and Marion, who had come over for the purpose, had made the most of it. A square of carpet and some rugs gave a cosy appearance to the floor, white curtains hung before the windows and a few favourite pictures and engravings, which they had brought with them from home, broke the bareness of the walls. Altogether it was a very pretty and snug little abode of which Mr. and Mrs. Renshaw took possession.
The next three months made a great change in the appearance of The Glade. Three or four plots of gay flowers cut in the grass between the house and the river gave a brightness to its appearance. The house was now covered as far as the roof with greenery, and might well have been mistaken for a rustic bungalow standing in pretty grounds on the banks of the Thames. Behind, a large kitchen-garden was in full bearing. It was surrounded by wire network to keep out the chickens, ducks, and geese, which wandered about and picked up a living as they chose, returning at night to the long low shed erected for them at some distance from the house, receiving a plentiful meal on their arrival to prevent them from lapsing into an altogether wild condition.
Forty acres of land had been reploughed and sown, and the crops had already made considerable progress. In the more distant clearings a dozen horses, twenty or thirty cows, and a small flock of a hundred sheep grazed, while some distance up the glade in which the house stood was the pig-sty, whose occupants were fed with refuse from the garden, picking up, however, the larger portion of their living by rooting in the woods.
Long before Mr. and Mrs. Renshaw moved into the house, Wilfrid, whose labours were now less severe, had paid his first visit to Mr. Atherton's hut. He was at once astonished and delighted with it. It contained indeed but the one room, sixteen feet square, but that room had been made one of the most comfortable dens possible. There was no flooring, but the ground had been beaten until it was as hard as baked clay, and was almost covered with rugs and sheep-skins; a sort of divan ran round three sides of it, and this was also cushioned with skins. The log walls were covered with cow-hides cured with the hair on, and from hooks and brackets hung rifles, fishing-rods, and other articles, while horns and other trophies of the chase were fixed to the walls.
While the Renshaws had contented themselves with stoves, Mr. Atherton had gone to the expense and trouble of having a great open fireplace, with a brick chimney outside the wall. Here, even on the hottest day, two or three logs burnt upon old-fashioned iron dogs. On the wall above was a sort of trophy of oriental weapons. Two very large and comfortable easy chairs stood by the side of the hearth, and in the centre of the room stood an old oak table, richly carved and black with age. A book-case of similar age and make, with its shelves well filled with standard works, stood against the one wall unoccupied by the divan.
Wilfrid stood still with astonishment as he looked in at the door, which Mr. Atherton had himself opened in response to his knock.
"Come in, Wilfrid. As I told you yesterday evening I have just got things a little straight and comfortable."
"I should think you had got them comfortable," Wilfrid said. "I should not have thought that a log cabin could have been made as pretty as this Why, where did you get all the things? Surely you can never have brought them all with you?"
"No, indeed," Mr. Atherton laughed; "the greatest portion of them are products of the country. There was no difficulty in purchasing the skins, the arms, and those sets of horns and trophies. Books and a few other things I brought with me. I have a theory that people very often make themselves uncomfortable merely to effect the saving of a pound or two. Now, I rather like making myself snug, and the carriage of all those things did not add above five pounds to my expenses."
"But surely that table and book-case were never made in New Zealand?"
"Certainly not, Wilfrid. At the time they were made the natives of this country hunted the Moa in happy ignorance of the existence of a white race. No, I regard my getting possession of those things as a special stroke of good luck. I was wandering in the streets of Wellington on the very day after my arrival, when I saw them in a shop. No doubt they had been brought out by some well-to-do emigrant, who clung to them in remembrance of his home in the old country. Probably at his death his place came into the hands of some Goths, who preferred a clean deal table to what he considered old-fashioned things. Anyhow, there they were in the shop, and I bought them at once; as also those arm-chairs, which are as comfortable as anything of the kind I have ever tried. By the way, are you a good shot with the rifle, Wilfrid?"
"No, sir; I never fired a rifle in my life before I left England, nor a shot-gun either."
"Then I think you would do well to practise, lad; and those two men of yours should practise too. You never can say what may come of these native disturbances; the rumours of the progress of this new religion among them are not encouraging. It is quite true that the natives on this side of the island have hitherto been perfectly peaceable, but if they get inoculated with this new religious frenzy there is no saying what may happen. I will speak to your father about it. Not in a way to alarm him; but I will point out that it is of no use your having brought out firearms if none of you know how to use them, and suggest that it will be a good thing if you and the men were to make a point of firing a dozen shots every morning at a mark. I shall add that he himself might just as well do so, and that even the ladies might find it an amusement, using, of course, a light rifle, or firing from a rest with an ordinary rifle with light charges, or that they might practice with revolvers. Anyhow, it is certainly desirable that you and your father and the men should learn to be good shots with these weapons. I will gladly come over at first and act as musketry instructor."
Wilfrid embraced the idea eagerly, and Mr. Atherton on the occasion of his first visit to The Glade in a casual sort of way remarked to Mr. Renshaw that he thought every white man and woman in the outlying colonies ought to be able to use firearms, as, although they might never be called upon to use them in earnest, the knowledge that they could do so with effect would greatly add to their feeling of security and comfort. Mr. Renshaw at once took up the idea and accepted the other's offer to act as instructor. Accordingly, as soon as the Renshaws were established upon their farm, it became one of the standing rules of the place that Wilfrid and the two men should fire twelve shots at a mark every morning before starting for their regular work at the farm.
The target was a figure roughly cut out of wood, representing the size and to some extent the outline of a man's figure.
"It is much better to accustom yourself to fire at a mark of this kind than to practise always at a target," Mr. Atherton said. "A man may shoot wonderfully well at a black mark in the centre of a white square, and yet make very poor practice at a human figure with its dull shades of colour and irregular outline."
"But we shall not be able to tell where our bullets hit," Wilfrid said; "especially after the dummy has been hit a good many times."
"It is not very material where you hit a man, Wilfrid, so that you do hit him. If a man gets a heavy bullet, whether in an arm, a leg, or the body, there is no more fight in him. You can tell by the sound of the bullet if you hit the figure, and if you hit him you have done what you want to. You do not need to practise at distances over three hundred yards; that is quite the outside range at which you would ever want to do any shooting, indeed from fifty to two hundred I consider the useful distance to practise at. If you get to shoot so well that you can with certainty hit a man between those ranges, you may feel pretty comfortable in your mind that you can beat off any attack that might be made on a house you are defending.
"When you have learnt to do this at the full-size figure you can put it in a bush so that only the head and shoulders are visible, as would be those of a native standing up to fire. All this white target-work is very well for shooting for prizes, but if troops were trained to fire at dummy figures at from fifty to two hundred yards distance, and allowed plenty of ammunition for practice and kept steadily at it, you would see that a single company would be more than a match for a whole regiment trained as our soldiers are."
With steady practice every morning, Wilfrid and the two young men made very rapid progress, and at the end of three months it was very seldom that a bullet was thrown away. Sometimes Mr. Renshaw joined them in their practice, but he more often fired a few shots some time during the day with Marion, who became quite an enthusiast in the exercise. Mrs. Renshaw declined to practise, and said that she was content to remain a non-combatant, and would undertake the work of binding up wounds and loading muskets. On Saturday afternoons, when the men left off work somewhat earlier than usual, there was always shooting for small prizes. Twelve shots were fired by each at a figure placed in the bushes a hundred yards away, with only the head and shoulders visible. After each had fired, the shot-holes were counted and then filled up with mud, so that the next marks made were easily distinguishable.
Mr. Renshaw was uniformly last. The Grimstones and Marion generally ran each other very close, each putting eight or nine of their bullets into the figure. Wilfrid was always handicapped two shots, but as he generally put the whole of his ten bullets into the mark, he was in the majority of cases the victor. The shooting party was sometimes swelled by the presence of Mr. Atherton and the two Allens, who had arrived a fortnight after the Renshaws, and had taken up the section of land next below them. Mr. Atherton was incomparably the best shot of the party. Wilfrid, indeed, seldom missed, but he took careful and steady aim at the object, while Mr. Atherton fired apparently without waiting to take aim at all. Sometimes he would not even lift his gun to his shoulder, but would fire from his side, or standing with his back to the mark would turn round and fire instantaneously.
"That sort of thing is only attained by long practice," he would say in answer to Wilfrid's exclamations of astonishment. "You see, I have been shooting in different parts of the world and at different sorts of game for some fifteen years, and in many cases quick shooting is of just as much importance as straight shooting."
But it was with the revolver that Mr. Atherton most surprised his friends. He could put six bullets into half a sheet of note-paper at a distance of fifty yards, firing with such rapidity that the weapon was emptied in two or three seconds.
"I learned that," he said, "among the cow-boys in the West. Some of them are perfectly marvellous shots. It is their sole amusement, and they spend no inconsiderable portion of their pay on cartridges. It seems to become an instinct with them, however small the object at which they fire they are almost certain to hit it. It is a common thing with them for one man to throw an empty meat-tin into the air and for another to put six bullets in before it touches the ground. So certain are they of their own and each others' aim, that one will hold a halfpenny between his finger and thumb for another to fire at from a distance of twenty yards, and it is a common joke for one to knock another's pipe out of his mouth when he is quietly smoking.
"As you see, though my shooting seems to you wonderful, I should be considered quite a poor shot among the cow-boys. Of course, with incessant practice such as they have I should shoot a good deal better than I do; but I could never approach their perfection, for the simple reason that I have not the strength of wrist. They pass their lives in riding half-broken horses, and incessant exercise and hard work harden them until their muscles are like steel, and they scarcely feel what to an ordinary man is a sharp wrench from the recoil of a heavily-loaded Colt."
Life was in every way pleasant at The Glade. The work of breaking up the land went on steadily, but the labour, though hard, was not excessive. In the evening the Allens or Mr. Atherton frequently dropped in, and occasionally Mr. Mitford and his daughters rode over, or the party came up in the boat. The expense of living was small. They had an ample supply of potatoes and other vegetables from their garden, of eggs from their poultry, and of milk, butter, and cheese from their cows. While salt meat was the staple of their food, it was varied occasionally by chicken, ducks, or a goose, while a sheep now and then afforded a week's supply of fresh meat.
Mr. Renshaw had not altogether abandoned his original idea. He had already learnt something of the Maori language from his studies on the voyage, and he rapidly acquired a facility of speaking it from his conversations with the two natives permanently employed on the farm. One of these was a man of some forty years old named Wetini, the other was a lad of sixteen, his son, whose name was Whakapanakai, but as this name was voted altogether too long for conversational purposes he was re-christened Jack.
Wetini spoke but a few words of English, but Jack, who had been educated at one of the mission schools, spoke it fluently. They, with Wetini's wife, inhabited a small hut situated at the edge of the wood, at a distance of about two hundred yards from the house. It was Mr. Renshaw's custom to stroll over there of an evening, and seating himself by the fire, which however hot the weather the natives always kept burning, he would converse with Wetini upon the manners and customs, the religious beliefs and ceremonies, of his people.
In these conversations Jack at first acted as interpreter, but it was not many weeks before Mr. Renshaw gained such proficiency in the tongue that such assistance was no longer needed.
But the period of peace and tranquillity at The Glade was but a short one. Wilfrid learnt from Jack, who had attached himself specially to him, that there were reports among the natives that the prophet Te Ua was sending out missionaries all over the island. This statement was true. Te Ua had sent out four sub-prophets with orders to travel among the tribes and inform them that Te Ua had been appointed by an angel as a prophet, that he was to found a new religion to be called Pai Marire, and that legions of angels waited the time when, all the tribes having been converted, a general rising would take place, and the Pakeha be annihilated by the assistance of these angels, after which a knowledge of all languages and of all the arts and sciences would be bestowed upon the Pai Marire.
Had Te Ua's instructions been carried out, and his agents travelled quietly among the tribes, carefully abstaining from all open hostility to the whites until the whole of the native population had been converted, the rising when it came would have been a terrible one, and might have ended in the whole of the white population being either destroyed or forced for a time to abandon the island. Fortunately the sub-prophets were men of ferocious character. Too impatient to await the appointed time, they attacked the settlers as soon as they collected sufficient converts to do so, and so they brought about the destruction of their leaders' plans.
These attacks put the colonists on their guard, enabled the authorities to collect troops and stand on the defensive, and, what was still more important, caused many of the tribes which had not been converted to the Pai Marire faith to range themselves on the side of the English. Not because they loved the whites, but because from time immemorial the tribes had been divided against each other, and their traditional hostility weighed more with them than their jealousy with the white settlers.
Still, although these rumours as to the spread of the Pai Marire or Hau-Hau faith reached the ears of the settlers, there were few in the western provinces who believed that there was any real danger. The Maoris had always been peaceful and friendly with them, and they could not believe that those with whom they had dwelt so long could suddenly and without any reason become bloodthirsty enemies.
Wilfrid said nothing to his parents as to what he had heard from Jack, but he talked it over with Mr. Atherton and the Allens. The latter were disposed to make light of it, but Mr. Atherton took the matter seriously.
"There is never any saying how things will go with the natives," he said. "All savages seem to be alike. Up to a certain point they are intelligent and sensible; but they are like children; they are easily excited, superstitious in the extreme, and can be deceived without the slightest difficulty by designing people. Of course to us this story of Te Ua's sounds absolutely absurd, but that is no reason why it should appear absurd to them. These people have embraced a sort of Christianity, and they have read of miracles of all sorts, and will have no more difficulty in believing that the angels could destroy all the Europeans in their island than that the Assyrian army was miraculously destroyed before Jerusalem.
"Without taking too much account of the business, I think, Wilfrid, that it will be just as well if all of us in these outlying settlements take a certain amount of precautions. I shall write down at once to my agent at Hawke Bay asking him to buy me a couple of dogs and send them up by the next ship. I shall tell him that it does not matter what sort of dogs they are so that they are good watch-dogs, though, of course, I should prefer that they should be decent dogs of their sort, dogs one could make companions of. I should advise you to do the same.
"I shall ask Mr. Mitford to get me up at once a heavy door and shutters for the window strong enough to stand an assault. Here again I should advise you to do the same. You can assign any reason you like to your father. With a couple of dogs to give the alarm, with a strong door and shutters, you need not be afraid of being taken by surprise, and it is only a surprise that you have in the first place to fear. Of course if there were to be anything like a general rising we should all have to gather at some central spot agreed upon, or else to quit the settlement altogether until matters settle down. Still, I trust that nothing of that sort will take place. At any rate, all we have to fear and prepare against at present is an attack by small parties of fanatics."
Wilfrid had no difficulty in persuading his father to order a strong oak door and shutters for the windows, and to get a couple of dogs. He began the subject by saying: "Mr. Atherton is going to get some strong shutters to his window, father. I think it would be a good thing if we were to get the same for our windows."
"What do we want shutters for, Wilfrid?"
"For just the same reason that we have been learning to use our firearms, father. We do not suppose that the natives, who are all friendly with us, are going to turn treacherous. Still, as there is a bare possibility of such a thing, we have taken some pains in learning to shoot straight. In the same way it would be just as well to have strong shutters put up. We don't at all suppose we are going to be attacked, but if we are the shutters would be invaluable, and would effectually prevent anything like a night surprise. The expense wouldn't be great, and in the unlikely event of the natives being troublesome in this part of this island we should all sleep much more soundly and comfortably if we knew that there was no fear of our being taken by surprise. Mr. Atherton is sending for a couple of dogs too. I have always thought that it would be jolly to have a dog or two here, and if we do not want them as guards they would be pleasant as companions when one is going about the place."
A few days after the arrival of two large watch-dogs and of the heavy shutters and door, Mr. Mitford rode in to The Glade. He chatted for a few minutes on ordinary subjects, and then Mrs. Renshaw said: "Is anything the matter, Mr. Mitford? you look more serious than usual."
"I can hardly say that anything is exactly the matter, Mrs. Renshaw; but I had a batch of newspapers and letters from Wellington this morning, and they give rather stirring news. The Hau-Haus have come into collision with us again. You know that a fortnight since we had news that they had attacked a party of our men under Captain Lloyd and defeated them, and, contrary to all native traditions, had cut off the heads of the slain, among whom was Captain Lloyd himself. I was afraid that after this we should soon hear more of them, and my opinion has been completely justified. On the 1st of May two hundred of the Ngataiwa tribe, and three hundred other natives under Te Ua's prophet Hepanaia and Parengi-Kingi of Taranaki, attacked a strong fort on Sentry Hill, garrisoned by fifty men of the 52d Regiment under Major Short.
"The Ngataiwa took no part in the action, but the Hau-Haus charged with great bravery. The garrison, fortunately being warned by their yells of what was coming, received them with such a heavy fire that their leading ranks were swept away, and they fell back in confusion. They made a second charge, which was equally unsuccessful, and then fell back with a loss of fifty-two killed, among whom were both the Hau-Hau prophet and Parengi-Kingi.
"The other affair has taken place in the Wellington district. Matene, another of the Hau-Hau prophets, came down to Pipiriki, a tribe of the Wanganui. These people were bitterly hostile to us, as they had taken part in some of the former fighting, and their chief and thirty-six of his men were killed. The tribe at once accepted the new faith. Mr. Booth, the resident magistrate, who was greatly respected among them, went up to try to smooth matters down, but was seized, and would have been put to death if it had not been for the interference in his favour of a young chief named Hori Patene, who managed to get him and his wife and children safely down in a canoe to the town of Wanganui. The Hau-Haus prepared to move down the river to attack the town, and sent word to the Ngatihau branch of the tribe who lived down the river to join them. They and two other of the Wanganui tribes living on the lower part of the river refused to do so, and also refused to let them pass down the river, and sent a challenge for a regular battle to take place on the island of Moutoa in the river.
"The challenge was accepted. At dawn on the following morning our natives, three hundred and fifty strong, proceeded to the appointed ground. A hundred picked men crossed on to the island, and the rest remained on the banks as spectators. Of the hundred, fifty, divided into three parties each under a chief, formed the advance guard, while the other fifty remained in reserve at the end of the island two hundred yards away, and too far to be of much use in the event of the advance guard being defeated. The enemy's party were a hundred and thirty strong, and it is difficult to understand why a larger body was not sent over to the island to oppose them, especially as the belief in the invulnerability of the Hau-Haus was generally believed in, even by the natives opposed to them.
"It was a curious fight, quite in the manner of the traditional warfare between the various tribes before our arrival on the island. The lower tribesmen fought, not for the defence of the town, for they were not very friendly with the Europeans, having been strong supporters of the king party, but simply for the prestige of the tribe. No hostile war party had ever forced the river, and none ever should do so. The Hau-Haus came down the river in their canoes and landed without opposition. Then a party of the Wanganui advance guard fired. Although the Hau-Haus were but thirty yards distant none of them fell, and their return volley killed the chiefs of two out of the three sections of the advance guard and many others.
"Disheartened by the loss of their chiefs, the two sections gave way, shouting that the Hau-Haus were invulnerable. The third section, well led by their chief, held their ground, but were driven slowly back by the overwhelming force of the enemy. The battle appeared to be lost, when Tamehana, the sub-chief of one of the flying sections, after vainly trying to rally his men, arrived on the ground, and, refusing to obey the order to take cover from the Hau-Haus' fire, dashed at the enemy and killed two of them with his double-barrelled gun. The last of the three leaders was at this moment shot dead. Nearly all his men were more or less severely wounded, but as the Hau-Haus rushed forward they fired a volley into them at close quarters, killing several. But they still came on, when Tamehana again rushed at them. Seizing the spear of a dead man he drove it into the heart of a Hau-Hau. Catching up the gun and tomahawk of the fallen man, he drove the latter so deeply into the head of another foe that in wrenching it out the handle was broken. Finding that the gun was unloaded, he dashed it in the face of his foes, and snatching up another he was about to fire, when a bullet struck him in the arm. Nevertheless he fired and killed his man, but the next moment was brought to the ground by a bullet that shattered his knee.
"At this moment Hainoma, who commanded the reserve, came up with them, with the fugitives whom he had succeeded in rallying. They fired a volley, and then charged down upon the Hau-Haus with their tomahawks. After a desperate fight the enemy were driven in confusion to the upper end of the island, where they rushed into the water and attempted to swim to the right bank. The prophet was recognized among the swimmers. One of the Wanganui plunged in after him, overtook him just as he reached the opposite bank, and in spite of the prophet uttering the magic words that should have paralysed his assailant, killed him with his tomahawk and swam back with the body to Hainoma."
"They seem to have been two serious affairs," Mr. Renshaw said; "but as the Hau-Haus were defeated in each we may hope that we have heard the last of them, for as both the prophets were killed the belief in the invulnerability of Te Ua's followers must be at an end."
"I wish I could think so," Mr. Mitford said; "but it is terribly hard to kill a superstition. Te Ua will of course say that the two prophets disobeyed his positive instructions and thus brought their fate upon themselves, and the incident may therefore rather strengthen than decrease his influence. The best part of the business in my mind is that some of the tribes have thrown in their lot on our side, or if not actually on our side at any rate against the Hau-Haus. After this we need hardly fear any general action of the natives against us. There are all sorts of obscure alliances between the tribes arising from marriages, or from their having fought on the same side in some far-back struggle. The result is that the tribes who have these alliances with the Wanganui will henceforth range themselves on the same side, or will at any rate hold aloof from this Pai Marire movement. This will also force other tribes, who might have been willing to join in a general movement, to stand neutral, and I think now, that although we may have a great deal of trouble with Te Ua's followers, we may regard any absolute danger to the European population of the island as past.
"There may, I fear, be isolated massacres, for the Hau-Haus, with their cutting off of heads and carrying them about, have introduced an entirely new and savage feature into Maori warfare. I was inclined to think the precautions you and Atherton are taking were rather superfluous, but after this I shall certainly adopt them myself. Everything is perfectly quiet here, but when we see how readily a whole tribe embrace the new religion as soon as a prophet arrives, and are ready at once to massacre a man who had long dwelt among them, and for whom they had always evinced the greatest respect and liking, it is impossible any longer to feel confident that the natives in this part of the country are to be relied upon as absolutely friendly and trustworthy.
"I am sorry now that I have been to some extent the means of inducing you all to settle here. At the time I gave my advice things seemed settling down at the other end of the island, and this Hau-Hau movement reached us only as a vague rumour, and seemed so absurd in itself that one attached no importance to it."
"Pray do not blame yourself, Mr. Mitford; whatever comes of it we are delighted with the choice we have made. We are vastly more comfortable than we had expected to be in so short a time, and things look promising far beyond our expectations. As you say, you could have had no reason to suppose that this absurd movement was going to lead to such serious consequences. Indeed you could have no ground for supposing that it was likely to cause trouble on this side of the island, far removed as we are from the scene of the troubles. Even now these are in fact confined to the district where fighting has been going on for the last three or four years—Taranaki and its neighbourhood; for the Wanganui River, although it flows into the sea in the north of the Wellington district, rises in that of Taranaki, and the tribes who became Hau-Haus and came down the river had already taken part in the fighting with our troops. I really see no reason, therefore, for fearing that it will spread in this direction."
"There is no reason whatever," Mr. Mitford agreed; "only, unfortunately, the natives seldom behave as we expect them to do, and generally act precisely as we expect they will not act. At any rate I shall set to work at once to construct a strong stockade at the back of my house. I have long been talking of forming a large cattle-yard there, so that it will not in any case be labour thrown away, while if trouble should come it will serve as a rallying-place to which all the settlers of the district can drive in their horses and cattle for shelter, and where they can if attacked hold their own against all the natives of the districts."
"I really think you are looking at it in almost too serious a light, Mr. Mitford; still, the fact that there is such a rallying-place in the neighbourhood will of course add to our comfort in case we should hear alarming rumours."
"Quite so, Mr. Renshaw. My idea is there is nothing like being prepared, and though I agree with you that there is little chance of trouble in this remote settlement, it is just as well to take precautions against the worst."