'What do you say to a day or two together at the Nuggets?' asked John Broadbanks one summer's evening. I was just returning from a long round of visitation among the outlying farms, and, driving into Mosgiel in the dusk, met him on his way home to Silverstream. We reined up for a moment to exchange greetings, and he made the suggestion I have just recorded. The prospect was certainly very alluring. We had neither of us been away for some time. There is no wilder or more romantic bit of scenery on the New Zealand coast; and a visit to the stately old lighthouse, perched on its rugged and precipitous cliffs, was always a delightful and bracing experience.

'We will drive down,' he continued, seeing by my hesitation that any resistance on my part would be extremely feeble. 'Sidwell of Balclutha has often urged us to spend a night at his manse. We will break our journey there. We can slip our guns into the spring-cart, and the driving and the shooting will be half the fun of the frolic. And we may have time to explore the coast a bit. I should like to see the reef on which the Queen of the Amazons was wrecked last week, and, if we are lucky enough to strike a low tide, we may be able to scramble on board. Are you on?'

He found me very pliable, as, on such occasions, he usually did; and we spent a memorable week together. On the Sunday, there being no service at the Nuggets, we walked along the wet sands to Port Molyneux, and joined a little group of settlers who met for worship in the schoolhouse. We rested on the beach during the afternoon, and, in the evening, set out to walk to the lighthouse. It was a glorious moonlight night; we could see the rabbits scurrying across the road half a mile ahead. When we reached the crest of that bold promontory on the extremity of which the lighthouse stands, we found ourselves surveying a new stretch of coast. The cliffs at our feet were almost perpendicular, and, far below us, the wild waves breaking madly over her, lay all that was left of the Queen of the Amazons. We spread out a coat on the edge of the cliff, and sat for some time in silent contemplation of this weird and romantic spectacle.

'Well,' I said at last, 'and how did you enjoy the service this morning?'

The moon was shining full upon his face, and I could see at a glance that he was reluctant to reply.

'I was afraid you would ask me that,' he said at length. 'Well, frankly, I was disappointed. It may have been because I was in a holiday mood, or perhaps our long walk on such a lovely morning had unfitted me for thinking on the sadder side of things; but, however that may be, I found the service depressing. It checked the gaiety of my spirit and deadened the exhilaration which I took to it. I went in singing; I came out sighing. I felt somehow, that the preaching was mostly piecrust. Obviously, the fellow was not well, and he allowed his dyspepsia to darken his doctrine. Indigestion was never intended to be an infectious disease; but he made it so by sending us all away suffering from the after-effects of his unwholesome breakfast. I usually jot down a preacher's heads or divisions, but I didn't trouble to make a note of his. It was, firstly, piecrust; and, secondly, piecrust; and, thirdly, piecrust; and piecrust all the way through!'

John was not usually a caustic critic. He saw the best in most of us and magnified it. His outburst that night on the cliff was therefore the more startling and the more memorable. I have quite forgotten what the preacher said at Port Molyneux in the morning; but, as long as I live, I shall remember what John said as we sat in the silvery moonlight that summer's evening, looking down at the great ship being torn to pieces by the waves on the cruel reef just below.