Rain, rain, and more rain, dripping off the sodden trees, soaking the fields, and blotting out the landscape as with a neutral-tinted gauze. The sort of day that we in the land “dove il doce Dorico risuona” designate as “saft.” Enter along the road to me a neighbour of some fifty to sixty years of age, one Mr. Campbell, a little bent, hair faded rather than grey, frosty-faced as we Scotsmen are apt to turn after some half a century of weather, but still a glint of red showing in the cheeks; moustache and whiskers trimmed in the fashion of the later sixties; “tacketed” boots, and clothes, if not impervious to the rain, as little affected by it as is the bark of trees. His hat, once black and of the pattern affected at one time by all Free Church clergymen, now greenish and coal-scuttled fore and aft and at the sides. In his red, chapped, dirty, but grey-mittened hands a shepherd’s stick—long, crooked, and made of hazel-wood.

“It’ll maybe tak’ up, laird.”

“Perhaps.”

“An awfu’ spell o’ it.”

“Yes, disgusting.”“Aye, laird, the climate’s sort o’ seekenin’. I mind when I was in New Zealand in the sixties, aye, wi’ a surveyor, just at the triangulation, ye ken. Man, a grand life, same as the tinklers, here to-day and gane to-morrow, like old Heather Jock. Hoot, never mind your dog, laird, there’s just McClimant’s sheep, puir silly body, I ken his keel-mark. Losh me, a bonny country, just a pairfect pairadise, New Zealand. When I first mind Dunedin it wasna bigger than the clachan there, out by. A braw place noo, I understan’, and a’ the folk fearfu’ took up wi’ horse, driving their four-in-hands, blood cattle, every one of them. There’s men to-day like Jacky Price—he was a Welshmen, I’m thinking—who I mind doing their day’s darg just like mysel’ aboot Dunedin, and noo they send their sons hame to be educated up aboot England.

“When? ’Oo aye, I went oot in the old London wi’ Captin Macpherson. He’d bin the round trip a matter o’ fifteen times, forbye a wee bit jaunt whiles after the ‘blackbirds’ (slaves, ye ken, what we called free endentured labourers) to the New Hebrides. The London, aye, ’oo aye, she foundered in the Bay (Biscay, ye ken) on her return. It’s just a special providence I wasna a passenger myself.

“Why did I leave the country? Eh, laird, ye may say. I would hae made my hame out there, but it was just the old folks threap, threaping on me to come back, I’m telling ye. A bonny toon, Dunedin, biggit on a wee hill just for a’ the wurrld like Gartfarran there, and round the point a wee bit plain just like the Carse o’ Stirling. Four year I wrocht at the surveyin’, maistly triangulation, syne twa at shepherdin’, nane o’ your Australlian fashion tailing them a’ day, but on the hame system gaen’ aboot; man, I mind whiles I didna see anither man in sax weeks’ time.”

“Then you burned bricks, you say?”

“Aye, I didna’ think ye had been so gleg at the Old Book. Aye, aye, laird, plenty of stra’, or maybe it was yon New Zealand flax stalk. The awfiest plant ye ever clapt your eyes on, is yon flax. I mind when I first landed aff the old London—she foundered in the Bay. It was just a speecial interposition . . . but I mind I telt ye. Well, I just was dandering aboot outside the toon, and hettled to pu’ some of yon flax; man, I wasna fit; each leaf is calculated to bear a pressure of aboot a ton. The natives, the Maories, use it to thack their cottages. A bonny place, New Zealand, a pairfect pairadise—six-and-thirty years ago—aye, aye, ’oo aye, just the finest country in God’s airth.

“Het? Na, na, nane so het as here in simmer, a fine, dry air, and a bonny bright blue sky. Dam’t, I mind the diggings opening tae. There were a wheen captins. Na, na, not sea captins, airmy captins, though there were plenty of the sea yins doon in the sooth; just airmy captins who had gone out and ta’en up land; blocked it, ye ken, far as frae here to Stirlin’. Pay for it, aye, aboot a croon the acre, and a wee bit conseederation to the Government surveyor just kept things square. Weel, when the diggins opened, some of them sold out and made a fortune. Awfu’ place thae diggins, I hae paid four shillin’ a pound for salt mysel’, and as for speerits, they were just fair contraband.

“And the weemen. Aye, I mind the time, but ye’ll hae seen the Circassian weemen aboot Africa. Weel, weel, I’m no saying it’s not the case, but folk allow that yon Circassians are the finest weemen upon earth. Whiles I hae seen some tae, at fairs, ye ken, in the bit boothies, but to my mind there’s naething like the Maories, especially the half-casted yins, clean-limbed, nigh on six feet high the maist o’ them. Ye’ll no ken Geordie Telfer, him that was a sojer, he’s got a bit place o’ his ain out by Milngavie. Geordie’s aye bragging, bostin’ aboot weemen that he’s seen in foreign pairts. He just is of opeenion that in Cashmere or thereaboots there is the finest weemen in the warld. Black, na, na, laird, just a wee toned and awfu’ tall, ye ken. Geordie he says that Alexander the Great was up aboot Cashmere and that his sojers, Spartans I think they ca’ed them, just intromitted wi’ the native weemen, took them, perhaps, for concubines, as the Scriptures say; but ye’ll ken sojers, laird; Solomon, tae, an awfu’ chiel yon Solomon. The Maori men were na blate either, a’ ower sax fut high, some nigh on seven fut, sure as death, I’m tellin’ ye. Bonny wrestlers, tae; man, Donald Dinnie got an unco tirl wi’ ane o’ them aboot Dunedin, leastwise if it wasna Dinnie, it was Donald Grant or Donald McKenzie, or ane of they champions frae Easter Ross. Sweir to sell their land tae they chaps, I mind the Government sent out old Sir George Grey, a wise-like man, Sir George, ane o’ they filantrofists. Weel, he just talkit to them, ca’ed them his children, and said that they shouldna resist legeetimate authority. Man, a wee wiry fella’, he was the licht-weight champion wrestler at Tiki-Tiki, just up and said, ‘Aye, aye, Sir George,’ though he wasna gi’en him Sir George, but just some native name they had for him, ‘we’re a’ your children, but no sic children as to gie our land for naething.’ Sir George turnit the colour of a neep, ane o’ yon swedes, ye ken, and said nae mair.”

“How did they manage it?”

“The Government just arranged matters wi’ the chiefs. Bribery, weel a’ weel, I’ll no gae sae far as to impute ony corruption on them, but a Government, a Government, ye ken, is very apt to hae its way.

“Dam’t, ’twas a fine country, a pairfect pairadise. I mind aince going oot with Captin Brigstock, Hell-fire Jock they ca’ed him, after they bushrangers. There was ane Morgan frae Australlia bail’t up a wheen folks, and dam’t, says Captin Brigstock, ye’ll hae to come, Campbell. Shot him, yes, authority must be respected, and the majesty o’ law properly vendeecated, or else things dinna thrive. It was in a wood of gora-gora we came on him about the mouth of day. Morgan, ye ken, was boiling a billy in a sort o’ wee clearin’, his horse tied to a tree close by, when Brigstock and the others came upon him. Brigstock just shouted in the name o’ the law and then let fly. Morgan, he fell across the fire, and when we all came up says he, ‘Hell-fire, ye didna gie me ony chance,’ and the blood spouted from his mouth into the boiling pan.

“Deid, ’oo aye, deid as Rob Roy. I dinna care to mind it. But a fine life, laird, nae slavin’ at the plough, but every ane goin’ aboot on horseback; and the bonny wee bit wooden huts, the folk no fashed wi’ furniture, but sittin’ doon to tak’ their tea upon the floor wi’ their backs against the wall. That’s why they ca’ed them squatters. They talk aboot Australlia and America, but if it hadna been for the old folks I would hae made my hame aboot a place ca’ed Paratanga, and hae taken up with ane o’ they Maori girls, or maybe a half-caste. Married, weel, I widna say I hae gane to such a length. Dam’t, a braw country, laird, a pairfect pairadise, I’m telling ye;” and then the rain grew thicker, and seemed to come between us as he plodded on towards the “toon.”