  Produced by Al Haines. [image] Cover [image] THE OLD CHIEF. Page [image] Pre-title page DOING AND DARING A New Zealand Story BY ELEANOR STREDDER Author of "Lost in the Wilds," "The Merchant's Children," "Who counts his brother's welfare As sacred as his own, And loves, forgives, and pities, He serveth Me alone. I note each gracious purpose, Each kindly word and deed; Are ye not all my children! Shall not the Father heed?" WHITTIER. T. NELSON AND SONS Contents
DOING AND DARING. CHAPTER I. IN THE MOUNTAIN GORGE. It was a glorious autumn day, when the New Zealand bush was at its loveliest—as enchanting as if it truly were the fairy ground of the Southern Ocean; yet so unlike every European forest that weariness seemed banished by its ceaseless variety. Here the intertwining branches of majestic trees, with leaves of varied hue, shut out the sky, and seemed to roof the summer road which wound its devious track towards the hills; there a rich fern-clad valley, from which the murmuring sound of falling water broke like music on the ear. Onwards still a little farther, and an overgrown creek, gently wandering between steep banks of rich dark fern and graceful palm, came suddenly out of the greenwood into an open space, bounded by a wall of rock, rent by a darkling chasm, where the waters of the creek, tumbling over boulder stone and fallen tree, broadened to a rushing river. Along its verge the road continued, a mere wheel-track cut in the rock, making it a perilous crossing, as the driver of the weekly mail knew full well. His heavy, lumbering coach was making its way towards it at that moment, floundering through the two feet deep of mud which New Zealanders call a bush road. The five poor horses could only walk, and found that hard work, while the passengers had enough to do to keep their seats. Fortunately the coach was already lightened of a part of its load, some fares with which it started having reached their destination at the last stopping-place. The seven remaining consisted of a rough, jolly-looking, good-humoured fellow, bound for the surveyors' camp among the hills; an old identity, as New Zealanders call a colonist who has been so long resident in the land of his adoption that he has completely identified himself with it; and a newly-arrived settler with his four children, journeying to take possession of a government allotment in the Waikato district. With the first two passengers long familiarity with the discomforts of bush travelling had grown to indifference; but to Mr. Lee and his family the experience was a trying one, as the coach swayed heavily to this side and that, backwards and forwards, up and down, like a boat on a rough sea. More than once Mr. Lee's little girls were precipitated into the arms of their vis-À-vis, or bumped backwards with such violence a breakage seemed inevitable; but which would suffer the most, the coach or its passengers, was an open question. Any English-made vehicle with springs must have been smashed to pieces; but the New Zealand mail had been constructed to suit the exigencies of the country. With its frame of iron and sides of leather, it could resist an amount of wear and tear perfectly incredible to Mr. Lee. He sat with an arm round each of his daughters, vainly trying to keep them erect in their places. Their two brothers bobbed recklessly from corner to corner, thinking nothing of the bruises in their ever-increasing merriment when the edge of Erne's broad-brimmed straw hat went dash into the navvy's eyes, or Audrey's gray dust-cloak got entangled in the buckles of the old identity's travelling-bag. Audrey, with a due regard for the proprieties, began a blushing apology. "My dear child," exclaimed the portly old gentleman, "you speak as if I did not know you could not help it." The words were scarcely uttered, when the whole weight of his sixteen stone went crushing on to little Cuthbert, who emerged from the jolly squeeze with a battered hat and an altogether flattened appearance. Then came an unexpected breathing-space. The coachman stopped to leave a parcel at the roadman's hut, nestling beneath the shelter of the rocks by the entrance of the gorge. New Zealand roads are under the care of the government, who station men at intervals all along their route to keep them in order. The special duty of this individual was to see that no other traffic entered the gorge when the coach was passing through it. Whilst he exchanged greetings with the coachman, the poor passengers with one accord gave a stretch and a yawn as they drew themselves into a more comfortable position. On again with renewed jolts between the towering walls of rock, with a rush of water by their side drowning the rumble of the wheels. The view was grand beyond description, but no rail or fence protected the edge of the stream. Mr. Lee was leaning out of the window, watching anxiously the narrow foot of road between them and destruction, when, with a sudden lurch, over went the coach to the other side. "A wheel off," groaned the old identity, as he knocked heads with the navvy, and became painfully conscious of a struggling heap of arms and legs encumbering his feet. [image] AN AWKWARD PLIGHT. Audrey clung to the door-handle, and felt herself slowly elevating. Mr. Lee, with one arm resting on the window-frame, contrived to hang on. As the coach lodged against the wall of rock, he scrambled out. Happily the window owned no glass, and the leathern blind was up. The driver was flung from his seat, and the horses were kicking. His first thought was to seize the reins, for fear the frightened five should drag them over the brink. The shaft-horse was down, but as the driver tumbled to his feet, he cut the harness to set the others free; earnestly exhorting the passengers to keep where they were until he could extricate his horses. But Edwin, the eldest boy, had already followed the example of his father. He had wriggled himself out of the window, and was dropping to the ground down the back of the coach, which completely blocked the narrow road. His father and the coachman both shouted to him to fetch the roadman to their help. It was not far to the hut at the entrance of the gorge, and the boy, who had been reckoned a first-rate scout on the cricket-field, ran off with the speed of a hare. The navvy's stentorian "coo"—the recognized call for assistance—was echoing along the rocky wall as he went. The roadman had heard it, and had left his dinner to listen. He saw the panting boy, and came to meet him. "Coach upset," gasped Edwin. "Here, lad, take my post till I come back; let nobody come this way. I'll be up with poor coachee in no time. Anybody hurt?" But without waiting for a reply the man set off. Edwin sank into the bed of fern that clustered round the opening of the chasm, feeling as if all the breath had been shaken out of him. There he sat looking queer for an hour or more, hearing nothing, seeing nothing but the dancing leaves, the swaying boughs, the ripple of the waters. Only once a big brown rat came out of the underwood and looked at him. The absence of all animal life in the forest struck him: even the birds sing only in the most retired recesses. An ever-increasing army of sand-flies were doing their utmost to drive him from his position. Unable at last to endure their stings, he sprang up, trying to rid himself of his tormentors by a shake and a dance, when he perceived a solitary horseman coming towards him, not by the coach-road, but straight across the open glade. The man was standing in his stirrups, and seemed to guide his horse by a gentle shake of the rein. On he rode straight as an arrow, making nothing of the many impediments in his path. Edwin saw him dash across the creek, plunge through the all but impenetrable tangle of a wild flax-bush, whose tough and fibrous leaves were nine feet long at least, leap over a giant boulder some storm had hurled from the rocks above, and rein in his steed with easy grace at the door of the roadman's shanty. Then Edwin noticed that the man, whose perfect command of his horse had already won his boyish admiration, had a big mouth and a dusky skin, that his cheeks were furrowed with wavy lines encircling each other. IN THE MOUNTAIN GORGE. 15 "A living tattoo," thought Edwin. The sight of those curiously drawn lines was enough to proclaim a native. Some Maori chief, the boy was inclined to believe by his good English-made saddle. The tall black hat he wore might have been imported from Bond Street at the beginning of the season, barring the sea-bird's feathers stuck upright in the band. His legs were bare. A striped Austrian blanket was thrown over one shoulder and carefully draped about him. A snowy shirt sleeve was rolled back from the dusky arm he had raised to attract Edwin's attention. A striped silk scarf, which might have belonged to some English lady, was loosely knotted round his neck, with the ends flying behind him. A scarlet coat, which had lost its sleeves, completed his grotesque appearance. "Goo'-mornin'," he shouted. "Coach gone by yet?" "The coach is upset on that narrow road," answered Edwin, pointing to the ravine, "and no one can pass this way." "Smashed?" asked the stranger in tolerable English, brushing away the ever-ready tears of the Maori as he sprang to the ground, expecting to find the treasure he had commissioned the coachman to purchase for him was already broken into a thousand pieces. Then Edwin remembered the coachman had left a parcel at the hut as they passed; and they both went inside to look for it. They found it laid on the bed at the back of the hut—a large, flat parcel, two feet square. The address was printed on it in letters half-an-inch high: "Nga-HepÉ, Rota Pah." "That's me!" cried the stranger, the tears of apprehension changing into bursts of joyous laughter as he seized it lovingly, and seemed to consider for a moment how he was to carry it away. A shadow passed over his face; some sudden recollection changed his purpose. He laid his hand persuasively on Edwin's shoulder, saying, "HepÉ too rich, Nga-HepÉ too rich; the rana will come. Hide it, keep it safe till Nga-HepÉ comes again to fetch it." Edwin explained why he was waiting there. He had only scrambled out of the fallen coach to call the roadman, and would soon be gone. "You pakeha [white man] fresh from Ingarangi land? you Lee?" exclaimed the Maori, taking a letter from the breast-pocket of his sleeveless coat, as Edwin's surprised "Yes" confirmed his conjecture. The boy took the letter from him, and recognized at once the bold black hand of a friend of his father's whose house was to be their next halting-place. The letter was addressed to Mr. Lee, to be left in the care of the coachman. Meanwhile, the roadman had reached the scene of the overturn just as the navvy had succeeded in getting the door of the coach open. Audrey and Effie were hoisted from the arms of one rough man to another, and seated on a ledge of rock a few feet from the ground, where Mr. Lee, who was still busy with the horses, could see the torn gray cloak and waving handkerchief hastening to assure him they were unhurt. Poor little Cuthbert was crying on the ground. His nose was bleeding from a blow received from one of the numerous packages which had flown out from unseen corners in the suddenness of the shock. "Mr. Bowen," said the navvy, "now is your turn." But to extricate the stout old gentleman, who had somehow lamed himself in the general fall, was a far more difficult matter. The driver, who scarcely expected to get through a journey without some disaster, was a host in himself. He got hold of the despairing traveller by one arm, the roadman grasped the other, assuring him, in contradiction to his many assertions, that his climbing days were not all over; the navvy gave a leg up from within, and in spite of slips and bruises they had him seated on the bank at last, puffing and panting from the exertion. "Now, old chap," added the roadman, with rough hospitality, "take these poor children back to my hut; and have a rest, and make yourself at home with such tucker as you can find, while we get the coach righted." "We will all come down and help you with the tucker when our work is done," laughed the navvy, as the three set to their task with a will, and began to heave up the coach with cautious care. The many ejaculatory remarks which reached the ears of Audrey and Mr. Bowen filled them with dismay. "Have a care, or she'll be over into the water," said one. "No, she won't," retorted another; "but who on earth can fix this wheel on again so that it will keep? Look here, the iron has snapped underneath. What is to be done?" "We have not far to go," put in the coachman. "I'll make it hold that distance, you'll see." A wild-flax bush was never far to seek. A few of its tough, fibrous leaves supplied him with excellent rope of nature's own making. Mr. Bowen watched the trio binding up the splintered axle, and tying back the iron frame-work of the coach, where it had snapped, with a rough and ready skill which seemed to promise success. Still he foresaw some hours would go over the attempt, and even then it might end in failure. He was too much hurt to offer them any assistance, but he called to Cuthbert to find him a stick from the many bushes and trees springing out of every crack and crevice in the rocky sides of the gorge, that he might take the children to the roadman's hut. They arrived just as Nga-HepÉ was shouting a "Goo'-mornin'" to Edwin. In fact, the Maori had jumped on his horse, and was cantering off, when Mr. Bowen stopped him with the question,— "Any of your people about here with a canoe? I'll pay them well to row me through this gorge," he added. "The coach is so broken," said Audrey aside to her brother, "we are afraid they cannot mend it safely." "Never mind," returned Edwin cheerily; "we cannot be far from Mr. Hirpington's. This man has brought a letter from him. Where is father?" "Taking care of the horses; and we cannot get at him," she replied. Mr. Bowen heard what they were saying, and caught at the good news—not far from Hirpington's, where the Lees were to stop. "How far?" he turned to the Maori. "Not an hour's ride from the Rota Pah, or lake village, where the Maori lived." The quickest way to reach the ford, he asserted, was to take a short cut through the bush, as he had done. Mr. Bowen thought he would rather by far trust himself to native guidance than enter the coach again. But there were no more horses to be had, for the coachman's team was out of reach, as the broken-down vehicle still blocked the path. Nga-HepÉ promised, as soon as he got to his home, to row down stream and fetch them all to Mr. Hirpington's in his canoe. Meanwhile, Edwin had rushed off to his father with the letter. It was to tell Mr. Lee the heavy luggage he had sent on by packet had been brought up from the coast all right. "You could get a ride behind Hirpington's messenger," said the men to Edwin, "and beg him to come to our help." The Maori readily assented. They were soon ascending the hilly steep and winding through a leafy labyrinth of shadowy arcades, where ferns and creepers trailed their luxuriant foliage over rotting tree trunks. Deeper and deeper they went into the hoary, silent bush, where song of bird or ring of axe is listened for in vain. All was still, as if under a spell. Edwin looked up with something akin to awe at the giant height of mossy pines, or peered into secluded nooks where the sun-shafts darted fitfully over vivid shades of glossy green, revealing exquisite forms of unimagined ferns, "wasting their sweetness on the desert air." Amid his native fastnesses the Maori grew eloquent, pointing out each conical hill, where his forefathers had raised the wall and dug the ditch. Over every trace of these ancient fortifications Maori tradition had its fearsome story to repeat. Here was the awful war-feast of the victor; there an unyielding handful were cut to pieces by the foe. How Edwin listened, catching something of the eager glow of his excited companion, looking every inch—as he knew himself to be—the lord of the soil, the last surviving son of the mighty HepÉ, whose name had struck terror from shore to shore. As the Maori turned in his saddle, and darted suspicious glances from side to side, it seemed to Edwin some expectation of a lurking danger was rousing the warrior spirit within him. They had gained the highest ridge of the wall of rock, and before them gloomed a dark descent. Its craggy sides were riven and disrupted, where cone and chasm told the same startling story, that here, in the forgotten long ago, the lava had poured its stream of molten fire through rending rocks and heaving craters. But now a maddened river was hissing and boiling along the channels they had hollowed. It was leaping, with fierce, impatient swoop, over a blackened mass of downfallen rock, scooping for itself a caldron, from which, with redoubled hiss and roar, it darted headlong, rolling over on itself, and then, as if in weariness, spreading and broadening to the kiss of the sun, until it slept like a tranquil lake in the heart of the hills. For the droughts of summer had broadened the muddy reaches, which now seemed to surround the giant boulders until they almost spanned the junction. Where the stream left the basin a mass of huge logs chained together, forming what New Zealanders call a "boom," was cast across it, waiting for the winter floods to help them to start once more on their downward swim to the broader waters of the Waikato, of which this shrunken stream would then become a tributary. On the banks of the lake, or rota—to give it the Maori name—Edwin looked down upon the high-peaked roofs of a native village nestling behind its protecting wall. As the wind drove back the light vapoury cloudlets which hovered over the huts and whares (as the better class of Maori dwellings are styled), Edwin saw a wooden bridge spanning the running ditch which guarded the entrance. His ears were deafened by a strange sound, as if hoarsely echoing fog-horns were answering each other from the limestone cliffs, when a cart-load of burly natives crossed their path. As the wheels rattled over the primitive drawbridge, a noisy greeting was shouted out to the advancing horseman—a greeting which seemed comprised in a single word the English boy instinctively construed "Beware." But the warning, if it were a warning, ended in a hearty laugh, which made itself heard above the shrill whistling from the jets of steam, sputtering and spouting from every fissure in the rocky path Nga-HepÉ was descending, until another blast from those mysterious fog-horns drowned every other noise. With a creepy sense of fear he would have been loath to own, Edwin looked ahead for some sign of the ford which was his destination; for he knew that his father's friend, Mr. Hirpington, held the onerous post of ford-master under the English Government in that weird, wild land of wonder, the hill-country of the north New Zealand isle. CHAPTER II. THE WHARE BY THE LAKE. A deep fellow-feeling for his wild, high-spirited guide was growing in Edwin's mind as they rode onward. Nga-HepÉ glanced over his shoulder more than once to satisfy himself as to the effect the Maori's warning had had upon his young companion. Edwin returned the hasty inspection with a look of careless coolness, as he said to himself, "Whatever this means, I have nothing to do with it." Not a word was spoken, but the flash of indignant scorn in Nga-HepÉ's brilliant eyes told Edwin that he was setting it at defiance. On he spurred towards the weather-beaten walls, which had braved so many a mountain gale. A faint, curling column of steamy vapour was rising from the hot waters which fed the moat, and wafted towards them a most unpleasant smell of sulphur, which Edwin was ready to denounce as odious. To the Maori it was dear as native air: better than the breath of sweet-brier and roses. Beyond the bridge Edwin could see a pathway made of shells, as white and glistening as if it were a road of porcelain. It led to the central whare, the council-hall of the tribe and the home of its chief. Through the light haze of steam which veiled everything Edwin could distinguish its carved front, and the tall post beside it, ending in a kind of figure-head with gaping mouth, and a blood-red tongue hanging out of it like a weary dog's. This was the flagstaff. The cart had stopped beside it, and its recent occupants were now seated on the steps of the whare, laughing over the big letters of a printed poster which they were exhibiting to their companions. "Nothing very alarming in that," thought Edwin, as Nga-HepÉ gave his bridle-rein a haughty shake and entered the village. He threaded his way between the huts of mat and reeds, and the wood-built whares, each in its little garden. Here and there great bunches of home-grown tobacco were drying under a little roof of thatch; behind another hut a dead pig was hanging; a little further on, a group of naked children were tumbling about and bathing in a steaming pool; beside another tent-shaped hut there was a huge pile of potatoes, while a rush basket of fish lay by many a whare door. In this grotesque and novel scene Edwin almost forgot his errand, and half believed he had misunderstood the hint of danger, as he watched the native women cooking white-bait over a hole in the ground, and saw the hot springs shooting up into the air, hissing and boiling in so strange a fashion the English boy was fairly dazed. Almost all the women were smoking, and many of them managed to keep a baby riding on their backs as they turned their fish or gossiped with their neighbours. Edwin could not take his eyes off the sputtering mud-holes doing duty as kitchen fires until they drew near to the tattooed groups of burly men waiting for their supper on the steps of the central whare. Then many a dusky brow was lifted, and more than one cautionary glance was bestowed upon his companion, whilst others saw him pass them with a scowl. Nga-HepÉ met it with a laugh. A Maori scorns to lose his temper, come what may. As he leaped the steaming ditch and left the village by a gap in the decaying wall, he turned to Edwin, observing, with a pride which bordered on satisfaction: "The son of HepÉ is known by all men to be rich and powerful, therefore the chief has spoken against him." "Much you care for the chief," retorted Edwin. "I am not of his tribe," answered Nga-HepÉ. "I come of the Ureweras, the noblest and purest of our race. Our dead men rest upon the sacred hills where the Maori chiefs lie buried. When a child of HepÉ dies," he went on, pointing to the mountain range, "the thunder rolls and the lightning flashes along those giant hills, that all men may know his hour has come. No matter where the HepÉ lay concealed, men always knew when danger threatened him. They always said such and such a chief is dying, because the thunder and lightning are in such a place. Look up! the sky is calm and still. The hills are silent; Mount Tarawera rears its threefold crest above them all in its own majestic grandeur. Well, I know no real danger menaces me to-night." "I trust you are right, Nga-HepÉ, but—" began Edwin quickly. The Maori turned his head away; he could admit no "buts," and the English boy made vain endeavours to argue the question. A noisy, boisterous jabbering arose from the village as the crowd outside the grand whare hailed the decision of the elders holding council within. Dogs, pigs, and boys added their voices to the general acclamation, and drowned Edwin's so completely he gave up in despair; and after all he thought, "Can any one wonder at Nga-HepÉ clinging to the old superstitions of his race? In the wild grandeur of a spot like this it seems in keeping." So he said no more. They crossed the broken ground. Before them gleamed the waters of the lake, upon whose bank Nga-HepÉ's house was standing—the old ancestral whare, the dwelling-place of the HepÉs generation after generation. Its well-thatched roof was higher than any of the roofs in the pah, and more pointed. The wood of which this whare was built was carved into idol figures and grinning monsters, now black and shining with excessive age. The garden around it was better cultivated, and the ample store of roots and grain in the smaller whare behind it told of the wealth of its owner. Horses and pigs were snorting and squealing beneath the hoary trees, overshadowing the mud-hole and the geyser spring, by which the Maori loves to make his home. The canoe was riding on the lake, the lovely lake, as clear and blue as the sky it mirrored. The sight of it recalled Edwin to his purpose, and he once more questioned Nga-HepÉ as to the whereabouts of the ford. "Enter and eat," said the Maori, alighting at his low-browed door. The gable end of the roof projected over it like a porch, and Edwin paused under its shadow to take in the unfamiliar surroundings. Beneath the broad eaves huge bundles of native flax and tobacco were drying. In the centre of the long room within there was a blazing fire of crackling wood. But its cheerful welcome seemed to contend with a sense of desertion which pervaded the place. Nga-HepÉ called in vain for his accustomed attendant to take his horse. No one answered his summons. He shouted; no answer. The wooden walls of the neighbouring pah faintly echoed back his words. All his men were gone. He muttered something in his own tongue, which Edwin could not understand, as he led the way into the long room. In so grand a whare this room was divided into separate stalls, like a well-built stable. An abundance of native mats strewed the floor. The Maori's eyes fell upon the corner where his greenstone club, the treasured heirloom of many generations, leaned against an English rifle, and on the boar's tusks fixed in the wall at intervals, where his spears and fishing-rods were ranged in order. By their side hung a curious medley of English apparel. The sweeping feathers of a broad felt hat drooped above a gaudy table-cloth, which by its many creases seemed to have done duty on the person of its owner. Edwin's merriment was excited by the number of scent-bottles, the beautiful cut-glass carafe, and many other expensive articles suspended about the room—all bearing a silent testimony to the wealth of which Nga-HepÉ had spoken. Two happy-looking children, each wearing a brightly-coloured handkerchief folded across their tiny shoulders in true Maori fashion, were grinding at a barrel-organ. One fat little knee served as a pillow for a tangle of rough black hair, which a closer inspection showed him was the head of a sleeping boy. Nga-HepÉ's wife, wearing a cloak of flowered silk, with a baby slung in a shawl at her back, and a short pipe in her mouth, met him with soft words of pleading remonstrance which Edwin could not understand. Her husband patted her fondly on the arm, touched the baby's laughing lips, and seated himself on the floor by the fire, inviting Edwin to join him. The sleeping boy gave a great yawn, and starting to his feet, seemed to add his entreaties to his mother's. He held a book in his hand—a geography, with coloured maps—which he had evidently been studying; but he dropped it in despair, as his father only called for his supper. "Help us to persuade him," he whispered to Edwin in English; "he may listen to a pakeha. Tell him it is better to go away." "Why?" asked Edwin. "Why!" repeated the boy excitedly; "because the chief is threatening him with a muru. He will send a band of men to eat up all the food, and carry off everything we have that can be carried away; but they will only come when father is at home." "A bag of talk!" interrupted Nga-HepÉ. "Shall it be said the son of the warrior sneaks off and hides himself at the first threat?" "But," urged Edwin, "you promised to row back for Mr. Bowen." "Yes, and I will. I will eat, and then I go," persisted Nga-HepÉ, as his wife stamped impatiently. Two or three women ran in with the supper which they had been cooking in a smaller whare in the background. They placed the large dishes on the floor: native potatoes—more resembling yams in their sweetness than their English namesakes—boiled thistles, and the ancient Maori delicacy, salted shark. They all began to eat, taking the potatoes in their hands, when a wild cry rang through the air—a cry to strike terror to any heart. It was the first note of the Maori war-song, caught up and repeated by a dozen powerful voices, until it became a deafening yell. HepÉ's wife tore frantically at her long dark hair. The Maori rose to his feet with an inborn dignity, and grasped the greenstone club, taking pride in the prestige of such a punishment. Turning to Edwin he said: "When the ferns are on fire the sparks fall far and wide. Take the horse—it is yours; I give it to you. It is the last gift I shall have it in my power to make for many a day to come. There lies your path through the bush; once on the open road again the ford-house will be in sight, and Whero shall be your guide. Tell the old pakeha the canoe is mine no more." The woman snatched up the children and rushed away with them, uttering a wailing cry. Edwin knew he had no alternative, but he did not like the feeling of running away in the moment of peril. "Can't I help you, though I am only a boy?" he asked. "Yes," answered HepÉ's wife, as she almost pushed him out of the door in her desperation; "take this." She lifted up a heavy bag from the corner of the whare, and put it into his hands. Whero had untied the horse, and was pointing to the distant pah, from which the yells proceeded. A band of armed men, brandishing clubs and spears, were leading off the war-dance. Their numbers were swelling. The word of fear went round from lip to lip, "The tana is coming!" The tana is the band of armed men sent by the chief to carry out this act of savage despotism. They had been on the watch for Nga-HepÉ. They had seen him riding through the pah. All hope of getting him out of the way was over. Father and mother joined in the last despairing desire to send off Whero, their little lord and first-born, of whom the Maoris make so much, and treat with so much deference. They never dreamed of ordering him to go. A freeborn Maori brooks no control even in childhood. But their earnest entreaties prevailed. He got up before Edwin. He would not ride behind him, not he, to save his life. He yielded for the sake of the horse he loved so well. He thought he might get it back from the young pakeha, but who could wrest it from the grasp of the tana? Perhaps Nga-HepÉ shared the hope. The noble horse was dear to father and son. "Oh, I am so sorry for you!" said Edwin as he guessed the truth; "and so will father be, I'm sure." He stopped in sudden silence as another terrific yell echoed back by lake and tree. He felt the good horse quiver as they plunged into the safe shelter of the bush, leaving HepÉ leaning on his club on the threshold of his whare. Edwin's first care now was to get to Mr. Hirpington's as fast as he could. But his desire to press on met with no sympathy from his companion, who knew not how to leave the spot until his father's fate was decided. He had backed the horse into the darkest shadow of the trees, and here he wanted to lie in ambush and watch; for the advancing warriors were surrounding the devoted whare, and the shrieking women were flying from it into the bush. How could Edwin stop him when Whero would turn back to meet his mother? The rendezvous of the fugitives was a tall karaka tree—a forest king rearing its giant stem full seventy feet above the mossy turf. A climbing plant, ablaze with scarlet flowers, had wreathed itself among the branches, and hung in long festoons which swept the ground. The panting women flung themselves down, and dropped their heavy burdens at its root; for all had snatched up the nearest thing which came to hand as they ran out. One had wrapped the child she carried in a fishing-net; another drew from beneath the folds of the English counterpane she was wearing the long knife that had been lying on the floor by the dish of shark; while Whero's mother, shaking her wealth of uncombed hair about her like a natural veil, concealed in her arms a ponderous axe. The big black horse gave a loving whinny as he recognized their footsteps, and turning of his own accord, cantered up to them as they began to raise the death-wail—doing tangi as they call it—over the outcast children crying for the untasted supper, on which the invaders were feasting. "May it choke the pigs!" muttered Whero, raising himself in the stirrups and catching at the nearest bough, he gave it a shake, which sent a shower of the karaka nuts tumbling down upon the little black heads and fighting fists. The women stopped their wail to crack and eat. The horse bent down his head to claim a share, and the children scrambled to their feet to scoop the sweet kernel from the opened shell. The hungry boys were forced to join them, and Edwin found to his surprise that leaf and nut alike were good and wholesome food. They ate in silence and fear, as the wild woods rang with the shouts of triumph and derision as the rough work of confiscation went forward in the whare. With the much-needed food Edwin's energy was returning. He gave back the bag to Whero's mother, assuring her if her son would only guide him to the road he could find his own way to the ford. "Let us all go farther into the bush," said the oldest woman of the group, "before the tana comes out. The bush they cannot take from us, and all we need the most the bush will provide." The weight of the bag he had carried convinced Edwin it was full of money. Whero's mother was looking about for a place where she could hide it; so they wandered on until the sun shone brightly between the opening trees, and they stepped out upon an unexpected clearing. "The road! the road!" cried Whero, pointing to the gleam of water in the distance, and the dark roof of the house by the ford, half buried in the white blossom of the acacia grove beside it. "All right!" exclaimed Edwin joyfully. "You need go no farther." He took the bridle from Whero, and turned the horse's head towards the ford, loath to say farewell to his strange companions. As he went at a steady trot along the road, he could not keep from looking back. He saw they were burying the bag of treasure where two white pines grew near together, and the wild strawberries about their roots were ripening in the sun. The road, a mere clearing in the forest, lay straight before him. As Nga-HepÉ had said, an hour's ride brought him to Mr. Hirpington's door. The house was large and low, built entirely of corrugated iron. It was the only spot of ugliness in the whole landscape. A grassy bank higher than Edwin's head surrounded the home enclosure, and lovely white-winged pigeons were hovering over the yellow gorse, which formed an impenetrable wall on the top of the bank. A gate stood open, and by its side some rough steps cut in the rock led down to the riverbed, through a tangle of reeds and bulrushes. Like most New Zealand rivers, the bed was ten times wider than the stream, and the stretch of mud on either side increased the difficulties of the crossing. Edwin rode up to the gate and dismounted, drew the bridle through the ring in the post, and entered a delightful garden, where peach and almond and cherry trees brought back a thought of home. The ground was terraced towards the house, which was built on a jutting rock, to be out of the reach of winter floods. Honeysuckle and fuchsia, which Edwin had only known in their dwarfed condition in England, rose before him as stately trees, tall as an English elm, eclipsing all the white and gold of the acacias and laburnums, which sheltered the end of the house. The owner, spade in hand, was at work among his flower-beds. His dress was as rough as the navvy's, and Edwin, who had studied Mr. Hirpington's photograph so often, asked himself if this man, so brown and brawny and broad, could be his father's friend? "Please, I'm Edwin Lee," said the boy bluntly. "Is Mr. Hirpington at home?" The spade was thrown aside, and a hand all smeared with garden mould grasped his own, and a genial voice exclaimed, "Yes, Hirpington is here, bidding you heartily welcome! But how came you, my lad, to forerun the coach?" Then Edwin poured into sympathetic ears the tale of their disaster, adding earnestly, "I thought I had better come on with your messenger, and tell you what had happened." "Coach with a wheel off in the gorge!" shouted Mr. Hirpington to a chum in-doors, and Edwin knew he had found the friend in need, whose value no one can estimate like a colonist. Before Edwin could explain why Nga-HepÉ had failed in his promise to return with his canoe, Mr. Hirpington was down the boating-stairs, loosening his own "tub," as he called it, from its moorings. To the Maori's peril he lent but half an ear. "No use our interfering there," he said. "I'm off to your father." A head appeared at a window overlooking the bed of rushes, and two men came out of the house door, and assisted him to push the boat into the water. The window above was thrown open, and a hastily-filled basket was handed down. Then a kind, motherly voice told Edwin to come in-doors. The room he entered was large and faultlessly clean, serving the threefold purpose of kitchen, dining-room, and office. The desk by the window, the gun in the corner, the rows of plates above the dresser, scarcely seemed to encroach on each other, or make the long dining-table look ashamed of their company. Mrs. Hirpington, who was expecting the "coach to sleep" under her roof that night, was preparing her meat for the spit at the other end of the room. The pipes and newspaper, which had been hastily thrown down at the sound of Mr. Hirpington's summons, showed Edwin where the men had been resting after their day's work. They were, as he guessed, employÉs on the road, which was always requiring mending and clearing, while Mr. Hirpington was their superintendent, as well as ford-keeper. His wife, in a homely cotton dress of her own making, turned to Edwin with the well-bred manner of an English lady and the hearty hospitality of a colonist. "Not a word about being in the way, my dear; the trouble is a pleasure. We shall have you all here, a merry party, before long. There are worse disasters than this at sea." She smiled as she delayed the roast, and placed a chop on the grill for Edwin's benefit. The cozy sense of comfort which stole over him was so delightful, as he stretched himself on the sofa on the other side of the fire, it made him think the more of the homeless wanderers in the bush, and he began to describe to Mrs. Hirpington the strange scene he had witnessed. A band of armed men marching out of the village filled her with apprehension. She ran to the window overlooking the river to see if the boat had pushed off, and called to the men remaining behind—for the ford was never left—to know if the other roadmen had yet come in. "They are late," she said. "They must have heard the coachman's 'coo,' and are before us with their help. They have gone down to the gorge. You may rest easy about your father." But she could not rest easy. She looked to the loading of the guns, put the bar in the gate herself, and held a long conference with Dunter over the alarming intelligence. But the man knew more of Maori ways than she did, and understood it better. "I'll not be saying," he answered, "but what it will be wise in us to keep good watch until they have all dispersed. Still, with HepÉ's goods to carry off and divide, they will not be thinking of interfering with us. Maybe you'll have Nga-HepÉ's folk begging shelter as the night draws on." "I hope not," she retorted quickly. "Give them anything they ask for, but don't be tempted to open the gate. Tell them the coach is coming, and the house is full." A blaze of fire far down the river called everybody into the garden. Some one was signalling. But Dunter was afraid to leave Mrs. Hirpington, and Mrs. Hirpington was equally afraid to be left. A great horror fell upon Edwin. "Can it be father?" he exclaimed. Dunter grasped the twisted trunk of the giant honeysuckle, and swung himself on to the roof of the house to reconnoitre. Edwin was up beside him in a moment. "Oh, it is nothing," laughed the man—"nothing but some chance traveller waiting by the roadside for the expected coach, and, growing impatient, has set a light to the dry branches of a ti tree to make sure of stopping the coach." But the wind had carried the flames beyond the tree, and the fire was spreading in the bush. "It will burn itself out," said Dunter carelessly; "no harm in that." But surely the coach was coming! Edwin looked earnestly along the line which the bush road had made through the depths of the forest. He could see clearly to a considerable distance. The fire was not far from the two white pines where he had parted from his dusky companions, and soon he saw them rushing into the open to escape from the burning fern. On they ran towards the ford, scared by the advancing fire. How was Mrs. Hirpington to refuse to open her gates and take them in? Women and children—it could not be done. Edwin was pleading at her elbow. "I saw it all, Mrs. Hirpington; I know how it happened. Nga-HepÉ gave me his horse, that I might escape in safety to you." "Well, well," she answered, resigning herself to the inevitable. "If you will go out and meet them and bring them here, Dunter shall clear the barn to receive them." Edwin slid down the rough stem of the honeysuckle and let himself out, and ran along the road for about half-a-mile, waving his hat and calling to the fugitives to come on, to come to the ford. The gray-haired woman in the counterpane, now begrimed with mud and smoke, was the first to meet him. She shouted back joyfully, "The good wahini [woman] at the ford has sent to fetch us. She hear the cry of the child. Good! good!" But the invitation met with no response from Whero and his mother. "Shall it be said by morning light Nga-HepÉ's wife was sleeping in the Ingarangi [English] bed, and he a dead man lying on the floor of his forefathers' whare, with none to do tangi above him!" she exclaimed, tearing fresh handfuls from her long dark hair in her fury. "Oh to be bigger and stronger," groaned Whero, "that I might play my game with the greenstone club! but my turn will come." The blaze of passion in the boy's star-like eyes recalled his mother to calmness. "What are you," she asked, "but an angry child to court the blow of the warrior's club that would end your days? A man can bide his hour. Go with the Ingarangi, boy." "Yes, go," urged her companion. A bright thought struck the gray-haired woman, and she whispered to Edwin, "Get him away; get him safe to the Ingarangi school. Nothing can reach him there. He loves their learning; it will make him a mightier man than his fathers have ever been. If he stays with us, we can't hold him back. He will never rest till he gets himself killed." "Ah, but my Whero will go back with the Ingarangi boy and beg a blanket to keep the babies from the cold night wind," added his mother coaxingly. "Come along," said Edwin, linking his arm in Whero's and setting off with a run. "Now tell me all you want—blankets, and what else?" But the boy had turned sullen, and would not speak. He put his hands before his face and sobbed as if his heart would break. "Where is the horse?" he asked abruptly, as they reached Mrs. Hirpington's gate. "In there," said Edwin, pointing to the stable. The Maori boy sprang over the bar which Dunter had fixed across the entrance to keep the horse in, and threw his arms round the neck of his black favourite, crying more passionately than ever. "He is really yours," put in Edwin, trying to console him. "I do not want to keep the horse when you can take him back. Indeed, I am not sure my father will let me keep him." But he was speaking to deaf ears; so he left Whero hugging his four-footed friend, and went in-doors for the blankets. Mrs. Hirpington was very ready to send them; but when Edwin returned to the stable, he found poor Whero fast asleep. "Just like those Maoris," laughed Dunter. "They drop off whatever they are doing; it makes no difference. But remember, my man, there is a good old saying, 'Let sleeping dogs lie.'" So, instead of waking Whero, they gently closed the stable-door; and Edwin went off alone with the blankets on his shoulder. He found Nga-HepÉ's wife still seated by the roadside rocking her baby, with her two bigger children asleep beside her. One dark head was resting on her knee, the other nestling close against her shoulder. Edwin unfolded one of the blankets he was bringing and wrapped it round her, carefully covering up the little sleepers. Her companions had not been idle. To the Maori the resources of the bush are all but inexhaustible. They were making a bed of freshly-gathered fern, and twisting a perfect cable from the fibrous flax-leaves. This they tied from tree to tree, and flung another blanket across it, making a tent over the unfortunate mother. Then they crept behind her, under the blanket, keeping their impromptu tent in shape with their own backs. "Goo'-night," they whispered, "goo' boy. Go bush a' right." But Edwin lingered another moment to tell the disconsolate mother how he had left Whero sleeping by the horse. "Wake up—no find us—then he go school," she said, wrinkling the patch of tattoo on her lip and chin with the ghost of a smile. |
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