Chapter VII: Part II (5)

At last it happened that a passing traveller, whose journey as usual seemed to stop short at ‘Edinburgh Castle,’ was expected very anxiously by his solicitor at an estate a few miles beyond the forest; and when a day or two passed without bringing him, the lawyer got anxious for his arrival, and thought perhaps he might have been taken ill at the last house where he knew he was to have put up for a night, on his way to the place of meeting. He therefore took the important papers, which he wanted this gentleman to sign, in his pocket, and started off to ride through the forest. Of course he called in at ‘Edinburgh Castle,’ and, like everybody else, was asked the hour, and, on his producing a handsome gold watch, Mr. Hutchinson set his by it, and became very pressing in his entreaties to the lawyer to stay. But he said, No; he could not possibly stop because he was in a great hurry to meet his friend whom he expected to find at the next place. Upon this Mr. Hutchinson’s hospitable entreaties were renewed; in fact, they became rather like commands; and when he said, ‘Well, you can’t go now for your horse has got away,’ the lawyer felt very much like a prisoner. He was, however, a shrewd as well as a brave man; and although he said afterwards that he felt there was something wrong, at the time he pretended to give up all idea of going on, but in reality watched narrowly for a chance of getting away. The afternoon and even the evening passed without Mr. Hutchinson’s leaving him alone for a moment; but still the lawyer hoped and waited for a lucky opportunity. All this time the old negro kept going in and out of the room and trying to convey to the lawyer, by a sign now and then, the fact that he would do well to make the best of his way out of the house. Mr. G. gave him a nod, just to show him he was quite determined to follow his advice; and he particularly remarked how thankful poor Pompey seemed to find that at last some one understood what he meant.

During the evening Mr. Hutchinson frequently asked what o’clock it was, and every time Mr. G. produced his watch he noticed how his host seemed to gaze at it, and examine it as carefully as if he had never seen such a thing before. At last Mr. G. said, ‘My watch appears to have a great fascination for you.’ These harmless words produced a strange effect on the man; he turned first red and then pale; and asked angrily, ‘What do you mean?’ but, before the other could answer, Hutchinson left the room with some indistinct words about shooting pigeons. Mr. G. jumped out of the low window in a second, and set off down the hill as fast as he could; but he had the presence of mind to avail himself of every scrap of cover, and these battlements did him good service as shelter. Under their friendly lee he skirted the mound, and soon struck once more into the bridle path, with his face turned in the direction in which he meant to look for his client.

It was about ten o’clock at night—late for Jamaica hours, where everybody gets up almost at daybreak—when Mr. G. knocked with his knuckles at the little jalousie door of the ‘great house’ on the estate where he hoped to find his friend, and, in answer to the cheery ‘Come in’ of its owner, presented himself in rather a muddy and dirty state. Great was the astonishment of the hospitable planter to see a ‘white buckra’ in such a plight, and still greater was his surprise at Mr. G.’s first inquiry, ‘Where is Ferrars?’ ‘He left this two days ago to ride over to Friendship estate,’ was the answer; and then the planter added, ‘But what on earth are you doing here at such an hour of the night, in so great a mess, and without your horse?’ ‘You may well ask,’ said Mr. G.; ‘I’ve had to get away as best I could from “Edinburgh Castle;” and I’m certain of one thing, either Hutchinson is stark staring mad, and ought to be locked up, or else there is something wrong about the whole affair. He would not let me go on any terms, turned my horse adrift after I had securely fastened it up to a post, and then pretended it had got away; and he kept wanting to know the hour every five minutes, and gloating over my watch as if he expected me to give it to him, and all the time he had a much handsomer one himself. But what I want to know is, Where is Ferrars? He has never reached Friendship, and if he does not sign these papers to-morrow, they will be too late for the mail.’

Mr. G. said all this in a very excited way; so, as the first thing everybody thinks of in Jamaica is fever, the planter’s only reply was, ‘Show us your tongue, my good fellow,’ at the same time laying his hand on his pulse. Now it is not pleasant to be considered delirious when you are only anxious, and Mr. G. got very angry at the supposition that he was ill; but it took some time before he could convince his startled host that there really was any cause for uneasiness about Mr. Ferrars. He can’t have lost his way,’ argued the planter, ‘for he knew the track perfectly, and it is quite a straight path; he started early the day before yesterday in perfect health, on a capital nag, and with a beautiful day before him; he must be all right.’ ‘But where is he?’ repeated the lawyer. ‘I waited till the last moment for him at Friendship; if he were anywhere on the road I must have met him; there is no house at which he could have turned in except ‘Edinburgh Castle;’ I asked Hutchinson whether he had seen him; he said Ferrars had not called in there at all; but Pompey was groaning and fidgeting about the whole time in the oddest way!’ The two gentlemen sat up late that night discussing what was best to be done, and the earliest dawn of the next day saw them in their saddles and on the road to Spanish Town. Here they had a long talk with the governor and one or two friends of Mr. Ferrars, which resulted in a hurried journey back again; and so well had their horses carried them, that, before twenty-four hours were over, the whole party, consisting of Mr. G. and the planter, with the addition of a magistrate and a constable, found themselves at the little wooden gate which served as an entrance to the fortifications of ‘Edinburgh Castle.’

Here everything was unchanged; Pompey appeared as usual to hold their horses, shaking as if he had an ague-fit, and peering up into Mr. G.’s face with a wistful glance more like an old monkey than a human being. Mr. Hutchinson seemed rather absent, but was as cool and impassive as ever. It was a very awkward moment, and each wondered why the other did not say something; but they all found it difficult to give words to their suspicions and uneasiness. However, matters were brought to a point by Mr. Hutchinson’s giving his usual hospitable order of ‘luncheon directly, Pompey.’ Mr. G. said afterwards that he felt an instinctive dislike to the idea of breaking bread under that roof; so he refused the offer, adding, ‘The fact is, Mr. Hutchinson, we are very uneasy about poor Ferrars; he has been traced as far as this, but we cannot hear of him afterwards; we have brought a search warrant with us, and we call upon you to afford us every assistance in your power towards finding him, alive or dead.’ Hutchinson stared dreamily about him and murmured his usual question, ‘What o’clock is it?’ Whereupon the magistrate struck in with, ‘Oh it’s quite early; lots of daylight left;’ but the doomed man did not attempt to disarm the fast-growing suspicions of his visitors, for he looked at his own watch, then opened a drawer and drew out poor Mr. Ferrars’ gold watch and chain with the heavy dangling bunch of seals which it was the fashion for gentlemen to wear in those far-past-away days.

As if they had but one voice the three horror-stricken lookers-on exclaimed, ‘Good heavens! Ferrars’ watch.’ And before any answer could be given the constable called out, ‘Look at the nigger!’ They turned their heads to see poor old Pompey on his knees, with uplifted hands, at his stern master’s feet, crying, ‘O mas’r! me tell you let buckra ‘lone; me tell you him be found. Pompey savy (know) dem sure come look for Mas’r Ferrars. Now duppy (evil spirit) catch us all, for we hab no more bisness in de kingdom of heaben dan my hog hab in de gubner’s garden. O my king, my king!’ The constable gave one stride and laid his heavy hand on the abject creature’s shoulder saying, ‘Now, look here, darky; what you have got to do is to make a clean breast of it, sharp. We know right well there’s been some foul play with that poor gentleman, and if you want to save your precious neck you just turn king’s evidence, and tell us all you know about it, and we’ll see you safe through the job.’ Pompey seemed quite speechless, and only gazed with a despairing stare into the dark impenetrable face before him, moaning and murmuring, ‘Duppy’ll hold me.’ The constable was afraid the old man would have a fit, and perhaps be rendered useless as a guide or helper to them in their sad search; so he picked him up like a baby, and carried him out into the sunshine; but Pompey quaked and shivered as much under the glowing beautiful blue arch all flooded with light and warmth, as he had done in the dark little room. As for Hutchinson he seemed to have spoken his last word, so profound was his silence, never to be broken again on earth, for people say he was perfectly silent at his trial.

The party held a brief and hurried consultation, which ended in their separating into two divisions. The constable produced the traditional handcuffs without which they seem never to stir, at least in a story; and he and the magistrate remained to watch the man whom they did not know whether to look upon as mad or a murderer, whilst Mr. G. and the planter went out to try and see what could be made of the poor old negro. The planter was a kindhearted good man, well accustomed to dealing with his own slaves, who all loved and respected him; so he undertook to question Pompey, and he managed so well to soothe and encourage the trembling creature, that at last he picked himself up and stood quivering before them, his face of an ashen grey colour in spite of the black skin over it, saying, ‘Pompey’ll tell white buckra all ‘bout it, dat best ting to do.’ But no words would come, so he turned away telling them to ‘come ‘long,’ and led the way down the hillock towards a thick uncleared part of the forest. A very few yards brought them to a place where, on close examination of the brushwood growing luxuriantly round it, could be seen a little opening in the earth like the mouth of a well. Pompey set to work and lifted up the long branches of supple-jack and other forest creepers which had stretched themselves across the space. Five minutes work was enough to show that the opening was much larger than it appeared to be at first, and of a great depth. ‘Don’t go too near, mas’r,’ gasped Pompey, struggling with a great flower-laden vine; ‘him berry slippy.’ The two friends went as close as they dared, but nothing was to be seen except a deep pit where all was inky darkness. ‘Man alive, you don’t mean to say Mr. Ferrars is down _there_,’ they exclaimed. ‘Eess, mas’r,’ said Pompey with wonderful composure; ‘Mas’r Huchisson him kill Mas’r Ferrars quite dead up dere, take him watch ’way, den Pompey drag him down here come night, heave him in; eess, mas’r, jest so.’

Few and simple as were the negro’s words they contained the whole truth; there was nothing to be added or taken away. That was just what had befallen not only Mr. Ferrars but many another solitary traveller besides. Their lives hung upon the answer to the invariable question, asked by Hutchinson, ‘What’s o’clock.’ If the unfortunate guest possessed a watch, his doom was sealed; he was detained at the castle on some pretence or the other, sometimes by almost forcible means, and murdered in the night, his watch taken from him, and his dead body handed over to Pompey to dispose of. The negro seems never to have kept anything for his own use except, on one occasion, a warm waistcoat, and on another a pair of boots. As soon as the day dawned again over the blood-stained roof, Pompey’s custom was to drag the body to the edge of this deep abyss, and after removing the creepers and branches which formed such a smiling covering to the grave-like shaft, he tumbled the corpse in. When once Pompey found his tongue, and perceived that no supernatural events followed his words, he seemed to derive relief from ‘making a clean breast of it;’ and I think we can all understand a little, what a comfort confession must have been to the poor sin-laden wretch whose superstitions had made him an accomplice in such cold-blooded wickedness. He now jabbered incessantly, and described with terrible minuteness how some were heavy and some were light to drag down that pretty picturesque path; how he used to be obliged to call Mr. Hutchinson to shoot the victim’s horse, for he could not find it in his heart to kill the creature he had fed and stabled the night before, and who had looked round on him with a grateful whinny when he entered the stable in the morning to lead him out to his death. Hutchinson taught Pompey to bring the horse to the edge of this well after he had flung the poor murdered rider down it; and, whilst the negro held the bridle, Hutchinson put a pistol to its head and shot it dead, after which he would walk calmly back to the house and read, or garden or amuse himself in some innocent way, whilst Pompey huddled the quivering mass, which a moment before had been a horse, down this horrible place. The saddle and bridle and everything belonging to the victim was also flung down, and the branches replaced, until some other chance should bring a visitor possessed of a watch to the fatal threshold of ‘Edinburgh Castle.’

Papa lifted Jessie and me off our ponies, tied the reins to the stump of a tree, and led us to this well. I don’t know why I should call it a well, for there was nothing to make one think it had ever been used for such a purpose; the surrounding country is well watered by springs, so the Carribs would not have been likely to have taken the trouble of digging to such a vast depth for water, when there was plenty on the surface; and the Spaniards, who ceded the island to us, certainly had not had anything to do with it. Just after these terrible discoveries people tried to go down the shaft in a bucket with lanterns and ropes, but the air was too foul, and they never could get beyond a ledge which projected at an immense depth, and where poor Mr. Ferrars’ body was found. Below this all seemed a bottomless pit, and Papa told us that he had once gone there in the company of an engineer officer, who had attempted to measure it with a stop watch by throwing a stone of a certain weight down, and by calculating how many feet it had fallen in so many seconds. He was able to find out the depth as far as the ledge I have told you of; but the most intent listening with his ear to the ground failed to detect the least sound or splash when the stone was thrown perfectly straight down, so this terrible grave must have been almost fathomless.

Of course Jessie and I asked Papa a great many more questions, and he told us further, that in Hutchinson’s bedroom was found a chest with between thirty and forty watches in it, many of which were identified as belonging to some of the missing travellers, but, as some of them could not be traced, it is quite possible that he had got them through the same murderous means in other countries. It was very extraordinary that nothing whatever could be discovered about this man’s past life. There was a strong impression abroad that he was a Scotchman, but no trace was to be found of his having even lived anywhere in that part of the world. He had evidently travelled a good deal, though, when the few survivors of his hospitality came to compare notes, they could not call to mind a word he had said which gave them a clue to any particular place. No persuasions would induce Hutchinson himself to open his lips. If it had not been for his earnest attention to everything which was said at his trial, one might have supposed he was deaf; but he never once lost his presence of mind, or forgot himself sufficiently to utter a sound. The counsel who defended him laid great stress on this silence, and tried to persuade the jury that he was what is called a monomaniac, that is, mad upon _one_ subject; but I fancy people were not so merciful in those days as they are now, and the plea of insanity did not serve him as an excuse; he was hung in chains at Kingston (I think), in the presence of an immense crowd.

During all the years I knew Jamaica there was only one execution among the negroes, and the opinion I formed of them during that time did not at all prepare me for the news of the extraordinary outburst four years ago, which you may easily hear all about if you inquire. But as this execution was the just punishment of the most cruel and unnatural act ever heard of, and as I took an immense interest in the trial, perhaps you would like me to tell you about it.

Our house in Spanish Town was one of those built long ago by the Spaniards, and, although only of wood, was as fresh and good as when new. Outside it resembled all the others, being painted of a light stone colour, with bright green jalousies round three sides of it. This fashion used always to make the houses look in my eyes exactly like those out of a box of toys, and they were also not unlike them in shape. Inside, however, the old Spanish builders had left us the most splendid carved door and window-frames of mahogany, which was now as black as ebony from age, and the floors were exactly like a beautiful old-fashioned dining table, quite dark, and polished every day until they shone like looking-glasses. When I returned to Jamaica after I was grown up, I used to think it the prettiest sight in the world to see a little baby-creature toddling over these shining mirror-like floors, clad in only one scanty garment, and with its lovely marble feet and limbs reflected as it crawled or staggered about. There was only one thing prettier, and that was to see the same baby asleep on its bright coloured straw mat which was laid on the floor, no covering on except the tiny cambric shirt I have mentioned, and lying under an extinguisher made of thin net stretched over a bamboo frame, to keep the mosquitoes from biting it. These were the little white ‘piccaninnies;’ but both Jessie and I had many pets among the black babies belonging to the servants. They were dear little creatures, so glossy and funny, always fat and good-humoured; and there was no doubt about their being clean, for the simple reason that they were always splashing and dashing about in the river, which ran a couple of hundred yards from the door. The ‘Rio del Cobra,’ or Snake river, so called because it turns and winds like a snake, took a lovely bend just above our house; and, if I shut my eyes, I can see, as in a magic glass, the whole picture. I see the black grooms clad in white suits with bare feet and head leading the horses down to water. Some have already reached the stream, and the horses are standing up to their girths in the cool water looking the picture of enjoyment. A little higher up are some large flat stones, and on these half-a dozen stout buxom negresses are banging away and beating our clothes, singing, laughing, and chattering the while. These are our housemaids, and every day, after they have washed out the whole house with the juice of the Seville orange and water, they collect whatever clothes or house-linen has been used the day before and march off to this river, where they remain till sunset, engaged in destroying the things, as Mamma used to say; then, whilst we are out driving in the evening, they wash the whole house out again. So you see we were very clean; had we scrubbed and washed less incessantly, the insects would have eaten us all up, for the least scrap of dust or dirt served as a nursery to scorpions, ants, fleas, and all sorts of horrid things. But to come back to my picture of the stream. On its shore is a perfect flight of black children paddling about in the water, and enjoying themselves exactly in duck-fashion; they dare not venture far beyond the shining shallows, for a little way out the noble river sweeps by with a strong resistless current. Its banks are fringed down to the water’s edge with beautiful trees, whose exquisite green foliage shows that their roots are ever drinking from this fountain of their life; and in their branches a thousand birds find homes, and add by their whistling and chirruping to all the joyous sounds on the river’s bank this bright tropical day.

Between our house and the ‘Cobra,’ however, lies what is called a ‘grass-piece,’ or paddock, of the tall Guinea grass, which you will find mentioned elsewhere, and which brings me to my story. In this field were several fine trees, under whose shade the horses loved to stand when they were turned out to graze. It was a very common thing for goats to get through its strong prickly fence, and eat up the horses’ grass, much to our coachman’s wrath and indignation; so Jessie and I were not at all surprised to hear one night what we thought was the bleating of a kid in the enclosure. At breakfast next morning we spoke of this, and soon afterwards Papa sent one of the men-servants to drive the supposed kid out. ‘Duke’ (short for Marmaduke) returned to say he could not find any trace of a kid, nor was there a gap in the fence by which one could have got in; but as Jessie and I had been kept awake almost the whole night by the sounds, we knew we could not have dreamt them. I must explain to you that there was no other bedroom at that side of the house, and our morning rooms were far away, so we had no chance of hearing the noise in the daytime. Towards the afternoon we remembered our fancied enemy, and begged Papa to send some one else to see about it; but, after listening some time at the gate of the paddock, he said, ‘Oh! it has got out now, I think, for there is not a sound, and the men trample the grass down so much, that I don’t like their going in more than is necessary.’ We were obliged to confess that he was right next morning, for the silence of the tropical night, never very profound, had been deeper than usual. During the course of the next day, whilst we were working away very hard at our music and drawing, in the pretty shaded room which Jessie and I called our ‘den,’ Mamma came in looking rather pale and agitated. Before we could ask what was the matter, she said, ‘Do you remember that noise in the grass-piece? It was not a kid at all, but a child’s voice which you heard. Oh, the poor little creature! to have suffered such torture so near us;’ and then Mamma did what many of your mammas would be very likely to do under the same excitement, she sat down on a chair and began to sob and cry as if her heart was breaking; and Jessie and I were nearly as bad when we heard what had happened.

A little way from us lived a negress of the most violent temper. She was respectably married and very well off; but neither her husband nor her children had much comfort, owing to her constant fits of passion. Mamma knew her quite well, and had often tried to teach her how wrong it was to give way to these furies. Whilst the lecture lasted, ‘Clara’ would appear quite penitent, and promise the sweet gentle ‘missis,’ whom everybody loved, that she would try to restrain herself; but she soon forgot or broke her word. On this occasion some ‘new sugar’ was wanted, and Clara sent her youngest child to fetch some, giving it a ‘quattie,’ or small silver coin worth three-halfpence, to pay for it. Poor Emmy toddled off with her can and her quattie, and performed her errand quite nicely; but unfortunately the can had no lid, and the sight as well as the smell of new sugar proved too much for her little principles. I wonder how many of us, big or little, would have resisted such a temptation? I should not like to say too much about my own honesty under similar circumstances, for I think sugar in this stage is the most delicious thing in the whole world, so we must be very indulgent in our judgment on poor little two-years-old Emmy. As she trotted down the shady lane which led to the village by the river-side, she dipped first one small chubby black finger into the liquid sugar and sucked it, and then another, and so on till, by the time home was reached, the can was more than half empty, and Emmy’s smeared face and hands told their own tale of the fate of the sugar. The child was too young to understand threats or scoldings, so Clara’s fury had no means of venting itself in its usual storm of reproaches. She was in one of her most wicked and reckless moods that day, and she led off the wretched baby (for she was not much more), muttering something about teaching her not to be a ‘tief.’ By and bye she returned without Emmy, but neither her husband nor the neighbours dared to question her. They supposed that she had gone with the child to her mother’s cottage and left it there, which had been her custom if she wanted to get rid of it for a day or two. But what do you think this dreadful woman had done? She had taken her child into our grass-piece for two reasons: first, she had observed a huge ants’ nest at the foot of one of the trees; and, secondly, she knew that the grass was in a certain stage of its growth when it destroys it to be touched; so the gates are fastened up, and the long blades of grass left alone to grow six feet high!

On her way to the tree she picked up a rusty reaping-hook, used by the grass-cutters for mowing the grass, and also a piece of rope dropped by them. We cannot tell whether she left home with this awful plan in her head, or whether it was suggested to her by the sight of the great black cone more than three feet high, where a whole colony of ants had established themselves for many a long day; but when Clara reached this spot, she used the reaping-hook to hack out a large hole in the middle of the nest, and into this she deliberately put poor unfortunate Emmy, throwing her one little striped blue and white garment down by the side of the tree, where it was afterwards found, and then she fastened the child securely into its frightful prison by tying the rope around its body and passing it also round the tree. It is supposed that the infuriated ants attacked the child instantly, and that their sharp stings overcame her fear and dread of her mother so much, that she probably screamed, and Clara may have thought her victim’s cries would be heard, for she made a gag of leaves, and securely stuffed Emmy’s little mouth with them. She then went away, to lead her usual idle, easy life, leaving the miserable child to what she must have known would be a certain, though slow and agonising, death. The sounds Jessie and I heard were Emmy’s stifled wails. Oh, the poor little creature! I cannot bear to think of what she must have endured, although so many years have passed since then; but I have a vivid recollection of the pain which I have often felt from one nip given by the strong pincers a large black ant carries in front of him. Fancy being devoured by thousands of such cruel bites! and yet that was Emmy’s fate, the punishment for a babyish error.

Her little skeleton was not found for two or three days as you know; the man who went to look for the reaping-hook he had lost made this awful discovery; every scrap of flesh had been eaten off the child’s bones; and if they had been bleaching there for a century, they could not have been cleaner or whiter. Clara did not attempt to deny what she had done; perhaps she had the sense to know any such denial would have been useless. She had been seen to enter the grass-piece leading the sobbing baby, and its poor little shirt lying at the foot of the tree, with the smears of the sugar still on it, would have risen up in witness against the savage mother. Her trial was a short one, and I can hardly describe to you the state of excitement everyone was in whilst it lasted. She was hung early one morning, and I think I may safely say that no criminal in the world was ever greeted on the scaffold with such yells of execration. The whole population of the town, and of all the surrounding country assembled in the great open space where the gallows-tree was planted; and I am told that there was but one feeling expressed by every black or coloured person present, that no punishment was too heavy for such deliberate cruelty. Clara met her death quite bravely, and never expressed the least sorrow for her crime. The same spirit of sullen defiance, which she had so often indulged in during happier times, stood her instead of resignation or courage at this terrible moment. Her wickedness was the more remarkable, as the negro women make the most affectionate and devoted nurses, both to children and sick people. They are very clever in this capacity, and as kindhearted as clever; so it is no wonder that every negress in the island cried out in horror and indignation against Clara.

_THE GRAVE BY THE RAKAIA._

I am afraid this will not be a very merry story; but I find that children sometimes like to hear a sad tale, and they will certainly learn as they grow older, that life is not all fun and laughter. It is full of stories as sad and as true as this; but the bravest men have often the tenderest hearts, and so, perhaps, the boldest and gayest of my little friends may be touched by a tale of suffering and death.

One lovely spring morning in New Zealand I went out for a ride with my husband: he wanted to look at what is called there an ‘out-station,’ that is, a hut far away from the homestead, and from all the bustle and life which surrounds the woolsheds, sheep-yards, and accessories of a prosperous settler’s new home in that new world. We left behind us the paddocks of English grass and clover, the patches of oats for the horses, my own little pet acre of wheat, grown expressly for my numerous fowls and pigeons, the garden sloping down to the creek, the young plantations whose growth we watched so anxiously, and whose enemy, the strong north-west wind, was on this balmy morning slumbering peacefully in his cave far away among the mountains. Going out for a ride in England is a very different affair from a New Zealand excursion. _Here_, you have only to coax papa to give the order to the groom, and then it is all settled; you mount quietly and set off (quietly also, I hope, though I rather doubt it). _There_, the first thing necessary was to catch the horses. Sometimes they were out on the run, and it took a man with a great stockwhip a long time to get them in: then they had to be brushed and cleaned, and at last the saddles were put on, and we started. I had the usual bag fastened to the pommel of my saddle, with a new book, the last English papers, and some numbers of ‘Good Words,’ or the ‘Leisure Hour,’ or the ‘Sunday at Home,’ for the poor lonely man whom we were going to see. The moment we appeared in the verandah, all the dogs set up a loud barking and jumping, each wanting to accompany their master, but only steady old Hector was allowed to come. Garry, and Queen, and Sharp, all pull at the chains which fasten them to their kennels, and howl dismally. Nettle, my little terrier, comes out in the verandah, stretching himself with a self-satisfied air, as much as to say, ‘I know _I_ may come;’ but I can tell, by the coaxing expression of his brown eyes, that he has secret misgivings, and his worst fears are soon realised by my carrying him off to the cook to be taken care of and consoled during my absence. Then, as soon as the question about the dogs is settled, I have to make it known to the fowls and ducks, which surround me instantly, that I have no intention of giving them a second breakfast; and I have to elude the affectionate caresses of the pet calves, who leave their favourite amusement of trying to pull the clothes off the line, to come and playfully butt at me. ‘Julia’ is getting too big for these games, and she tried to kill me once by running, with her head down, between my horse’s forelegs, just as I was mounting, causing it to rear, and throw me off again.

However, we surmounted all these little difficulties on this particular morning, and set off; the horses caracolling with sheer high spirits as we walked them down the paddock; Hector frisking about more like a puppy than an elderly colley of great experience; and we ourselves saying every now and then, ‘Is not this delicious.’ There is such a sense of freedom in the open country, such freshness and brightness in the feeling of the air; it is warm without being oppressive, cool without a chill. Before we had gone 300 yards from the house there was a wide creek to be jumped, and our horses were so clever that they always knew exactly where the banks were sound, and would not cross anywhere except at the place they thought best. As we cantered up the sunny flat which stretched behind the house, and wound among the low downs for miles, we startled hundreds of sheep and lambs who were feeding on the young undergrowth of _blue_ grass which lay sheltered beneath the tall waving tussocks. The lambs were so wild and so strong, that, the moment they saw or heard us, the whole flock would make for the nearest hill; and I have often watched a tiny newborn lamb keeping up with its mother, jumping from rock to rock like a goat. I delighted to see them at play; if we rode very softly round a corner, we sometimes came upon a large semicircle of old sheep standing gravely together, just like mammas at a party, watching their children amusing themselves and in the open space there were perhaps several hundred white lambs, jumping, frisking, and bounding about; butting at each other, running round and round, chasing one another. Our appearance caused a startled silence for half a moment, and then the whole flock would be off like a flash of lightning, amid much calling and answering from young and old, whilst Hector gazed in his master’s face, asking with speaking eyes, if he should go and bring them all back?

We cantered gaily along till we came to the foot of a range of hills; followed the sheep track which led us across a low saddle, through another valley, across a higher range; and then we dropped down to the most lonely place I ever saw in my life. The downs, which we had hitherto crossed, were succeeded by gaunt bare hills stretching away as far as the eye could reach, rising higher and higher till the snowy range stood out sharp and clear from the glorious blue sky. We were on the borders of the ‘back country,’ a vague term used to denote the inferior land behind that which has already been taken up for sheep-runs. There were several thousand sheep probably among these desolate hills, but they had gone up to the higher ranges for their summer pasture, and the stillness was oppressive. Not a tree broke the monotony of the yellow tussocks, or brown and gray rocks, not a twitter or chirrup could be heard, only the startled cry of a woodhen, or ‘weka,’ gliding swiftly from its cover in a flax bush.

We had ridden for a few miles along the high bank of the Rakaia, a river, or rather a roaring torrent, gushing from the snowy mountains; our path for sometime had followed a narrow strip of flat land which separated the foot of the hills from the stream, when I noticed a little enclosure, close under a terraced bank about eight feet high. A few minutes’ canter brought us to it, and then I saw it was a wooden fence surrounding a grave. On the opposite bank of the river was a settlement, or ‘home station,’ and we could hear the dogs barking, and the men’s voices; but these sounds only made the solitude and loneliness of the spot where we stood more oppressive. The bright sunshine did not even touch it, for the shadow of a great mountain fell across and made the air chill. Involuntarily whispering I asked, ‘Why did they bury the poor fellow out here in this desolate spot, away from everybody and everything,’ and then F. told me the tale I am going to tell you.

A few years ago, in what is now called ‘the early days’ of the colony, a young surveyor came out to try his fortune in the new country. He was very much liked, knew his profession thoroughly, and got on as well as possible. He had just time to write home to the loving friends left behind, to tell them how happy he was, and how bright his prospects seemed in this fresh young world, when he received an order from the Government to start on a long journey to survey this very ‘back country.’ He was to be well paid for his work, and at each of the distant stations where he intended to put up, he was sure of the most cordial welcome. F. saw him as he was starting on this journey, whose end was here, and he described him as being full of health and spirits.

In those days any thing like an enclosure was very rare, even near a house, and throughout his expedition the young man had many difficulties to contend with. When he reached a station the only way of securing the horse he rode and the packhorse which carried the tin case with his papers, his saddle-bags, &c., was to tether them by a long rope, which was fastened to a flax bush or Ti-ti palm. Now the New Zealand horses are very clever and very cunning; they soon know when they have a ‘new chum’ to deal with; and these two horses were the plague of the young surveyor’s life. When he awoke in the morning his first thought was whether they had escaped, and he too often found that, in spite of his precautions over night, the words with which his host generally greeted him were, ‘Well, your horses are off.’ There was nothing for it but to track them, and by availing himself of the experience of the older hands around him, the truants were always recovered; but, though many an hour was wasted in these pursuings, the early winter days of June found him hurrying back to Christchurch with the materials for his report all collected.

He had reached a station about ten miles from this spot where we stood, and distant about seventy miles from the town. From thence the horses once more escaped; but a shepherd, belonging to the homestead I have mentioned on the opposite bank of the river, came with a message early the next morning, and said that he had seen two strange horses, whose appearance he described, feeding quietly among a ‘mob’ on their flat. It was a lovely, bright winter’s day, and the surveyor determined to walk over the hills to this homestead, catch his horses, cross the river, and sleep there that night, making his final stage to Christchurch next day. His host promised to send his valise and papers down to town to meet him, on a dray which was just starting by a longer route, and the poor fellow set off full of health and spirits, with a crust of bread and a flask of cold tea in his pocket. He sent everything down by the dray except a little notebook, took a flax stick in his hand, and with a cheery good-bye started fairly off, whistling as he stepped out. His host’s parting words were an injunction to him not to dawdle on the way, and a warning of how soon these bright short winter days turn into a dark and often foggy afternoon.

That was the last glimpse which anyone had of poor Charlie —— in life. The drayman took his things down to town, deposited them at one of the rude little wooden publichouses which in those days were called hotels, and returned home. A week later people began to ask each other, ‘Have you heard anything of Charlie ——?’ No one had seen him since those friendly eyes had watched him round the corner of the last turning, and then lost sight of him for ever. Inquiries were made at the homestead on the banks of the Rakaia, which resulted in the discovery that he had never arrived there: his horses were still feeding in the sheltered valley where the shepherd had seen them. It took only a short time to organise a regular search along the track between the stations: this continued for two days without even a sign being found to show that any human being had ever trodden those desolate hills. On the third morning, just such a bright, sparkling day as the one on which Charlie —— set out, the dogs came whimpering and whining back to their master’s side. Colleys are not of any use as sleuth hounds; they are only wise and learned about sheep; but they showed the instinctive uneasiness in the neighbourhood of a sudden or violent death which all the nobler brutes feel. Still there were many hours of patient search before the men came upon what was not far from them when first the dogs returned from their mad gambols to walk soberly at their masters’ heels.

There, below this little terrace, which he could have jumped down without injury, was a weather-stained, rain-sodden body in Charlie ——’s clothes. It lay on its face, and underneath it, safe and dry, was the little pocket book: the arms were extended, and the hands much cut and torn; but what was more shocking than all was to find that _both_ the legs were broken. Rough strong hands, whose touch became gentle as a mother’s through the magic of pity, turned the poor stiffened figure over and tried to close the wide-staring eyes gazing sightlessly up into the bright heaven above. Some of the party remained to watch, whilst others recrossed the river to fetch picks and spades. The short afternoon was hardly long enough to give time for a grave to be dug, wide as well as deep, for those frozen arms could not be bent, but, just as darkness closed in, the sorrowful task was finished, and the mourners returned slowly and sadly to light, and warmth, and the sound of human voices, leaving him who had specially delighted in all these things, lying in his lonely grave. After the supper-tea, with which a New Zealand day ‘up-country’ is closed, they drew round the fire, having first packed up carefully his watch, a lock of his hair, and a tuft of grass which had been held tight in one clenched hand, to be sent home to his relations. Before the little pocket book was added to the collection it was examined, and was found to contain the history of those sad days.

The first entry, in trembling pencil strokes, was dated the morning after the day on which he had left the distant station; it told briefly how the accident had happened. He had lost his way and wandered about all day. He tried to keep within sound of the waters of the Rakaia, as he knew his destination lay on its opposite bank, and at last to his great joy he saw the lights and heard the sounds of a homestead. A more experienced traveller would have ‘camped’ under a flax bush and ‘coo-éd,’ or waited till the moon rose, or in fact done anything but what poor Charlie did, which was to hurry on, tired and footsore, through the pitchy darkness, stumbling at every second step, till he walked over the short but abrupt descent beneath which his poor body was found. He wrote at first with hope; he said he had waited for a gleam of light to see where he was, for he found he could not move either of his legs; he felt them snap like sticks, he wrote; but he meant to try and drag himself up the little terrace so as to be more easily seen, and he must have made the attempt by the state of his hands and clothes. There was only one more intelligible and connected entry dated the next day. He had spent all the intervening hours in trying to better his position, and to attract the attention of those on the other side of the river. He trusted to a shepherd passing on his way to a boundary; alas! the river was sufficient boundary for miles along its banks, and no shepherd was likely to come that way. He wrote that he had shrieked and screamed for help till his voice was quite gone; that the anguish he endured made him pray for a speedy death; and that, before the night, whose piercing cold he felt sure he could not again survive, he intended to exert all his remaining strength to turn over on his face, partly to keep the book dry in his breast, partly to prevent the hawks from tearing out his eyes. Then came a few words saying, he had suffered much from thirst, an adieu to his mother more pathetic in its brief good night than pages of leave-taking, a prayer for a speedy end to his life of torture, and his initials scrawled over the page. Soon after tracing these he must have died.

I heard of one more such accident whilst I was in New Zealand, and that was to a poor shepherd who went to give what is called a ‘drafting notice’ to the next run. You are obliged to send and tell all your neighbours when you muster your sheep, at shearing and other times, so that any which may have strayed on to your feeding grounds may be claimed by their rightful owners. Each sheep has a device stamped on it every year after it has been shorn; this is called the ‘brand;’ besides which a little mark is put on each ear, so you can easily tell your own sheep at a glance; indeed, I have heard of a celebrated colley, who was supposed to know his master’s brand, and to be able to pick the sheep belonging to him out of a mixed mob! Well, this shepherd, ‘Joe’ by name, never came back; but it happened that just then there was a great rush to some wonderful Gold fields near, and it was no uncommon thing for a shepherd to go out in the morning, and, instead of returning, send a message to say he had gone to the diggings; so, although no such message came from Joe, his master never doubted but that he had started to look for a fortune in the wintry torrent of a New Zealand river.

Months afterwards a lad was eel-fishing in a creek which ran between the two stations, and as he strolled along its banks looking for a deep hole wherein to cast his simple tackle—a few yards of strong twine and a large hook, baited with a bit of mutton—he came to a new place where the banks had been washed away by a recent heavy fresh, and a splendid basin formed. Here he prepared to throw in a line, fasten it to a flax bush, and then go on to search for another favourable spot. The water was clear, and on the shining shingle which paved the little pool he saw some white bones. At first he thought of a missing bullock of his father’s, and laying down at the edge of the stream, with a flax stick in his hand, he tried to drag or push the bones into a shallow place where he could reach them, but to his horror, the weight of his own body leaning on an overhanging bush seemed to dislodge some more bones, which had caught in its thick branches, and first a skeleton hand, and then a foot, dropped into the bright sparkling water. The boy told me the story himself, and described very simply and forcibly how he had felt as if the whole thing was a ghastly dream; for in New Zealand one is seldom brought face to face with anything worse than a lamb which has met with an untimely fate; and to this boy, who had left England as a child, and lived a free pastoral, life, almost removed from the knowledge of death, these grim bones were very dreadful.

He stood in perplexity wondering if he could find his way back again exactly to the same spot, when his eye was caught by a fluttering rag on a thorny shrub near. He disentangled it and examined it carefully, and then there flashed upon his mind, the distinct recollection of Joe the shepherd having worn a flannel shirt of this peculiar kind, for he well remembered having ‘chaffed’ him about its staring pattern of brown foxes’ heads on a scarlet ground. He quickly returned for help to the home station, and that evening poor Joe’s remains were collected in an empty flour sack, and buried by the side of the stream. His skull, easily recognised by a peculiar enormous tooth, of which he was very proud as being a sort of _lusus naturæ_, was higher up on the steep hill-side, and his tobacco-pouch and pipe were found a little way off. It was then remembered that the evening he left for home a dense and sudden fog had come on, and, as he was found far from the right track, he must have lost his way, made a false step in the dark, and probably broken his neck. He must at any rate have so injured himself by a fall, as to be incapable of moving, for otherwise there was no reason why he should not have waited till morning and then retraced his steps.