Part 4

"The bath is ready," she exclaimed at last. The word was passed on to her companions, who had laid down the sleepy children they had just brought home in a corner of the great whare, still huddled together in Mrs. Hirpington's blanket. With Ottley's assistance they carried out the all but lifeless body of Nga-Hepe, and laid him gently in the refreshing pool, with all a Maori's faith in its restorative powers.

Marileha knelt upon the brink, and washed the blood-stains from his face. The large dark eyes opened, and gazed dreamily into her own. Her heart revived. What to her were loss and danger if her warrior's life was spared? She glanced at Ottley and said, "Whilst the healing spring still flows by his father's door there is no despair for me. Here he will bathe for hours, and strength and manhood will come back. Whilst he lies here helpless he is safe. Could he rise up it would only be to fight again. Go, good friend, and leave me. It would set the jealous fury of his tribe on fire if they found you here. Take away my Whero. My loneliness will be my defence. What Maori would hurt a weeping woman with her hungry babes? There are kind hearts in the pah; they will not leave me to starve."

She held out her wet hand as she spoke. Ottley saw she was afraid to receive the help he was so anxious to give. Whilst they were speaking, Edwin went to find Whero.

He had heard the black horse neigh, and was looking round for his favourite. "They will seize him!" he muttered between his set teeth. "Why will you bring him here?"

"Come along with us," answered Edwin quickly, "and we will go back as fast as we can."

But the friendly ruse did not succeed.

"I'll guide you to the road, but not a step beyond it. Shall men say I fled in terror from the sound of clubs--a son of Hepe?" exclaimed Whero. "Should I listen to the women's fears?"

"All very fine," retorted Edwin. "If I had a mother, Whero, I'd listen to what she said, and I'd do as she asked me, if all the world laughed. They might call me a coward and a jackass as often as they liked, what would I care? Shouldn't I know in my heart I had done right?"

"Have not you a mother?" said Whero.

Edwin's "No" was scarcely audible, but it touched the Maori boy. He buried his face on the horse's shoulder, then suddenly lifting it up with a defiant toss, he asked, "Would you be faithless and desert her if she prayed you to do it?"

This was a home-thrust; but Edwin was not to be driven from his position.

"Well," he retorted, "even then I should say to myself, 'Perhaps she knows best.'"

He had made an impression, and he had the good sense not to prolong the argument.

*CHAPTER IV.*

*THE NEW HOME.*

The sun had risen when Edwin and the coach man started on their way to the ford. With Whero running by the horse's head for a guide, the dangers of the bush were avoided, and they rode back faster than they came. The gloom had vanished from the forest. The distant hills were painted with violet, pink, and gold. Sunbeams danced on scarlet creepers and bright-hued berries, and sparkled in a thousand frosted spiders' webs nestling in the forks of the trees. Whero led them to the road, and there they parted. "If food runs low," he said, "I shall go to school. With all our winter stores carried away it must; I know it."

"Don't try starving before schooling," said Ottley, cheerily. "Watch for me as I come back with the coach, and I'll take you down to Cambridge and on to the nearest government school.--Not the Cambridge you and I were talking of, Edwin, but a little township in the bush which borrows the grand old name.--You will love it for a while, Whero; you tried it once."

"And I'll try it again," he answered, with a smile. "There is a lot more that I want to know about--why the water boils through the earth here and not everywhere. We love our mud-hole and our boiling spring, and you are afraid of them."

"They are such awful places," said Edwin, as Whero turned back among the trees and left them, not altogether envious of a Maori's patrimony. "It is such a step from fairy-land to Sodom and Gomorrah," persisted Edwin, reverting to Nga-Hepe's legends.

"Don't talk," interrupted Ottley. "There is an awful place among these hills which goes by that name, filled with sulphurous smoke and hissing mud. The men who made that greenstone club would have finished last night's work by hurling Nga-Hepe into its chasms. Thank God, that day is done. We have overcome the cannibal among them; and as we draw their young lads down to our schools, it will never revive." They rode on, talking, to the gate of the ford-house.

"I shall be late getting off," exclaimed Ottley, as he saw the household was astir. He gave the bridle to Edwin and leaped down. The boy was in no hurry to follow. He lingered outside, just to try if he could sit his powerful steed and manage him single-handed. When he rode through the gate at last, Ottley was coming out of the stable as intent upon his own affairs as if nothing had occurred.

Breakfast was half-way through. The passengers were growing impatient. One or two strangers had been added to their number. The starting of the coach was the grand event of the day. Mrs. Hirpington was engrossed, and Edwin's entrance passed unquestioned. His appetite was sharpened by his morning ride across the bush, and he was working away with knife and fork when the coach began to fill.

"If ever you find your way to Bowen's Run, you will not be forgotten," said the genial colonist, as he shook hands with the young Lees and wished them all success in their new home.

The boys ran out to help him to his seat, and see the old ford-horse pilot the coach across the river.

Ottley laid his hand on Edwin's shoulder for a parting word.

"Tell your father poor Marileha--I mean Whero's mother--dare not keep the money for the horse; but I shall leave all sorts of things for her at the roadman's hut, which she can fetch away unnoticed at her own time. When you are settled in your new home, you must not forget I'm general letter-box."

"We are safe to use you," laughed Edwin; and so they parted.

The boys climbed up on the garden-gate to watch the crossing. The clever old pilot-horse, which Mr. Hirpington was bound by his lease to keep, was yoked in front of the team. Good roadsters as the coach-horses were, they could not manage the river without him. Their feet were sure to slip, and one and all might be thrown down by the force of the current. But this steady old fellow, who spent his life crossing and recrossing the river, loved his work. It was a sight no admirer of horses could ever forget to see him stepping down into the river, taking such care of his load, cautiously advancing a few paces, and stopping to throw himself back on his haunches and try the bottom of the river with one of his fore feet. If he found a boulder had been washed down in the night too big for him to step over, he swept the coach round it as easily and readily as if it were a matter of course, instead of a most unexpected obstruction. The boys were in ecstasies. Then the sudden energy he put forth to drag the coach up the steep bank on the opposite side was truly marvellous. When he considered his work was done, he stood stock-still, and no power on earth could make him stir another step. As soon as he was released, splash he went back into the water, and trotted through it as merrily as a four-year-old.

"Cuthbert," said Edwin, in a confidential whisper, "we've got just such another of our own. Come along and have a look at him."

Away went the boys to the stable, where Mr. Hirpington found them two hours after making friends with "Beauty," as they told him.

At that hour in the morning every one at the ford was hard at work, and they were glad to leave the boys to their own devices. Audrey and Effie occupied themselves in assisting Mrs. Hirpington. When they all met together at the one-o'clock dinner, Edwin was quite ready to indemnify his sisters for his last night's silence, and launched into glowing descriptions of his peep into wonderland.

"Shut up," said Mr. Hirpington, who saw the terror gathering in Effie's eyes. "You'll be persuading these young ladies we are next-door neighbours to another Vesuvius.--Don't believe him, my dears. These mud-jets and geysers that he is talking about are nature's safety-valves. I do not deny we are living in a volcanic region. We feel the earth tremble every now and then, setting all the dishes rattling, and tumbling down our books; but it is nothing more than the tempests in other places."

"I'm thinking more of the Maoris than of their mud," put in Effie, shyly; while Audrey quietly observed, everything was strange at present, but they should get used to it by-and-by.

"The Maoris have been living among nature's water-works for hundreds of years, and they would not change homes with anybody in the world; neither would we. Mr. Bowen almost thinks New Zealand beats old England hollow," laughed Mr. Hirpington. "If that is going a little too far, she is the gem of the Southern Ocean. But seriously now," he added, "although the pumice-stone we can pick up any day tells us how this island was made, there has been no volcanic disturbance worth the name of an eruption since we English set foot on the island. The Maoris were here some hundreds of years before us, and their traditions have been handed down from father to son, but they never heard of anything of the kind."

Mr. Hirpington spoke confidently, and all New Zealand would have agreed with him.

Edwin thought of Whero. "There are a great many things I want to understand," he said, thoughtfully.

"Wife," laughed Mr. Hirpington, "is not there a book of Paulett Scroope's somewhere about? He is our big gun on these matters."

As Mrs. Hirpington rose to find the book, she tried to divert Effie's attention by admitting her numerous family of cats: seven energetic mousers, with a goodly following of impudent kittens--tabby, tortoise-shell, and black. When Effie understood she was to choose a pet from among them, mud and Maoris seemed banished by their round green eyes and whisking tails. The very title of Edwin's book proved consolatory to Audrey--"Geology and Extinct Volcanoes in Central France." A book in the bush is a book indeed, and Edwin held his treasure with a loving clasp. He knew it was a parting gift; and looking through the river-window, he saw Dunter and his companion returning in a big lumbering cart. They drew up on the opposite bank of the river and waved their hats.

"They have come to fetch us," cried Audrey. Mrs. Hirpington would hardly believe it. "I meant to have kept you with me for some days at least," she said; but the very real regret was set aside to speed the parting of her juvenile guests.

According to New Zealand custom, Mr. Lee had been obliged to buy the horse and cart which brought his luggage up country, so he had sent it with Dunter to fetch his children.

The men had half filled it with freshly-gathered fern; and Edwin was delighted to see how easily his Beauty could swim the stream, to take the place of Mr. Hirpington's horse.

"He would make a good pilot," exclaimed the man who was riding him.

Mrs. Hirpington was almost affectionate in her leave-taking, lamenting as she fastened Effie's cloak that she could not keep one of them with her. But not one of the four would have been willing to be left behind.

The boat was at the stairs; rugs and portmanteaus were already thrown in.

Mr. Hirpington had seized the oar. "I take you myself," he said; "that was the bargain with your father."

In a few minutes they had crossed the river, and were safely seated in the midst of a heap of fern, and found it as pleasant as a ride in a hay-cart. Mr. Hirpington sat on the side of the cart teaching Cuthbert how to hold the reins.

The road which they had taken was a mere cart-track, which the men had improved as they came; for they had been obliged to use their hatchets freely to get the cart along. Many a great branch which they had lopped off was lying under the tree from which it had fallen, and served as a way-mark. The trees through which they were driving were tall and dark, but so overgrown with creepers and parasites it was often difficult to tell what trees they were. A hundred and fifty feet above their heads the red blossoms of the rata were streaming like banners, and wreathing themselves into gigantic nests. Beneath were an infinite variety of shrubs, with large, glossy leaves, like magnolias or laurels; sweetly fragrant aromatic bushes, burying the fallen trunk of some old tree, shrouded in velvet moss and mouse-ear. Little green and yellow birds were hopping from spray to spray through the rich harvest of berries the bushes afforded.

The drive was in itself a pleasure. A breath of summer still lingered in the glinting sunlight, as if it longed to stay the falling leaves. The trees were parted by a wandering brook overgrown with brilliant scarlet duckweed. An enormous willow hanging over its pretty bank, with a peep between its drooping branches of a grassy slope just dotted with the ever-present ti tree told them they had reached their journey's end. They saw the rush-thatched roof and somewhat dilapidated veranda of the disused schoolhouse. Before it stretched a lovely valley, where the brook became a foaming rivulet. A little group of tents and a long line of silvery-looking streamers marked the camp of the rabbiters.

But the children's eyes were fastened on the moss-grown thatch. Soon they could distinguish the broken-down paling and the recently-mended gate, at which Mr. Lee was hammering. A shout, in which three voices at least united, made him look round. Down went bill and hammer as he ran to meet them, answering with his cheeriest "All right!" the welcome cry of, "Father, father, here we are!"

Mr. Hirpington sprang out and lifted Audrey to the ground. Mr. Lee had Effie in his arms already. The boys, disdaining assistance, climbed over the back of the cart, laughing merrily. The garden had long since gone back to wilderness, but the fruit still hung on the unpruned trees--apples and peaches dwindling for want of the gardener's care, but oh, so nice in boyish eyes! Cuthbert had shied a stone amongst the over-ripe peaches before his father had answered his friend's inquiries.

No, not the shadow of a disturbance had reached his happy valley, so Mr. Lee asserted, looking round the sweet, secluded nook with unbounded satisfaction.

"You could not have chosen better for me," he went on, and Edwin's beaming face echoed his father's content.

Mr. Hirpington was pulling out from beneath the fern-leaves a store of good things of which his friend knew nothing---wild pig and hare, butter and eggs, nice new-made bread; just a transfer from the larder at the ford to please the children.

Age had given to the school-house a touch of the picturesque. Its log-built walls were embowered in creepers, and the sweet-brier, which had formerly edged the worn-out path, was now choking the doorway. Although Mr. Lee's tenancy could be counted by hours, he had not been idle. A wood fire was blazing in the room once sacred to desk and form. The windows looking to the garden behind the house had been all forced open, and the sunny air they admitted so freely was fast dispelling the damp and mould which attach to shut-up houses in all parts of the world.

One end of the room was piled with heterogeneous bales and packages, but around the fire-place a sense of comfort began to show itself already. A camp-table had been unpacked and screwed together, and seats, after a fashion, were provided for all the party. The colonist's "billy," the all-useful iron pot for camp fire or farmhouse kitchen, was singing merrily, and even the family teapot had been brought back to daylight from its chrysalis of straw and packing-case. There was a home-like feeling in this quiet taking possession.

"I thought it would be better than having your boys and girls shivering under canvas until your house was built," remarked Mr. Hirpington, rubbing his hands with the pleasant assurance of success. "You can rent the old place as long as you like. It may be a bit shaky at the other corner, but a good prop will make it all right."

The two friends went out to examine, and the brothers and sisters drew together. Effie was hugging her kitten; Cuthbert was thinking of the fruit; but Beauty, who had been left grazing outside, was beforehand with him. There he stood, with his fore feet on the broken-down paling, gathering it for himself. It was fun to see him part the peach and throw away the stone, and Cuthbert shouted with delight to Edwin. They were not altogether pleased to find Mr. Hirpington regarded it as a very ordinary accomplishment in a New Zealand horse.

"We are in another hemisphere," exclaimed Edwin, "and everything about us is so delightfully new."

"Except these decaying beams," returned his father, coming round to examine the state of the roof above the window at which Edwin and Effie were standing after their survey of the bedrooms.

Audrey, who had deferred her curiosity to prepare the family meal, was glad to learn that, besides the room in which Mr. Lee had slept last night, each end of the veranda had been enclosed, making two more tiny ones. A bedstead was already put up in one, and such stores as had been unpacked were shut in the other.

When Audrey's call to tea brought back the explorers, and the little party gathered around their own fireside, Edwin could but think of the dismantled hearth by the Rota Pah, and as he heard his father's energetic conversation with Mr. Hirpington, his indignation against the merciless tana was ready to effervesce once more.

"Now," Mr. Lee went on, "I cannot bring my mind to clear my land by burning down the trees. You say it is the easiest way."

"Don't begin to dispute with me over that," laughed his friend. "You can light a fire, but how will you fell a tree single-handed?"

The boys were listening with eager interest to their father's plans. To swing the axe and load the faggot-cart would be jolly work indeed in those lovely woods.

Mr. Hirpington was to ride back on the horse he had lent to Mr. Lee on the preceding evening. When he started, the brothers ran down the valley to get a peep at the rabbiter's camp. Three or four men were lying round their fire eating their supper. The line of silver streamers fluttering in the wind proved to be an innumerable multitude of rabbit-skins hanging up to dry. A party of sea-gulls, which had followed the camp as the rabbiters moved on, were hovering about, crying like cats, until they awakened the sleeping echoes.

The men told Edwin they had been clearing the great sheep-runs between his father's land and the sea-shore, and the birds had followed them all those miles for the sake of the nightly feast they could pick up in their track.

"You can none of you do without us," they said. "We are always at work, moving from place to place, or the little brown Bunny would lord it over you all."

The boys had hardly time to exchange a good-night with the rabbiters, when the daylight suddenly faded, and night came down upon vale and bush without the sweet interlude of twilight. They were groping their way back to the house, when the fire-flies began their nightly dance, and the flowering shrubs poured forth their perfume. The stars shone out in all their southern splendour, and the boys became aware of a moving army in the grass. Poor Bunny was mustering his myriads.

*CHAPTER V.*

*POSTING A LETTER.*

Mr. Lee and his boys found so much to do in their new home, days sped away like hours. The bright autumn weather which had welcomed them to Wairoa (to give their habitation its Maori name) had changed suddenly for rain--a long, deluging rain, lasting more than a week.

The prop which Mr. Hirpington had recommended was necessarily left for the return of fine weather. But within doors comfort was growing rapidly. One end of the large room was screened off for a workshop, and shelves and pegs multiplied in convenient corners. They were yet a good way off from that happy condition of a place for everything, and everything in its place. It was still picnic under a roof, as Audrey said; but they were on the highroad to comfort and better things. When darkness fell they gathered round the blazing wood-fire. Mr. Lee wrote the first letters for England, while Edwin studied "Extinct Volcanoes." Audrey added her quota to the packet preparing for Edwin's old friend, "the perambulating letter-box," and Effie and Cuthbert played interminable games of draughts, until Edwin shut up his book and evolved from his own brains a new and enlarged edition of Maori folk-lore which sent them "creepy" to bed.

It seemed a contradiction of terms to say May-day was bringing winter; but winter might come upon them in haste, and the letters must be posted before the road to the ford was changed to a muddy rivulet.

Mr. Lee, who had everything to do with his own hands, knew not how to spare a day. He made up his mind at last to trust Edwin to ride over with them. To be sure of seeing Ottley, Edwin must stay all night at the ford, for after the coach came in it would be too late for him to return through the bush alone.

Edwin was overjoyed at the prospect, for Ottley would tell him all he longed to know. Was Nga-Hepe still alive? Had Whero gone to school? He might even propose another early morning walk across the bush to the banks of the lake.

Edwin was to ride the Maori Beauty, which had become the family name for the chieftain's horse. Remembering his past experiences with the white-leaved puka-puka, he coaxed Audrey to lend him a curtain she was netting for the window of her own bedroom. She had not much faith in Edwin's assurances that it would not hurt it a bit just to use it for once for a veil or muzzle; but she was horrified into compliance by his energetic assertion that her refusal might cost his Beauty's life. Cuthbert, mounted on an upturned pail, so that he could reach the horse's head, did good service in the difficult task of putting it on. The veil was not at all to the Beauty's mind, and he did his best to get rid of it. But the four corners were drawn through his collar at last, and securely tied.

With Mr. Lee's parting exhortation to mind what he was about and look well to Beauty's steps, Edwin started.

The road was changed to a black, oozy, slimy track. Here and there the earth had been completely washed away, and horse and rider were floundering in a boggy swamp. A little farther on a perfect landslip from the hills above had obliterated every trace of road, and Edwin was obliged to wind his way through the trees, trusting to his Beauty's instinct to find it again.

With the many wanderings from the right path time sped away. The lamp was swinging in the acacia tree as he trotted up to the friendly gate of the ford-house.

"Coach in?" he shouted, as he caught sight of Dunter shovelling away the mud from the entrance.

"Not yet; but she's overdue," returned the man, anxiously. "Even Ottley will never get his horses through much longer. We may lock our stable-doors until the May frosts begin. It is a tempting of Providence to start with wheels through such a swamp, and I told him so last week."

"Then I am just in time," cried Edwin joyfully, walking his horse up to the great flat stone in the middle of the yard and alighting. He slipped his hand into his coat to satisfy himself the bulky letters in his breast-pocket were all right, and then led his Beauty to the horse-trough. He had half a mind not to go in-doors until he had had his talk with Ottley.