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-Hepé 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.
Dunter, who was looking forward to the brief holiday the stopping of the coach secured him, leaned on his spade and prepared for a gossip.
“Did Mr. Lee think of building a saw-mill?” Edwin’s reply ended with the counter-inquiry, “Had Mr. Hirpington got home?”
Dunter shook his head. “Not he: we all hold on as long as the light lasts. He is away with the men, laying down a bit of corduroy road over an earthslip, just to keep a horse-track through the worst of the winter.”
Whilst Edwin was being initiated into the mysteries of road-making in the bush, the coach drove up.
Horses and driver were alike covered with mud, and the coach itself exhibited more than its usual quota of flax-leaf bandages—all testifying to the roughness of the journey.
“It is the last time you will see me this season,” groaned Ottley, as he got off the box. “I shall get no farther.” He caught sight of Edwin, and recognized his presence with a friendly nod. The passengers, looking in as dilapidated and battered condition as the coach, were slowly getting out, thankful to find themselves at a stopping-place. Among them Edwin noticed a remarkable old man.
His snowy hair spoke of extreme old age, and when he turned a tattooed cheek towards the boy, Edwin’s attention was riveted upon him at once. Lean, lank, and active still, his every air and gesture was that of a man accustomed to command.
“Look at him well,” whispered Dunter. “He is a true old tribal chief from the other side of the mountains, if I know anything; one of the invincibles, the gallant old warrior-chiefs that are dying out fast. You will never see his like again. If you had heard them, as I have, vow to stand true for ever and ever and ever, you would never forget it.—Am I not right, coachee?” he added in a low aside to Ottley, as he took the fore horse by the head.
The lantern flickered across the wet ground. The weary passengers were stamping their numbed feet, and shaking the heavy drops of moisture from hat-brims and overcoats. Edwin pressed resolutely between, that he might catch the murmur of Ottley’s reply.
“He got in at the last stopping-place, but I do not know him.”
There was such a look of Whero in the proud flash of the aged Maori’s eye, that Edwin felt a secret conviction, be he who he might, they must be kith and kin. He held his letter aloft to attract the coachman’s attention, calling out at his loudest, “Here, Mr. Ottley, I have brought a letter for you to post at last.”
“All right,” answered the coachman, opening a capacious pocket to receive it, in which a dozen others were already reposing. “Hand it over, my boy; there is scarcely a letter reaches the post from this district which does not go through my hands.”
“Did you post this?” asked the aged Maori, taking another from the folds of his blanket.
“I did more,” said Ottley, as he glanced at the crumpled envelope, “for I wrote it to Kakiki Mahane, the father of Nga-Hepé’s wife, at her request.”
“I am that father,” returned the old chief.
“And I,” added Ottley, “was the eye-witness of her destitution, as that letter tells you.”
They were almost alone now in the great wet yard. The other passengers were hurrying in-doors, and Dunter was leading away the horses; but Edwin lingered, regardless of the heavy drops falling from the acacia, in his anxiety to hear more.
“I have brought no following with me to the mountain-lake, for by your letter famine is brooding in the whare of my child. Well, I know if the men of the Kota Pah heard of my coming, they would spread the feast in my honour. But how should I eat with the enemies of my child? I wait for the rising of the stars to find her, that none may know I am near.”
“I’ll go with you,” offered Ottley.
“You need not wait for the stars,” interposed Edwin; “I’ll carry the big coach-lantern before you with pleasure. Do let me go with you,” he urged, appealing to Ottley.
“How is this?” asked Kakiki. “Does the pakeha pity when the Maori frowns? What has my son-in-law been about, to bring down upon himself the vengeance of his tribe?”
“Let your daughter answer that question,” remarked Ottley discreetly.
But Edwin put in warmly: “Nga-Hepé was too rich and too powerful, and the chief grew jealous. It was a big shame; and if I had been Whero, I should have been worse than he was.”
Whero’s grandfather deigned no reply. He stalked up the well-worn steps into Mrs. Hirpington’s kitchen, and seating himself at the long table called out for supper. Edwin just peeped in at the door, avoiding Mrs. Hirpington’s eye, for fear she should interfere to prevent him going with the old Maori.
“I shall see her when I come back,” he thought, as he strolled on towards the stable, keeping an anxious watch over the gate, afraid lest the fordmaster should himself appear at the last moment and detain him.
“You have brought Nga-Hepé’s horse,” said Ottley. as he entered the nearest stall. “We must have him, for he knows the way. We have only to give him his head, and he is safe to take the road to his master’s door.”
“If you have him you must have me,” persisted Edwin, and the thing was settled. He nestled down in the clean straw under Beauty’s manger, and waited, elate with the prospect of a night of adventure, and stoutly resisted all Dunter’s persuasions to go in to supper.
Wondering at the shy fit which had seized the boy, Dunter brought him a hunch of bread and cheese, and left the lantern swinging in the stable from the hook in the ceiling, ere he went in with Ottley to share the good feed always to be found in Mrs. Hirpington’s kitchen, leaving Edwin alone with the horses. He latched the stable-door, as the nights were growing cold. The gates were not yet barred, for Mr. Hirpington and his men were now expected every minute.
Edwin’s thoughts had gone back to the corduroy road, which Dunter had told him was made of the trunks of trees laid close together, with a layer of saplings on the top to fill up the interstices. He was making it in miniature with some bits of rush and reed scattered about the stables, when the latch was softly lifted, and Whero stood before him. Not the Whero he had parted from by the white pines, but the lean skeleton of a boy with big, staring eyes, and bony arms coming out from the loose folds of the blanket he was wearing, like the arms of a harlequin. Edwin sprang up to meet him, exclaiming, “Your grandfather is here.” But instead of replying, Whero was vigorously rubbing faces with his good old Beauty.
“Have you come to meet your grandfather?” asked Edwin.
“No,” answered the boy abruptly. “I’ve come to ask Ottley to take me to school.” His voice was hollow, and his teeth seemed to snap together at the sight of the bread in Edwin’s hand.
“Whero, you are starving!” exclaimed Edwin, putting the remainder of his supper into the dusky, skinny fingers smoothing Beauty’s mane.
“A man must learn to starve,” retorted Whero. “The mother here will give me food when I come of nights and talk to Ottley.”
“But your own mother, Whero, and Ronga, and the children, how do they live?” Edwin held back from asking after Nga-Hepé, “for,” he said, as he looked at Whero, “he must be dead.”
“How do they live?” repeated Whero, with a laugh. “Is the door of the whare ever shut against the hungry? They go to the pah daily, but I will not go. I will not eat with the men who struck down my father in his pride. I wander through the bush. Let him eat the food they bring him—he knows not yet how it comes; but his eyes are opening to the world again. When he sees me hunger-bitten, and my sister Rewi fat as ever, he will want the reason why. I will not give it. His strength is gone if he starves as I starve. How can it return? No; I will go to school to-morrow before he asks me.”
Edwin’s hand grasped Whero’s with a warmth of sympathy that was only held in check by the dread of another nasal caress, and he exclaimed, “Come along, old fellow, and have a look at your grandfather too.”
There was something about the grand old Maori’s face which made Edwin feel that he both could and would extricate his unfortunate daughter from her painful position.
“It is a fix,” Edwin went on; “but he has come to pull you through, I feel sure.”
Still Whero held back. He did not believe it was his grandfather. He would not come without a following; and more than that, the proud boy could not stoop to show himself to a stranger of his own race in such a miserable guise. He coiled himself round in the straw and refused to stir.
“Now, Whero,” Edwin remonstrated, “I call this really foolish; and if I were you I would not, I could not do it, speak of my own mother as one of the women. I like your mother. It rubs me up to hear you—” The boy stopped short; the measured breathing of his companion struck on his ear. Whero had already fallen fast asleep by Beauty’s side.
“Oh, bother!” thought Edwin. “Yet, poor fellow, I won’t wake you up, but I’ll go and tell your grandfather you are here.”
He went out, shutting the door after him, and encountered Mr. Hirpington coming in with his men.
“Hollo, Edwin, my boy, what brings you here?” he exclaimed.
“Please, sir, I came over with a packet of letters for Mr. Ottley to post,” was the quick answer, as Edwin walked on by his side, intent upon delivering his father’s messages.
“All right,” was the hearty response. “We’ll see. Come, now I think of it, we can send your father some excellent hams and bacon we bought of the Maoris. Some of poor Hepé’s stores, I expect.”
“That was a big shame,” muttered Edwin, hotly, afraid to hurt poor Whero’s pride by explaining his forlorn state to any one but his grandfather.
He entered the well-remembered room with the fordmaster, looking eagerly from side to side, as Mr. Hirpington pushed him into the first vacant seat at the long table, where supper for the “coach” was going forward. Edwin was watching for the old chief, who sat by Ottley, gravely devouring heap after heap of whitebait, potatoes, and pumpkins with which the “coach” took care to supply him. Mrs. Hirpington cast anxious glances round the table, fearing that the other passengers would run short, as the old Maori still asked for “more,” repeating in a loud voice, “More, more kai!” which Ottley interpreted “food.” Dunter was bringing forth the reserves from the larder—another cheese, the remains of the mid-day pudding, and a huge dish of brawn, not yet cold enough to be turned out of the mould, and therefore in a quaky state. The old chief saw it tremble, and thinking it must be alive, watched it curiously.
“What strange animals you pakehas bring over the sea!” he exclaimed at last, adding, as he sprang to his feet and drew the knife in his belt with a savage gesture, “I’ll kill it.”
The laughter every one was trying to suppress choked the explanation that would have been given on all sides. With arm upraised, and a contorted face that alone was enough to frighten Mrs. Hirpington out of her wits, he plunged the knife into the unresisting brawn to its very hilt, utterly amazed to find neither blood nor bones to resist it. “Bah!” he exclaimed, in evident disgust.
“Here, Edwin,” gasped the shaking fordmaster, “give the old fellow a spoon.”
Edwin snatched up one from the corner of the table, and careful not to wound the aged Maori’s pride, which might be as sensitive as his grandson’s, he explained to him as well as he could that brawn was brawn, and very jolly stuff for a supper.
“Example is better than precept at all times,” laughed Mr. Hirpington. “Show him what to do with the spoon.”
Edwin obeyed literally, putting it to his own lips and then offering it to Kakiki. The whole room was convulsed with merriment. Ottley and Mr. Hirpington knew this would not do, and exerted themselves to recover self-control sufficiently to persuade the old man to taste and try the Ingarangi kai.
He drew the dish towards him with the utmost gravity, and having pronounced the first mouthful “Good, good,” he worked away at it until the whole of its contents had disappeared. And all the while Whero was starving in the stable.
“I can’t stand this any longer,” thought Edwin. “I must get him something to eat, I must;” and following Dunter into the larder, he explained the state of the case.
“Wants to go by the coach and cannot pay for supper and bed. I see,” returned Dunter.
Edwin thought of the treasure by the white pines as he answered, “I am afraid so.”
“That’s hard,” pursued the man good-naturedly; “but the missis never grudges a mouthful of food to anybody. I’ll see after him.”
“Let me take it to him,” urged Edwin, receiving the unsatisfactory reply, “Just wait a bit; I’ll see,” as Dunter was called off in another direction; and with this he was obliged to be content.
Ottley was so taken up with the aged chief—who was considerably annoyed to find himself the laughing-stock of the other passengers—that Edwin could not get a word with him. He tried Mr. Hirpington, who was now talking politics with a Wellingtonian fresh from the capital. Edwin, in his fever of impatience, thought the supper would never end. After a while some of the passengers went off to bed, and others drew round the fire and lit their pipes.
Mrs. Hirpington, Kakiki, and the coachman alone remained at the table. At last the dish of brawn was cleared, and the old Maori drew himself up with a truly royal air. Taking out a well-filled purse, in which some hundreds of English sovereigns were glittering, he began counting on his fingers, “One ten, two ten—how muts?” (much).
Ottley, who understood a Maori’s simple mode of reckoning better than any one present, was assisting Mrs. Hirpington to make her bill, and began to speak to Kakiki about their departure.
The fordmaster could see how tired the chief was becoming, and suddenly remembered a Maori’s contempt and dislike for the wretched institution of chairs. He was determined to make the old man comfortable, and fetching a bear-skin from the inner room, he spread it on the floor by the fire, and invited Kakiki to take possession. Edwin ran to his help, and secured the few minutes for talk he so much desired. Mr. Hirpington listened and nodded.
“You will have to stay here until the morning,” he added, “every one of you. Go off with Dunter and make the boy outside as comfortable as you can. I should be out of my duty to let that old man cross the bush at night, with so much money about him. Better fetch his grandson in here.”
Mrs. Hirpington laid her hand on Edwin’s shoulder as he passed, and told him, with her pleasant smile, his bed was always ready at the ford.
Dunter pointed to a well-filled plate and a mug of tea, placed ready to his hand on the larder shelf; and stretching over Edwin’s head, he unbolted the door to let him out.
The Southern Cross shone brightly above the iron roof as Edwin stepped into the yard to summon Whero. The murmur of the water as it lapped on the boating-stairs broke the stillness without, and helped to guide him to the stable-door. The lantern had burnt out. He groped his way in, and giving Whero a hearty shake, charged him to come along.
But the hand he grasped was withdrawn.
“I can’t,” persisted Whero; “I’m too ashamed.” He meant too shy to face the “coach,” and tell all he had endured in their presence. The idea was hateful to him.
Edwin placed the supper on the ground and ran back for Ottley. He found the coachman explaining to Kakiki why Marileha had refused to accept the money for the horse, and how he had kept it for her use.
“Then take this,” cried Kakiki, flinging the purse of gold towards him, “and do the like.”
But Ottley’s “No!” was dogged in its decision.
“What for no?” asked Kakiki, angrily.
“Who is his daughter?” whispered Mr. Hirpington to his wife.
“You know her: she wears the shark’s teeth, tied in her ears with a black ribbon,” Mrs. Hirpington answered, sleepily.
Then he went to the rescue, and tried to persuade Kakiki to place his money in the Auckland Bank for his daughter’s benefit, pointing out as clearly as he could the object of a bank, and how to use it. As the intelligent old man began to comprehend him, he reiterated, “Good, good; the pitfall is only dangerous when it is covered. My following are marching after me up the hills. If I enter the Rota Pah with the state of a chief, there will be fighting. Send back my men to their canoes. Hide the wealth that remains to my child as you say, but let that wahini” (meaning Mrs. Hirpington) “take what she will, and bid her send kai by night to my daughter’s whare, that there may be no starving. This bank shall be visited by me, and then I go a poor old man to sleep by my daughter’s fire until her warrior’s foot is firm upon the earth once more. I’ll wrap me in that thin sheet,” he went on, seizing the corner of the table-cloth, which was not yet removed.
Mr. Hirpington let him have it without a word, and Ottley rejoiced to find them so capable and so determined to extricate Marileha from her peril.
“Before this moon shall pass,” said Kakiki, “I will take her away, with her family, to her own people. Let your canoe be ready to answer my signal.”
“Agreed,” replied Mr. Hirpington; “I’ll send my boat whenever you want it.”
“For all that,” thought Edwin, “will Nga-Hepé go away?” He longed to fetch in Whero, that he might enter into his grandfather’s plans; and as, one after another, the passengers went off to bed, he made his way to Mrs. Hirpington. Surely he could coax her to unbar the door once more and let him out to the stables.
“What, another Maori asleep in the straw!” she exclaimed. “They do take liberties. Pray, my dear, don’t bring him in here, or we shall be up all night.”
Edwin turned away again in despair.
Having possessed himself of the table-cloth, the old chief lay down on the bear-skin and puffed away at the pipe Mr. Hirpington had offered him, in silence revolving his schemes.
He was most anxious to ascertain how his son-in-law had brought down upon himself the vengeance of the tribe amongst which he lived. “I will not break the peace of the hills,” he said at length, “for he may have erred. Row me up stream while the darkness lasts, that I may have speech of my child.”
“Too late,” said Mr. Hirpington; “wait for the daylight.”
“Are there not stars in heaven?” retorted Kakiki, rising to try the door.
“Am I a prisoner?” he demanded angrily, when he found it fastened.
Mr. Hirpington felt he had been reckoning without his host when he declared no one should leave his roof that night. But he was not the man to persist in a mistake, so he threw it open.
“I’ll row him,” said Dunter.
Edwin ran out with them. Here was the chance he had been seeking. He flew to the stable and roused up Whero. Grandfather and grandson met and deliberately rubbed noses by the great flat stone which Edwin had used as a horse-block. Whilst Dunter and Mr. Hirpington were getting out the boat, they talked to each other in their native tongue.
“It will be all right now, won’t it?” asked Edwin, in a low aside to Ottley, who stood in the doorway yawning. But Kakiki beckoned them to the conference.
“The sky is black with clouds above my daughter’s head; her people have deserted her—all but Ronga. Would they cut off the race of Hepé? Some miscreant met the young lord in the bush, and tried to push him down a mud-hole; but he sprang up a tree, and so escaped. Take him to school as he wills. When I go down to the bank I shall see him there. It is good that he should learn. The letter has saved my child.”