Chapter I. ‘The spot was made by Nature for herself. The travellers know it not, and 'twill remain Unknown by them; but it is beautiful; And if a man should plant his cottage near, Should sleep beneath the shelter of its trees, And blend its waters with his daily meal, He would so love it that in his death hour Its image would survive among his thoughts.’ Wordsworth.

It was very much out of the way. The miry tracks that led to it could hardly be called roads, the creeks that almost made it an island were unbridged, and the bush had closed around, as if determined to hide it from the eyes of the world.

Hide what? do you ask me? Not a very important place, nor, it is likely, one that you have ever seen or ever will see, and yet, take my word for it, one that would well repay the trouble and toil of a journey.

Let us suppose that you have made the pilgrimage. If you were bold, and forded the bridgeless creek, or if you wisely preferred the longer way, and threaded the mazes of the damp, dark bush, you came at last to an open, sunlit space, where the trees no longer crowded together, struggling for light and air, but stood apart in groves and avenues, all the more beautiful because they were of Nature's own planting. Here you might think no hand but hers had ever laboured. In the midst of the woods, where none could vex her or interfere with her designs, she made this park for herself; she planned these shady alleys, these verdant lawns and bowers. In the summer-time, amongst forest trees bedecked with flowers, with the unrivalled azure of the Austral sky above, and the rush of streams and the song of birds around, you might well believe you had strayed into her own pleasure garden, almost too lovely for human trespassers.

The little domain lay between two wide creeks which, when the tide was in, one might fancy to be noble rivers. Their eccentric windings, delusive bends, and sudden turnings were for ever hiding them in the gloom of the forest, or bringing them out into full daylight. To follow them in a boat some serene summer's day would lead to quite a long voyage, full of all kinds of delightful surprises. The most decided of the bends, if continued but a little farther, would have united the two streams, and formed an island of the land between. But at the last moment, like a capricious young lady, the shallower of the two had changed its mind, and wandered back again into the bush, leaving the other deserted one to pursue its way to the sea alone.

You may be sure that everything lovely and graceful bloomed in the forest where the streams had their course; that throughout the year flowers blossomed and faded unnoticed; that ferns and creepers made their hanging gardens among the boughs of every tall tree. The damp ground beneath, seldom trodden by human foot, would at one time be strewn with white petals, at another with pink flowers or scarlet berries. Only a dim and softened light found its way into this forest of evergreens. In the presence of an eternal spring the leaf never seemed to fall; the flowers that withered left others to take their place. If, as we cannot doubt, decay and death were present, they were unseen and unheeded in the midst of such exuberance of life and growth.

I might tell you where this park, girdled with creek and bush, is to be found. I will only yield this much to your curiosity:—it is somewhere in New Zealand. Nor will I burden your memory with its name—a Maori one, long, many-syllabled, and melodiously ending in a vowel. Very soon its name will be forgotten, as its history has been. For it has a history, we may believe, though it must remain untold. It has heard the fury of battle, the song of triumph, the wail for the dead; it has been shaken by the maddening war dance; its echoes have repeated the eloquence, the rejoicings, the tumults of great feast days. It has a place of graves where you would little think to find one. Wild and wicked deeds have been done amongst its pleasant groves. That dark and silent stream which hides its face in the shades of the forest, after one shuddering glance at the light of day, has it not some guilty secret in its breast, which it always mourns, sobbing to itself under the trees? But its companion, which leaps into the sunshine, and like a flash of light passes down the valley, it has heard the laughter and play of black-eyed children and the careless chatter of the Maori girls as they braided their baskets and mats by the house doors on summer mornings. But a time came when the children were no longer there. A blight fell on the place. It was nothing the eye could mark. The soil was as fertile, the running water as sweet and clear, the seasons smiled as kindly as ever, neither war nor famine raged, but suddenly the once cherished home was abandoned. I cannot say why. Perhaps some dying chief had commanded that no one should dwell there for evermore; perhaps some venerable priest had laid his ban upon it. The carved houses that had been the labour of years decayed slowly; the uncouth images fell amongst the rank undergrowth. The owl perched on the tottering roof-tree, and the timid lizard crept to the cold hearthstone. Great trees sprung up in the midst of the deserted village. It was given up to silence and foregetfulness. In old times of superstition English people would have deemed such ground haunted; the Maori said, ‘The place is tapu.’

Still, from generation to generation the tribe held it, as they held many hundred thousand acres beside,—a larger territory than that of some European princes. But the old people died; their children grew up in the midst of another race. They forgot their own traditions and customs, and they learnt many things, some better, some worse, from the strangers who had become their masters and teachers. They wanted money, not land. Money bought all sorts of pleasure and fine things; money, not fighting, made a man powerful in the civilisation with which they stood face to face. And so, for wealth which they would squander in a few years, they sold their birthright. This is why a white-faced house stands where the brown-thatched huts once clustered, why the plough is driven in the valleys, where long ago, in neat rows, the sweet potato and the dark green taro were planted, and why, nowadays, there winds along over hill and dale a highway, joining even this place to the world and its turmoil.

Not by this path, if you please, but by Imagination's royal road, we travel. Westward from the town—a large town considering its age, and one which its inhabitants, with some show of reason, are proud to call a city. Fifteen miles away we find the place we seek, amongst hills green with forest from base to summit. The western winds bring many showers to these hills which never reach the plains below. There the land is all in farms. But the hilly country, broken with ravines and gorges, furrowed by countless streams, is sparsely settled. A man might live there, but could hardly expect to thrive, at least not by farming, unless he could plough slopes as steep as a house roof, and extract stumps therefrom, four, six, or eight feet in diameter. Most men with an eye to profit—and there are few New Zealand colonists whose eyes are not turned in that direction—shunned this locality. It was only those who were more romantic than mercenary in their cravings, or confirmed blunderers, always likely to select land the least fitted for their purpose, who made their homes here. There is something very poetic in the idea of a man choosing a place for himself in the heart of the wilderness, building his little house under the giant trees, and hewing his way farther amongst them year by year, fighting with the forest for every foot of ground. All this is very charming to an imaginative mind, and these pioneer settlers, with their bush cottages and farms, are picturesque figures in story or sketchbook. But the labours, the privations, the poverty of their lives, Heaven only knows.

Now, some years ago, in this same country, there was not a little excitement and surprise at the news that the land already described—the only tolerably level land in those parts—was sold, and, after lying waste ever since man could remember, was to be a dwelling-place once more. Any news was surprising in this neighbourhood mainly because it was news,—a thing which does not grow spontaneously in the wilds. The settlers were naturally excited when they heard that a wealthy man had bought the Maori-land, as it was called; no one burdened with riches had yet penetrated into the district. And the news was especially gladdening to Mr. Bailey, who hoped great things, because he would be the nearest neighbour of the wealthy man, whose fortune rumour had magnified tenfold.

Mr. Bailey was pondering over the news one unusually hot morning while at his work. He was slowly pointing some rails, wielding his tool after the manner of a man to whom time is of no value and labour brings no reward. Long years ago he had despairingly embraced the opinion that he was destined to be poverty-stricken and unfortunate to the end of his days. What then was the use of exertion beyond that absolutely forced upon him? To work harder would only make him more tired at night; besides, hard work inevitably conduced to a good appetite, and, as it was, the combined appetite of the family only too often seemed out of all proportion to the food set before them. He had always been unlucky, and probably always would be. No one but himself would have thrown away his little all upon land out of which he couldn't make a penny, except by selling kauri timber. Thank goodness! there was some kauri on it; but that wouldn't last long. And, as these thoughts passed through his somewhat sluggish mind, Mr. Bailey sighed, and swallowed fully a pint of cold tea which his wife had just brought him.

His wife looked at him inquiringly, as a woman will who suspects that her husband is about to enlighten the world with some oracular saying. She was a thin eager-looking little woman, whose face would have been pale enough but for the sunburn which tinged it with brown.

‘There's a very unequal distribution of riches in this world,’ was Mr. Bailey's observation.

‘We are left out of it, that's pretty certain,’ said Mrs. Bailey, with the shadow of a smile.

‘Ay; but perhaps it's as well. I remember when I was a little lad, and complained of anything, the old folks would say, “Be thankful it's no worse.” I can't say that was much comfort though. What made me think of these things was hearing from Stevens that a rich gentleman has bought the Maoriland, and means to build a mansion on it, and make no end of improvements.’

‘Well, that will be a good thing,’ said Mrs. Bailey. ‘It will make a pretty place.’

‘Yes, if only a few men with money would come about us we might get on. It'll raise the value of our place, depend on it. If I should have an offer—but of course I shan't; whoever would buy such land?—I'd put on something extra per acre. And now, perhaps, we shall get the roads made, and have a bridge over the creek. While we poor fellows were the only ones who travelled on 'em no one cared whether we got bogged or not, but this gentleman won't stand it; he'll get the Government to do something.’

‘If the Government have to make all the roads and bridges I don't wonder they're in debt,’ said Mrs. Bailey.

‘Did you ever hear of a Government that wasn't in debt? It's the natural order of things——What's that?’ broke off Mr. Bailey, looking down the cleared space, by courtesy called a road.

It was nothing uncommon on this earth, being only a man who was coming towards them, rapidly brushing through the short fern thickly beset with stumps.

‘It's like Mr. Randall,’ said Bailey, scrutinising the approaching figure with a pair of mild-looking blue eyes, which he shaded with his hand from the glare of the sun. ‘It's him! Well, I am glad! Why, it's more than a year since we've seen you!’ he cried, rushing forward and shaking hands with the bronzed and dust-covered stranger.

He was a man whom most would be disposed to eye curiously at a first meeting. There was the stamp of vagrant upon him, as plain to see as if it had been written on his countenance. Not that lower order of vagrant, the horror and despair of police magistrates, with which in one's mind ragged clothes, a forbidding aspect, and an incurable pro- pensitypropensity to intemperance, are generally associated. This vagrant was not ragged, though his clothes were plain and rough; he had a pleasant, indeed, rather a handsome face, and no one would have suspected him of being guilty of any degrading vice. But, according to one definition, ‘a vagrant is a man what wanders and what has no money.’ Granting this to be correct, the stranger had an excellent right to the name; he was by no means a monied man, and he had been a wanderer from his youth. He was young even yet. The quick elastic step, the bright eye, the smooth unlined brow, all spoke of youth. That brow was too broad and high, and the glance from beneath too intelligent, for one to conclude that he had failed in life's race through want of talent. His speech also had the accent of an educated man, one might say of a gentleman. And yet, a vagrant after all.

‘I wonder how far you've come this morning?’ said Mr. Bailey.

The vagrant took out his watch. Don't be sceptical. In the singular country where this happened vagrants have been known to carry watches and flaunt them in the faces of astonished men of substance. The watch was a very beautiful gold one, heavy and old-fashioned, but of fine workmanship, and in a richly ornamented case. An odd contrast to the owner's well-worn attire; and odder still the flashing of that diamond ring on his brown hand, as he moved it in a quick gesture. Rings and watches, forsooth! We always thought they were the tokens of wealth and respectability. People born to work have no business to cumber their fingers with rings, even if watches be conceded to them. But then, of course, vagrants don't work.

‘I started at half-past six,’ said the owner of the watch, consigning it to his pocket as carelessly as if it had been the plainest and most battered of timekeepers, ‘so I haven't dangerously exerted myself; it is past twelve now.’

‘Half a day walking, and the sun on one's head like fire!’ cried Mr. Bailey. ‘But where are my wits? Why, you'll be wasted away! Come in, and have dinner with us.’

‘Yes, that you must,’ seconded Mrs. Bailey. ‘If you haven't an appetite now you never will have.’

Their visitor persisted in excusing himself. ‘I acknowledge to having had an excellent appetite half an hour ago,’ he said with a laugh, ‘but that was before I had my dinner.’

‘Then you've been at Stevenses?’ jealously inquired Mr. Bailey.

‘No; I dined alone, under the trees, and now I am going to walk to the bush on the other side of your land. You know my old haunts.’

‘Yes, I know. The land's sold, as you've heard perhaps?’

‘No; but I suppose one may trespass there a little longer.’

‘There goes one who's poorer even than we are,’ said the settler, ‘and yet he seems happy enough. I'm ashamed of myself for being on the growl this morning. Here am I—well, I'm not rich; but I've house and land of my own. I don't owe a penny; I'd starve first. He hasn't even a home.’

‘Yes, we've that at any rate,’ said Mrs. Bailey, surreptitiously wiping her eyes. ‘I suppose we oughtn't to complain.’

‘Complain!’ cried Mr. Bailey, rising to strong language. ‘I'd deserve to be beaten with rods if I complained. Haven't we the children? I believe, Mary Anne’—and his voice had the gravity of conviction—‘that no one else has such children. And without flattering you, my dear, I believe I've the best wife in the world.’

At this climax Mr. Bailey paused. Mrs. Bailey made some modest objection to the high compliment he had paid her.

‘And with all that,’ continued her husband, after a slight refreshment of cold tea, ‘to grumble and growl over my work because we've less money than is quite convenient at times! I'm getting too fond of money; I'm afraid my heart's set on it. I've noticed that failing in myself, Mary Anne, and I mean to nip it in the bud. I fear I'm inclined to Mammon worship.’

Mr. Bailey had forgotten, or did not care, that the tones of his voice (a little louder perhaps than was necessary) might be audible for a long distance that still day. As a matter of fact, another person be- sidesbesides Mrs. Bailey had heard his last observations. That person smiled quietly to himself; that Mammon should have his shrines in the forest also was a novel and amusing suggestion to him.

‘We seem to be in for callers this morning,’ said Mr. Bailey. ‘There's a gentleman riding straight up to the house; we'd better go in.’