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Pioneering in Poverty Bay (N.Z.)

XI — More Cadets

page 71

XI
More Cadets

Resuming my remarks on farm pupils, I come to the case of Billy Brown. He was a success, the life suiting him down to the ground. Almost the first we heard of this young man was the following sentence in a letter from a fond aunt at home. "Oh, how nice it will be, how very nice, for the dear boy to sit on the hills all day and watch the sheep." As a matter of fact, the dear boy's first job on the run was the plucking of wool off dead-and-gone ewes—ewes more than dead and very far gone—and the carrying home of a large sack of the greasy stinking stuff on the front of his saddle. And after that came lamb-docking, which is a very sanguinaceous business indeed. When the dear boy sent home a snapshot of himself, clothed in rags and blood, in the thick of this job, I received from female relatives, by return mail, sheets and sheets of indignation at our ungentlemanly and disgraceful treatment of the poor lad, who, however, remained quite happy and contented.

When he left us, he started a small run of page 72his own, a very isolated plaee, "way back" in steep, roadless country. He was pretty lonely, his only neighbours being two rough, crusty old bachelors, each doing for himself in his little shanty a few miles off on either side.

Now living quite alone, as often as not, leads in time to insanity. There was the case, for instance, of a certain Scotch shepherd on a lonely out-station, who, when visited one Sunday, was found to have arrived at "fifthly, my brethren," in a sermon to his whole flock, which he had laboriously mustered and driven into the sheepyards for the good of their souls.

One day I met Brown. In town, radiating happiness from every inch of him. "Hullo, Billy, what's in the wind?" I asked, "Has that old aunt died, or what?" "No, no" said he, "but a bit of glorious good luck, all the same," and then, his voice rising to a high squeak of delighl, he continued, "I had two of the worst neighbours you could possibly imagine, and they've shot each other!"

It was true. Old Mackintosh had got it into his head that Jenkins, over the range, was stealing some of his few sheep. "Did ye no hearr," he said to Brown, "did ye no hearr a quiet shot down in the gully the page 73nicht?" The supposed grievance, nursed by the ageing bushman in his solitary, comfortless hut, was more than his brain could stand. He waited for Jenkins on a bush track and shot him dead. He seems then to have gone home and, after a day or two of misery, and before the police arrived, to have blown out his own brains.

A sad enough tragedy, you will say. But it all depends on the point of view. To Brown, delighted at the bare possibility of getting civilised and companionable neighbours, it seemed almost high comedy, and those who have lived far back in the bush will hardly call him light-minded.

Andrews, another cadet, was a New Zealand product and very much "all there." He and I lived for months in a rough slab shanty, starting a new station away in the back bush. We slept on rough bunks and the bags of chaff we had for pillows made admirable nesting-places for mice. As our sleep was sound, it mattered little that they and their numerous progeny ran over us all night, nor did we much mind that there was never anything left of our candles in the morning but the wick. But one night, awakened suddenly by the striking of matches, I saw Andrews a-dance on the mud floor, slapping himself violently all over. A sound-page 74ing thwack on his thigh finished the performance, as with a satisfied "Got him," he shook out a considerably flattened little rodent from his pyjamas.

The little beasts were getting altogether too intimate, and something had to be done; so next morning I rode to our nearest neighbours and begged a eat. I put her black ladyship into a sugar bag, with her head out of a small hole in it, and started back happily enough. She, however, objected, at the very top of her voice she objected, she objected every foot of those five miles home without one moment's intermission; none of your little pussy miaows, but a continuous scream of fright and hate. We put her In a box, and she was quiet till evenings when we took her out, fed her, and made much of her, and finally put her down on the floor. She walked slowly and observantly all round the hut until she came again to the big open fireplace, paused a moment, took a flying leap up the wide chimney and disappeared. No one ever saw her again. Then we got some kittens, and in due course the plague was stayed.

Oates was quite a good chap, too, what little there was of him. When first out riding, he was naturally nervous about starting down some of the steep slippery shoots page 75we had to tackle in wet weather. "Dig in your spurs Titus, dig 'em in," was yelled back from the bottom, when his horse feeling the lack of urge, hesitated with him on the brink. His reply, in a sort of frightened falsetto. "I have done so," with all the emphasis on the "have," was long one of our favourite by-words.

He was very anxious to weigh himself against his boss who, to tell the truth, was not much bigger, so to satisfy him, we strolled down to the woolshed together. A small detour, however, having enabled me to pocket the two heaviest of our steel splitting wedges, the resulting figures were quite satisfactory.

There still remain the last two lines of some verses to this young man's eyebrow.

When reposing in peace in dignified ease
He was summoned with. "Otium come dig."

Then there were the brothers Knight, who not taking very kindly to work of any sort were quite naturally christened "The Knights of Labour." And that perhaps is about the lot.