Chapter XXIX.

Philip Accepts an Appointment.

"And what brings you here, Charley?" asked Philip, when the two young men were alone that evening.

"On my way South to get a couple of young bulls the governor has bought," replied that young gentleman.

"What! are you going to keep cattle at Terua?" asked Philip.

"Yes," said Charley, "it is much easier working the place with cattle."

"And what do you think of it now?"

"A splendid place," replied Charley, "only it wants a lot of money to work it."

"But what on earth are you going to do with a couple of well-bred bulls up there," asked Philip? "Any scrubbers ought to do you on rough hills."

"Very true," replied Charley, "but the governor bought these from Maitland without saying a word to me, and as he has bought them I may as well take them. The steamer doesn't go South till Tuesday, and I thought I should have time to get as far as your place, so I rode out here this afternoon.

"Well, Charley, it is no use your going to Apanui to find me," replied Philip; "for, you see, I have left. Douglas has the place now, and I hope he will do well out of it."

"I am afraid, Manning," replied Charley, after a short pause, "that you have made a mess of it, if you didn't mind my saying so. Why did you not lay the case before Mr. Easthorpe? He told me, only yesterday, that if you had mentioned the matter to him, he would have done what he could for you with the Bank, and you know what that means? He fancied that something was wrong, seeing you with Leighton; but he didn't know that Apanui was actually in danger of being sold."

"Well it was, you see, and it has gone; but it was very good of his saying that," replied Philip, referring to the former part of Charley's remark. "I wish now that I had asked him? But don't trouble about it, like a good fellow. Let bye-gones be bye-gones. (Philip was not in this mood the day before.) Apanui has gone, and I am coming up to Terua to stay with you for a time, if you will have me, and then I intend to turn medico, at least Dr. Goring advises me to do so."

"Ah!" said Charley, "did you call at the Goring's yesterday?"

"Yes."

"Many there?" queried Charley.

"No," replied Philip.

Then there was a silence, broken by Philip asking, "What sort of a horse have you got?"

"Not much of a one," answered Charley. "I hired him in town, and his legs are too puffed for much work."

"Then, if you are going as far as Ashton to-morrow," continued Philip, "instead of waiting for the coach, take my horse, and you can easily be back here to-morrow night."

Philip appeared to take it for granted that Charley was going to Ashton.

"I think I will," replied Charley. "Stay here till I come back like a good fellow, and we will go to town together on Tuesday morning. I will get you to look after some rams for me that have just come over from Australia, and we will go up to Terua together."

"Thank you for the appointment," said Philip. "It will be something for me to do. What are they; merinoes?"

"Yes. Some of the ugliest beggars you ever saw. There is one 'King Billy;' you never saw such a fighting character."

"I suppose they are pedigree rams."

"Yes," said Charley, "the governor sent for the best he could get, and I think he did right."

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"Any ewes?" asked Philip.

"Fifteen," replied Charley. And our two friends then talked sundry and divers matters about sheep and stock.

When a man sends for the best of anything, he usually is careless about the price, and he generally gets the thing good. These twenty-five sheep (there were ten rams) had no doubt cost a lot of money. Charley thought about £500. This was rather a long price, but the advantage of importing and using good stock cannot be over-estimated, as the strain of blood tells through the whole flock. It is also a general advantage to the colony at large, for good blood lasts long, and of course gives a good foundation to future herds and flocks. In this case Mr. Easthorpe was simply looking to his own interests. He wanted to throw a strain of good blood into Beeton's poor crawlers, and the best way was to get some good rams and a few ewes as the foundation of a stud flock. Then in the course of a few years, especially if he picked up some small flocks of good ewes in the colony, the sheep would improve, and in place of clipping two or three pounds of wool on the average, he would get five or six, and a five pound clip on a rough run from merino sheep is very fair indeed. Of course people in New Zealand are but moderate men, and cannot afford to give the fancy prices that rule for good stock in Australia, where sometimes as much as £700 is given for a single ram. Yet there are many stations, not quite so out of the way as Terua, where everything is done in the best possible manner. To see forty or fifty thousand well-bred sheep, a hundred good Clydesdales, and fair enough thoroughbreds, the sires imported from Home at perhaps a cost of £500 each, and eight hundred or a thousand well-bred shorthorns is not an everyday occurrence even in America. Indeed, it is much to be doubted whether America possesses such well-bred stock as New Zealand in proportion to size. The pigs, fowls, and dogs too, are of the best, for when a man determines to have one thing good, he may as well have everything. If men and women before emigrating to Australia had undergone the process of selection so thoroughly as stock has been subjected to that process, what a splendid race the colonists would become! Not that it is to be supposed the original colonists came of a poor race, especially those migrating to New Zealand, where warfare with a savage tribe was to be expected. On the contrary, it took a great deal of courage for an emigrant to make up his mind to leave the shores of Old England, so that we must give the colonists credit for possessing the free roving spirit of adventure which animated their Saxon ancestors. That spirit cannot be encased in a very poor body, and we must suppose a certain amount of natural selection even amongst the human migrators.

Let us go back. In those early times it required a spirit of adventure to face the difficulties of emigrating so far as New Zealand. Shipwreck and disaster by sea and on the coast, and a warlike race of natives on the land, were no common objects of opposition. Charts of the harbors were hardly to be obtained, for little had been done in the way of minute surveying. "Keep the reef on your larboard hand," were all the instructions the captain of one of the first emigrant ships received at Gravesend when departing for the almost unknown port of Hamilton, and "Get out of the Channel as quickly as possible" was combined with it. For Her Majesty's Government in those days would not countenance this emigration, and we can fancy the emigrants stealing down the English Channel, in dread of being detained by one of the war vessels. Then, as soon as the good ship was out in the open ocean, the people on board breathed free, and cried "Hey for the new land," and regarded a strange sail with a little more confidence. That the first emigrants should have set out for the Colony in this underhand way, defying the wrath of the Home Government, the dangers of the sea, and the terror of the natives is certainly to their credit; but it is curious also, for little thought had they, stealing thus away from England's coast, that they were to become the founders of a great and wealthy Colony. They must have come of good stock or they would not have braved all this.

Illi robur et ces triplex

Circa pectus erat,

Oak and three-fold brass must have surrounded their hearts.

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"Nothing like good stock, said Charley philosophically. I wish to heaven, though, that those sheep were up at Terua. They will be a bother to drive, and I haven't brought any dog with me."

"I intend to take Lassie and Darkie with me," replied Philip, "and I can easily look after the sheep for you. I expect you will have enough to do with the bulls. But what did your governor want to buy two bulls for?"

"Can't say," replied Charley, "but he bought them. One of them is only a youngster, though, and has a better pedigree than the other. He will come on all right if the old bull doesn't kill him on the way up.—Awfully glad though, Manning, that you will look after the sheep for me. I should have had to have sent Henry to Edgecombe for them if you had'nt your dogs with you." And Charley went away next morning to Ashton pleased that he had satisfactorily arranged about driving his stock.

The next day passed away quickly. In the morning Willie Douglas took Philip round the run, and the afternoon was occupied by a geneal game in the garden. May Douglas, not being in any particular disgrace, took charge of Philip, and offered to swing him when he declined to swing her, or to play croquet or shuttlecock, and give him long odds that she would beat him, or even to run him as far as the entrance gate, if he would give her fifty yards start, or, finally, to catch her pony before he could catch it—Some of which offers Philip accepted, until Mary came and joined them.

"Oh, Mary," at last said the young vixen, "You are not going to sit there all the afternoon,"—for Philip and Mary had quietly seated themselves under one of the trees,—"Do come and have a game!"

"You are a great nuisance, May," said Mary, taking her upon her lap—whereupon Miss May rested her head upon Mary's shoulder, and became quiet for half-an-hour, looking at Philip, and joining occasionally in the conversation with various wise and profound remarks. Then her sister Ethel came and sat down by Philip, and the talk lasted into the twilight, when—

The falling dews with spangles decked the glade,
And the low sun was lengthening every shade.

It was time to go into the house. Only this is to be recorded, that when Mary was seeing the little cousins in bed that night, May stopped her from going away, and earnestly asked whether she really had been a nuisance. Now Mary had quite forgotten having said so, but when she recalled the circumstance to her mind she laughed and kissed the little thing, and told her to lie down and go to sleep, and never to mind. And May went to sleep comforted with the thought that she had not been a nuisance after all.