page break

Chapter I. Early Life—Off to New Zealand.

Where I was born, or how I occupied my first few years of life, would, I am led to think, interest the reader as little as such narratives of early experiences and precocious sayings and doings have interested me, when I have had the misfortune to meet with them in books which I have perused. I will, therefore, introduce myself to the reader as a youth of seventeen, Frank Melton by name. I had just finished my scholastic career, having pretty well tired out the energies of my preceptors without any very brilliant results; for, although I was universally allowed to be the cock of the walk in the playground, yet in school I had to exert all my powers to keep my usual place in the middle of the class. Nearer the top I could not get, though I cannot, by any means, say I was never nearer the bottom. Under these circumstances I had a distaste for any of the learned professions, and I formed an intense desire to emigrate somewhere, I cared little where; but having an uncle in New Zealand, my thoughts—now that I began to think seriously on the subject—naturally turned thitherwards, and to the wild free life in the bush of which I had heard and read so much. On expressing these sentiments to my father, a country clergyman, he was much put out, as his forefathers for several generations had been in the church, and his dearest hope was that his only son would follow the recognised family profession. My defalcation therefore literally made his hair stand on end, and on my pleading want of ability he delivered himself as follows:—

‘Yes, my boy, you have, unfortunately, made it very clear to me that you are the fool of the family. A few years since that gentleman was put into the church, but the examinations are so stiff now that it's impossible to get him in, so there's nothing for it but to send him to the colonies.’ ‘Rough for the colonies, but lucky for the church, dad,’ I replied, but I added in as innocent a tone as I could assume, ‘Was that how you got in?’

His answer matters not. After a prolonged discussion I prevailed on him to stick to his text and send me to New Zealand. He wrote at once to my uncle Jim, and the short but characteristic reply which page 2 in due time arrived did much to confirm the plans already projected for my welfare. It ran in this wise:—

Dear Brother.—So Frank is coming out, eh? Shows his sense. Let him. I'll lick him into shape. He'll make his pile. Better than preaching. Don't let him bring many traps. Cash is easiest carried. Get what he wants here. Glad you're all well.—Yours as ever, James Melton.

While awaiting the arrival of this note I spent my time in picking up all the information I could about farming from our neighbours, and drove our village carpenter half wild with the way I spoilt his tools and timber in striving to qualify myself for a bushman. I also wrote to an old schoolmate, Harry Baker by name, who was employed in an avaricious uncle's office. He was an orphan, and the old gentleman rewarded himself for his avuncular charity in taking charge of his sister's lad by making him work like a nigger for about half the wages of an ordinary clerk, and ill-treating him to boot. By a curious coincidence Master Harry, the day after receiving my note, had been able to render essential service to a gentleman from New Zealand, Mr Robinson by name, by exposing an error in the accounts of some transaction which he had with the old gentleman, thereby, to his uncle's great disgust and mortification, preventing Robinson from being robbed—a milder expression is unnecessary—to the tune of several hundred pounds. Of course the young clerk had to quit, he was too honest for the place. Robinson took him to his hotel, and persuaded him to accept, in return for what he had done, the loan of a sufficient sum to procure him an outfit and passage to New Zealand. Harry, who had a little more pride than is generally convenient, would not accept the money in any other way than as a loan, to be repaid as soon as he could manage it.

My father accompanied me up to London, and, according to promise, we met Harry and his friend, Mr Robinson, at an hotel there. He was an elderly gentleman, with a bluff, genial manner. After keenly scrutinising me he observed:—‘Humph, you're the sort of fellow we want in New Zealand; some bone and sinew there, eh?’ Then turning to my father: ‘Glad to make your acquaintance, sir; sending your son to the colony, I hear. Plenty of room there. No good keeping young fellows like these full of life and spirits sitting on an office stool, scarcely earning their tucker.’

‘Do you think, sir,’ replied my father, ‘there is a fair chance for my boy, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a decent living out there, without lowering himself to menial occupations?’

‘Menial occupations, sir? Bosh! we know of no such words in the colonies. In our wild free life we do what we like, and have no time for your nonsensical English ideas, such as, “This, that, or the other would be lowering me.” “What would So-and-so say if they saw me doing this,” etc., etc. As long as a man earns what he wants on the square, and pays his way, we don't care a rap whether he is a member of Parliament, or So-and-so's bullock-driver [Mr Robinson exaggerated here doubtless, even considering that he spoke of the customs of between twenty and thirty years ago]. In fact, a young fellow who has roughed it amongst station hands, and had his turn at all rough work, when he comes to own a run best knows how to manage his men. They respect the boss who can take a tool out of their hands and show them how to use it. page 3 I speak from experience. I took a billet as bullock-driver once when I was hard up and had nothing to do. You stare, but it's a fact, and bullock-driving was a great resource for young gentlemen without means in those days. The reason generally given was because bullocks are popularly supposed to require a lot of profanity, and these youths could produce it with greater fluency than the ordinary class of men. A truer reason might have been perhaps because it was not hard work, and was an easily-acquired profession. However, be this as it may, the knowledge I gained served me in good stead several years after, when on taking the management of a hilly run I ordered the bullock-driver to sledge some loads of fencing to a certain point, whereupon he averred that it was impossible to drive them through the rough bush track. I repeated my order, telling him if he could not do it I must get someone who could. He became insolent, and said he was the only man that could drive bullocks on the station, and if he couldn't take them through no one could. I ordered him to yoke the team, and took a load to the point indicated myself, to his utter astonishment. He never dreamt the new boss could drive bullocks. Then I told him either to obey orders or come for his cheque. He did the former.’

‘I am delighted with what you say about the colonies, Mr Robinson,’ observed my father, though I don't believe he was. He looked rather blue at the idea of his son having to drive bullocks. ‘I start on my return journey to-morrow, and am glad to have these boys as fellow passengers. I could not live in England now. “New Zealand is a free country; if you haven't any boots you may go barefoot,” as my shepherd often philosophically remarks, not that that is exactly my case, however.’ The next day we stepped on board one of Shaw and Savill's sailing vessels, bound for Auckland, in good time, and amused ourselves by watching the various arrivals. The leave-takings, though in many cases giving rise to other feelings than mirth, yet in some were decidedly amusing:

‘Och, thin, Patsey, me boy! take care thim niggers dinna ate ye, for I could na bear to think I'd rared ye so plump to be mate for a savage,’ exclaimed one old dame, as she bade adieu to her son. Another, with a little contempt for her friend's ignorant fears, said to her lad: ‘I ain't feared they'll ate ye, Johnny, me boy; but whativer ye do, dinna go and marry one of thim black wenches, which God knows is not meant for Christian men. They do say they be forward young hussies, and no better than they shud be, and yer children wud be like the circus hosses we seed last night — part black and part white.’

We noticed that the great majority were steerage and second-class passengers.

‘By Jove!’ cried Harry to me, suddenly, ‘here comes our friend, Mr Robinson, accompanied by three ladies.’

We had not been aware until he introduced them to us as Mrs and Miss Robinson and Miss Grave, her companion, that he was a married man. We at once made ourselves useful by assisting the ladies with their paraphernalia, or swags, as Miss Julia playfully designated them; then I had time to have a good look at them. I will strive to represent them to the reader as they appeared to me. My sisters were accustomed to state that I could describe a dog or a horse to perfection, but that my description of anything feminine of my own species was simply excruciating; therefore I must crave page 4 indulgence for any crudeness or imperfection in my delineations of these fair beings. I am aware, dear reader, that you are longing to hear more of Miss Julia, but must beg you to allow me to dispose of her mamma first; we can then linger over the daughter at our leisure. How many a fine young fellow has wished that he could dispose of mamma' as easily and expeditiously as I intend to, when the dear old lady or horrid old cat, whichever he may designate her, is taking up his time, while he also is dying to linger over her daughter at his leisure.

Mrs Robinson was a lady whom I can best describe as a collection of uncertainties. She was of an uncertain age, and might be taken for anything between forty and sixty. She once remarked that she believed she was forty-one. I should have fancied she might have more truthfully made that assertion ten or fifteen years ago, but I did not care to tell her so. Her temper was another uncertainty, for while it was most uncertain when she would lose it, it was even more so when she would find it again. Her beauty was the most uncertain thing about her; in my mind the uncertainty lay in the question whether it existed at all, but I had heard her husband dilate on it. It was rather a weak point of his when in her presence. I should rather perhaps have said he made a strong point of it. The lady herself alluded frequently to it, so I must confess that I am not a judge of what constitutes female loveliness at that age, and put it down as also uncertain. As there is no rule without an exception, there was in this good lady one point about which there could be no uncertainty. This was the point of her nose, or snout, as Harry irreverently termed it. It had an upward tendency; there could be no doubt about it, but as Dame Nature rejoices in equilibrium, she had restored it in the case of Mrs Robinson's face by causing the angles of her mouth to turn most decidedly down.

Now for Miss Julia. Through the lapse of years, I can recall most vividly my sensations at first sight of her. I felt even at the moment I met her glance that I could do anything, however heroic or daring, to win her love. I now understood the meaning of the words I had read in a novel describing a similar meeting, and affirming that the hero felt that to call her his he would pawn his soul. This affirmation, by the bye, is a very empty and futile one—a fraud, in fact, for if nothing else would prevent the gentleman we wot of from keeping a pawnshop, his insurmountable objection to deal in redeemable property most assuredly would. Whatever he once grips he sticks to. However, these moralisings will never do, especially when they lead us from a lovely young lady to the devil. Some ladies certainly get the credit of leading us there, but let us hope Miss Julia was not of the number. To proceed with my description. This divinity of mine was a little under medium height, about sixteen years of age, but had a particularly well-developed figure for her age, dark hair reaching to her waist, which was not too slender, and eyes—to what can I liken those dark, lustrous orbs with their ever-varying expressions; eyes full of fun and mischief; eyes which must be perfect in fascinating her too willing victims with the intensity of their full, deep expression? Still there was something about them which had I been less infatuated with her, I might have almost called cruel—something which reminded one of the glance of a cat when playing with a mouse. Her complexion was page 5 certainly not as clear as marble, for a cruel sun had decidedly tanned it; still it was transparent, and when any emotion called a blush to her damask cheeks, which was not often, the effect was superb, doubly so to a young man in love. Her mouth was rather large, but I could excuse that, for I felt that it was impossible to have too much of those full ripe lips and pearly teeth. In my estimation she was a goddess.

Miss Grave, her companion, was a quiet lady-like English girl, a year or so older than her charge. I heard afterwards that Mr Robinson had been a great friend of her father's, who was dead, and wishing to do something for the orphan who was left almost destitute, had persuaded her to accompany them to their New Zealand home in the capacity of companion, hoping that her more staid demeanour would have a good effect on his daughter, who he rightly imagined would be improved by a little more refinement. She was fair, and did not strike me as being beautiful by any means, but at a glance one would pronounce her to be the sort of girl whose qualities would make her beloved in any home circle.