Chapter XXVIII. The Rev. Walter Stubbs and his Lady.

We were out of the bush in a very short space of time under Tim's guidance, and I found that I must have been within three or four chains of the open several times during my circling rambles. Mounting our horses we soon got home, and my welcome reminded me forcibly of the one I received on my return from the wars. Uncle, however, commenced reproaching me for my carelessness in not taking my compass, especially as I was such a muff in the bush. I knew I deserved his reproaches, but considered that he might have postponed them, at all events for a time. Aunt was evidently of the same opinion.

‘Talk to him that way to-morrow, if you like, my dear, but he shall hear nothing of the sort this afternoon. Remember, we might have never seen him again. I was dreadfully frightened. Men have been often lost, and never heard of again. You have told me page 118 that yourself; and didn't Charlie once find the skeleton of some poor fellow? Let's give him nothing but kindness to-night.’

‘When did you ever give me anything else, aunt?’ I observed, gratefully.

Uncle did not appear to admire these little compliments.

‘Never have seen him again. Nonsense!’ he answered, in a rougher tone than he usually adopted with her. ‘Frank is a muff, but not quite such a fool as that. He'd have got out all right himself if we'd given him time. He'll not forget his compass next time, I'll bet. Nothing like experience.’

‘Now, now; not a word more. If I had known what a hard-hearted old monster you were before I married you, I'd never have helped you out of the bush; so there.’

Fanny and Alice, as usual, conformed to the custom we had established of exchanging cousinly salutes after we had been parted for a few days, or weeks as the case might be. This pleasant little custom appeared to me to increase in sweetness every time I assisted in its observance; at all events as far as Fanny was concerned. I was fully convinced for the rest of that night that she loved me, and me only. The next morning her manner was cold and changeable, and so were my convictions of the previous evening. ‘When,’ thought I, ‘shall I understand women in general? Well, I do not care if I never do if I can only arrive at a fair underestanding of one in particular. But shall I ever do this?’

How I envied Melton Minimus, as he came to be called amongst us, for with him Fanny was always the same. The caresses she showered on him were always warm and loving at a time when he was much too young to enjoy them. How rapturously happy then would have made me! What an amount of sweetness is wasted on other things than desert air! How unequal is the distribution of this particular sweetness—the kiss from one we love. Some are surfeited with it, and do not value it, while others are ever vainly pining for it.

After a few days' rest we started again for the bush, and spent, off and on, rather more than a month, thoroughly scouring any part that we thought likely to contain the sort of cattle of which we were in quest, the result being as fine a mob of cattle as it would be easy to see. The dealers, on inspecting the twenty first offered, begged us to get as many more as possible of the same kind. Amongst them were many without brands or owners. These, of course, Charlie and I sold on our account, and, what with the proceeds of them, and half the price of those equally wild, but bearing uncle's brand, we managed to collect a very respectable sum of money. We gave Tim and the Maori handsome wages for their valuable assistance, and they wished the job would last for ever.

Christmas again passed in due time with its usual festivities, and if not quite so merry to all of us, it certainly was to Alice, for a few days after she gave her hand and heart to young Sylvester, and when I say he was worthy of her I say a great deal in his favour. The course of their love had run with unusual smoothness. I have but once alluded to it, as it does not effect the principal characters of my story. This second wedding in the family, I noticed, made Fanny feel sharply the unpleasant state of her own affairs, and I greatly sympathised with her, but when did I not?

The day after Alice's wedding my fair cousin and I both received letters. Hers was from Grosvenor, and had this time an English page 119 postmark and stamp, and announced that, in all human probability, his return would take place within at the most two months from the time she received his note. His father's health had improvd, and his business was nearly completed. Fanny was delighted with the good news, and also at the sight of the English stamp.

‘There,’ she exclaimed,' ‘does not that prove all your wicked doubts about his not being at home false and unfounded?’

I had to admit that it did.

Then she commenced in a bantering tone, ‘Ah, Mr Frank, who is your letter from? I see it's a lady's hand, and a Dunedin postmark. I have it. It must be the fair Julia Robinson. Allow me to congratulate you, my boy.’

I had considerable difficulty in making them believe the truth, which was that my correspondent was none other than my sister Cecilia, who had just arrived in New Zealand with her husband, the Rev. Walter Stubbs. He was my father's curate before I left home, and I teased poor Cissy's life out about him. He was a remarkably mild young man with white hair, parted in the middle, kid gloves, a slow, almost stammering pronunciation, and most effeminate manners. As a boy, I disliked him extremely. He was so utterly at variance with my ideas of what a man should be. My ideal was formed principally from my father, who had been what was generally known as a sporting parson. Of late years he had not followed the hounds, as a fall from a horse had rendered riding irksome to him; but nothing pleased him better than hearing my accounts of the day's sport when I returned from a spin with the fox hounds, for I took every opportunity I could secure in the holidays to pursue my favourite recreation. I may state, however, that my father never allowed sport to stand in the way of duty. My ideal, then, was a man who would do his work in an upright, straightforward manner, and take his pleasure in a similar style. For instance, ride well to hounds whenever he got a chance, sticking at nothing that a horse would carry him over, and play cricket or football with the requisite pluck and determination ‘never to say die.’ Some consider such recreation inconsistent with the life of a young clergyman. I do not. Let him take his pleasures with his people, and encourage them in health-giving exercise as well as use his influence in keeping up their tone. Stubbs certainly did not come up to this ideal. I remember well his trembling limbs and pallid features on the only occasion we ever persuaded him to mount an antiquated pony, and display his horsemanship by accompanying my sister for a ride. His look of terror—when the squire's son mischievously asked him to take the place of a man whom sickness prevented from taking his part in our annual football match, with the next parish—caused much badly-concealed mirth, especially when he suggested that his time would be much better spent in visiting the sick man.

My sister Cecilia had always been a young lady of strong religious views. She was two years my elder, and looked on me as an unmitigated young heathen when we were at home together. I remember on one occasion I utterly exhausted her patience by chaffing her unmercifully about her lover.

‘Ah, Cissy, another time don't spoon so ontrageously with that stupid ass of a Stubbs. I saw you in the twilight to-night in the rose walk. How you blushed when he had the cheek to throw his arm round you and—’

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An interruption took place, for this very serious young lady positively shied a book she was reading at my head, and as it was a very dry and knotty Dissertation on the Epistles, a present, in fact, from the author, who was no other than the gentleman in question, it gave me a severe blow.

‘I never dreamt Cissy that Stubb's arguments bore so much weight, or that his facts were so dense. No wonder he conquered you when he gave them extempore, for, collected in a volume, they shut me up, even when externally applied.’ I left for fear of the second volume following, for I saw ‘to be continued’ indicated in Cissy's irate visage. She was, however, I must say, a young lady who spent her time most profitably. Indeed, many ultra-religious members of my father's congregation who objected to his sporting proclivities, often remarked, ‘that the parson’ lady and her daughter did far more good in the parish than he did, for though his sermons were far from bad, look what an example he set to the young—galloping all over the country after a pack of hounds, and shooting innocent birds which never did him any harm, when he ought to be visiting the sick.’ On the other hand, the more liberally-minded would answer; ‘Well, if the parson does like a bit of sport, what is the odds? He never lets it interfere with his work, and a day in the turnips now and again keeps him in good health, and enables him to write a sermon worth listening to, instead of the twaddle that curate of his preaches.’ This opinion was held by all the farmers and hard-riding young fellows in the parish, many of whom would never have entered a church at all but for their acquaintance with him in the fields and covers.

This long digression may be useful to allow the reader to understand my surprise when I heard that a man, so particularly unfitted for the life of a clergyman in the colonies, should have made up his mind to come to New Zealand. They had been about three weeks in Dunedin when I received this note from my sister. It stated that, as her dear husband's finances were by no means extensive, he had accepted the chaplaincy of the gaol and hospital. This would enable him to do some good at once, and also give him time to consider where he had better locate himself. He had secured a free passage for them to New Zealand in consideration of his giving his services as chaplain to an emigrant vessel. She expressed regret that Dunedin and Wanganui were so far apart, for, like many people at home, she had imagined that by coming to New Zealand she would be near her brother, altogether forgetting the size of the Islands. Then followed a long description of the good her husband was already effecting, especially amongst the prisoners. One young man particularly had become quite a changed character, by his own confession, and was now a great help to his minister, and, indeed, quite an intimate friend. He had very evidently been unjustly accused and punished, for, although he allowed that he had led a very dissolute life, yet he had never been guilty of anything really criminal. From, his statements it was quite clear to them that the former chaplain had been a man who performed his duties in a manner which showed that he looked on his charges as utterly beyond amelioration, and therefore the less he bothered about them the better. The young prisoner often affirned that it was a glorious privilege to be allowed to sit under the ministration of a soul-stirring divine like Mr Stubbs. The week or two he had enjoyed it had effected what any number of the former gentleman's insipid sermons and carelessly-mumbled page 121 prayers would never have done. What an encouragement this one conversion was to our friend can easily be imagined. A great deal more to the same effect followed, to the great gratification, doubtless, of my sister and her adored husband. The impression I gathered from its perusal was, that this very nice young man was successfully endeavouring to ‘work a point’ on my mild brother-in-law. However, I thought no more of it at the time. My sister naturally much wished me to come down and pay them a visit. I answered her letter, and explained that I could not at present undertake so long a journey, but hoped to see them later on.

I had just finished my letter when uncle entered the room, and informed me that he wished again to send me to Auckland on some business which might detain me some considerable time. I was pleased to hear this, as Fanny's happiness at the prospect of her lover's speedy return proved harder to witness than her unhappiness when the time at which she might expect to see him was uncertain. My cousins and aunt bid me a kind farewell, but there was a look of pity in their eyes which I found hard to bear. Uncle volunteered me some parting advice, cautioning me against mining speculations, judging it necessary, as from the papers which a friend regularly sent, we noticed that the excitement over them was as intense as ever, and he had, doubtless, observed the great interest I took in the weekly accounts of the mining returns, the wonderful dividends paid, and the sudden enrichment of men previously not worth a cent.

‘Don't go in for any of those mining shares, Frank,’ said the cautious old gentleman. ‘I don't believe in ‘em. Very well for old miners always at it. They know what they're buying. What business have farmers with such stock, eh? How would you know what you were getting? A lot of useless paper, perhaps. Those share-brokers ‘ll take you in right and left. Better play pitch-and-toss with your money by far. Chances are even then. The other way they're dead against you, so don't touch them, my boy. For one that makes his pile, fifty lose all they have.’

I thanked him for his good advice, but was not at all certain about following it. I stepped on board the steamer at Wanganui. A lucky speculator was returning to Auckland after a short visit to some friends, and the conversation on board was almost entirely on the subject of rich finds, lucky diggers, huge dividends, and quartz which yielded a fabulous amount of gold to the ton. What wonder, then, that the fever, which had been so long slumbering within me, should now burst forth with renewed intensity? that my uncle's warning should be totally disregarded? as also the fact that the company in which I was only prevented from purchasing shares on my last visit, by the want of the needful cash, wound up without finding the colour, or paying the shareholders a cent, their capital all exhausted in working expenses.