Dr. Johnson did not know the somewhat vulgar word which heads this
paper. At least he did not know it as a noun, but gives "swagger: v.n.,
to bluster, bully, brag;" but the Slang Dictionary admits it as a word,
springing indeed from the thieves' vocabulary: "one who carries a swag."
Neither of these books however give the least idea of the true meaning
of the expression, which is as fully recognised as an honest word in
both Australia and New Zealand as any other combination of letters
in the English language. A swagger is the very antithesis then of a
swaggerer, for, whereas, the one is full of pretension and abounds
in unjust claims on our notice, the swagger is humility and civility
itself. He knows, poor weary tramp, that on the favourable impression he
makes upon the "boss," depends his night's lodging and food, as well as
a job of work in the future. We will leave then the ideal swaggerer to
some other biographer who may draw glowing word-pictures of him in all
his jay's splendour, and we will confine ourselves to describing the
real swagger, clad in flannel shirt, moleskin trowsers, and what were
once thick boots, but might now be used as sieves.
Nothing astonished me so much in my New Zealand Station Life as these
visitors. Even Sir Roger de Coverley himself would have looked with
distrust upon most of our swagger-guests, and yet I never heard of an
instance in our part of the country where the unhesitating, ungrudging
hospitality extended by the rich squatters to their poorer compatriots
was ever abused. I say "in our part," because unfortunately, wherever
gold is discovered, either in quartz or riverbed, the good old primitive
customs and ways die out of themselves in a few weeks, and each
mammon-seeker looks with distrust on a stranger. Only fifty or sixty
miles from us, as the crow might fly across the snowy range, where an
immense Bush clothes the banks of the Hokitika river right down to its
sand-filled mouth on the West Coast, the great gold diggings broke
out seven or eight years ago, and changed the face of society in that
district in a few days. _There_ a swagger meant a man who might rob or
murder you in your sleep after you had fed and lodged him; or--under
the most favourable circumstances supposing him to be a "milder mannered
man,"--a "fossicker," who would not hesitate to "jump your claim," or
hang about when you are prospecting, to watch how much of the colour you
found, and then go off stealthily to return next day at the head of a
"rush" of a thousand diggers.
Even before the famous Maungatapu murders in 1866, swaggers were looked
upon with distrust on the West Coast, and after that date hardly any
one travelled in those parts without carrying a small revolver in
his breast-pocket. Nothing is more tantalising than an allusion to a
circumstance which is not well-known; and as I feel certain that very
few of my readers have ever heard of what may be called the first great
crime committed in the Middle Island, a brief account of that terrible
tragedy may not be out of place. Gold of course was at the bottom of it,
but the canvas-bags full of the glittering flakes were red with blood by
the time they reached the bank at Nelson. The diggings on the West Coast
were only two years old at that date, and although it was not uncommon
for prospecting parties cutting their way, axe in hand, through the
thick bush, to come upon skeletons of men in lonely places, still
it might be taken for granted that these were the remains of early
explorers or travellers who had got lost and starved to death within
the green tangled walls of this impenetrable forest. The scenery of that
part of the Middle Island is far more beautiful than in the agricultural
or pastoral districts. Giant Alps clothed half up their steep sides
with evergreen pines,--whose dark forms end abruptly where snow and ice
begin,--stand out against a pure sky of more than Italian blue, and only
when a cleared saddle is reached can the traveller look down over the
wooded hills and vallies rolling away inland before him, or turn his
eyes sea-ward to the bold coast with its many rivers, whose wide mouths
foam right out to where the great Pacific waves are heaving under the
bright winter sun.
Such, and yet still more fair must have been the prospect on which
Burgess, Kelly, Levy, and Sullivan's eyes rested one June morning in the
mid-winter of 1866. They were, one and all, originally London thieves,
and had been transported years before to the early penal settlements of
Australia. From thence they had managed, by fair means and foul, to work
their way to other places, and had latterly been living in the Middle
Island, earning what they could by horse-breaking and divers odd jobs.
But your true convict hates work with a curiously deadly hatred, and
these four men agreed to go and look round them at the new West Coast
diggings. They found, however, that there, as elsewhere, it would be
necessary to work hard, so in disgust at seeing the nuggets and dust
which rewarded the toil of more industrious men, they left Hokitika and
reached Nelson on their way to Picton, the chief town of the adjoining
province of Marlborough. Most of the gold found its way under a strongly
armed escort to the banks in both these towns, but it was well-known
that fortunate diggers occasionally travelled together, unarmed,
and laden with "dust." So safe had been the roads hitherto, that the
commonest precautions were not taken, nor the least secrecy observed
about travellers' movements.
It was therefore no mystery that four unarmed diggers, carrying a
considerable number of ounces of gold-dust with them, were going to
start from the Canvas-town diggings for Nelson on a certain day, and
the men I have mentioned set out to meet them. One part of their long
journey led them over the Maungatapu range by a saddle, which in its
lowest part is 2,700 feet above the sea-level. The night before the
murder, the victims and their assassins camped out with only ten miles
between them. So lonely and deserted was the rough mountain track, that
the appearance of a poor old man named Battle alarmed Burgess and his
gang dreadfully, and they immediately murdered him, in order that he
should not report having passed them on the road. Between the commission
of this act of precaution and the arrival of the little band of
travellers, no one else was seen. Burgess appears to have shown some of
the qualities of a good general; for he selected a spot where the only
path wound along a steep side-cutting, less than six feet wide, with an
unbroken forest on the upper, and a mass of tangled bush on the lower
side. As the doomed men approached the murderers sprang out, and each
thrusting a revolver close to their faces, called on them "to hold
up their hands." This is an old bushranger challenge, and is meant to
ensure perfect quiescence on the part of the victim. The travellers
mechanically complied, and in this way were instantly separated, led to
different spots, and ruthlessly shot dead.
It was all over in a moment: Burgess and his men flung the bodies down
among the tangled bush, and returned to Nelson rejoicing exceedingly
over the simple and easy means by which they had possessed themselves
of several hundred pounds. Of course they calculated on the usual
supine indifference to other people's affairs, which prevails in busy
gold-seeking communities; but in this instance the public seemed to be
suddenly seized by a violent and inconvenient curiosity to find out
what had become of the four men who were known to have started from
Canvas-town two or three days before. No one ever dreamed of a murder
having been committed, not even when another "swagger" reached Nelson
and stated that he had followed the diggers on the road, only a mile or
so behind, had suddenly lost sight of them at the spot I have mentioned,
and had never been able to overtake them. Instead of leaving the
now excited little town, or keeping quiet, Burgess, Kelly, Levy, and
Sullivan, may truly be said to have become "swaggerers;" for they
loitered about the place, ostentatiously displaying their bags of gold
dust. Unsuspicious as the Nelson people were, they acted upon a sort of
instinct,--that instinct within us which answers so mysteriously to the
cry of blood from the earth,--and arrested these four men. Still, the
matter might have ended there for lack of a clue, if one of the party,
Sullivan, had not suddenly turned informer, and led the horrified
town's-people to the jungle which concealed the bodies. Here my dreadful
story may end; for we need not follow the course of the trial, which
resulted in the complete conviction of the three other men. I have only
dwelt on so horrible a theme in order to make my readers understand how
natural it was that I should feel nervous, when it became apparent to
my understanding that the custom of the country demanded that you
should ask no questions, but simply tell any travellers who claimed your
hospitality where they were to sleep, and send them in large supplies of
mutton, flour, and tea.
On one occasion it chanced that F----, our stalwart cadet Mr. A----,
and the man who did odd jobs about the place, were all on the point of
setting out upon some expedition, when a party of four swaggers made
their appearance just at sundown. No true swagger ever appears earlier,
lest he might be politely requested to "move on" to the next station;
whereas if he times his arrival exactly when "the shades of night
are falling fast," no boss could be hard-hearted enough to point to
mist-covered hills and valleys, which are a net-work of deep creeks and
swamps, and desire the wayfarer to go on further. Once, and only once,
did I know of such a thing being done; but I will not say more about
that unfortunate at this moment, for I want to claim the pity of all my
lady readers for the very unprotected position I am trying to depict.
F---- could not understand my nervousness, and did not reassure me by
saying, as he mounted his horse, "I've told them to sleep in the stable.
I am pretty sure they are run-away sailors, they seem so footsore.
Good-bye! don't expect me until you see me!"
Now I was a very new chum in those days, and had just heard of the
Maungatapu murders. These guests of mine looked most disreputable, and
were all powerful young men. I do not believe there was a single lock
or bolt or bar on any door in the whole of the little wooden house: the
large plate-chest stood outside in the verandah, and my dressing-case
could have been carried off through the ever-open bedroom window by
an enterprising thief of ten years old. As for my two maids,--the
only human beings within reach,--they were as perfectly useless on any
emergency as if they had been wax dolls. One of them had the habit of
fainting if anything happened, and the other used to tend her until she
revived, when they both sat still and shrieked. Their nerves had once
been tested by a carpenter, who was employed about the house, and cut
his hand badly; on another occasion by the kitchen chimney which took
fire; and that was the way they behaved each time. So it was useless to
look upon their presence as any safeguard; indeed one of them speedily
detected a fancied likeness to Burgess in one of the poor swaggers, and
shrieked every time she saw him.
We were indeed three "lone, 'lorn women," all through that weary night.
I could not close my eyes; but laid awake listening to the weka's shrill
call, or the melancholy cry of the bitterns down in the swamp. With the
morning light came hope and courage; and I must say I felt ashamed of
my suspicions when my cook came to announce that the "swaggers was just
agoin' off, and wishful to say good-bye. They've been and washed up the
tin plates and pannikins and spoons as clean as clean can be; and the
one I thought favoured Burgess so much, mum, he's been and draw'd water
from the well, all that we shall want to-day; and they're very civil,
well-spoken chaps, if you please, mum!" F---- was right in his surmise,
I fancy; for there were plenty of tattooed pictures of anchors and
ships on the brawny bare arms of my departing guests. They seemed much
disappointed to find there was no work to be had on our station; but
departed, with many thanks and blessings, "over the hills and far away."
Latterly, with increasing civilization and corresponding social economy,
there have been many attempts made by new-fangled managers of runs, more
than by the run-holders themselves, to induce these swaggers to work for
their tucker,--to use pure colonial phraseology. Several devices have
been tried, such as taking away their swags (_i.e._, their red blankets
rolled tightly into a sort of pack, which they carry on their backs, and
derive their name from), and locking them up until they had chopped a
small quantity of wood, or performed some other trifling domestic duty.
But the swagger will be led, though not driven, and what he often did of
his own accord for the sake of a nod or a smile of thanks from my pretty
maid-servants, he would not do for the hardest words which ever came out
of a boss's mouth. There are also strict rules of honesty observed among
these men, and if one swagger were to purloin the smallest article from
a station which had fed and sheltered him, every other swagger in all
the country side would immediately become an amateur detective to make
the thief give up his spoil. A pair of old boots was once missing from
a neighbouring station, and suspicion fell upon a swagger. Justice was
perhaps somewhat tardy in this instance, as it rested entirely in the
hands of every tramp who passed that way; but at the end of some
months the boots were found at home, and the innocence of the swaggers,
individually and collectively, triumphantly established.
The only instance of harshness to a swagger which came under my notice
during three years residence in New Zealand, is the one I have alluded
to above, and contains so much dramatic interest in its details, that it
may not be out of place here.
Although I have naturally dwelt in these papers more upon our bright
sunny weather, our clear, bracing winter days, and our balmy spring and
autumn evenings, let no intending traveller think that he will not meet
with bad weather at the Antipodes! I can only repeat what I have said
with pen and voice a hundred times before. New Zealand possesses a very
capricious and disagreeable climate: disagreeable from its constant
high winds: but it is perhaps the most singularly and remarkably healthy
place in the world. This must surely arise from the very gales which I
found so trying to my temper, for damp is a word without meaning; as for
mildew or miasma, the generation who are growing up there will not
know the meaning of the words; and in spite of a warm, bright day often
turning at five minutes warning into a snowy or wet afternoon, colds and
coughs are almost unknown. People who go out there with delicate lungs
recover in the most surprising manner; surprising, because one expects
the sudden changes of temperature, the unavoidable exposure to rain and
even snow, to kill instead of curing invalids. But the practice is very
unlike the theory in this case, and people thrive where they ought to
die.
During my first winter in Canterbury we had only one week of _really_
bad weather, but I felt at that time as if I had never realized before
what bad weather meant. A true "sou'-wester" was blowing from the
first to the second Monday in that July, without one moment's lull. The
bitter, furious blast swept down the mountain gorges, driving sheets of
blinding rain in a dense wall before it. Now and then the rain turned
into large snow-flakes, or the wind rose into such a hurricane that the
falling water appeared to be flashing over the drenched earth without
actually touching it. Indoors we could hardly hear ourselves speak for
the noise of the wind and rain against the shingle roof. It became a
service of danger, almost resembling a forlorn hope, to go out and drag
in logs of wet wood, or draw water from the well,--for, alas, there were
no convenient taps or snug coal-holes in our newly-erected little wooden
house. We husbanded every scrap of mutton, in very different fashion to
our usual reckless consumption, the consumption of a household which
has no butcher's bill to pay; for we knew not when the shepherd might be
able to fight his way through the storm, with half a sheep packed before
him, on sturdy little "Judy's" back. The creeks rose and poured over
their banks in angry yellow floods. Every morning casualties in the
poultry yard had to be reported, and that week cost me almost as many
fowls and ducks as my great christening party did. The first thing every
morning when I opened my eyes I used to jump up and look out of the
different windows with eager curiosity, to see if there were any signs
of a break in the weather, for I was quite unaccustomed to be pent up
like a besieged prisoner for so many succeeding days. We did not boast
of shutters in those regions, and even blinds were a luxury which were
not wasted in the little hall. Consequently, when my unsatisfactory
wanderings about the silent house--for no one else was up--led me that
dreadful stormy morning into the narrow passage called the back-hall,
I easily saw through its glass-door what seemed to me one of the most
pathetic sights my eyes had ever rested upon.
Just outside the verandah, which is the invariable addition to
New Zealand houses, stood, bareheaded, a tall, gaunt figure, whose
rain-sodden garments clung closely to its tottering limbs. A more dismal
morning could not well be imagined: the early dawn struggling to make
itself apparent through a downpour of sleet and rain, the howling wind
(which one could almost see as it drove the vapour wall before it), and
the profound solitude and silence of all except the raging storm.
At first I thought I must be dreaming, so silent and hopeless stood
that weird figure. My next impulse, without staying to consider my
dishevelled hair and loose wrapper, was to open the door and beckon the
poor man within the shelter of the verandah. When once I had got him
there I did not exactly know what to do with my guest, for neither fire
nor food could be procured quite so early. He crouched like a stray
dog down on the dripping mat outside the door, and murmured some
unintelligible words. In this dilemma I hastened to wake up poor F----,
who found it difficult to understand why I wanted him to get up at
daylight during a "sou'-wester." But I entreated him to go to the hall
door, whilst I flew off to get my lazy maids out of their warm beds.
With all their faults, they did not need much rousing on that occasion.
I suppose I used very forcible words to convey the misery of the object
standing outside, for I know that Mary was in floods of tears, and had
fastened her gown on over her night-gear, whilst I was still speaking;
and the cook had tumbled out of bed, and was kneeling before the kitchen
fire with her eyes shut, kindling a blaze, apparently, in her sleep.
As soon as things were in this forward state, I returned to the
verandah, and found our swagger guest drawing a very long breath after
a good nip of pure whisky which F---- had promptly administered to him.
"I'm fair clemmed wi' cold and wet," the swagger said, still bundled up
in his comparatively sheltered corner. "I've been out on the hills the
whole night, and I am deadbeat. Might I stop here for a bit?" He asked
this very doubtfully, for it is quite against swagger etiquette to
demand shelter in the morning. For all answer he was taken by the
shoulder, and helped up. I never shall forget the poor tramp's
deprecating face, as he looked back at me, whilst he was being led
through the pretty little dining-room, with its bright carpet, on which
his clay-clogged boots and dripping garments left a muddy, as well as
a watery track. "All right," I said, with colonial brevity; and so we
escorted our strange guest through the house into the kitchen, where the
ever-ready kettle and gridiron were busy preparing tea and chops over
a blazing fire. Of course the maids screamed when they saw us, and I
do not wonder at their doing so, for neither F---- nor I looked very
respectable, with huddled on dressing-gowns and towzled hair; whilst our
foot-sore, drenched guest subsided into a chair by the door, covered
his wretched pinched face with two bony hands, and burst into tears. I
certainly never expected to see a swagger cry, and F---- declared the
sight was quite as new to him as to me. However, the poor man's tears
and helplessness gave fresh energy to my maids' treacherous nerves, and
they even suggested dry clothes. Our good-natured cadet, who at this
moment appeared on the scene, was only too happy to find some outlet for
_his_ superfluous benevolence, and hastened off, to return in a moment
or two with an old flannel shirt, dry and whole, in spite of its
faded stripes, a pair of moleskin trousers, and a huge pair of canvas
cricketing shoes. It was no time for ceremony, so we women retreated for
a few minutes into the store-room, whilst F---- and Mr. A---- made the
swagger's toilette, getting so interested in their task as even to part
his dripping hair out of his eyes. He had no swag, poor fellow, having
lost his roll of red blankets in one of the treacherous bog-holes across
the range.
That man was exactly like a lost, starving dog. He ate an enormous
breakfast, curled himself upon some empty flour-sacks in a dry corner
of the kitchen, and slept till dinner time; then another sleep until the
supper hour, and so on, the round of he clock. All this time he never
spoke, though we were dying to hear how he had come into such a plight.
The "sou'-wester" still raged furiously out of doors without a moment's
cessation, and we were obliged to have recourse to the tins of meat kept
in the store-room for such an emergency. The shepherd told us afterwards
he had ventured out to look for some wethers, his own supply being
exhausted, but the whole mob had hidden themselves so cleverly that
neither man nor dog could discover their place of shelter. On the Monday
night, exactly a week after the outbreak of bad weather; the skies
showed signs of having exhausted themselves, and nature began to wear
a sulky air, as if her temper were but slowly recovering herself. The
learned in such matters, however, took a cheerful view of affairs, and
declared the worst to be over,--"for this bout,"--as they cautiously
added.
Whether it was the three days of rest, warmth, and good food which
unlocked the swagger's heart, or not, I do not pretend to decide; but
that evening, over a pipe in the kitchen, he confided to Mr. A----that
he had been working his way down to the sea-coast from a station
where he had been employed, very far back in the hill ranges. The
"sou'-wester" had overtaken him about twenty miles from us, but only
five from another station, where he had applied towards the evening for
shelter, being even then drenched with rain, and worn out by struggling
through such a tremendous storm. There, for some reason which I confess
did not seem very clear, he had been refused the unvarying hospitality
extended in New Zealand to all travellers, rich or poor, squatter or
swagger, and had been directed to take a short cut across the hills to
our station, which he was assured could easily be reached in an hour or
two more. The track, a difficult one enough to strike in summer weather,
became, indeed, impossible to discover amid rushing torrents and driving
wind and rain; besides which, as the poor fellow repeated more than
once during his story, "I was fair done up when I set out, for I'd been
travelling all day." Mr. A---- told us what the man had been saying,
before we all went to bed, adding, "He seems an odd, surly kind of
creature, for although he declares he is going away the first thing
to-morrow, if the rain be over, I noticed he never said a word
approaching to thanks."
The rain was indeed over next morning, and a flood of brilliant sunshine
awoke me "bright and early," as the country people say. It seemed
impossible to stop in bed, so I jumped up, thrust my feet into slippers,
and my arms into a warm dressing-gown, and sallied forth, opening window
after window, so as to let the sunshine into rooms which not even a
week's steady down-pour could render damp. What a morning it was, and
for mid-winter too! No haze, or fog, or vapour on all the green hills,
whose well-washed sides were glistening in a bright glow of sunlight.
For the first time, too, since the bad weather had set in, was to be
heard the incessant bleat which is music to the ears of a New Zealand
sheep-farmer. White, moving, calling patches on the hillsides told
that the sheep were returning to their favourite pastures, and a mob of
horses could be descried quietly feeding on the sunny flat.
But I had no eyes for beauties of mountain or sky. I could do nothing
but gaze on the strange figure of the silent swagger, who knelt yes,
positively knelt, on the still wet and shining shingle which formed
an apology for a gravel path up to the back-door of the little wooden
homestead. His appearance was very different to what it had been three
days before. Now his clothes were dry and clean and mended,--my Irish
maids doing; bless their warm hearts! He had cobbled up his boots
himself, and his felt hat, which had quite recovered from its drenching,
lay at his side. The perfect rest and warmth and good food had filled
up his hollow cheeks, but still his countenance was a curious one; and
never, until my dying day, can I forget the rapture of entreaty on
that man's upturned face. It brings the tears into my own eyes now to
recollect its beseeching expression. I do not think I ever _saw_ prayer
before or since. He did not perceive me, for I had hidden behind a
sheltering curtain, to listen to his strange, earnest petitions; so he
could not know that anybody in the house was stirring, for he knelt at
the back, and all my fussings had taken place in the front, and he could
not, therefore, have been doing anything for effect.
There, exactly where he had crouched a wretched, way-worn tramp in
pouring rain, he knelt now with the flood of sunshine streaming down
on his uplifted face, whilst he prayed for the welfare and happiness,
individually and collectively, of every living creature within the
house. Then he stood up and lifted his hat from the ground; but before
he replaced it on his head, he turned, with a gesture which would have
made the fortune of any orator,--a gesture of mingled love and farewell,
and solemnly blessed the roof-tree which had sheltered him in his hour
of need. I could not help being struck by the extraordinarily good
language in which he expressed his fervent desires, and his whole
bearing seemed quite different to that of the silent, half-starved man
we had kept in the kitchen these last three days. I watched him turn and
go, noiselessly closing the garden gate after him, and--shall I confess
it?--my heart has always felt light whenever I think of that swagger's
blessing. When we all met at breakfast I had to take his part, and tell
of the scene I had witnessed; for everybody was inclined to blame him
for having stolen away, scarcely without saying good-bye, or expressing
a word of thanks for the kindness he had received. But I knew better.
From the sublime to the ridiculous we all know the step is but short,
especially in the human mind; and to my tender mood succeeds the
recollection of an absurd panic we once suffered from, about swaggers.
Exaggerated stories had reached us, brought by timid fat men on
horseback, with bulky pocket-books, who came to buy our wethers for the
Hokitika market, of "sticking up" having broken out on the west land. I
fear my expressions are often unintelligible to an English reader,
but in this instance I will explain. "Sticking up" is merely a concise
colonial rendering of "Your money or your life," and was originally
employed by Australian bushrangers, those terrible freebooters whose
ranks used to be always recruited from escaped convicts. Fortunately we
had no community of that class, only a few prisoners kept in a little
ricketty wooden house in Christchurch, from which an enterprising baby
might easily have escaped. I dare say as we get more civilized out
there, we shall build ourselves handsome prisons and penitentiaries; but
in those early days a story was current of a certain jailor who let all
his captives out on some festal occasion, using the tremendous threat,
that whoever had not returned by eight o'clock should be "_locked out!_"
But to return to that particular winter evening. We had been telling
each other stories which we had heard or read of bushranging exploits,
until we were all as nervous as possible. Ghosts, or even burglar
stories, are nothing to the horror of a true bushranger story, and
F---- had made himself particularly ghastly and disagreeable by giving a
minute account of an adventure which had been told to him by one of the
survivors.
We listened, with the wind howling outside, to F----'s horrid
second-hand story, of how one fine day up country, eight or ten
men,--station hands,--were "stuck up" by one solitary bushranger, armed
to the teeth. He tied them up one by one, and seated them all on a bench
in the sun, and deliberately fired at and wounded the youngest of the
party; then, seized with compunction, he unbound one of the captives,
and stood over him, revolver in hand, whilst he saddled and mounted a
horse, to go for a doctor to set the poor boy's broken leg. Before
the messenger had gone "a league, a league, but barely twa',"--the
freebooter recollected that he might bring somebody else back with him
besides the doctor, and flinging himself across his horse, rode after
the affrighted man, and coolly shot him dead. I really don't know how
the story ended: I believe everybody perished; but at this juncture
I declared it to be impossible to sit up any longer to listen to such
tragedies, and went to bed.
Exactly at midnight,--the proper hour for ghosts; burglars, and
bushrangers, and such "small deer" to be about, everybody was awakened
simultaneously by a loud irregular knocking, which sounded with hollow
reverberations all through the wooden house. "Bushrangers!" we all
thought, every one of us; for although burglars may not usually knock
at hall-doors in England, it is by no means uncommon for their bolder
brethren to do so at the other end of the world. It is such a comfort to
me now, looking back on that scene to remember that our stalwart cadet
was as frightened as anybody. _He_ stood six feet one in his stockings,
and was a match for any two in the country side, and yet, I am happy to
think, he was as bad as any one. As for me, to say that my heart became
like water and my knees like soft wax, is to express in mild words my
state of abject terror. There was no need to inquire what the maids
thought, for smothered shrieks, louder and louder as each peal of
knocks vibrated through the little house, proclaimed sufficiently their
sentiments on the subject.
Dear me, how ridiculous it all must have been! In one corner of the
ceiling of our bedroom was a little trap-door which opened into an attic
adjoining that where the big cadet slept. Now whilst F---- was hurriedly
taking down his double-barrelled gun from its bracket just below this
aperture, and I held the candlestick with so shaky a hand that the
extinguisher clattered like a castanet, this door was slowly lifted up,
and a large white face, with dishevelled stubbly hair and wide-open blue
eyes, looked down through the cobwebs, saying in a husky whisper, "Could
you let me have a rifle, or any thing?" This was our gallant cadet, who
had no idea of presenting himself at a disadvantage before the foe.
I had desperately seized a revolver, but F---- declared that if I
persisted in carrying it I certainly should go first, as he did not wish
to be shot in the back.
We held a hurried council of war,--Mr. A---- assisting through the
trap door, and the maids breathing suggestions through the
partition-planks,--but the difficulty consisted in determining at which
door the knocking was going on. Some said one, and some another (for
there were many modes of egress from the tiny dwelling); but at last
F---- cried decidedly, "We must try them all in succession," and
shouldering his gun, with the revolver sticking in the girdle of his
dressing-gown, sallied valiantly forth. I don't know what became of
Mr. A----: I believe he took up a position with the rifle pointing
downwards; the maids retreated beneath their blankets, and I (too
frightened to stay behind) followed closely, armed with an Indian
boar-spear. F---- flung the hall door wide open, and called out, "Who's
there?" but no one answered. The silence was intense, and so was the
cold; therefore we returned speedily indoors to consult. "It must be at
the back door," I urged; adding, "that is the short cut down the valley,
where bushrangers would be most likely to come." "Bushrangers, you silly
child!" laughed F----. "It's most likely a belated swagger, or else
somebody who is playing us a trick." However as he spoke a succession of
fierce and loud knocks resounded through the whole house. "It must be
at the kitchen door," F---- said. "Come along, and stand well behind me
when I open the door."
But we never opened the door; for on our way through the kitchen, with
its high-pitched and unceiled roof,--a very cavern for echoes,--we
discovered the source of the noise, and of our fright. Within a large
wooden packing-case lay a poor little lamb, and its dying throes had
wakened us all up, as it kicked expiring kicks violently against the
side of the box. It was my doing bringing it indoors, for I never
_could_ find it in my heart to leave a lamb out on the hills if we came
across a dead ewe with her baby bleating desolately and running round
her body. F---- always said, "You cannot rear a merino lamb indoors; the
poor little thing will only die all the same in a day or two;" and then
I am sorry to say he added in an unfeeling manner, "They are not worth
much now," as if that could make any difference! I had brought this,
as I had brought scores of others, home in my arms from a long distance
off; fed it out of a baby's bottle, rubbed it dry, and put it to sleep
in a warm bed of hay at the bottom of this very box. They had all died
quietly, after a day or two, in spite of my devotion and nursing, but
this little foundling kicked herself out of the world with as much noise
as would have sufficed to summon a garrison to surrender. It is all
very well to laugh at it now, but we were, five valiant souls in all, as
thoroughly frightened at the time as we could well be.
The only real harm a swagger did me was to carry off one of my best
maidservants as his wife, but as he had 300 pounds in the bank at
Christchurch, and was only travelling about looking for work, and they
have lived in great peace and prosperity ever since, I suppose I ought
not to complain. This swagger was employed in deepening our well, and
Mary was always going to see how he was getting on, so he used to make
love to her, looking up from the bottom of a deep shaft, and shouting
compliments to her from a depth of sixty feet. What really won her
Irish heart, though, was his calmly putting a rival, a shepherd, into
a water-butt. She could not resist that, so they were married, and are
doing well.
Let no one despise swaggers. They are merely travelling workmen, and
would pay for their lodging if it was the custom to do so. I am told
that even now they are fast becoming things of the past; for one could
not "swagger" by railroad, and most of our beautiful happy vallies will
soon have a line of rails laid down throughout its green and peaceful
length.
Chapter X: Changing servants.
To the eyes of an English housewife the title of this chapter must
appear a very bad joke indeed, and the amusement what the immortal Mrs.
Poyser would call "a poor tale." Far be it from me to make light of the
misery of a tolerably good servant coming to you after three months'
service, just as you were beginning to feel settled and comfortable,
and announcing with a smile that she was going to be married; or, with
a flood of tears, that she found it "lonesome." Either of these two
contingencies was pretty sure to arise at least four times a year on a
station.
At first I determined to do all I could to make their new home so
attractive to my two handmaidens that they would not wish to leave it
directly. In one of Wilkie Collins' books an upholsterer is represented
as saying that if you want to domesticate a woman, you should surround
her with bird's-eye maple and chintz. That must have been exactly my
idea, for the two rooms which I prepared for my maidservants were small,
indeed, yet exquisitely pretty. Of course I should not have been so
foolish as to buy any of the unnecessary and dainty fittings with which
they were decorated, but as all the furniture and belongings of an
English house, a good deal larger than our station home, had been taken
out to it, there were sundry toilet tables, etc., whose destination
would have been a loft over the stable, if I had not used them for my
maids.
I had seen and chosen two very respectable young women in Christchurch,
one as a cook, and the other as a housemaid. The cook, Euphemia by
name, was a tall, fat, flabby woman, with a pasty complexion, but a nice
expression of face, and better manners than usual. She turned out to be
very good natured, perfectly ignorant though willing to learn, and was
much admired by the neighbouring _cockatoos_, or small farmers. Lois the
housemaid, was the smallest and skimpiest and most angular girl I ever
beheld. At first I regarded her with deep compassion, imagining that
she was about fifteen years of age, and had been cruelly ill-treated and
starved. How she divined what was passing in my mind I cannot tell, but
during our first interview she suddenly fired up, and informed me
that she was twenty-two years old, that she was the seventh child of
a seventh child, and therefore absolutely certain to achieve some
wonderful piece of good luck; and furthermore, that she had been much
admired in her own part of the country, and was universally allowed to
be "the flower of the province." This statement, delivered with great
volubility and defiant jerkiness of manner, rather took my breath away;
but it was a case of "Hobson's choice" just then about servants, and as
I was assured she was a respectable girl, I closed with her terms (25
pounds a year and all found) on the spot. The fat pale cook was to get
35 pounds. Now-a-days I hear that wages are somewhat lower, but the
sums I have named were the average figures of six or seven years ago,
especially "up-country."
Here I feel impelled to repeat the substance of what I have stated
elsewhere,--that these rough, queer servants were, as a general rule,
perfectly honest, and of irreproachable morals, besides working,
in their own curious fashion, desperately hard. Our family was an
exceptionally small one, and the "place" was considered "light, you
bet," but even then it seemed to me as if both my domestics worked very
hard. In the first place there was the washing; two days severe work,
under difficulties which they thought nothing of. All the clothes had to
be taken to a boiler fixed in the side of a hill, for the convenience of
the creek, and washed and rinsed under a blazing sun (for of course it
never was attempted on a wet day) and amid clouds of sand-flies. Not
until evening was this really hard day's work over, and the various
garments fluttering in the breeze up a valley behind the house. The
chances were strongly in favour of a tremendous nor'-wester coming down
this said valley during the night, and in that case there would not be a
sign next morning of any of the clothes. Heavy things, such as sheets or
table cloths, might be safely looked for under lee of the nearest gorse
hedge, but it would be impossible even to guess where the lighter and
more diaphanous articles had been whisked to. A week afterwards the
shepherds used to bring in stray cuffs and collars, and upon one
occasion "Judy," the calf, was discovered in a paddock hard by,
breakfasting off my best pocket handkerchiefs with an excellent
appetite. Of course everything was dirty, and needed to be washed over
again. We had a mangle, which greatly simplified matters on the second
day, but it used not to be uncommon on back-country stations to get
up the fine things with a flat stone, heated in the wood ashes, for an
iron. After the washing operations had been brought to a more or less
successful ending, there came the yeast making and the baking, followed
by the brewing of sugar beer, preserves had to be made, bacon cured, all
sorts of things to be done, besides the daily duties of scrubbing and
cleaning, and cooking at all hours for stray visitors or "swaggers."
But I am overcome with contrition at perceiving into what a digression I
have wandered; having strayed from my maids' rooms to their duties.
They arrived as usual on a dray late in the evening, tired and wearied
enough, poor souls. In those early days I had not yet plucked up courage
to try my hand in the kitchen, and our meals had been left to the charge
of F----, who, whatever he may be in other relations of life, is a vile
cook; and our good-natured cadet Mr. U----, who was exceedingly willing,
but profoundly ignorant of the elements of cookery. For fear of being
tempted into another digression, I will briefly state that during that
week I lived in a chronic state of hunger and heartburn, and sought
forgetfulness from repeated attacks of indigestion, by decorating my
servants' rooms. They opened into each other, and it would have been
hard to find two prettier little nests. Each had its shining brass
bedstead with chintz hangings, its muslin-draped toilette table, and its
daintily curtained window, besides a pretty carpet. I can remember now
the sort of dazed look with which Euphemia regarded a room such as she
had never seen; whilst Lois considered it to be an instalment of her
good luck, and proceeded to contemplate her sharp and elfish countenance
in her looking-glass, pronouncing it as her opinion that she wanted more
colour. That she certainly did, and she might have added, more flesh
and youthfulness, while she was about it. However, they were greatly
delighted, and Euphemia who was of a grateful and affectionate
disposition, actually thanked me, for having with my own hands arranged
such pretty rooms for them.
This was a very good beginning. They were both hard-working, civil
girls, and got on very well together, leaving me plenty of leisure to
attend to the quantities of necessary arrangements which have to be made
when you are settling yourself for good, fifty miles from a shop, and
on a spot where no other human being has ever lived before. F----
congratulated myself in private on my exceptional good luck, and
attributed it partly to my having followed the Upholsterer's advice
in that book of Mr. Wilkie Collins. But as it turned out, F---- was
dwelling in a fool's paradise. In vain had it been pointed out to me
that a certain stalwart north countryman, whose shyness could only be
equalled by his appetite, had been a most regular attendant for some
weeks past at our Sunday evening services, accepting the offer of tea
in the kitchen, afterwards, with great alacrity. I scouted these
insinuations, appealing to the general sense of the public as to whether
Moffatt had _ever_ been known to refuse a meal anywhere, or under any
circumstances, and declaring that, if he was "courting," it was being
done in solemn silence, for never a sound filtered through the thin
wooden planks between the kitchen and the dining room, except the
clatter of a vigorously plied knife and fork, for Moffatt's teas always
included a shoulder of mutton.
But I was wrong and others were right. Early in October, our second
spring month, I chanced to get up betimes one delicious, calm morning, a
morning when it seemed a new and exquisite pleasure to open each window
in succession, and fill one's lungs with a deep, deep breath of that
heavenly atmosphere, at once so fresh and so pure.
Quiet as the little homestead lay, nestled among the hills, there were
too many morning noises stirring among the animals for any one to feel
lonely or dull, I should have thought. From a distance came a regular,
monotonous, lowing sound. That was "Hetty," the pretty little yellow
Alderney, announcing from the swamps that she and her two female friends
were quite ready to be milked. Their calves answered them dutifully from
the English grass paddock, and between the two I could see Mr. U----'s
tall figure stalking down the flat with his cattle dog at his heels, and
hear his merry whistle shrilling through the silent air. Then all the
ducks and fowls about the place were inquiring, in noisy cackle, how
long it would be before breakfast was ready, whilst "Helen's" whinneying
made me turn my head to see her, with a mob of horses at her heels,
coming over the nearest ridge on the chance of a stray carrot or two
going begging. All the chained-up dogs were pulling at the staples of
their fastenings, and entreating by short, joyous barks, to be allowed
just one good frisk and roll in the sparkling dewy grass around. But
even I, universal spoiler of animals that I am, was obliged to harden my
heart against their noisy appeals; for quite close to the stable, on the
nearest hill-side, an immense mob of sheep and young lambs were feeding.
That steep incline had been burnt six weeks before, and was now as green
as the clover field at its base, affording a delicious pasturage to
these nursing mothers and their frisky infants. I think I see and hear
it all now. The moving white patches on the hill-side, the incessant
calling and answering, the racing and chasing among the curly little
merino lambs, and above all the fair earth the clear vault of an almost
cloudless sky bent itself in a deep blue dome. Just over the eastern
hills the first long lances of the sun lay in bright shafts of silver
sheen on the dew-laden tussocks, and that peculiar morning fragrance
rose up from the moist ground, which is as much the reward of the early
riser as the early worm is of the bird.
Was it a morning for low spirits or sobs and sighs? Surely not; and
yet as I turned the handle of the kitchen door those melancholy sounds
struck my ear. I had intended to make my entrance with a propitiatory
smile, suitable to such a glorious morning, proceed to pay my damsels a
graceful compliment on their somewhat unusual early rising, and wind up
with a request for a cup of tea. But all these friendly purposes went
out of my head when I beheld Euphemia seated on the rude wooden settle,
with its chopped tussock mattrass, which had been covered with a bright
cotton damask, and was now called respectfully, "the kitchen sofa." Her
arm was round Lois's waist, and she had drawn that young lady's shock
head of red curls down on her capacious bosom. Both were crying as if
their hearts would break, and startled as I felt to see these floods of
tears, it struck me how incongruous their attitude looked against
the background of the large window through which all nature looked so
smiling and sparkling. The kettle was singing on the fire, everything
seemed bright and snug and comfortable indoors. "What in the world has
happened?" I gasped, really frightened.
"Nothing, mem: its only them sheep," sobbed Euphemia, "calling like.
They always makes me cry. Your tea 'll be ready directly, mem" (this
last with a deep sigh.)
"Is it possible you are crying about that?" I inquired. "Yes, mem,
yes," said Euphemia, in heart-broken accents, clasping Lois, who was
positively howling, closer to her sympathetic heart. "Its terrible to
hear 'em. They keeps calling and answering each other, and that makes
us think of our home and friends." Now both these women had starved as
factory "hands" all their lives, and I used to feel much more inclined
to cry when they told me, all unconscious of the pathos, stories of
their baby work and hardships. Certainly they had never seen a sheep
until they came to New Zealand, and as they had particularly mentioned
the silence which used to reign supreme at the manufactory during work
hours, I could not trace the connection between a dingy, smoky, factory,
and a bright spring morning in this delightful valley. "What nonsense!"
I cried, half laughing and half angry. "You can't be in earnest. Why you
must both be ill: let me give you each a good dose of medicine." I said
this encouragingly, for there was nothing in the world Euphemia liked
so much as good substantial physic, and the only thing I ever needed to
keep locked up from her was the medicine drawer.
Euphemia seemed touched and grateful, and her face brightened up
directly, but Lois looked up with her frightful little face more ugly
than usual, as she said, spitefully, "Physic won't make them nasty sheep
hold their tongues. I'm sure _this_ isn't the place for me to find my
luck, so I'd rather go, if you please, mem. I've prospected-up every one
o' them gullies and never seen the colour yet, so it ain't any good my
stopping."
This was quite a fresh light thrown upon the purpose of Lois's long
lonely rambles. She used to be off and away, over the hills whenever she
had finished her daily work, and I encouraged her rambles, thinking the
fresh air and exercise must do her a world of good. Never had I guessed
that the sordid little puss was turning over every stone in the creek in
her search for the shining flakes.
"Why did you think you should find gold here?" I asked.
"Because they do say it lies in all these mountain streams," she
answered sullenly; "and I'm always dreaming of nuggets. Not that a girl
with my face and figure wants 'dust' to set her off, however. But if its
all the same to you, mem, I'd rather leave when Euphemia does."
"Are _you_ going, then?" I inquired, turning reproachfully to my
pale-faced cook, who actually coloured a little as she answered, "Well,
mem, you see Moffatt says he's got his window frames in now, and he'll
glass them the very first chance, and I think it'll be more company for
me on Saddler's Flat. So if you'll please to send me down in the dray, I
should be obliged."
Here was a pretty upset, and I went about my poultry-feeding with a
heavy heart. How was I to get fresh servants, and above all, what was
I to do for cooking during the week they were away? These questions
fortunately settled themselves in rather an unexpected manner. I heard
of a very nice willing girl who was particularly anxious to come up
as housemaid, to my part of the world, on condition that I should also
engage as cook her sister, who was leaving a place on the opposite side
of a range of high hills to the south. I shall only briefly say that
all inquiries about these damsels proved satisfactory, and I could see
Euphemia and Lois depart, with tolerable equanimity. The former wept,
and begged for a box of Cockles' pills; but Lois tossed her elfish head,
and gave me to understand that she had never been properly admired or
appreciated whilst in my service.
Chapter XII: Culinary troubles.
I want to lodge a formal complaint against all cookery books. They are
not the least use in the world, until you know how to cook! and then you
can do without them. Somebody ought to write a cookery book which would
tell an unhappy beginner whether the water in which she proposes to put
her potatoes is to be hot or cold; how long such water is to boil; how
she is to know whether the potatoes are done enough; how to dry
them after they have boiled, and similar things, which make all the
difference in the world.
To speak like Mr. Brooke for a moment. "Rice now: I have dabbled in that
a good deal myself, and found it wouldn't do at all."
Of course in time, and after many failures, I did learn to boil a
potato which would not disgrace me, and to bake bread, besides in time
attaining to puddings and cakes, of which I don't mind confessing I was
modestly proud. It used to be a study, I am told, to watch my face
when a cake had turned out as it ought. Gratified vanity at the lavish
encomiums bestowed on it, and horrified dismay at the rapidity with
which a good sized cake disappeared down the throats of the company,
warred together in the most artless fashion. The reflection would arise
that it was almost a pity it should be eaten up so very fast; yet was it
not a fine thing to be able to make such a cake! and oh, would the next
be equally good?
One lesson I leaned in my New Zealand kitchen,--and that was not to
be too hard on the point of breakages; for no one knows, unless from
personal experience, how true was the Irish cook's apology for breaking
a dish, when she said that it let go of her hand. I declare that I used,
at last, to regard my plates and dishes, cups and saucers, yea, even the
pudding basons, not as so much china and delf, but as troublesome imps,
possessed with an insane desire to dash themselves madly on the kitchen
floor upon the least provocation. Every woman knows what a slippery
thing to hold is a baby in its tub. I am in a position to pronounce that
wet plates and dishes are far more difficult to keep hold of. They have
a way of leaping out of your fingers, which must be felt to be
believed. After my first week in my kitchen I used to wonder, not at the
breakages, but at anything remaining unbroken.
My maids had a very ingenious method of disposing of the fragments of
their pottery misfortunes. At the back of the house an open patch of
ground, thickly covered with an under-growth of native grass, and the
usual large proportion of sheltering tussocks stretched away to the foot
of the nearest hill. This was burned every second year or so, and
when the fire had passed away the sight it revealed was certainly very
curious. Beneath each tussock had lain concealed a small heap of broken
china, which must have been placed there in the dead of the night. The
delinquents had evidently been at the pains to perfect their work of
destruction by reducing the china articles in question, to the smallest
imaginable fragments, for fear of a protruding corner betraying the
clever _cache_; and the contrast afforded to the blackened ground on
which they lay, by the gay patches of tiny fragments huddled together,
was droll indeed. That was the moment for recognising the remains of a
favourite jug or plate, or even a beloved tea-cup. There they were all
laid in neat little heaps, and the best of it was that the existing cook
always declared loudly her astonishment at the base ingenuity of such
conduct, although I could not fail to recognise many a plate or dish
which had disappeared from the land of the living during her reign.
All housekeepers will sympathise with my feelings at seeing an amateur
scullion, who had distinguished himself greatly in the Balaklava charge,
but who appeared to have no idea that boiling water would scald his
fingers,--drop the top plate of a pile which he had placed in a tub
before him. In spite of my entreaties to be allowed to "wash-up" myself,
he gallantly declared that he could do it beautifully, and that the
great thing was to have the water very hot. In pursuance of this theory
he poured the contents of a kettle of boiling water over his plates,
plunged his hand in, and dropped the top plate, with a shriek of
dismay, on those beneath it. Out of consideration for that well-meaning
emigrant's feelings, I abstain from publishing the list of the killed
and wounded, briefly stating that he might almost as well have fired
a shot among my poor plates. A perfect fountain of water and chips and
bits of china flew up into the air, and I really believe that hardly
one plate remained uncracked. So much for one's friends. I must candidly
state that although the servants broke a good deal, we destroyed twice
as much amongst us during the week which must needs elapse between their
departure and, the arrival of the new ones.
Shall I ever forget the guilty pallor which overspread the bronzed and
bearded countenance of one of my guests, who particularly wished to dust
the drawing-room ornaments, when on hearing a slight crash I came into
the room and found him picking up the remains of a china shepherdess?
Considering everything, I kept my temper remarkably well, merely
observing that he had better go into the verandah and sit down with a
book and his pipe, and send Joey in to help me. Joey was a little black
monkey from Panama, who had to be provided with broken bits of delf or
china in order that he might amuse himself by breaking them ingeniously
into smaller fragments.
But the real object of this chapter was to relate some of my own private
misfortunes in the cooking line. Once, when Alice S---- was staying with
me and we had no servants, she and I undertook to bake a very infantine
and unweaned pig. It was all properly arranged for us, and, making up a
good fire, we proceeded to cook the little monster.
Hours passed by; all the rest of the dinner got itself properly cooked
at the right time, but the pig presented exactly the same appearance at
dewy eve as it had done in the early morn. We looked rather crest-fallen
at its pale condition when one o'clock struck, but I said cheerfully,
"Oh, I daresay it will be ready by supper!" But it was not: not a bit of
it. Of course we searched in those delusive cookery books, but they only
told us what sauces to serve with a roasted pig, or how to garnish it,
entering minutely into a disquisition upon whether a lemon or an orange
had better be stuck into its mouth. We wanted to know how to cook it,
and why it would not get itself baked. About an hour before supper-time
I grew desperate at the anticipation of the "chaff" Alice and I would
certainly have to undergo if this detestable animal could not be
produced in a sufficiently cooked state by evening. We took it out of
the oven and contemplated it with silence and dismay. Fair as ever did
that pig appear, and as if it had no present intention of being cooked
at all. A sudden idea came into our heads at the same moment, but it was
Alice who first whispered, "Let us cut off its head." "Yes," I cried; "I
am sure that prevents its roasting or baking, or whatever it is." So we
got out the big carving knife and cut off the piggy's head. Far be it
from me to offer any solution of the theory why the head should have
interfered with the baking process, but all I know is, that, like the
old woman in the nursery song, everything began to go right, and we got
our supper that night.
Has anybody ever reflected on how difficult it must be to get a chimney
swept without ever a sweep or even a brush? Luckily our chimneys were
short and wide, and we used a good deal of wood; so in three years the
kitchen chimney only needed to be cleansed twice. The first time it was
cleared of soot by the simple process of being set on fire, but as a
light nor'-wester was blowing, the risk to the wooden roof became very
great and could only be met by spreading wet blankets over the shingles.
We had a very narrow escape of losing our little wooden house, and it
was fortunate it happened just at the men's dinner hour when there was
plenty of help close at hand. However great my satisfaction at feeling
that at last my chimney had been thoroughly swept, there was evidently
too much risk about the performance to admit of its being repeated, so
about a year afterwards I asked an "old chum" what I was to do with
my chimney. "Sweep it with a furze-bush, to be sure," she replied. I
mentioned this primitive receipt at home, and the idea was carried out
a day or two later by one man mounting on the roof of the house whilst
another remained in the kitchen; the individual on the roof threw down
a rope to the one below, who fastened a large furze-bush in the middle,
they each held an end of this rope, and so pulled it up and down the
chimney until the man below was as black as any veritable sweep, and had
to betake himself, clothes and all, to a neighbouring creek. As for the
kitchen, its state cannot be better described than in my Irish cook's
words, who cried, "Did mortial man ever see sich a ridiklous mess?
Arrah, why couldn't ye let it be thin?" But for all that she set bravely
to work and got everything clean and nice once more, merely stipulating
that the next time we were going to sweep chimney we should let her know
beforehand, that she might go somewhere "right away."
I feel, however, that in all these reminiscences I am straying widely
from the point which was before my mind when I began this chapter, and
that is the delusiveness of a cookery book. No book which I have ever
seen tells you, for instance, how to boil rice properly. They all insist
that the grains must be white and dry and separate, but they omit to
describe the process by which these results can be attained. They tell
you what you are to do with your rice after it is boiled, but not how
to boil it. The fact is, I suppose, that the people who write such books
began so early to be cooks themselves, that they forget there ever was a
time when such simple things were unknown to them.
Even when I had, after many failures, mastered the art of boiling rice,
and also of making an excellent curry,--for which accomplishment I was
indebted to the practical teaching of a neighbour,--there used still
to be misfortunes in store for me. One of these caused me such a bitter
disappointment that I have never quite forgotten it. This was the manner
of it. We were without servants. My readers must not suppose that such
was our chronic condition, but when you come to change your servants
three or four times a year, and have to "do" for yourself each time
during the week which must elapse before the arrival of new ones, there
is an ample margin for every possible domestic misadventure. If any
doubt me, let them try for themselves.
On this special occasion, which proved to be nearly the last, my mind
was easy, for the simple reason that I was now independent of cookery
books. I had puzzled out all the elementary parts of the science for
myself, and had no misgivings on the subject of potatoes or even peas.
So confident was I, and vain, that I volunteered to make a curry for
breakfast. Such a savoury curry as it was, and it turned out to be all
that the heart of a hungry man could desire; so did the rice: I really
felt proud of that rice; each grain kept itself duly apart from its
fellow, and was as soft and white and plump as possible. Everything
went well, and I had plenty of assistants to carry in the substantial
breakfast as fast as it was ready: the coffee, toast, all the other
things had gone in; even the curry had been borne off amid many
compliments, and now it only remained for me to dish up the rice.
Imagine the scene. The bright pretty kitchen, with its large window
through which you could see the green hills around dotted with sheep;
the creek chattering along just outside, whilst close to the back door
loitered a crowd of fowls and ducks on the chance of fate sending them
something extra to eat. Beneath the large window, and just in front of
it, stood a large deal table, and it used to be my custom to transfer
the contents of the saucepans to the dishes at that convenient place.
Well, I emptied the rice into its dish, and gazed fondly at it for
a moment: any cook might have been proud of that beautiful heap of
snow-white grains. I had boiled a great quantity, more than necessary
it seemed, for although the dish was piled up almost as high as it would
hold, some rice yet remained in the saucepan.
Oh, that I had been content to leave it there! But no: with a certain
spasmodic frugality which has often been my bane, I shook the saucepan
vehemently, in order to dislodge some more of its contents into my
already full dish. As I did so, my treacherous wrist, strained by the
weight of the saucepan, gave way, and with the rapidity of a conjurer's
trick I found the great black saucepan seated,--yes, that is the only
word for it,--seated in the midst of my heap of rice, which was now
covered by fine black powder from its sooty outside. All the rice was
utterly and completely spoiled. I don't believe that five clean grains
were left in the dish There was nothing for it but to leave it to get
cold and then throw it all out for the fowls, who don't mind _riz au
noir_ it seems. Although I feel more than half ashamed to confess it, I
am by no means sure I did not retire into the store-room and shed a tear
over the fate of that rice. Everybody else laughed, but I was dreadfully
mortified and vexed.
Chapter XIII: Amateur Servants.
I flattered myself on a certain occasion that I had made some very
artful arrangements to provide the family with something to eat during
the servants' absence. I had been lamenting the week of experiments in
food which would be sure to ensue so soon as the dray should leave,
in the hearing of a gallant young ex-dragoon, who had come out to New
Zealand to try and see if one could gratify tastes, requiring, say a
thousand a year to provide for, on an income of 120 pounds. He was
just finding out that it was quite as difficult to manage this in the
Southern as in the Northern Hemisphere, but his hearty cheery manner,
and enormous stock of hope, kept him up for some time.
"I'll come and cook for you," he cried. "I can cook like a bird. But
I can't wash up. No, no: it burns too much. If you can get somebody
to wash up, I'll cook. And just look here: it would be very nice if we
could have some music after dinner. You've got a piano, haven't you?
That's right. Well, now, don't you ask that pretty Miss A----, who has
just come out from England, to come and stop with you, and then we could
have some music?"
"Where did you learn to cook?" I inquired, suspiciously; for F----had
also assured me _he_ could cook, and this had upset my confidence.
"On the west coast; to be sure! Ask Vere, and Williams and Taylor, and
everybody, if they _ever_ tasted such pies as I used to make them."
My countenance must have still looked rather doubtful, because I well
remember sundry verbal testimonials of capability being produced; and as
I was still very ignorant of the rudiments of the science of cookery,
I shrank from assuming the whole responsibility of the family meals. So
the household was arranged in this way:--Captain George, head cook;
Mr. U----, scullery-maid; Miss A----, housemaid; myself,
lady-superintendent; Mr. Forsyth (a young naval officer), butler. On
the principle of giving honour to whom honour is due, this gallant
lieutenant deserves special mention for the way he cleaned glass. He did
not pay much attention to his silver, but his glass would have passed
muster at a club. The only drawback was the immense time he took over
each glass, and the way he followed either Miss A---- or me all about
the house, holding a tumbler in one hand, and a long, clean glass-cloth
in the other, calling upon us to admire the polish of the crystal. To
clean two tumblers would be a good day's work for him. From Monday to
Saturday (when the dray returned), this state of things went on. Of
course I had taken the precaution of having a good supply of bread made
beforehand, besides cakes and biscuits, tarts and pies; everything to
save trouble. But it was not of much use, for, alleging that they were
working so hard, the young men, F---- at their head, though I was always
telling him he was married and ought to know better, set to work and ate
up everything immediately, as completely as if they had been locusts.
And then, they were all so dreadfully wild and unmanageable! Mine was by
far the hardest task of all, the keeping them in any sort of order. For
instance, Captain George declared one day, that if there was one thing
he did better than another, it was to make jam. Consequently a fatigue
party was ordered out to gather strawberries, and, after more than half
had been eaten on the way to the house, a stewpan was filled. I had to
do most of the skimming, as Captain George wanted to practice a duet
with Miss A----. I may as well mention here that we never had any
opportunity of seeing how the jam kept, because the smell pervaded the
whole house to such an extent, that, declaring they felt like schoolboys
again, the gentlemen fell on my half dozen pots of preserves in a
body, carried them off, and ate them all up then and there, announcing
afterwards, there had just been a pot a-piece.
It was really a dreadful time, although we got well cooked _plats_, for
Captain George wasted quite as much as he used. The pigs fed sumptuously
that week on his failures, in sauces, minces; puddings, and what not. He
had insisted on our making him a paper cap and a linen apron, or rather
a dozen linen aprons, for he was perpetually blackening his apron and
casting it aside. Then, he used suddenly to cease to take any interest
in his occupation, and, seating himself sideways on the kitchen dresser,
begin to whistle through a whole opera, or repeat pages of poetry. I
tried the experiment of banishing Miss A---- from the kitchen during
cooking hours, but a few bars played on the piano were quite enough to
distract my cook from his work. My only quiet time was the afternoon,
when about four o'clock, my amateur servants all went out for a ride,
and left me in peace for a couple of hours. I had enough to do during
that short time to tidy up; to collect the scattered books and music,
and prepare the tea-supper, for which they came back in tearing spirits,
and frantically hungry, between seven and eight o'clock. After this meal
had been cleared away, and Mr. U---- and I had washed up (the others
declaring they were too tired to stir), we all used to adjourn to the
verandah. It happened to be an exceptionally _still_ week, no dry, hot
nor'-westers, nor cold, wet sou'-westers, and it was perfectly delicious
to sit out in the verandah and rest, after the labours of the day,
in our cane easy-chairs. The balmy air was so soft and fresh, and the
intense silence all around so profound. Unfortunately there was a full
moon. I say "unfortunately," because the flood of pale light suggested
to these dreadful young men the feasibility of having what they called
a "servant's ball." In vain I declared that the housekeeper was never
expected to dance. "Oh, yes!" laughed Captain George. "I've often danced
with a housekeeper, and very jolly it was too. Come along! F----, _make_
her dance." And I was forced to gallopade up and down that verandah till
I felt half dead with fatigue. The boards had a tremendous spring, and
the verandah (built by F----, by the way), was very wide and roomy, so
it made an excellent ball-room. As for the trifling difficulty about
music, that was supplied by Captain George and Mr. U---- whistling in
turn, time being kept by clapping the top and bottom of my silver butter
dish together, cymbal-wise. Oh, dear! It takes my breath away now even
to think of those evenings! I see Alice A---- flitting about in her
white dress and fern-leaf wreath, dancing like the slender sylph she
really was, but never can I forget the odd effect of the gentlemen's
feet! No one had their dress boots up at the station, and as Alice and
I firmly declined to dance with anybody who wore "Cookham" boots (great
heavy things with nails in the soles), they had no other course open to
them except to wear their smart slippers. There were slippers of purple
velvet, embroidered with gold; others of blue kid, delicately traced in
crimson lines; foxes heads stared at us in startling perspective from a
scarlet ground; or black jim-crow figures disported themselves on orange
tent-stitch. Then these slippers were all more or less of an easy fit,
and had a way of flying out on the lawn suddenly, startling my dear dog
Nettle out of his first sleep.
Ah, well! that may be an absurd bit of one's life to look back upon, but
its days were bright and innocent enough. Health was so perfect that the
mere sensation of being alive became happiness, and all the noise of the
eager, bustling, pushing world, seemed shut away by those steep hills
which folded our quiet valley in their green arms. People have often
said to me since, "Surely you would not like to have lived there for
ever?" Perhaps not. I can only say that three years of that calm,
idyllic life, held no weary hour for me, and I am quite sure that quiet
time was a great blessing to me in many ways. First of all, in health,
for a person must be in a very bad way indeed for New Zealand air not to
do them a world of good; next, in teaching me, amid a great deal of fun
and laughter, sundry useful accomplishments, not easily learned in our
luxurious civilization; and, lastly, those few years of seclusion from
the turmoil of life brought leisure to think out one's own thoughts, and
to sift them from other peoples' ideas. Under such circumstances, it is
hard if "the unregarded river of our life," as Matthew Arnold so finely
call it be not perceived, for one then
"---- Becomes aware of his life's flow
And bears its winding murmur, and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze;
And there arrives a lull in the hot race,
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, rest."
One good effect of my sufferings with a house full of unruly volunteers,
was that during the brief stay (only two months), of my next cook, I
set to work assiduously to learn as many kitchen mysteries as she could
teach me, and so became independent of Captain George or F----, or any
other amateur, good, bad, or indifferent.
Nothing could be more extraordinary than the way in which the two
affectionate sisters, mentioned [earlier] and who succeeded Euphemia and
Lois, quarrelled. They were very unlike each other in appearance, and
one fruitful source of bickering arose from their respective styles of
beauty. Not only did they wrangle and rave at each other all the day
long, during every moment of their spare time, but after they had gone
to bed, we could hear them quite plainly calling out to each other from
their different rooms. If I begged them to be quiet, there might be
silence for a moment, but it would shortly be broken by Maria, calling
out, "I say, Dinah, don't you go for to wear green, my girl. I only
tell you friendly, but you're a deal too yellow for that. It suits _me_,
'cause I'm so fresh and rosy, but you never _will_ have my 'plexion,
not if you live to be eighty. Good night. I thought I'd just mention it
while I remembered." This used to aggravate Dinah dreadfully, and she
would retaliate by repeating some complimentary speech of Old Ben's, or
Long Tom's, the stockman, and then there would be no peace for an hour.
Their successors were Clarissa and Eunice. Eunice wept sore for a
whole month, over her sweeping and cleaning. To this day I have not the
dimmest idea _why_. She gave me warning, amid floods of tears, directly
she arrived, though I could not make out any other tangible complaint
than that "the dray had jolted as never was;" and to Clarissa, I gave
warning the first day I came into the kitchen.
She received me seated on the kitchen table, swinging her legs, which
did not nearly touch the floor. She had carefully arranged her position
so as to turn her back towards me, and she went on picking her teeth
with a hair-pin. I stood aghast at this specimen of colonial manners,
which was the more astonishing as I knew the girl had lived in the
service of a gentleman's family in the North of England for some time
before she sailed.
"Dear me, Clarissa," I cried, "is that the way you behaved at Colonel
St. John's?"
Clarissa looked at me very coolly over her shoulder (I must mention she
was a very pretty girl, blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked, but with _such_ a
temper!) and, giving her plump shoulders a little shrug, said, "No, in
course not: _they_ was gentlefolks, they was."
I confess I felt rather nettled at this, and yet it was difficult to
be angry with a girl who looked like a grown up and very pretty baby. I
restrained my feelings and said, "Well, I should like you to behave here
as you did there. Suppose you get off the table and come and look what
we can find in the store room."
"I _have_ looked round," she declared: "there 'aint much to be seen." My
patience began to run short, and I said very firmly, "You must get off
the table directly, Clarissa, and stand and speak properly; or I shall
send you down to Christchurch again." I suppose that was exactly what
the damsel wished, for she made no movement; whereat I said in great
wrath, "Very well, then you shall leave at the end of a month." And so
she did, having bullied everybody out of their lives during that time.
Whilst we are on the subject of manners, it may not be out of place to
relate a little episode of my early days "up country." I think I have
alluded [in "Station Life in New Zealand"] to our book club; but I
don't know that it has been explained that I used to change the books on
Sunday afternoon, after our little evening service. It would have been
impossible to induce the men to come from an immense distance twice a
week, and it was therefore necessary that they should be able to get
a fresh book after service. Nothing could have been better than the
behaviour of my little congregation: they made it a point of giving no
trouble whatever with their horses or dogs, and they were so afraid
of being supposed to come for what they could get, that I had some
difficulty in inducing those who travelled from a distance to have a
cup of tea in the kitchen before they mounted, to set off on their
long solitary ride homewards. They were also exceedingly quiet and
well-behaved; for if even a dozen men or more were standing outside in
fine weather, or waiting within the kitchen if it were wet or windy,
not a sound could be heard. If they spoke to each other, it was in the
lowest whisper, and they would no more have thought of lighting their
pipes anywhere near the house than they would of flying.