_Author of "Lost in the Wilds," "The Merchant's Children,"
"Jack and his Ostrich,"
etc._
"Who counts his brother's welfare
As sacred as his own,
And loves, forgives, and pities,
He serveth Me alone.
I note each gracious purpose,
Each kindly word and deed;
Are ye not all my children!
Shall not the Father heed?"
WHITTIER.
T. NELSON AND SONS
_London, Edinburgh, and New York_
1899
*Contents*
I. IN THE MOUNTAIN GORGE
II. THE WHARE BY THE LAKE
III. A RIDE THROUGH THE BUSH
IV. THE NEW HOME
V. POSTING A LETTER
VI. MIDNIGHT ALARMS
VII. THE RAIN OF MUD
VIII. A RAGING SEA
IX. NOTHING TO EAT
X. THE MAORI BOY
XI. WIDESPREAD DESOLATION
XII. EDWIN'S DISCOVERY
XIII. FEEDING THE HUNGRY
XIV. RAIN AND FLOOD
XV. WHO HAS BEEN HERE?
XVI. LOSS AND SUSPICION
XVII. EDWIN IN DANGER
XVIII. WHERO TO THE RESCUE
XIX. MET AT LAST
XX. JUST IN TIME
XXI. THE VALLEY FARM
*DOING AND DARING.*
*CHAPTER I.*
*IN THE MOUNTAIN GORGE.*
It was a glorious autumn day, when the New Zealand bush was at its
loveliest--as enchanting as if it truly were the fairy ground of the
Southern Ocean; yet so unlike every European forest that weariness
seemed banished by its ceaseless variety. Here the intertwining branches
of majestic trees, with leaves of varied hue, shut out the sky, and
seemed to roof the summer road which wound its devious track towards the
hills; there a rich fern-clad valley, from which the murmuring sound of
falling water broke like music on the ear. Onwards still a little
farther, and an overgrown creek, gently wandering between steep banks of
rich dark fern and graceful palm, came suddenly out of the greenwood
into an open space, bounded by a wall of rock, rent by a darkling chasm,
where the waters of the creek, tumbling over boulder stone and fallen
tree, broadened to a rushing river. Along its verge the road continued,
a mere wheel-track cut in the rock, making it a perilous crossing, as
the driver of the weekly mail knew full well.
His heavy, lumbering coach was making its way towards it at that moment,
floundering through the two feet deep of mud which New Zealanders call a
bush road. The five poor horses could only walk, and found that hard
work, while the passengers had enough to do to keep their seats.
Fortunately the coach was already lightened of a part of its load, some
fares with which it started having reached their destination at the last
stopping-place. The seven remaining consisted of a rough,
jolly-looking, good-humoured fellow, bound for the surveyors' camp among
the hills; an old identity, as New Zealanders call a colonist who has
been so long resident in the land of his adoption that he has completely
identified himself with it; and a newly-arrived settler with his four
children, journeying to take possession of a government allotment in the
Waikato district.
With the first two passengers long familiarity with the discomforts of
bush travelling had grown to indifference; but to Mr. Lee and his family
the experience was a trying one, as the coach swayed heavily to this
side and that, backwards and forwards, up and down, like a boat on a
rough sea. More than once Mr. Lee's little girls were precipitated into
the arms of their _vis-a-vis_, or bumped backwards with such violence a
breakage seemed inevitable; but which would suffer the most, the coach
or its passengers, was an open question.
Any English-made vehicle with springs must have been smashed to pieces;
but the New Zealand mail had been constructed to suit the exigencies of
the country. With its frame of iron and sides of leather, it could
resist an amount of wear and tear perfectly incredible to Mr. Lee. He
sat with an arm round each of his daughters, vainly trying to keep them
erect in their places. Their two brothers bobbed recklessly from corner
to corner, thinking nothing of the bruises in their ever-increasing
merriment when the edge of Erne's broad-brimmed straw hat went dash into
the navvy's eyes, or Audrey's gray dust-cloak got entangled in the
buckles of the old identity's travelling-bag.
Audrey, with a due regard for the proprieties, began a blushing apology.
"My dear child," exclaimed the portly old gentleman, "you speak as if I
did not know you could not help it."
The words were scarcely uttered, when the whole weight of his sixteen
stone went crushing on to little Cuthbert, who emerged from the jolly
squeeze with a battered hat and an altogether flattened appearance. Then
came an unexpected breathing-space. The coachman stopped to leave a
parcel at the roadman's hut, nestling beneath the shelter of the rocks
by the entrance of the gorge.
New Zealand roads are under the care of the government, who station men
at intervals all along their route to keep them in order. The special
duty of this individual was to see that no other traffic entered the
gorge when the coach was passing through it. Whilst he exchanged
greetings with the coachman, the poor passengers with one accord gave a
stretch and a yawn as they drew themselves into a more comfortable
position.
On again with renewed jolts between the towering walls of rock, with a
rush of water by their side drowning the rumble of the wheels. The view
was grand beyond description, but no rail or fence protected the edge of
the stream.
Mr. Lee was leaning out of the window, watching anxiously the narrow
foot of road between them and destruction, when, with a sudden lurch,
over went the coach to the other side.
"A wheel off," groaned the old identity, as he knocked heads with the
navvy, and became painfully conscious of a struggling heap of arms and
legs encumbering his feet.
[Illustration: AN AWKWARD PLIGHT.]
Audrey clung to the door-handle, and felt herself slowly elevating. Mr.
Lee, with one arm resting on the window-frame, contrived to hang on. As
the coach lodged against the wall of rock, he scrambled out. Happily
the window owned no glass, and the leathern blind was up. The driver
was flung from his seat, and the horses were kicking. His first thought
was to seize the reins, for fear the frightened five should drag them
over the brink. The shaft-horse was down, but as the driver tumbled to
his feet, he cut the harness to set the others free; earnestly exhorting
the passengers to keep where they were until he could extricate his
horses.
But Edwin, the eldest boy, had already followed the example of his
father. He had wriggled himself out of the window, and was dropping to
the ground down the back of the coach, which completely blocked the
narrow road.
His father and the coachman both shouted to him to fetch the roadman to
their help. It was not far to the hut at the entrance of the gorge, and
the boy, who had been reckoned a first-rate scout on the cricket-field,
ran off with the speed of a hare. The navvy's stentorian "coo"--the
recognized call for assistance--was echoing along the rocky wall as he
went. The roadman had heard it, and had left his dinner to listen. He
saw the panting boy, and came to meet him.
"Coach upset," gasped Edwin.
"Here, lad, take my post till I come back; let nobody come this way.
I'll be up with poor coachee in no time. Anybody hurt?"
But without waiting for a reply the man set off. Edwin sank into the bed
of fern that clustered round the opening of the chasm, feeling as if all
the breath had been shaken out of him. There he sat looking queer for
an hour or more, hearing nothing, seeing nothing but the dancing leaves,
the swaying boughs, the ripple of the waters. Only once a big brown rat
came out of the underwood and looked at him. The absence of all animal
life in the forest struck him: even the birds sing only in the most
retired recesses. An ever-increasing army of sand-flies were doing their
utmost to drive him from his position. Unable at last to endure their
stings, he sprang up, trying to rid himself of his tormentors by a shake
and a dance, when he perceived a solitary horseman coming towards him,
not by the coach-road, but straight across the open glade.
The man was standing in his stirrups, and seemed to guide his horse by a
gentle shake of the rein. On he rode straight as an arrow, making
nothing of the many impediments in his path. Edwin saw him dash across
the creek, plunge through the all but impenetrable tangle of a wild
flax-bush, whose tough and fibrous leaves were nine feet long at least,
leap over a giant boulder some storm had hurled from the rocks above,
and rein in his steed with easy grace at the door of the roadman's
shanty. Then Edwin noticed that the man, whose perfect command of his
horse had already won his boyish admiration, had a big mouth and a dusky
skin, that his cheeks were furrowed with wavy lines encircling each
other.