War to the Knife. Rolf Boldrewood
to the thankless task of helping those to whom Providence had denied the power of helping themselves; of expending these God-given treasures upon feeble or deformed natures, who, when all had been lavished, were less grateful for the abundant bounty than envious of the higher life, grudgingly displeased that more had not been dispensed.
However, the fiat had gone forth. She must be the arbiter of her own fate. He disdained to beg for a final reconsideration of his suit. Only, he could not have borne to remain and continue the daily round of country life, the rides and drives, the tennis and afternoon teas, the fishing, the shooting, when he knew the exact number of pheasants in each spinney, the woodcocks expected in every copse. The hunting was nearly as bad, except for the advantages of a turn more danger.
No; a new land, a new world, for him! Complete change and wild adventure; no ordinary derangement of conditions would medicine the mind diseased which was ever abiding with the form of Roland Massinger. His passage was already secured in one of the staunch seaboats which justify the maritime pride of the Briton; he was pledged to sail for the uttermost inhabited lands of the South in less than a week's time. The matter settled, he continued to devote himself assiduously to acquiring information, and felt partially at ease as to his future.
The most desirable colony still seemed to be a kind of ignis fatuus.
He read blue-books, compilations, extracts from letters of correspondents – all and everything which purported to direct in the right path the undecided emigrant – with the general result of confusing his mind, and delaying any advance to a purpose which he might have gained. Finally, he fixed, half by chance, upon Britain's farthest southern possession – New Zealand – the Britain of the South, as it had been somewhat pretentiously styled by a Company, more or less historical, which had essayed to monopolize its fertile lands and "civilize" its tameless inhabitants.
In the frame of mind in which Massinger found himself, an account of the war of 1845, in which a Maori patriot threw down the gage of battle to the "might, majesty, and dominion" of England, obstinately resisting her overwhelming power and disciplined troops, aroused his interest, and came to exercise a species of fascination over him.
The valour of the Maori people, their chivalry, their eloquence, their dignity, their delight in war and skill in fortification, impressed him deeply. The Australian colonies had but an uninteresting aboriginal population, small in number and scarcely raised above the lowest races of mankind. They held few attributes valuable to a student in ethnology – and this was one of his strongest predilections – whereas among the warrior tribes of New Zealand there would be endless types available for a philosophical observer.
The nature of the country also appealed to his British habitudes. Fertile lands, running rivers, snow-clad mountains, picturesque scenery, all these chimed in with his earliest predilections, and finally decided his resolution to adopt New Zealand as his abiding-place – that wonderland of the Pacific; that region of everlasting snow, of glaciers, lakes, hot springs, and fathomless sounds, excelling in grandeur the Norwegian fiords; of terraces, pink and white – nature's delicatest lace fretwork above fairy lakelets of vivid blue!
It was enough. Facta est alea! Henceforth with the land of Maui the fortunes of Roland Massinger are inextricably mingled.
Modern arrangements for changing one's hemisphere are much the same in the case of the emigrant Briton whom kind fortune has included in "the classes." For him the sea-change is made delightfully easy. Luxuriously appointed steamers await his choice, distances are apparently shortened. Time is certainly economised. Agreeable society, if not guaranteed, is generally provided. Tradesmen contend for the privilege of loading the traveller with a superfluous, chiefly unsuitable, outfit. Letters of introduction are proffered, often to dwellers in distant colonies, mistaken for adjacent counties.
Advice is volunteered by friends or acquaintances of every imaginable shade of experience, diverse as to conditions and contradictory in tendency.
Firearms of the period, from duck-guns to pocket-pistols, are suggested or presented; while the regretful tone of farewell irresistibly impresses the mind of the wanderer that, unless a miracle is performed in his favour, he will never revisit the home of his fathers.
From many of these drawbacks to departure our hero freed himself by resolutely declining to discuss the subject in any shape. He admitted the fact, gave no reasons, and assented to many of the opinions as to the patent disadvantage of living out of England. He resisted the outfitter successfully, having been warned by Frank Lexington against taking anything more than he would have required for a visit to an English country house.
"Take all you would take there, but nothing more."
"What! dress clothes, and so on?"
"Of course! People dress much as they do here in all the colonies. If you're asked to dinner here, you wouldn't go in a shooting-coat; neither do they. In the country, in the bush, of course minor allowances are made."
"But guns and pistols surely?"
"Not unless you wish to practise at the sea-birds on the way out, which few of the captains permit nowadays. You will find that you can buy every kind of firearm there at half the price you would pay here – equally good, mostly unused, the property of young men who have been induced to load themselves with unnecessary accommodation for man and beast. Saddlery, harness, agricultural implements, are all included in my list of unnecessaries."
"Then, what am I to take?" inquired Massinger, appalled at this stern dismissal of the accepted emigration formula.
"The clothes on your back, a couple of spare suits, a few books for the voyage, and what other articles may be contained in a Gladstone bag and two trunks; all else is vanity, and most assured vexation of spirit."
"And how about money?"
"There you touch the great essential – leaving it to the last, as we often do. Take, say, fifty sovereigns for the voyage – thirty would be ample, but it is as well to leave a margin. And of course half or a quarter of your available capital in the shape of a bank draft. You will find that it is worth much more, so to speak, than here."
"I mean to invest the greater part of it in land" – with decision.
"All right; as to that, I won't offer an opinion. I know next to nothing about New Zealand. Look out when you do buy. Some fellow told me there was trouble with the native titles; and lawsuits about land are no joke, as we have reason to know."
"Good-bye, my dear fellow," said our hero; "I shall always be grateful for your valuable hints. I hate the word 'advice.'" And as this happened in London, the two young men had dined together at the Reform Club, of which Massinger was a member, and gone to the theatre afterwards, wisely reflecting that such an opportunity might not again occur for a considerable period.
Before the day of departure he received, among others, a letter of feminine form and superscription, which read as follows: —
"My Dear Sir Roland,
"As you are betaking yourself to the ends of the earth, after the unreasoning fashion which men affect, you won't be alarmed at my affectionate mode of address. I really have a strong friendly interest in your welfare, though the nature of such a feeling on a girl's part is generally suspected. Perhaps, as you cannot get over your temporary grief about Hypatia, you are right to do something desperate. She will respect you all the more for this piece of foolishness. (Excuse me.) Women mostly do, if they have hearts (some haven't, of course), but they themselves generally believe they are not worth any serious sacrifice. A really 'nice' woman is about the best prize going, if a man can get her; only the mistake he makes is in not knowing that there are lots of other women in the world – 'fish in the sea,' etc. – who are certain to appreciate him if they get a chance, so nearly as good, or so alike in essentials, that he would hardly find any difference after a year or two.
"So, for the present, you are right to go away and found more Englands, and chop down trees, and fight with wild beasts – are there any in New Zealand, or only natives? Doing all this with a view of knocking all the nonsense, as we girls say, out of your head. Time will probably cure you, as it has done many another man. With us women – foolish creatures! – more time is generally needed; why, I'm