Maori and Settler: A Story of The New Zealand War

"No wonder they work well when they can put away such a lot of food as that," Bob Grimstone said, after watching them for some time in silent astonishment. "Bill and me was always considered as being pretty good feeders, but one of these chaps would eat twice as much as the two of us. I should say, Mr. Wilfrid, that in future your best plan will be to let these chaps board themselves. Why, it would be dear to have them without pay if you had to feed them!"

"Mutton is cheap out here," Wilfrid said. "You can get five or six pounds for the price which one would cost you at home; but still, I do not suppose they give them as much meat as they can eat every day. I must ask Mr. Mitford about it."

He afterwards learned that the natives received rations of flour and molasses and tobacco, and that only occasionally salt pork or fresh meat were issued to them. But Mr. Mitford advised that Wilfrid should, as long as they were at this work, let them feed with the men.

"You will get a good deal more out of them if they are well fed and in good humour. When your people arrive the natives will of course have a shanty of their own at some distance from your house, and then you will put things on regular footing and serve out their rations to them weekly. I will give you the scale usually adopted in the colony."

The second day Wilfrid and the Grimstones were so stiff that they could at first scarcely raise their axes. This gradually wore off, and at the end of three or four days they found that they could get through a far greater amount than at first with much less fatigue to themselves; but even on the last day of the week they could do little more than a third of the amount performed by the natives. By this time an ample supply of trees had been felled. The trunks had been cut into suitable lengths and roughly squared. The bullocks arrived from Mr. Mitford's, and as soon as the first logs were brought up to the house the work of building was commenced. The Maori carpenter now took the lead, and under his instructions the walls of the house rose rapidly. The logs were mortised into each other at the corners; openings were left for the doors and windows. These were obtained from Mr. Mitford's store, as they were constantly required by settlers.

At a distance of four feet in front of the house holes were dug and poles erected, and to these the framework of the roof was extended. This point was reached ten days after the commencement of the building, and the same evening a native arrived from Mr. Mitford's with a message that the party from Wellington had arrived there and would come over the next day. He also brought a letter to Wilfrid from the Allens, in answer to one he had written them soon after his arrival, saying that they were so pleased with his description of the district they should come down at once, and, if it turned out as he described it, take up a tract of land in his neighbourhood.

While Wilfrid had been at work he had seen Mr. Atherton several times, as that gentleman had, upon the very day after his first trip up the river, filled up the necessary papers, hired half a dozen natives, and started up the river in a boat freighted with stores to his new location. Wilfrid had not had time to go over to see him there, but he had several times sauntered over from his place, which was half a mile distant, after the day's work was over. He had got up his hut before Wilfrid fairly got to work.

It was, he said, a very modest shanty with but one room, which would serve for all purposes; his cooking being done by a native, for whom he had erected a small shelter twenty yards away from his own.

"I have not quite shaken down yet," he said, "and do not press you to come over to see me until I have got everything into order. I am sure you feel thankful to me that I do not expect you to be tramping over to see me after your long day's work here. By the time your people arrive I shall have everything in order. I am expecting the things I have written for and my own heavy baggage in a few days from Wellington."

Glad as he was to hear that his father and mother had arrived, Wilfrid would have preferred that their coming should have been delayed until the house was finished and ready for them, and after his first greeting at the water side he said: "You must not be disappointed, mother, at what you will see. Now everything is in confusion, and the ground is covered with logs and chips. It looked much prettier, I can assure you, when I first saw it, and it will do so again when we have finished and cleared up."

"We will make all allowances, Wilfrid," his mother replied as he helped her from the boat; "but I do not see that any allowance is necessary. This is indeed a sweetly pretty spot, and looks as you said like a park at home. If the trees had been planted with a special view to effect they could not have been better placed."

"You have done excellently, Wilfrid," his father said, putting his hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Mitford here has been telling me how energetically you have been working, and I see that the house has made wonderful progress."

Marion had, after the first greeting, leapt lightly from the boat and run up to the house, towards which the others proceeded at a more leisurely pace, stopping often and looking round at the pleasant prospect. Marion was full of questions to Wilfrid when they arrived. Why were the walls made so thick? How were they going to stop up the crevices between the logs? Where were the windows and doors coming from? What was the roof going to be made of? Was there going to be a floor, or was the ground inside going to be raised to the level of the door-sill? When did he expect to get it finished, and when would they be ready to come in? Couldn't they get some creepers to run up and hide these ugly logs? Was it to be painted or to remain as it was?

Wilfrid answered all these questions as well as he was able. There was to be a floor over all the new portion of the building; Mr. Mitford was getting up the requisite number of planks from a saw-mill at the next settlement. The crevices were to be stopped with moss. It would be for their father to decide whether the logs should be covered with match-boarding inside or out, or whether they should be left as they were for the present. It would probably take another fortnight to finish the roof, and at least a week beyond that before the place would be fit for them to move in.

"You see, Marion, I have built it very much on the plan we decided upon on board the ship, only I was obliged to make a change in the position of the kitchen and men's room. The two Grimstones are going to set to work to-morrow to dig up a portion of the ploughed land behind the house and sow vegetable seeds. Things grow very fast here, and we shall soon get a kitchen-garden. As to flowers, we shall leave that to be decided when you come here."

"I wish I could come over and live here at once and help," Marion said.

"There is nothing you can help in at present, Marion, and it will be much more useful for you to spend a month in learning things at Mr. Mitford's. You undertook to do the cooking; and I am sure that will be quite necessary, for father and mother could never eat the food our Maori cook turns out. And then you have got to learn to make butter and cheese and to cure bacon. That is a most important point, for we must certainly keep pigs and cure our own as Mr. Mitford does, for the stuff they have got at most of the places we touched at was almost uneatable. So, you see, there is plenty to occupy your time until you move in here, and our comfort will depend a vast deal upon the pains you take to learn to do things properly."

"What are you going to roof it with, Wilfrid?" Mr. Renshaw asked.

"We are going to use these poles, father. They will be split in two and nailed with the flat side down on the rafters, and the shingles are going to be nailed on them. That will give a good solid roof that will keep out a good deal of heat. Afterwards if we like we can put beams across the room from wall to wall and plank them, and turn the space above into a storeroom. Of course that will make the house cooler and the rooms more comfortable, but as it was not absolutely necessary I thought it might be left for a while."

"I think, Wilfrid, I should like to have the rooms done with boards inside at once. The outside and the ceiling you speak of can very well wait, but it will be impossible to get the rooms to look at all neat and tidy with these rough logs for walls."

"It certainly will be more comfortable," Wilfrid agreed. "Mr. Mitford will get the match-boards for you. I will measure up the walls this evening and let you know how much will be required. And now shall we take a walk round the place?" The whole party spent a couple of hours in going over the property, with which Mr. and Mrs. Renshaw were greatly pleased. Luncheon had been brought up in the boat, and by the time they returned from their walk Mrs. Mitford and her daughters, who had not accompanied them, had lunch ready and spread out on the grass. The meal was a merry one. Mr. Renshaw was in high spirits at finding things so much more home-like and comfortable than he had expected. His wife was not only pleased for herself, but still more so at seeing that her husband evinced a willingness to look at matters in the best light, and to enter upon the life before him without regret over the past.

"What are you going to call the place, Mr. Renshaw?" Mrs. Mitford asked. "That is always an important point."

"I have not thought about it," Mr. Renshaw replied. "What do you think?"

"Oh, there are lots of suitable names," she replied, looking round. "We might call it Riverside or The Park or The Glade."

"I think The Glade would be very pretty," Marion said; "Riverside would suit so many places."

"I like The Glade too," Mrs. Renshaw said. "Have you thought of anything, Wilfrid?"

"No, mother, I have never given it a thought. I think The Glade will do nicely." And so it was settled, and success to The Glade was thereupon formally drunk in cups of tea.

A month later the Renshaws took possession of their new abode. It looked very neat with its verandah in front of the central portion, and the creepers which Wilfrid had planted against the walls on the day after their visit, promised speedily to cover the logs of which the house was built. Inside the flooring had been planed, stained a deep brown and varnished, while the match-boarding which covered the walls was stained a light colour and also varnished. The furniture, which had arrived the day before from Hawke's Bay was somewhat scanty, but Wilfrid and Marion, who had come over for the purpose, had made the most of it. A square of carpet and some rugs gave a cosy appearance to the floor, white curtains hung before the windows and a few favourite pictures and engravings, which they had brought with them from home, broke the bareness of the walls. Altogether it was a very pretty and snug little abode of which Mr. and Mrs. Renshaw took possession.

CHAPTER XI
THE HAU-HAUS

The next three months made a great change in the appearance of The Glade. Three or four plots of gay flowers cut in the grass between the house and the river gave a brightness to its appearance. The house was now covered as far as the roof with greenery, and might well have been mistaken for a rustic bungalow standing in pretty grounds on the banks of the Thames. Behind, a large kitchen-garden was in full bearing. It was surrounded by wire network to keep out the chickens, ducks, and geese, which wandered about and picked up a living as they chose, returning at night to the long low shed erected for them at some distance from the house, receiving a plentiful meal on their arrival to prevent them from lapsing into an altogether wild condition.

Forty acres of land had been reploughed and sown, and the crops had already made considerable progress. In the more distant clearings a dozen horses, twenty or thirty cows, and a small flock of a hundred sheep grazed, while some distance up the glade in which the house stood was the pig-sty, whose occupants were fed with refuse from the garden, picking up, however, the larger portion of their living by rooting in the woods.

Long before Mr. and Mrs. Renshaw moved into the house, Wilfrid, whose labours were now less severe, had paid his first visit to Mr. Atherton's hut. He was at once astonished and delighted with it. It contained indeed but the one room, sixteen feet square, but that room had been made one of the most comfortable dens possible. There was no flooring, but the ground had been beaten until it was as hard as baked clay, and was almost covered with rugs and sheep-skins; a sort of divan ran round three sides of it, and this was also cushioned with skins. The log walls were covered with cow-hides cured with the hair on, and from hooks and brackets hung rifles, fishing-rods, and other articles, while horns and other trophies of the chase were fixed to the walls.

While the Renshaws had contented themselves with stoves, Mr. Atherton had gone to the expense and trouble of having a great open fireplace, with a brick chimney outside the wall. Here, even on the hottest day, two or three logs burnt upon old-fashioned iron dogs. On the wall above was a sort of trophy of oriental weapons. Two very large and comfortable easy chairs stood by the side of the hearth, and in the centre of the room stood an old oak table, richly carved and black with age. A book-case of similar age and make, with its shelves well filled with standard works, stood against the one wall unoccupied by the divan.

Wilfrid stood still with astonishment as he looked in at the door, which Mr. Atherton had himself opened in response to his knock.

"Come in, Wilfrid. As I told you yesterday evening I have just got things a little straight and comfortable."

"I should think you had got them comfortable," Wilfrid said. "I should not have thought that a log cabin could have been made as pretty as this Why, where did you get all the things? Surely you can never have brought them all with you?"

"No, indeed," Mr. Atherton laughed; "the greatest portion of them are products of the country. There was no difficulty in purchasing the skins, the arms, and those sets of horns and trophies. Books and a few other things I brought with me. I have a theory that people very often make themselves uncomfortable merely to effect the saving of a pound or two. Now, I rather like making myself snug, and the carriage of all those things did not add above five pounds to my expenses."

"But surely that table and book-case were never made in New Zealand?"

"Certainly not, Wilfrid. At the time they were made the natives of this country hunted the Moa in happy ignorance of the existence of a white race. No, I regard my getting possession of those things as a special stroke of good luck. I was wandering in the streets of Wellington on the very day after my arrival, when I saw them in a shop. No doubt they had been brought out by some well-to-do emigrant, who clung to them in remembrance of his home in the old country. Probably at his death his place came into the hands of some Goths, who preferred a clean deal table to what he considered old-fashioned things. Anyhow, there they were in the shop, and I bought them at once; as also those arm-chairs, which are as comfortable as anything of the kind I have ever tried. By the way, are you a good shot with the rifle, Wilfrid?"

"No, sir; I never fired a rifle in my life before I left England, nor a shot-gun either."

"Then I think you would do well to practise, lad; and those two men of yours should practise too. You never can say what may come of these native disturbances; the rumours of the progress of this new religion among them are not encouraging. It is quite true that the natives on this side of the island have hitherto been perfectly peaceable, but if they get inoculated with this new religious frenzy there is no saying what may happen. I will speak to your father about it. Not in a way to alarm him; but I will point out that it is of no use your having brought out firearms if none of you know how to use them, and suggest that it will be a good thing if you and the men were to make a point of firing a dozen shots every morning at a mark. I shall add that he himself might just as well do so, and that even the ladies might find it an amusement, using, of course, a light rifle, or firing from a rest with an ordinary rifle with light charges, or that they might practice with revolvers. Anyhow, it is certainly desirable that you and your father and the men should learn to be good shots with these weapons. I will gladly come over at first and act as musketry instructor."

Wilfrid embraced the idea eagerly, and Mr. Atherton on the occasion of his first visit to The Glade in a casual sort of way remarked to Mr. Renshaw that he thought every white man and woman in the outlying colonies ought to be able to use firearms, as, although they might never be called upon to use them in earnest, the knowledge that they could do so with effect would greatly add to their feeling of security and comfort. Mr. Renshaw at once took up the idea and accepted the other's offer to act as instructor. Accordingly, as soon as the Renshaws were established upon their farm, it became one of the standing rules of the place that Wilfrid and the two men should fire twelve shots at a mark every morning before starting for their regular work at the farm.

The target was a figure roughly cut out of wood, representing the size and to some extent the outline of a man's figure.

"It is much better to accustom yourself to fire at a mark of this kind than to practise always at a target," Mr. Atherton said. "A man may shoot wonderfully well at a black mark in the centre of a white square, and yet make very poor practice at a human figure with its dull shades of colour and irregular outline."

"But we shall not be able to tell where our bullets hit," Wilfrid said; "especially after the dummy has been hit a good many times."

"It is not very material where you hit a man, Wilfrid, so that you do hit him. If a man gets a heavy bullet, whether in an arm, a leg, or the body, there is no more fight in him. You can tell by the sound of the bullet if you hit the figure, and if you hit him you have done what you want to. You do not need to practise at distances over three hundred yards; that is quite the outside range at which you would ever want to do any shooting, indeed from fifty to two hundred I consider the useful distance to practise at. If you get to shoot so well that you can with certainty hit a man between those ranges, you may feel pretty comfortable in your mind that you can beat off any attack that might be made on a house you are defending.

"When you have learnt to do this at the full-size figure you can put it in a bush so that only the head and shoulders are visible, as would be those of a native standing up to fire. All this white target-work is very well for shooting for prizes, but if troops were trained to fire at dummy figures at from fifty to two hundred yards distance, and allowed plenty of ammunition for practice and kept steadily at it, you would see that a single company would be more than a match for a whole regiment trained as our soldiers are."

With steady practice every morning, Wilfrid and the two young men made very rapid progress, and at the end of three months it was very seldom that a bullet was thrown away. Sometimes Mr. Renshaw joined them in their practice, but he more often fired a few shots some time during the day with Marion, who became quite an enthusiast in the exercise. Mrs. Renshaw declined to practise, and said that she was content to remain a non-combatant, and would undertake the work of binding up wounds and loading muskets. On Saturday afternoons, when the men left off work somewhat earlier than usual, there was always shooting for small prizes. Twelve shots were fired by each at a figure placed in the bushes a hundred yards away, with only the head and shoulders visible. After each had fired, the shot-holes were counted and then filled up with mud, so that the next marks made were easily distinguishable.

Mr. Renshaw was uniformly last. The Grimstones and Marion generally ran each other very close, each putting eight or nine of their bullets into the figure. Wilfrid was always handicapped two shots, but as he generally put the whole of his ten bullets into the mark, he was in the majority of cases the victor. The shooting party was sometimes swelled by the presence of Mr. Atherton and the two Allens, who had arrived a fortnight after the Renshaws, and had taken up the section of land next below them. Mr. Atherton was incomparably the best shot of the party. Wilfrid, indeed, seldom missed, but he took careful and steady aim at the object, while Mr. Atherton fired apparently without waiting to take aim at all. Sometimes he would not even lift his gun to his shoulder, but would fire from his side, or standing with his back to the mark would turn round and fire instantaneously.

"That sort of thing is only attained by long practice," he would say in answer to Wilfrid's exclamations of astonishment. "You see, I have been shooting in different parts of the world and at different sorts of game for some fifteen years, and in many cases quick shooting is of just as much importance as straight shooting."

But it was with the revolver that Mr. Atherton most surprised his friends. He could put six bullets into half a sheet of note-paper at a distance of fifty yards, firing with such rapidity that the weapon was emptied in two or three seconds.

"I learned that," he said, "among the cow-boys in the West. Some of them are perfectly marvellous shots. It is their sole amusement, and they spend no inconsiderable portion of their pay on cartridges. It seems to become an instinct with them, however small the object at which they fire they are almost certain to hit it. It is a common thing with them for one man to throw an empty meat-tin into the air and for another to put six bullets in before it touches the ground. So certain are they of their own and each others' aim, that one will hold a halfpenny between his finger and thumb for another to fire at from a distance of twenty yards, and it is a common joke for one to knock another's pipe out of his mouth when he is quietly smoking.

"As you see, though my shooting seems to you wonderful, I should be considered quite a poor shot among the cow-boys. Of course, with incessant practice such as they have I should shoot a good deal better than I do; but I could never approach their perfection, for the simple reason that I have not the strength of wrist. They pass their lives in riding half-broken horses, and incessant exercise and hard work harden them until their muscles are like steel, and they scarcely feel what to an ordinary man is a sharp wrench from the recoil of a heavily-loaded Colt."

Life was in every way pleasant at The Glade. The work of breaking up the land went on steadily, but the labour, though hard, was not excessive. In the evening the Allens or Mr. Atherton frequently dropped in, and occasionally Mr. Mitford and his daughters rode over, or the party came up in the boat. The expense of living was small. They had an ample supply of potatoes and other vegetables from their garden, of eggs from their poultry, and of milk, butter, and cheese from their cows. While salt meat was the staple of their food, it was varied occasionally by chicken, ducks, or a goose, while a sheep now and then afforded a week's supply of fresh meat.

Mr. Renshaw had not altogether abandoned his original idea. He had already learnt something of the Maori language from his studies on the voyage, and he rapidly acquired a facility of speaking it from his conversations with the two natives permanently employed on the farm. One of these was a man of some forty years old named Wetini, the other was a lad of sixteen, his son, whose name was Whakapanakai, but as this name was voted altogether too long for conversational purposes he was re-christened Jack.

Wetini spoke but a few words of English, but Jack, who had been educated at one of the mission schools, spoke it fluently. They, with Wetini's wife, inhabited a small hut situated at the edge of the wood, at a distance of about two hundred yards from the house. It was Mr. Renshaw's custom to stroll over there of an evening, and seating himself by the fire, which however hot the weather the natives always kept burning, he would converse with Wetini upon the manners and customs, the religious beliefs and ceremonies, of his people.

In these conversations Jack at first acted as interpreter, but it was not many weeks before Mr. Renshaw gained such proficiency in the tongue that such assistance was no longer needed.

But the period of peace and tranquillity at The Glade was but a short one. Wilfrid learnt from Jack, who had attached himself specially to him, that there were reports among the natives that the prophet Te Ua was sending out missionaries all over the island. This statement was true. Te Ua had sent out four sub-prophets with orders to travel among the tribes and inform them that Te Ua had been appointed by an angel as a prophet, that he was to found a new religion to be called Pai Marire, and that legions of angels waited the time when, all the tribes having been converted, a general rising would take place, and the Pakeha be annihilated by the assistance of these angels, after which a knowledge of all languages and of all the arts and sciences would be bestowed upon the Pai Marire.

Had Te Ua's instructions been carried out, and his agents travelled quietly among the tribes, carefully abstaining from all open hostility to the whites until the whole of the native population had been converted, the rising when it came would have been a terrible one, and might have ended in the whole of the white population being either destroyed or forced for a time to abandon the island. Fortunately the sub-prophets were men of ferocious character. Too impatient to await the appointed time, they attacked the settlers as soon as they collected sufficient converts to do so, and so they brought about the destruction of their leaders' plans.

These attacks put the colonists on their guard, enabled the authorities to collect troops and stand on the defensive, and, what was still more important, caused many of the tribes which had not been converted to the Pai Marire faith to range themselves on the side of the English. Not because they loved the whites, but because from time immemorial the tribes had been divided against each other, and their traditional hostility weighed more with them than their jealousy with the white settlers.

Still, although these rumours as to the spread of the Pai Marire or Hau-Hau faith reached the ears of the settlers, there were few in the western provinces who believed that there was any real danger. The Maoris had always been peaceful and friendly with them, and they could not believe that those with whom they had dwelt so long could suddenly and without any reason become bloodthirsty enemies.

Wilfrid said nothing to his parents as to what he had heard from Jack, but he talked it over with Mr. Atherton and the Allens. The latter were disposed to make light of it, but Mr. Atherton took the matter seriously.

"There is never any saying how things will go with the natives," he said. "All savages seem to be alike. Up to a certain point they are intelligent and sensible; but they are like children; they are easily excited, superstitious in the extreme, and can be deceived without the slightest difficulty by designing people. Of course to us this story of Te Ua's sounds absolutely absurd, but that is no reason why it should appear absurd to them. These people have embraced a sort of Christianity, and they have read of miracles of all sorts, and will have no more difficulty in believing that the angels could destroy all the Europeans in their island than that the Assyrian army was miraculously destroyed before Jerusalem.

"Without taking too much account of the business, I think, Wilfrid, that it will be just as well if all of us in these outlying settlements take a certain amount of precautions. I shall write down at once to my agent at Hawke Bay asking him to buy me a couple of dogs and send them up by the next ship. I shall tell him that it does not matter what sort of dogs they are so that they are good watch-dogs, though, of course, I should prefer that they should be decent dogs of their sort, dogs one could make companions of. I should advise you to do the same.

"I shall ask Mr. Mitford to get me up at once a heavy door and shutters for the window strong enough to stand an assault. Here again I should advise you to do the same. You can assign any reason you like to your father. With a couple of dogs to give the alarm, with a strong door and shutters, you need not be afraid of being taken by surprise, and it is only a surprise that you have in the first place to fear. Of course if there were to be anything like a general rising we should all have to gather at some central spot agreed upon, or else to quit the settlement altogether until matters settle down. Still, I trust that nothing of that sort will take place. At any rate, all we have to fear and prepare against at present is an attack by small parties of fanatics."

Wilfrid had no difficulty in persuading his father to order a strong oak door and shutters for the windows, and to get a couple of dogs. He began the subject by saying: "Mr. Atherton is going to get some strong shutters to his window, father. I think it would be a good thing if we were to get the same for our windows."

"What do we want shutters for, Wilfrid?"

"For just the same reason that we have been learning to use our firearms, father. We do not suppose that the natives, who are all friendly with us, are going to turn treacherous. Still, as there is a bare possibility of such a thing, we have taken some pains in learning to shoot straight. In the same way it would be just as well to have strong shutters put up. We don't at all suppose we are going to be attacked, but if we are the shutters would be invaluable, and would effectually prevent anything like a night surprise. The expense wouldn't be great, and in the unlikely event of the natives being troublesome in this part of this island we should all sleep much more soundly and comfortably if we knew that there was no fear of our being taken by surprise. Mr. Atherton is sending for a couple of dogs too. I have always thought that it would be jolly to have a dog or two here, and if we do not want them as guards they would be pleasant as companions when one is going about the place."