Part 6 (1/2)

They moved from farm to farm, accompanied by some of the older women, and at night they would be housed by the settler who happened to be employing them.

'Among the shearers was a girl who had a great reputation for beauty. She was quite a belle, and so winning that everybody liked her. One morning old McFarland rushed in upon me at Adelaide, in a state of high excitement. His nephew, a genuine McFarland also, had, the previous night, eloped with the German beauty. The uncle was indignant that the nephew should run away with a foreigner--yes, a foreigner! He implored me to send the police to search for them, but I replied that I could do nothing. He must go to the Justices of the Peace and pet.i.tion, if he wished to take action, on which point I offered no advice.

'Scarcely had he left, when the relatives of the girl, escorted by the German pastor, invaded me, full of an equal indignation and also demanding the police. I could only repeat the answer I had given to McFarland, even when it was pleaded that the girl, like other members of the German community, had pledged herself not to marry outside it. It was urged that anything she might do to the contrary would not count, but that argument would not hold. We heard, by the evening, of the marriage of the runaways.

'They had been united by some Justice of the Peace, a frequent occurrence then, there being few ministers, and the match proved a happy one in every respect. How the bold young McFarland managed to carry off his bride from her custodians I never learned, and I suppose I did not inquire.'

Only in a South Australia, rescued from the chasms, grown stalwart under the hand of Sir George Grey, could there have been such a romance. It needed a stout heart and a trustful, loving one, and these are the characteristics of a healthy community.

IX OVER-LORD OF OVER-SEAS

The war song of Lamech, father of Tubal Cain, called Sir George Grey hurriedly to New Zealand. The Maoris were exploiting the legacy of the first artificer in bra.s.s and iron.

Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: For I have slain a man to my wounding, And a young man to my hurt.

If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.

In this genesis of verse, Sir George also found the noise of all combat with skilled weapons. A cry of sorrow and repentance by Lamech, at some ill-starred act, which filled him with remorse? Surely, rather the exultant note of a rude spirit, handling mastery anew in the ingenuity of his son.

There stood Lamech, on the edge of creation, crowing over the cunning forces Tubal Cain had discovered. 'I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt!' It was to be a long roll. Sir George would recite the lines once, twice, yet again, and the thunder tramp of a Maori impi sang in his ears. 'The story of my going to New Zealand,' he thought, 'may appear quaint in these days, when the cable antic.i.p.ates all pleasant surprises. We had heard at Adelaide, through a coaster arriving from Sydney and Van Diemen's Land, also from a British man-of-war on the Australian station, of serious fighting in New Zealand. A friend of my own was in command of the war-s.h.i.+p in question, which had put into Adelaide for supplies. I spoke to him of events in New Zealand, the heavy slaughter of British soldiers, and the evident critical situation. I had no distinct authority to order his vessel to New Zealand, but I felt it to be a wise step.

Accordingly, I wrote him a letter saying he ought to proceed to the scene of trouble, and that I was prepared to a.s.sume the responsibility. We got together what materials of war were available in South Australia, and what money we could spare from the Treasury of the Colony. So furnished, he sailed for New Zealand.

'A few days later, I was out riding with my step-brother from England, who was on a visit to me at Adelaide. We were cantering along a road near the coast, when a man with a light cart stopped us. An unknown s.h.i.+p had been sighted before we left Adelaide, and this man came from the quarter where she had taken up anchor. He stated that it was the ”Elphinstone,”

belonging to the East India Company, that despatches had been brought for me, and that he had them in his cart. He added that the ”Elphinstone” had come to take me away, and that some of the officers would very likely be landed by the time I got to the place of anchor-age. This was all very puzzling. I jumped off my horse, sat down beside some trees, opened the despatch bag, and devoured its contents.'

It had been carried express from London, first overland to Suez where the ”Elphinstone” awaited, and then by sea to Adelaide. The British Government, much alarmed as to affairs in New Zealand, borrowed the ”Elphinstone” from the East India Company. In effect, it was adopting the Suez Ca.n.a.l route, long before the Suez Ca.n.a.l existed. Not often, perhaps, did the Colonial Office, of the young Oceana period, have such a healthy attack of nerves. Also, it spoke of Sir George Grey handsomely in these despatches; which was encouraging.

Noting his career as a whole, you seem to perceive the scales of official praise and disgrace rising and falling, like a see-saw. Now, he was being set to the straightening-out of some twist in Oceana, to the healing of a sore which threatened one of her limbs. Then, when Oceana, in that quarter, was waxing strong on his regimen, Downing Street, not having prescribed it all, would trounce him. The calls to South Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were in the agreeable key. The other note piped in the good-byes to South Africa and New Zealand, and in the registered blue-book phrase 'a dangerous man.' It was the ancient, merry way of regarding the Colonies; with, in conflict, a masterful Pro-Consul who, being on the spot, would there administer. Whether the see-saw had him up, or dropped him down, Sir George kept the good heart, as school- children do.

The tribute of Lord John Russell was that, in South Australia, he had given a young Governor as difficult a problem in administration as could arise. He p.r.o.nounced the problem to have been solved with a degree of energy and success, hardly to be expected from any man. In New Zealand, Lord Stanley gave Sir George difficulties more arduous, duties even more responsible. The ability they demanded, the sacrifices they involved, were their best recommendation to one of Sir George's character. 'Before I mounted my horse again, after reading the despatches,' he recalled his decision, 'I made up my mind to go to New Zealand. Indeed, I had not two opinions on the matter from the moment I became acquainted with the wish of the Colonial Secretary. It was a clear duty lying before me, and that is ever the light to steer by.'

He sailed for New Zealand in the ”Elphinstone,” and retained her on war service there, another of his new departures. 'As far as I know,' he said, 'no East India Company's s.h.i.+p had previously been the consort, in active operations, of men-of-war, of the Royal Navy. There was a row afterwards, as to paying for the ”Elphinstone,” and I suppose I had no right to keep her. However, I realised that everything hung on how effective a blow I could at once strike in New Zealand.' Several men-of- war were at his orders, and later they were strengthened by the first steamer ever seen in these parts. It had come to New Zealand from the China station, and was a show alike to colonists and to Maoris.

A trifling incident of the naval activity, during the Maori wars, dwelt in Sir George's memory by reason of its droll comedy. An officer, thoroughly tired out, went to his bunk, leaving directions that he should be called at a particular hour. It happened that the awakening of him, fell to a blithesome mids.h.i.+pman having the sombre surname D'Eth. The sleeper turned himself lazily, half asleep, wishful only to be left to sleep on, and asked, 'Who's there?'

The mids.h.i.+pman held up the blinking, old-fas.h.i.+oned lantern which was in his hand, and answered 'D'Eth.' The weirdly lit cabin solemnly echoed the word, making its sound uncanny--'D'Eth!'

'Good G.o.d,' the officer in the bunk exclaimed, sitting up with a jerk, as if the last trumpet had sounded: 'D'Eth, where?'

Then he saw 'D'Eth' grinning, realised that there was still time for repentance, and bundled forth to the quarter deck.

The larger quarter deck on to which Sir George Grey had stridden, much needed cleaning up. In the north of New Zealand, a flag staff carrying the Union Jack, had been cut down by an insurgent chief. A settlement had been sacked, with completeness and the chivalry innate in the Maoris. No hurt was done the whites, that could be avoided, nor was there looting of property. The Maoris let Bishop Selwyn wash the earth with the contents of a spirit cask. It was all sobriety in victory.

'They were,' Sir George noted of his favourite native race, 'naturally ambitious of military renown; they were born warriors.' British troops had been hurled against their pas, or fortresses, only to be hurled back, heaps of slain. A Maori pa, in some forest fastness, stoutly built for defence from within, held by determined men with firearms, was hard to storm. Gallantry rushed to suicide.

The Maori wars, in their broad sense, are history. It is enough here to define them as the collision of two races. The white tide of civilisation was beating upon the foresh.o.r.es of native New Zealand. There were King Canutes, tattooed warriors of the flying day, who would have ordered it back. You see how easily troubles grew, although they might have been the last desire of anybody.

Two Maori chieftains, Heke and Kawiti, were the centre of disturbance, and Sir George Grey was to have faithful dealing with them. Heke he called the fighting chief, Kawiti the advising chief; one the complement of the other.