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War to the Knife. Rolf Boldrewood
Читать онлайн.Название War to the Knife
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Автор произведения Rolf Boldrewood
Жанр Зарубежная классика
Издательство Public Domain
"I wish you luck, anyhow. Some day when you come back – for I refuse to believe you will never see Massinger Court again – you will tell me if I am a true prophet. My tip is this: —
"Within the next five years Hypatia will have got tired of slumming, lecturing, teaching, and generally sacrificing herself for the heathen, and will hear reason; or you will find a replica of her in Australia or Kamtschatka, or wherever your wandering steps may lead, who will do nearly or quite as well to ornament your humble home.
"And now, after this infliction of genuine friendly counsel, I will conclude with a little personal item which may explain my protestations of merely platonic interest in your concerns. I have been engaged to Harry Merivale for nearly three years. It was a dead secret, as he was too poor to marry. In those days you once did him a good turn, he told me. Now he has got his step, and his old aunt has come round, so we are to be married next month.
"I am sure you will give me joy, and believe me ever,
CHAPTER IV
With the exception of certain yachting trips, Mr. Roland Massinger, as he now called himself, having decided to drop the title for the present, had no experience of ocean voyaging. A well-found yacht, presided over by an owner of royal hospitality and fastidious friendships, with carefully selected companions, and the pick of the mercantile marine for a crew, leaves little to be desired. Fêted at every port, and free to stay, or glide onwards as the sea-bird o'er the foam – such a cruise affords, perhaps, the ideal holiday.
But this was a far different experience. A shipload of perfect strangers, many of them not indifferent, like himself, to changing scene and environment, but unwilling exiles, leaving all they held dear, and murmuring secretly, if not openly, against Fate, presented no cheering features. The weather was cold and stormy; while, in crossing the Bay of Biscay, such a wild outcry of wind and wave greeted them, that with battened-down hatches, a deeply laden vessel, frightened passengers and overworked stewards, he had every facility afforded him for speculation as to whether his Antarctic enterprise would not be prematurely accounted for by a telegram in the Times, headed "Another shipwreck. All hands supposed to be lost."
This, and other discouraging thoughts, passed through the mind of the voyager during the forty-eight hours of supreme discomfort, not unmingled with danger, while the gale ceased not to menace the labouring vessel. However, being what is called "a good sailor," and his present frame of mind rendering him resigned, if not defiant, he endeared himself to the officers by refraining from useless questions, and awaiting with composure the change which, as they were not fated to go to the bottom on that occasion, took place in due course. How the storm abated, how the weather cleared; how, as the voyage progressed, the passengers became companionable, has often been narrated in similar chronicles.
The mountains of New Zealand were finally sighted, and the good ship Arrawatta steamed into the lovely harbour of Auckland one fine morning, presenting to the eager gaze of the wayfarers the charms of a landscape which in many respects equals, and in others surpasses, the world-famed haven of Sydney.
It was early dawn when they floated through the Rangitoto channel between the island so called – the three-coned peak of which, with scoria-shattered flanks, denoted volcanic origin – and the North Head. Passing this guardian headland, "a most living landscape," the more entrancing from contrast to the endless ocean plain which for so many a day had limited his vision, was spread out before the voyager's eager and delighted gaze. Land and water, hill and dale, bold headlands and undulating verdurous slopes, combined to form a panorama of enchanting variety.
The city of Auckland, which he had come so far to see, rose in a succession of graduated eminences from the waters of a sheltered bay. Bold headlands alternated with winding creeks and estuaries; low volcanic hills clothed with dazzling verdure, ferny glens and copses which reminded him of the last day's "cock" shooting at the Court; while trim villas and even more pretentious mansions gave assurance that here the modern Vikings, having wearied of the stormy seas, had made themselves a settled home and abiding-place. Glen and pine-crested headland, yellow beach and frowning cliff, wharves and warehouses, skiffs and coasters, the smoke of steamers, all told of the adjuncts of the Anglo-Saxon – that absorbing race which has rarely been dislodged from suitable foothold.
On the voyage Massinger had noticed a good-looking man, about his own age, in whom, in spite of studiously plain attire, he recognized, by various slight marks and tokens, the English aristocrat. Most probably the stranger had made similar deductions, as he had commenced their first conversation with an unreserved condemnation of the weather, after a passing depreciation of the food, concluding by a query in the guise of a statement.
"Not been this way before?"
Massinger admitted the fact.
"Going to settle – farm – sheep and all that – take up land, eh!"
"I thought of doing so, unless I change my plans on arrival. I suppose it's as good as any of the Australian colonies?"
"Beastly holes, generally speaking, for a man who's lived in the world. Don't know that New Zealand's worse than the rest of the lot. Australia – all black fellows – kangaroos – sandy wastes – droughts and floods. Burnt up first – flood comes and drowns survivors. So they tell me!"
"But New Zealand is fertile and well watered; all the books say so."
"Books d – d rot – lies, end to end; must go yourself to find out. My third trip."
"Then you like it?" pursued the emigrant, stimulated by this wholesale depreciation of a country which all other accounts represented as the Promised Land.
"Have to like it," answered the other; "billet in this infernal New Zealand Company. Wish I'd broke my leg the day I applied. Heard of it, I suppose?"
Mr. Massinger had indeed heard of it. Had read blue-books, correspondence, letters, articles, and reviews, in which the New Zealand Land Company was alternately represented as a providential agency for saving the finest country in the world for British occupation, for finding homes on smiling farms for the crowded population of Great Britain, for Christianizing the natives as well as instructing them in the arts of peace; or, as a syndicate of greedy monopolists, insidiously working for the accumulation of vast estates, and oppressing a noble and interesting race, whose lands they proposed to confiscate under a miserable pretence of sale and barter.
"I have heard and read a good deal of the proceedings of the New Zealand Land Company; but accounts differ, so that they are perplexing to a stranger."
"Naturally; all interested people – one myself," said his new acquaintance. "But, as we've got so far, permit me?" and extracting a card from a neat porte-monnaie, he handed it to Massinger, who, glancing at it, perceived the name of
"Happy to make your acquaintance," he said. "I am not sure that I have a card. My name is Massinger."
"What! Massinger of the Court, Herefordshire? Heard generally you had sold your place and gone in for colonizing. What the devil – er – excuse me. Reasons, no doubt; but if I had the luck to be the owner of Massinger Court —born to it, mind you – I'd have seen all the colonies swallowed up by an earthquake before I'd have left England. No! not for all New Zealand, from the 'Three Kings' to Cape Palliser."
"If all Englishmen felt alike in that respect, we shouldn't have had an empire, should we?" suggested the other. "Somebody must take the chances of war and adventure."
"Somebody else it would have been in my case," promptly replied Mr. Slyde. "However, matter of taste. Every man manage his own affairs. Great maxim. And as mine are mixed up in this blessed company, if you'll look me up in Auckland, I'll put you up to a wrinkle or two in the matter of land-purchase – of course you'll want to buy land; otherwise you might get sold – you see? Stock Exchange with a 'boom' on nothing to it."
The transfer of Mr. Massinger's trunks