Blanche Edith Baughan

“ If perhaps it is one of the weak points of this particular creed that its expression in words sounds so self-centred as almost to mean selfishness, on the other hand it is one of its chief bulwarks that its expression in terms of conduct is a selflessness almost perfect; and its ineffable consolations who would have the heart to grudge so sorrowful a life? For Eva, her Saviour shared with her the desolate hills; He walked on yonder far-away and sundering sea; He knew her terrors, her griefs He bore with her; and—He had given her Paulie. ”

“ Before us now there is nothing but sea, sea, sea: one spread, vast, moving field, veined with currents, shimmering with light, and shot like an opal with varying colours—purple and peacock, turquoise and azure, silver and gold and green—an illimitable world of shine and space. ”

“ But a hothouse flower would soon look sadly tattered out here on the windy hills, and we bundle in thick clothing the little ones that have to run out into the rainy cold. In the young colony, the sweet English young lady was but an incompetent drudge—not only ignorant as regards work, but seemingly without the capacity to learn. The other women of the settlement were good to her; it is a man’s mistake to think that women will not stand by each other, and Eva’s sweetness and her helplessness appealed to the mother in the coarsest fibred of them. ”

“ Hid as yet within the sheath are those sturdy heads of cocks-foot grass which, later in the summer, will bring into the silence of the hills gangs of grass-seeders, broad-hatted, bent of back, sickle in hand—owing to the slope and surface, machinery is worthless here—to gather in its harvest. ”

“ The wind is their painter, the sun and the clouds are his palette, and with brushfuls of shadow and shine he is creating a moving pageant as heterogeneous as the contents of a child’s fancy. Yonder goes a sheep without a tail, followed by a map of the North Island flying along as if it were a bird that Maui hauled up on his hook, instead of a fish . ”

“ Her very gifts were her hindrances, in this new way of life. In her right setting, she would have been a creature of exquisite charm; as a fragile flower is exquisite in a greenhouse, or a naked child in the warm arms of its mother. ”

“ Eva had to milk the cows, morning and night, but he never allowed her one drop of the milk, even for the baby; all the milk must be made into cheese, and all the cheese, except for the veriest scrap, must be sold. What for? Not to buy other food—they lived almost entirely upon that reserve mouthful of cheese, and the wretched loaves of poor Eva’s incompetent baking. Not on household goods—old trunks and cases made their chairs and table, sacks of fern their bed, and the one easy chair of the house—sacred of course, to Joel—was a wooden stool. ”

“ Every sound, every little change in the sky or on the ground has now an extraordinary value. The cry of yonder quail fills the round world; that hare, pausing for a moment with long, dewdabbled ears at full cock, was an event; yonder purple foxglove almost a shock, among all this green. Yes, the hills have their monotony also—but here we are! ”

“ Look, too, up at the Pass yonder, where the clouds are massing themselves into domes and ravines—making believe to be their mothers the mountains, isn’t it so? just as human children masquerade in their mothers’ bonnets and shawls. ”

“ But Switzerland has no sea, Italy no such racy sense of newness and beginning. No! we are in New Zealand, and that is best of all.
But now we have got our breath again, and must push on. Good-bye to the trees, to the bay, and the snug little settlement; for we shall see no more of them till we reach this spot again on our return. On, and up! Resolute as ever, the track goes climbing now high into the enclosing hills. They are all cleared, these lower paddocks—both of Bush and of burnt Bush. ”

“ She and Paulie prayed, both separately and together, that no harm might come of it, and Paulie’s innocent faith made sure that a miracle would happen and an angel turn cowherd for the day. Alas! he must have been a black one, then; for the cows promptly exhanged their lean pasturage for one of Mr. Dodds’ fat paddocks, and, being discovered by the irate Dodds (riding home belated across the hills, and already exasperated by the storm) , were driven off down-hill and put in pound. Joel was furious, of course; and, if he had to pay for it, so had the cows, and more than the cows. ”