"Is there such a thing as a boat or a good-sized canoe to be had, Mr. Mitford? If you had an elephant here I might manage, but as I suppose you do not keep such an animal in your stud I own that I should greatly prefer going by water to running the risk of breaking a horse's back and my own neck. If such a thing cannot be obtained I will get you, if you will, to let me have a native as guide, and I will walk, taking with me some small stock of provisions. I can sleep at this hut of Langston's, for I say frankly that I should not care about doing the distance there and back in one day."
"I have a boat," Mr. Mitford said smiling, "and you shall have a couple of natives to paddle you up. I will give orders for them to be ready directly after breakfast. You will scarcely be there as soon as we are, but you will be there long before we leave. Of course we shall spend some time in going over the ground, and we shall take a boy with us with a luncheon basket, so you will find refreshment awaiting you when you get there."
"That will suit me admirably." Mr. Atherton said. "A boating excursion up an unknown river is just the thing I like—that is, when the boat is a reasonable size. I was once fool enough on the Amazon to allow[Pg 185] myself to be persuaded that a canoe at most two feet wide would carry me, and the tortures I suffered during that expedition, wedged in the bottom of that canoe, and holding on to the sides, I shall never forget. The rascally Indians made matters worse by occasionally giving sly lurches to the boat, and being within an ace of capsizing her. I had two days of that work before I got to a village where I could obtain a craft of reasonable size, and I should think I must have lost two stone in weight during the time. You think that that was rather an advantage I can see, Miss Mitford," he broke off, seeing a smile upon the girl's face. "Well, yes, I could spare that and more, but I should prefer that it was abstracted by other means than that of agony of mind; besides, these improvements are not permanent."
After a hearty breakfast the party prepared for their start. Mrs. Mitford had already said that she should not accompany them, the distance being longer than she cared to ride; and four horses were therefore brought round. Mr. Atherton was first seen fairly on his way in a good-sized boat, paddled by two powerful Maoris. Mr. Mitford, his daughters, and Wilfrid then mounted; the lad had already been asked if he was accustomed to riding.
"Not lately," he replied, "but I used to have a pony and rode a good deal when I was a small boy, and I daresay I can stick on."
Wilfrid was delighted with his ride through the forest. In his other trips ashore their way had led through an open country with low scrub bush, and this was his first experience of a New Zealand forest.[Pg 186] Ferns were growing everywhere. The tree-ferns, coated with scales, rose from thirty to forty feet in the air. Hymenophylla and polypodia, in extraordinary variety, covered the trunks of the forest trees with luxuriant growth. Smaller ferns grew between the branches and twigs, and a thick growth of ferns of many species extended everywhere over the ground.
The trees were for the most part pines of different varieties, but differing so widely in appearance from those Wilfrid had seen in England, that had not Mr. Mitford assured him that they were really pines he would never have guessed they belonged to that family. Mr. Mitford gave him the native names of many of them. The totara matai were among the largest and most beautiful. The rimu was distinguished by its hanging leaves and branches, the tanekaha by its parsley-shaped leaves. Among them towered up the poplar-shaped rewarewa and the hinau, whose fruit Mr. Mitford said was the favourite food of the parrots.
Among the great forest trees were several belonging to the families of the myrtles and laurels, especially the rata, whose trunk often measured forty feet in circumference, and on whose crown were branches of scarlet blossoms. But it was to the ferns, the orchids, and the innumerable creepers, which covered the ground with a natural netting, coiled round every stem, and entwined themselves among the topmost branches, that the forest owed its peculiar features. Outside the narrow cleared track along which they were riding it would have been impossible for a man to make his way unless with the assistance of knife and hatchet, especially as some of the climbers were completely covered with thorns.[Pg 187]
And yet, although so very beautiful, the appearance of the forest was sombre and melancholy. A great proportion of the plants of New Zealand bear no flowers, and except high up among some of the tree-tops no gay blossoms or colour of any kind meet the eye to relieve the monotony of the verdure. A deep silence reigned. Wilfrid did not see a butterfly during his ride, or hear the song or even the chirp of a single bird. It was a wilderness of tangled green, unrelieved by life or colour. Mr. Mitford could give him the names of only a few of the principal trees; and seeing the infinite variety of the foliage around him, Wilfrid no longer wondered Mr. Atherton should have made so long a journey in order to study the botany of the island, which is unique, for although many of the trees and shrubs can be found elsewhere, great numbers are entirely peculiar to the island.
"Are there any snakes?" Wilfrid asked.
"No; you can wander about without fear. There is only one poisonous creature in New Zealand, and that is found north of the port of Tauranga, forty or fifty miles from here. They say it exists only there and round Potaki, near Cook's Strait. It is a small black spider, with a red stripe on its back. The natives all say that its bite is poisonous. It will not, they say, cause death to a healthy person, though it will make him very ill; but there are instances of sickly persons being killed by it. Anyhow, the natives dread it very much. However, as the beast is confined to two small localities, you need not trouble about it. The thorns are the only enemies you have to dread as you make your way through the forest."[Pg 188]
"That is a comfort, anyhow," Wilfrid said; "it would be a great nuisance to have to be always on the watch against snakes."
The road they were traversing had been cleared of trees from one settler's holding to another, and they stopped for a few minutes at three or four of the farmhouses. Some of these showed signs of comfort and prosperity, while one or two were mere log cabins.
"I suppose the people here have lately arrived?" Wilfrid remarked as they rode by one of these without stopping.
"They have been here upwards of two years," Mr. Mitford replied; "but the place is not likely to improve were they to be here another ten. They are a thriftless lazy lot, content to raise just sufficient for their actual wants and to pay for whisky. These are the sort of people who bring discredit on the colony by writing home declaring that there is no getting on here, and that a settler's life is worse than a dog's.
"People who come out with an idea that a colony is an easy place to get a living in are completely mistaken. For a man to succeed he must work harder and live harder here than he would do at home. He is up with the sun, and works until it is too dark to work longer. If he employs men he must himself set an example to them. Men will work here for a master who works himself, but one who thinks that he has only to pay his hands and can spend his time in riding about the country making visits, or in sitting quietly by his fire, will find that his hands will soon be as lazy as he is himself. Then the living here is rougher than[Pg 189] it is at home for one in the same condition of life. The fare is necessarily monotonous. In hot weather meat will not keep more than a day or two, and a settler cannot afford to kill a sheep every day; therefore he has to depend either upon bacon or tinned meat, and I can tell you that a continuance of such fare palls upon the appetite, and one's meals cease to be a pleasure. But the curse of the country, as of all our colonies, is whisky. I do think the monotony of the food has something to do with it, and that if men could but get greater variety in their fare they would not have the same craving for drink. It is the ruin of thousands. A young fellow who lands here and determines to work hard and to abstain from liquors—I do not mean totally abstain, though if he has any inclination at all towards drink the only safety is total abstinence—is sure to get on and make his way, while the man who gives way to drink is equally certain to remain at the bottom of the tree. Now we are just passing the boundary of the holding you have come to see. You see that piece of bark slashed off the trunk of that tree? That is what we call a blaze, and marks the line of the boundary."
After riding a few minutes further the trees opened, and they found themselves in a glade sloping down to the river. A few acres of land had been ploughed up and put under cultivation. Close by stood the hut, and beyond a grassy sward, broken by a few large trees, stretched down to the river.
"That's the place," Mr. Mitford said, "and a very pretty one it is. Poor young Langston chose his farm specially for that bit of scenery."[Pg 190]
"It is pretty," Wilfrid agreed; "I am sure my father and mother will be delighted with it. As you said, it is just like a piece of park land at home."
The hut was strongly built of logs. It was about thirty feet long by twenty wide, and was divided into two rooms; the one furnished as a kitchen and living-room, the other opening from it as a bed-room.
"There is not much furniture in it," Mr. Mitford said; "but what there is is strong and serviceable, and is a good deal better than the generality of things you will find in a new settler's hut. He was getting the things in gradually as he could afford them, so as to have it really comfortably furnished by the time she came out to join him. Of course the place will not be large enough for your party, but you can easily add to it; and at any rate it is vastly better coming to a shanty like this than arriving upon virgin ground and having everything to do."
"I think it is capital," Wilfrid said.
"Now we will take a ride over the ground, and I will show you what that is like. Of course it will give you more trouble clearing away the forest than it would do if you settled upon land without trees upon it. But forest land is generally the best when it is cleared; and I think that to people like your father and mother land like this is much preferable, as in making the clearings, clumps and belts of trees can be left, giving a home-like appearance to the place. Of course upon bare land you can plant trees, but it is a long time before these grow to a sufficient size to give a character to a homestead. Besides, as I told you, there are already several other natural clearings upon[Pg 191] the ground, enough to afford grass for quite as many animals as you will probably start with."
After an hour's ride over the holding and the lands adjoining it, which Mr. Mitford advised should be also taken up, they returned to the hut. A shout greeted them as they arrived, and they saw Mr. Atherton walking up from the river towards the hut.
"A charming site for a mansion," he said as they rode up. "Mr. Mitford, I think I shall make you a bid for this on my own account, and so cut out my young friend Wilfrid."
"I am afraid you are too late," Mr. Mitford laughed. "I have already agreed to give him the option of it, keeping it open until we can receive a reply from his father."
"I call that too bad," Mr. Atherton grumbled. "However, I suppose I must move on farther. But really this seems a charming place, and I am sure Mrs. Renshaw will be delighted with it. Why, there must be thirty acres of natural clearing here?"
"About that," Mr. Mitford replied; "and there are two or three other patches which amount to about as much more. The other hundred and forty are bush and forest. The next lot has also some patches of open land, so that altogether out of the four hundred acres there must be about a hundred clear of bush."
"And how about the next lot, Mr. Mitford?"
"I fancy that there is about the same proportion of open land. I have only once been up the river higher than this, but if I remember right there is a sort of low bluff rising forty or fifty feet above the river which would form a capital site for a hut."[Pg 192]
"I will set about the work of exploration this afternoon," Mr. Atherton said, "and if the next lot is anything like this I shall be very well contented to settle down upon it for a bit. I have always had a fancy for a sort of Robinson Crusoe life, and I think I can get it here, tempered by the change of an occasional visit to our friends when I get tired of my own company."
The men had by this time brought up the basket of provisions, and the two girls were spreading a cloth on the grass in the shade of a tree at a short distance from the hut, for all agreed that they would rather take their lunch there than in the abode so lately tenanted by young Langston. After the meal was over the party mounted their horses and rode back. One of the natives who had come up from the boat remained with Mr. Atherton, the others started back in the boat, as Mr. Atherton declared himself to be perfectly capable of making the journey on foot when he had finished his explorations. He returned two days later, and said he was quite satisfied with the proposed site for his hut and with the ground and forest.
"I regard myself as only a temporary inhabitant," he said, "and shall be well content if, when I am ready for another move, I can get as much for the ground as I gave for it. In that way I shall have lived rent free and shall have had my enjoyment for nothing, and, I have no doubt, a pleasant time to look back upon."
"Do you never mean to settle down, Mr. Atherton?" Mrs. Mitford asked.
hard works
WILFRID AND THE GRIMSTONES FIND IT HARD WORK
Page 197
"In the dim future I may do so," he replied. "I have been wandering ever since I left college, some[Pg 193] fifteen years ago. I return to London periodically, spend a few weeks and occasionally a few months there, enjoy the comforts of good living and club-life for a bit; then the wandering fit seizes me and I am off again. Nature altogether made a mistake in my case. I ought to have been a thin wiry sort of man, and in that case I have no doubt I should have distinguished myself as an African explorer or something of that sort. Unfortunately she placed my restless spirit in an almost immovable frame of flesh, and the consequence is the circle of my wandering is to a certain extent limited."
"You make yourself out to be much stouter than you are, Mr. Atherton. Of course you are stout, but not altogether out of proportion to your height and width of shoulders. I think you put it on a good deal as an excuse for laziness."
Mr. Atherton laughed. "Perhaps you are right, Mrs. Mitford, though my weight is really a great drawback to my carrying out my views in regard to travel. You see, I am practically debarred from travelling in countries where the only means of locomotion is riding on horses. I could not find animals in any foreign country that would carry me for any distances. I might in England, I grant, find a weight-carrying cob capable of conveying twenty stone along a good road, but I might search all Asia in vain for such a horse, while as for Africa, it would take a dozen natives to carry me in a hammock. No, I suppose I shall go on wandering pretty nearly to the end of the chapter, and shall then settle down in quiet lodgings somewhere in the region of Pall Mall."[Pg 194]
Upon the day after his return from the inspection of the farm Wilfrid wrote home to his father describing the location, and saying that he thought it was the very thing to suit them. It would be a fortnight before an answer could be received, and during that time he set to work at Mr. Mitford's place to acquire as much knowledge as possible of the methods of farming in the colony. The answer arrived in due course, and with it came the two Grimstones. Wilfrid had suggested in his letter that if his father decided to take the farm the two men should be sent up at once to assist in adding to the hut and in preparing for their coming, and that they should follow a fortnight later. Mrs. Mitford also wrote, offering them a warm invitation to stay for a time with her until their own place should be ready for their occupation.
Mr. Mitford had an inventory of the furniture of the hut, and this was also sent, in order that such further furniture as was needed might be purchased at Wellington. As soon as the letter was received, inclosing, as it did, a cheque for a hundred pounds, Wilfrid went over with the two Grimstones and took possession. Mr. Mitford, who was the magistrate and land commissioner for the district, drew up the papers of application for the plot of two hundred acres adjoining the farm, and sent it to Wellington for Mr. Renshaw's signature, and said that in the meantime Wilfrid could consider the land as belonging to them, as it would be theirs as soon as the necessary formalities were completed and the money paid.
When Wilfrid started, two natives, whom Mr. Mitford had hired for him, accompanied him, and he also[Pg 195] lent him the services of one of his own men, who was a handy carpenter. The Grimstones were delighted with the site of their new home.
"Why, it is like a bit of England, Master Wilfrid! That might very well be the Thames there, and this some gentleman's place near Reading; only the trees are different. When we get up a nice house here, with a garden round it, it will be like home again."
During the voyage the Renshaws had amused themselves by drawing a plan of their proposed house, and although this had to be somewhat modified by the existence of the hut, Wilfrid determined to adhere to it as much as possible. The present kitchen should be the kitchen of the new house, and the room leading from it should be allotted to the Grimstones. Adjoining the kitchen he marked out the plan of the house. It was to consist of a sitting-room twenty feet square; beyond this was Mr. and Mrs. Renshaw's bed-room; while behind it were two rooms, each ten feet square, for himself and Marion. The roof was to project four feet in front of the sitting-room, so as to form a verandah there.
A boat-load of supplies was sent up from Mr. Mitford's stores. These consisted of flour, sugar, tea, molasses, and bacon, together with half a sheep. It was arranged that while the building was going on Wilfrid and the two Grimstones should occupy the bed-room, and that the natives should sleep in the kitchen. The Grimstones had brought with them the bedding and blankets with which they had provided themselves on board ship, while Wilfrid took possession of the bed formerly occupied by the young settler. Mr. Mitford[Pg 196] himself came over next morning and gave general instructions as to the best way of setting about the building of the house. He had already advised that it should be of the class known as log-huts.
"They are much cooler," he said, "in the heat of summer than frame-huts, and have the advantage that in the very improbable event of troubles with the natives they are much more defensible. If you like, afterwards, you can easily face them outside and in with match-board and make them as snug as you like; but, to begin with, I should certainly say build with logs. My boy will tell you which trees you had better cut down for the work. It will take you a week to fell, lop, and roughly square them, and this day week I will send over a team of bullocks with a native to drag them up to the spot."
The work was begun at once. Half a dozen axes, some adzes, and other tools had been brought up with the supplies from the stores, and the work of felling commenced.
Wilfrid would not have any trees touched near the hut.
"There are just enough trees about here," he said, "and it would be an awful pity to cut them down merely to save a little labour in hauling. It will not make any great difference whether we have the team for a week or a fortnight."
Wilfrid and the two young Englishmen found chopping very hard work at first, and were perfectly astounded at the rapidity with which the Maoris brought the trees down, each of them felling some eight or ten before the new hands had managed to bring one to the ground.[Pg 197]
"I would not have believed it if I had not seen it," Bob, the elder of the two brothers, exclaimed as he stood breathless with the perspiration streaming from his forehead, "that these black chaps could have beaten Englishmen like that! Half a dozen strokes and down topples the tree, while I goes chop, chop, chop, and don't seem to get any nearer to it."
"It will come in time," Wilfrid said. "I suppose there is a knack in it, like everything else. It looks easy enough, but it is not easy if you don't know how to do it. It is like rowing; it looks the easiest thing in the world until you try, and then you find that it is not easy at all."
When work was done for the day Wilfrid and the Grimstones could scarcely walk back to the hut. Their backs felt as if they were broken, their arms and shoulders ached intolerably, their hands smarted as if on fire; while the Maoris, who had each achieved ten times the result, were as brisk and fresh as they were at starting. One of them had left work an hour before the others, and by the time they reached the hut the flat cakes of flour and water known as dampers had been cooked, and a large piece of mutton was frizzling over the fire. Wilfrid and his companions were almost too tired to eat, but they enjoyed the tea, although they missed the milk to which they were accustomed. They were astonished at the Maoris' appetite, the three natives devouring an amount of meat which would have lasted the others for a week.
"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 astonish[Pg 198]ment. "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 per[Pg 199]formed 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,[Pg 200] 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,[Pg 201] 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[Pg 202] 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[Pg 203] 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."[Pg 204]
"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.