lace fretwork above fairy lakelets of vivid blue!
It was enough. Facta est alea! Henceforth with the land of Maui the fortunes of Roland Massinger are inextricably mingled.
Modern arrangements for changing one's hemisphere are much the same in the case of the emigrant Briton whom kind fortune has included in "the classes." For him the sea-change is made delightfully easy. Luxuriously appointed steamers await his choice, distances are apparently shortened. Time is certainly economised. Agreeable society, if not guaranteed, is generally provided. Tradesmen contend for the privilege of loading the traveller with a superfluous, chiefly unsuitable, outfit. Letters of introduction are proffered, often to dwellers in distant colonies, mistaken for adjacent counties.
Advice is volunteered by friends or acquaintances of every imaginable shade of experience, diverse as to conditions and contradictory in tendency.
Firearms of the period, from duck-guns to pocket-pistols, are suggested or presented; while the regretful tone of farewell irresistibly impresses the mind of the wanderer that, unless a miracle is performed in his favour, he will never revisit the home of his fathers.
From many of these drawbacks to departure our hero freed himself by resolutely declining to discuss the subject in any shape. He admitted the fact, gave no reasons, and assented to many of the opinions as to the patent disadvantage of living out of England. He resisted the outfitter successfully, having been warned by Frank Lexington against taking anything more than he would have required for a visit to an English country house.
"Take all you would take there, but nothing more."
"What! dress clothes, and so on?"
"Of course! People dress much as they do here in all the colonies. If you're asked to dinner here, you wouldn't go in a shooting-coat; neither do they. In the country, in the bush, of course minor allowances are made."
"But guns and pistols surely?"
"Not unless you wish to practise at the sea-birds on the way out, which few of the captains permit nowadays. You will find that you can buy every kind of firearm there at half the price you would pay here – equally good, mostly unused, the property of young men who have been induced to load themselves with unnecessary accommodation for man and beast. Saddlery, harness, agricultural implements, are all included in my list of unnecessaries."
"Then, what am I to take?" inquired Massinger, appalled at this stern dismissal of the accepted emigration formula.
"The clothes on your back, a couple of spare suits, a few books for the voyage, and what other articles may be contained in a Gladstone bag and two trunks; all else is vanity, and most assured vexation of spirit."
"And how about money?"
"There you touch the great essential – leaving it to the last, as we often do. Take, say, fifty sovereigns for the voyage – thirty would be ample, but it is as well to leave a margin. And of course half or a quarter of your available capital in the shape of a bank draft. You will find that it is worth much more, so to speak, than here."
"I mean to invest the greater part of it in land" – with decision.
"All right; as to that, I won't offer an opinion. I know next to nothing about New Zealand. Look out when you do buy. Some fellow told me there was trouble with the native titles; and lawsuits about land are no joke, as we have reason to know."
"Good-bye, my dear fellow," said our hero; "I shall always be grateful for your valuable hints. I hate the word 'advice.'" And as this happened in London, the two young men had dined together at the Reform Club, of which Massinger was a member, and gone to the theatre afterwards, wisely reflecting that such an opportunity might not again occur for a considerable period.
Before the day of departure he received, among others, a letter of feminine form and superscription, which read as follows: —
"My Dear Sir Roland,
"As you are betaking yourself to the ends of the earth, after the unreasoning fashion which men affect, you won't be alarmed at my affectionate mode of address. I really have a strong friendly interest in your welfare, though the nature of such a feeling on a girl's part is generally suspected. Perhaps, as you cannot get over your temporary grief about Hypatia, you are right to do something desperate. She will respect you all the more for this piece of foolishness. (Excuse me.) Women mostly do, if they have hearts (some haven't, of course), but they themselves generally believe they are not worth any serious sacrifice. A really 'nice' woman is about the best prize going, if a man can get her; only the mistake he makes is in not knowing that there are lots of other women in the world – 'fish in the sea,' etc. – who are certain to appreciate him if they get a chance, so nearly as good, or so alike in essentials, that he would hardly find any difference after a year or two.
"So, for the present, you are right to go away and found more Englands, and chop down trees, and fight with wild beasts – are there any in New Zealand, or only natives? Doing all this with a view of knocking all the nonsense, as we girls say, out of your head. Time will probably cure you, as it has done many another man. With us women – foolish creatures! – more time is generally needed; why, I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps because we can't smoke or drink, in our dark hours, like you men when you are thrown over.
"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
