WHISPERING WATERWAY

Evening Post, Issue 149, 20 December 1935, Page 14

WHISPERING WATERWAY

was not in him to shirk a decision even when the grounds were only suspicion. Relatives of Rauparaha had helped the whites make nads, but he had felt that his heart and hand were with Rangihaeata in that struggle ... and yet Kauparaha had not fulfilled his conception of him. He had said to his son: "Do not pay for my seizure with evil," . and at the end the missionaries said that he was ; continually worshipping. Was it Heke who had examined his own gift of sovereigns to see whether they had hooks on them, and yet Heke, dying, had left him his all had he cared to take it. What huge forgiveness! He had had evidences in the north that the taking of Rauparaha was still considered a black deed, and so the woman had troubled him bitterly. She had made him, so haughty under the query of others, question him-, self, and at such moments he felt as though his taproot were broken and draining away. , On the flat he'came upon a friendly whare that not only told him the way but sent a guide to take him quickly there. A fortnight later he was sitting in his study rejoicing in the fact that the plea of business had saved him from a social function, when word was brought him that a petitioner was at the outer door. He nodded briefly, for a soul in need-he could never turn away. He heard three pairs of feet coming and knew that two of them were bare by their muffled beat on the flooring. With a soldier's ear he took note'of "them, and then he, ' who had trained himself to immobility, gave a start, for it was the woman-of the'-whare-and. her child. In a minute'they.: were; lace ■■■•to- facd.. He . bade her be seated^ but'she stood-.with a hand, light but forbiddmg^onrthe/child's headVS He, not she, broke the silence." f^You-wish something of;me. What is it?" ■-'■'.;.: v % r Her; eyes widened, but she. looked at ■•■him- full and grave, and he, to whom beauty was a blessed abstraction,7 paid mental homage to her large unchary, brows. ' . She.came straight to her point with that biblical simplicity which always touched his literary sense when dealing with her people.

The child, tired of standing, broke away and ran to the desk. He bent over and took it on his kne* "Have you a child?" She was still watchful. "I had a little son. It died." He would not to a white have uncovered that grief. "Ah!" she breathed, and her eyes flew to her own^ child as though death threatened it. He looked down on its brown fists as they dragged at his watch chain without remembering that it had once been flung up against him like an oriflamme, and the child,-meeting his eye, nuzzled its little, wide snout against him with small, pleased noises. ; Two days later he was at his desk again when the pair entered to him. It was against household discipline for them to come in unannounced, but he made no sign. She came straight to his desk and laid upon it a huja feather. "Te Eauparaha gave it to me," she said, ''when I was a child," and by that he knew that good blood ran in her veins. She was gone- before his fingers touched He picked it up and sought among his keys for one that opened a box upon his left. Qver^the first paper on which his . hand fell he stood .musing—"To the Governor and his Lady" it ran in the South Australian aboriginal dialect. It was signed/by Jane, aged 11, and it offered them two melons. He laid beside it the feather of truce and ; locked the little box of treasures. _."If.l:love power;" he thought,-"and I'm afraid I do, it sfor ; the .chance it gives -of genecosity to the .defeated." ~....■. .•...-.. "Then, feeling the peace that any evidence of ■■human trust brought to his spirit, he reached up for a beloved manuscript and went over again the tale ofHinemoa that he had taken down word for word from an.old Maori ,on.Mokiao Island when the wind was too wild for his canoes to take to water . . "and she rose up in the water as beautiful as the wild white.hawk and stepped upon the edge of-the. bath-as graceful, as the shy white crane ..." , ..■,-!' ,' -.■■■;■ _His eye wandered. There was a kowhai across the garden from him and dreamily he thought of Danae v and the shower of-gold. The leaves were so tiny that when he narrowed his eyes both they and the steins disappeared and the flpwers seemed to fall in heavy, splashing drops, a rain that would not shame a god. -~-.. In that headlong downpour of blossom he saw himself. Like that had he poured himself out not in one season only, but the years through In his passion for service, flouting Nature he had been vernal at will, but a man cannot keep his sap at the spring forever. He felt suddenly weary. Authorities:— "!'.mi r Geor£e Grey"—Geo. C. Henderson. The Life and Times of Sir George Grev"^ Rees. "Sir George Gray"—Collier. "Romance of a Pro-Consul"—Milne. "England and New Zealand"—Harrop.