TRADITIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22046, 28 February 1935, Page 5

TRADITIONS

BY E. ». M. DOUBT

" I don't see how you can compare New Zealand with Home," said Mrs. Tod marsh. " They are so utterly different. This is such a new country." " Geographically, of course. But, after all, the people in it are no newer than the people in England." Nancy Dunne felt argumentative; Rosemary's aunt was always so sure of herself. " They seem newer." " Haw, i suppose! " smiled Nancy. " Well, not exactly, my dear child. But, you see, you have no traditions behind you." " The Maori might disagree with that." " Oh, I know they have some; beautiful ones, according to that interesting man we met on the ship coming out. But I thought we were discussing the colonials. What traditions they have are inherited from England. They hardly have had time to develop any of their own." " In the far days of my youth," Nancy replied, " 1 thought tradition must have something to do with trade. It sounds as if it should." " Quite a lot of the old-established firms in Europe have many traditions. And it is the traditions of the schools that make an English education what it is." Mrs. Todmarsh was often inclined to be pompous. " Like dormitory feasts and ducking new chums in the baths, eh what, ltosemary? You remember Lily of the permanent- wave and also the permanent wave we thought we should have when we ducked the fat girl from Chester! We'd lots of fun at school, you know, but I was awfully glad to get home all the same," Nancy sighed. tl Tradition can be a vefy fine thing, Jim Dunne broke in on his sister's reminiscences. " But I think at times it can be carried too far. In a new country, under new conditions, some become not only obsolete but hampering." " Yet others must always hold good," said Rosemary softly. " Honour, keeping "one's word and things like that." Jim looked at her sharply. " Sometimes keeping one's word may be a positive cruelty—to many," he added. The girl twisted her engagement ring round her finger in a slightly nervous way that was new to her. " One's word is always sacred." " Most decidedly! " agreed Mrs. Todmarsh emphatically. The mild blue eyes of the fifth member of the tea party, which had been fixed unseeingly on his neat top-boots, were turned inscrutably upon his mother. " The mater's own private motto should be 'no compromise,' " he murmured. " And nothing compromising! " whispered Nancy saucily. Atliol's lips twitched. His gaze wandered on until it rested on his fiancee. He was not unobservant of her slight pallor. " I agree with Rosemary that some standards of behaviour always hold good, but if you begin to analyse the tenets of any system of ethics you usually find they become contradictory. That's just my idea," he added deprecatingly. " Right is right and wrong is wrong," Mrs. Todmarsh replied. "" The trouble with the young people is that they will ar'gue over everything. Surely standards that have been accepted for centuries as right should be good enough for theii now." £ V: \: " But, dear Mrs. Todmarsh, if each generation of young people had blindly accepted as gospel truth all that parents told them we should still be burning witches! " The elderly lady bridled. " I thought we were discussing moral standards, child; manners, of course, have changed with the times." " Public burnings being no longer fashionable," said Nancy with innocent sweetness. Jim kicked his sister under cover of the table. " I believe there once was a heavier penalty attached to stealing than wife beating," Athol drawled slowly. " And sheep stealing was a greater crime than wife stealing," Jim added. " Don't you think it should be so now in some cases? " suggested Nanc>. " I know what a few men round hero would think about it anyway." " K!old your scandalous tongue, woman." Jim Dunne, rising lazily, stretched his six feet of muscle luxuriously. " If we are to have a ride before dark we had better make a start. I sec the horses are ready." Mrs. Todmarsh was instantly willing to be amiable. " That is such a pretty little thing you lent Rosemary to ride, James. 1 do love horses. I have always thought it such a pity that motor-cars have quite destroyed those pleasant afternoon in the Row that were such a delight when I was a girl. The smart broughams and victorias and the perfectly matched horses with their lovely crests!" " Even the horses had crests," Nancy whispered in her brother's ear, only to receive a reproving pinch on her firm, brown arm. The four young people, mounted on the best that the Dunne stable could supply, cantered down the drive of gloomy pines which was lightened by an ! occasional blue gum with its looselypeeling bark untidily revealing the wood beneath. Out beyond the white gate the plains lay mellow in the evening glow. A faint haze from summer fern j fires lent an unreality to the distant J hills and gave the last rays of the sun !.a coppery tinge. Nancy, as usual in her harum-scarum way, shot ahead and Athol, with his straight seat upon his horse, cantered after her. Rosemary's thoughts seemed fixed on the bush-clad ranges and Jim studied her face beneath half-closed eyes unobserved. " I'd love to go right up into the hills one day," she said softly. " Pretty rough country. You can only ride for a few chains and then it is just a scramble. We do go up there after pigs or wild cattle sometimes, but otherwise we leave it severely alone. A lot of it is tapu country." " Ta'pu country ?" " Sacred —forbidden —to. the Maori." "The forbidden country! No wonder it looks so attractive." Jim shot a sideways glance at her absorbed face and noted the slightly satirical curve to her gentle lips. "Is it only forbidden things that are attractive or are they attractive because they are forbidden?" The girl gave him a straight look from beneath her curved lashes. "It is human nature to want what we cannot have. The old cliche, you know, 'distance lends', etc." ' " Some forbidden things can be only too near," Jim muttered. Rosemary chose to ignore the remark. " One day I shall ride up into those hills anyway. I am not afraid of a little, rough going." " The roughness is not the only danger. One may easily be lost. Don't run any risks, my dear," the man said softly. "You are rather a precious* possession." Rosemary urged her horse into a quick canter. "Atliol's possession!" she said. " And he will certainly think I am lost." In a few strides Jim had caught up with her. " Are you sure that would trouble him?" " You are insulting!" Dunne put out his hand and pulled her horse into a walk. " Let's go into this thoroughly, Rosemary. You can't play with lives, my dear. A mistaken sense of duty may bring endless unhappiness."

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"Why duty? I am very fond of Athol." The girl made no pretence of misunderstanding the allusion. "Ho is a very fine chan. But a girl who loves a man as she should love her husband does not say she is 'very fond' of him. No, no, my dear, you may deceive your aunt because she wants to be deceived, but you don't deceive me; nor Athol," he added. " Aunt Isabel brought mo up. It has always been understood I should marry Athol. He is not my cousin, you know. Aunt married twice." " 1 don't care if she married fifty times. Why should you marry a man you don't love?" "I do love Athol." " It sounds like it!" said Jim sarcastically. The girl flushed. " I promised to marry him and 1 am not going back on my word." " Even if he asked you to?" " He wouldn't do that." " Too much of a gentleman to admit a mistake was made, 1 suppose. Well, I'm not. It may be one of those tilings that are not done, one of your traditions; but if you won't ask him to release you, I shall." Rosemary turned on him with blazing eves. " You will do nothing of the sort! What right have you to interfere ?" " The right of a man who loves you. And whom you love." "I don't! I don't!" The girl's usually gentle temperament was up in arms. There was a wound to her pride that she did not stop to analyse. Her one thought was to fly from a situation that she felt was dangerous to her honour, and she used the only weapon she had with which to wound. "You are presumptuous! How dare you say I—l1 —I care for you? Why should I?" Jim looked at her flushed cheeks and angry eyes and the determination died out of his fine face. " Why should you, my dear? Why should you?" he said gently, and not waiting for an answer, galloped after the others across the darkening plain. Rosemary passed a wretched, sleepless night. Lying on her crumpled bed she heard tile men creeping quietly about the house before leaving for the early mustering. Outside her window she caught tlie deep notes of Jim's voice and Athol's pleasant drawl. For the thousandth time she went over her conversation with Jim and once more tried to discover if there really had been a note in her fiance's voice when he spoke to Nancy that had never been in it for her. Was she just imagining that his glance rested on the other girl's face with a tender intentness or was it just an ordinary interest held by her mischievous ways and witty tongue. And Nancy? Did her eyes betray a feeling that her loyalty to her old school friend would not let her admit even to herself? Little memories of the days when they had all spent their holidays together at Aunt Isabels returned to question her. The girl arose and peeped through the window. She could see nothing of the musterers, only the long shadows on the dew and the distant ranges dark against the newly risen sun. In the home paddock a horse whinnied and the cheerful clank of a bucket came from the stable yard. It was a matter of minutes to take a hasty shower and slip into her riding suit. The boy on duty soon had her mount ready and she cantered down the soft sand of the drive and out into the freshness of the still dreaming plains. By the time she reached the outskirts of the bush, the sun was hot and the shade of the trees delicious. She tied her horse to a bough and left him there to stamp impatiently at the flies while she climbed a narrow track and pushed her way past fern and boulder to where the music of running water led her to a creek. The banks were too high for descent and she pressed onward higher up the pass. Absorbed in her problems, she gave little thought to her path and at last, after a refreshing drink of the icy water, she flung herself down on a mossy stretch of ground and fell asleep. Hunger awakened her and still drowsy, she started off down the hill) but obstacles seemed to have multiplied. It was impossible to go straight ahead and soon she found it necessary to climb and then again to descend. At last, tired and bewildered, she realised that she had lost all sense of direction and over-wrought nerves giving way, she dropped to her knees and burst into hopeless sobbing. It was night when she heard the barking of dogs and the distant call of her name. Gathering herself together she put ail her strength into a shrill whistle. Would the dogs never stop and let her be heard! Into a sudden silence she called again, and the answer came joyously. Soon she could distinguish the words that told her to stay w here she was, but to go on whistling. At length the rustling came nearer, a friendly black and tan head wriggled its way into the moonbeams and short yelps of delight told the hunter that his search was at an end. , . "My dear my dear! What a fright you gave me!" Rosemary s tear-stain *1 face lay safe against his breast, and unashamed her lips clung closely to his own. " My own, my own!" "I wish I were!" she whispered wearily. , , . , , " You can be for the asking! iVot being English 1 broke all bounds of decency and asked Athol if he would let you go."

"What!" " Will it hurt your pride to know that he seemed rather relieved at the idea? I am afraid that young sister^ of mine may be at the bottom of it. "I have no pride left," she whispered. "Lost it in the forbidden country? See what comes of not heeding my stern warning." . " And my cocksureness ran you into danger too. What would you ha\ e done if you had not found me? ' " Gone on looking till 1 did. It is one of our traditions, you know!" Jim added gently.