The Sketcher. ZEALANDIA.-MIDNIGHT MEMORIES !

Otago Witness, Issue 1438, 14 June 1879, Page 22

The Sketcher.

ZEALANDIA.-MIDNIGHT MEMORIES !

By Geokge Dakkell.

Oh, Memory ! To live but in thee, Heeilass of to-day ; The past, an ov*r- welcome present ; The future, the soulless blank [ ,

; /Midnight ! and the big bell booms the knell of the day departing, and heralds the advent of the morrow to come. . Another day gone ; and with It the countless sorrows, regrets, smiles, tears, -hopes, and aspirations of the millions who people this world of woe and tribulation. •' , Midnight ! and the record is ta'en of the vows spoken, the promises broken, the -good deeds done, and the gins committed in the day now dead. ■ '>' Midnight I outside, cold, drenohiDg rain ; within, Eolitude. . , J, ! A bitter, pitiless eight 1 So thinks the patrol, as he plods mechanically ,his utiual round, stopping perchance to arouse some homeless outcast or heedless drunkard coiled in slumber on the flags. " ;J; J , A terrible night I "So thinks 'the courtezan, as she wraps her tinselled finery around her, and shudders, mayhap, at the thought that she— poor, lest one^-has no home, save that of shame, to shelter her against the storm. ' A fearful night ! So thinks the shivering wretch— abandoned of all human emotion save despair— standing by the river's swollen waters, with the awful knowledge that in a few short moments, another soul will puss 1 crime stained into eternity. Midnight! Fit time for meditation. Awake, then, ye memories of yore ! . Bring with ye the Lethe of nepenthe, and bathe my facul- ' ties in dreamy reveries of the bygone past. Rapidly scanning each varying feature of a changeful life, my thought harks back over the many years of fitfiul triumph and defeat, spanning the time that served to mould all contented, glorioui, joyousyouth into stern, sceptical, prosaic manhood. Zealandia ! where yet the Maori — at once > the most civilized, and yet uncivilized of savages — holds still his own ;_ unfettered by alien sovereignty, unsubdued by foreign power. The King country is still sacred;, and barbaric rule draws the line of demarcation o'er which the white man dares not tread. Zealandia ! with its vast mineral wealth, ' its fertile plains and heavily timbered' forests ; its unfordable, treacherous, dangerous rivers ; its mountain torrents, rocky ' passes, deep ravines, and— scenery unsurpassed in the known world. 1 Three never-to-be-forgotten sights—Cape Horn, on the Pacific slope ; the Crown Ridg* ' v near Mudgee, New South "Wales ; and the, snow clad mountains of New Zealand's west coast standing clear against the aky, for the background — hearer, the primeval foresf studded with giants and covered with a dense' undergrowth ; at the base, the river '"freshened" with its monntain supplies rushing headlong to the ocean : over all, a 1 cloudless summer's «ky. Dunedin — sweet Edicbro'— claims pride of place of all New Zealand's cities, and, mayhap, justly, so ; and yet, but for the discovery of that mighty magnet, gold, who shall say how many years of quiet, uneventful existence its citizens would have passed ere stir, excitement, and business prosperity obtained through increase of population ? 'Tis something m ore' than a popular legend, that in the good old days the -prisoners confined in the Dunedin Gaol were liberated daily, and locked out if th°y failed to return borne (to prison) before Dine p.m. Tbitf an the days of barter, when ( coin was rc»r'ce, and bags of Hour were swapped for fat shtjqp, and parritge was a staple article off dletfVrilh the "old identity." _ |j But the rush set in, and the Dunstan and other familiar fields drew thousands of eager diggers from the failing Victorian working*, n\\d with the miner came the ''dreaded Melbourne merchant and business man. • i Old Dunedin lostits idpntjty. What times they were ! Roaring, roystering, rakehelly times ; when men landed in thousands,: a few with money, the great majority without —the subscriber belonged to the latter ; when beds were scarce, and mud, rain, atid rats in abundance; when the "cutting" was impassable; and ladies wore Wellington boots, and non unfrequently left one" embedded in the virgin soil ; when the " ProviDcial" was running over with custom, and Louis Court collected the silver from the various bars in buckets ; when the ', theatre waa a stable and auctioneer's mart .by day, and a temple of the drama by night. And tho pleasant memories and associations surrounding the old house. I spoke wy first lino as an amateur, and, professionally, the " tag " of the laßt drama playsd <m its stage the night of its destruction by fir«i,

Who opened the ball ? I oannot remember ; but of the long list of names whoae owners have trodden its boards, I can enumerate not a few. Goodly ones, too j of the dead and cone— Lady Don, Harriet Gordon, Juha Matthews, Rosalie Durand, Roße Evans, John Dunn, James Simmonds, G. H. Rogers, and a long array of lesser pretentious "pros."; of the living— Joe Jefferson, George Fawcett, Charles Dillon,, "Joe" Holt, Squires and Lucy Escott, MiBS Cleveland, Adelaide Bowring, Mrs Darrell, Anna Bishop, Madame Carandini and daughters, Fanny Simonsen, Margaret Aitken, Eloise Juno, Hoskins, Coppin, John Hall, a whole, host of operatic celebrities and artistes of miscellaneous accomplishments. In hie rooms in the old Provincial. Ben Far j eon wrote and read to a few friends his ;> first novelette, "Shadows on tho Snow;" . on the little stage behind he produced his first burlesque, "Faust and Mephisto. ," in the bar parlour, in the wee, sma' hours ayont the twal', we used to go fiogers in the hat' for drinks, and play champion games at " do's ; " and the now famous novelist would, with unerring certainty, proclaim the man '•stuck "for the liquors, and propheoy the inevitable blocking of a double-six. In the "Den" the "bones" rattled gaily j « c props" were thrown, and small fortunes were lost and won. " What are props, and who is Joe Mills ? " asked His Honour from the bench, when adjudicating on A gambling oase. Many a good man would have been the better off had his acquaintance with i "props" been as limited as that of the learned judge. Withal, they were glorious days— and nights, too; and the boon companions of those days and nights— some dead, others scattered here and there ; of the well-to-do then, many are now broken down j of the repkless and devil-may oare, several have grown staid, sober-aided patterns of uprightness and dull respectability. Ah, me ! Tetnpora mutantur, et w>B mutamur in tllis. On the boards of the old Princess a still greater man than Farjeon produced his first, and Ibelieve, his only, dramatic work. Sir Julius Vogel— then plain Julius— dramatised "Lady Audley's Secret" for "Joe" and Mrs Holt, and the play was a fair success. In Dunedin's old Oounoil Chambers Ssir Julius first gave promise of bis after greatness. A bad speaker, to the listener ; difficult to report, I remember; but, on paper, he "reads" well. Always liberal, always Improvident j fond of society, the good thingrf of. life, and the excitement of the gaming table. He left the country, at the last, poor ia pocket, rioh beyond measure in reputation, in that, by his indefatigable energy, his clearsighted determination, he established prosperity in place of depression, doing more for New Zealand than any other man of his time. From Dunedin, in the old days— they have railway fl now— overland to Oamaru and Timaru ; crossing arid wastes and fearful rivers, to Ohristchurch, oity of the plains. It used to be the thing to do a breather over the bill from Lyttelton to the valley ; bow the tunnel and the iron horse have reformed all that. Canterbury, even the aristocratic and sporting province, and the home of swell new-ohumdom, holds her own in the march of progress and civilization Wellington— windy, earthquaky Wellington, seat of vice-royalty and haven of oivil servants— boasts proud possession of the largest wooden building in the world, New Zealand's Government offices. Some squally night, the wind blowing ashore, accident nnforseen ocourring, and the citizens of the oapital will be eye-witnesses to a most magnificent blaze. Government House, in the leeway of the fitful sparks, will, in all probability, flame in accord with its larger but more plebeian rival ; and then it will be bandied from mouth to mouth that " every, body" had said it must happen soon or late. Deofavente, may_" everybody" be in the wrong. With its wind and its wealth— its land reclaimed and its rail of tram -its mania for building theatres, and its capacity for filling the same when the "show" juatifies— its senators and its seaport— its plucky go-ahead-ism and its ever- settled centralization — there must be a great future in store for the chief city of the lesser Britain. The Thames ,goldfield, ever to be remembered by me, in that I found there a wife, and loßt there, for ever, a dear old friendpoor Walter Montgomery. We were playing " Richard" with Talbot the night that Montgomery arrived at Grahamstown. I hastened from the theatre, tights and war paint on, to welcome him on the wharf. What a time we had after at the Pacific ! Songß and "fizz," fancies and flirtations, pledges of eternal fidelity, vows and promises never to be fulfilled. On the iriorrow 1 bade him farewell for the last time. ' Was '"Hamlfet" mad? In a measure, .yes. Harry Edwards, the actor, an early friend of Montgomery's, has ofttimes told me how, in their amateur days in London, Walter would frequently astonish strangers and associates by the committal of some absurd freak of folly, such as extending himself at arms' length from the top of a lamp-post in Regent street, for the delectation of the passers-by. In Honolulu, since his death, the landlady of the Hotel informed me that the " eminent," when residing ia her hostelry, would daily polish his horse's hoofs with blacklead, much to the amusement of the natives. Wowe still, he used to crouch in a corner of a room for hours together, with a loaded revolver in his hand, threatening all who came a-nigh him. In Virginia city, Nevada, Montgomery broke his engagement, failing to draw, simply— so they said— through his eccentricity in dress and manner in the street. In 'Australia, we all knew and smiled affectionately at his peculiarities. His devotion to the Prince— he was truly fond of his august patron, and with cause. Hia Royal Highness delighted to honour the actor and his calling, and ofttimes did royalty rebuke snobocracy because the purse-proud spirit of the latter rebelled against the favours freely .extended to fcho man whose living came from art. not shoddy. Poor Walter's amiable weaknesses were patent to all— his love for the dog v " Molly," bis penchant for tbe " fur coat," his wild •and daring career in the hunting field and on the' "block," his friendly yet patronising "dear boy," his billiard defeats and victories, his trifling acts of ingratitude, his

huge tots of generosity— all sufficed to make him at onoe the most popular and best known oelebrity of the time. "Why did he commit suicide ? " I have been asked times innumerable. In San Francisco, once upon a time, I attended a spiritualistic seanoe. Amongst others of the departed came the spirit of Walter Montgomery. In answer to my query " Why did you kill yourself ?" came r the response " No one must know." Now, spirit or medium, realistic chioanery or a something beyond the graye — whatever the forca that prompted the reproachful reply, I hold it was an allsufficient one. He is gone, and so is the woman he married. He left behind to mourn him friends only, friends who gladly gloßs over his faults when thinking of his many virtues : who know that, in losing him, they lost a man full of contradictions, yet with a steadfast determination when necessary to "do or die;" a boon companion, wayward and tetchy at times, yet with an unbounded love of hiß kind ; an actor whose like, " take him for all in all," they will not readily behold again. From the Thames, where lie unsought the "themes" for a whole library of books, thence Jto the hot-bed of New Zealand poesy —the West Coast. When poets and idealistic writers give over scribbling "Lines to a Water flat," sonneta "On a Buttercup," and the like wearisome and unmeaning twaddle — then, and not till then, the romance of the Coast will be sung. Who, of the many thousands of restless spirits that roved the diggings from the Buller to Bruce Bay, will now remember Muriel 0 ? And yet, in the days I wot of, every man that knew her loved her, and Bhe was known to hundreds. Easily so j she was only a barmaid— don't tiptilt your nose, reader— only a barmaid, and yet, withal, the daughter of a general in her Britannic Majesty's army. Ah ! strange was it not ?— a girl serving drinkß night and day over the bar of a d&nce room and music hall, to men of all climes, all complexions of crime, dissipation, and desperation. A woman of singular beauty and natural refinement. Faca and figure perfect in outline, exquisite in form j an expression that haunted even the casual beholder. Blue eyes, deep liquid blue, with a gaze, never fading, that looked beyond surroundings, that told of a sorrow pf sonl behind deep-rooted, unalterable while life should last. Men went crazy about her. Rough, un. cultured diggers paid her clumsy but wellmeant oompliments. Bußinesß men, merchants, adventurers, desperadoes, all sought her favour : some with a genuine, irresistible passion, otbera with designs of evil intent. Useless— she listened silently, pityingly at times, to the many asseverations of affection proffered herj to all eventuated the inevitable reply — she had no love to give. .There was not a man on the Ooast would have dared to offer her insult. Once only — over his glass— a drunken brute gave lip to a coarse jest ; in an instant he was sprawling in the gutter outside, thrown there by his own mates. Men brutal by nature, vicious and obscene from habit, insensibly became more oivilized and less repulsive when in the girl's presence. What mysterious freak of fortune had placed her in such a position ? I strove in vain to answer for myself this ever-repeated question. I had established with her what I trusted was something more than a sincere friendship. , She was ever to me the personification of modest courtesy ; all attempts, however, to penetrate the secret of her past life were useless.