Chapter 11. Aroha.

Otago Witness, Volume 25, Issue 2321, 25 August 1898, Page 49

Chapter 11. Aroha.

The Maori girl turned suddenly, and plunging intt the plantation made her way through the intricate growth till she camo out on a narrow footpath skirting the hills by the sea. Along this she sped like a heunded animal from its pursuers, and only vhen she came to a tiny land-locked bay overhung by high cliffs did she pause. She climbed the cliff like a goat, but panting as she climbed, and at length stood out on an abutting ledge and looked out to sea. " I am Aroha, Aroha the Maori girl," she said in English, looking far out like an encaged eagle. '' Only Aroha the Maori girl, and the wahine is a child of the pakehas. She had neither word nor glance for me— for me, Aroha, daughter of chiefs."

In her abandon, instinctively she dropped into the figurative and poetic language of her race.

"I, Aroha, Aroha, daughter of chiefs whose feet sped swift as the rushing of airnies to battle, swift as the rushing of waters to serve the wahine, open my lips, open my lips with a sad lamentation. She tlie child of the pakehas, the friend of the pakeha priest, loves me no more. No mora where the wind blows soft and the sea sings low cometh my loved one to meet me. 1 will arise and depart to my people^ — I, Aroha, daughter of chiefs! to the land of the north.

" Through the winter of waiting I have looked .to thee, oh wahine — to the spring -of thy coining. But no more shall we wander together. Cold and proud grows thy heart, child of the pakehas, friend %f Aroha. I have spoken." Having done so, she felt better. A European girl would have had her say, under the fancied slight, in different language, and have meant much the same thing. Imaginative and impulsive like her race, Aroha had n;ade herself miserable, and stood with mournful eyes and mobile lips quivering. Turning 'slowly from the cliff, she made he.:: way to the tiny bay again, and crossing its smooth, yellow sand, entered a small whare made 'in a cave. This whare had g/own as the girls had grown. The minister and doctor had both had a hand in it. Witu tho art inherited from hei people, Aroha had ornamented the entrance with rude rarving. Maori mats and rugs, stained with the juices of bark, were streAvn upon the floor, and curious shells and seaweed adorned the rocky walls. Here Aroha came 'when she ; found civilisation oppressive. Here Grace ! fetanton and she had played together since I t)i3 day Laurence St. Laurence, " priest of the pakehas," had brought Aroha home, a little brown orphan, relic of his wanderings in the North Island, and presented her to ■ his Nonconformist housekeeper to be brought up as a Christian. '• Eh, mon, ye maun be daft ! " that worthy woman ihad exclaimed. " There'll I be naebody say a kin' word to the heathen lassie in this toon." 1 " Nobody? " the minister had asked, lookj ing at his housekeeper with searching eyes. "Weel, if ye mean me to mither the bairnie, I'll say naething mair, but it ill pleases me to consort with the heathen at my time o' life." But Mistress Malcolm had endeavoured to do her duty for the love she bore her master and had borne his mother beforehim. But "mitherin' the bairnie" hod been no light task. To begin with, Aroha had evinced a decided abhorrence to orthodox garments, and persisted in divesting herself of her shoes and stockings, and in decking herself out in gaudy colours, shell necklaces and bracelets, for -which when taken from her she yelled and screeched and jabbered in her native language till they were restored. She went flsiiing with the fishermen, and swam like a duck, diving into the sea from the rocks, and to teach little Grace to swim she threw her in too, swimming near to keep her from harm. As fast as Mistress Malcolm instilled the dogmas of the Christian faith into Aroha' s head, a visiting tribe of Maoris would, bj tlie recital of their beliefs and superstitions, chase them half out again, and Arpha's spiritual knowledge got decidedly mixed. She told the little wahine of the Great Spirit, o,nd wept, in her turn at the story of tlia Christ-child. They were a little undecided these two as to whether or not there might b& two heavens, one for dark and one for while children, when thay were " kamato mate "• — dead ; but there was no indecision about sharing the same world while they were alive ; and they went fair halves in all the fun and miscliief which suggested itsalf in that portion of earth wker« tkoy tr©r» called upon to ehnreft.

On cne occasion the fair and the brown maids escaped to a neighbouring knik where there was a laagi, aid for days afterwards Mistress Malcolm was horrified by the repetition of Avails and chants for the clepa<l< Heaven preserve us ! " she had proved in vain, till Grace, the child of the pakehas, and Aroha, the daughter of chiefs, xound other distraction. When the young wahine had gone as laa as submitting to an imitation tattoo, and robing herself in a Maori mat and flax sandals, °uid camping out with Aroha m tho whare, things came to a climax. A /hen the distracted doctor and the no less perturbed xuinister, after diligent search, came upon, them late at night in the lonely cave the brown and the Avhite arms intertwined, tlie black and the fair hair intermingled , singing " Once in David's Royal City," Uncle John with a vigorous bIoAV of his nose and a suspicious moisture in his eyes hod declared, that his niece must go to school, and the j minister said "Yes, it was time for the. children to part." The night that the two gentlemen returned from taking Grace to town, and tac- J irinister had said the family prayer, and had j " Entreat me not to leave thee, nor from following after thee, for whither thou goest will I go, thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God," ne had been •startled by the sudden wild sobbing of the little Maori girl. He stooped down and lifted her upon his knee, and gently stroked her hair, so that soothed she fell asleep, and loth to awaken her to memory of her sorroAy, the pakeha priest had sat there, her solt brown cheek upon his breast, till the ami rose over the hill. i After Qjace's departure Aroha stayer •nearer Mistress Malcolm, and entertained her with the history of bloodshed until that sod-fearing woman would exclaim, Guici lakes, it beats a' I ever read in the buik o Chronicles," and when Aroha chanted i oilier a dirge for the slain, the good woman 'shivered, and saw in her imagination tho stalwart ghosts of departed warriors peering in at the uncurtained kitchen windows. Apart from thecc lapses into heathenism, 'Aroha caused little trouble. She learned a <rood deal, considering she persistently iefused to go to school and that the mmist.T was her master. Mistress Malcolm tauglit her to scav, among other useful things, and Aroha delighted that industrious body by making her own picturesque garments, which she contrived Avith untaught *.itl io i suit herself. She further, after the manner I o* her women, tilled the garden and {.-tewi the vegetables and flowers, and cooled tnej minister's fish in an earch oven, s s no <ne else could ccok it , " 'W I'm no saying, taking her a taecethcr, that she's Vste bad. There's mony that I hae kenned, not heathen, a body coiiidna say sac muclde for." But this afternoon Aroha was not docile. Like some not dark-skinned, when her feelings ATt-re wounded &he lapsed into passionate lament. But s»ho was too proud to let anyoiic see her trouble, so she wanciered about disconsolately till night came, then went huneward. , A f-w wees from the doctor's gate she saw the tall, stooping figure of the minister emerge and make his way towards the nmme It was not far distant. Aroha kept in the f-hadow and followed as tnougfi anxious io escape observation. But at his own gate l^aurence St. Laurence stopped and WciKed ior her. . "ChucV he si' id, "we have missed you. Wahi'-" wj.nder,* why you did not welcome; her. Go to hex the fh*t thing to-morrow. , lie put his kind upn her shoulaer, and, she saw 1 how his face shone ■ •' We must make her glad to be novae, : The' student, Mark Thornton, at the private hotel, told himself it was very quiet. There was silence within and silence without He drew aside the curtains. Ihe stars slwnc big over the bay looking east.. Looking we it, one star brighter than the others Jiiono over a high peak. Lower there ,re re the tops of a gabled roof and one lighted window. Yes, it Avas as quiet as heart could desire. A quiet unbroken, except for that soft murmur of waves irom the shore He would dabble a little in astronomy while he Avas in the southern hemisphere. That was a bright slar over toat peak— it was ridiculous not to knoAV the name of it. He expected tho young lady of tho house opposite would know how to call it She seemed to know most things. The light went out of the gable wmdoAV, bod Mark Thornton went to bed.