A BEAUTIFUL DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3111, 29 October 1913, Page 77

A BEAUTIFUL DAY.

By Wilhelmina Sheeriff Bain

In Murihiku —in the-last-joint-of-the-tail-of-tne-fish .that Maui drew up from the deep, deep sea—folk are apt to be censorious regarding weather. They axe equajly ready to state, however, that when a day 'is tine it is superlatively hue in tact, it is finer than any day can be anywhere else. And truly Sunuay, September 28, seemed beautnul enough tor Paradise. Warm, yet fresh; brilliant, without glare, it amply justified the glorious rainbow of Saturday evening. “ A rainbow at night is the snepherd s delight,” and a ceriain Murihikuan recalled. the pleasant old saw as she hailed the smiling morn.-. She fulfilled her early routine, and then she set forth to spend the Lord’s Day in temples of Nature. She wanted to hear the tui’s song; she wanted to see the clematis abloom. The road was just nicely damp as she fared past the pretty slopes of South Riverton, but it dried as she went along, though there was not a particle of dust. A short, stout villager in a short, full skirt, with a wide white apron over her head, and with a brisk expression on her round, ruddy visage, exchanged “ Good-morning ! ' “Aye.” quoth she in kindly Scotch, “it’s a gran’ day; it’s warrm —a growin’ day.” t Verily one could feel the thrill of growth ' all around—the ever new miracle of spring. The gardens looked so hopeful and so happy—happier than they have looked for months past; the hedges were riotous in golden joy; the meadowlands beyond the Narrows, so verdant and so lush, rejoiced as if they were emeralds in Erin's own tiara. Beautiful were the gracious curves of the Longwoods, to distant vision still undeseczated by demon sawmillers; beautiful were the snowy serrations of the Takitimos, sentinels of the western horizon. For awhile the road ran parallel with the Tuatapere railway, on one side fields / coming under cultivation, on the other side —cosy amid virgin bush—Mr Hood’s garden, victorious in many a flower show. Larks twittered aloft, but in rather an amateurish fashion, for the skylark and the sand lark appear to be modifying each other on this seaboard. There was also something 1 in the air—something too delicate for human hearing : not a noise, but a sensation of faint multitudinous noises. So still seemed that long straight stretch that the Murihikuan might have supposed she was its only traveller; but, glancing.- down, she perceived a minute gentleman hurrying with the greatest possible despatch; then she overtook another, and yet another. When the road abruptly turned to wind up and down the southerly range she began to count the little hairy grandfathers, invited by the delicious sunshine to take their walks abroad. Alert and important, each one pursued his solitary way with determination like that of the old Roman roadmakers, cognising obstacles only to surmount them. Messieurs the caterpillars, could they imagine, whilff'crawiing on ‘the stony, thorny soil, that ere long they would become denizens of space? Ah, the metamorphosis, and the symbol it has yielded for thousands of years past! Thirty-three of the lowly entities thus pushing forward valorously and alone to the curtained future; then no more were observed, for (hero was a fragrant cf lawyer' blosscm, and behold ! a shrub adorned by art beyond all other art! Cluster upon cluster of flowers, heavily profuse and yet most graceful, their exquisite sheen intensified bv the glassy vivid green of the lawyer leaves—and. just then, a tui chanted in rich vibrant syllables from a towering pine ! The bush—the New Zealand bush, —shall we suffer it (o bo devastated—extirpated—from the face of the land ? Many centuries has it been uprearing its holy charm. Shall we, within a few years, destroy it utterly? Never can it be replaced, and nothing whatosever can compensate us and our disinherited successors for its loss. The road to Colac Bay is still picturesque; but havoc is busy, and the gaunt anneal of many a naked monarch oppresses the soul. By the wayside dear old Nature is weaving fresh tangles of loveliness, and the Murihikuan passed from one marvel of delight to another—lawyer blossom, shv fuchsia, and starry clematis. Again a tui chanted hymns of praise, and she was near enough to see the enraptured thing throbbing and swaying in the ecstasy of inspiration. Down the long last slope a mightier sound dominated the air, and at length ocean and peninsula burst upon the view. Pleasant it was to sit on the mossy turf above the beach gazing on such a "scene. Blue skv flecked with white film; blue sea flecked with white foam ; rollers thundering their message on the steeply-shelv-ing shore or flinging zip snowv cascades through tunnelled “blow-holes”; Colac nestling in serenitv; the pa suggesting a past forever vanished, and a pree>?t’nf yearly outings to mutton-bird haunts -60 miles away; Centre Island, with its lighthouse: Dog Island, with its lighthouse, and the gem of southern sea- -Rakiura ! Beauty! Magnificence! Luncheon, a little stroll, again gazing long and long, and then the homeward wav. It seemed comparatively short, even with interludes of gathering flowers, where abundance was so lavish that a cluster was no spoliation. The Pourakino flats looked very lovely, and the confluence of the little bush river with the Aparima made a noble picture. So, toy succeeded joy, and at the end of the eight-mile walk fatigue there was none. But another treasure had been added to the stores of memory, and another prevision had been gained—bright as qpr fair sad earth can bestow, vet doubtless but a shadow of that realitv which it hath not ebtered into the heart of man to conceive.