THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 61, 18 April 1914, Page 8

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE.

[Written for The Sun toy E.K.G.]

The garden I write of lies on the skirt of high hills, whose feet are bathed by the sea. That is to say, one may enter it by forcing a way through tangled undergrowth up from the beach, or, more decorously, through one of several gates, each bearing painted signs warning trespassers of prosecution. In the gabled white farm-house lives a young bachelor, and one slightly older. Two gullies full of bush hem

in the orchards, and the neat green paddocks where graze the few experimental sheep.

To_ this neighbourhood, on holidays, come hundreds of, -strenuous, seekers after pleasure. ' Now, when nor '-west winds blow, and the dust of the roadside coats the traveller, his first need is for green grass and shady trees, the second for cakes and ale. Where the dusty road passes this garden, each one of the*toi!ing stream halts in turn. O, miracle of the first green trees in all that journey! O, ripple of the streams in the twin gullies! O, ban of the big black letters that swing from the pine tree within the gate!

Stout-hearted mothers puff valiantly shoulder to shoulder with, their men, their motley broods littering the roadway. The sight of-all this'greenness beckons them, till they halt beneath the sign. With meek acquiescence, they dispose themselves under the branches of a far-reaching fir tree, which, with

a sort of beautiful fraternity, leans over the fence-to bless the wayfarer. Their cakes come to them on the inverted lids of bootduoxes; their ale jis raspberry from the bottle 'that has leaked over the newspaper in papa's brief bag. But the paper is still readable in spots, and after lunch the heads of families sink under their respective sheets on the pine-needles. No dream ever comes to warn them that all the children have pushed through a gorse hedge opposite, full into a herd of North Island cattle,'just off the boat, and read}' for anything.

Even the elder bachelor did not mind these quiet families; but many other types passed that way. Some did not see the notices, and some did not care; for them was the lure of the other side of the fence.

The young bachelor had made a pot of tea, ami was cooling his share between saucer and cup. "It's going to be hot work io-day," he said, gloomily. ''l've chased five boys with hat-bands out of the gully for tearing down kowhai. I've told two girls they must not take away ferns, and I've allowed tAvo very thin women to take a photograph of the Adew." "And it's only ten o'clock!" groaned the elder bachelor. "I can't think how the}' get in." "They must scrooge in under the barb-Avire fence, where the creek runs on the beach," said the young bachelor, takiug butter with the knife out of the jam-pot." "If that'olil ram hadn't been dead quite so long, I'd have dragged his carcase. along to keep boundary.''

And just then Charley barked loudly. Right at the door stood a little man, -with fifteen damsels pressed jglose behind him, all very mindful that a dog's chain is as strong as its weakest link.

"The notice says: 'Accommodation Paddocks," began the little man. "We want a paddock." "Yejs,-" conceded the younger bachelor, who, as he was wearing a shirt, had been forced to answer the door. "For how many head?" He had been brought up, and not even the' sight of fifteen fair drovers could shake the calm of one who had been "born."

" "Fifteen,"' said the little .man; "and we want water!"

"There's a cattle trough," replied the younger bachelor. "They are cattle, I suppose, or rams?". "O, no!" said the little man. -'.fit's my young ladies. We want to play games on the grass, while the elder teachers boil the billy."

When all the pupil-teachers arid'Mr Bunthorne had been shown through the gate on to the beach," the chain wrapped round three times, and the padlock tested, the young bachelor washed np the cups, and put the bread back' in the biscuit-tin. The elder bachelor had gone to put on a shirt. He H'ame out knotting a soft brown

"There's no need to look a scarecrow, even if one has to be one," he said defensively. Clearly there wasn't going to be much Bordeaux Mixture sprayed on his orchard to-day. He would go and see if Beatrice had got her calf yet. He hadn't seen her for two days, and he might see how the killers were coming oyi. They were in the same paddock. And then he heard laughter and the scud of feet in Beatrice's paddock. He almost ran to the gate, which was wide open. Two of the killers were trotting through it, and Beatrice was ranging up ami down in the furthest corner, mak-ing-little moos of distress. All the pupil fteachers were playing Tursey, eve,n the old ones. When the elder bachelor had told them all to please go back to the beach, and had turned back • the wethers and locked the gates, he was feeling really angry. His tie was right over his shoulder, jand all his shirt-buttons had come undone.

Just as he walked down the main the sign that said "Strictly private" and "Beware of the Dog!" three school boys shot up out of the gully. They swarmed throught the fence. They were in the garden of the' incubator house. A heap of carefully sorted seed potatoes gave them occupation. With

a shout they discovered 1 £he incubator room, that holy of holies, where, on this day of early spring, the temperature of the eggs, just chipping, was a thing of deadly moment* They were reaching towards the indicator when the limber bachelor came up with them. They said they had lost their teacher.

Earlier in the day, or later, after the visit of the" grey-eyed girl, the bachelor might have discovered hereabouts some chords of manly pity. Passing the cow-yard, he, saw a lover and his lady, wandering hand in hand over its soft and sanitary carpet of pine-needles. He leaned on the cowgate and watched them, malevolence in his eye, and in', his heart"rose up a mighty wrath. . They were doing no harm, no ; but he remembered the early peaches that had vanished on Boxing Day; the brood-mare that had sped through an open gate, and given them two days' anxious searching! and the fine fat ewes that a stray dog had chased over the edge of the gully, only a week ago. He thought with hatred of fine young footballers who planted a foot on the secVnd wire of his fence, and strained heroically at the third wire (a heroism jthat dislocated the whole fabric of a w r ell-made fenee), while their " girls" slipped through unscathed. And it was his farm (he did not even pretend to be a Socialist). Perhaps,-, most.bitterly,, he knew that. when presently .the younger bachelor called him dinnerward,. he would not even be.-allowed to eat that sacred m*?al '.in "peace." So when the pair mounted an »ld- stile, and- the,, shadow of a. pigstye, fell into each other's > he was hard behind.,- - -- ■

"Do you know,"* with terribly calm, "just"precisely 'where you are going?" Neither the flushed reproach of the young girl, nor her protector's mute appeal, as from man to man, had power to stay him. „ "Then," cried he, "I do;" and ruthlessly pointed to the road. On the heels of their meek retreat followed the expectant clamour of the occupant. />f the stye. The faithful animal had heard its master's voice. \

It was ordained that on this-day the tide should rise above its ordinary mark, thereby discovering undefended branches in the ramparts. Fed and rested, the elder bachelor was standing at the back door, scraping chop bones and bits of fat oh to a plate for Charley. The younger bachelor had gone to watch the eggs chip in the incubators. Charley growled \ over, his bones, while his master redded up the kitchen. There was a most convenient rubbish slide right*from" the door down the cliff, and as he stood on the edge to swash the potato peelings overboard, a fair head appeared at the bottom of, the,slide. There was time only to notice that the girl's eyes were very grey, and that her nose was wrinkled dis : gustedly. • . : ■ . "Well," she said, 1 Coming a little higher up, and standing with one foot on a broken rat-trap, "all I can say is that they must be;very people! " '' All the same, Doll, we 'll have to get up now," said the voice of a small boy close behind. And then she saw the man with the potato-bucket. " Oh! 1 really can't get up. Do let's go back, Bill," cried the girl, and turned round to find both feet on a dead rabbit, and her skirt on a bramble. "O, do come up," cried the bachelor, hoping she would miss the decayed conger. "It's quite clean over by the plum tree, really!" and, standing on the board where the pots always . sat to soak, he proffered the end of a boathook for her aid. Presently it landed her beside the red rose-bush, whose scent covered so many, many sins, and the bachelor received explanations. "The tide was so very high," said she, "and they couldn't go on and they couldn't go back, w so they simply had to come up, she had hot thought it would be quite so, quite so —well, it was rather and would he show them a way btts r because they were trespassing on both* his time and his. property. L, ' The bachelor could tlijnfe of no reason for not showing them .'a %ay, out; but wheu they were passing the incubator house, the younger baeh.el'or come out and said, before he girl: "The chicks are. out, and the [whole crowd chirping like ah auction 1 sale! " The girl wanted just to peep through the window; but it was so shadowy there they all went inside. The girl sat on a kerosene case for two hours, and watched sixteen chicks 1 "come out!" Sometimes the younger .bachelor, pointed out the egg with a tifty^serack,... sometimes the girl was firsthand sometimes she and the elder bachelor bumped heads in the effort to see one "come right out." Grey eyes said she must go, when just three more chicks got dry and fluttered over the edge, and their, when they look round, the little brother had vanished.

"It's been so jolly," said the elder bachelor, as he opened the gate. "Do come again ami see how they've grown. I'm going to keep the slide clean now —always." "I should love it," said the greyeyed girl frankly. "John is coming home soon, and I'll get him to bring me." All the time her little brother was adjusting his haversack the elder bachelor was'wondering who John was, and just then the girl lifted one ham! to fix a buckle on the body's shoulder. The ' elder bachelor saw /the dull' shine of a broad wedding ring. " The day wore to an end. The last straggler had scrambled up above the tide, and had been shown where the gate was, a quarter of a mile awayi No one had asked for "a drink of water," and "Please could you tell us the time," for nearly an hour. People

.had even stopped thinkiitff; it- was a tea* house. The elder bachelor began with much vigour to cut the lawn. It was the evening hour, and the quiet swash and • lap of the water was rest to his tired soul'. Over the dim- waters came the chug-chug of the last motor-launch, and from the road- up the hill-side the tripper 's last song. He leaned in a reverio on the handle of his lawn-mower, dreaming in the quiet of the distant hills, and the promise of an early glimmering moon. Gradually a sound obtruded itself. From the other side of a giant daisy-bush on the cliff's edge came a murmuring. He heard deep, low undertones, and,. more., clearly, but less frequently, a girlish voice, low and taunting, like the, voice of all the women he had ever known—the cracking of dry twigs, and, most .poignant of 'all* long hushed spaces. With a siglv .he trundled" the lawn-mower back to its corner on the verandah, covered it carefully with an old sack, and went indoors. .... . ~ , ~ . In the wood-shed was a net-ful of garfish, nearly two days old. , The elderly bachelor found them there next morning. He carried them to the kit 1 eheu door, .and shot them spitefully all down the slide.