Maori and Settler Part 19

"Come in, Wilfrid. As I told you yesterday evening I have just got things a little straight and comfortable."

"I should think you had got them comfortable," Wilfrid said. "I should not have thought that a log cabin could have been made as pretty as this Why, where did you get all the things? Surely you can never have brought them all with you?"

"No, indeed," Mr. Atherton laughed; "the greatest portion of them are products of the country. There was no difficulty in purchasing the skins, the arms, and those sets of horns and trophies. Books and a few other things I brought with me. I have a theory that people very often make themselves uncomfortable merely to effect the saving of a pound or two. Now, I rather like making myself snug, and the carriage of all those things did not add above five pounds to my expenses."

"But surely that table and book-case were never made in New Zealand?"

"Certainly not, Wilfrid. At the time they were made the natives of this country hunted the Moa in happy ignorance of the existence of a white race. No, I regard my getting possession of those things as a special stroke of good luck. I was wandering in the streets of Wellington on the very day after my arrival, when I saw them in a shop. No doubt they had been brought out by some well-to-do emigrant, who clung to them in remembrance of his home in the old country. Probably at his death his place came into the hands of some Goths, who preferred a clean deal table to what he considered old-fas.h.i.+oned things. Anyhow, there they were in the shop, and I bought them at once; as also those arm-chairs, which are as comfortable as anything of the kind I have ever tried. By the way, are you a good shot with the rifle, Wilfrid?"

"No, sir; I never fired a rifle in my life before I left England, nor a shot-gun either."

"Then I think you would do well to practise, lad; and those two men of yours should practise too. You never can say what may come of these native disturbances; the rumours of the progress of this new religion among them are not encouraging. It is quite true that the natives on this side of the island have hitherto been perfectly peaceable, but if they get inoculated with this new religious frenzy there is no saying what may happen. I will speak to your father about it. Not in a way to alarm him; but I will point out that it is of no use your having brought out firearms if none of you know how to use them, and suggest that it will be a good thing if you and the men were to make a point of firing a dozen shots every morning at a mark. I shall add that he himself might just as well do so, and that even the ladies might find it an amus.e.m.e.nt, using, of course, a light rifle, or firing from a rest with an ordinary rifle with light charges, or that they might practice with revolvers.

Anyhow, it is certainly desirable that you and your father and the men should learn to be good shots with these weapons. I will gladly come over at first and act as musketry instructor."

Wilfrid embraced the idea eagerly, and Mr. Atherton on the occasion of his first visit to The Glade in a casual sort of way remarked to Mr.

Renshaw that he thought every white man and woman in the outlying colonies ought to be able to use firearms, as, although they might never be called upon to use them in earnest, the knowledge that they could do so with effect would greatly add to their feeling of security and comfort. Mr. Renshaw at once took up the idea and accepted the other's offer to act as instructor. Accordingly, as soon as the Renshaws were established upon their farm, it became one of the standing rules of the place that Wilfrid and the two men should fire twelve shots at a mark every morning before starting for their regular work at the farm.

The target was a figure roughly cut out of wood, representing the size and to some extent the outline of a man's figure.

"It is much better to accustom yourself to fire at a mark of this kind than to practise always at a target," Mr. Atherton said. "A man may shoot wonderfully well at a black mark in the centre of a white square, and yet make very poor practice at a human figure with its dull shades of colour and irregular outline."

"But we shall not be able to tell where our bullets. .h.i.t," Wilfrid said; "especially after the dummy has been hit a good many times."

"It is not very material where you hit a man, Wilfrid, so that you do hit him. If a man gets a heavy bullet, whether in an arm, a leg, or the body, there is no more fight in him. You can tell by the sound of the bullet if you hit the figure, and if you hit him you have done what you want to. You do not need to practise at distances over three hundred yards; that is quite the outside range at which you would ever want to do any shooting, indeed from fifty to two hundred I consider the useful distance to practise at. If you get to shoot so well that you can with certainty hit a man between those ranges, you may feel pretty comfortable in your mind that you can beat off any attack that might be made on a house you are defending.

"When you have learnt to do this at the full-size figure you can put it in a bush so that only the head and shoulders are visible, as would be those of a native standing up to fire. All this white target-work is very well for shooting for prizes, but if troops were trained to fire at dummy figures at from fifty to two hundred yards distance, and allowed plenty of ammunition for practice and kept steadily at it, you would see that a single company would be more than a match for a whole regiment trained as our soldiers are."

With steady practice every morning, Wilfrid and the two young men made very rapid progress, and at the end of three months it was very seldom that a bullet was thrown away. Sometimes Mr. Renshaw joined them in their practice, but he more often fired a few shots some time during the day with Marion, who became quite an enthusiast in the exercise. Mrs.

Renshaw declined to practise, and said that she was content to remain a non-combatant, and would undertake the work of binding up wounds and loading muskets. On Sat.u.r.day afternoons, when the men left off work somewhat earlier than usual, there was always shooting for small prizes.

Twelve shots were fired by each at a figure placed in the bushes a hundred yards away, with only the head and shoulders visible. After each had fired, the shot-holes were counted and then filled up with mud, so that the next marks made were easily distinguishable.

Mr. Renshaw was uniformly last. The Grimstones and Marion generally ran each other very close, each putting eight or nine of their bullets into the figure. Wilfrid was always handicapped two shots, but as he generally put the whole of his ten bullets into the mark, he was in the majority of cases the victor. The shooting party was sometimes swelled by the presence of Mr. Atherton and the two Allens, who had arrived a fortnight after the Renshaws, and had taken up the section of land next below them. Mr. Atherton was incomparably the best shot of the party.

Wilfrid, indeed, seldom missed, but he took careful and steady aim at the object, while Mr. Atherton fired apparently without waiting to take aim at all. Sometimes he would not even lift his gun to his shoulder, but would fire from his side, or standing with his back to the mark would turn round and fire instantaneously.

"That sort of thing is only attained by long practice," he would say in answer to Wilfrid's exclamations of astonishment. "You see, I have been shooting in different parts of the world and at different sorts of game for some fifteen years, and in many cases quick shooting is of just as much importance as straight shooting."

But it was with the revolver that Mr. Atherton most surprised his friends. He could put six bullets into half a sheet of note-paper at a distance of fifty yards, firing with such rapidity that the weapon was emptied in two or three seconds.

"I learned that," he said, "among the cow-boys in the West. Some of them are perfectly marvellous shots. It is their sole amus.e.m.e.nt, and they spend no inconsiderable portion of their pay on cartridges. It seems to become an instinct with them, however small the object at which they fire they are almost certain to hit it. It is a common thing with them for one man to throw an empty meat-tin into the air and for another to put six bullets in before it touches the ground. So certain are they of their own and each others' aim, that one will hold a halfpenny between his finger and thumb for another to fire at from a distance of twenty yards, and it is a common joke for one to knock another's pipe out of his mouth when he is quietly smoking.

"As you see, though my shooting seems to you wonderful, I should be considered quite a poor shot among the cow-boys. Of course, with incessant practice such as they have I should shoot a good deal better than I do; but I could never approach their perfection, for the simple reason that I have not the strength of wrist. They pa.s.s their lives in riding half-broken horses, and incessant exercise and hard work harden them until their muscles are like steel, and they scarcely feel what to an ordinary man is a sharp wrench from the recoil of a heavily-loaded Colt."

Life was in every way pleasant at The Glade. The work of breaking up the land went on steadily, but the labour, though hard, was not excessive.

In the evening the Allens or Mr. Atherton frequently dropped in, and occasionally Mr. Mitford and his daughters rode over, or the party came up in the boat. The expense of living was small. They had an ample supply of potatoes and other vegetables from their garden, of eggs from their poultry, and of milk, b.u.t.ter, and cheese from their cows. While salt meat was the staple of their food, it was varied occasionally by chicken, ducks, or a goose, while a sheep now and then afforded a week's supply of fresh meat.

Mr. Renshaw had not altogether abandoned his original idea. He had already learnt something of the Maori language from his studies on the voyage, and he rapidly acquired a facility of speaking it from his conversations with the two natives permanently employed on the farm. One of these was a man of some forty years old named Wetini, the other was a lad of sixteen, his son, whose name was Whakapanakai, but as this name was voted altogether too long for conversational purposes he was re-christened Jack.

Wetini spoke but a few words of English, but Jack, who had been educated at one of the mission schools, spoke it fluently. They, with Wetini's wife, inhabited a small hut situated at the edge of the wood, at a distance of about two hundred yards from the house. It was Mr. Renshaw's custom to stroll over there of an evening, and seating himself by the fire, which however hot the weather the natives always kept burning, he would converse with Wetini upon the manners and customs, the religious beliefs and ceremonies, of his people.

In these conversations Jack at first acted as interpreter, but it was not many weeks before Mr. Renshaw gained such proficiency in the tongue that such a.s.sistance was no longer needed.

But the period of peace and tranquillity at The Glade was but a short one. Wilfrid learnt from Jack, who had attached himself specially to him, that there were reports among the natives that the prophet Te Ua was sending out missionaries all over the island. This statement was true. Te Ua had sent out four sub-prophets with orders to travel among the tribes and inform them that Te Ua had been appointed by an angel as a prophet, that he was to found a new religion to be called Pai Marire, and that legions of angels waited the time when, all the tribes having been converted, a general rising would take place, and the Pakeha be annihilated by the a.s.sistance of these angels, after which a knowledge of all languages and of all the arts and sciences would be bestowed upon the Pai Marire.

Had Te Ua's instructions been carried out, and his agents travelled quietly among the tribes, carefully abstaining from all open hostility to the whites until the whole of the native population had been converted, the rising when it came would have been a terrible one, and might have ended in the whole of the white population being either destroyed or forced for a time to abandon the island. Fortunately the sub-prophets were men of ferocious character. Too impatient to await the appointed time, they attacked the settlers as soon as they collected sufficient converts to do so, and so they brought about the destruction of their leaders' plans.

These attacks put the colonists on their guard, enabled the authorities to collect troops and stand on the defensive, and, what was still more important, caused many of the tribes which had not been converted to the Pai Marire faith to range themselves on the side of the English. Not because they loved the whites, but because from time immemorial the tribes had been divided against each other, and their traditional hostility weighed more with them than their jealousy with the white settlers.

Still, although these rumours as to the spread of the Pai Marire or Hau-Hau faith reached the ears of the settlers, there were few in the western provinces who believed that there was any real danger. The Maoris had always been peaceful and friendly with them, and they could not believe that those with whom they had dwelt so long could suddenly and without any reason become bloodthirsty enemies.

Wilfrid said nothing to his parents as to what he had heard from Jack, but he talked it over with Mr. Atherton and the Allens. The latter were disposed to make light of it, but Mr. Atherton took the matter seriously.

"There is never any saying how things will go with the natives," he said. "All savages seem to be alike. Up to a certain point they are intelligent and sensible; but they are like children; they are easily excited, superst.i.tious in the extreme, and can be deceived without the slightest difficulty by designing people. Of course to us this story of Te Ua's sounds absolutely absurd, but that is no reason why it should appear absurd to them. These people have embraced a sort of Christianity, and they have read of miracles of all sorts, and will have no more difficulty in believing that the angels could destroy all the Europeans in their island than that the a.s.syrian army was miraculously destroyed before Jerusalem.

"Without taking too much account of the business, I think, Wilfrid, that it will be just as well if all of us in these outlying settlements take a certain amount of precautions. I shall write down at once to my agent at Hawke Bay asking him to buy me a couple of dogs and send them up by the next s.h.i.+p. I shall tell him that it does not matter what sort of dogs they are so that they are good watch-dogs, though, of course, I should prefer that they should be decent dogs of their sort, dogs one could make companions of. I should advise you to do the same.

"I shall ask Mr. Mitford to get me up at once a heavy door and shutters for the window strong enough to stand an a.s.sault. Here again I should advise you to do the same. You can a.s.sign any reason you like to your father. With a couple of dogs to give the alarm, with a strong door and shutters, you need not be afraid of being taken by surprise, and it is only a surprise that you have in the first place to fear. Of course if there were to be anything like a general rising we should all have to gather at some central spot agreed upon, or else to quit the settlement altogether until matters settle down. Still, I trust that nothing of that sort will take place. At any rate, all we have to fear and prepare against at present is an attack by small parties of fanatics."

Wilfrid had no difficulty in persuading his father to order a strong oak door and shutters for the windows, and to get a couple of dogs. He began the subject by saying: "Mr. Atherton is going to get some strong shutters to his window, father. I think it would be a good thing if we were to get the same for our windows."

"What do we want shutters for, Wilfrid?"

"For just the same reason that we have been learning to use our firearms, father. We do not suppose that the natives, who are all friendly with us, are going to turn treacherous. Still, as there is a bare possibility of such a thing, we have taken some pains in learning to shoot straight. In the same way it would be just as well to have strong shutters put up. We don't at all suppose we are going to be attacked, but if we are the shutters would be invaluable, and would effectually prevent anything like a night surprise. The expense wouldn't be great, and in the unlikely event of the natives being troublesome in this part of this island we should all sleep much more soundly and comfortably if we knew that there was no fear of our being taken by surprise. Mr. Atherton is sending for a couple of dogs too. I have always thought that it would be jolly to have a dog or two here, and if we do not want them as guards they would be pleasant as companions when one is going about the place."

A few days after the arrival of two large watch-dogs and of the heavy shutters and door, Mr. Mitford rode in to The Glade. He chatted for a few minutes on ordinary subjects, and then Mrs. Renshaw said: "Is anything the matter, Mr. Mitford? you look more serious than usual."

"I can hardly say that anything is exactly the matter, Mrs. Renshaw; but I had a batch of newspapers and letters from Wellington this morning, and they give rather stirring news. The Hau-Haus have come into collision with us again. You know that a fortnight since we had news that they had attacked a party of our men under Captain Lloyd and defeated them, and, contrary to all native traditions, had cut off the heads of the slain, among whom was Captain Lloyd himself. I was afraid that after this we should soon hear more of them, and my opinion has been completely justified. On the 1st of May two hundred of the Ngataiwa tribe, and three hundred other natives under Te Ua's prophet Hepanaia and Parengi-Kingi of Taranaki, attacked a strong fort on Sentry Hill, garrisoned by fifty men of the 52d Regiment under Major Short.

"The Ngataiwa took no part in the action, but the Hau-Haus charged with great bravery. The garrison, fortunately being warned by their yells of what was coming, received them with such a heavy fire that their leading ranks were swept away, and they fell back in confusion. They made a second charge, which was equally unsuccessful, and then fell back with a loss of fifty-two killed, among whom were both the Hau-Hau prophet and Parengi-Kingi.

"The other affair has taken place in the Wellington district. Matene, another of the Hau-Hau prophets, came down to Pipiriki, a tribe of the w.a.n.ganui. These people were bitterly hostile to us, as they had taken part in some of the former fighting, and their chief and thirty-six of his men were killed. The tribe at once accepted the new faith. Mr.

Booth, the resident magistrate, who was greatly respected among them, went up to try to smooth matters down, but was seized, and would have been put to death if it had not been for the interference in his favour of a young chief named Hori Patene, who managed to get him and his wife and children safely down in a canoe to the town of w.a.n.ganui. The Hau-Haus prepared to move down the river to attack the town, and sent word to the Ngatihau branch of the tribe who lived down the river to join them. They and two other of the w.a.n.ganui tribes living on the lower part of the river refused to do so, and also refused to let them pa.s.s down the river, and sent a challenge for a regular battle to take place on the island of Moutoa in the river.

"The challenge was accepted. At dawn on the following morning our natives, three hundred and fifty strong, proceeded to the appointed ground. A hundred picked men crossed on to the island, and the rest remained on the banks as spectators. Of the hundred, fifty, divided into three parties each under a chief, formed the advance guard, while the other fifty remained in reserve at the end of the island two hundred yards away, and too far to be of much use in the event of the advance guard being defeated. The enemy's party were a hundred and thirty strong, and it is difficult to understand why a larger body was not sent over to the island to oppose them, especially as the belief in the invulnerability of the Hau-Haus was generally believed in, even by the natives opposed to them.

"It was a curious fight, quite in the manner of the traditional warfare between the various tribes before our arrival on the island. The lower tribesmen fought, not for the defence of the town, for they were not very friendly with the Europeans, having been strong supporters of the king party, but simply for the prestige of the tribe. No hostile war party had ever forced the river, and none ever should do so. The Hau-Haus came down the river in their canoes and landed without opposition. Then a party of the w.a.n.ganui advance guard fired. Although the Hau-Haus were but thirty yards distant none of them fell, and their return volley killed the chiefs of two out of the three sections of the advance guard and many others.

"Disheartened by the loss of their chiefs, the two sections gave way, shouting that the Hau-Haus were invulnerable. The third section, well led by their chief, held their ground, but were driven slowly back by the overwhelming force of the enemy. The battle appeared to be lost, when Tamehana, the sub-chief of one of the flying sections, after vainly trying to rally his men, arrived on the ground, and, refusing to obey the order to take cover from the Hau-Haus' fire, dashed at the enemy and killed two of them with his double-barrelled gun. The last of the three leaders was at this moment shot dead. Nearly all his men were more or less severely wounded, but as the Hau-Haus rushed forward they fired a volley into them at close quarters, killing several. But they still came on, when Tamehana again rushed at them. Seizing the spear of a dead man he drove it into the heart of a Hau-Hau. Catching up the gun and tomahawk of the fallen man, he drove the latter so deeply into the head of another foe that in wrenching it out the handle was broken. Finding that the gun was unloaded, he dashed it in the face of his foes, and s.n.a.t.c.hing up another he was about to fire, when a bullet struck him in the arm. Nevertheless he fired and killed his man, but the next moment was brought to the ground by a bullet that shattered his knee.

"At this moment Hainoma, who commanded the reserve, came up with them, with the fugitives whom he had succeeded in rallying. They fired a volley, and then charged down upon the Hau-Haus with their tomahawks.

After a desperate fight the enemy were driven in confusion to the upper end of the island, where they rushed into the water and attempted to swim to the right bank. The prophet was recognized among the swimmers.

One of the w.a.n.ganui plunged in after him, overtook him just as he reached the opposite bank, and in spite of the prophet uttering the magic words that should have paralysed his a.s.sailant, killed him with his tomahawk and swam back with the body to Hainoma."

"They seem to have been two serious affairs," Mr. Renshaw said; "but as the Hau-Haus were defeated in each we may hope that we have heard the last of them, for as both the prophets were killed the belief in the invulnerability of Te Ua's followers must be at an end."

"I wish I could think so," Mr. Mitford said; "but it is terribly hard to kill a superst.i.tion. Te Ua will of course say that the two prophets disobeyed his positive instructions and thus brought their fate upon themselves, and the incident may therefore rather strengthen than decrease his influence. The best part of the business in my mind is that some of the tribes have thrown in their lot on our side, or if not actually on our side at any rate against the Hau-Haus. After this we need hardly fear any general action of the natives against us. There are all sorts of obscure alliances between the tribes arising from marriages, or from their having fought on the same side in some far-back struggle. The result is that the tribes who have these alliances with the w.a.n.ganui will henceforth range themselves on the same side, or will at any rate hold aloof from this Pai Marire movement. This will also force other tribes, who might have been willing to join in a general movement, to stand neutral, and I think now, that although we may have a great deal of trouble with Te Ua's followers, we may regard any absolute danger to the European population of the island as past.

"There may, I fear, be isolated ma.s.sacres, for the Hau-Haus, with their cutting off of heads and carrying them about, have introduced an entirely new and savage feature into Maori warfare. I was inclined to think the precautions you and Atherton are taking were rather superfluous, but after this I shall certainly adopt them myself.

Everything is perfectly quiet here, but when we see how readily a whole tribe embrace the new religion as soon as a prophet arrives, and are ready at once to ma.s.sacre a man who had long dwelt among them, and for whom they had always evinced the greatest respect and liking, it is impossible any longer to feel confident that the natives in this part of the country are to be relied upon as absolutely friendly and trustworthy.