1914 - Hewett, Ellen. Looking back, or, Personal Reminiscences (2nd ed.) - III. BUSH LIFE, p 16-20

       
E N Z B       
       Home   |  Browse  |  Search  |  Variant Spellings  |  Links  |  EPUB Downloads
Feedback  |  Conditions of Use      
  1914 - Hewett, Ellen. Looking back, or, Personal Reminiscences (2nd ed.) - III. BUSH LIFE, p 16-20
 
Previous section | Next section      

III. BUSH LIFE

[Image of page 16]

III

BUSH LIFE

AFTER our stay in the little town of Wanganui, our boxes and furniture were sent out to the farm in bullock drays, the latter part of the journey being through a narrow road roughly cut through thick bush, with the stumps and roots of large trees still in it; and when, a few days afterwards, my husband and I rode on horseback through the same road, the thick mud was often above the horses' knees.

When we arrived, we found the amateur painters and paperers still at work. My first meal in my new home consisted of black-looking bread made by one of the workmen, no butter, a piece of boiled salt meat, and tea without milk.

The only domestic was a widow-woman, with one small child, whom my mother had sent, but she was so disgusted with everything that she only stayed a few days; and, to my dismay, one morning my husband said, 'That woman of yours has gone off with my best farm man.' This was a bad beginning for our little menage.

But we soon found a good substitute for the woman in a boy, who could milk and also do housework; and the young mistress of fifteen found the good-natured boy of the same age much nicer to deal with than the grumbling woman had been.

On Sundays, as there was no church or service of any kind to go to, I felt my responsibility to provide some spiritual instruction for my boy-servant. And so I used to read 'Line upon Line' and 'Peep of Day' to him. He still lives, and now is an influential and wealthy man, and speaks of the time when he received his first religious instruction in the service of his very young mistress from those invaluable little books.

When at last the carpenters and the paperhangers

[Image of page 17]

(who were chiefly self-taught) had finished, our time was fully occupied in fixing up our small house. Our drawingroom, with its three French windows opening on to a wide veranda, was very pretty, with one exception, and that was the mantelpiece. I do not suppose anyone has ever seen so startling a production. The groundwork was grey, with large daubs of black dashed on in wild confusion: and this was supposed to represent marble.

I cannot think why we did not ourselves paint it plain black or plain white; or we might have draped it, but, of course, no one had ever thought of draping mantelpieces in those days. So there it remained until the house was burnt down a year after, when the loss of the mantelpiece almost reconciled us to the loss of the house!

We had many wedding presents from our friends and relations in England, amongst them a lovely piano, which is still in existence, though part of its fretwork is broken away by the Maori spears and tomahawks. It now stands in my brother's house, and after years and years of separation from it I have played upon it again with mixed feelings of tenderness and sadness. I remembered the days when my husband and I played duets, or I had sung to his accompaniment, when we were happy amongst our friends in the intervals of peace during the Maori war.

When we were arranging the house, we had to make our own sofa. Jem said, 'Let us make it as much like a Chesterfield as possible,' and he made the framework tolerably well. We put an ordinary hair-mattress for the seat, covered it with blue damask. Then there were the ends and back to stuff and cover. I got all the straw and wool that the wedding presents had been packed in, and this was sufficient for the two ends. But the long back was still unstuffed.

'Well,' said Jem, 'I mean to get it finished somehow,' and off he went, soon reappearing with four new blankets from our spare room bed.

I ran off with them, he seized them, and we squabbled over those blankets like two children, but it ended in the blankets forming the cushion for the sofa!

[Image of page 18]

Then came the laying out of the garden, which was soon done by Jem and the boy. I fed the poultry and did all the cooking and housework.

There was no time to mope or be dull, but when Jem had to be in town all day the absolute stillness and silence of the place, with no other habitation in sight, overpowered me with sleepiness. On one occasion when Jem returned accompanied by an officer of the 65th Regiment, instead of being nicely dressed with the dinner ready, he found me fast asleep in my morning print dress and sun bonnet, with a basin of peas on my lap, which I had been shelling. There was a chicken in the oven, but the fire was out!

I awoke to find them both looking at me and laughing, and I felt very much ashamed of myself. But we soon set things going again. I scrambled into an evening dress of pink muslin, and although the dinner was late, our guest seemed thoroughly to enjoy it; and we finished up the evening with music and singing.

The next morning whilst I swept and dusted the house, and spread the table in our little dining-room, Jem cooked the breakfast--porridge, eggs and bacon, and cafe au lait. Soon after, our guest had to leave us for his duties in town.

My husband wished very much that I should become a fearless rider, so we often joined riding parties. On one occasion when we were all returning to our house, Jem (who was riding his race-horse Nemu) said to me, 'I will race you to the house.' We both set off at full speed, when my horse shied, unseating me. I clung to the saddle, with my foot in the stirrup, until the saddle turned, and I tried to throw myself off into the high fern. But my long riding skirt was twisted round the pummel, and I was dragged with my head close to the horse's heels.

In that moment of peril I cried to God to save me, and instantly I seemed to be torn out of my skirts, which remained fixed to the pummel. Jem, still trying to stop my horse, had not noticed my falling out of my skirts, as I had crawled into the high fern when I realized my

[Image of page 19]

very unpicturesque appearance, wearing only a riding hat, jacket, and knickerbockers.

I was, of course, frightened, but unhurt, only bruised and shaken, and truly thankful that I had escaped what might have been a horrible death. My husband realized this as he came riding back trying to find me.

He was dazed with horror at the thought of finding the mangled remains of his young wife, but I soon made him aware of my existence by saying, 'Go home as fast as you can for a skirt; I don't want any one to see me like this.' And after one glance at me, seeing I was all there--except my skirt--he laughed uncontrollably. 1


We had neighbours not many miles distant, but the roads were steep and perilous, especially in wet weather, and often we were many weeks without seeing any one but the natives. If only we could have remained in peace with them, how different our lives might have been!

But with the Maori war, which began at this time, troubles and calamities came fast and thick upon us.

Our first experience of a growing hostility amongst the Maoris was when some twenty of them were thatching the roof of a building close to our house with toi-toi (like Pampas grass), which only grew on their land near by. When half way through the work they struck, and demanded more money for finishing it. Jem objected, as he knew he was giving them full payment, and insisted upon them finishing their work according to agreement. They refused, and tried to prevent our man from going with the horse and cart for another load of toi-toi. My husband pushed the Maori from the gate, and then a tussle began between the two, the others looking on. At last Jem mastered the Maori and got the horse and cart through, and I, not wishing to be left quite alone with these angry men, tried to go with him, but he made me return.

As I stood on the doorstep watching the defeated Maori trying to stir the others up to revenge, he came close to me and tried to push past me into the house. But I would not let him go in, until he said he wanted

[Image of page 20]

a light for his pipe. They used to put a small wood ember from the fires into their pipes.

Instead of that he took two lighted pieces of wood, which he brandished about. The other natives gathered all the ignitable stuff they could into a high heap against our dwelling-house, and were about to set fire to it. For an instant I prayed to God to give me courage and strength; then I rushed past them and jumped on to the heap, sat down, spread my dress out as far as it would go, and with hands stretched out I dared them to come near me!

I could not speak Maori, but they understood, and were astonished, and I do not know what would have happened but for the intervention of some Maori women who had come to cook for the men, and who, when they saw me do this, came running up to me with beaming eyes and laughing faces, uttering exclamations which I did not understand, but patting me on my shoulders.

This, which was, of course, their way of saying 'Well done!' amused the men, and the wife of a chief who was there ordered them all to shake hands with me, which they did as I sat in state upon the heap they had intended as a funeral pyre for our home!

The scene changed rapidly; the men who a moment before looked so ominously angry were now smiling and shaking hands with me. I suppose it struck them as strange to see such a young girl confronting twenty men without showing any fear. At any rate, it 'fetched' the Maori women and brought them all to my side, so that I was a sort of heroine in their eyes.

As soon as Jem appeared again with his load of toi-toi the women ran to him in great excitement, and told him what his 'picannine wahine' (child wife) had done to defend his property.

CAPTAIN JAMES DUFF HEWETT
Of Toi Farm, Wanganui, New Zealand
1   See D in Appendix, page 91.

Previous section | Next section