‘By this time Dickey was getting pretty low in spirits, and with sitting up all night had got quite thin. Many’s the time I walked up to the hill to see Dickey sitting on a bank of stones with his face in his hands and great tear-drops trickling down his face. What with building the thing, paying compensation for new window-frames, making presents to the women all round just to keep their tongues quiet, and paying the bill presented to him by the fire-brigade, unless the mill stopped, Dickey was a ruined man.
‘Then the cold weather came on, and yet Dickey would never leave his mill. He was always hoping the wind might change, and he could get inside.
‘It finished him at last, however. One cold frosty morning the children who used to take him his tucker came running back, saying Dickey was dead. It was true enough; there was poor old Dickey lying out stiff and cold, on the frosty grass. We were all sorry about Dickey. Wellington wind killed a good man when it carried off poor old Dickey.’
‘And how did the windmill finish?’ I asked.
‘Why, a man fenced it in, and used to take visitors up to see it at a shilling a head. One night, however, a heavier gale than usual blew, and carried it right away.’
Here Mac broke in, ‘I suppose a Maori has got it, and says it was presented to him last year by a gentleman from Australia.’
Our communicative acquaintance was evidently a little piqued by Mac’s query, and replied that he didn’t know; but anyhow, after Dickey’s windmill, no wonder people talked about ‘windy Wellington.’
ABOUT EARTHQUAKES.
Another thing that Wellington is famous for is its earthquakes. Many of these have been sufficiently violent to become landmarks in New Zealand history. It has often happened that the coast-line to the west of Wellington has been permanently raised several feet by earthquakes. Wellington has been a gainer by these upheavals, and houses which were once on the sea-shore are now some distance back.
Any year may bring the announcement that Wellington has taken another upward start, and what is now the quay may be a street with houses on either side. Events like these, together with the minor shakings which are of continual occurrence, very naturally alarm many of the Wellingtonians. At one time nearly every person in Wellington felt it a duty to have all loose articles like ornaments on shelves fastened in position by wires.