It was therefore no mystery that four unarmed diggers, carrying a considerable number of ounces of gold-dust with them, were going to start from the Canvas-town diggings for Nelson on a certain day, and the men I have mentioned set out to meet them. One part of their long journey led them over the Maungatapu range by a saddle, which in its lowest part is 2,700 feet above the sea-level. The night before the murder, the victims and their assassins camped out with only ten miles between them. So lonely and deserted was the rough mountain track, that the appearance of a poor old man named Battle alarmed Burgess and his gang dreadfully, and they immediately murdered him, in order that he should not report having passed them on the road. Between the commission of this act of precaution and the arrival of the little band of travellers, no one else was seen. Burgess appears to have shown some of the qualities of a good general; for he selected a spot where the only path wound along a steep side-cutting, less than six feet wide, with an unbroken forest on the upper, and a mass of tangled bush on the lower side. As the doomed men approached the murderers sprang out, and each thrusting a revolver close to their faces, called on them "to hold up their hands." This is an old bushranger challenge, and is meant to ensure perfect quiescence on the part of the victim. The travellers mechanically complied, and in this way were instantly separated, led to different spots, and ruthlessly shot dead.
It was all over in a moment: Burgess and his men flung the bodies down among the tangled bush, and returned to Nelson rejoicing exceedingly over the simple and easy means by which they had possessed themselves of several hundred pounds. Of course they calculated on the usual supine indifference to other people's affairs, which prevails in busy gold-seeking communities; but in this instance the public seemed to be suddenly seized by a violent and inconvenient curiosity to find out what had become of the four men who were known to have started from Canvas-town two or three days before. No one ever dreamed of a murder having been committed, not even when another "swagger" reached Nelson and stated that he had followed the diggers on the road, only a mile or so behind, had suddenly lost sight of them at the spot I have mentioned, and had never been able to overtake them. Instead of leaving the now excited little town, or keeping quiet, Burgess, Kelly, Levy, and Sullivan, may truly be said to have become "swaggerers;" for they loitered about the place, ostentatiously displaying their bags of gold dust. Unsuspicious as the Nelson people were, they acted upon a sort of instinct,—that instinct within us which answers so mysteriously to the cry of blood from the earth,—and arrested these four men. Still, the matter might have ended there for lack of a clue, if one of the party, Sullivan, had not suddenly turned informer, and led the horrified town's-people to the jungle which concealed the bodies. Here my dreadful story may end; for we need not follow the course of the trial, which resulted in the complete conviction of the three other men. I have only dwelt on so horrible a theme in order to make my readers understand how natural it was that I should feel nervous, when it became apparent to my understanding that the custom of the country demanded that you should ask no questions, but simply tell any travellers who claimed your hospitality where they were to sleep, and send them in large supplies of mutton, flour, and tea.
On one occasion it chanced that F——, our stalwart cadet Mr. A——, and the man who did odd jobs about the place, were all on the point of setting out upon some expedition, when a party of four swaggers made their appearance just at sundown. No true swagger ever appears earlier, lest he might be politely requested to "move on" to the next station; whereas if he times his arrival exactly when "the shades of night are falling fast," no boss could be hard-hearted enough to point to mist-covered hills and valleys, which are a net-work of deep creeks and swamps, and desire the wayfarer to go on further. Once, and only once, did I know of such a thing being done; but I will not say more about that unfortunate at this moment, for I want to claim the pity of all my lady readers for the very unprotected position I am trying to depict. F—— could not understand my nervousness, and did not reassure me by saying, as he mounted his horse, "I've told them to sleep in the stable. I am pretty sure they are run-away sailors, they seem so footsore. Good-bye! don't expect me until you see me!"
Now I was a very new chum in those days, and had just heard of the Maungatapu murders. These guests of mine looked most disreputable, and were all powerful young men. I do not believe there was a single lock or bolt or bar on any door in the whole of the little wooden house: the large plate-chest stood outside in the verandah, and my dressing-case could have been carried off through the ever-open bedroom window by an enterprising thief of ten years old. As for my two maids,—the only human beings within reach,—they were as perfectly useless on any emergency as if they had been wax dolls. One of them had the habit of fainting if anything happened, and the other used to tend her until she revived, when they both sat still and shrieked. Their nerves had once been tested by a carpenter, who was employed about the house, and cut his hand badly; on another occasion by the kitchen chimney which took fire; and that was the way they behaved each time. So it was useless to look upon their presence as any safeguard; indeed one of them speedily detected a fancied likeness to Burgess in one of the poor swaggers, and shrieked every time she saw him.
We were indeed three "lone, 'lorn women," all through that weary night. I could not close my eyes; but laid awake listening to the weka's shrill call, or the melancholy cry of the bitterns down in the swamp. With the morning light came hope and courage; and I must say I felt ashamed of my suspicions when my cook came to announce that the "swaggers was just agoin' off, and wishful to say good-bye. They've been and washed up the tin plates and pannikins and spoons as clean as clean can be; and the one I thought favoured Burgess so much, mum, he's been and draw'd water from the well, all that we shall want to-day; and they're very civil, well-spoken chaps, if you please, mum!" F—— was right in his surmise, I fancy; for there were plenty of tattooed pictures of anchors and ships on the brawny bare arms of my departing guests. They seemed much disappointed to find there was no work to be had on our station; but departed, with many thanks and blessings, "over the hills and far away."
Latterly, with increasing civilization and corresponding social economy, there have been many attempts made by new-fangled managers of runs, more than by the run-holders themselves, to induce these swaggers to work for their tucker,—to use pure colonial phraseology. Several devices have been tried, such as taking away their swags (i.e., their red blankets rolled tightly into a sort of pack, which they carry on their backs, and derive their name from), and locking them up until they had chopped a small quantity of wood, or performed some other trifling domestic duty. But the swagger will be led, though not driven, and what he often did of his own accord for the sake of a nod or a smile of thanks from my pretty maid-servants, he would not do for the hardest words which ever came out of a boss's mouth. There are also strict rules of honesty observed among these men, and if one swagger were to purloin the smallest article from a station which had fed and sheltered him, every other swagger in all the country side would immediately become an amateur detective to make the thief give up his spoil. A pair of old boots was once missing from a neighbouring station, and suspicion fell upon a swagger. Justice was perhaps somewhat tardy in this instance, as it rested entirely in the hands of every tramp who passed that way; but at the end of some months the boots were found at home, and the innocence of the swaggers, individually and collectively, triumphantly established.
The only instance of harshness to a swagger which came under my notice during three years residence in New Zealand, is the one I have alluded to above, and contains so much dramatic interest in its details, that it may not be out of place here.
Although I have naturally dwelt in these papers more upon our bright sunny weather, our clear, bracing winter days, and our balmy spring and autumn evenings, let no intending traveller think that he will not meet with bad weather at the Antipodes! I can only repeat what I have said with pen and voice a hundred times before. New Zealand possesses a very capricious and disagreeable climate: disagreeable from its constant high winds: but it is perhaps the most singularly and remarkably healthy place in the world. This must surely arise from the very gales which I found so trying to my temper, for damp is a word without meaning; as for mildew or miasma, the generation who are growing up there will not know the meaning of the words; and in spite of a warm, bright day often turning at five minutes warning into a snowy or wet afternoon, colds and coughs are almost unknown. People who go out there with delicate lungs recover in the most surprising manner; surprising, because one expects the sudden changes of temperature, the unavoidable exposure to rain and even snow, to kill instead of curing invalids. But the practice is very unlike the theory in this case, and people thrive where they ought to die.
During my first winter in Canterbury we had only one week of really bad weather, but I felt at that time as if I had never realized before what bad weather meant. A true "sou'-wester" was blowing from the first to the second Monday in that July, without one moment's lull. The bitter, furious blast swept down the mountain gorges, driving sheets of blinding rain in a dense wall before it. Now and then the rain turned into large snow-flakes, or the wind rose into such a hurricane that the falling water appeared to be flashing over the drenched earth without actually touching it. Indoors we could hardly hear ourselves speak for the noise of the wind and rain against the shingle roof. It became a service of danger, almost resembling a forlorn hope, to go out and drag in logs of wet wood, or draw water from the well,—for, alas, there were no convenient taps or snug coal-holes in our newly-erected little wooden house. We husbanded every scrap of mutton, in very different fashion to our usual reckless consumption, the consumption of a household which has no butcher's bill to pay; for we knew not when the shepherd might be able to fight his way through the storm, with half a sheep packed before him, on sturdy little "Judy's" back. The creeks rose and poured over their banks in angry yellow floods. Every morning casualties in the poultry yard had to be reported, and that week cost me almost as many fowls and ducks as my great christening party did. The first thing every morning when I opened my eyes I used to jump up and look out of the different windows with eager curiosity, to see if there were any signs of a break in the weather, for I was quite unaccustomed to be pent up like a besieged prisoner for so many succeeding days. We did not boast of shutters in those regions, and even blinds were a luxury which were not wasted in the little hall. Consequently, when my unsatisfactory wanderings about the silent house—for no one else was up—led me that dreadful stormy morning into the narrow passage called the back-hall, I easily saw through its glass-door what seemed to me one of the most pathetic sights my eyes had ever rested upon.
Just outside the verandah, which is the invariable addition to New Zealand houses, stood, bareheaded, a tall, gaunt figure, whose rain-sodden garments clung closely to its tottering limbs. A more dismal morning could not well be imagined: the early dawn struggling to make itself apparent through a downpour of sleet and rain, the howling wind (which one could almost see as it drove the vapour wall before it), and the profound solitude and silence of all except the raging storm.