It was the more absurd Jack pretending to be afraid of a wet night, when he had walked many and many a weary mile over the rough mountain passes towards the West-Coast, with a heavy pack on his back and in all sorts of weather. A tradition existed in our neighbourhood that Jack had once been met crossing the Amuri Downs with a small barrel-organ, an American cooking stove, and a sow with a litter of young ones, all packed on his back, "and stepping out bravely under them all," as my informant added. But I cannot vouch for the truth of the items of this load. Jack's fame as a stock-horse, as well as a pack-horse, stood high in the Malvern Hills, but his conduct in the shafts was eccentric, to say the least of it. He could not bear to be guided by his driver, and was always squinting over his blinkers in the most ridiculous manner. If he perceived a mob of cattle or horses on a distant flat, he would set off to have a look at them and determine whether they were strangers or friends, dragging the gig after him "over bank, bush, and scaur."
Once when we were in great despair for a cart-horse, Jack was elected to the post, but long before we had come to the journey's end we regretted our choice. It was during the first summer of my life in the Malvern Hills, and whilst the nor'-westers were still steadily setting their breezy faces against such a new fangled idea as a lawn. I had wearied of sowing grass seed at, a guinea a bag, long before those extremely rude zephyrs got tired of blowing it all out of the ground. There was my beautiful set of croquet, fresh from Jacques, lying idle in its box in the verandah, and there was my charming friend, Alice S——, longing for a game of croquet. When pretty young ladies wish for anything very much, and the house is full of gentlemen, it goes hard, but that they get the desire of their innocent hearts. So it was in this case. One fine afternoon Alice wandered into the verandah and peeped for the hundredth time into the box. "What beautiful things," she sighed, "and how hard it is we can't have a game." "I know a patch of self-sown grass," sang one of the party, "whereon we might play a game." "Where: oh, where?" we asked, in eager chorus. "About two miles from this, near a deserted shepherd's hut; it is as thick and soft as green velvet, and the sheep keep it quite short." "Is the ground level?" we inquired. "As flat as this table," was the satisfactory answer.
Of course we wanted to start immediately, but how were we to get the croquet things there, to say nothing of the delightful excuse for tea out of doors which immediately presented itself to my ever-thirsty mind. A dray was suggested (carriages we had none; there being no roads for them if we had possessed such vehicles); but alas, and alas! the proper dray and driver and horse were all away, on an expedition up a distant gulley getting out some brush-wood for fires. "There's Jack," some one said, doubtfully. He had never even drawn a dray in his life, so far as we knew, but at the same time we felt sure that when once Jack understood what was required of him, he would do his best to help us to get to our croquet ground. So we flew off to our different duties. Alice to see that the balls, hoops, and mallets were all right in numbers and colours, &c.; I to pack a large open basket with the materials for my favourite form of dissipation—an out-door tea; and the gentlemen to catch Jack and harness him into the cart.
Peals of laughter announced the setting forth of the expedition; and no wonder! Inside the dray, which was a very light and crazy old affair, was seated Alice on an empty flour-sack; by her side I crouched on an old sugar bag, one of my arms keeping tight hold of my beloved tea-basket with its jingling contents, whilst the other was desperately clutching at the side of the dray. On a board across the front three gentlemen were perched, each wanting to drive, exactly like so many small children in a goat carriage, and like them, one holding the reins, the other the whip, and the third giving good advice. In the shafts stood poor shaggy old Jack, looking over his blinkers as much as to say, "What do you want me to do now?" Our good humoured and stalwart cadet Mr. U——, walked backwards, holding out a carrot and calling Jack to come and eat it.
In this extraordinary fashion we proceeded down the flat for two or three hundred yards, one carrot succeeding the other in Jack's jaws rapidly. Mr. U—— was just beginning to say "Look here: don't you think we ought to take turns at this?" when Jack caught sight of a creek right before him. He only knew of one way of crossing such obstacles, and that was to jump them. No one calculated on the sudden rush and high bound into the air with which he triumphantly cleared the water; knocking Mr. U—— over, and scattering his three drivers like summer leaves on the track. As for Alice and me, the inside passengers, we found the sensation of jumping a creek in a dray most unpleasant. All the croquet balls leapt wildly up into the air to fall like a wooden hailstorm around us. The mallets and hoops bruised us from our head to our feet; and the contents of my basket were utterly ruined. Not only had my tea-cups and saucers come together in one grand smash, but the kettle broke the bottle of cream, which in its turn absorbed all the sugar. Jack looked coolly round at us with an air of mild satisfaction, as if he thought he had done something very clever, whilst our shrieks were rending the air.
What a merry, light-hearted time of one's life was that! We all had to work hard, and our amusements were so simple and Arcadian that I often wonder if they really did amuse us so much as we thought they did at the moment. Let all New Zealanders who doubt this, look into those perhaps closed chapters of their lives, and as memory turns over the leaves one by one, and pictures like the sketches I try to reproduce in pen and ink, grow into distinctness out of the dim past, it will indeed "surprise me very much," if they do not say, as I do,—my pleasant task ended,—"Ah, those were happy days indeed!" ended,—"Ah, those were happy days indeed!"