"Such was the position of affairs when I came to live with Karl. Stop! I am forgetting one circumstance, the most important, in fact; for, if it had not been for her, I don't believe Karl would have cared so much about his farm. He was just the sort of man who is perfectly indifferent to ruin if it comes, so far as he himself is concerned; but she made his views of the future entirely of another colour.
"When loitering about Auckland, while he was getting his mortgage arranged, Karl got introduced to one or two families. He was not what you would term a society man, but, for all that, he managed to make up to a certain young lady he met. They fell in love with one another and got engaged, with all the usual rapidity of such affairs out here. There was even some talk of an immediate marriage, but the lady's father would not hear of that when he came to know Karl's position. He did not oppose the match in any way, but only stipulated for its postponement until Karl should have paid off his mortgage, and built a house more suitable for a family man than his then existing shanty. So Karl, inflamed with as violent a passion as I ever saw in any man, had to wait, three years as he calculated, until he was in a really proper condition to marry. This was a tremendous incentive to him to go ahead with vigour.
"When Karl returned to the bush I came with him, and took up my residence as one of the party at Hapuakohe. Besides myself Karl had one other chum, and there were two Maori boys who were generally on the farm, and who gave a good deal of labour in exchange for somewhat indefinite wages. They were yet unsophisticated in those days, and were not so fully aware of the pecuniary value of their own labour and time as they are now. Of course our work was hard and continuous. Looking after the sheep, especially at lambing time, and shearing them when the season came round, was the principal item. Then there was occasionally some job or other with the little herd: half a dozen cows, a bull, and a few young beasts, who roamed over bush and grass as they pleased, and had to be got up sometimes, or some trifling dairy work done. Then there were the usual garden crops, and the pigs to be seen to. Besides this, one of us had to row and sail the whole fifty miles down to Helensville every now and then, since there was no nearer place then where we could have obtained our stores.
"Nearly six months of the year we were hard at work falling bush and making new grassed clearings. We made no attempt at fencing, for Karl considered that the acquisition of more grass for his rapidly increasing flock was of paramount importance. Getting material, and fencing the Hapuakohe grass in, would indeed have been a stupendous task for our three pairs of hands to undertake, owing to the straggling character of the cleared land, and the consequent extent of the lines of fence required; moreover, there was no real necessity for it on a mere sheep-walk. The sheep would not stray very much, and, as Karl said, the only other reason was the dingoes, and no fence we could construct would have kept them out. But Karl had made great inquiries in Auckland, and from the natives, about these alleged wild dogs. He had not only been unable to find any one who had ever seen one, but even any one who knew any other person that had. So we almost succeeded in banishing the thought of them from our minds.
"Thus a couple of years passed away, and Karl's wool sales enabled him to bank a small instalment towards paying off his mortgage. However, it was evident that more than another year must elapse before he was in a position to marry, for the wages paid to the other man and I, together with current expenses, cost of more grass seed, and so forth, ate into the realized sum very deeply. On the other hand, the large annual increase of the flock would make the returns of each succeeding year very much greater. But I must tell you of our other chum, since it was about this time that Karl killed him.
"Ah! I thought that would startle you and fix your attention. Yes, there's a murder in my tale, coming presently. Listen!
"Brail, his name was; the only name I ever knew him by. He was a short, thickset man, a beggar to work, no matter what he was at. He professed to be English, but there was evidently some foreign blood in him, for his skin was darker than ours. His black bristling beard came up nearly to his eyes, and gave him a formidably ferocious look. He was reserved and silent, though civil enough to me in a general way. I gathered little by little, and at various times, that there was a bond of old standing between Karl and this man. Though he was a paid labourer, just as I was myself, yet it seemed that they had known one another for years. It could hardly be friendship as that is ordinarily understood; for Brail was a disagreeable companion at the best of times, and he and Karl were for ever snapping and snarling at each other. I concluded that the latent savagery which was in each, though differently manifested, formed a sort of tie between them.
"This Brail had a sullen hang-dog expression, and, at times, a fierce gleam in his scowling eyes that I did not like. Neither did Tama-te-Whiti, the old Maori chief, who was my very good friend in those days, as he has ever remained since. Tama used to visit Hapuakohe sometimes, and I well recollect his aversion for Brail. After speaking with him, Tama would often turn to me with an expression of profound contempt, and hiss out, 'kakino tangata!' I never really knew anything of the former relations of Karl and this man. I formed a theory from various little things that reached me, which may be true or may not. I imagine that Brail had been a convict, possibly a runaway and bushranger in Australia; that Karl, induced by some old-time regard for him, had aided him to escape to New Zealand, and had found him an asylum with himself. Something like this seems probable.
"Brail possessed a dog, which I must specially mention. It was one of those big yellow, shaggy-haired curs that are of the original Maori breed. This beast was trained into a very fair sheep-dog, and did its work along with the colleys belonging to the farm. It was the one thing upon earth that Brail seemed really to love, but even in this he showed his half-barbarous nature; for he would sometimes beat and kick the poor cur in the most brutal way, and again would caress and fondle it like a child. Whatever he did to it the dog never left him. It could scarcely be called obedient, but night or day, waking or sleeping, it never left its master. The animal was intelligent enough, and had that curious likeness to Brail that one may notice a dog often gets for its master. But he prided himself that the dog had some tincture of human nature in it. He had bought it, when a year old, from a Maori woman, at the price of two plugs of tobacco; and it seems that this woman had suckled the whelp herself, in its early infancy, having lost a new-born child of her own. You know that this peculiar custom of giving suck to young puppies is not an uncommon thing among Maori women. Brail's dog, as you will see by-and-by, had certainly acquired some super-canine qualities, but whether from its human foster-mother or from the teachings of its master, I cannot tell.
"Karl was indifferent to the beast. He was a hard man, and a rough one with all animals. He had no love or tenderness for them; nor did they show attachment to him. His own dogs obeyed him as their master, but did not love him as their friend. He cherished his sheep, looking on them as valuable property, without any feeling for them as living things. It is a character common in the bush. And this made a frequent cause for squabbles between him and Brail. Not that Brail cared for animals a bit more than Karl did, in a general way; only for that yellow dog of his. Though he often ill-treated it himself, it made him savage to see any one else do so; and Karl rarely came near it without a kick or a blow, more to tease Brail, I think, than for any other reason.