“Ay, he had then, a bonny wee lassie.”
“With black hair and black eyes.”
“Ay, I mind the wee lassie weel. Ah! man, but she was bonnie.” His rough voice softened as he said the words.
“That little girl was his own child,” I went on.
“Eh! What’s that? what’s that? his ain child? Weel noo; he telt me that the bairn was left at his hut one night when he was asleep by the fire. Hoo d’ye ken it was his ain bairn? Dreamer Grey wasna the man to tell his mate a dam lee, an’ I’m no the man to stand by and——”
He was getting excited, and I hastened to explain.
“Now, you listen,” I said, “and I’ll tell you how I know what I know; and, at the same time, you’ll see that what Grey told you was perfectly true. I have gleaned from the Maoris that they took Grey and his wife prisoners when they had only been married a few weeks. They kept the woman, but set Grey free, having first inoculated him with some strange poison which clouded his mind, and, as they gave me to understand, entirely dislocated his memory. In due time the little girl, his daughter, was born, and when she was two years old one of the chiefs, not wishing to kill her, but wanting to be rid of her, sent her with a party of Maoris southwards, with orders that she should be left with the first pakeha they encountered. They came across the hut where Grey was living and left her there while he was asleep. Of course, he adopted the child not knowing it was his own.”
“Ay, ay,” said the Scot slowly. “Man, that’s a strange tale ye’re tellin’ me. But I mind weel that Dreamer Grey telt me he had forgotten his past life, and he was sae mysterious aboot it that I thocht he had done something that he didna wish to mind, and that’s why I heid ma tongue when I heard ye speerin’ aboot him up yonder at the hoose.”
“Ah!” I said. “And how did he come by his strange name?”
“I’m comin’ to that. He said that when the wee lassie was left wi’ him she telt him her name was ‘Crystal Grey’ as near as a bairn could say it; and so he ca’d himsel’ Grey, an’ we ca’d him Dreamer, because every now and again he would stop in his work and look straight ahead in an oncanny way, as if he was tryin’ to reca’ somethin’ he had dreamt. Ay, he was a queer body, and what ye say aboot his mem’ry explains many and many a thing that I couldna mak’ oot.”