each other all to-day, and I believe it has been coming on ever since you left us! We have all missed you horribly!”
He looked at her whimsically and Captain Greendays said,
“Don’t be embarrassed, old chap,—the compliment is really to us, for my wife only says nasty things to the people she likes!”
Colonel Deane certainly brought an invigorating atmosphere with him, for the rest of that day passed like a flash. He insisted on our making a “kit” inspection for the march to Milford.
“Much better to settle your kits here,” he said, “when you get to Glade House, where the walking begins, the sandflies will bother you so much that you won’t care to have your veils up a moment longer than is necessary, and the rooms are so small that you will feel very thankful that you have not much with you, and nothing to do but think of the walk.”
When he found that we had brought no knapsacks he and Captain Greendays went off and harried the storekeepers in the little Lumsden stores until they disgorged some coarse sailcloth, and then the soldier and the sailor set to work making them up, while we with great care, now that we knew what was expected of us on the walk, sorted out our things and discarded a great many that we thought absolutely necessary before we knew we had to carry our own “swags.”
Silk being the lightest material, as well as fairly uncrushable, Mrs Greendays and I confined our choice of garments chiefly to those made of it, and though we did not in the end unduly stint ourselves its thinness and lightness kept our knapsacks down to a very respectable bulk and weight. We were both going to walk in serge suits; as we were very much the same build Mrs Greendays had borrowed one of mine in place of her beloved Tussores. And we took with us each a washing silk skirt to change into in the evenings, a ditto underskirt, some white silk shirts with turn-down collars, silk nighties and underwear, with some very fine woollen underwear and stockings we had bought in Christchurch, toilet articles, and some thin indoor shoes.
Our guide was to carry a supplementary “swag” containing things for us both, mackintoshes, extra boots, sheets, pillow-cases, and fine towels, (as these linen luxuries are not supplied in the huts en route), some milk-chocolate, a flask of brandy, and, in case of accidents, some liniment and bandages.
We started from Lumsden at 10.30 on Tuesday morning, and got to Manapouri at about six that afternoon. It was a dreary drive as regards scenery,—endless brown undulations with a few kopjes, here and there a clump of trees, now and then a lonely cottage; a few sheep, a host of black bunnies, and some “Paradise” ducks, creatures that pretended to be lame and limped badly directly they caught sight of us, were the only living things we saw. We were driving in a buggy, with a heavily-laden coach behind us, and we managed to get considerable amusement out of the attempts of the coach-driver to get
