eddy caused by the fall, and being caught by the stream in the midst of clouds of spray, she was spun round as if she were a mere floating twig!!!” But we looked, and looked, and looked, fascinated at the beautiful foaming iridescent torrent that touched nothing in its descent until it met the waters below, when it sent up showers of spray that rained to quite a distance from it. At last Mrs Greendays declared that she should scream if she listened to that roar another moment without moving, so we all climbed out of the launch and walked over to the lonely and pathetic little graveyard lying at the foot of the falls. One or two of the graves have head-stones or wooden crosses, but most of them are nameless and there are only about half a dozen in all. And then we voyaged back again to the house for dinner.
We had just had tea that afternoon when a telephone message from Sandfly Point showed that Colonel Deane had been right in his expectation that the others would arrive that day. And as I felt quite rested and wanted to give my ankle some exercise, Captain Greendays, Colonel Deane and I climbed to the top of the hill near the house to watch old Sutherland cross the Sound and bring his passengers back. The hill was a labyrinth of fairy groves, with a fernery here and an arbour of delicate creeping plants there, and a marvellous tangle of woodland everywhere. From the top Sutherland’s house looked like a white butterfly that had fallen on the edge of a tiny lake among giant hills, and his little launch was just a toy boat sailing under the shadow of mighty cliffs.
When we got back the Eight had just arrived and greatly to my disgust I found that the other bed in my room had been allotted to Miss Binks. However it might have been one of the terrible five, even, perhaps, the chaperone, so I blessed Mrs Sutherland for her choice while I wondered at the strange lack of desire for privacy that makes it possible for inn-keepers in New Zealand to put perfect strangers into one bedroom. It must be the same germ that flourishes in shipbuilders and owners! But surely in these days of marvellous invention so simple a thing as a design that would give each person his own particular corner, however limited the space, might be created!
But it proved that the Eight were setting off on the return journey next morning, so we readily forgave them for being. When I went into the sitting-room, where Mrs Greendays and Colonel Deane were finding great entertainment in an old ledger used as a visitors’ book, to tell them the good tidings, Mrs Greendays exclaimed,
“To-morrow! Why, what did they come for? But it is the same case as that verse I showed you just now Colonel Deane,—look, Mary.”
“Smiling Tarawera sees her sons depart,
To view the scenes of Milford sounds ‘so smart’!
Glorious is his object, noble his aim,—
He come here—and write his name!”
“The poor bard was not very grammatical, but—doesn’t it seem to describe these people exactly?”
