Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/200

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170
Letters from New Zealand

style so I says to the young fellows, 'Ain't you going to walk too?' 'Not a bit of it' says they, 'we've paid our fare to be carried'; so I just let out a little, and they gets out and follows the Bishop. In a mile or two they come back and says they're dead beat and can't walk further. I says to them: 'Look at the old man there, old enough to be your grandfather, ain't you ashamed of yourselves?' So they walked on till we came to the downhill grade, and when the Bishop come back to get up again on to the coach, he says, as mild as you please, 'I'm all the better for the walk, Shepherd,' and he goes and pats the horses, and, turning round to the young chaps, says, 'We always try to save the horses as much as we can on this pass; didn't you enjoy your walk?' The Bishop's the man for me, Archdeacon, there ain't a man on the Coast as doesn't respect him. I hope he didn't hear what I said to the young fellows, but I think he guessed it."

I have been thinking lately of the difference between my work here and yours, or that of any hard-worked man in a town parish at home. One is sometimes tempted to compare the life at home, in touch with all that modern civilization can give, and the life here, to its disadvantage. Now and then Home-sickness is strong, and life here seems like exile. The monthly mail, letters, papers, magazines, are like messengers from another world. "Got your mail?" said a friend to me the other day. "Look at mine, such a pile! Oh yes, my work is here," said he, "but I 'live' the other side of the world." And then, with Robinson Crusoe, I cast up a credit and debit account: a primitive life; few refinements of society; one's talk chiefly of gold and dirt; new rushes, quartz and