War to the Knife or Tangata Maori

ave agreed to call Love. Ofttimes such pursuits and contests have been protracted. After the first skirmish of temperaments, war has been declared by Fate,

, perhaps, has the too venturous knight been repulsed with scorn, and, as in earlier days, been fain to betake himself to Palestine or other di

her mind perfectly well with regard to a declared admirer. If favourable, it was waste of time and emotion to await events. If otherwise, the sooner a man was made aware of his dismissal the better. He could then shape his course in life without distraction or hindrance. In an

ected issue to place before the fateful maid any of the pleadings or protests deemed in such cases to be appropriate. He did not falter out statements inclusive of a "wrecked life,"

liar play of converse, and her occasional touch upon the keynotes which evoke the deepe

s promptings-a plea for time, for cooler [Pg 28] consideration-he had no words with which to plead his cause,

hich the individual owed to the appealing hordes of fellow-creatures perishing for lack of care, of food, of instruction, by whom the overindulged so-called upper classes were surrounded. Such manifest duties were sacred in her eyes, though possibly incompatible with what was called 'happiness.' For years-for ever, it might be-such considerations would be par

peal. Meanwhile his idol stood and gazed at him, as might be imagined some Christian maiden of the days of Diocletian, when called upon to d

he heart of her

sense of her divine purity, her ethereal loveliness, seemed to pervade his whole being. He felt an almost irresistible desire to clasp her in his arms i

nd it would have been sacrilege to his ideal

ently to his lips, he

far from unmoved. Regrets, questionings, impulses to which she had so f

ve all things manly, cultured, devoted, with the instincts of the best age of chivalry. She liked-yes, nearly, perh

d she cast away the admittedly best things of life? For an abstraction! [Pg 30] For to

ained sense of obedience to a divine injunction! Was this wealth of joyous gladness-the free, untrammelled spirit in life's springtime, which bade the bird to carol, the lamb to frisk, the wildfowl to sport o'er the translucent lake-but a snare to lead the undoubting

, betaken himself, whether or no he was alive. He returned to the Court. He moved from room to room-he absorbed food. He even opened books in the library and essayed to read, finding himself wholly unable to extract the meaning of the lettered lines. He rode and drove at appointed hours, but always with a strange preoccupied expression. This chan

ioned study which served as a smoking-ro

roaming through the shrubberies before sunrise. A most unusual proceeding, in

ruled in Massinger long before Sir Roland's parents had died, and remembered the last Lady Massinger as "a saint on earth if ever there was one," that they hastily deserted it, hoping "as he wou

ody squire who had thus exercised

and mentioning the stud [Pg 32] generally, in a manner so like old times, that the groom felt convinced that the desired change

id the groom on his return. "He's runnin' up to town to have a lark, and forgit his woes. That's what I shou

sfaction, the situation was not destined to be lasting. Within a week it was widely known that Massinger Court was for sale, "j

te in a quiet county in rural England, those only who have lived and grown up in such "homes of an

shot, straight-goer in the field-knew something about farming, too. Not too deep in debt either? That is, as far as anybody knew.

st baronets in the county. "D-n it," he went on to say, "it

reciation of the value of money. "You can't force a man to live on a place, though he mustn't sell it. It wouldn't help the county much to have the Court shut up, with

a dozen of mine. But why couldn't Roland have stopped in England; married and settled down, if it comes to that? There are ple

irl that won't have them, while there are dozens that would. Same, the world over. And the girls are just as bad-won't tak

g

te society, and the rest of it. In our time girls did what they were told-learned house-keeping, and thought it a fair thing to be the mistres

ve you any idea who is likely

e infernal colonist-made his money by gold-digging or sheep-f

tead of loafing at home. Often younger sons, too-men of as good family as you or I. We're too conservative here, I oft

andy along with Duke William. He was a marshal commanding a division of archers at Hastings. 'For which service both the Conqueror and Hugh Lupus rewarded him' (says an old chronicle) 'with vast possessions, among which wa

ned between the direful announcement of the sale of the Court and its ac

ssal fortune in New South Wales and Queensland, numbering his sheep by the half-million and his cattle by the twenties of thousands. He had, moreover, agreed to take the furniture, books, pictures-everything-at a valuation, together with the live stock, farm implements, and

ad so often been attracted; the field wherein he had, with the old keeper in strict attendance, been permitted to blaze at a covey of partridges-he remembered now the wild delight with which he marked his first slain bird; the [Pg 36] stream in which he had caught his first

so saintly sweet, so charitable, so beloved, why should she have died when he was so young? And his father, the pattern squire, who shot and hunted, lived much at hom

y her bedside, with her wasted hand in his, praying with her that he might live to carry out her last wishes, and do his duty fearlessly in the face of all men. Then the funeral-the long train of carriages, the burial service, where so many peop

as so keen as long as he could remember, but now sat all day reading in the library, where they often used to find him as

blessing. He did not look pale or wasted like his poor mother, he remembered. The doctors said there was no particular ailment;

e same after the mistress died, God bless her! She's in heaven, if any one is. She was a saint on earth. And the squire, s

s and privileges, which had been tolerably extensive in the

38] transferred to the waggonette, which they filled, while three ladies with their maid were escorted to the mail phaeton which had made so many previous journeys to the station with the visitors and friends of the Massinger family. A middle-aged, middle-sized, alert personage, fair-haired, clean-shaved, save for a moustache tinged with grey, mounted the dog-cart

re to a medium pace. "If she's sound, she's a bargain

for anything: fair steppers also. I thought the price put on the horses and cattle high, b

unger man. "It saves no end of trouble. I shouldn't wonder if the home-station-I mean th

sir," here put in the groom, touching his hat. "No auctioneer wou

t as much, from seeing him

e fa?ade of the Court, and by the time the dog-cart had departed for the stables,

ll matched and well mannered; it's a pleasure to drive them. And oh! what a lovely old hall-and such darling trees! How fortunate we were to pick up su

"Sir Roland would not sell them, but hoped we would give them hous

y be," said the younger girl. "How savage I should be if I wer

er, "which is quite a different thing. It is the modern way of

t," exclaimed the younger girl, [Pg 40] indignantly. "I am sure he

" continued her elder siste

hen a man keeps them, in such buckle to

"A bachelor, too! Men don't seem to know when they are well off. He ought to try a dry year on one of our Paroo r

London, before we left," s

ister. "I hope you don't talk to P

uldn't have him, and that he nearly went out of his mind

ther? He must be a romantic person to go mooning abou

n than ours used to be. But I don't like my girls to sneer at true love. It's a sacred and holy thing, without which we women would have a sad ti

shot himself because of a silly gi

pon it, my dears; they make people do strange things. But let

s,' all sorts of droll things will happen. And now suppose we go and look at the stables before a

is abode at the Massinger Arms, in the village, where he considered he would be quiet and more independent. He felt himself obliged to say farewell to the people he had known all his life,

re, indeed, than the ridiculously small sum of thirty or forty thousand pounds. He was not going to live on the Continent, or any cheap foreign place, on this. Nor to angle for an heiress. So, having been informed that he could live like a millionaire in the colonies, and probably make a fortune out of a grazing estate w