hall came the whole body, romping and laughing round Old
Colonial, the acute and wise diplomatist, who had made matters straight
and pleasant once more. And we, standing in a body near the hall, heard
the rippling laughter of the merry band, and saw their white muslin
dresses and bright ribbons glancing among the trees. From within the
lighted hall came the sound of fiddles and of stamping feet. We forgot
all about Miss Cityswell; we left her to the care of Saint and Whangarei
Jim; we forgot the terms of our compromise. We rushed into the bush to
meet our partners, as they came up from the beach, with streaming hair
and eager eyes. And presently twenty couples took the floor--we Pakeha
men and the dusky daughters of the land; and Old Colonial and Rakope
waltzed fast and furiously at the head.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: A battle-axe of polished green jade. One of the most valued
of Maori possessions.]

[Footnote 7: Missionary and schoolmaster.]

CHAPTER XI.

OUR SETTLER FRIENDS.

I think I need hardly say that we are not aesthetic here in the bush. In
point of fact, we have no sympathy whatever with aestheticism or high art
culture. We are, to put it shortly, Goths, barbarians, antithetics, what
you will. The country is not aesthetic either; it is too young yet to use
or abuse intellectual stimulants. There exists among us a profound
contempt for all the fripperies and follies of fashion and civilization.
We hold these things to be wrong--to be a sort of crime against manhood.

In a measure we are Puritan; not altogether in a religious sense, but in
a moral and social one, certainly. We regard our horny hands with pride,
and talk about "honest labour" with something more than a virtuous glow.
We are apt to be rather down on city foplings and soft-handed
respectabilities. All such people we despise with positively brutal
heartiness. When we read of what is doing in London and Paris we swell
with indignation and contempt. We look upon the civilization we have
come out of as no fine thing. Life is a serious matter-of-fact business
to us, and we hold in stern derision the amenities of more sophisticated
communities.

I think that we must look upon things at home much in the same light as
the Norsemen of old did upon the frivolities of Rome or Byzantium. The
spirit of O'Gaygun's philosophy pervades the colonial mind a good deal,
and, possibly, we may be prone to cultivate it as a means of stifling
any regrets