The
"sou'-wester" had overtaken him about twenty miles from us, but only
five from another station, where he had applied towards the evening for
shelter, being even then drenched with rain, and worn out by struggling
through such a tremendous storm. There, for some reason which I confess
did not seem very clear, he had been refused the unvarying hospitality
extended in New Zealand to all travellers, rich or poor, squatter or
swagger, and had been directed to take a short cut across the hills to
our station, which he was assured could easily be reached in an hour or
two more. The track, a difficult one enough to strike in summer weather,
became, indeed, impossible to discover amid rushing torrents and driving
wind and rain; besides which, as the poor fellow repeated more than
once during his story, "I was fair done up when I set out, for I'd been
travelling all day." Mr. A---- told us what the man had been saying,
before we all went to bed, adding, "He seems an odd, surly kind of
creature, for although he declares he is going away the first thing
to-morrow, if the rain be over, I noticed he never said a word
approaching to thanks."

The rain was indeed over next morning, and a flood of brilliant sunshine
awoke me "bright and early," as the country people say. It seemed
impossible to stop in bed, so I jumped up, thrust my feet into slippers,
and my arms into a warm dressing-gown, and sallied forth, opening window
after window, so as to let the sunshine into rooms which not even a
week's steady down-pour could render damp. What a morning it was, and
for mid-winter too! No haze, or fog, or vapour on all the green hills,
whose well-washed sides were glistening in a bright glow of sunlight.
For the first time, too, since the bad weather had set in, was to be
heard the incessant bleat which is music to the ears of a New Zealand
sheep-farmer. White, moving, calling patches on the hillsides told
that the sheep were returning to their favourite pastures, and a mob of
horses could be descried quietly feeding on the sunny flat.

But I had no eyes for beauties of mountain or sky. I could do nothing
but gaze on the strange figure of the silent swagger, who knelt yes,
positively knelt, on the still wet and shining shingle which formed
an apology for a gravel path up to the back-door of the little wooden
homestead. His appearance was very different to what it had been three
days before. Now his clothes were dry and clean and mended,-