Old Grnmble

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 120, 7 April 1892, Page 3

Old Grnmble

EVENING SHADES. How much of deceit and how much of truth does it take to make up the compound that enables a man to run through life smoothly I wonder ? The exact quantity cannot be decided I suppose; some men requiring more than others do to carry them on, but more or less, like the evening glass, with truth for the whiskey and deceit for the water, one cannot do with all spirit, and think of going along straight while he may use a lot of the dilutant without any injury. What leads me to this contemplation is a painting— 11 Evening Shades"— and professing to be a representation of New Zealand Scenery exhibited some time since at the Academy in London, where it elicited considerable praise. Granted the painting deserved it, the subject was deceptive in the extreme, for evening shades are not to be got, that is at the season when they are of any beauty. I speak from experience, having tried it myself many years ago. I was a new-chum — a very new chum (this is in confidence, Mr Editor, as I should not like the world to know I had ever been such) — when I started for a picturesque spot, intent on transferring to canvas the glowing tints and deepening shades of a New Zealand sunset at midsummer ; there was the purling stream with its garniture of native shrubs mantling the sides, and behind it the towering forest standing in silent majesty, the abode of solitude, the breeding place of meditation, while the precipitous mountain-sides, together with the ruins of an old flaxmill reyeled in the grandeur of nature, and at the same time spoke of the industry of man and the destroying hand of time. As I reached the spot and prepared for work a gentle humming arose upon the air. "Ahl" said I, "Nature's musicians beginning their tune ; what harmony ! How they Bhame the efforts of man in the melody they make !" You see at that time I was not so well acquainted with the habits of those New Zealand nightingales as now, or I should not have called them the "Dear little creatures" I did. I commenced to paint, they to hum louder, and with that humming they struck up an intimacy that was too affectionate altogether, so I began to brush them away, but iouder and louder grew their humping, and thicker and thicker did those singers settle upon me. Singers did I call them ? Aye, and everyone, after blowing its horn, sending it penetrating into my flesh with the force of a needle driven by a Singer's sewing machine. It was soon a dab at the pallet, a stroke on the canvas, and a whip on some uncovered part. Yet louder, and more vicious yet they grew, and in crowding ranks on every side they arose, until they forced me for every touch I made upon the canvas to put ten upon jnv face and neck ; but lam indomitable by nature and I fought desperately on until Justus the last tiut of gold left the topmost leaves of the trees, my work was completed. Hurriedly I secured the treasure I had labored so painfully for, and made for home. On my way I overtook a Maori and desiring to be sociable I gave him a salute in his own language. It was the only word I knew of in it, and I was not quite sure of its meaning, but I made the venture and told him he was " Tanaqui " ; tbe effect of it must have beea startling for he turned, gave a momentary stare at me, and in that moment his dusky form shook and he appeared to grow paler, then with a wild cry of " Tapo " he leaped from me and fled along the road as though a thousand fiends were after him. " Strange," thought I, but doubtless I used a wrong word and offended him. A little further on another man, on meeting me, stopped short when within a yard or two, and began to cross himself, at the same time oftering up a BUpplication to some guardian saiut. II Holy St. Pather ! " he said, •• As you've the kays of Heaven, perhaps you've the kaya of the other place too ? If so, plaise to take and lock this dhivil in it, an' niver lit him git ont agin, for he's fright'nin' me awful." Then he made a bolt round a flax bush, and the next I saw of him he was speeding away as though really the "dhivil " was after him. " Poor fellow," mused I, "Been knocking his cheque down, and is now suffering from its consequences—l wonder if I look anything like the gentleman he takes me for. On reaching my door, the children ran as usual to meet me, then halted abruptly, faced about, and fled to their mother, declaring I was a bogey. I stood astonished, and should have continued to stand so, but Mrs G. clapped her hand upon my shoulder, gave me a sudden push (which sent me sprawling into my studio), and banged the door upon me, muttering as she did it something about the debasing influences of drink. Groping my way in tbe dark, I carefully spread my " Evening Shades" upon a table, andreturned to expostulate with her, when she came for me a second time, pushed me into a chair, and seizing a new milk pan that lay handy, made an extemporized mirror of it by holding the bottom up to my face and asking me what I thought of myself. I looked at the reflection it gave of my face — it waa a landscape; What few scanty locks I had were changed to grass, my cheeks were blue as the waters of the Makino ; one ear was a ray of gold, the other a rata in full bloom, my nose was the sombre ruins of a flax mill, my neck a precipice, sheer and steep, that no living form could scale, while aurient flames seemed to shoot Irom my forehead. " What do yon think of yourself," she enquired, as she engaged herself in sponging me down with turpentine. I disdained to answer and submitted to the indignity in silence, bouyed up by the knowledge that in the next room I had that which would some day repay me for all these indignities, and make my name in the future famous. " Ketch me alive, moaquitos and flies." Such was the cry that aroused me next morning. That old familiar cry which I had not heard before, since I left Old England, it delighted while it surprised me. I had never thought New Zealand had reached so high a state of ciyilization ; but, it had as I could see by the cner who stood with his sticky wares hanging upon his arm and displaying another well covered with captives, around his hat ; for old recollection's sake I must purchase one, and I went towards him for that purpose, when, oh horror ! I saw it was my " Evening Shades " that encompassed his head. Pointing to it I vociferated frantically "Take it off at once." "Take what off?" he asked. "My Evening Shades, " pointing to the painting stuck upon hiahat. " Evening Shades, " sneered he. " It's a ketch 'em alive." " It is not ; it's my Evening Shades." " Call it what yer like" said he, " its afly-ketcher, and I swopped a new 'un away for it because this uns full and is a advertisement." With this declaration he went on, my beautiful piece of New Zealand scenery still in his possession. That was the last I ever saw of those Evening Shades and their double screen of xnosquitos, and doubtless the hidden beauties of that picture have never been discovered. " Sic transit gloria " but time softens sorrows, and now when I see aspirants to fame sallying forth with pallet and figments to catch those tints I tried so in vain tc secure, I smile ; but while I smile I pity W ould that the catch-em-ahye mac had done so for Old Grumble.