OVER THE FALLS AND OUT ON THE OCEAN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 4, 4 January 1872, Page 2

OVER THE FALLS AND OUT ON THE OCEAN.

__0By F. R. G. S.

When we arose next morning the guests of the previous day had taken their departure, and after breakfast, Tom, accompanied by the two brothers and their dogs and guns, sauntered off, as they said, to beat the bush for a pig, and I strolled out with oue of the daughter's doublebarrels, lo shoot pigeons — if I could, ■well knowiug how I should get laughed at if I came back at dinner time without any. To improve my shooting powers and eyesight I first, as I passed through the orchard, surfeited myself with peaches aud apricots, and the instant I left the orchard I let fly both barrels at a piece of dead bark which. I mistook for a pigeon. I then sat down and had a smoke, and ruminated how it was that some men shoot so well and others not at all, and how it was I could always, aim well with a pistol but never with a gun. Suddenly I started to my feet, as I could almost swear I saw something white, anyhow, amongst the scrub, and thoughts of the pig came before me. " I'll be able to send a charge of shot into Mm, perhaps," thought I; "I believe I could hit a haystack, after a little practice." So I put a double charge of shot into both barrels. I didu't see tlie white thing now, but, I fancied I heard a ghostly chuckle. I didn't quite like if, but I knew it was Saturday and not Sunday, and went slowly on. There is a pigeon, surely. Yes; well, here goes. BaDg ! and down comes a real pigeon this time, blown to rajrs wiih the double chaise of shot. " Blow it ! I shall have to take this thing home in pieces; it's already cooked, and stuffed bang full of shot. Ha ! ha ! ha ! laughed I. "Ha! ha! ha!" answered sepulchrally, a voice I knew was not an echo. I did not suspect, any trick. The mother and daughters I had left hard at work in the kitchen. Tom and the pig hunters must be miles away by this time; and I was now a mile within the bush, if not more. '•Bother," thought Ij and the sweat began to roll off my forehead. 1 wished I had brought my brandy flask with me. However, I double-charged the barrels again, and began to walk od. " Ha I ha ! ha ! " came again quite distinctly, but. this time apparently far back on the track I had come. " Hang it," thought I, retreat cut off, eh ? Must try back. Wonder if there are any as yet undiscovered carnivori iv these abominable New Zealand ranges ? " "Ha! ha! ha!" agaiu came, still further off, as ifc seemed. So back I walked along the track I had had come till I came to an open clearing I remembered to have passed through before, with a deep brook ou one side and a steep cliff on tbe other, so there -vas no way home but through a little patch of open ground, and there, barring the pathway, aud standing right in tbe middle of it, was a huge snow-white pig '.

■•Ha! hul ha!" came again, close enough this time, for it seemed lo oome from the very jaws of the beast as it stood quite still, aud I could ste his eyes, unusually large and bright for a pig's, flashing iv the sunlight.

" Hero's a jolly go," thought I, !: the cursed brute's going to rush me. PI! get ripped up. Here goes ! " -So, to take a steady aim, I was just dropping on one knee to lire, when a horrible snort seemed to come from the beast, and its eyes flashed as I moved. Terror-stricken, I let off both barrels at onee — whet. her afc iho pig or not I didu'r, know, for as I was half kneel i.ujr, and off my biihucp, the recoil of tlie two overloaded barrels knocked me on my back. Away went the gun, arul up flew my legs in the air. I gave myself up for lost. " Better to have been drowned comfortably yesterday than to be eaten by a supernatural pig to-day," passed hastily through my brain as I iieard a rustling in the grass. Finding, after a miuuto ha. l expired, that it did not make its rush, I sat upright and looked. Could I believe my eyes ? Tho pig was gone ! He could not have have gone ap tbe side of tbe perpendicular cliff on the one side, nor leapt down 20 feet info the foaming hill-stream ou the other, fur I should have heard the splash, nnd looking down, I saw the bank was perpendicular too. Ahead of me, this narrow path ran for more than 100 yards, and he was not on that. I began to think that there really must hare been something uncanny about it, all, and commenced a kind of hurried self-exami-nation of all my recently-committed sins, wondering which of tbem was sufficiently bud to causa me to be haunted in tbis manuer. However, I fancied it would ba safer to get, nearer home, in the meantime, before his pi-gship had time to put ia a second appearance ; so, gathering my scattered brains together, I picked up the only irophy I could show, tho equally scattered pigeon, and my pur:, and commenced a hurried stampede from tiie spot, in the direction of the house, when another horrid " Ha ! ha ! ha 1" in Meijliistopbelian accents fell upon my ears from the rear. I was despi-ra.o then . I felt more angry than afraid, and I turned back, determined to find out, this 'mjstery. I placed my gun against the cliff, aad deliberately walked back to where I Lad seen the pig, looking above, below, and on each side without set- i rig anything, until, as a last thought, I lay down on my face on the track, and looked over the edge dowu to the river. Horror of horrors ! A great white pig's heal projected from tlie bare wall. " D it !" I exclaimed at last, iv desperation, " this accursed

For remainder of news see fourth page.

- i"n. '■Mtt-tV.i*-i-'~"-"-'| i'iiiVlii r ■-■ • -i ■■■' *i I-■ -sir--) ■ - ■ pliice is bristling with pigs. I won't eat pork again as long as I live." "Oh yes, you will, old cock," replied the familiar voice of Thomas, aa hie grinniDg face suddenly appeared close to mine, apparently out of the solid, steep cliff. " Give us a helping hand, if you are'nt ia too great a funk. Ua ! ha ! ha ! " and his horrid laughter was repeated by subterranean echoes just below my feet till I almost thought he must have been the devil, and had attendant imps at hand; and so he had, for the next of his imps that was handed up was the whitewashed skin of a huge old sow, stuffed with straw, and a half-crown piece carefully inserted in each eyelet hole, which was followed by our two young hosts, who could hardly scramble up on to the pathway for laughing, and there they sat, the three of tbem, laughing as if their sides would split, while I explored, with rage and indignation at my heart, the cave uuderneath the rocky bauk from which they had just emerged. See.Dg 1 felt annoyed, they soon checked their mirth, and proceeded to give an account of their (disagreeably successful) practical joke. " Oh, old feilow," said Tom, with ihe tears still streaming down his laughing cheeks, "it has been rale old sport; you would have richly enjoyed ifc yourself, ii you had been with us ! " (I here thought of there beiDg some little difference of opinion perhaps, between the animal hunted and those whe hunt; but I said nothing.) " Oh, it was glorious," remarked the younger brother, " the way in which, aftei we had set the bait, Tom lured ynu right back to it with laugb3 — Ha ! ha ! " I looked daggers at Tom, which nearly sent him right back into fits again. "Tes,'' said the elder, "but we didn'i calculate upon such a stroke of luck as your knocking yourself over with your own gun, so that we had time to haul the pig off the track and down iuto the cave before you got up." Here they went off again, and despair filled my breast. Here had I been befooled by as simple a trick as ever caught a flat. The story, to cut it short, was simply this : — After they had seen me stroll intc the orchard with my gun, they had started with the full intention of looking for a wild pig. Passing one of the yards, Tonobserved a rudely-stuffed pigskin witli wooden legs, restiDg against a fence, and on enquiry found tliat it had been used as a mark for rifle practice, and had once been whitewashed, to make it a better object. " What a chance," said Tom, "ol sucking in my mate." The two brothers eagerly grasped at the idea. The dogs were chained up, and the pig soon had s fresh coat of whitewash, and was conveyed to the path by which I was to be iuveigled lo return, just over the little cave that the brothers knew of. Tying a bit, of flax to it (the bight of which they took down to the cave with them), the two brothers ensconced themselves in their fire-proof pit to watch the fun, while Tom went in search of me, aud sighted me just as I had shot the pigeon, and first attracted my attention with a white pockethandkerchief. How he led me back the reader knows, and also how, when he had seen rae pretty close, he had plunged down into the cave to avoid being shot himself. "Indeed"' remarked the sagacious Thomas, " that was the only fear I had. you covered me so often, unintentionally. with that infernal gun of yours, that you kept me in a constant state of perspiration. It was quite a relief to get into our ' riflepit,' and it was tight packing too, and when we came to admit the pig besides. there wasn't room for all of bim, so we had to leave his head out, and that's how you found us. We were in doubt whether to call you back, as we did, or let you gc on to the bouse primed with a ghost story; but as we knew that we never could keep from laughing, we decided on having the fun out here; and so we did, didn't we boys ? Did his eyes show well in the sun ? " Here they were off again, aud I couldn't help joining them myself, although I had been tbe victim of an infamous conspiracy and was all the time inwardly vowing the direst veugeance upon Tom, the originator and " chief jokist " of the party; but it had been so well carried out and supported, that, coming on the top of the story of the ghostly pig of yesterday, as it did, ifc might have temporarily tnken in a wiser man than your humble servant, If they could ouly have pinched a do» (kept back for the purpose), and sent him off home howling, to keep up the delusion, I believe that, lame as I was, I should have "pulled foot" after him without lose of time. „. " Well," said Thomas, as he carefully extracted the two half-crowns from the eyes of the defunct, "it will be a good joke. to tell at dinner-time, won't it ? " Then the full horror of my situation burst upon me, and I meditated instant flight. I thought of letting them get

home while I stopped back a bit, and 3 wheu they were out of sight, to rush . to the beach aud be off in oue canoe, ; loading it with all the necessaries for one man, leaving Tome to follow how and r when he liked. Still, on second thoughts (as this would enhance the fun, and be the t climax to the joke), I bravely determined , to " stand fire," and reserve my vengeance . on the faithless Thomas for a future time. 3 So we all went back, the two brothers , carrying the effigy nf the pig, and Tom following, chanting the "Dead march in . Saul," while I brought up the rear, still . sticking carefully to the mutilated remains i of my pigeon. We reached the liouse late for dinner, aud they all came out to sea r what sport we had had. What sport ! I ) draw a veil over the hideous scene that I followed. The god of laughter surely must have fairly infested that house after- , wards. When at tea I asked for some , more sugar, or a piece t>f bread, the whole family were in convulsions : the bare sound 5 of my voice alone was quite enough for > them. No matter how commonplace the . observation, they couldn't keep from f laughing, In fact, our kind old hostess, - shocked to sea my feelings so trampled on, i in vatu tried to turn the conversation; and l when at last she tried to make me an I abject apology ou behalf of herself aud i family, and fairly broke down iv the , middle, convulsed with laughter herself, it was the most amusing part of the lot. ; How the ladies escaped hysterics I don't > know. I rather fancy they hud a mild . form of them all the evening, alternately i laughing and crying. And nil over such , a very stupid practical joke — at least, I . thought so at the time. However that . may be, depend upon it, it hadn't lost any- . thing in the telling. It was quite a relief [ when our chamber candlesticks appeared, i and they all laughed themselves off into their respective bedrooms, bat. I could for j an hour afterwards hear distant explosions at intervals, that told how the " pig " was still taking effect. , " May every future morsel of pork they eafc disagree with them I " was my most . fervent wish as I went off to sleep at last. [ So endelh the " Story of the Pig." . Next day was Sundays and Tom and 5 the boys rode off 10 miles to church, and • returned to a 3 o'clock dinner. I dozed * away the morning with a book under the ) trees in the orchard, and ate peaches at ; intervals. The laughter was over, and we > were all the best of friends again. I 3 . partially, also, redeemed my character, by » shooting a large sparrowhawk that was J making off with a chicken in his claws. During the afternoon, Tom and I carefully t stowed the cauvas, for we had determined, I in spite of repeated pressings to stay, to ' make a start after tea, and camp some ; distance away. Accordingly, after a late ■ ten, sve both bade adieu to our kind and t very hospitable entertainers, and shoving - off into a sea like glass, we paddled away i in the moonlight, and were at last fairly 3 off, •' Out on the Oeeau ! " i Oh the splendid sensation of freedom . one has when out and away from the dwell- ; ing and haunts of men, alone with nature t and with birds he paddles his own canoe!" , ', We went up a large inlet, called jVwaroa I , Harbour some miles from our friends' run, 5 , and when about five miles up it we wentou shore, about 10 o' clock p.m., and hanging ' the fly of our tent temporarily over the i bough of a tree, we lay down in the warm I night on our 'possum, ffjatending to make an early start round Abel Head next morni ing, and paddle as far as Tonga Bay before ; breakfast. ; To be continued.