Grandfather’s Yarns

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 6, 12 May 1894, Page 6

Grandfather’s Yarns

A SULKY WIFE. SMOKING HER OUT. TURNING BLACKS WHITE. (Contributed). No. 5. “ Now ! Now, boys ! Stop wrangling and come here, and I’ll go on with the yarn I was telling you the other evening,” said grandfather. So we all quietly settled down to hear what he had' to say. “ In ’45,” he continued, “ I was again first mate on the Success and headsman of the first boat. Towards the end of the season we went down to Waikouaiti with our oil and bone, and brought back a cargo of gear for Captain Howells’ new boat. “ On our way back we called in at Port Molyneux. You boys have all been there, I know, but in those days there were only two white men there, a Mr Russell and a Mr Wiltshire. I don’t know who Mr Russell was, but the other was a gentleman very highly connected. You know Wiltshire Bay down there P Well, that’s called after him. “ They were in partnership, and had a good deal of land there. I’ve heard they argued and quarelled about everything, but they never became angry or rude, and always addressed each other in the most ceremonious and courteous manner. “ I wish Jack would take a lesson out of their book,” sighed Fred, who had just been called all the “ daisies” and “ chumps ” in Jack’s vocabulary. “ Oh, you needn’t talk, Mr GoodyGoody,” began Jack, Jbut grandfather interposed, saying—“ Why, boys ! I thought I was to tell you a yarn, but it seems that you want to have that quarrel over again. “ Oh,” we all cried, “ go on, grandfather, please.” “ Well,” continued grandfather, “ we went ashore at Port Molyneux, and took a present of rum to the two gentlemen. Of course they were delighted to see us, as they did not often see anyone there. We were in Mr Russell’s house, and he began to tell us in his slow, grandiloquent style, something about his friend and partner. “ You see Mr Wiltshire had married a- Maori woman named Matamukiriri, a lady of somewhat uneven temper. One day she took the sulks with her husband and escaped up the chimney. There she sat on a beam, and all the poor man’s pleading and begging could not bring her (down. It was a huge wooden chimney the whole width of the room. She was a big woman, too, and there she sat and would not move. It must have been a comical spectacle, truly, to see the fat, sulky woman on her sooty elevation and her lordly spouse in beseeching attitude on the floor. When all his pleading proved in vain, in desperation he sent for Mr Russell. * And,’ said the old gentleman, ‘ I soon upset her stolidity, and she made a rapid though somewhat ungraceful descent. You see Mr Wiltshire had not thought of smoking her out, but as soon as she was safely down, he said in the meekest of tones ‘ Will you have a little arrowroot, my dear P” The very idea ! The disgust expressed in the old man’s tone at the weakness of his friend sent us off into roars of laughter. It did not take much to raise a laugh from us in those days. We had not much to laugh at as a rule. He saw that we enjoyed his yarns, so he went on for a long time. He told us that Mr Mantell wanted him to move off the land he occupied, as it was thought to be a good site for ;the township. ‘ But,’ said Mr Russell, ‘ I said to him, Mr Mantel!, I bought this land legally from Bloody Jack in Sydney, and I won’t shift. Of course you could burn me out, but I know Her Majesty

Queen Victoria would not commit arson.” While he was talking to us two of the boys belonging to our ship went and sucked all his eggs and put them back' in the nests. Of course he found out and blamed some of the Maories about, but he never suspected our boys, though the young rascals had done it right enough. “We got back to the Bluff late the following afternoon. As the schoener ran in to the place where she always lay, the skipper dropped the anchor, and as she ran out again she fouled her anchor in'the chain. “ I thought there was something wrong, and told Ned Kelly to come ashore for me if it commenced to blow in the night. So the lad did. He told me that the schooner was dragging. “ Now, she wouldn’t hare dragged only the skipper hoisted the maintopsail when, it commenced to blow - what for, I don’t suppose he knew himself. The sail soon tilled, and shifted the. schooner, and by the time I got on board, she was some way down and bumping on the rocks. W* ran out the boat, but it was no use, and she was soon dashed to pieces just where the Pilot Station is now. Of course no lives were lost, but very little of the cargo was saved. “ That season we had aboard an old fellow who used to tell a yarn about seeing an eclipse of the sun. “ They were out somewhere to the nor’ard of the North Cape, on their way down to New Zealand, sometime in ’36. * One morning,’ he used to say, ‘ we were pretty slack and some of us were skylarking about. It was a lovely morn in of, the sun was out, and it was beautifully warm. All of a sudden the sky grew hazy, and it got thicker and thicker. Some said there was going to be a storm. One said one thing and another another. ‘ But ’ continued he, ‘it grew darker and darker. The sun disappeared altogether, and the stars came out, and it was bitteily cold.’ I can tell you it was enough to frighten anyone who had no- idea of what was up,’ he used to say, when we smiled in a superior way. We looked at each other with ghastly faces, and some of them began to pray, a thing they hadn’t done for many a long day. ‘By golly,’the old man used to gay, ‘ there was no* much skylarking then. I rushed down to the cabin. The skipper was lying on the couch, and as soon as 1 came near the table he said, ‘ What’s the matter,- Bill ?’ ‘ Matter,’ said I, ‘ vou come on deck and see what’ll be the matter with you. Why Black Dick and Bo’sun (two Australian blacks they had on board) have both turned white.’ Then the skipper laughed and laughed, and I saw him glance at the nautical almanac. Then he explained to me that it was a total eclipse of the sun, so I rushed up on deck again to relieve the other poor chaps’ minds, for they were terribly frightened.’ “ The old man was very fond of telling us that yarn, and we often heard it. “ That’s enough for to-night boys ! Some other day I’ll finish telling you about when I was whaling at the Bluff.