Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/249

Rh a sailor, a miner in California, and was mining in Westland. A bad accident laid him up in the Hokitika Hospital for eighteen months, and there, when I visited him, he asked me to teach him chess. I happened to have a small closed board, fitted with men, which I gave him; I taught him the moves, and he took to trying to solve the problems which appear in the Illustrated News. Just before I left Westland he had recovered sufficiently to be about the ward, and, when I was taking leave of him and others, he said, 'You've been a good friend to me, Archdeacon, I'm a different man now; perhaps we shall never meet again, but be sure if anything happens, wherever I am picked up, this chess board will be found on John Davies.

"And he said that, did he? Well now, who'd have thought it would come true?" "Yes," I said, "if you hadn't been here to tell, I should never have known it, and, do you know, I feel sure that John Davies is glad that I know it." They sat in silence some time, smoking, over the fire. "Well, good night, all," said one, "I didn't know him, but his mates spoke well of him, though he did keep a bit to himself; it's a rough life, and many a good chap goes under; glad I met you."

A brilliant morning followed the rain; at an early hour we were atop of the pass, looking down at the glacial torrent in the Otira Gorge, a branch of the same stream which overwhelmed John Davies; rock and snowy peaks bathed in glorious sunshine. "His wrath endureth but the twinkling of an eye, and in His pleasure is life: Heaviness may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning." May it be so with my old friend.