Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/79

Rh of bushmen were discussing their supper. They were employed in cutting timber for neighbouring settlers, and had their tents close at hand. They invited me to have a pannikin of tea, and I noticed that one of them was rather different to his mates. As I was leaving he followed me, asked me where I lived, and whether he might come to see me. A few days later he came, and told me his story, common enough in Australia, but at present much less so in New Zealand, where we have fewer of those failures at home who are sent out to the Colonies, in the faint hope that a man who is a ne'er-do-well in England will succeed elsewhere, and in too many cases sent out with the promise of small remittances, to be out of sight and out of mind. He said his father was well-to-do, that he himself had been at Eton, but had given way to drink, and had been sent to Australia, from whence he had drifted to New Zealand, and he added that, though his father would have no more to do with him, his mother never ceased to write. A little cross examination soon convinced me that his story was true, and as he seemed in earnest to reform, I got him to take the pledge for five years, and wrote to his father. It resulted in his father's undertaking to remit to me a certain sum, on condition of his keeping the pledge, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that so far he is doing well and in a fair way of complete recovery, to the great joy and gratitude of his mother, who had never ceased to hope for her prodigal son.

Now let me tell you something of my Sunday work on the plains, where the open country makes larger congregations possible. It means three services, with journeys of many miles between them, and in some places congregations of forty people. It is curious