Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/207

 disposed to the great divine for having caused his wife so much anxiety and distress over a matter which he deemed, after all, to be purely ritual.

I have indicated how great an attraction the mysteries of Nature held for my brother Tom and myself. The bush had an irresistible fascination for us, and we were constantly planning exploring incursions with a view to being rewarded by some startling discoveries. My father was naturally much against those expeditions, being alive to the danger we incurred of getting lost; but as he was frequently away from home we had many opportunities for investigation. On each occasion we ventured a little further in than on the previous one, using our faculties of observation to such good purpose that we always found our way out again, and gradually, without being aware of the process, acquired a cunning in bush craft that proved useful to us many times in after life, in evidence of which I recall the following circumstance:—

When I was about thirteen years old, my father sent my brother and myself, under the care of a big Scotchman, named Stewart, into the bush to look for some cattle that had