Page:Through South Westland.djvu/104

46 I was glad to hear poor Charlie was an old-age pensioner, and did not depend on the gold-mine for a living. Next day I took him a present of tobacco, and got an even warmer welcome. Out came the bottle and tumbler, but I pleaded the early hour as an excuse, and was then taken inside, where Charlie began rummaging in an awful litter of things, and presently found what he wanted. I should think the biscuits he now handed me were years old, quite mouldy, and little currants sticking in them. Charlie was bent on being hospitable. Next came out bundles of letters and piles of unopened newpapers from London—for though he has wandered in the wilderness here and in Australia this fifty years, his people have not forgotten him. He was indeed a typical “Hatter.” Said Charlie: “If you’ll marry me and come up here, I’ll make a fine place of it. I’ll cut down the bush, and I’ll get a cow.” I assured him—however alluring this prospect for my future settlement in life might be—it was quite impossible, and I rose to go. But I had only gone a few yards on the path when he came flying after me, with a newspaper wrapper with his name and address. The last I saw of my “Hatter,” he was waving farewells and shouting after me: “You’ll think of it, won’t you?—and I’ll get the cow, and make a grand place of it.” My heart was always sorry for these lonely old men we found. They who, in the days of their youth and strength, often handled their hundreds—now only old hangers-on,