Page:Through South Westland.djvu/107

Rh waiting out their few years, clinging to the scenes they know—nowhere else for them in the wide world. The companies get all the gold nowadays; the Hatters are the last of their race.

I crossed the gorge by a bridge suspended high in air, just two planks with wires on both sides—a slip, and there would have been no more wandering! Far beneath, the Waiho churned and boiled in yellow foam, and the bridge swayed alarmingly. On the other side was a bit of road leading past a trim cottage with green doors and windows, and a garden gay with flowers. The forest shut it in, and the grim walls of the Waiho gorge rose behind, and in the pleasant living-room I sat and chatted long; heard tales of the five stalwart sons, and of the grandchildren, of the diggers in the gorge, and the Hatters among the hills. The mountains and the forest and the great glacier are, to the old lady who lives there under shadow of the everlasting hills, “The wonderful works of God: Can we have anything but good when we live so close to the grand works of our Father?” And to her the Church Service every other month is, “The oasis in the desert of our lives, where we can drink of the Water of Life.” We never met again, but we seemed to have known each other always.

There was the gold-mine still to visit, and on a very wet afternoon we set out under the parson’s escort to see it. He led us up the Callery gorge with the rain coming down, as it can come in the