Page:Through South Westland.djvu/226

136 defile by a gushing river, just like a Scotch trout stream, and at five o’clock came to the Lindis Hotel. The little, long stone building was fast asleep, but the door was open; we unsaddled, carried in our things, and Transome led away the horses to feed them. I got out a wicker-chair and went to sleep in the sun.

A little after six I went round to the back of the inn and knocked at a window, and, fortunately, at the right one ! for the hotel was full of shearers. Mrs. Carthy recognized my voice (although I had stayed but a night here the year before) and called to me to come in, and she would have tea and a room ready in no time. But, taking my things from my pack, I went instead to the river, and came back from my splash as fresh as paint, to find Transome talking to the innkeeper over a cup of tea. He was protesting we should have come in last night, and declared he “Never got to bed till two o’clock with these shearers coming and going.”

I found a room ready, and was glad enough to lie down, and at ten Mrs. Carthy called us to a famous breakfast of fried trout and scones. I have often had trout in New Zealand, but those huge pinky-yellow fellows out of the Lindis river seemed to have a special flavour. And here I must confess for the first and only time I saw a trout shot (and eat it too); indeed they are so fat and lazy they despise bait and flies, and netting is the only way to take them—unless. . . . . but we must draw a veil over the rest.