Page:Through South Westland.djvu/274

168 and the roar of the avalanches is enough to send a woman out of her mind! and then, it is that lonely, too—Oh, you don’t know what it is to see another face up here besides your children’s! It’s sometimes eighteen months, and once it was two full years, before I saw the face of living woman; you must come and see me whenever you can.”

I promised her I would, and then, Transome coming in, we had tea, and learned that her husband would be home next week, and, she was sure, would act guide for us.

The children waited on us, not in the least shy, though inclined to go off in explosions of merriment at anything we said to them. Their mother begged us to excuse them, for, as she said, they never saw anyone but their dad from year’s end to year’s end. I was greatly interested in the account of their school-keeping. Not alone did she look after husband, children, and cows—of which they had a large number—but she taught the three eldest children as well, and for this the Government gives a grant of five pounds per head, there being no school nearer than Pembroke, thirty miles away. When they went to be examined this year with the other school children, she was unable to go on account of her baby; but the inspector gave her great praise, and they were found to be quite as well taught as children of their age at school.

“Only,” she said, “he sent word: ‘their manners must be seen to’—to think of that now! and it was