Page:Through South Westland.djvu/333

Rh gooseberries, and there was much laughing over our experiences.

The day grew cloudy, no wind stirred, and a sultry heat was in the air as we drove away from the hospitable house.

We next called on an ancient Dane of seventy-three, whom we had met on our way going up, and who had told us his parents were both living: “the old Dad” ninety-seven, and the old Mother one hundred and seven. A cheery old soul who acted cook at a station, and described himself as “a mere lad.” The lake lay perfectly still before us, a mirror of silver framed by blue hills, and as we drove round the curving bays on a road inches deep in dust, these bare hills looked parched to us after our forest-greenness in the Matukituki valley. The little houses in their barbed-wire enclosures looked tired and stuffy, and the hotel gardens had lost their freshness, and Pembroke seemed altogether too towny for our liking.

Great was the interest excited by our arrival, and all dinner-time we had to answer a fire of questions from less-adventurous tourists, who had got no further than the lake. We were glad to escape, and wander out in the moonlight along its shores. I thought with regret how the white moonbeams were lying across our lonely valley, left now to the rabbits and the cows. . . . The black falcon will perch unmolested on the tree before the door; the ducks won’t need to go through their pantomime for our benefit; no one