Have they come, I say? Where are they, then?"

The door of the room we are sitting in bursts open, and a burly, bearded
man, rough and savage enough in outward appearance, sooth to say,
rushes in upon us. He seizes our hands in a grip that brings the tears
to our eyes, he shakes them up and down with vehemence, and while we are
trying to make out whether this Old Colonial can really and truly be our
sometime schoolfellow, he exclaims--

"Well, this _is_ good! I _am_ glad to see you! _Now_ we'll have a
splendid time! Now we'll _make_ this old place hum round! Oh, but this
is glorious!"

Thus, and much more; and so, with the true, hearty good-fellowship of
the bush, are we welcomed to our future home.

* * * * *

And now that we have arrived at the scene of our future work, let this
chapter close. No need any longer to pursue our history as new-chums. In
the pages that follow we will resume the story at a further date, when
we have arrived at the full estate of settlers and colonists. Such
thread of narrative as these sketches possess shall henceforth be
unwound off another reel.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: It must be remembered that this is ten or twelve years ago
though it holds good down to 1876. Since the railway was made more
colonists have come into the district, and two fine new steamers now ply
on the Kaipara waters.]

CHAPTER V.

OUR SHANTY.

Several years ago now, we bought our land from the Maoris, and settled
down here upon the Pahi. Necessarily, our first proceeding was to
construct a habitation. We might have employed the carpenter and
boat-builder, who resides at the township, to put up a good and
well-made frame-house for us, for a price of a hundred pounds or
upwards. But we had entire confidence in our own abilities, and besides,
there was something enticing in the idea of building our future home
with the actual labour of our own hands.

Moreover, there was another reason, possibly of chief importance: we
could not afford to pay for a house. After paying for our land, paying
for our farm-stock, and calculating our resources for meeting the
current expenses of the first year or two, we found there was but slight
margin for anything else; therefore we decided to build a shanty
ourselves. Meantime, we were camped on our new estate in a manner more
picturesque than comfortable. A rude construction of poles covered with
an old tarpaulin sufficed us. It was