rum and "pain-killer" left on the premises, grew worse
and worse every moment. "He's dying, safe enough," concluded Pepper,
"but he's main anxious to see you, mum, and the master; and he wants a
Bible brought to swear him, and he's powerful uneasy to make his will."
I knew quite as little of medicine as my husband did of law, but of
course we decided instantly that we ought both to go and see what could
be done in any way to relieve either the body or mind of the sufferer.

We said to each other while we were hastily dressing, "How shall we ever
catch the horses? They have all been turned out, of course, as no one
thought they would be wanted until Monday; and who knows where they have
gone to?--miles away, perhaps; and it's pitch dark." Judge, then, of our
delighted surprise, when, on going out into the verandah, preparatory to
starting off to look for our steeds, we found them standing at the gate,
ready saddled and bridled. It seemed like magic, but the good fairies
in this case had been the two guests to whom I have alluded as having
arrived just as we were starting for our picnic life. They were both
"old chums," and understood the situation instantly. Whilst we were
questioning Pepper (you can hear every word all over a New Zealand
house), they had jumped up, huddled on their clothes, and gone over the
brow of the hill to look for the horses. By great good fortune the whole
mob was found quietly camping in the sheltered valley full of sweet
grass, on its further side. To walk up to my pretty bay mare Helen, and
lay hold of her mane, and then, vaulting on her back, ride the rest of
the mob back into the stockyard, was, even in the deep darkness of a
midsummer night, no difficult task for eyes so practised to catching
horses under all circumstances. So here was one obstacle suddenly
smoothed, and as I hastily collected my few simple remedies, consisting
chiefly of flannel, chlorodyne, and brandy, I could only trust and pray
that poor Fenwick's case might not be so desperate as Pepper represented
it.

To our impatience, the difficult track, with its swamps and holes, its
creeks to be jumped, and morasses to be avoided, seemed long indeed; but
to judge from the continued profound darkness,--that inky blackness of
the sky which is the immediate forerunner of daylight,--the dawn could
not be far off. How well I remember the whole scene! F---- tied his
white handkerchief on his arm, that Helen and I might have a faint sp