HARD TIMES 145 



away. Again shearing-time arrived without an improvement in the 

 price of wool. I suppose it was recognised that matters were desperate '> 

 at any rate, I find that in February of 1880 " C. H. Stuart left the run." 

 In October 1880 "the first piles of the new wool-shed were in the 

 ground, 1 ' but, as with the planting of the trees, the impending calamity 

 must have taken the heart out of its erection. Hope was almost gone, 

 and without hope no man can put his best into his work, the labour of 

 his hands can no longer be what it should be pure delight. On 27th 

 May 1881 the entry occurs : " T. C. K. and T. J. S. transacting station 

 business all day with Bank of New Zealand and Loan and Mercantile 

 Agency Company ; made arrangements to tide over everything till 

 shearing." Alas ! alas ! " transacting station business" or any other 

 business at any time, is a loathsome task, but how much aggravated 

 this renunciation of an incomplete labour of love to an unemotional 

 bank or soulless mortgage company. What pangs of disappointment, 

 what heart-searchings as to the past ! What disgust of self and all 

 concerned ! What a sickening void of interest ! I can picture the poor 

 wretches overwhelmed with abominable figures, signing mechanically, 

 their minds idly wandering to green Tutira, its ranges and lakes. 



The end was rapidly approaching, for on 28th May " T. C. K. left 

 for Melbourne" In August he was again in New Zealand, for in that 

 month, there being then a debt on the run of 8600, he sold his half- 

 share to C. A. M'Kenzie for the sum of 160. There is then a blank in 

 the station diary until the 1st September. Upon that date appears in a 

 new handwriting no doubt that of M'Kenzie " Left Napier for Tutira 

 after having squared up everything ; gave Matthew Miller bill at three 

 months for amount due him by Tutira" The station was now worked 

 entirely by two men, Stuart and M'Kenzie, with W. Stuart, a younger 

 brother, acting as cook. I have never gathered that W. Stuart was a 

 brainy man. I find in the station diary kept by M'Kenzie, 10th 

 September : " Willie trying to make bread" Three days later the diary 

 was again an outlet to the feelings of the writer, " Willie trying to make 

 bread" and later this entry, almost with the ring of tears in it, " Willie 

 wasting good flour and yeast." When a man can confide his sorrow to 

 a diary, he must indeed have suffered. Conditions were now desperate ; 

 in M'Kenzie's diary, from time to time, there are ghastly reminders of 

 bills about to fall due at briefer and briefer intervals. 



By a deed of July 1882, the place then owing 9000 to the Loan 



K 



