158 TUTIRA 



who fed them to his pigs at Clive. My recollections, moreover, are that 

 after the first transaction he was not keen for our old sheep. More or 

 less we had to work on his better nature, to demonstrate that he was 

 morally bound to buy. He had been a former owner of Tutira and 

 yet survived he had escaped the wrath to come. We flung our 

 skeletons at his head ; he was a coy buyer ; much correspondence at 

 any rate would pass in regard to the annual sale, the station claiming 

 that the draft was quite unusually prime and well worth a shilling, 

 Merritt asseverating that his pigs could hardly digest the last lot, and 

 that he absolutely could not go beyond sixpence. The station gave 

 delivery of the brutes at Petane. After that they were " Merritt's 

 sheep," the shame of their ownership had passed for ever from Tutira. 

 The bargain, however, was by no means concluded then ; the sheep had 

 still to be paid for. The station would generously grant three or four 

 months' grace, and would then write a friendly letter, as from man to 

 man, hinting that when quite convenient it would be pleased to receive 

 payment. Our mail-box, the open case pegged to the top of a fencing- 

 post in the heart of the Tangoio run, was half a day's ride distant, and 

 only visited at intervals. Opportunities of delay, therefore, were not 

 wanting. First of all, Merritt would be obliged if we could wait till 

 the pigs were fattened ; then till they were sold ; then till he himself 

 had been paid for them. At last the station, becoming ravenous for 

 its twelve or fourteen hundred sixpences, would have a " lawyer's letter " 

 despatched intimating that unless cheque reached Tutira by next mail 

 Merritt would be persecuted with the utmost severity of the law or 

 words to that effect. Even then, on one occasion, I remember that 

 although the cheque duly arrived, the signature had been omitted. 

 Merritt doubtless had also a banker jumping on him, and these delays 

 were regarded as part and parcel of the deal, a comedy to be re-enacted 

 the following season. Merritt, indeed, was regarded by us with very high 

 respect, we reverenced him as needy Hebrews reverence Rothschild ; 

 he had touched pitch and had not been defiled ; he bore the unique 

 distinction of having owned Tutira and yet escaped ruin. A man who 

 could accomplish that could squeeze blood out of pumice. Merritt had 

 another claim to consideration : he was the only buyer who could by 

 prayer and supplication be induced even to look at our cull sheep. 

 When he would not take them for his pigs, we had ourselves to kill 

 and skin the wretched beasts. Once, I remember, they were boiled 



