222 TUTIRA 



and shearing expenses, were irreducible, but stores were cut down 

 to a minimum ; barring necessities, not a penny went out of the 

 place ; then and for years afterwards the joint personal expenses 

 of myself and partner were under 60 a year. Napier we seldom 

 visited it was not safe ; at any rate we did not consider it safe to 

 be too often seen in the City of Destruction ; out of sight was out of 

 mind to meet your banker was to recall to his mind your calamitous 

 account, and in those days with wool at bed-rock prices our banker's 

 facial expression was truculent in the superlative degree. 



The faithful Stuart, like the lover who has lost his mistress and can- 

 not tear himself away from scenes of former happiness, remained on 

 Tutira. I forget details now, but believe it was agreed that he should 

 allow a part of his screw as shepherd to remain on credit, "to be paid 

 when able." At any rate he and I together worked the place. What, 

 however, we could do positively or otherwise was but little ; the fate of 

 the station was to be decided in the great markets of the world thousands 

 of miles distant. For a couple of seasons the place was kept going, as I 

 have said, by the negative process of sitting tight, helped too by a small 

 rise in wool and by dry seasons, during which the death-rate dropped 

 and the lambing increased. This period of watching and waiting was 

 not unprofitable to our souls. Ample time was afforded for the review- 

 ing of previous blunders, Stuart repenting him of his excesses in timber 

 and grass seed, I myself of my orgy in two-tooth rams. Then, again, 

 lacking coin and credit, our annual purchasings of outside stock ceased 

 perforce, with the immediate result of a lessened mortality. We re- 

 cognised then, for the first time, the full, the incalculable, value of 

 station-bred stock, inured to a wet climate and poor soil ; we began even 

 to think that the disabilities of the run might be amended. The blind 

 fury of labour for labour's sake had in myself given place to some faint 

 glimmerings of sense. Errors of the past were duly considered ; during 

 winter evenings plans of future work, of future improvements, were 

 talked over supposing, that is, we should ever again possess the 

 wherewithal. 



In the meantime we were stuck for capital. It was out of the 

 question again to ask, like Oliver, for more. As to the wool market, we 

 had no faith in it, yet the event about which we had despaired did 

 nevertheless happen. In June of '86, whilst the National Mortgage 

 and Agency Company were still swithering as to what was wisest for us 



